Political Party Rules Are Less Important Than a Candidate's Ideas

Defending Cuban exiles

The Opinion page article "Treat Castro as Irrelevant," Feb. 6, is another entry in the recent boomlet by American commentators of the "let's be nice to the Red tyrant and hope he mellows" variety. Like other writers on this subject, however, this author makes gratuitously insulting comments about the Cuban exile community (which is equal to more than 10 percent of the population still on the island).

The author states that "the exiles talk about democracy" but what they really want is a return to "a status quo that produced Castro in the first place." No evidence is offered for this defamation of an entire ethnic group. What seems to bother him is that the Cuban exile community is generally prosperous and politically both adroit and right of center.

Of course, he is ready to advocate cozying up to a bankrupt anti-American regime that violates human rights - those Cubans don't make him uncomfortable. Alberto M. Fernandez, Burke, Va.

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