DETESTERS OF ‘60S YOUTH

Stuart Schneiderman’s defense of his book, “Saving Grace” (Letters to the Book Editor, March 31) was more ludicrous than the book itself. His insensitivity, almost hostility to the young is exactly what Alice Miller (“The Drama of the Gifted Land”) has been decrying in the psychiatric community for years. Some of his assertions, such as that Vietnam War policy was somehow sanctified by the participation of Democrats as well as Republicans, are laughably Old World. But the striking similarities between his views of ‘60s youth and those expressed at the time by Bruno Bettelheim, a true “poisonous pedagogue” (see Miller) later revealed to be a child abuser, are no laughing matter.

TOM SILVESTRI, STUDIO CITY