Soviet exercises

Press, 25 August 1986, Page 20

Soviet exercises

■ Sir, —On what grounds does J. S. Pallet challenge the Soviet Union’s right to the Kurile Islands? It was agreed at the Crimean Conference by Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin that the Soviet Union would enter the war against Japan, three months after Germany’s defeat, on condition that Southern Sakhalin be returned, and the Kurile Islands be handed over to the Soviet Union. Chinese claims to Soviet territory up to the Urals, advanced by Mao Tsetung, were based on the ridiculous grounds that China was the heir to the Mongol empire which embraced both Russia and China. The Soviet navy has as much right in the Pacific and Indian Oceans as the United States and British navies. Nuclear blackmail was the foreign policy initiated by the United States with British encouragement, not the Soviet Union. The Russian Revolution freed the peoples of the Tsarist empire from autocracy, imperialist expansion and the oppressive exploitation of capitalism. — Yours, etc., M. CREEL. August 21, 1986. Sir, —J. S. Pallot’s attempt to justify the shrill rhetoric of the United States Government in response to Soviet naval exercises (with an embarassingly selective use of the principle of sovereignty) (August 20) is unsuccessful. However, I fully agree with his closing statement: “words alone mean nothing.” Perhaps he would like to apply this axiom to the news (August 20) that the United States has again declined to follow Soviet action banning nuclear tests. The greatest threat to the democratic systems of the world is not the Soviet Union, but nuclear war, for which purpose a sufficient number of pre-tested armaments already exist in both countries. A nuclear test ban is one active step towards the prevention of nuclear war; using words instead of wars to resolve conflicts is another. The Soviets are showing, as President Carter did, that they understand this. Will President Reagan follow? — Yours, etc.,

JEFF HERRICK. August 21, 1986.