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Warmonger or Idealist?

WOLFOWITZ PROFILE ELICITS STRONG FEELINGS

FEATURING PAUL WOLFOWITZ '65 IN the July/August 2004 issue was a questionable judgment. He is what we used to call a warmonger. Cornell has always stood for peace and fairness. (Incidentally, I served at sea as a Navy line officer in both Korea and the Mediterranean when the United Nations supported U.S. operations in the '50s.)

William Phillips '51
Trustee Emeritus
Old Saybrook, Connecticut

I FOUND IT INTERESTING THAT Wolfowitz was on the cover of an issue that also included an article about the murder of Nicholas Berg '00. Mr. Wolfowitz, the "architect of the war in Iraq," is certainly among those responsible for Mr. Berg's death.

Lonnie Hanauer '56, MD '60
West Orange, New Jersey

AFTER READING THE ARTICLE ON Wolfowitz, my thoughts went back to McGeorge Bundy, a member of LBJ's coterie, who had been a dean at Harvard. I need not reiterate the details of that sorry performance by our national leaders--and now we have an equally sorry performance by Wolfowitz et al. in leading our country into war in Iraq. This illustrates the fact that our Brightest are not our Best when it comes to staffing the upper levels of government policy-making.

Wolfowitz's shabby performance before a Congressional committee was quite revealing: he did not know the details of American casualties in Iraq and was off by more than 30 percent. As someone who was a young Army officer in Korea, I find Wolfowitz's actions inexcusable and indeed beneath contempt. He should resign.

George Miller '50, MBA '55
Deltaville, Virginia

DAVID DUDLEY OUGHT TO BE ASHAMED of himself, and so should the rest of you who published his article without apparent editing. "Bloodbath"? "Notoriety"? This is what they mean when they talk about liberal bias. But of course you don't notice--you think it's fact. Many readers don't. They recognize it for what it is, a partisan treatment of a famous graduate in what purports to be a biographical sketch. And do I detect a dose of anti- Semitism thrown in? Clean up your act, guys, or suffer the consequences.

Nan Baron Prener '60
Grahamsville, New York

YOUR PROFILE OF WOLFOWITZ WAS scholarly. Yet I am awed at the irony of how mortality crept undetected into that issue. To abstract a few phrases: "architect of the war in Iraq . . . probably the most influential deputy defense secretary in U.S. history . . . the misguided idealist who managed to deceive himself about the price of regime change." And then, in From the Hill, the obituary of Capt. Richard Gannon II '95, "killed during a fourteen-hour firefight in the western Iraqi city of Husaybah." Were it the obit of one of Paul and Clare's three kids, the irony would have had Greek-mythic proportions. As it is, Paul's unbounded idealism was sadly paid for by a fellow alum.

Stephen Wald '62, PhD '66
Indianola,Washington

YOU CHOSE WOLFOWITZ FOR YOUR cover story even though he refused to be interviewed. Your article implied but failed to acknowledge openly the link between his father's fervent Zionism and the foreign policies he has pursued. And to say that he "managed to deceive himself about the price of regime change" is inexcusably superficial. The U.S. invasion of Iraq has cost hundreds of American and thousands of Iraqi lives and billions of dollars. It has served the interests of Iran and boosted the recruitment efforts of Islamist terrorists. While Israel is more secure militarily, the U.S. is less safe.

If you were determined to publish a timely, Iraq-related article, you should have chosen for your cover story Capt. Richard Gannon II, a double-major Cornell graduate and authentic American hero.

Richard McKee '63
Arlington, Virginia

THE WOLFOWITZ FEATURE BROUGHT back memories of my senior spring, when, with Robert Matson '64, BS Ag '65, and Beverley Beisner Noia '67, I helped found the Committee on Critical Support for U.S. Policy in Vietnam. Bob and Beverley took the helm of the organization; I served as secretary and historian.

The Committee began as a response to a May 7 standing-room-only teach-in at Bailey Hall. When the session ended at 4:30 a.m., about 100 of us remained. Most were leftists, who shouted down anyone who disagreed with them. We were frightened by the war, but we were adamant that everyone had the right to be part of the dialogue. A lot hinged on the word "Critical" --if we came to the conclusion that we disagreed with the government, we reserved the right to say so.

