Missile plan: good......

WITH reference to your article Do We Need This? (January 25). President Reagan's determination to push ahead with the Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI) as it was properly called, cruelly exposed the Soviet Union's inability to compete with the West at the very forefront of advanced military technology.

Nor could the Soviet Union match American levels of spending on research and development, reckoned by many to be a decisive factor in bringing down the Soviet empire. If so, we should be grateful to President Reagan.

States, such as North Korea, Libya, Iran and Iraq, whose leaders make no secret of their desire to acquire weapons of mass destruction, are a real danger and are likely to remain so. Then there is Communist China which is utterly determined, in time, to challenge the hated US not only for control of the Pacific rim but further afield.

In this uncertain, dangerous, post-Cold War world National Missile Defence (NMD) strikes me as an eminently sound investment. William Hague is quite right to commit the UK to being a full and active participant.

Dr Frank Ellis,

Dept of Russian and Slavonic Studies,

University of Leeds, Leeds.

...or evil?

I CONGRATULATE the Government on its rebuff to William Hague's support for the US proposed National Missile Defence system ('Star Wars II'). I urge the Government to maintain complete aloofness from this planned system. Britain should not support this US defence plan in any way and Fylingdale's Radar station should not be used for that purpose.

I strongly feel that this defence system will make the world more unstable, fuelling tensions with Russia, China and the so-called 'rogue countries'. It will certainly put the international test ban treaty in severe jeopardy.

The US is using fear of contrived 'enemies' to further its own military and economic control of the world. Britain should become more independent of US spheres of influence and turn more toward Europe.

As a US citizen who has lived half my life there it grieves me that US government policies and actions have for many years caused so much conflict, suffering and injustice in the world.

Margaret Vernon,

Kendal Close,

Dunnington.

...THE election of President Bush makes it more likely that the US will press for its National Missile Defence system, sometimes called 'Star Wars' and will seek permission to involve British bases.

If anything deserves a referendum, this is it, much more crucial as it is than the pound, and Europe, especially for the people of Whitby and Harrogate.

Unfortunately we are known in Europe as America's poodle. It is desperately important that without being anti-America we press Tony Blair and his ministers to stand firm against proposals which would take us back to the dangerous times of 40 years ago and imperil painfully-achieved nuclear control treaties.

An all-party group of our MPs has spoken against the scheme, and the UN Secretary-General has warned about a new arms race. Yorkshire people have welcomed American personnel, but they don't like being poodles.

Let's not go back 40 years. Mr Blair must know our feelings. We should be consulted. We should retain our dignity.

Roy Stevens,

Willow Bank,

New Earswick, York.

Updated: 11:07 Monday, January 29, 2001