Dear Editor: In his letter of July 23, former Guttenberg police chief John Broking laments that there was no “official condemnation” of protestors who opposed Elian Gonzalez’s forcible return to the world’s oldest dictatorship. Fortunately, we do not as yet live in a police state, and therefore, the government does not issue “official condemnations” of the constitutionally-sanctioned right of free expression as exercised by Cuban-Americans or any other citizens of this country. There were, of course, a great many condemnations from the liberal media, which defend to the last the right of charlatans like Khalid Mohammed and David Duke to incite racial hatred and mayhem; or of the crazed left-wing environmentalists to destroy the environment of Seattle; or of basketball hooligans to burn down Los Angeles. With all these groups and individuals, the media are tolerant and even sympathetic. It is only Cuban-American protestors that merit the media’s opprobrium. The Elian Gonzalez case was the story of the boy trapped in the well with a twist. Here the boy had been extricated from the well and everyone from the Attorney General to the National Council of Churches was intent on throwing him back in. Only Cuban-Americans knew what awaited Elian in Cuba, but their arguments were dismissed and even their right to protest questioned by the media. And yet it is greatly to their credit that they did protest this injustice. Contrary to what Mr. Broking purports, the protests were peaceful, not one drop of blood was shed in Miami or a dollar’s worth of public or private property destroyed, except by government agents. It is Bill Clinton and Janet Reno that were responsible for the “despicable acts” of April 22. The pre-dawn raid on Elian’s house was not undertaken to uphold U.S. law. The Appellate Court made it quite clear that the government was not compelled by U.S. law to refuse an aslyum hearing to Elian. The Attorney General at her discretion decided to deny him such a hearing, and the Court chose not to interfere in an executive decision. But the Court did not send Elian back to Cuba and “the not unlikely prospect of persecution” (as the Court put it). Reno and Clinton did. They did not overstep their authority by doing so, but they did betray the highest ideals of this country. The real agenda of the Clinton administration was not the repatriation of Elian Gonzalez, but the restoration of diplomatic and economic ties with Castro’s gulag. By demonizing Cuban-Americans, the media were launching a preemptive strike against the main opponents of rapprochement with Fidel Castro; the same pathological criminal who nearly blew up the U.S. in the Cuban Missile Crisis; whose agents staffed the “Hanoi Hilton” and tortured thousands of American POWs during the Vietnam War, and who continues to offer asylum to New Jersey cop-killer Joanne Chessimard and other fugitives wanted by U.S. law enforcement. But retired police chief Broking, although he served a community that is populated by the victims of Castro’s oppression, has no sympathy whatever for Cuban-Americans but wishes them to be “officially condemned.” We note that he has no words of condemnation for Fidel Castro. Apparently, anyone who doesn’t like Cuban-Americans is OK with him. Manuel A. Tellechea