30 DECEMBER 1995, Page 22

In Ulster's debt

Sir: It is a pity that Paul Bew's article (Don't mention the [second] world war', 2 December 1995) will reach only a limited number of American readers. Of course, America's debt to Ulster goes back much further than the second world war. As Theodore Roosevelt wrote one hundred years ago of America's Revolutionary gen- eration: 'The fiercest and most ardent Americans of all were the Presbyterian Irish settlers and their descendants.' In many respects America owes its existence as a free nation to the Orangemen and it is shameful to see this great debt ignored by an American president.

Steven Schwamenfeld

4259 Rte 226, Dundee, New York, USA