THE DEAR DEPARTED

Many thanks for Irv Letofsky’s long and generous review of my book “Mr. Capone” (Aug. 23). I must, though, correct the impression it left that I condone murder--as long as its victims are gangsters.

My first paragraph on Page 264 starts, “In Chicago the standard apology held that gangsters killed only each other. Certainly Capone never personally killed or ordered killed anyone whose absence impoverished the world.”

Mr. Letofsky quoted only that much to make his charge. The very next sentence, unquoted, reads, “But one need not mourn the departed to deplore murder.”

ROBERT J. SCHOENBERG, VENICE