Senate Report on Whitewater

Re “Panel Issues Divided Reports on Whitewater,” June 19:

It’s important to keep the politically motivated Whitewater investigation and the committee report in perspective. During their presidencies, Ronald Reagan and George Bush were implicated by Senate committees in the outright illegal Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal. Reagan narrowly avoided impeachment, thanks to something called “deniability” that he and his minions learned from Richard Nixon. Arguably, Reagan, as president, was guilty of violating the Constitution he was sworn to uphold, and yet he was “forgiven.”

The Clinton White House cooperated fully with Sen. Alfonse D’Amato’s cunning and costly partisan attempt to assassinate the first couple, but there’s no “smoking gun” here, and there never has been. If we can forgive Reagan and Bush for their much more sinister transgressions, surely we can forgive the Clintons for getting into a bad real estate deal (there were a few of those in the ‘80s) and get on with the important issues in this campaign--education, the economy, corporate welfare and rebuilding the infrastructure of this country.

CORT CASADY

Los Angeles

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* The Republicans’ attack on First Lady Hillary Clinton in their final report on the Whitewater matter has left me filled with disgust. In both tone and substance, statements by committee chairman D’Amato and his GOP colleagues have made it clear that their animus toward the first lady is partisan and intensely personal. The fact that they have allowed their hatred of Mrs. Clinton to cloud their good judgment, not to mention their sense of decorum, raises grave concerns about the credibility of the findings in their report.

JOHN PONDER

Los Angeles

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* So, what did D’Amato bring back from his Whitewater fishing expedition? A $1.8-million bait and tackle bill, 769 pages of fish stories, and one of the largest red herrings ever served up to the American public.

GREGORY T. HARRIS

Palmdale

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* To anyone who watched the Whitewater hearings, it is abundantly clear that administration officials suffered convenient memory losses aided and abetted by the Democratic members of the committee, to wantonly prevent us (read public) to learn what really transpired at the White House under Bill and Hillary Clinton’s stewardship. Lesson learned for me is, “If you can’t dispute the facts, attack the messenger.” Lars-Erik Nelson (Column Left, June 20) does exactly that.

ROGER L. CLOUTIER

Redondo Beach

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* What a shocker. Nelson has dug deep and discovered partisanship. In Washington of all places. Everybody who has surrounded the Clintons for the last 10 years is either indicted, convicted, knee-deep in scandal or dead. Somehow, according to Nelson, the Clintons are lily-white in all this.

Nelson will be in deep pathological denial right up until the Clintons, by one means or another, are removed from the White House.

WARREN H. RAABE

Long Beach

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* The sub-headline of your June 19 editorial, “Political foes point up questions around Hillary Clinton,” reveals the dilemma that she faces. No matter how she responds it raises questions to them, and to The Times. Her affidavit, or sworn statement, that she knew nothing about how the records “came to be identified,” is not good enough for you. “Now clearly that is not a substantive response.” What would be? How could she have satisfied The Times, or her political foes?

The fact is that it is impossible to “prove” her innocence. Or for anyone to “prove” that an event did not occur. Fortunately in America, we do not have to. It is the accuser who must prove the charge. And until then she, or anyone, remains innocent. These endless hearings have developed nothing but vague questions and innuendoes and insinuations that do nothing toward finding the truth.

WALLACE J. MASON

Marina del Rey