Ethnic Conflict in East Bloc

After reading “East Bloc’s Fall Fans Flames of Ethnic Conflicts” (by Doyle McManus, Part A, Jan. 28), I have serious questions about how knowledgeable are those scholars, advisers, and think-tank experts our government relies on for accurate information concerning the developments in the Soviet Bloc.

For starters, unnamed Bush Administration officials are quoted as saying that they are at a loss of “how to cope with a possible collapse of the Soviet Union as a single nation.” That quoted phrase indicates to me the level of ignorance possessed by these “experts” who have the ear of our President.

The Soviet Union has never represented itself as a single nation. Why don’t these people read the Soviet constitution--such as it is. The Soviet Union is a confederation of republics , not states.

Then, McManus quotes Alex Alexiev (of the RAND Corp., no less) who says that “The revival of nationalism has occurred at the same time as the central government of Moscow is perceived as weaker.” I take it that Alexiev has never spent time in the non-Russian republics. Because, if he has, he would be keenly aware that nationalism has been an ongoing phenomenon for the last 70-plus years. The only difference is that the Russians have attempted to severely suppress it and have told boldfaced lies to the gullible Western media about these events.

I hope that the Bush Administration as well as previous Administrations realize that some of the people paid to inform them on world political issues are not very well schooled in their supposed specialties.

LAEL J. LEVENTHAL

Beverly Hills