Defending Switzerland's Neutrality

Regarding your editorial "Neutrality's Wages" (May 14): All of us in Switzerland who subscribe to the Monitor because its founder gave it the objective "to injure no man, but to bless all mankind" were shocked. Nothing has been published from our point of view. US newspapers are in league to judge Switzerland based on a one-sided report by US Undersecretary of State Stuart Eizenstat.

Switzerland's position during the war served also the Allies - their information centers used our land as a base of operations. While some individuals made immoral gains in business transactions - of which our people are very ashamed - you have no right to reproach Switzerland's neutrality.

Switzerland shot down German airplanes long before the US did. Completely surrounded by Axis powers, we had a very tight rationing system. We would have starved had Germany not let through certain badly needed items. Would the US have air-dropped help? It is so easy to judge harshly 50 years later!

The US has shameful racial discriminations still going on, syphilis experiments on blacks in the past, etc. We do not bombard the US for that, but the US condemns Switzerland.

Lisa Ammann-Irminger

Bergdietikon, Switzerland

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