Letters

BIG-BOOMER THEORY

As a member of the generation that follows the baby-boomers, I found it welcome relief to read an article ["The Baby-Boomer Wasteland," by Christopher Hitchens, January] accurately portraying that 50-year-old narcissistic demographic mass—or should I say mess?

No doubt we'll have to endure a barrage of self-congratulatory articles and commentaries on their first 50 years on this planet—to be followed in 10 years by their first 60, and so on. From "classic rock" to "fat-free potato chips," the evidence of their contribution to society is vacant and self-centered. And they say we're lost.

DEANA MacKAY Portland, Oregon

When the baby-boomers pass on to the great BMW boneyard in the sky, the nation's future will be entrusted to an even more self-absorbed, spoiled, directionless lot, whose ephemeral attention spans and rueful ignorance of the political process will effectively leave the nation without an intellectual or philosophical anchor.

PAT McKENNA Milwaukee, Wisconsin

The computer Hitchens no doubt hacked his story on, the hundreds of television stations he watches, the medicine he takes, the car he drives, the food he eats, the house he lives in have all been greatly improved by dedicated boomer professionals. Soon, with genesplicing, ills that have thwarted mankind from its beginnings will become a thing of the past.

Instead of insulting my great transitional generation, which has set the stage for the 21st century, I suggest you get a crowbar and help Hitchens retrieve his head from where it has become firmly and egregiously lodged.

BANNING K. LARY Austin, Texas

Malcolm Muggeridge once described Evelyn Waugh as an antique in search of a period. That sounds about right for Christopher Hitchens. I agree, though, that the boomers have yet to produce anyone as authentically scary as Nixon or Reagan—but give them time. Nixon didn't achieve true, lasting infamy until he was well into his 50s, and Reagan was even older.

ROBERT SHAROFF Chicago, Illinois

How right Christopher Hitchens is. This boomer (born 1953) has been in a funk for quite a while. There really has been nothing new and exciting for ages. Let's hope that someone will come out of the Weltschmerz and make an everlasting imprint on our society before it's too late.

NEIL MALCOLM ROBERTS New York, New York

Christopher Hitchens should be reminded of what happened to those who were trying to change things back in the 60s. My own efforts led to a tapped phone, unmarked cars following me, a grandjury subpoena, and the hassle of annual tax audits for well over a decade. Some experienced much worse.

My town is full of baby-boomers who are trying to make things better. They don't get a lot of press, but they are getting a lot done at the grassroots level, where it counts, and they have a lot more to celebrate than mediocrity, selfishness, and hypocrisy.

KATHY CANADA Bloomington, Indiana

Christopher Hitchens's razor-sharp descriptions captured many vague observations I have made recently. I have categorized myself as a "cusp boomer" (born 1959). After reading Hitchens, I believe I will now refer to myself as a "cusp slacker"!

LIZ McKINLEY Huntington Beach, California

Christopher Hitchens is a favorite writer of mine, but his article "The BabyBoomer Wasteland" is elitist in the worst way. Mr. Hitchens writes approvingly of a generation that is now either very old or dead—my father's generation (bom early in the century). Why do they win the Hitchens seal of approval? They had to cope with the Great Depression, and they had to fight World War II. Mr. Hitchens makes the mistake of regarding the past as having some pervasive greatness, some substantial worthiness, because Great Events (war, economic hardship) took place. Adversity on a grand scale may temper the times, but it does not make heroes of all.

HENRY MARKSBURY Middleburg, Florida

Christopher Hitchens may not have heard the catchy phrase of the 50s "Let George do it." People were tired of war and poverty. They wanted to just be left alone and buy a house in Levittown. But he may have been the recipient of the "wisdom" of Benjamin Spock. Spock's medical advice was good, but his concepts on child rearing were pure hogwash. Nonetheless, millions of new parents bought his "indulge the child" concepts and forgot their own common sense. Hitchens and his cohorts are Spock-raised children. So, in reality, it was those W.W. II war heroes and the generation of the 50s who started our slide into mediocrity.

