‘Pentagon’s Challenge’

On the last day of 1988, I read your editorial “Pentagon’s Challenge” as I was also beginning the second volume of William Manchester’s extraordinary biography of Winston Churchill, “The Last Lion . . . Alone.” I strongly recommend it to your editorialist. Let me quote from his enthusiastic piece on our proper response to the latest Soviet pronouncements:

“Gorbachev’s plan to withdraw crack Soviet troops from Eastern Europe . . . makes it plain that it is Washington’s turn. . . . It will not do to shrug off Moscow’s concept as so much talk. Assuming Gorbachev goes through with his plan . . . and there is no reason to suppose he will not. . . .”

“Crack troops?” By whose definition? Theirs? “No reason to suppose he will not. . . .”? No reason? In 75 years the Soviets have honored only one agreement: the Hitler-Stalin pact which allowed them to dismember Poland.

As Manchester says in his Churchill biography, “No trap is so deadly as the one you set for yourself.” He quotes the press and politicians on Adolph Hitler in the mid-’30s, when Churchill was almost alone in discerning the reality: “The English press declared that Hitler, as a trustworthy statesman, should be taken at his word. ‘He is the hope of a tormented world.’ ” Walter Lippman in the New York Herald Tribune: “Hitler’s speech was the authentic voice of a civilized people.” “The Germans have passed through a tribulation which we have never known. We should receive the offers they make to the world. They now propose to get rid of the concentration camps without much delay. Give Hitler a chance.”

“Clement Atlee denounced all arms appropriations. ‘We deny an increased Air Force will make for peace. We are for total disarmament.’ That is the price nations pay for being caught short.”

Your editorial echoes Manchester’s quotes with bone-chilling resonance. Think about it.

CHARLTON HESTON

Beverly Hills