CIA in Guatemala

For your editorial of April 7 to lament only the internal communication problems within the CIA along with its communication problem with members of the Senate and House Intelligence committees really misses the point. Not adequately reported is the really big story. What is it about our policy that for years allows the U.S. government to give aid via the CIA or otherwise to a Guatemalan government that is at war with the majority of its population who are poverty-stricken, a vast number of whom are native Mayan Indians, causing fatalities numbering more than a 100,000 and causing hundreds of thousands more to migrate to the United States as political and economic refugees.

This poverty-stricken population’s aim is only to live in peace with a chance to earn a living and for all people to be allowed to exercise their democratic right to vote to choose their own representatives. For the Mayan population in particular, their aim is to enjoy and be allowed to live their communal life.

Furthermore, what are we to make of Newt Gingrich’s effort to oust Rep. Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.) from his membership on the House Intelligence Committee for revealing the horrors of what has gone on in Guatemala?

WALTER N. MARKS JR.

Los Angeles

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I tip my hat to Rep. Torricelli regarding the CIA actions in Guatemala. Are we now to be known to the world as a country that condones murder?

DOROTHY BUTLER

Los Angeles