Private Diplomacy

Walter Mead (Opinion, Sept. 29) rightly points to the dangers of private foreign diplomacy. But the contributions of Ted Turner to the United Nations and of Irving Moskowitz to fringe parties in Israel are worlds apart. Turner is giving to a representative body that the U.S. supports. Moskowitz, on the other hand, is undermining American foreign policy: We do not support the expansion of Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Perhaps the real scandal, however, is that Moskowitz pursues his private diplomacy by means of tax-exempt gifts that make every American his unwitting and unrepresented ally. Congress and the administration should close such loopholes. If diplomacy is to be an allowable private pursuit, let it at least be truly private!

ROD PARROTT

Claremont

Mead’s piece on the dangers of private diplomacy must have some logic which escapes me. Apparently Mead believes that the likes of Turner and George Soros are dangerous, since they were not elected and therefore do not represent constituencies. Just being elected is no guarantee of anything. Surely the current discussions of campaign financing call into even sharper question the shaky premise that “elected” officials simply speak for the good of their constituencies. In this country, as in most others, access and influence are bought by big money.

When it comes to the U.N., are not its people and programs at least as representative of the masses as, say, the Democratic and Republican parties? Perhaps the logic of the article is more subtle. Perhaps it is meant to discredit Turner’s recent beneficence to the U.N., an institution not totally in the control of the wealthy and powerful.

WILLIAM J. DAVIS

Malibu

Mead said, “A generation ago, governments everywhere were far more powerful than today.” Not if you go by the numbers. In 1960, the governments of the industrial countries spent 30% of their countries’ GDPs. By 1980, this rose to 42.5%. A decade of deregulation and privatization led to a number in 1990 of 45%. This is not “governments . . . on the run.”

BRUCE WALKER

San Pedro