The Anti-CIA Mural in Ecuador’s Congress

Re James F. Smith’s “The Painter and the Yanquis,” Nov. 29: Smith writes, “ . . . some Americans denounce (artist Oswaldo Guayasamin) as a leftist ingrate guilty of perfidious insult to the United States.” This is in reference to a Nazi helmet with the letters “CIA” emblazoned on it which appears in Guayasamin’s mural in Ecuador’s Congress.

If Americans such as U.S. Ambassador Richard Holwill find Guayasamin’s mural offensive to the point of demanding that President of Congress Wilfrido Lucero climb a ladder in order to paint over the letters, then I suggest that this is a typically insidious case of Yanqui arrogance approaching Khomeini-style intolerance.

Rather than removing the letters from the mural, the nefarious and completely un-American institution of the CIA should be totally and permanently removed from this hemisphere.

MICHAEL D. STATHATOS

San Marino