Ms. Anne Holmes just couldn't resist the liberal bashing of Ronald Reagan just 14 months after his death.

Using a Highline Times' 60th Anniversary column, she remarked that President Reagan was an ally of South Africa's president Pieter Botha. This would place Ronald Reagan as a supporter of the racist apartheid policies of South Africa.

Nothing could be further from the truth. This same President Reagan was the catalyst that freed over 100 million people from the chains of communism.

Opposition to economic sanctions placed on South Africa may not have been popular with the U.N., but Mr. Reagan's intent was political not racial. He felt that sudden economic, political, and social revolution would lead to the destabilization of a strategic area of the world.

As the Journal of Modern African Studies reported, Mr. Reagan advocated constructive engagement; i.e., diplomacy, contact with opposing parties and fair employment practices, not confrontation, sanctions, and embargoes. Today, South Africa has become a third-world nation with one of the highest AIDS populations and crime rates in the world.

Sometimes restraint and preparation in the pursuit of a constitutional democracy maybe difficult, slow and unpopular, but President Reagan had the foresight to know that it works.

President Reagan is one of the heroes of the free world.

Jerry Guite

Normandy Park