n I write to you on a personal basis regarding the editorial (“Scare tactics,” Oct. 23, p. 6). I am really taken aback by the lack of thought in the editorial. The Editorial Board’s downplaying the possibility of a nuclear war in the 1960’s (“Johnson’s advertisement alludes to a nuclear explosion that never happened”) is evidence of ignorance and a lack of understanding as to how and why things happen — or in this case don’t happen.

My undergraduate year at Boston University coincided with people marching through the streets of major cities in the United States and Europe.

Desperate and fearful, these people cried and screamed for a nuclear freeze. I remember the heated debates over the right course of action and the decision by the Reagan administration to pursue a confrontational policy course.

Thankfully, that approach diminished the threat; but one needs to remember that no one had a crystal ball that revealed whether Reagan’s approach would work. The Editorial Board seems not to have any historical sense whatsoever. I suppose it’s great to be born after the fact.

More frightening still is the Editorial Board’s reckless statement that “the United States may never be attacked again,” which I take to mean after 9-11.

This is factually wrong. One does not need to go back to attempts to attack the U.S. after the World Trade Center bombing. Since 9-11 there have been additional attempts, the most recent of which involved again airplanes.

Happily, the British intelligence agencies helped identify the threat before people were killed. More attempts will certainly be made. Whether they are successful is really up to us. A dream world is very easy to live in. It is, unfortunately, also much easier to die in.

Jim Stergios

CAS ’85