Law of the Sea.

I could not agree more with your article, "Sink the Law of the Sea Treaty!" (March 7), except for one glaring error.

In the article, William Norman Grigg wrote, "When LOST was completed in 1982, the Reagan administration, confronted with insurmountable opposition in the Senate, refused to sign the agreement." It is true that President Reagan refused to sign the agreement, but it is simply incorrect to state that it was because of "insurmountable opposition in the Senate."

In his biography of Reagan, Dinesh D'Souza explained what really happened. Alexander Haig, the Secretary of State, asked Reagan to approve continuing negotiations for the Law of the Sea Treaty. D'Souza wrote, "Reagan said he would not support the treaty and asked that negotiations be suspended. Incredulous at what he took to be the president's naive and reflexive opposition, Haig tried to make him see the light by pointing out that discussions had been going on for years and that every recent president and virtually all leading figures in both parties accepted the general framework of the treaty."

Reagan responded, "Well, yes, but you see, Al, that's what the last election was all about."

That was the end of it. The Law of the Sea Treaty was never considered by Reagan, not because of "insurmountable opposition in the Senate," but rather because Reagan opposed the treaty. We should be grateful to Reagan on this issue. Had he chosen to support LOST, then we very well may have had this atrocity put upon us a quarter century ago.

STEVE BYAS

Norman, Oklahoma

I was amazed that you seem to have missed an extremely important point about the Law of the Sea Treaty, or LOST, in your very informative article. In the article you state: "Article 170 of LOST describes the 'Enterprise,' a UN organ that would supervise all scientific, commercial, and military use of 'the Area'--all regions of the world's oceans, including the seabed and super-adjacent atmosphere, beyond the territorial limits of coastal nations."

Do you fully realize what you wrote?

Article 170 asserts UN authority over "commercial" use: this would include all fishing and ocean transport or shipping, which means (as pointed out in other sections of the article) that the UN intends to regulate and lax it! Likewise, this same article also asserts UN control over "commercial" uses of the "superadjacent atmosphere": this includes all air travel and air freight outside of the domestic airspace of both coastal and landlocked nations; again, the UN intends to regulate and tax it! Article 170 also asserts UN authority over "military" use of the oceans and "superadjacent atmosphere": this directly implies the creation of a UN Navy and Air Force to control these areas and probably could be used to outlaw all national navies and air forces! In any case, the taxes the UN intends to collect could certainly be used to build a UN Navy and Air Force.

JIM CUMBER 

Provo, Utah