SALLY CUSHMAN Tucson, Arizona

Stop the whining and wailing about the baby-boom generation. After all, the boomers produced one thing you approve of: Christopher Hitchens.

COREY WEINTRAUB New York, New York

We are "spoiled"? Tell that to boomers looking for work for one or two years after corporate downsizing, trying to make house payments and maintain insurance coverage.

DR. REBECCA S. FAHRLANDER Bellevue, Nebraska

What was Christopher Hitchens moaning about? Doesn't he realize that we baby-boomers have our whole genera-

tion epitomized by O. J. Simpson? Shouldn't that make us all feel groovy?

CRAIG S. CUDDY Las Vegas, Nevada

When you look for cultural and generational meaning only in the health clubs peopled by the masters of the universe, what do you expect to find?

As I meet others around the country who are 50 (or close to it), I find that we are still affected by the mentality of the era in which we came of age. There are many of us in direct-service professions. Many of us who have fared well economically donate generously to charities which depend on our support. Mr. Hitchens ought to get out of Manhattan more often. He should see a more diverse sample before criticizing a generation.

MARGARET COMERFORD FREDA Bronx, New York

Hitchens's unscientific analysis makes the common error of confusing babyboomers with yuppies. Certainly not everyone, or even most people, born between 1945 and 1964 fits this common stereotype.

Although it's easy to mock and trivialize the historical events of the last half-century in a tone of condescending aristocratic aplomb, the struggle for human and political rights in the U.S. and around the world has made qualitative gains during this period. The ability of governments and socioeconomic elites to run roughshod over the lives of nations and people has come under unprecedented attack, and the principles of popular sovereignty and democratic rights have increasingly been validated. This has resulted from a process of mass struggle involving much hard work and dedication. It represents a legacy that everyone involved can be justly proud of.

T. GREEN Fayetteville, Arkansas

Do my eyes deceive me? Is this the same Christopher Hitchens who attacks Mother Teresa ["Mother Teresa and Me," February 1995] with such glee? Mr. Hitchens seems profoundly confused. On the one hand, he trashes one of the few men or women who have spoken out against the very things— self-centeredness, hypocrisy, overindulgence, shallowness—for which Mr. Hitchens so soundly denounces his generation. Then he loads up and takes aim at his own peers for their lack of moral backbone. He (Continued on page 62) (Continued from page 58) even berates boomers for not having "enough confidence to unbutton and reproduce"! Mr. Hitchens, make up your mind!

(Continued on page 62)

To be fair, Mr. Hitchens is a product of his times: afraid to call it like it is. I understand his "denial." To quote Mr. Hitchens himself, "The key words of [the baby-boom generation's] activity are 'evasion' and 'avoidance.'" Mother Teresa couldn't have put it better herself.

MARY GRAYDON Terrace, British Columbia, Canada

I read with laughter Christopher Hitchens's indictment of boomers. Hitchens is one of the few writers working in American magazines today I would want to have a conversation with— make that one of the very few. And if he ever does cry, I definitely want to know about it.

DEANNA MARQUART Sacramento, California

Mr. Hitchens's clever observations are exclusively about the middle class. His key words of "evasion" and "avoidance" ring a bit hollow to working-class people like myself. My little cow-town

high school lost more men in Vietnam than did Harvard and Yale combined.

I returned from the war in '68 not to "sex, dope, revolution" but to a job in a slaughterhouse carrying quarters of beef into a truck for 8, 10, and 12 hours a day. If a working-class man was lucky, his "therapy" was the love of a good woman, a job, and a chance to step foursquare into the middle-age life of children, a mortgage, and Jaycee softball games.

DENNIS HIATT

Portland, Oregon

Hey, Mr. Hitchens, lighten up! I am among those boomers (born '59) and I can assure you we are not all whining yuppies. I drive a used car, would never consider owning a cellular phone, still count meat loaf and Twinkies among my favorite foods, and genuinely prefer a good classic novel and a walk on the beach to that bane of our generation, television. And I never, ever wear a helmet when bicycling!

