Reply to ''Comment on 'Statistical significance of spreading widths for doorway states' ''

In response to the Comment of Lane, Lynn, and Moses, I demonstrate that my strength function analysis of fine structure in doorways is not sensitive to ''imperfections'' of data in the ''wings.'' The ''error weighting function'' which relates errors in reduced widths γ/sub lambda/ 2 to an error in the spreading width GAMMA/sup arrow-down/ is derived for least-squares fitting based either on the Lorentz-weighted strength function or on the summed strength function favored by Lane, Lynn, and Moses. The spreading width derived from the summed strength function is shown to be more sensitive to errors in γ/sub lambda/ 2 in the wings of the fine structure pattern