Letters to the Editor. Infants' needs vs. the defense budget

Hurrah for your editorial on the Women, Infants, and Children Supplemental Food Program [``Federal nutrition program: motherhood shortchanged?'' Feb. 6]! Your point that the President is ``more comfortable handing out money by the fistful for defense than sharing it modestly with children'' is well taken. What purpose is a defense program if it leaves insufficient funds for its most vulnerable citizens to be nourished? If infants do not survive, there is no point in having armed forces to defend them. Mary Borgerding Pasadena, Calif. Interfaith reconciler

Thanks for Curtis Sitomer's excellent article ``Building interfaith bridges,'' [Jan. 31]. Rabbi Jim Rudin is precisely the sort of reconciler we need in American life. He has the happy combination of courage and compassion. Yet, his tenderheartedness hasn't made him tenderheaded. James M. Dunn Baptist Joint Committee Executive Director on Public Affairs

Washington Indians

Kevin Phillips's article puzzles me [``Let's have some `Easterns,' '' Jan. 6]. I, too, would enjoy seeing films more representative of our land's historical background. But I fail to see how changing the focus from Western to Eastern Indian wars offers much improvement.

Perhaps the death of the Indian culture was inevitable, but the tragic way it occurred cannot be sufficiently excused through a celebration of ``community action and collaboration.'' It would be more useful to illustrate in film the Indian woodland culture and the impact on that culture of the earliest European contacts. There is archaeological evidence of such contacts in 17th-century Iroquois fishing villages along the St. Lawrence River, for example. Catherine B. O'Hara Fayetteville, N.Y. Foreign Service spouses

Your recent article on efforts by the US Foreign Service to deal with increasing acts of terrorism against American diplomats and their families included the expression ``US diplomats and their wives'' [``US embassies under siege by terrorism,'' Jan. 29].

As one of a growing number of male spouses of American Foreign Service Officers (FSO) I object to the assumption that all FSO spouses are female. Stephen Johnson Arlington, Va.

Letters are welcome. Only a selection can be published, subject to condensation, and none acknowledged. Please address to ``readers write.''