READERS BITE BACK

Letters

All the Way with JFK

Hurray for Norman Mailer on Oliver Stone's JFK [''Footfalls in the Crypt," February], Finally the film has been observed by a clear, dualistic mind that can see both the negative and positive, the power and the beauty in it. Why are Americans so afraid of that which makes them think? We of the post-assassination period need to open our eyes and learn to question everything we see and read. To argue that Oliver Stone has juxtaposed fact with fiction, Hollywood with history, misses the whole point. Never stop thinking and questioning—that is the point. Once we stop, we lose the value of living in a democracy.

ELIZABETH A. MOORE Baltimore, Maryland

Is Mailer saying that the one-assassin conclusion is flawed because the Establishment subscribes to it? Or because the majority of Americans believe there was a conspiracy? As the great Civil War general William Tecumseh Sherman said, ''Vox populi—vox humbug."

RICK KALAMAYA Longmont, Colorado

Mailer is correct: "At times, bullshit can only be countered with superior bullshit." Washington has tried to protect the American people by giving it a line of superior bullshit about the Kennedy assassination, Vietnam, Watergate, Irancontra, the savings-and-loan debacle, C.I.A. covert operations, and the threat of the Evil Empire (which disappeared overnight). It's time for Washington to realize that real life for most Americans—full of drive-by shootings, gang wars, homelessness, AIDS, drugs, child abuse, terrifying health costs, and an education system on the brink of bankruptcy—is worse than the ''terrible truths" they try to protect us from. During this election year, the American public does not need protection; it needs to know the truth. Oliver Stone is not presenting bullshit in JFK, but challenging us to think, seek the truth, and make choices about what we believe.

KATIE CURTISS Sheridan, Wyoming

John F. Kennedy was murdered as I sat in my high-school U.S.-history class. Mailer's article has done more to clarify this horrific event for me than all the other media coverage of the past twentyeight years. It has helped me resolve that "black hole" in my psyche.

MARY A. TRUDELL Morrisville, Vermont

To characterize his film JFK, Oliver Stone candidly observed in a recent interview in GQ, "I believe the Warren Commission [finding] is a great myth . . . maybe you have to create another one." Stone's film, as Mailer points out in his thoughtful and superbly crafted review, is difficult to dismiss, owing to the momentous nature of its subject matter. Because of its evident impact on the public, JFK has had the effect of raising public consciousness, which may ultimately result in more accurate information about who killed Kennedy and reasons why the official investigation was so inadequate and mishandled. More than any of Stone's other films, JFK is a frontal assault on the leadership of this country (including, by heavy implication, the incumbent president, who, it is reputed, was a C.I.A. case agent involved in the Bay of Pigs operation). A leadership which may have murdered its own titular head in a dispute over foreign/imperial policy, which has bankrupted the country by spending trillions to defeat an adversary whose threat was grossly and intentionally exaggerated, and which is fully capable of perpetuating disastrous policies, ensuring the country's continuing decline.

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DANIEL BERGER Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

How can Norman Mailer call JFK a great movie? In the estimation of my wife and me, it is one of the worst movies ever made. It is anti-American. It takes pokes at former chief justice Earl Warren, the Warren Commission, the military, the C.I.A., the F.B.I., and former president Lyndon Johnson. My wife had to walk out when it was three-quarters over because of the filthy language.

ROBERT L. McCOLLOM, M.D. Sarasota, Florida

Stone is one of the most noteworthy directors of our time because his films are intellectual and he forces us to look beyond the face value of issues.

TRICIA A. MARRAPODI Tucson, Arizona

While most films inherently re-create reality as myth, this brave film transcends all such predictable bunk by confronting our national ills: cowardice, paralysis, and a decay as deep and insidious as the environment's. Something is damnably wrong with America, and Stone's film attempts to underline it. We should embrace such courageous filmmaking.

BARBARA BLY Venice, California

If You Knew Sununu

I have just finished reading "So Long, Sununu," by Sidney Blumenthal [February], and as a former New Hampshire resident I was not the least bit surprised that Sununu's cocky arrogance and total disregard for everyone were his downfall. I was, however, surprised that it took George Bush three years to get rid of this jackass. Maybe Sununu will have the last laugh—can Bush cut the mustard for another election win in 1992? At any rate, I'm sure celebrations are still going on across the land. Ding, dong, the pit bull's dead!

DONNA M. GILLILAND Lafayette, California

John Sununu may not be of Sidney Blumenthal's ideological persuasion, but to many he is and remains a hero.

J. TERNAK Floral City, Florida

I always assumed that the people Sununu bullied would join forces in order to get back at him. But eventually Sununu committed political suicide, and only then did his enemies come out of the woodwork to finish the job. What puzzles me further is that the president played dumb concerning the underhanded techniques Sununu used to get his way. Sununu seemed to flaunt his terrorover-tact personality. He got the job done, but at what expense?

