CLINTON CLINCH

Letters

Pinning Hillary

Bill Clinton made a courageous decision when he appointed the person who could do the best job of bringing universal health care to a country sadly in need of it: his wife ["Pinning Down Hillary," by Leslie Bennetts, June]. Hillary Clinton is bright, astute, and infinitely capable, and she will succeed in spite of those who are desperately using every dirty trick to bring her down. Hillary Clinton is an incredible First Lady, and our country and our president are lucky to have her.

MARJORIE L. SCHWARTZ Los Angeles, California

Kudos to Leslie Bennetts for her brilliant and evenhanded portrait of Hillary Clinton. Particularly telling is the way Lani Guinier was rebuffed by former good friend Mrs. Clinton when she proved to be political poison. Didn't Jesse Jackson suffer a similar fate at the hands of President Clinton? I couldn't help but compare how George Bush stood steadfastly by Dan Quayle, even when he was clearly a liability to his political future.

NAME WITHHELD

San Diego, California

With regard to Ms. Bennetts's scornful characterization of Mrs. Clinton's life in public service: our country needs more "self-appointed do-gooders" and fewer self-appointed cynical journalists.

DAVID M. ROBINSON San Francisco, California

You give us a Hillary viewed as less "likable" than Barbara Bush. Perhaps, but then, those kinds of comparisons have already been leveled at most professional workingwomen who have sought, along with Hillary, to expand the facets and the dimension of the "prism" of their lives.

CAROLANN MESSNER Mission Viejo, California

Will someone tell the smartest woman in the Americas that one raises livestock and rears children.

ANN LANCE RITTER Nashville, Tennessee

Hanks Thanks

Thank you, Vanity Fair, for your candid and exceptionally well-written profile of Tom Hanks in your June issue ["Tom Terrific," by Kevin Sessums]. The gay community cannot express enough gratitude to Hanks for Philadelphia.

VICTOR J. CARROZZA Memphis, Tennessee

Classic Koch

In the future, please spare me the millionaire-crybaby articles ["Wild Bill Koch," by Bryan Burrough, June]. It is obscene to waste $68 million to try to prove to your brothers that you are worthy of admiration. If Bill Koch really wants to be admired, why doesn't he try some good work? Mr. Koch could help so many needy people with his bucks instead of using them to inflate his puny, fatuous existence.

ANDREA CAMPBELL Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Buddy Melges skippered America' to the America's Cup in 1992. To have not even mentioned his name in the otherwise fine piece Bryan Burrough wrote on Bill Koch would seem a significant oversight.

R. A. HURRELBRINK Deephaven, Minnesota

Fully Miked

Somewhere between character assassination and canonization lies articulate,

accessible profile journalism. Joan Juliet Buck's piece on Nichols ["Live Mike," June] was inspiring. And that's not easy to say when one knows both players. Joan did my favorite interview on me, for Vogue several years back. We talked about John Coltrane.

I performed the lead in Mike Nichols's production of David Rabe's tour de force Streamers in New York for one year. Mike came back once a month to watch us, keep us straight. He is one of the most gifted directors, and I've worked with a bunch. He is an actor's dream. The cat's been around the block, he remains a loyal bud to this day, and Joan wrote an incisive and endearing piece. I cringed in apprehension when I started it, smiled when I finished.

PETER WELLER Los Angeles, California

I loved your piece on Mike Nichols. I read it this morning and have been smiling all day. It's great to read about someone happy who has a good marriage.

MOLLY BARNES New York. New York

The Good Gloria

Julie Burchill's "Hype & Glory" [June] represents the age-old tradition of castigating middle-aged and older women. To begin, Steinem is described as a "dotty old lady" at the tender age of 60 and is compared to Norman Mailer, who is more than a decade older. We see here the wastebasket category of "old" that is applied to women who are over 40.

CAROL LANDAU, PH D. MICHELE G. CYR, M.D. ANNE W. MOULTON, M.D. Brown University School of Medicine, Providence, Rhode Island

I am writing in enthusiastic appreciation for Julie Burchill's "Hype & Glory." As an undergraduate in women's history, I ran among the feminist crowd, most of whom were wonderful, intelligent, compassionate people. Others, however, tended to step on other people's feelings, or obstruct someone else's life or work, because they sincerely felt that they needed to give time and effort to themselves only. What they, like Steinem, call "finding their inner children," anyone with half a brain and any social grace would call self-serving and spoiled. Burchill very ably pointed out this thread through American feminists with wit, grace, and style.

