Letters.

Exner Explained

Prof. Michael O'Brien is wrong ("The Exner File," December 1999). Judith Exner did not fabricate her claim of carrying cash from JFK to Sam Giancana. The Church Committee suspected she was a courier when it gingerly questioned her in 1975. She later confirmed it.

Exner says she met JFK at his home on April 6, 1960. Also present was "Bill," a railroad lobbyist. After dinner, they talked politics, then JFK asked her to carry a satchel of cash to Giancana. To O'Brien, this is "fantasy land." But the man Exner knew only as "Bill" was Bill Thompson, President of Florida East Coast Railroad, a close personal friend of JFK's but unknown to the public. Exner's travel records show she made the trip to see JFK and then went on to Chicago. Significance? The dinner occurred the day JFK learned he was losing the West Virginia primary. If Exner concocted this tale, she picked the right day to set events in motion. Giancana's assistance to the JFK campaign in West Virginia through his associate Skinny D'Amato is now well-known.

In The Dark Side of Camelot, Seymour Hersh confirmed Exner. He reported that Martin Underwood, a Mayor Daley operative loaned out to JFK, had told him that he went on the train to watch after her. Underwood later recanted in an unsworn statement to the Assassination Records Review Board. But his recantation is suspect. As a JFK advance man who had worked in Chicago and was close to Kennedy's right-hand man, Kenneth O'Donnell, he was ideally suited for the task. Fear that the ARRB might subpoena his records may explain his recantation. He had no reason to lie to Hersh.

Moreover, Johnny Grant, the honorary mayor of Hollywood, says that in 1963 Exner told him she carried cash from JFK to Giancana. Thus, her story is not a recent invention.

O'Brien says JFK had other aides who could have done her function "more safely and ably" Who? Were they available on short notice? Did they know Giancana? The job required loyalty, discretion, and anonymity. Clearly, Exner was loyal. She kept her silence about her affair with Kennedy for 12 years, breaking it only to confirm leaks from the Church Committee, and she kept more damning details silent much longer. Unlike his aides, she was publicly unconnected to Kennedy. And since they had recently met, she would recognize Giancana, and vice versa.

O'Brien speculates that FBI spies should have picked up any Exner-Giancana meetings. But it is now known that only in the summer of 1963, after Exner's role as a go-between had ended, was Giancana Under a brief "lockstep" surveillance. As for the FBI's vaunted wiretaps, they picked up nothing about Giancana's plotting with the CIA to kill Castro.

In short, O'Brien relies on speculation and faulty analysis to discredit Exner, while her account is based on documentary evidence and the kind of inside knowledge which only one privy to the truth could possess.

JIM LESAR ATTORNEY AT LAW Washington, D.C.

Four Amigos 

As a former West Virginian, I feel I can ask: Why were Buster Keaton, Peter Pan, Hank Stram and Norman Mailer caricatured on your January/February cover?

ALAN GIBSON Jasper, Ga.

A For Aptitude

After having to sift through the crap the "media" normally spits out about the candidates and their campaigns, I was thrilled to come across the aptitude test ("Presidential Aptitude Test," January/February 2000). Though I sincerely wish my candidate scored higher in some areas, I can't deny that your reasons were on the mark, and the grades were fairly earned by all four. What an outstanding and objective piece of journalism.

Clear, concise and to the point, the aptitude test should be required reading before voters can enter the polls. I've sent the URL to everyone I know who is remotely interested in politics (frankly that's not a lot of people ...)

Thanks!

GRAY COLDWELL Oklahoma City, Okla.

I just wanted to thank you for writing an article that talks about the presidential candidates' stances on issues. I've watched TV, listened to radio, and read the newspaper, and had found next to nothing about what the candidates actually stood for.

I disagreed with Pomper & Thompson's positions on how the government should be run, and thus disagreed with their grading of the candidates. However, it was refreshing to at least have someone put something to writing that told us what the candidates believed and the actions they have taken.

BILL MCCLELLAN Orangevale, Ca.

Thank you for an intelligent comparison of the major candidates on some key issues. I could care less about the clothes they wear and the food they eat; therefore, something substantive like your article is very much appreciated.

ROSS MCLEOD Windham, N.H.

B For Bush

I just read your report card assessments of the four leading presidential candidates, Republican and Democrat (January/February 2000 issue).

With one of the assessments, I want to take strong issue.

You gave George W. Bush a B+ on education because "he helped push through a vouchers program, greatly increased Texas' state funding of public education, and expanded a testing and standards program." That is true, but you need to examine not just the facts but the effects of GWB's efforts.

First, the vouchers have not proved effective in raising test scores and they have been quite disruptive where they have been used. Contact the Texas Freedom Network, a public schools coalition in Austin, for details.

Second, the "greatly expanded spending" has not materialized. While some extra dollars have gone to the schools, as they would have without GWB in a time of exceptional growth in state income, you should note that teacher salaries at the beginning of Bush's first term were 36th in the nation; at the beginning of his second term, 38th in the nation; when benefits are considered, Texas teacher salaries rank dead last. And the increases authorized by the last legislature were obliterated when local districts withdrew subsidies for teachers' health insurance.

Third, the expanded testing and standards program and the governor's "demanding" attitude only appears to have raised student scores. In fact, it has forced teachers in poor schools to "teach to the test" and has left more and more students so discouraged that the dropout rate--especially among minority children--has gone up alarmingly. Also, you should not take the apparent increase in student scores at face value. The numbers are skewed because many of the poorer school districts, individual schools, and individual students are simply not tested.

As for local control: Take a look at what is happening in the state's second largest school district, Dallas. The whites have fled and/or enrolled their children in private schools, the school board is corrupt and inept, and the new superintendent is overpaid and arrogant. (You can read all about it in the Dallas Morning News online.)

PHYLLIS GUEST Dallas, Texas

L For Liberal

Why don't you just label your Washington Monthly as liberal-chic at the onset and save us the trouble of scrolling through the propaganda?

ERNEST TILLMAN Corpus Christi, Texas 

Help the Little Guy

I am not a farmer, but sympathize with the small farmer (and any small business). This country no longer follows any guidelines that made us great. The only guidelines are lobbyists that provide fuel and money for anybody's (not just companies') bottom line. All small businesses have been forced to quit. It's a shame and although I wouldn't live anywhere else, I am ashamed of our government and most politicians who are only interested in the big dollar, no matter whom they hurt (step on, squash, whatever you call it).

BILL POLUMBO via email

On the Warpath 

In his January/February review of Niall Ferguson's book on the origins of the First World War, The Pity of War, Andrew Cockburn seems to agree with or at least not disagree with some key claims about the war's causes and the reasons for British involvement. I wish Cockburn had made himself more clear about his own opinions and how he feels about Ferguson's.

The British Plan to send an army to France if that country went to war with Germany was a natural, reasonable result of a balance of power approach in a general sense and, more specifically, the result of a need to control the English Channel. I find it incredible that anyone could seriously wonder why Britain had an interest in the English Channel and the Channel Ports. Belgium had been created by British diplomacy and her neutrality guaranteed to insure that any hostile power--the British had France in mind at that time--would not control the Channel. Of course Britain went to war with Germany when Germany invaded Belgium. Britain could not ignore the threat of a hostile power controlling Belgium.

Would Britain have gone to war without a German invasion of Belgium? We can't know for sure. Perhaps other factors would have brought Britain in later. Nevertheless, it is quite inaccurate to picture British involvement as mainly the result of secret diplomacy unrelated to British national interests.

JOSEPH FORBES Pittsburgh, Pa.