Dear Mr. Rennie: Your letter of January 25 rinds fault with a recent issue of a USIS publication. "… When you expect us to be taken in by material such as the Campus Opinion" you say. "it hurts. Come March, you will rind this hurt expressed in print."

You object to the fact that in this instance six quotations supporting the American Government's policy in Vietnam were excerpted from various lettersto-t he-editor columns of American university newspapers while no opposition letter was quoted. You object on the assumption that USIS was presenting tins proportion of six to nothing as a representative survey.

In reply I want to say I agree with you up to a point. It is unfortunate that the opening paragraph of the issue in question, which conceded the "varied views" of American university students on their country's involvement in Vietnam, did not more specifically acknowledge the highly vocal opposition that has been expressed.

Naturally, as a United States Government service. USIS selects and emphasises items to help explain American foreign policy. That is one of our main purposes. We do not. howover, mean to conceal the fact that opposition to the governments foreign policy exists. Indeed, every one of the six letters selected in this case refers to the opposition sentiment. The whole purpose of USIS in making the selection we did was to try to counter the disproportionate amount of world publicity given in recent months to the distinctly minority student opposition in the United States.

On the basis of Gallup and other nation-wide polls we are convinced that a substantial majority of American students support their government's policy in Vietnam.

May I say furthermore that Camnus Opinion, although subtitled a "roundup of letters and editorials from US college newspapers." is in actuality a small selection of miscellaneous items of interest, usually non-controversial in nature. The publication is disseminated to foreign student iirwsoapers as a source of handy fillers. An examinion of other issues of Campus Opinion will reveal thai they are not intended composite surveys.

Richard J. Gordon

Cultural Affairs Officer, American Embassy