Mozambique: a Soviet colony?

Robert I. Rotberg is wrong in urging that the United States send aid to prop up a crumbling, Marxist totalitarian regime in Mozambique [``A weak Mozambique needs outside help'' Nov. 26]. The anticommunist insurgency, Renamo, has succeeded because it has won the hearts and minds of the majority of the Mozambican people.

The government Mr. Rotberg would have us support is a one-party state guilty of mass violations of human rights, including concentration camps, summary detentions, and executions. It is nothing more than a colony of the Soviet Union, kept in power by 20,000 foreign troops that are waging war against its own people.

If anything, we should support Renamo, which represents the democratic aspirations of the people of Mozambique. Mark Johnson Micanopy, Fla.

Keep Shultz One need only look at the first line of Joseph Fromm's Opinion Page column for one major reason to retain Secretary of State George Shultz [``Why it's time for George Shultz to stand aside,'' Dec. 3]: ``Given President Reagan's manifest ignorance of the intricacies of foreign policy....'' That statement alone justifies this administration's dire need for a man like Shultz.

Fromm seems to imply that Shultz be criticized for all of the major mistakes of Reagan foreign policy. However, Shultz is highly respected and rightly so. If he seems low key, as Fromm suggests, it's due to Reagan's domination and spotlight in foreign policy, with his usual flip-flop rhetoric. Cindy Rudolph Cleveland

Wright stuff There have been a number of claimants, both in the US and abroad, to have made a short straight ``hop'' in a powered flying machine before those of the Wright Brothers on Dec. 17, 1903 [``Rewriting the history of flight,'' Dec. 9] Although none has been verified to the satisfaction of serious historians (available photos show their machines sitting squarely on the ground), it is possible that one or more such ``flights'' were made.

Even if this should be proved, it will make no important change in the history of the flight. The Wright Brothers were the first to follow up such a ``hop'' with a practical, controllable flying machine for all the world to see and acclaim. C. Fayette Taylor Brookline, Mass.