KELSEY E. JOHNSON Winnetka, Illinois

Your article on Sununu was right on the money except for one thing. Long before the Gulf War, Sununu had compiled research concerning whether his Cuban birth disqualified him for the presidency. In June 1987, John and I represented New Hampshire in a ceremony held to inaugurate the celebration of the bicentennial of the Constitution at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. While waiting for then Vice President Bush to arrive, the governor bragged that he was even smarter than the framers of the Constitution. Why? Because, he gleefully informed me, he had locked safely away "a little surprise"—a legal brief which in his mind would allow him to circumvent the constitutional requirement that to run for president one must be native-born. Sununu always went out of his way to let everyone know that he was the world's smartest man, but one would have thought that even he would acknowledge that James Madison, for example, were he alive today, might have the edge. Apparently not.

LORENCA ROSAL Malibu, California

Under His Thumb

Stephen Schiff's interview with Mick Jagger ["Mick's Moves," February] is great! I've read so much on Jagger that dwells on his latest antics, but Schiff pulls all the myths, stories, and truths into a comprehensive look at one of the world's most exciting performers.

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MARY VIOLA Libertyville, Illinois

At thirteen, I carved "Mick Is Sex'' into a school desktop. Now, at forty, I'm carving it into my laptop.

BARBARA R. STURGES Alexandria, Virginia

Satisfaction at last! My favorite musician on the cover of my favorite magazine. Thanks for sprinkling the "Brown Sugar" on the creme of the monthlies.

LAUREN CHARM TENENBAUM Wantagh, New York

Tomorrow I'm seeing Free jack for the second time, and I'm on the lookout for Mick's new solo album. I've been a Jagger fan since 1964, and I intend to keep rolling with the Rolling Stones until I can't no more.

ESPIE VILLA Boise, Idaho

Mick is still God!

SPALDING NIX Woodberry Forest, Virginia

Tony Awards

I was very impressed with Kathleen Tynan's article on Tony Richardson ["Exit Prospero," February]. I have followed the world of theater and film for three decades, and this is one of the best and most entertaining pieces I have read in that time. It is nice to think of a director who was "impervious" to ridicule, who even banned critics from an important screening.

MARIANNE LABA Tacoma, Washington

Tony Richardson was a friend for twenty years. Despite his busy, complicated, and widespread life, he had the ability to keep renewing his friendships. He also had a compulsive habit of keenly studying and observing everything around him. Tony never understood my love of classic cars, so it surprised me when he asked to spend his sixtieth-birthday weekend on a car-driven odyssey through Southern California. His obsessive observations never dimmed, even though he was uncharacteristically pensive and introspective on the trip. He was looking forward to the summer in France, his next project, and the unfolding adventure of his life.

JADE McCALL Hollywood, California

I would be remiss were I not to comment on Richardson's assessment of his boyhood school, Ashville College. An old Ashvillian myself, and a younger contemporary of Richardson's, I think it should be remembered that he spent most of his time at Ashville during the war years, when, incidentally, the school was evacuated to Bowness, in the Lake District. Few English schoolboys at that time were able to enjoy such safety from the German bombing in such an idyllic and healthy setting. While I agree that nights there could get abominably cold, that beatings and bullying were rife, and that the standard of education left a lot to be desired, I would suggest that Ashville was not a unique "horrors beyond horrors." Most other boarding schools then suffered similar deprivations and abuses; any schoolmasters worth their salt were in the services. This does not condone the situation, but it does put Richardson's experience into a far more dispassionate perspective. One must also wonder, if "the place was monstrous, and there was no education," how from such a school he was able to win a scholarship to Oxford University. It should further be pointed out that Tony Richardson ended his school days at Ashville as head prefect.

MICHAEL FOXWELL Willowdale, Ontario

Through some knowing sense of privacy, Kathleen Tynan chose not to comment on or speculate about the circumstances surrounding Richardson's contraction of AIDS. NO one who has H.I.V. is to blame. This is a disease that can and will affect all of us. The stigma will be lifted only when all of us treat each death in the same way Tynan has— as the loss of one irreplaceable soul.

RICHARD J. HARRIES

Greenwich, Connecticut

Watching the Detectives

Thanks for "The Swinging Detectives," by James Wolcott [February]. It's about time someone gave Law & Order its due as the best detective show to hit the airwaves.

MELISSA WHEATLEY Saint John, New Brunswick

Letters to the editor should he sent with the writer's name, address, and daytime phone number to: The Editor, Vanity Fair, 350 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10017. The letters chosen for publication may be edited for length and clarity.