TRISH KREISS Goleta, California

While I laud Christopher Hitchens's able skewering of the self-absorbed set,

he does his readers a disservice to include crash helmets within his aim. I too once went on a "nothing trip" en route to classes. And while it resulted in several pithy exchanges with E.R. staff that I still dine out on, I likely wouldn't have been in such rare form had I not been wearing a helmet. I should think Mr. Hitchens would favor this apparent instinct for self-preservation, as it will keep him in deserving targets for years to come.

ERIC IVERSON Decorah, Iowa

Christopher Hitchens is the reason I read Vanity Fair. His description of Our Noble Leader ("the wretched Clinton") puts it succinctly. Let us hear more from this astute judge of character.

WILLIAM C. LONGMIRE Leawood, Kansas

I, for one, would have preferred four additional pages of fragrant advertising to Christopher Hitchens's presumptuous, sniveling, self-abusive epistle of boomer assassination. Hitchens displays many of the symptoms he so quickly criticizes, thus reducing himself to just another by-product of bottle-feeding, mass advertising, Dr. Spock, consumerism, and the aging process. If accountability is what Hitchens feels is in such short supply with baby-boomers, I suggest that he not look for it in his mirror, and that he call his therapist immediately.

RUSSELL A. GAMBLE Los Gatos, California

I've always enjoyed excess—yes, I'm a "boomer" too—and Christopher Hitchens's glorious tirade was long overdue.

But I suspect that a couple of caveats are in order. Many of his peeves relate to population pressures, for one thing. And it's still a bit early to write off "legislative monuments," as one can't really say that our generation has actually been in charge for long. As for our current president, give the guy a chance: he may yet pull off the trickiest job of the decade, namely, peace in the major chronic hot spots of our planet (the Middle East, Bosnia, and Ireland). And if not, well, hey— he's trying.

LINDA UMSTEAD Long Beach, California

The baby-boomers have produced a generation of beautiful, healthy children who are not shallow, nor inhibited, nor in revolt. They may feel a loss of direction, the result of a combination of today's economic climate and a measure of parental irresponsibility, but they are sensitive, sane, and deserve our love, respect, and support.

ELIZABETH SCHUMANN Paris, France

Does anyone really think that 1968 was a pinnacle of human prosperity and achievement, paid for by hardworking Depression-era overachievers, and squandered by the lazy, self-indulgent boomers so that nothing is left over for Generation X? Did anyone really think that the boomers wouldn't one day get older and fatter, have kids, buy houses, and assume the responsibilities of running the country? Which is it that more annoys Mr. Hitchens, the excesses of the boomers' former youth or the current excess of their complacency?

Vilifying the boomers for their myopic indulgences is, in itself, myopic and indulgent. Perhaps Christopher Hitchens should recognize that the increasingly strange world we live in is not the fault or doing of any single generation, and that the reponsibilities associated with living in it belong to us all.

RICHARD S. WRIGHT Los Angeles, California

Absolute Uma

I would like to thank you warmly for choosing to have Uma Thurman interviewed ["Numero Uma," by Alex Shoumatoff], wonderfully cover the magazine, and be photographed for the January issue. Her intelligence and very inspiring outlook on life make her seem like an ideal role model.

TERESA CONCEPCION Atherton, California

Alex Shoumatoff's article on Uma Thurman was insightful and eloquent and tastefully done. Uma is an inspiring actress.

JENIFER HEALY Mobile, Alabama

The beautiful cover photograph of Uma Thurman by Annie Leibovitz alone was worth the price of the entire magazine.

GAVIN MOK Randolph, Massachusetts

Not too many years from now, when Uma Thurman's face is prematurely wrinkled from the damage of smoking

cigarettes, such as the one on your January cover, she will have a memento of the beauty that was once hers—and the knowledge that she destroyed it.

