Dear Editor

...Amen to Gus Tyler's strictures on the confusion of the liberals I am particularly impressed by his warning of a reactionary response to the war and to the racial issue The past summer's race riots induced a frightening hysterical fear of imminent disaster among white persons with whom I came in contact It started off when a good friend of my wife, a knowledgeable, liberal and ordinarily calm person, informed her that she had heard militant Negroes were planning a not that was to break out within a couple of days m Georgetown The night before we were to leave the Washington area on our vacation I answered a call from an acquaintance who tremulously asked me what I knew about the not She said her nephew, who works in Union Station, had seen them arriving in droves that afternoon I said they were tourists, and le-minded her that everyone comes to Washington on Friday m the summertime She thanked me...

...Each of these pseudo riots had four elements in common 1) It was planned, 2) a specific time had been set for it, 3) it was to occur outside the Negro areas, 4) the whites had gotten wind of it In the actual riots I had iead about, none of these elements was a factor They were spontaneous, set off by an incident and occurred in the ghetto areas This appeared to be true even where there was in-citment Why then, should rumors of impending riots that depart from all previous patterns be accepted and passed on from one person to another without a question as to their authenticity...

...How else explain the convolutions of tracing the current crisis to the possibility that the 1968 elections will go to the House and that the House won't be able to agree on a President and that the Veep becomes Prexy without a word or thought about ihe possibility that the crisis is related to the nation s disastrous policies m Vietnam...

...Very good Then why in the world should they not, and why in Quincy...

...Although I cannot agree with all the views Senator Dirksen outlined, it was refreshing to read that someone can see beyond 1968 and the "dump-Johnson' campaign...

...What about free elections in North Vietnam1...

...It seemed to me that there was a compelling attraction in the specificity of each rumor--the knowledge of what was going to happen, where and when--that lent it credibility, no matter how devoid of fact or logic I had the uncanny feeling wherever I went, that people were indulging in an identical fantasy with an intensity bordering on contagious hysteria That feeling evoked m me another fantasy, that with effective leadership and growing social sanction, such hysteria might culminate in "preventive" mass action--lynching or even pogrom...

...One of the biggest illusions Senator Fulbright has, and unfortunately he is not alone in this, is about the nature of Communist totalitarianism as a global movement Since Stalin's death there have been many changes for the better We have witnessed a practical disintegration of a monolithic block, but only on the problems of secondary and tertiary importance On the primary question of their very existence, these regimes know that without Moscow's support their life span would not be worth mentioning This is evidenced by recent events in the Mideast, where even the Yugoslav Communists whom Fulbright admires for their "independence " flocked to Moscow's banner to condemn Israel...

...Tyler is so right when he suggests that liberals cannot confine themselves to a single issue And unquestionably there are men of good will and intelligence on both sides of the Vietnam issue But which side is he on...

...South Vietnam just had an election, probably not a model election Irom our point of view, but something citizens of a Communist country can only dream of...

...Even to prophecies of genocide so assiduously spread' by a new breed of nihilistic radicals who have been proclaiming themselves leaders of rebellion...

...As Gus Tyler has so clearly shown, it is essential that we not permit disagreement over Vietnam, no matter how strongly felt, to drive us into disarray For this would open the way for extremist political forces to fill the power vacuum thus created and, conceivably, make such prophecies self-fulfilling...

...Talking about freedom...

...It would be absurd to state that the security of this country would be threatened if the Communists took over South Vietnam But, if this avenue of Communist expansion is not closed then the security of this country with the whole of Southeast Asia under Communist domination, would be threatened This is the central point which the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee does not see...

...No one had thought of that Yet, the very next day the same rumor was repeated...

...DEAR EDITOR TYLER Gus Tyler is usually so strong on logic one wonders if he intended "The Liberal Crisis" INL October 23) as a parody of his own views Is he signaling desperately, trying to tell us that somehow he is constiained about expressing his views on the wretched war in Vietnam...

...Ailmgton, Va Herbert Hammerman FULBR1GHT One cannot read the 'Dirksen vs Fulbright" (NL October 23) exchange in connection with the current Senate debate over Vietnam without wondering about some of Senator Fulbright's thoughts...

...Senator Fulbright rightly deplores the "snuffing out" of freedom in Greece and the arrests of prominent public figures there We have yet to hear, however, his condemnation of acts which snuffed out freedom 25 years ago in East Europe, or of the recent sentencing of M Mihajlov in Belgrade and M Rozman in Ljubljana...

...In support of his stand against our involvement in Vietnam, among other things, he alludes to our intentions of establishing a colony in South Vietnam The division of opinion m this country regarding the Vietnam war is precisely the product of irresponsible statements such as this Yet Fulbright mentions this division as a proof of lack of justification for our involvement in this war...

...Behind it all, it would seem, is the almost complete social segregation of the races, fostering fear and anger, never wholly dormant even in the best times, so that almost anything becomes believable and social paranoia becomes the fashion Turn it around and you have an intimation of what is occuring in the ghetto If the whites become hysterical, what must be the hysteria of the segregated prisoners behind the ghetto walls...

...The solution Senator Fulbright proposes for Vietnam defies reason a Geneva Conference with the specific task of insuring free elections in South Vietnam...

...Brooklyn N Y Joseph Clark...

...Should we be surprised if our reactions of fear and anger are reflected and magnified manifold m the Negro communities...

...There are indeed dark and destructive forces responsible for the present crisis Tyler doesn't even weigh the possibility that these dark and destructive forces were unleashed because the liberals of the country voted for a man who said that the war in Vietnam is one which must be decided on the ground by the people of Vietnam, and who denounced the other candidate for saying we should bomb North Vietnam and commit American troops on a large scale to take the place of the Vietnamese, and then the winner adopted the loser's policies...

...The next night my sister in Spring Valley, New York, was relieved that we had not run into a not there It was expected any day now, and the firemen were borrowing cots from the Red Cross where my sister was working We heard nothing of riots in Montreal My wife suggested it was because of the language bar-Later, we stopped off at relatives in the Boston area They were expecting riots in Quincy within two or three days My questioning elicited the information that there were hardly any Negroes in Quincy though they were bused through Quincy to work at a nearby shipyard Do they get good pay...

...Jasey City, N J Rusko Matulic...