PUBLIC FORUM : FROM MYTH TO REALITY.

Regarding your editorial criticizing the book ``Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan'' by Edmund Morris (Sept. 29). I must say that your perception of Reagan presidency is totally out of touch with reality.

The communists disintegrated by their own decisions and not by outside pressure. You call multiplying by four the national debt (to record levels); increasing homeless to record levels; collapse of the stock market (Oct. 87); highest unemployment, again record levels (11 percent), etc. restoring America's economy?

Reagan reasserted America's leadership in the world by invading a tiny island (Grenada). Leadership? When he planned to bomb Libya, all the NATO allies denied their airport to U.S. airplanes (they described him as the cowboy president). When Reagan ruled, U.S. citizens traveling around the world were not sure to reach their destinations due to kidnapping (TWA Beirut airport, the ship Achille Lauro) or bombing (Pan-Am at Lockerbie), etc. and the list goes on and on.

His fanatic followers created a myth which E. Morris in his books put to reality.

- J.K. George

Canoga Park

First public office

You would think that a biography of Ronald Reagan would include his first publicly elected office. As a devoted rancher and horseman in Agoura, he was elected in 1961 as a director of the Topanga-Las Virgenes Resource Conservation District, which promotes soil conservation measures. Somehow Edmund Morris missed this in his research for the book ``Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan.''

- Carl Olson

Former director

Topanga-Las Virgenes Conservation District

One solution left

Re ``Outer limits'' (Editorial, Oct. 8):

I read your editorial with amused interest. We have a very qualified neighborhood activist in the Valley. He is president of the North Hills Community Coordinating Council, which has existed since 1989.

However, there are a couple of problems. Harry Coleman opposed charter reform. He comes from the community, not from inside City Hall. Coleman is not the only qualified Valley resident who could fill the post.

From homeowner groups to Chamber of Commerce types to student activists to Valley VOTE petitioners and others, we have a plethora of local residents to fill the spot. However, our rich and clueless Mayor ``Alicia Silverstone'' would need to go into the community to find that person instead of City Hall. I guess charter reform will not solve the problems of the Valley. They can only be solved through Valley cityhood.

- Mike Greenspan

North Hollywood

100 times worse

``Street cop's liberties'' (Public Forum, Oct. 10) is somewhat confusing. The writer tells us that he has ``been a police officer for 32 years,'' counts himself among the ``worker bees at the bottom who support'' Chief of Police Bernard Parks, yet he also calls for the chief's resignation. All this because ``a dozen or so officers are involved in something,'' and those officers ``represent 0.0012 percent of the force.''

I don't believe that we have 1 million officers at the Los Angeles Police Department (12 is 0.0012 percent of 1 million). While I agree that a dozen or so people are a minuscule minority of the total police force, the problems they caused are 100 times worse than the writer describes (12 is 0.12 percent of 10,000), and those problems must be addressed and eliminated.

As a Los Angeles citizen who supports the LAPD and appreciates the good work it and its individual officers are doing, I hope that all members of the department will work toward and support any equitable, just and fair effort to eliminate the rot that has recently been uncovered.

- Walter J. Heuman

Mission Hills

The American way 

Three cheers for Joseph Jacob's excellent article on Sunday, ``Liberals are too eager to share the whine,'' (Viewpoint, Oct. 10). And three more for the Daily News for printing it.

It's pretty easy to tell the doers from the whiners. The doers are cheerful, busy, focused, logical and responsible. And when they stumble, as they often do, they do like the song says: they ``pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and start all over again.'' That's the American way.

- Mike Savell

Simi Valley 

Who's the wimp?

Re. John Jacobs' article ``Wimp Poses as `Fearless' '' (Opinions, Oct. 12):

What Jacobs omitted from the critique of Gov. Gray Davis is as indicative of the agenda and bias of the press as it is an accurate description of the intestinal malady from which the governor suffers.

