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Drama of Cantii I have just finished reading Dick Reavis’ remarkable piece on Mario Cantti [Obs., July 25] and his recent hearing in San Antonio, and I felt compelled to offer a word of thanks. I regret to say that prior to reading Reavis’ article I was entirely ignorant about Cantu, his work, or much of the political activity in South Texas that forms the backdrop of Reavis’ short play. That I was troubled and moved by Reavis’ article is thus a tribute to his special skills and to the human drama that, through those skills, he was able to make real to one as ignorant as I. This one, brief, honest account has captured the melancholy truths of radical politics in our country: the earnest desires, the personal sacrifice, the too frequent subordination of individual, human relationships to the workings of the grand design; the pervasive sense of futility and the stronger will to persevere; the selfdoubts alongside the cause that admits of no doubts; and through all of this, and sometimes despite all of this, the occasional triumph of the individual spirit. And so I am grateful to Dick Reavis for this work that has rung so true and to the Observer that has brought it to me. And I am especially thankful for the Observer. Where else is one likely to find works such as this in these times? Parker C. Folse III Austin Goldstein Okay Regarding his generally interesting article on Mario Cantri [Obs., July 25], Dick Reavis did an unfair thing in quoting himself this way in a question he posed to Cantu, “Why didn’t you hire Gerald Goldstein, or some other Mafia lawyer?” Here are some other questions Reavis could have posed: “Why don’t you hire Gerald Goldstein, one of the only three lawyers in San Antonio who, time after time, defended conscientious objectors during the Vietnam War? “Or the lawyer, who, without pay, forced reforms of the Bexar County jail? Or the lawyer who, without pay, has taken free speech cases? Or the lawyer who, without pay, has defended consenting adults engaged in alleged ‘deviate’ sexual acts. Or the lawyer, without pay, who has stood with Maury Maverick, Jr. in defending alleged radicals?” I introduced Gerald Goldstein to the U.S. District Court, the year he left law school. I would do it again, but this time I would know something I didn’t know the first time around Gerry is the best young lawyer in San Antonio on questions of liberty, and one of the best in the nation. Reavis did him wrong. I am reminded of something that happened to my father right after World War II. We were just about to enter the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C., when his close friend, Vito Marantonio, the great radical New York congressman, came out the door.. “Hello, you little dago,” my father said to Vito. His old friend instantly replied, “Maury, if you are kidding it’s funny. If you are serious you are a son of a bitch.” Maury Maverick, Jr. San Antonio Required reading Your editorial “Free Ramsey Clark” [Obs., July 4] is one piece which I would like to see as required reading in all the schools, universities, factories, shops, police departments, prisons, military establishments and such; not forgetting the reporters’ hangouts, wherever they may be. But, unfortunately, it’ll not happen. Your list of the countries affected by “the dark side of American foreign policy” didn’t include Indonesia which as you may be aware had a “casualty” figure mostly by politically inspired and approved murder in late 1965 of nearly a million people, by one estimate. . . . I think that your statement “The CIA, acting for the American people” is a little loose in meaning. To be more accurate, it should have been, “The CIA, acting as usual for the American industrial, corporate-military and multinational interests . . . etc., etc.” I doubt if the CIA has ever acted for the American people in the true sense of the statement, or, worse yet that it ever will in the years ahead. W. S. Keller Lancaster, Ohio Iran not that bad I found the date, July 4th, a very inappropriate one for the “Free Ramsey Clark” piece. According to the author, we deliberately tried to carry out every possible sort of rascality in Iran; I do not accept this thesis. I agree completely that we should weigh our foreign policies very carefully in terms of their impact on the often helpless subjects of the countries we deal with. I do not believe we did the things we are accused of in the article. No one claims that the Shah was a great instigator of democratic reforms; this is hardly the part of the world where this sort of activity has enjoyed much popularity or understanding. In all justice, however, the outrages perpetrated by SAVAK look pretty tame compared to what went on before in that part of the world and also compared to what still goes on today \(I have heard no stories of SAVAK stoning anybody to death apparently the Mullahs currently think The negative aspects of the Shah’s rule were, I think, pretty well offset by the way he carried out land reform programs, made education and health care available in the countryside, and saw to it that at least some of the benefits of the oil prosperity filtered down to the common people. Raising the literacy rate to 40% looks pretty good to me; I don’t know of any comparable achievement in this area. I think it is a base thing to charge this country with the direction of the things SAVAK did or is being charged with doing. It is now easy to play Monday morning quarterback in relation to the things the Shah did \(it is also easy to do this in looking over some of our past policies .call him a mass murderer. For all our faults, we are a nation that respects the law. Ramsey Clark was after all once Attorney General, and I am sure he was aware of the legal aspects connected with his attendance at the Tehran conference. I am sure that he has some ideas about how he may defend himself if he is prosecuted, and that he is reasonably sure that the proceedings, if any, will be conducted in a fair manner. I was not aware that he had been locked up and needed to be “freed.” Richard R. McTaggart Menard Plague Re Ramsey Clark in Iran [Obs., July 4], we should bow our heads and beat our breasts in front of religious reactionaries who stone, shoot and assassinate at will? At most we should say, with Mercutio: “A plague o’ both your houses!” Ed Cogburn Houston Who wants Big Spring anyway? It was with considerable alarm that I read the article [Obs., July 4] “Three Days to Nuke City.” After all, you had pinpointed Big Spring as a “Category II” Dialogue / 20 AUGUST 8, 1980