Dole Tobacco Stand

Re “Dole Revives Issue of Smoking’s Effects,” July 3:

Politicians are often criticized for selling out to big-money special interest contributors, but one candidate has turned it into an art form. When the tobacco companies and the NRA speak, Bob Dole’s mouth moves.

Dole has taken two positions which I cannot believe he could have chosen on an objective basis.

First, that the ban on military-style semiautomatic assault weapons is a serious public safety problem, and must be repealed.

Second, and even more amazing, that tobacco may not be addictive, and that former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop disagrees with him on this issue because he is “a little bit” brainwashed by “the liberal media”! He even went so far as to compare smoking to drinking milk, as things which may not be good for children.

Koop has responded to the controversy by simply saying, “The facts speak for themselves.” Dole’s positions on these life and death issues speak for themselves as well.

PAUL KORETZ

West Hollywood

* Presidential candidate Dole is now the tobacco industry’s biggest advocate. Assembly Speaker Curt Pringle is protecting the tobacco industry from effective research and education in California. These services have been bought with profits made from the deaths of millions of Americans.

The Republicans talk a lot about values and character, but they don’t seem to know what these concepts are about. Protecting companies that kill people for profit is not high on the list of values for most Americans.

JAMES SALLIS

San Diego

* Dole claims to be pro-life. If this is true, why does he accept money from and defend the tobacco industry, which produces a product that takes the lives of about 400,000 people every year?

WALTER O. HARRIS

Woodland Hills

* It appears Dole wants to get government off our backs and into our lungs.

JEROLD DRUCKER