Dear President Bush,

Congress, falsely believing assertions, as advanced by your advisers, that the sites would protect us from nuclear missiles fired from North Korea and Iran to Europe, funded the ill-conceived venture. Much to their shame.

At the July 1, 2 meeting with Putin, Putin supported your noble wishes of protection and Putin proposed an old President Reagan idea, (a short time after I served in the International Information Agency as a Fulbright Scholar in Kazakhstan), that the U.S. and Russia jointly build a “shared shield,” one that will protect us from rogue states who could terrorize either of our countries with a nuclear bomb.

With the termination of the Warsaw Pact and the removal of the Berlin wall, your father and Gorbachev officially ended the cold war. A magnificent achievement!

While I personally am opposed to further “shields” by either side, acceptance of Putin's offer would leave a very, very positive mark on your record one as lauding you as a president in pursuit of peace for having continued the process of joint defense cooperation with Russia that your father and Ronald Reagan initiated. Time is of the essence. In absence of your acceptance Russia not only test-fired submarine missiles that could penetrate our shields, but suspended the treaty on limitation of land forces in Europe since we did not live up to ours.

Acceptance would most certainly restore a sense of trust in America among all nations of the world. Above all I cannot help but feel that Russia would be far more cooperative in all international issues of concern to us. More importantly, agreement would prevent a new and costly arms race that neither country can afford.

The alternative, a new arms race, followed by a flash point, for example, a NATO member like Estonia, committing an act of terror against Russia, an act that, just as the U.S. would take, Russia would respond as we did in Afghanistan and thereby, initiate the last and final war; Armageddon.

Peter Kotzer

Auburn