CIA Director

Kevin Phillips’ blockbuster (Opinion, May 12) must be the first time a prominent Republican pundit has openly expressed the plausible thesis that impeachment insurance may have inspired George Bush’s choice of Dan Quayle. Logically, this should add to the growing demand for Congress to look again at Iran-Contra and other possible misdeeds of the past decade.

Phillips may well be right, however, in guessing that a spineless Congress might back off. Having just nominated the possibly scandal-tainted Robert Gates to head the CIA, Bush seems eager to bluff it out.

Unless it wishes to risk further erosion of its powers and prestige, Congress cannot afford to let the unsettled issues be quietly buried, even if a smoking gun cannot be found.

The specter of President Quayle makes Bush confident that Congress will not want to find grounds for his impeachment, but credible vindication will elude him because of his record and his well-known penchant for secrecy and deviousness.

Can anyone really believe that Bush was “out of the loop” on Iran-Contra? What took him to Israel and Honduras, and involved his staff in the Contra operation? When a supply plane was shot down in Nicaragua, why did the bad news go first to Bush’s office?

MARSHALL PHILLIPS

Long Beach