Gladwin Hill

Fine elucidation of the Mesopotamian imbroglio! I think even Agatha Christie would have approved. GLADWIN HILL LOS ANGELES

Gladwin Hill, an inveterate World War II combat correspondent who spent much of his later years as the New York Times' first Los Angeles bureau chief and then as a pioneer in environmental reporting, is dead. His wife, Carole, said Monday that Hill, a heavy smoker, was 78 when he died of lung cancer Saturday at his Los Angeles home.

How can Gladwin Hill equate Prop. 13 with Prop. 103? One is strictly anti-government, the other strictly anti-business. FRANK T. MURPHY GLENDALE

Delightful piece on the (produce) markets (Charles Perry's "Midnight at the Oasis," July 11). I particularly liked the relaxed, upbeat tone, rather than the solemn, statistics-laden puddings usually done on that sort of topic. The ambience reminded me of Joe Mitchell's famous--and infamous--pieces on Mr. Flood and the Fulton Fish Market. GLADWIN HILL, Los Angeles

I have a sense of personal loss but also a feeling that that is dwarfed by a community loss. Art's was a voice of sanity and enlightenment and above all judiciousness and compassion in an era of rampant ignorance and inane prejudices. Overall, a Renaissance man in a time when they're very scarce. GLADWIN HILL Los Angeles

Delightful piece on the (produce) markets (Charles Perry's "Midnight at the Oasis," July 11). I particularly liked the relaxed, upbeat tone, rather than the solemn, statistics-laden puddings usually done on that sort of topic. The ambience reminded me of Joe Mitchell's famous--and infamous--pieces on Mr. Flood and the Fulton Fish Market. GLADWIN HILL, Los Angeles

Let's knock off the imperceptive glorifying of that pompous grandstander Everett Koop (View, Nov. 19). He spent most of his time in office inveighing against smoking and other secondary problems, when he should have been doing something about the scandalous lack of a comprehensive national health care system. That has killed more people than all the diseases Koop could name. GLADWIN HILL Los Angeles

I relished your perceptive comments on the lack of objective writing about the Spanish Civil War. You mercifully omitted mention of the reporting of The New York Times' Herbert Matthews, who raised some eyebrows with the seeming slant in his pieces . . . and subsequently vindicated his critics by developing a palpable vested emotional interest in the activities of Fidel Castro. In "The Passionate War," a book I reviewed in 1983 for your esteemed pages, Peter Wyden showed persuasively how, even with the benefit of hindsight, it was difficult to categorize either side in the Spanish conflict as the Good Guys or the Bad Guys.

Your Page 1 picture (May 30) of FBI agents lined up, in military array, outside a federal courthouse to cheer a colleague accused of a federal crime was disgusting and scary. It is palpably inappropriate for employees of any federal agency to stage a demonstration patently calculated to affect the course of a federal judicial proceeding. For FBI personnel to depart from total objectivity regarding operations of the federal court system, before which they appear as parties every day, is manifestly a suicidal compromising of organizational credibility and integrity.

Ellen Goodman, the Wailing Wall's best customer, must have been 'way back in the line' when they gave out senses of humor. She has a fit (Editorial Pages, Dec. 13) because the MaidenForm people depicted an imaginary woman doctor clad mainly in attractive lingerie--complaining solemnly that wimmin doctors don't really dress like that. Does Missus Goodman think that O.J. Simpson really hurtles down out of the air into Hertz cars? . . . that Merlin Olson really goes around locker rooms passing out bouquets?

The title of Lo's "Small Property versus Big Government" is doubly misleading. The true plaintiff, or "party at interest," was Big Property. (As partisan reviewer Gladwin Hill admits, "business gained twice as much from the reduction as home-owners.") The true defendant was Local Government, dependent on property tax. Uncle Sam escaped. JEFFERSON POLAND LA JOLLA

Fine elucidation of the Mesopotamian imbroglio! I think even Agatha Christie would have approved. GLADWIN HILL LOS ANGELES

I have a sense of personal loss but also a feeling that that is dwarfed by a community loss. Art's was a voice of sanity and enlightenment and above all judiciousness and compassion in an era of rampant ignorance and inane prejudices. Overall, a Renaissance man in a time when they're very scarce. GLADWIN HILL Los Angeles

Let's knock off the imperceptive glorifying of that pompous grandstander Everett Koop (View, Nov. 19). He spent most of his time in office inveighing against smoking and other secondary problems, when he should have been doing something about the scandalous lack of a comprehensive national health care system. That has killed more people than all the diseases Koop could name. GLADWIN HILL Los Angeles

The issue of lighting the Hollywood sign as a commercial stunt is much more than an aesthetic controversy. For thousands of people who live in the Hollywood Hills--and possibly countless other citizens elsewhere--it is potentially a matter of life and death. Actual experience during the 1984 Olympics was that lighting the sign attracted thousands of gawkers to the area near the sign. Narrow streets in the area were recurrently jammed with cars, bumper-to-bumper, so that emergency vehicles could not get through.

Because I think his Alliance Against the Vulgarization of English (AAVE) is a worthy cause, I am giving my friend and colleague Gladwin Hill a chance to rebut his critics. As you may remember, Hill recently applauded Chief Justice William Rehnquist for rebuking a lawyer who used the word irregardless in court. There is no such word, Rehnquist advised the culprit, and Hill agreed.

Methinks your esteemed editorialist (July 23) gets onto some very squishy ground trying to reassure us that earthquakes are purely "random" events. My dictionary defines "random" as an occurrence "without definite aim, purpose or reason." An example would be the recent case of a demented man running amok on the Staten Island Ferry and stabbing several people with a sword--an utterly unpredictable event. But as we all know, there's a very definite reason for earthquakes: the buildup of pressures as the earth's tectonic plates migrate.

I relished your perceptive comments on the lack of objective writing about the Spanish Civil War. You mercifully omitted mention of the reporting of The New York Times' Herbert Matthews, who raised some eyebrows with the seeming slant in his pieces . . . and subsequently vindicated his critics by developing a palpable vested emotional interest in the activities of Fidel Castro. In "The Passionate War," a book I reviewed in 1983 for your esteemed pages, Peter Wyden showed persuasively how, even with the benefit of hindsight, it was difficult to categorize either side in the Spanish conflict as the Good Guys or the Bad Guys.