Cold War Soviet Spies

Re “Ghosts of the KGB” series, Dec. 29-31: Your articles almost gave the impression that we should feel some sympathy toward these KGB operatives. One should remember that they were part of an apparatus that was the equivalent of the Gestapo. The KGB and its predecessor were tentacles of the Communist Party that put millions to death and millions into the gulag prisons; Lenin, Stalin and other Soviet leaders needed thousands of evil helpers to perpetrate their “crimes against humanity.” Like the Nazis that escaped to South America, when will these criminals stand trial?

LAURENCE F. ALMOND

Los Angeles

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Thank you for the chilling cops and robbers KGB-CIA spying drama playing in your recent pages. What I have trouble with is the U.S.-Russian “agreement” not to prosecute stealers of the other’s secrets, vis-a-vis the inhumane treatment being meted out to Jonathan Pollard.

While Pollard’s Cold War spying for “friendly” Israel is being punished by life imprisonment in “the hole,” former CIA and KGB agents of sworn enemies for generations freely enjoy post-retirement pleasures in both the United States and Russia.

It’s about time to release Pollard. Even President Nixon was pardoned for his most heinous subversions of the U.S. Constitution.

E. FLOYD SHERMAN

Encino