Letters
Thoughts on the Ukraine
Sir: Auberon Waugh suggests that the West should seek to starve out the USSR by a grain embargo while fomenting revolt in the non-Russian provinces, so as to destroy communism: those, he says, who fear that this would lead to nuclear war are guilty of 'stupidity and cowardice' (3 December).
There is a great deal of fear in the West, shared, it seems, by Mrs Thatcher, that President Reagan might escalate pin-pricks like the Lebanon to nuclear war: just how does Mr Waugh think that Mr Reagan would react if there were a Soviet plan to starve America and to detach half the States in the Union? His hand would hit the 'European theatre war' button so fast you wouldn't see him on the move. And how would the Soviet leadership react if they saw something similar aimed at them, their system, their country and everything they stood for?
I have long thought that Mr Waugh, as his father was, is tired of life. There may be nothing wrong in that, but does he have to seek to take us with him? I don't want to die for a free Ukraine, but if Mr Waugh does, there is nothing to stop him joining one of the groups he talks of. In years in the US I have often encountered the embittered Slavonic emigres and I don't think they are as benign as Mr Waugh does, and it is history that millions fought for and worked for the Nazis in the war, whatever they claim now. They may have a case, but it is not one which I want to be made a heap of radioactive ash for.
Nina Tuckman 86 Harberton Road, London N19
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