Dear Editor

...Dear Editor Well Said I have heard many characterizations of Ambassador Young's recent decision to meet privately with a representative of the PLO, but Andrew Glass' computer ("A Private Talk with Peanutron," NL, August 13) unwittingly took the prize with this forecast "Q Are blacks sacred cows in this Admimstra-t)on" "p Pretty much so Andy Young would have to kick in the side of the barn before we pulled him out of the United Nations " Apt, if a touch understated New York City Seymour Tolchin Carter as Wilson...

...In his determination to persuade us of the similarities between Jimmy Carter and Woodrow Wilson, Donald Kirk compares the recent Japan summit to the Versailles Peace Conference ("The Noh Summit," NL, July 30) This strikes me as an especially heavy-handed, if not altogether misguided, historical allusion Kirk says Carter "was as naive as [Wilson| in assuming the conference would do anything more than postpone confrontation " He also says the President's "descent from the summit in Japan seemed almost as precipitous as Wilson's tragic plunge upon coming back from France Clearly he could not sell the [energy] agreement that was reached as a cure-all or even a placebo any more than Wilson could sell the treaty " At the risk of sounding like a grouchy schoolmaster, I would like to make the following points (1) It is a canard to call Wilson naive He sought the League of Nations as an alternative to the balance-of-terror foreign policy that led to World War I When the League failed Senate ratification, Wilson predicted another war within the next generation He was only off by a couple of years (2) Wilson did not suffer a "tragic plunge" after coming back from France He returned a triumphant peace maker (3) Wilson did sell the treaty to the country All during the extended debate, a majority of the country favored the League concept That fact has never been disputed, the Sen-ale killed the League with the innumerable reservations instigated by Wilson's personal enemy, Henry Cabot Lodge (4) It's just plain silly to implicitly compare opec to the enemies Wilson faced over the conference table at Versailles The Axis powers had been vanquished by the War, opec, needless to say, is still alive and kicking In general terms, Wilson and Carter also had little in common For example, Wilson wrote his own speeches, had good relations with the Washington press corps and was re-elected to a second term Princeton, N J Walter Simon City People Although he dealt with the book at length, I don't think Richard C Wade did full justice to Ken Aulet-ta's The Streets Were Paved with Gold The Decline of New York ("Balanced and Unbalanced Metropolitan Accounts," NL, July 30) The reviewer accuses the author of not sufficiently taking into account the role played by historical inevitability in bringing a great city to its knees According to Wade, any program designed to ameliorate the city's financial condition is essentially doomed from the start, since urban decay and bankruptcy are only part of the historical process initiated by suburbanization There is some truth to this, but Auletta makes a convincing case that it is not the whole truth The severity of the crisis could have been radically lessened had the unions, the politicians, and the bankers been less greedy, and had more foresight No city, after all, has declined as swiftly or as much as New York In other words, New York spent more than any other city, and now suffers more for its largesse By placing the blame on history, Wade only exonerates the men who brought us to this pass New York City Jeremy Kossoff Id While dismissing Til Marriage Do Us Part as a "sleazy soft core flick" ("Erotic Strains," NL, August 13), Robert Asahina pauses to linger over Laura Antonelh's "physical charms," her "amply endowed body," and her "dozen costume changes" involving "fluffy petticoats, frilly slips and lacy garter belts " Could it be Asahina was subconsciously irked because the film was not hard core7 Boston FAYE KOHLENBERG...