KIRSTEN SHERK Washington, D.C.

Julie Burchill glibly trashes Gloria Steinem, then slam-dunks Norman Mailer and Oliver Reed. Someone should tell her to be mindful of the asses she kicks on her way up—she may have to kiss 'em on the way back down.

PAULINE PRESLEY Murphysboro, Illinois

Uncool Kennedy

No wonder MTV's Kennedy ["Young Glory," by Lloyd Grove, June] has a crush on Dan Quayle. They have so much in common—both of them read cue cards for a living. The only difference is that Kennedy still has a job. For now.

MATTHEW APFEL Los Angeles, California

Kennedy's act was tiresome five minutes after she hatched it. The fact that it flies with such types as media fascist L. Brent Bozell III and psycho-patriot G. Gordon Liddy proves only that stale bait attracts cold fish. Retro-conservative politics and rock 'n' roll make about as convincing a couple as John and Lorena Bobbitt did. If Kennedy hadn't traded in her soul for a cheap tattoo and a pair of Republican-issue boxer shorts, she'd know that.

JEFFREY KENNY Elmwood Park, Illinois

Quick, someone shave V.J. Kennedy's head and look for the 666.

MEL ODOM New York, New York

Lowdown on Brown

So Gail Sheehy says that Kathleen Brown, as governor, could do for Clinton what her father, Governor Pat Brown, did for John F. Kennedy in 1960—deliver California's electoral votes ["California Dreamin'," June], There is only one problem. Richard M. Nixon beat John F. Kennedy in California in 1960 and won the state's electoral votes. Pat Brown couldn't deliver.

ROGER J. STONE JR. Washington, D.C.

No governors will be able to "deliver" their states' electoral votes to President Clinton or anyone else. Clinton will win or lose California based on the voters' perception of the man and his record. Note that in 1992 Clinton easily carried California even though the state had a Republican governor who fully supported George Bush.

LAWRENCE H. WALLACH West Bloomfield, Michigan

V.F. Letter Box

To our "almost 14"-year-old reader in Linden, Michigan: The editors will take under advisement your suggestion that V.F. profile "Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber, a genius (much like yourselves)," and commend you on having learned, so early in life, the proper approach to take with magazine people.

Patrick Robinson of Berkshire, England, wouldn't describe us quite that way; he opts for "cocky little men with typewriters," as in "I know that Western democracies have always permitted cocky little men with typewriters to dance small circles around the heavyweights of finance, industry, and sports." He's referring to writer Bryan Burrough—for the record, an unassuming tallish man—and his June piece on Bill Koch ("Wild Bill Koch"). Mr. Robinson, one of the subject's friends, found the piece "disgraceful[and] misleading."

Peter S. Craig of Newport, Rhode Island, a crew member in Koch's '92 America's Cup defense, disagrees: he found the article "distorted [and] misleading [emphasis ours], Koch, says Mr. Craig "is not the zany villain Benson portrays."

"Benson"? Memo to Mr. Craig: Harry Benson portrayed Koch in his own way. He snapped the picture.

Other pro-Koch letters (there have been 16 thus far) came from Jonathan Klarfeld of Boston ("I have known Bill Koch for most of my adult life; this article was "dreadfully unfair and skewed . . . [a] gratuitous flaying operation") and from Richard P. White, vice-commodore of the Wianno Yacht Club in Osterville, Massachusetts ("Bill and Joan Koch were never turned down for membership . . . and are in fact very well liked by the people of Osterville").

Finally, great exception was taken to Bella Stumbo's description of Belgrade, in her June story ("Slobo and Dr. Mira") on Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic and his wife, Dr. Mira Markovi'c. She called it a "Balkan version of Hanoi or Dodge City."

"Has Ms. Stumbo bothered to visit or inquire about modern-day or historical Dodge City?" writes Robert J. Wetmore, chairman of the board of the Dodge City Chamber of Commerce, in Kansas. "We certainly cannot stand accused of [anything] she writes about in her article." Ms. Stumbo, if you're ever in the mood for a showdown in Dodge, you have an invitation.

-GEORGE KALOGERAKIS

Letters to the editor should be 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.