AIMEE MOYER Deerfield, Illinois

Absolutely wonderful. By the way, did you happen to know that uma means "one" in Portuguese? How fitting.

SHELLEI REBEKAH GUENTHER Tucson, Arizona

Television Reruns

Thank you, Vanity Fair, for your TV Hall of Fame [December]. And, please, let's have more pictures of Florence Henderson and her at-60-still-fabulousand-sexy legs!

JOHN GORDON KING Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Hats off to Herb Ritts and V.F. for that touching photo of the cast of Roots. When I turned the page and saw those beautiful, proud black faces, I was moved to tears.

STEPHANIE M. MEADOWS Colorado Springs, Colorado

Star of David

Although I and my book Defenders of the Faith: Inside Ultra-Orthodox Jewry are quoted in your story on David Reichmann ["An Unorthodox Death," 5 by Bryan Burrough, January], the im§ pression some of your readers may have ⅛ gathered from that piece is that most or I even allharedi Jews cruise the streets searching for prostitutes. Nothing could be further from the truth. While there are surely those who, as in all communities, seek the pleasures of illicit sex, by far most of these Orthodox Jews remain within the precincts of their religious enclaves and loyal to their marital partners. For them, sex remains the sweet fruit of marriage, enhanced by religion, nurtured by love, and sustained by a commitment to family and community.

SAMUEL HEILMAN New York, New York

Mr. Reichmann was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, so why shouldn't he carry his lethal weapon in a little silver box to his death?

MARY J. REYNOLDS Parkville, Missouri

The Heiress

No dying human being deserves to have as many wolves at her doorstep, much less at her bedside, as Doris Duke did ["A Hostage to Fortune," by Bob Colacello, January]. I hope that after the wolves slink away from their victim some of Miss Duke's fortune will be left to help others, as she surely would have wished.

GARY GABBERT

Burbank, California

Native Son

I was amazed to learn the number of notable people who, according to your "Vanities" article "Garden State Baby-

Ion" [by Ted Kamp, January], lived in New Jersey.

It was even more amazing to find that you overlooked one who should have been noted—the Amazing Kreskin, the world's foremost mentalist. I believe he was born in Montclair.

DAVID MEYER Glenwood, Illinois

V.F. Mailbag

As may already be apparent, the preponderance of the mail that landed on our doorstep was from baby-boomers taking issue with Christopher Hitchens's "Fin de Siecle" column "The Baby-Boomer Wasteland." In addition to the crowbar and therapy recommended above, one reader provided a brief Jungian analysis of the article ("The underlying spirit of the times may have an archetypal basis, which means the collective output, in terms of outstanding individuals or great works of art, politics, and religion, may be more or less dependent on unconscious forces, which of course is not pleasant news to a culture steeped in the notion that any accomplishment is possible if we only will it to be so"). Another suggested "a daily regimen of a glass of good claret to settle the stomach, a comfy chair, and half an hour with Homer Simpson." There was good old-fashioned finger-pointing of the blame-the-vehicle-not-the-messenger variety ("Isn't it amazing that Hitchens feels it is too vain for President Clinton to run every day ... yet Vanity Fairdoes nothing except promote beauty, vanity? Specious anger is not really hip, Vanity Fair"/ On a different note, one woman writes, "I personally sat in the mud at Woodstock and still consider it a defining moment of my life." Both Jung and Homer Simpson might have something to say about that. —E. E. OSBORNE

CORRECTIONS: Francesca Stanfill's article on Jackie Onassis ("The Private Jackie," November) incorrectly states that she and Aristotle Onassis were divorced.

In "Garden State Babylon," by Ted Kamp, January, the name of the New Jersey town of Cranbury was misspelled.

The Forbes building is located on Fifth Avenue at 12th Street, not 9th Street, as stated in "The Son Also Rises," by Marie Brenner, January.

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. Ad3 dress electronic mail to vfmail@vf.com. The ⅛ letters chosen for publication may be edited ° for length and clarity. °