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Show Letters to the editor a plan. Edwin B. Firmage Utahns United Against MX Needs saying Editor: It has taken me a long time to write this letter, but I think it needs to be said. 1 am wondering if we need to change the name of the 4th of July to Lions Fund Raising Day.,. I couldn't believe the prices or quality for food and other things sold in the park on July 4th. Am 1 alone? Couldn't they make their money on another day or another way? V.J. Hedges Asks for apology Editor: I definitely feel it is time for Klien Rollo to retire completely from having any connections with the baseball program in Cedar City. He knows exactly why after what he's done to our Senior Little League All-Star All-Star team. I believe he owes the coaches, Dick Harris and Paul rad-shaw, rad-shaw, and every single player a public apology. Ruth Widick Mixed basing Editor: Recent "leaks" from the Townes I Committee studying basing options for MX, and from unnamed "reliable sources" in Washington as reported by our press, have suggested the possibility of "mixed basing" for MX. Mixed basing would include a "mix" of several possible basing options packaged together. For example, some MX placed in existing Minuteman silos; some (but a lesser number of missiles than now proposed) in Utah and Nevada hiding among thousands of "shells"; and perhaps more Trident submarines. I believe that these so-called "leaks" looking toward mixed basing are in reality trial balloons sent up by Air Force and Administration figures to see whether the enormous opposition to the proposed deployment of MX in "shells" in Utah and Nevada would be confused and fragmented by the appearance of compromise, i.e., a lesser number of missiles and "shells" in the Great Basin. No one should be fooled by the appearance ap-pearance of compromise by the suggestion of mixed basing MX. If any number of missiles and shells are deployed in Utah and-or Nevada in the "multiple protective shelter" decoy deployment, those of us who have opposed op-posed such deployment for so long will have failed. Any deployment of missiles in the decoy "shell game" mode means that MX here will continue to expand until the numbers of missiles and shells reach the number originally proposed. And then that number may well double and triple. This is because of a fatal flaw in the basic concept: it possesses no self-contained self-contained upper limit. That is, the necessary relationship between numbers of "shells" hiding MX, and the numbers of warheads possessed by the Soviet Union, must remain constant. In order that our shells "soak up" Soviet warheads, should deterrence fail, we must have approximately the same number of shells as the Soviets have warheads. Thus, the Soviets could not destroy both our Minuteman and MX. But since there is not the upper limit imposed upon numbers of Soviet warheads as vas presumed by MX planners originally, since the SALT II treaty was never ratified, the Soviet Union may multiply warheads without limit. And that means that we would be forced to multiply our "shells" and missiles. Up and up in an action-' action-' reaction cycle, arms racing toward mutual disaster. And this cycle exists whether or not we begin with a base of 200 missiles and 4600 shells, or only half that number. This is the point: the basic strategy of MX decoy deployment is fatally deficient without a limit on Soviet warheads. The strategy invites in-vites arms racing through interaction of Soviet increase in warheads and our responding multiplication of shells and missiles. This is not eliminated, or even significantly mitigated, by any revision such as "mixed basing" (a "mix" of basing modes, including the "shell game" deployment) or "split basing" (placing some MX and "shells" in other states along with some in Utah and Nevada.) No political decision-maker not the President or any of our own political representatives should doubt for one moment our resolve to remain in active and united opposition to any proposal for "mixed basing" MX in decoy deployment in Utah or Nevada or any other part of our country ; and to oppose the reelection of any proponent of such |