LETTERS Marcos and Somoza
Sir: In my last article from the Philippines (`Mr Marcos rigs the poll', 15 February) I reported that Stanley Kamow predicted a Marcos claim to election victory with 54.4 per cent of the votes. The day after polling, the pro-Marcos Bulletin Today did indeed claim on the basis of first results, that Marcos was leading with 54.4 per cent, not 54.5 as appeared in the Spectator. The decimal point is important, for Marcos had apparently programmed the election com- puter to give the number 54.4, which his soothsayers told him was propitious.
Timothy Garton Ash was right to sug- gest last week (When to dump the despot') that Marcos could have become like Somo- za of Nicaragua. But did that justify an attempt to remove him by force? Marcos was already playing the anti-Yankee card (not a strong card in that pro-American country), talking of CIA plots to murder him, and hinting that he might turn over the US bases to Russia. Incidentally Mos- cow Radio has backed Marcos throughout and congratulated him on his election victory, The Americans remember Somoza. They also remember a far worse disaster that followed strong action to overthrow a dictator. This was the CIA coup d'etat in Saigon in November 1963, which ended with the murder of President Diem and his brother. As a result of this clumsy attempt to play God in a foreign country, the ablest and most anti-Communist Vietnamese be- came from then on bitterly anti-American. Richard West
Dover
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