December 11 In her so many years as the MEP for the Highlands, the

nationalist Mrs Winifred Ewing has never, in spite of repeated requests,

had the political guts or the simple decency to come to Dounreay to meet

the workforce and to tell us our fate.

But at last, thanks to Tayside nuclear expert Gail Finlayson's letter

(December 4) we are learning what SNP policy will mean for us all.

Not just for Dounreay and its 1700 workers, but for the thousands more

at Torness, Hunterston, Chapelcross, the headquarters office, and the

supply industries.

The SNP, says Gail Finlayson, have ''an excellent and longstanding

policy . . . to create an international centre of excellence (at

Dounreay) for the research and development of alternative energy

sources.''

Longstanding the policy is. Excellent it is not. In all Mrs Ewing's

years of European power she and her SNP colleagues have done nothing to

create this international centre for excellence. Not a single meeting,

not a single delegation, not a single job, not a single windmill. Not so

much as a vague feasibility study.

The longstanding policy is a convenient function. Its purpose is to

hide the truth from our community, from the Highlands, and from

Scotland.

That truth is spelled out by Gail Finlayson, who writes: ''The SNP do

not see any future for the nuclear industry inside an independent

Scotland.'' No future. That is the policy. Now let's have the rest.

When the SNP close Dounreay what will they tell 1700 Caithness workers

and their families? When the SNP close Torness what will they tell 650

Lothian workers and their families? When the SNP close Hunterston what

will they tell 850 Ayrshire workers and their families? When they close

Chapelcross what will they tell 300 Dumfriesshire workers and their

families?

Finally, when their excellent and longstanding policy switches off

more than half of Scotland's electric power (Scotland is proportionally

the third biggest nuclear energy producer in the world with four times

as much nuclear power as, for example, England) what will they tell

Scottish industry and Scottish workers?

In Caithness we have been waiting on the SNP's alternative. Meanwhile

the Tories have axed 800 jobs, with Mrs Ewing's total support. How long

must the rest of Scotland wait on the SNP's alternative and how many

jobs will go with SNP support?

D. H. Milnes,

Staff Side Secretary,

AEA Technology,

Isauld Lodge,

Reay, Caithness.