LETTERS

...The Cubans have apparently been stewing over the issue of nuclear power...

...The response to their return was the only outcome possible after months of buildup by the press...

...Cleveland, Ohio Mayer's Day All the way through my reading of Milton Mayer's "God's Panhandler" (February issue), I kept asking myself, "Is this author Catholic...

...It was an event created by the media...

...There is a higher law, you know...

...There is no starvation or mass illiteracy, as one can find not only in the United States but also in some of the so-called social democratic states to which Mayer would like Czechs to turn...

...While it is important to discourage speculation and concentration in housing, we must go beyond simplistic notions of landlords as the gifted wealthy...

...The basic problem is a philosophical one: Are the profits of developers, many of whom come from distant places and drain the money from the communities involved, more important than the health and welfare of the people...

...People there enjoy free health care, free education, affordable housing...

...Efforts to encourage competition of small rental operations should be encouraged...

...General Paul X. Kelley of the Marine Corps, the RDF Commander, should realize that the upper limit of his Task Force capability is limited by this basic fact: Resistance is the great X factor, the variable that does not fit into the mobilization schedules and "manpower planning...

...By clarifying the human limits, morality tells us what we risk when we forsake the human to behave like false gods or like animals...

...Glenn B. Meagher Fairfax, California Embargo Antinuclear and Central America solidarity groups might be interested in organizing around the Reagan Administration's continuing economic embargo on Cuban trade...

...William A. Fraenkel Hudson, Massachusetts Resistance As a current enlisted member of the U.S...

...But in the pages of The Progressive...

...I argued against and helped to defeat a bill for a press shield law in Idaho some years ago, substantially on the very points Haas raises...

...It is both inaccurate and ahistorical for Mayer to refer to the independent socialist countries of Eastern Europe as "colonies...

...In all the years of covering Eastern European socialist countries, The Progressive has never, to my knowledge, published an article on the many positive aspects...

...Mayer's knowledge of the "workings" of the Church surprised and delighted me...

...Some units are bought for $25,000 or $30,000 and then sold for $60,000 to $100,000, or more...

...commitment...

...Hans Jovishoff San Diego, California The Progressive must be commended on the housing article in the March issue...

...James ?. Miller Jr...

...Army Reserve, Individual Ready Reserve, I read with special interest your February cover article, "An Army in Search of a War," on the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force (RDJTF...

...What I do believe is that when the "reasonableness" test of the Fourth Amendment is applied on a case-by-case basis, courts will find some cases where warrants ought not to issue because of First Amendment interests that are involved...

...Write to: James Miller, 2061 E. 115 Street, Cleveland, Ohio 44106...

...He lived in the United States between 1938 and 1947, when he was deported to England at the behest of the House Committee on Un-American Activities...

...Harris's article on wood fuel in the February 1981 issue, entitled "Farewell, Forests...," is another matter...

...Edgar P. Wyman North Sandwich, New Hampshire Czechoslovakia Milton Mayer's "Prague Winter" (January issue) provides yet another example of how a generally interesting magazine can succumb to the lure of Cold War thinking and cultural myopia, so unbecoming to the Left and so effectively proven wrong during the Vietnam war...

...Your reviewer, who claims that "Truman's historical reputation grows ever more solid," is identified as a historian...

...Why let yourselves be suckered now...

...a willingness to continue an arms race with the U.S.S.R., to enlarge support of the junta in El Salvador, and to ignore the real problems of our real communities, the neighborhoods where we live...

...I began my article with the argument that journalists should not have any rights against search and seizure that other citizens don't have, and that the First Amendment should be considered a barrier to search and seizure in press offices...

...Nationalism in a nation such as the United States is a refusal to acknowledge the havoc we have wreaked not only on people in other parts of the world, but also on the very substance of our day-to-day lives...

...Harris has done his homework on this one...

...If condominium conversions are permitted to continue unabated, the result could be the most severe housing crisis we have ever had...

...I am now participating as "friend of the court" in a press office search and seizure case in which I hope to work toward the establishment of such guidelines...

...There are many ways of evading rent control, and the consequences can be devastating—the abandonment of properties, as in parts of New York City, or the anxious sale of rental properties to condominium developers in such markets as Minneapolis, which can readily afford condo conversion...

...I do not, as he seems to assume, premise my commentary on the belief that the immunity of the communications media from judicial or judicially enforced intrusions should on all occasions be inviolate...

...I am wearied and bored by the endless redundant exchanges between authors and their supposedly prestigious critics...

...At the same time, I agree with your thought that "No Nukes" by itself is not enough...

...The article is worthy of the aims of your publication...

