Letters to the Editor.

• Position: Letter to the Editor

The Texas Prison System Is a Time Bomb

The books reviewed in "The Craze of Incarceration" (Silja J. A. Talvi, May issue) sound like required reading for people interested in where their tax dollars are going.

Unfortunately, I am writing from my prison cell at the infamous Connally Unit in Kenedy, Texas. Kenedy is located only minutes from Beeville, Texas, one of the prison towns mentioned in the article.

Author Joseph Hallinan certainly hit the nail on the head. I do not even have to read his book Going up the River. Texas is all about the prison industry and creating jobs. Not only do you have fathers and sons working in these units, you have mothers, daughters, and aunts, also. Nepotism is the rule, not the exception. Towns like Beeville and Kenedy would have folded up years ago if it weren't for the Texas prison industry.

That is as good as it gets for these people. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice is the final stop for many of its inmates. It is also the final stop for most of its employees. As long as the Texas Department of Criminal Justice is in business, Texas will always have an enormous market for unskilled labor.

The kicker in all of this is: Texas has no state income tax. Who pays to keep the 100-plus prison units in operation? The whole system is a time bomb waiting to explode.

Vincent P. Macri Jr., #843525 Connally Unit Kenedy, Texas

Reed Errs on Vietnam

Adolph L. Reed Jr. mars what could have been an excellent article with overly broad generalizations and factual errors ("Bob Kerrey, An American Shame," June issue).

Reed writes that Gerhard Klann had no ax to grind with Bob Kerrey, but that is clearly disputed by other accounts, including an allegation that Klann was upset that Kerrey had not assisted him in a Medal of Honor application.

In addition, while Reed writes that two Vietnamese women corroborated Klann's account, he fails to mention their communist ties and the presence of Vietnamese officials who were conveniently nearby while they were giving their version of the events that took place.

Also, while Reed insists that Ngo Dinh Diem was assassinated with the endorsement of John Kennedy, those close to the former President, including Theodore Sorensen, Kenneth O'Donnell, David Powers, and Arthur Schlesinger Jr., have all written that while Kennedy favored the removal of the dictatorial and corrupt Diem, he did not want him murdered, preferring a nonviolent removal from office or exile.

The most glaring error...