ECHOES AND UPDATES

"I cannot understand your dismissal of overpopulation. I agree with everything else you say, but it seems to me that mankind's rate of increase makes it mathematically certain that we are on a disaster course. I worked for Planned Parenthood for 22 years and learned, to my disenchantment, that people resort to contraceptives only to space their children or to stop having them after the perceived fami-ly size has been reached. . . I am curious about your unconcern. I don't like my worries and would become uncontrollably cheerful if proven wrong."

Let two men make you uncontrollably cheerful: J.L. Simon with The Ultimate Resource (Princeton Univ. Press, 1981), and P.T. Bauer with "Population Scares" in the November [1987] Commentary.

Gulf oil [AtE Nov 87]: An Iranian victory is not in the interest of the USSR, since it would greatly embolden its large Muslim population, already resenting the dominance of the (declining) Rus-sian population and made restless by Afghanistan. Yet Soviet sup-port of Iran is growing. Reagan is not just pushing for a deal with crooks, but with crooks incapable of discerning their own interest.