Rosenberg and Cox in 40th District Race

Having read your puff piece on candidate Nathan Rosenberg (May 21) and your editorial (May 22) based on the previous article, I would like to take this opportunity to set the record straight on several issues.

First off, The Times apparently wants to believe Rosenberg’s contention that he has worked with a Democratic administration and some of its key lawmakers and staff members and that he sharpened his skills working in the office of former Defense Secretary Harold Brown.

Just recently on a flight between Washington and Los Angeles, I sat with Brown. He mentioned to me that he had heard of Nathan Rosenberg, who was running in the race to succeed me in Congress. I said, “I understand that he was one of your top defense advisers,” and he said, and chuckled, “Well, I don’t know about that. He delivered my mail.”

To say that Rosenberg knows Washington and knows how Congress works because he has worked in responsible posts in the Pentagon and the Senate is to believe without question the creative and imaginative prose in Rosenberg’s “The Book.”

Being a staffer for an aging, retiring critic of the Reagan Administration, Democratic Sen. Bobby Byrd, and being a mail carrier for a Democratic secretary of defense hardly places Rosenberg in the category of one who has held responsible posts or knows how Washington works.

If the Times was accurate in reporting the situation in this district, it would not be fooled by expensive, out-of-area campaigns and by cheap, ego-maniacal, creative prose books, but would support someone who has worked for the community, in the community and with the community.

ROBERT E. BADHAM

Member of Congress

40th District