Donald Trump’s Admiration for Vladimir Putin

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/10/opinion/donald-trumps-admiration-for-vladimir-putin.html

Version 0 of 1.

To the Editor:

Donald Trump’s campaign has reaffirmed his warm support for Vladimir Putin (“Vexing His Allies, Trump Keeps Up Praise of Putin,” front page, Sept. 9). Mr. Trump notes admiringly that Mr. Putin enjoys 82 percent public support in Russia. Perhaps he would find an even more admirable type in Stalin, under whose leadership the Communist Party of the Soviet Union won 99.7 percent of the vote in the 1950 elections to the Supreme Soviet.

PETER BRIDGES

Crested Butte, Colo.

To the Editor:

Vladimir Putin has earned the world’s respect, although not necessarily its approval. President Obama is a weak leader and is not respected, as both China and the Philippines have shown in recent days. Can you imagine the Chinese humiliating Mr. Putin the way they did Mr. Obama in Hangzhou by not providing a staircase from his plane? Or President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines speaking so crudely about Mr. Putin?

Unlike Mr. Obama, Mr. Putin is supported by a large majority of his people. The same liberals who quaver at “Cold War rhetoric” are now piling on Donald Trump for advocating realism, reasonableness and accommodation.

ALEXANDER GOLDSTEIN

Brooklyn

To the Editor:

President Vladimir Putin, a former K.G.B. operative, knows a thing or two about psychology. He is playing Donald Trump with flattery. Though it is an obvious tactic, Mr. Trump is too foolish and egotistic to realize it.

I have no doubt that if Mr. Trump is elected president, Mr. Putin will have no trouble keeping him dancing to his tune. The implications for national and global peace and security are terrifying.

JUDITH WIESBERG

Washington