Letters To The Editor

28/10/62

Diplomacy Held at Fault

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NEW YORK TIMES

  Was there really no other way of dealing with the Soviet-Cuban threat than to provoke a direct United States-Soviet confrontation and thus place the two superpowers on a collision course?

  A diplomacy which, while trying to avoid war (and I assume that has been and still is United States policy), leaves to the opponent no other alternative than either war or  humiliating loss of face, is bankrupt. In the present state of public hysteria this may be a voice in the wilderness, but the future of this crisis may well confirm the calmer view-provided historians are left to record it.

JOHN H HERZ. PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, CITY COLLEGE. NEW YORK, OCT. 24, 1962.

Testing Our Intentions

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NEW YORK TIMES

  While I believe that out Government's action on Cuba came at a late date, I nevertheless believe that it is to be applauded. For the first time in many years we have enunciated a clear warning to the Soviet Union of our intentions rather than our capabilities.

  There is little question that the Russians know our capabilities. But in 1938 Germany knew that England and France had the combined capabilities of destroying the German air force, yet Hitler tested their intentions with his occupation of the Rhineland. When they did nothing he persuaded his course of world conquest.

 Khrushchev is considered an extremely astute politician. His foray into the Caribbean, assisted in part by our incredible inaction in the past, was a foray into an area that he knows is a recognized sphere of United States influence.

  It was made in clear defiance of this nation's warning in September that offensive military weapons would not be tolerated in Cuba. I am convinced that it was an attempt to test once again the intentions of the United States.

LAURENCE W. LEVINE. NEW YORK, OCT. 24, 1962.