Letters
Letters Cold, Dead Feet As an Angeleno in love with my small, efficient Toyota, I especially enjoyed Robert Kaus' article ["Confessions of a Car Lover," December 1979]. I do have...
...NANCY L. SNIDER Santa Barbara, Calif...
...The New Republic apparently knew that...
...One would have hoped that even a feckless feminist tract would have at least a dalliance with fundamental journalistic principles...
...MORRIS A. SHEPPARD Boston, Massachusetts Why is there not one name of a woman who slept with Kennedy...
...It's just a cut above gossip—the kind you hear over drinks in a Washington watering hole...
...WALLIS PEREIRA Redondo Beach, Calif...
...The editor replies: Lowering the social security payroll tax would not endanger benefits for the time being...
...Shame on you both...
...In each case, we asked them whether our story was accurate...
...I do have one disagreement, however...
...AARON EPSTEIN Washington, D.C...
...Poo on the notion that it is the most beautiful spot in Los Angeles, however...
...hogwash...
...It's not unreasonable to wonder how seriously Kennedy will treat the issues of day care and economic discrimination against women if the women in his private life are treated as shabbily as Lessard suggests...
...We stand behind the Lessard story without reservation...
...Ted is no Jack or Bobby...
...This would fight both inflation and recession...
...Lessard writes with an urbanity the old yellow journalism never knew...
...This is the rule we use to govern what we publish—not a "two source" rule (although we had more than two sources for the crucial facts in this article) but a rule that says we should print what we know to be true and believe is important...
...We now know The New Republic was right...
...JOAN MEANS Georgetown, Massachusetts The editor replies: We would not have printed Suzannah Lessard's article if we doubted its truth...
...His philandering "style," as Ms...
...The course includes 10 separate examinations in such areas as accounting and finance, economics, pensions, trusts and estates, social security, insurance law and mathematics, Federal income tax statutes, and so on...
...We do not mean to deny that some lawyers, doctors, and life insurance underwriters are skilled at their professions and dedicated to the welfare of their clients...
...Why embarrass them, or cause them other unnecessary torment, by publicizing "names, dates, and places...
...Hurrah for The Washington Monthly's willingness to print Suzannah Lessard's "Kennedy's Woman Problem—Women's Kennedy Problem" [December, 1979...
...Of the approximately 300,000 life insurance agents, only 26,000 have been granted the CLU designation...
...As someone active in the women's movement, I have long heard the questions she raises...
...Do you really believe that the two greatest professions, law and medicine, are rackets...
...STEVE CORRELL Bordentown, N.J...
...TERENCE KENNEDY Gardena, Calif...
...LESLIE W. DUNBAR Pelham, New York If Lessard has any specific proof, she and The Washington Monthly have a responsibility to provide names, dates, and places...
...Since the article appeared, we have received strong criticism, from friends of ours who are close to Kennedy, questioning our judgment in running the piece...
...In this instance, we did not name or quote our sources because 1) most of them are dependent, in one way or another, on the good will of the Kennedy family...
...Epstein is on the Washington bureau of Knight-Ridder newspapers...
...Thanks for printing the article that The New Republic refused to publish...
...But it's not good enough to make it into a real gossip magazine because they know their readers want evidence...
...In the long 'run, we believe the benefits should be financed by income taxes rather than from the regressive payroll tax...
...Going through the intersection he described is not nearly as fun as going over it on the transition road to the San Diego Freeway South...
...Suzannah Lessard is to be congratulated...
...A Chartered (not Certified) Life Underwriter is a person who has successfully completed a 3 to 5 year special course of study...
...JOEL MARGOLIS Albany, New York Suzannah Lessard's article is atrocious...
...I'm glad you had the guts to break through the "old boy network" and print it...
...You state that "life insurance, like law and medicine, is a decentralized racket...
...As a reader of both The Washington Monthly and The New Republic, I feel the latter magazine should hang its collective head in shame for not printing it...
...In each case the reluctant answer was the same: yes...
...Social Security In "Tilting at Windmills" [December, 1979] Charles Peters stated that "if there is one reasonable step that most of us can agree on that has a realistic chance of passing Congress in the near future, it is the rollback of social security taxes...
...Lessard on Kennedy Pillars Posting You took a swipe at life insurance agents [Tilting at Windmills, December 1979] that requires a response...
...Peters refers to are affluent associates who do not have to rely on social security as their only source of income...
...BARBARA BERMAN Washington, D.C...
...WALTER C. HOUCK, CLU Baltimore, Maryland The editor replies: The power of the legal and medical professions to protect themselves from the consequences of their sins is, like that of the insurance industry, dependent on the decentralized political power of hundreds of thousands of practitioners, most of whom are pillars of their communities and many of whom are substantial contributors to political campaigns...
...I assume that the "us" Mr...
...STUART J. BRAHS Washington, D.C...
...I have never been so disgusted...
...Lessard's piece points out, betrays an immaturity and "sexist" attitude toward women that is insulting...
...And in the long run, also, we think benefits should be substantially increased for the poor and eliminated for those who have substantial other income...
...But a smear is a smear...
...and 2) the story is about Kennedy and his flaws, not about either the women involved or others who know of Kennedy's philandering...
...MARY DAVIS Valencia, Calif...
...Otherwise her notion of equal rights is that men can be libeled freely, but women should be protected through anonymity...
...Lessard probably heard that it happens so often that she— and you—believed it...
...Brahs is Federal Legislative Director for the American Council of Life Insurance...
...Facts, for instance...
Vol. 11 • February 1980 • No. 12
