Outburst not plea

I realize that it is necessary sometimes to edit your readers' letters, but surely not when it entirely removes the point of the letter. You were good enough to carry my letter Britain and World War II (July 26), but you altered one key word. I did not say that Mr. Baskoro made an "impassioned plea;" the word I used to describe Mr. Baskoro's letter was "outburst," for that is what it was -- an outpouring of venom against Britain and its Empire, which were largely instrumental in saving the world from Nazi- Japanese domination.

Without the word outburst, the rest of the letter loses much of its point. Mr. Baskoro was not pleading for anything in the acknowledged sense of the word "plea" -- he was simply making an uninformed and spiteful attack on what had been -- and still is -- a bastion of democracy.

RB SAWREY-COOKSON

Jakarta