We had a reading list on Vietnam and gave speeches from the soapbox in front of Willard Straight Hall. The day of the silent counter-protest depicted in your magazine, I cut class to attend the rally. I am the unnamed third person mentioned in the article. I'm not sure what effect our little group had on the national political scene, but I'm embarrassed to admit that, after saving a box of documents related to the Committee for more than thirty-five years, I got rid of it all just four years ago.

Gerald Kestenbaum '65
Orangeburg, New York

I LOOK FORWARD TO EACH ISSUE OF CAM because it offers information and usually gets me to thinking. I am sorry to say the article on Paul Wolfowitz was a waste of my time. The author, in my opinion, wasted his talents on hearsay and third-party information. I think it would have been best to wait until Wolfowitz submitted to a personal interview.

Harry Merker '51
Las Vegas, Nevada

Ed. Note: Numerous requests for an interview were made, over a period of more than six months. It became obvious after a while that we were never going to be granted one.

I FIND IT HARD TO IMAGINE A WORSE picture of a famous alumnus than the one of Paul Wolfowitz on your cover. I doubt that Sandy Berger '67 or Janet Reno '60, let alone this year's convocation speaker, would be given the same treatment. No wonder people are worried about liberal bias high above Cayuga's waters.

Thomas Post '84
Bloomfield Hills, Michigan

Ed. Note: Actually, it's far above Cayuga's waters.

Bread Poisoning

THANKS FOR WRITING ABOUT MY dispute with Dan Brown over The Da Vinci Code ("Lifting Leonardo,"Currents, July/August 2004). I was also interested in the profile of Steven Kaplan [in the article "Bread Battle"] and the French poisoning case involving hallucinations and gangrenous symptoms. Those symptoms are classic for ergot poisoning, caused by a mold on rye grain that produces an LSDtype hallucinogen that has the unfortunate terminal effect of constricting blood vessels. It's thought to be responsible for many bouts of satanic possession, insanity, St. Vitus Dance, and witchcraft. I've been trying to work this into one of my thrillers for about twenty years now.

Lewis Perdue '72
Sonoma, California

Diplomatic Gaffe HOW DOES AMERICAN AMBASSADOR to Chile William Brownfield become the "Chilean Ambassador" ("High Ambition," Currents, July/August 2004)? You must have had a good reason for changing Mr. Brownfield's citizenship. What was it?

Philip McIndoo '57
Lawrenceville, New Jersey

Ed. Note: We did not intend to alter Mr. Brownfield's citizenship by calling him the "Chilean Ambassador" in the subhead and caption to the story. When writing heads and captions, we occasionally sacrifice complete accuracy for concision, sometimes to the point of making a technical error. We regret any confusion this may have caused.

Author's Query MY CURRENT PROJECT IS DESIGNED to accompany my book Cornell: Glorious to View, published in 2003 by the Cornell University Library.Most university histories have been told from the institution's point of view. I want former Cornell students to speak for themselves in this new work, which will contain selections from diaries, memos, letters, records, blogs, and e-mails that represent students over time and in their own time. Short extracts will feature extracurricular life, academic life, the dorms, the Greek system, athletic teams, views of the faculty, and comments about the University and Ithaca.

I have approximately ninety Cornelllians represented so far and seek more letters or diaries, especially from the period 1920 to 1980. All materials will be returned or deposited in the Department of Rare and Manuscript Collections. The literary rights will remain with the writer and his/her literary heirs, and nothing will be used without requesting permission.

Carol Kammen
RMC Kroch Library, Cornell University
Ithaca, New York 14853
ckk6@cornell.edu; (607) 255-5758 work;
(607) 273-5298 home

Corrections July/August 2004 Legacies (pp. 113–119): Andrew Coffin '07 was listed as a fourth-generation Cornellian, but he is really fifth generation; his great-great-grandmother (the mother of Carolyn Slater Cooley '23) was Carrie Adsit Slater 1891. In the listing of students who are both great-grandchildren and grandchildren of Cornellians, the name of Gregory Wojtaszczyk '07 was misspelled.

Due to a publicist's error, the photograph in the alumni profile entitled "Parents Again" (p. 84) is not Dot Noll Hostage '55. The real Dot Hostage is shown here.

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