Aid Package to Former Soviet Republics

Reference is made to the recently concluded 47-nation conference on aid to the new republics of the former Soviet Union.

Admittedly, assistance to those new republics is vital to support those fledgling entities to rise from the ashes of communism. But I see no reason for the United States to be included among those who should furnish this organized aid, except to urge them to do so.

Since WWII we have been the sole nation that has furnished a nuclear umbrella for a world threatened by that now deceased Soviet empire, at a cost to us of tens of billions of dollars. With the result that the cost of that nuclear confrontation finally drove the Soviets into bankruptcy and us into the fragile economic situation we now face.

We made our contribution during all those years. Now it’s up to the nations represented at that conference, who benefited from the protection we afforded them, so that they are now affluent enough to make theirs.

AARON BANK

San Clemente