Crediting Nixon.

With regard to William Lind's essay (July 30), it is increasingly clear to me that the still-despised Richard Nixon was a far better man and president than he has ever received credit for being. While living though the Watergate scandal, I thought that he deserved all that he brought upon himself. But in the light of history, his misdeeds seem trifling in light of the actions of his immediate predecessors (and some of his successors). The "scandal" seems but a bootstrapping party staged by the media to abet Democrats who could not possibly let Nixon get credit for successfully ending the Kennedy/Johnson catastrophe of intervening in a populist uprising against the colonial power of France.

So many of the points Lind now raises about Iraq ring true to me. We destabilized a territory that was never a nation in the first place. We were unable to establish or maintain order from the beginning or fight the inevitable insurgency effectively. And worst of all, we childishly bought into the con game that the Chalabi-led Iraqi National Congress was going to waft magically into power, erasing overnight centuries of sectarian chaos and bringing Camelot II to a place that has progressed little beyond the Age of Nebuchadnezzar. Ah, hindsight. But were there not supposed to be abler, smarter people who get paid more than I do who might have figured this out before it all happened?

Thanks for your well-thought, focused, and probably ignored-by-all-politicians essay,

GENE WRIGHT

Laguna Niguel, Calif.