The Gulf War Demonstrations and Their Impact on the Troops

I’m writing out of concern over a comment I supposedly made to one of your reporters while I was participating in a peace demonstration in Orange County Jan. 17 (“Activists Confront War, Speak Peace,” Jan. 18.)

I spoke with your reporter, explaining to her why I was taking part in that demonstration. We talked for about three minutes, with your reporter taking notes throughout our conversation.

During our conversation, I did not say to her (as appeared at the heading of your coverage on Page B2) that “I’m not terribly sophisticated about foreign policy, but I know what’s right and wrong.”

What I did tell her, after explaining to her my conviction that war as a means to resolve conflict is obsolete, was that “I am not a terribly sophisticated person, and not nearly as informed on the Middle East as I’d like to be, but I know what is right and what is wrong, and it’s wrong for us to be there.”

I find it regrettable that I was misquoted and that the misquote was used at the head of your coverage of reaction to the Gulf War because it could have created the impression that peace activists are, if not unintelligent, at least not in command of the English language. Therefore, I request that you print my letter in the hope that it will clear up any misconception that may have been created by this misquote.

I have found those with whom I’ve been in association while participating in peace demonstrations to be an intelligent, quite well-informed and articulate group of people, and I wouldn’t want anything that I am quoted as saying to “shed a dim light” on them.

CAROLYN FAITH, Huntington Beach