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∂AIL Professor Irving Kristol
↓%2The Public Interest%1↓10 East 53 St.↓New York, N.Y. 10022∞

Dear Professor Kristol:

	Enclosed is a paper I gave at the AAAS meeting
in Boston in
February.  I would like to publish a version of it in %2Public Interest%1,
because there is a danger that the social opportunity offered by home
computer terminals will be missed, because our always well-meaning
government will inadvertently create monopolies by regulation, none
of which will be allowed to offer the full range of services required.

	For example, a %2New York Times%1 editorial recently proposed
that electronic mail be made a Postal Service monopoly
so as to subsidize ordinary mail.  However, as my article shows,
electronic mail is best part of a whole web of services offered through
home computer terminals.  A second example is the proposal to offer
home information services through cable TV.  This will
create local monopolies as a sideline to another business and will
lead to very slow development.

	I don't suggest that my vision of how
home information terminals should develop be given monopoly status,
but I think policy makers need a broad picture in order to avoid
doing actual harm.

	If the idea of such an article seems reasonable to you, I
would make substantial revisions, reducing the technical content
and increasing the public policy content.

	%2The Futurist%1, circulation 17,000, has asked to publish the
present version of the article, but I would not want to do that if
it would prevent publication in %2The Public Interest%1, because
in %2The Futurist%1, it would be lost among much more distant possibilities,
and the immediate public policy issues would not be presented to
the right readers.  Is this a consideration?

.sgn