...Anne Genovese Burlington, Vermont No nukes I strongly disagree with your suggested strategy of de-emphasizing actions at nuclear power sites (" 'No Nukes' Is Not Enough," by Pamela Haines and William Moyer, March issue...

...Despite vigorous objections from a majority of the people and Governor Brown, the Feds want to activate this $2 billion time bomb near an earthquake fault zone so the rich investors can realize a profit...

...policy has the effect of forcing the hand of economically developing nations...

...labor force, while promoting the advancement of safe, renewable energy resources...

...The fact that this army in search of a war currently includes "100,000 reservists serving in a 'support' capacity" has prompted me to inform the Commanding General, U.S...

...Louis, Missouri, that I will not answer any mobilization orders which involve fighting in a war for oil, propping up a faltering Third or Fourth World military dictatorship, protecting the U.S...

...I try to be fair-minded...

...A Cuban friend wrote recently to inform me that The Progressive was wrong: His wife is a university student in the nuclear engineering program, where classes go on as usual, and the Party Congress recently stressed plans.te carry on with the development of the first nuclear power plant...

...I have long believed and argued that the requirement for "every man's testimony" should extend to journalists, and I have long been skeptical about the use of anonymous sources...

...Dave Detloff Minneapolis, Minnesota Fairness I wish to express strong disagreement with The Progressive's stated policy (also observed by many other publications) of publishing only those letters which comment on previously published matter...

...I am writing a book on his music, life, and political/ musical theories...

...Jay Newbern Petaluma, California Having been with The Boston Clamshell at Seabrook, I sense the need for continual vigilance to deter or prevent that site from functioning...

...We must also direct our movement to the highest levels in the halls of Congress and our state legislatures...

...I also see a need for our being more aggressive and less reactive...

...Czech society has problems, but it is neither as bleak nor as banal as Mayer would portray it...

...These self-selected sources are no more convincing than the hearsay and "informed sources" so often quoted by the State Department, The New York Times, and the CIA to prop up their bogus reporting...

...At a time of reviving Cold War and repression, it is unsurprising that widespread efforts should be made to rehabilitate Truman's deservedly tarnished reputation...

...Army Reserve Components Personnel and Administration Center, St...

...To me, it only shows the sad state of people in this country who have nothing else to believe in but the American Dream...

...He acts as though the millions of people who live in such societies are all either automatons or holy dissidents...

...We might expect such reporting in the "free," "objective," or "balanced" media, but need we see it again, albeit in Left guise, in the so-called progressive press...

...As citizens of a democracy, we have a right to be heard and a responsibility to tell our representatives that we want foreign policy to reflect our concern that global survival now requires cooperation and sharing, rather than war...

...It is especially commendable that Dreier and Atlas resisted the temptation to approach the subject from a conclusionary and purely emotional perspective, but rather chose to investigate both the historical development of condominiums and the current governmental policies that foster their continued development...

...And I assure you, there will be resistance...

...Why must readers of The Progressive once again be insulted by attitudes of anti-socialism and cultural elitism disguised with chic cynicism...

...Has he forgotten that it was Truman who initiated the Cold War, the peacetime draft, and the insane arms race that plagues us still...

...A more productive formulation requires the recognition that we must protect the individual freedom of real property use and disposal as well as the individual right to clean, affordable, and secure housing...

...As for documentation, he laces his article with a nameless Czech friend, a nameless "Marxist historian," a nameless so-called blacklisted writer, and a host of other unspecified sources and straw persons whom we are supposed to accept on faith...

...Unlike my fellow Minneapolis resident, David Ru-benstein ("The Neighborhood Movement," March issue), I do not believe the answer to our rental housing problems is in rent control...

...It might be helpful for those of us who consider ourselves progressive, supportive of Third World independence, and antinuclear, to keep in mind that U.S...

...In many cases, that is simply not true...

...Efforts by city management to enforce a presumed "right to housing" have only aided the polarization of interest between city leaders and rental property owners and effectively decreased the number of businesses able to compete within the housing industry...

...I endorse the "Strategy for the 1980s" outlined by Haines and Moyer, but I think we must also keep focusing our actions at nuclear power sites...

...I agree with an understated point in Barbara Koeppel's article, "For Rent, Cheap, No Heat": Condominium conversion is largely due to the effects of city ordinances which are obviously anti-rental...

...February issue...

...military empire overseas, or any similar scenario...

...He has written, "A live and adequate morality is an accurate perception of the order of things, and of humanity's place in it...

...His tribute to Dorothy Day was so understanding of the Church Catholic, with its Gospel principles which are not applied by some of the higher-ups but lived by Dorothy Day...

