Scott Kraft

Scott Kraft, a veteran reporter and deputy foreign editor of the Los Angeles Times, has been named national editor of the paper, Editor Michael Parks announced Wednesday. Kraft will succeed Norman C. "Mike" Miller, who has directed The Times' national coverage since 1983. Miller helped to lead many changes in that coverage, including the expansion of the paper's Washington bureau, widely regarded as among the most influential in the nation. He will retire Friday.

The effective use of tutors in India to help students in America serves as a cautionary tale for education policymakers ("Calling India," by Scott Kraft, May 6). We persist in the comforting delusion that a four-year college degree, particularly from a marquee-name school, will be the ticket to financial success. This approach is not only unrealistic for the majority of college-bound students, but it is harmful for the majority of vocationally talented students. It exacerbates the appalling dropout rate among the latter group by forcing them to take courses they have no interest in, or aptitude for, when they could instead be taking classes that provide the training they want and need.

"Winnie Mandela Woos the Masses" (by Scott Kraft, Oct. 25) portrays Winnie and Nelson Mandela as riding in separate cars on the same train, Nelson being the statesman and Winnie the warrior. In the 1960s, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. were also moving toward the same goal, but one was a a warrior and the other a statesman. As long as there is racism, oppression, apartheid and any other form of racial injustice in the world, warriors and statesmen are needed to fight it. Today, more than ever, we need more Martin Luther Kings and Malcolm Xs, more Nelson and Winnie Mandelas.

Congratulations on the eclectic, splendid Sept. 11 issue. Though I have been a subscriber for more than 20 years, I was always enchanted with the New York Times Magazine. For a long time I've been frustrated by the frothy, usually L.A.-obsessed content of your magazine, and I've been meaning to write to you. But now I can write with praise. The Sept. 11 cover story on South Africa ("After the Fire," by Scott Kraft) is an in-depth article with profound and fascinating significance.

In November of 1986 I was sent by my company to Johannesburg. The first Saturday I was in South Africa, wanting to see something of the city, the hotel guidebook directed me to the Market area that Scott Kraft talks about ("Street Scenes," Traveling in Style magazine). Within the first 15 minutes out of the car, one man grabbed one arm, another man grabbed the other and a third held his knife to my neck. Although the street was quite crowded, there was no question but that they were completely in control; that there was no danger of their being stopped or apprehended.

Congratulations on the eclectic, splendid Sept. 11 issue. Though I have been a subscriber for more than 20 years, I was always enchanted with the New York Times Magazine. For a long time I've been frustrated by the frothy, usually L.A.-obsessed content of your magazine, and I've been meaning to write to you. But now I can write with praise. The Sept. 11 cover story on South Africa ("After the Fire," by Scott Kraft) is an in-depth article with profound and fascinating significance.

Your editorial "A Line Never to Be Crossed" (April 14) with regard to the Anti-Defamation League was, for the most part, right on target. As you correctly noted, "it is no surprise that the ADL has kept close tabs on individuals and groups of all stripes that trade in hate or violence. . . ." Indeed, for decades reports of the Anti-Defamation League have served as background material for The Times as well as countless other journalists, legislators and the public. Where your editorial goes astray is imputing to the Anti-Defamation League the collecting of information on groups such as the NAACP, television station KQED, Times correspondent Scott Kraft, et al. In the frenzy to report allegations and information from an affidavit made public by the San Francisco district attorney's office, few reporters have bothered to distinguish between material from the files of the Anti-Defamation League and that taken from the homes of Roy Bullock and Tom Gerard.

The effective use of tutors in India to help students in America serves as a cautionary tale for education policymakers ("Calling India," by Scott Kraft, May 6). We persist in the comforting delusion that a four-year college degree, particularly from a marquee-name school, will be the ticket to financial success. This approach is not only unrealistic for the majority of college-bound students, but it is harmful for the majority of vocationally talented students. It exacerbates the appalling dropout rate among the latter group by forcing them to take courses they have no interest in, or aptitude for, when they could instead be taking classes that provide the training they want and need.

In response to your article "South Africa Lures Tourists Amid Racial Unrest," by Scott Kraft, Part I, Sept. 7: Jerry and Kay Kushins' friends in Walnut Creek may call them brave for visiting South Africa, but I find their actions indefensible and morally reprehensible. While they indulge themselves with fine meals and beautiful views of the Indian Ocean, their dollars are put to work propping up South Africa's notorious brand of legally institutionalized racism. They are quoted as saying that they didn't think they "really knew what apartheid was" prior to their trip.

