Changes in Soviet Union

To the professional anti-communists in the United States, the political changes occurring in the Soviet Union are disturbing indeed, as several Op-Ed Page articles in The Times testify. These cold war warriors are in danger of losing their obsessive cause, if not their livelihood. The rest of us cannot only derive pleasure from the Soviet events, but can--are you ready for this America--actually learn from them!

Imagine at the upcoming Democratic and Republican conventions, when one speaker after another delivers the traditional boring, irrelevant rhetoric, that the delegates will slowly clap them into silence, or laugh at them derisively, both of which took place at the recent Communist Party convention in Moscow. Imagine that in our upcoming presidential campaign, our Tweedledum and Tweedledee parties would treat us to real debate of critical and fundamental ideological issues a la Moscow. Imagine the same happening in Congress. Or in the streets.

Imagine the American government admitting that it had often been “blinded to the realities of international relations by its own ideology, and as a result acted in ways that heightened or prolonged tension” with the Soviet Union. Imagine Washington calling for a revision of school history books because they are full of distortion, both of commission and omission. And to those who doubt that our texts need a major truth cleaning, I would say it’s because you were educated by just such books.

WILLIAM BLUM

Los Angeles