...They will find other cases where warrants should issue to search press offices and seize items therein...

...I believe readers of such journals as I take and read are by and large intelligent, thinking people who often have something to contribute which has escaped the professional writers, or who have a better way of saying it...

...Thank you for sharing Milton Mayer's biography of a saint...

...Joseph A. Piroch Emlenton, Pennsylvania...

...Has he forgotten that it was Truman who ordered the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and never thereafter showed even a twinge of doubt or regret...

...It's high time we began to be more assertive...

...We have to talk about the relationship between nuclear power and nuclear weapons, about radiation and leukemia and deformed babies...

...At the end of his beautiful eulogy my puzzlement was answered directly...

...Back in the 1940s, when Truman was compiling his sorry record, The Progressive was admirably and outspokenly critical...

...The research, development, production, and distribution processes are all areas to generate defensible employment for the U.S...

...Their perceptive observation that the traditional argument of home ownership versus rental housing is obsolete is a step toward solving the problem...

...Has he forgotten that it was Truman who began the witchhunts and loyalty purges long before anyone had heard of Joe McCarthy...

...Marie Reynolds Chino, California The tribute by your roving editor, Milton Mayer, a Jew, to Dorothy Day, a Catholic, was unmatched by any priest, bishop, or cardinal of the Catholic Church, to which Dorothy Day totally dedicated the greater part of her life...

...The result of these events has not been community but a scary uniformity...

...I recognize the ex parte part of the problem...

...Certainly we need to focus on alternative energy sources and conservation...

...Ronald C. Kent Madison, Wisconsin Free press Robert H. Haas's letter (March issue) raises excellent points about my article, "Should Newsrooms Be Immune from Police Search...

...he makes a sound point and addresses the issue fairly and well...

...When the legal system is stacked against the common people, what other recourse do they have but to put their bodies on the line...

...We Californians of the Aba-lone Alliance are training for nonviolence in preparation for a massive blockade of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant near San Luis Obispo...

...We need to strike a balance...

...The Cubans might be in the market for some alternative energy technology...

...Simon Vielweh Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Timber Last year I addressed to you (and you published) a letter highly critical of Michael Harris's article "News from the Timber Country" (May 1980 issue...

...Profits can be simply staggering...

...Maybe Mayer would like to survey the Czechs to see what they would prefer: to wait in line for Soviet crab meat or to wait in an unemployment line...

...There is neither unemployment nor child labor in Czechoslovakia...

...There is no legitimate function in this country or elsewhere for such a 300,000-soldier force which is "preemptive" in nature—that is, a "tripwire" for open-ended U.S...

...The bounds of fairness are stretched beyond reason to give scarce space to opponents of your (and your readers') policies who may have access to other forums beyond our wildest dreams...

...The "Briefing" column in your November 1980 issue indicated that Cuban officials were having second thoughts about the plant to be built in Cienfuegos Province...

...That can be overcome, in part, by the establishment of judicial guidelines, just as the Privacy Protection Act of 1980 mandates executive guidelines for the same purpose...

...Darlene Smith Portland, Oregon Hanns Eisler I would appreciate hearing from readers of The Progressive who have recollections, letters, clippings, recordings, etc., relating to Hanns Eisler (18981962), the German composer and close collaborator of Bertolt Brecht...

...Such material should be seriously considered for publication, and for ideas which the professionals may research and develop into full-length presentations...

...Recognizing this as the real issue will lead naturally to a real solution—not another governmental "symptoms-fix" that results in a future backlash or worsening of the condition...

...Dan Sciullo New York, New York Though the "Condomania" article was informative, it was not nearly forceful enough to describe the threat posed by condominium conversions...

...We always seem to have reactions to spills, melt-downs, hazardous wastes, and nuclear near-accidents...

...But he and I do not disagree as much as he seems to believe...

...John Elmer Minneapolis, Minnesota Truman I was appalled by Stanley I. Kutler's review of Off the Record: The Private Papers of Harry S. Truman (March issue...

...Anything can be converted, and no improvements need to be made, though frequently cosmetic changes are made to cover up the most obvious defects...

...Dwight Jensen Boise, Idaho Housing "Condomania," by Peter Dreier and John Atlas (March issue), was a thorough, well-reasoned analysis of a genuine problem...

...Nor do I suggest that the Fourth Amendment function as a "press shield...

...We need to become creative about offsetting our balance of trade deficit...

...I wonder whether Wendell Berry would agree with your editorial...

...And in the same essay he says, "The real sources of hope are personal and spiritual, not public and political...