Investigations

Robert Dalleck suggests at the end of his article (Commentary, Aug. 21), “Perhaps it is time to let the country establish a more trusting relationship with a President Gore.”

On the same day in a news article [Atty. Gen. Janet Reno] ponders appointment of an independent counsel to investigate Al Gore’s fund-raising irregularities in the 1996 reelection effort.

Why don’t we just elect an independent counsel at the same time that we elect the president in order to ensure that he has absolutely no chance to govern? Are we ready for another investigation that may end up in Gore’s “private quarters”?

RONALD J. SCHNELL

Studio City

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Contrary to Dallek’s assertion that President Lyndon B. Johnson did not “invent a North Vietnamese torpedo boat attack to compel the Tonkin Gulf Resolution,” it has been well established that LBJ did, indeed, get Congress to pass the resolution in response to a Vietnamese attack which never happened.

Dallek further muddies an understanding of history by suggesting that because the resolution was passed with only two dissenting votes this somehow is evidence of the attack. In fact, given false information, Congress was stampeded into passing the resolution with tragic results.

TERRY SANDERS

Santa Monica