Scott Kraft's article ("Africa's Death Sentence," March 1) on AIDS in Zimbabwe deals with two different subjects that he unfortunately intertwines. The topic of women being forced into subservience to men is valid but should be a story unto itself. AIDS is caused by a virus, an infectious agent. Kraft falls into a common trap when he describes women and children as innocent victims of AIDS and men as villainous carriers of the virus. He says intravenous drug use and homosexuality account for less than 1% of AIDS cases in Africa, and that "for most mothers and fathers, the child's diagnosis is the first time they learn their own fate."

I expected to find a family in ruins. My small car crunched up the gravel road past acres of fruit trees to Hennie and Evelynne Durr's hilltop farm home, an hour outside of Cape Town. During my last visit, in 1989, the Durrs had been gripped by a conflict that echoed the battles of American families during Vietnam and the Civil Rights era.

Scott Kraft, a veteran reporter and deputy foreign editor of the Los Angeles Times, has been named national editor of the paper, Editor Michael Parks announced Wednesday. Kraft will succeed Norman C. "Mike" Miller, who has directed The Times' national coverage since 1983. Miller helped to lead many changes in that coverage, including the expansion of the paper's Washington bureau, widely regarded as among the most influential in the nation. He will retire Friday.

When Jacques Chirac led the Gaullist conservatives to an overwhelming victory in national elections last year, he had his eye on a bigger prize--the presidency. Unfortunately, the sitting president, Francois Mitterrand, planned to keep the job until his term expired in 1995. So the conservatives devised a cunning, though politically risky strategy.

Your editorial "A Line Never to Be Crossed" (April 14) with regard to the Anti-Defamation League was, for the most part, right on target. As you correctly noted, "it is no surprise that the ADL has kept close tabs on individuals and groups of all stripes that trade in hate or violence. . . ." Indeed, for decades reports of the Anti-Defamation League have served as background material for The Times as well as countless other journalists, legislators and the public. Where your editorial goes astray is imputing to the Anti-Defamation League the collecting of information on groups such as the NAACP, television station KQED, Times correspondent Scott Kraft, et al. In the frenzy to report allegations and information from an affidavit made public by the San Francisco district attorney's office, few reporters have bothered to distinguish between material from the files of the Anti-Defamation League and that taken from the homes of Roy Bullock and Tom Gerard.

Police on Thursday served search warrants on the Anti-Defamation League here and in Los Angeles, seizing evidence of a nationwide intelligence network accused of keeping files on more than 950 political groups, newspapers and labor unions and as many as 12,000 people.

"Winnie Mandela Woos the Masses" (by Scott Kraft, Oct. 25) portrays Winnie and Nelson Mandela as riding in separate cars on the same train, Nelson being the statesman and Winnie the warrior. In the 1960s, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. were also moving toward the same goal, but one was a a warrior and the other a statesman. As long as there is racism, oppression, apartheid and any other form of racial injustice in the world, warriors and statesmen are needed to fight it. Today, more than ever, we need more Martin Luther Kings and Malcolm Xs, more Nelson and Winnie Mandelas.

Police on Thursday served search warrants on the Anti-Defamation League here and in Los Angeles, seizing evidence of a nationwide intelligence network accused of keeping files on more than 950 political groups, newspapers and labor unions and as many as 12,000 people.

In the modern pantheon of the world's dictators, Moammar Kadafi stood apart. Far apart. Erratic and mercurial, he fancied himself a political philosopher, practiced an unorthodox and deadly diplomacy, and cut a sometimes cartoonish figure in flowing robes and dark sunglasses, surrounded by heavily armed female bodyguards. He ruled Libya with an iron fist for 42 years, bestowing on himself an array of titles, including "king of culture," "king of kings of Africa" and, simply, "leader of the revolution.

Scott Kraft's article ("Africa's Death Sentence," March 1) on AIDS in Zimbabwe deals with two different subjects that he unfortunately intertwines. The topic of women being forced into subservience to men is valid but should be a story unto itself. AIDS is caused by a virus, an infectious agent. Kraft falls into a common trap when he describes women and children as innocent victims of AIDS and men as villainous carriers of the virus. He says intravenous drug use and homosexuality account for less than 1% of AIDS cases in Africa, and that "for most mothers and fathers, the child's diagnosis is the first time they learn their own fate."

In November of 1986 I was sent by my company to Johannesburg. The first Saturday I was in South Africa, wanting to see something of the city, the hotel guidebook directed me to the Market area that Scott Kraft talks about ("Street Scenes," Traveling in Style magazine). Within the first 15 minutes out of the car, one man grabbed one arm, another man grabbed the other and a third held his knife to my neck. Although the street was quite crowded, there was no question but that they were completely in control; that there was no danger of their being stopped or apprehended.