Surely you are aware of the recall campaign, mounted by Voice of Citizens Together, which is well on the way to getting Davis removed from office, for precisely the character flaw described in an otherwise fine opinion piece. Davis' sabotage of Prop. 187, sending it to ``mediation'' rather than allowing it to proceed on the more risky path to the Supreme Court, was an unprecedented act of cowardice and jeopardizes the initiative system in California.

For Jacobs to ignore this feckless politician's dastardly act, wherein he lied to the electorate during his campaign when he promised to carry out the will of the people, says to me and thousands of your readers that he is simply unwilling to give any publicity to the recall effort.

- John N. Grindas

Woodland Hills

Already happening

Re ``Repeal Amendment'' (Public Forum, Oct. 12), on the repeal of the Second Amendment. It would seem that James Hahn, the pretender to the throne of Los Angeles, appears to be working on it. Hahn attempts to rationalize and justify his bias against private ownership of firearms by trotting out the usual overblown rhetorical devices involving safety and public-borne expenditures to bolster support for his frivolous lawsuit.

The idea of smart-gun technology at the present time is a fraudulent panacea. None of this is about the truth. It is about the incremental destruction of a fundamental right laid down by our forebears, couched in legalistic jargon and ``enhanced'' (read: fabricated) statistics supplied by other biased and self-serving organizations. Organizations such as Hand Gun Control Inc., their offspring, the Violence Policy Center and the Journal of the American Medical Association to name a few.

- Daniel Taylor

Tujunga

Logical conclusion

The writer of the letter urging repeal of the Second Amendment (Public Forum, Oct. 12), unfortunately, did not take his argument to its logical conclusion. Since this Amendment specifically refers to the right of the people to keep and bear arms, we need not worry about the subsequent repeal of the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth and Tenth Amendments, since they also specifically refer to rights granted or reserved to ``the people'' as individuals. When all these rights are taken away, we can then rest easy knowing that the government will be the benevolent overseer of your firearms, your speech, your other property and your individual and collective legal rights.

If the Kosovars, Bosnians, or the millions of Jews, Russians and Chinese killed after being deprived of the right to own firearms could speak, I suspect they would disagree with this analysis.

- Alan Tong

Encino

Save souls, not bodies

Regarding the unions and the clergy and the working class in ``Unions, Clergy unite for workers'' in the (Oct. 9) Business section, I would take issue with Arlene Holt's claim that the mission of the clergy is to take care of the poor and the sick.

The mission of the clergy is to save souls, not bodies. Sacrificing the souls of the ``haves'' to save the bodies of the (supposedly) ``have-nots'' is hardly God's work, and according to Pope Leo XIII, socialism is evil and contrary to God's law, who granted diversity in human nature as good and proper.

- Mary Solari

Burbank

What a laugh

I see the National Education Association has endorsed Al Gore for president of the Unites States. What a laugh.

I was a member of the NEA and the California Teachers Association for 30 years, while teaching, until I resigned from both organizations in complete disgust.

Never, never was I asked to whom the endorsement for politicians should go or which candidate or party I supported.

The choice for endorsement is made by a few liberal union men (and women) who ``lead'' the organizations.

- Frances Adams

Glendale

Lost my vote

I would like to inform our Mr. Do Nothing, a k a James K. Hahn, our city attorney, who has sat on his duff and done nothing about the Belmont High School fiasco, the hit-and-run drivers on our streets, the out-of-control freeway drivers and not been able to win too many cases in court, if you run out of things, people or guns to prosecute, try looking for the killers shown on the front page of Sunday's Daily News (Oct. 11). As for your aspirations of being our next mayor, you're not anything like your dad, and I'll guarantee you this, I'm not going to vote for you.

So, Mr. City Attorney, when are you going to start doing something about the killings that go on in our streets? The expediency of you doing anything about that is like what you're doing about the Belmont High School fiasco. When will you start suing General Motors, Ford, Volkswagen and so on, because these cars kill more people than guns do?

- Benjamin R. Laufer

Sherman Oaks

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PHOTO Edmund Morris, author of ``Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan,'' speaks to visitors at the Ronald Reagan Library and Museum.

Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer