Dear Editor

...Dear Editor NIXON ECONOMICS It is distressing to find an economist of the standing of Robert Lekachman writing in the vein of his article entitled "Hard Times," published in your issue of January 5. There is no recognition whatsoever of the fact that the administrations of 'Presidents Kennedy and Johnson had something to do with Vietnam and the building up of inflationary pressures...

...In polemics, a certain amount of partisanship is excusable, but I would not expect an academic economist to write like a Democrat running for office...

...But has he ever given a thought to the fact that at one time, not so long ago, integration seemed as worthy a goal as separatism seems now...

...He writes in his latest article...

...The avant-garde is alive and well in a lot of people's heads, if not always visible in galleries of renown...

...It is, however, slightly marred by his conception of the bia as a monolithic bloc of blockheads and bogeymen, not a one of whom knows a thing or has the least concern for improving the lot of the Indian...

...Western Europe has been overrun in modern times by the armies of only two countries: Germany and -let us not forget it-france...

...Granted the Berlin Wall, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, etc.-but how often must it be pointed out that these are Eastern European problems, in areas that have been reckoned in Russia's political and economic sphere since Tsarist days...

...It becomes clearer and clearer as the months go by that Paris-not Moscow-poses the biggest immediate danger to the West, continually undercutting unity...

...Even most Vietnamese by now couldn't care less what political persuasion serves to kill their countrymen...

...Witness its role in the tragic Biafran war...

...Surely not by increased trade...

...New York City Rudolph L. Weissman VIETN AMIZ ATION Permit me to compliment Arnold Abrams on his excellent portrayal of the failures of Vietnamization in the Mekong Delta ("Return of the Vietcong," NL, February 2...

...I don't doubt that Witten may have met a very confused or even incompetent bia official on the Mesquakie settlement-they do exist...

...Billings, Mom...

...Ger\ld M. Purdy...

...and voted two times for the Republican nominee, so that I do not write as a Republican...

...If the war is to be "won...

...Ninth...

...New York City Ray Finkel HERALD It amazes me that George W. Herald, whose analyses of the French political scene are consistently accurate and perceptive, falls to pieces as it were in the face of that old bugaboo, the Russian Bear...

...How will we ever leave South Vietnam if we continue to wait for such crews as the 7th arvn to perform like the U.S...

...Frederick Rich SIMON I hope other readers of the New Leader will join me in complaining to John Simon of his starting a movie critique in one issue and finishing it in the next...

...M. Bennett AMERICAN INDIANS Edward Witten's "Indians Seek Community Control" (NL, February 2) is a well-written and generally well-balanced view of the Mesquakie education problem and how it relates to the larger problems of the Indian struggle for dignity in an alien environment...

...It is a state of mind rather than a work of art...

...It is incapable of death without consequent rebirth...

...New York City...

...Taking the historical analogy further...

...Mass...

...This might not matter too much in regard to most critics, but I consider Simon the best movie critic I have ever read (even better than Stanley Kauffmann, whioh is very high praise indeed) and do not like to have to wait two weeks to read his remaining remarks about a movie...

...But Mellow knows all this, I'm sure...

...Undoubtedly, Lekachman knows that overall productivity did not increase last year at the average rate, since labor unit costs, in relation to prices, have risen almost at an unprecedented rate...

...And that some whites, even bia officials, were as dedicated as he, and spent not a summer, but a lifetime with the Indian people...

...Boston...

...He has now done this in two consecutive issues, and I hope he does not intend to continue this practice, which cannot help but be irritating...

...and will always produce revolutionary and beautiful things...

...its obstructionist tactics in the Common Market...

...its current maneuverings in North Africa and the Middle East (where it shares with the Soviets responsibility for maintaining Arab military strength...

...The combination of fear, incompetence, and political apathy afflicting so much of the indigenous Armed Forces is simply too much to overcome...

...Nor is there any recognition of the attitude of certain important trade unions, such as the construction and transportation workers, who have held up the country for increases in wages and fringe benefits far beyond the increase in productivity...

...Russia Moves West" (NL, January 19), "that the Soviets, by setting Paris against Bonn, are simply trying to apply the old Roman formula: Divide et Imperii" and quotes a "highly placed [French] policy-maker" as saying: " The Russians don't want to destroy Western Europe, they want to dominate and exploit it...

...And it must have been a "passing case of the apocalyptic blues" that produced such melancholic visions...

...Merely for the record, may I add I have voted in each Presidential election since 1924...

...In any case, how could the Soviets "take over" the lives of Western Europeans...

...to take over our lives.' " And I say: Enough...

...then it is we who shall have to stay and win it...

...Revealing the facts submerged in Saigon's report of the December 19 battle in Kien Hoa, he has again demonstrated the utter futility of a phased withdrawal from this awful conflict...

...I do contest his self-righteous characterization of "the bia approach to education" as heartless assimilationism...

...Further, Lekachman does not propose any alternative policy to deal with inflation, which in the end hurts the mass of wage earners more than the affluent...

...Alexandria, Va...

...George Blaine WHITNEY ANNUAL Though lames R. Mellow writes that "the avant-garde is now largely an editorial utility" ("Death of the Avant-garde," NL, January 19), it is obviously still more than that, having at least been the basis for his fine review of the Whitney Annual...

...Herald does himself grave disservice by giving too much credence to the French international line, a fiction calculated to disguise national self-interest...

...And how many Americans still see victory as a viable objective in Vietnam...