
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, December 23, 1994                   TAG: 9412230115
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-14   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

GUIDANCE RULE SHOULD BE SCRAPPED

ON OCT. 27, the Virginia Board of Education approved a proposed regulation of public-school guidance programs. The proposal requires written parental consent before a student can receive individual counseling involving personal, emotional and sensitive issues. The Department of Education in Richmond is receiving public comment on this proposal.

Presently, guidance counselors can maintain flexibility in providing counseling services to students. This enables the student to freely share personal and other sensitive issues with the counselor, without fear of reprisal from home. Too often, the home is the source of the issue for which the child is seeking help.

I hope the proposal of Oct. 27 isn't adopted. School counselors should be permitted to maintain flexibility in their programs to meet the needs of the children in our schools.

DORIS P. LEWIS

ROANOKE

Young people bring hope and joy

WE OFTEN see stories in the newspaper relative to young people who have gotten into trouble. However, sometimes we see stories concerning students who have listened to their parents, teachers and pastors, and have utilized their own creative ability to achieve excellent goals. I list two different instances that impressed me.

One concerned two students at Hidden Valley Junior High (Nov. 26, ``Teen boys get lesson in reality''), John Harman and Steve Salo, who chose to voluntarily acquire food donations and prepare a meal for those in need at the Samaritan Inn.

The Dec. 5 Extra Credit column was special in the fact that Blaine Owsley, Woodrow Wilson Middle School, volunteers weekly at the Rescue Mission, preparing and serving meals for the homeless.

I know there are many more of the young who also care for people, and perhaps haven't been recognized as yet. In time, possibly that recognition will come to pass.

Thanks to this newspaper for their stories, and especially to the young people for sharing their rainbows and pockets full of joy with all of us. It's something we can store in our memory banks for a time when there's a need for that which is hopeful and that which is happy.

MARY PAT SHANK

ROANOKE

Signs of things to come

I BELIEVE your Dec. 12 editorial, ``A bidding war on defense spending,'' is really explicit on future expenditures starting with the year 2000.

Well done!

GRANT HALLOCK

CHECK

Writer bit on defector's line

ON DEC. 10, you printed a letter to the editor from Bob Dellavalle-Rauth (``The crimes of the CIA'') who opened the holiday season with a message of hate toward his country, and high praise for defector Philip Agee and ``dictator for life'' Fidel Castro.

According to his letter, he supports the garbage uttered by Agee in his talk at Randolph-Macon Women's College on Dec. 1. This is very interesting in view of Agee's background.

Over the years since Agee, a former Central Intelligence Agency employee, took on his present role of preaching hate for American institutions, much has been written about his activities and motivations. All guesses and suppositions aside, there's now a very credible source for information on his activities.

Oleg Kalugin, former KGB general of recent fame based upon his disclosure of KGB activities, is the most recent and reliable identifier of Agee as an American who furnished everything he knew about the CIA to Cuban Intelligence, which in turn passed information on to the KGB.

In Kalugin's recent book, ``The First Directorate,'' he states: ``In 1973 Philip Agee approached our station in Mexico City, offering reams of information about CIA activities. But our Station Chief in Mexico City thought Agee was a plant spreading disinformation and rejected him. Agee then went to the Cubans, who welcomed him with open arms. As it turned out, Agee was absolutely genuine, divulging names of hundreds of CIA agents and informants ... The Cubans shared his information with us.''

So much for Agee.

Dellavalle-Rauth apparently swallowed whole Agee's position on the great democrat Castro. This would be laughable if it weren't for the fact that there are those, Dellavalle-Rauth for example, who still accept the view that Castro has created a ``worker's paradise'' in Cuba.

For a different view, we suggest you ask recent Cuban arrivals in Miami, Guantanamo, etc. Unfortunately, we can't ask those who never made it.

We only hope that the Randolph-Macon students who heard Agee aren't as gullible as Dellavalle-Rauth.

RICHARD F. BIDWELL

HUDDLESTON

Editor's note: This letter was signed by three others.

by CNB