Blaming the ‘Iron Triangle’

President Reagan, as usual, is completely out of touch with the facts in his recent speech in Constitution Hall (Part I, Dec. 14). He denies his responsibility for our huge budget deficits and foreign debts, blaming instead a mysterious “Iron Triangle,” consisting of Congress, the media, and special interests. He takes credit for a record peacetime expansion of the economy, an effective war on drugs, improved education and high quality appointments to the federal judiciary. What nonsense!

In his continual bleating about irresponsible special interests, he obscures the truth, which is that his own special interest, the military-industrial complex, has been most responsible for our financial mess. His Administration has encouraged the Pentagon and its military contractors to spend and spend, while intimidating congressmen with false charges of being “soft on communism” whenever they tried to block him.

Ask the ever-increasing numbers of the poor, the unemployed, the dispossessed farmers and the homeless about our expanded economy; ask police chiefs and drug-treatment staff people about our effective war on drugs; ask our huge numbers of illiterates and drop-outs about our improved education, but don’t ask Robert Bork about the high quality of Reagan’s judgeship appointments.

HARRY KEMMERER

Monterey Park