To the editor:

On this page April 17 was published a letter of mine whose purpose was to set a Speak Out caller straight after he had insinuated that my views, which he had mischaracterized as "big-government," were shaped by the fact that I had been a postal employee. This may be considered a short addendum.

I had been so concerned with answering that particular red herring that I completely ignored the following, which was part of that same comment: "One thing these three people," referring to me and two others whose opinions irritate the caller, "have in common is their paychecks come from the government. Generally speaking, the bigger the government, the bigger the paychecks."

I realize that typical, malleable-minded conservatives are very susceptible to right-wing boilerplate in that, whenever certain code words like "humanist" or "liberal" or "big government" are used (usually incorrectly) in political discourse, they are practically willing to jump through fiery hoops to apprehend whatever muddled meaning the speaker or writer intends. But surely there are limits. Surely no one out there is gullible enough to believe that my previous paychecks or my present pension checks have been affected, even to the extent of one cent, by the size of government.

DONN S. MILLER

Tamms, Ill.