Truth: the First Casualty of War

Edwin Chemerinsky is right on the money (Commentary, Oct. 11).

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s quote of Winston Churchill, “In wartime truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies,” and Press Secretary Ari Fleischer’s admonishment that “people have to watch what they say and watch what they do” are eerily reminiscent of the thinly disguised contempt for the public displayed by Ronald Reagan’s team of, among others, Oliver North and Elliott Abrams during the Iran-Contra scandal.

The logic employed by both groups is a perversion of Plato’s “noble lie”--a perversion, because Plato, contrary to popular belief, was being sarcastic when he proffered that the populace is so infantile and terrified that it actually wants its leaders to lie in times of crisis. Some of us are not as stupid as they would like to think we are.

William D. Wolff

Los Angeles

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In “Shades of Truth in a Time of War” (Oct. 11), Ronald Brownstein has once again displayed his tendency to embroider by painting an imperfect portrait of Rumsfeld. Whether in the future Rumsfeld makes statements that he knows to be flat-out untrue remains to be seen. But predicting that he at some point will, while at the same time acknowledging that he has, as of yet, not done so, seems to me a questionable practice at best. Brownstein’s right about one thing, though. History repeats itself.

Joe Fischle Jr.

Los Angeles

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Re “Taliban Struck Again,” Oct. 9: Rumsfeld’s Page 1 warning that the campaign will take years favors the terrorists. They can play hide and seek at a minimum cost, while we spend billions and add to the death numbers without the rewards of a place in paradise.

I can’t understand why the whole operation did not go to the U.N. and its Security Council. Wasn’t this why we created it?

Hyman H. Haves

Pacific Palisades