To the Editor:

Clyde Haberman (NYC column, Oct. 2) calls Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani to
task for his incivility in referring to Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, the
White House drug policy director, as a "disaster" as well as for using
such language to describe a man who was "the youngest four-star
general, as well as the most highly decorated Army general on active
duty, when President Clinton appointed him to the drug post."

Yet whatever importance one attaches to civility in public discourse,
the wrongheadedness of Mayor Giuliani's attack on General McCaffrey's
endorsement of methadone use has less to do with the general's
military record than with the fact that the attack was wrong on its
merits.

On the other hand, were the Mayor to turn his attention to General
McCaffrey's resistance to the use of marijuana for medical purposes,
now there's a policy for which the word "disaster" would be none too
strong.

ALAN LEVINE New York, Oct. 3, 1998