Why Honor a Man Who Did Damage?

Why waste a lion’s share of your paper on this has-been clown Timothy Leary, “The Final Trip” (June 3)? With so many people doing interesting and good things in our town why give respect and homage by allotting this space to a man who did so much damage to my generation?

He was dangerous; he was seductive and his original student audience was ripe for a predator. He was a cancer on our youth and we will be living with that damage for generations.

J.C. McHARGUE

Los Angeles

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How disgusting that Art Linkletter felt such happiness witnessing the suffering of a dying man. Apparently Linkletter felt vindicated because this was “evidence about what happens to you when you live that kind of life.”

For your information, Art, Timothy Leary had prostate cancer, a disease contracted by many men, not all of them drug users.

JOEY CRAWFORD

Los Angeles

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So “Doctor” Art Linkletter has discovered that the cause of prostate cancer is the use of LSD. Gee, evil, mean-spirited men say the darndest things.

DIANE DAVIS

Sun Valley

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To lionize, celebrate and officiate at the demise of a man who has destroyed so many lives is beyond comprehension. Two pages of copy and eight color pictures praise his philosophy of turning on, in, out.

Your story emphasizes Leary’s devoted young attendees. Are his previous attendees dead or in the last stages of drug-induced limbo?

The multitudes of dedicated people who donate thousands of hours in charitable fund-raising to undo what this man has wrought go unsung.

DAURINE ANDREWS IRVIN

Beverly Hills