AND JUSTICE FOR NONE

LETTERS

Taking on Hunter S. Thompson; the Clinton touch; Richard Meier's towers of tantrums; war on the cheap; C.I.A. at sea; Fulani rips into Hitchens

I read Hunter S. Thompson and Mark Seal's "Prisoner of Denver" [June], about Lisl Auman's felony-murder conviction in my brother's death, with conflicting emotions. I am opposed to the felony-murder law, and I hope the article sparks a national debate that will lead to the abolition of this unjust law, which often gives persons who have not committed murder worse sentences than those who have.

At the same time, I am dismayed that Thompson and Seal have capitalized on the unfairness of this law to distort the truth about Lisl's real guilt and responsibility in my brother's killing. They leave out many key facts, quotes from trial transcripts, Lisl's own words from interrogations and interviews, and statements by the burglary victims and Lisl's accomplices that confirm her guilt.

Thompson's assertion that "what happened to her could happen to anybody" is preposterous. It was Lisl's own choices that brought her to prison. It was her choice to associate with violent and dangerous people; to plan a burglary and retaliation against Shawn Cheever; to ride in a car with two assault rifles, a shotgun, and a machete; to take Cheever's belongings; to scream and curse at police when taken into custody; and to lie to police repeatedly.

I hope the Colorado Supreme Court decides to overturn her felony-murder conviction but concludes that the jury properly convicted Lisl of conspiracy to commit burglary, burglary, and menacing. I hope it decides how much she assisted Matthaeus Jaehnig at the murder scene and then sentences her to an appropriate number of years for all those offenses. No longer able to play the role of innocent martyr, Lisl might finally reflect on how her choices brought about such tragic consequences. Perhaps one day Lisl will ask forgiveness of all of us who were devastated by Bruce's death. That would bring a measure of justice.

Like the authors, I deplore police corruption, brutality, and prosecutorial misconduct. But Thompson's characterization of the entire Denver Police Department as the enemy—cruel, greedy, vengeful, half-bright cowboys, "armed goons with a license to kill"—is an outrageous blasphemy that dishonors the vast majority of fine police officers who put their lives on the line every day for Denver's citizens. Bruce was the best of the best of these officers. Had he ever been called upon to do so in the line of duty, he would have sacrificed his life for people like Matthaeus Jaehnig, Lisl Auman, Mark Seal, and Hunter S. Thompson.

GAIL VANDERJAGT RICE

Palos Heights, Illinois

MY MOUTH FELL OPEN regarding Lisl s Auman's appalling situation: guilty by association, for a murder she did not commit. Imagine if that same doctrine were applied across the board. A number of the police officers present at the time of © the shooting would almost certainly be in prison, given the three shots which entered Officer VanderJagt's back, and an autopsy which revealed the use of more than one gun.

I have to believe Auman will receive justice and freedom. It will not change the fact that a police officer suffered a brutal death at the hands of others, or bring the deceased perpetrator to justice. But it will ensure society's protection from injustice. After all, is that not the foundation upon which being an officer of the law is built?

CAROLINE JOHNSON

Bournemouth, England

THE CLINTON CHRONICLES

I FOUND ROBERT SAM ANSON'S piece on Bill Clinton ["Bill and His Shadow," June] a mindboggling page-turner. Once, when Clinton was still president and came to Aspen, we could see from our office balcony the security guys with guns on the rooftop of the house where he was staying.

On that trip, the presidential motorcade had to pass under a giant banner someone had strung across Main Street emblazoned with INHALE TO THE CHIEF.

If I'd known Bubba was the Elvis freak your article depicts, I'd have invited him up to see our Elvis records on the Sun label, including the first one, "That's All Right."

STERLING GREENWOOD

Publisher, Aspen Free Press

Aspen, Colorado

CLINTON LIED UNDER OATH, which led to his deserved impeachment. I don't care if that lie was regarding having an affair or leaving the cap off the tube of toothpaste. That fact alone causes his legacy to plummet to the cellar.

KATHERINE BEESON

Greenfield, Wisconsin

WHATEVER BILL CLINTON'S personal or political flaws, he always had a genuine human touch. I for one think a little Bill could go a long way in these insane times.

MICHAEL EPPS

New rk, New York

IN YOUR JUNE ISSUE, you published a description of an event that supposedly involved me but that never occurred. On the night described I was with my wife at our hotel in West Palm Beach, having turned down an invitation to dine with President Clinton and others. I have never been to the restaurant mentioned in the article. In fact, I have never been to dinner with President Clinton when I was not accompanied by my wife and he by his wife, Senator Clinton. No circumstance has ever occurred at any place at any time when I invited anyone to have dinner with or to meet President Clinton.

BILL McBRIDE, ESQ.

Tampa, Florida

ROBERT SAM ANSON REPLIES: Since receipt of Mr. McBride's letter, two additional sources, both of whom say they were present at the event, have confirmed my reporting. If they and my original source are mistaken about the identity of Mr. McBride, I offer my apologies.

GLASS-HOUSE RESIDENTS

I READ WITH INTEREST Vicky Ward's article chronicling the continuing celebrity drama being played out at the Perry Street towers designed by Richard Meier ["Faulty Towers," June]. As one of Meier's longtime colleagues and his friend, I felt obliged to comment.

These structures have broken new ground and established a level of architectural excellence that has raised the bar for future developer projects in New York City.

I was disappointed by the article's inadvertent association of Richard Meier with complaints about the construction and condition of the buildings. What may be lost on those not familiar with the design and construction industries is that, while an architect is responsible for the architectural design of a project and may be in a position to advise the owner of observed contractor deviations from the design, he or she has limited control over the quality of construction, limited power to require that construction defects be remedied, and absolutely no input into the maintenance of a building after construction is completed. Therefore, it is truly a mixed blessing for well-known architects when their names are instantly associated with any project they design, both in the rave reviews for the quality of the design and in the frequently mixed (or worse) reviews for the quality of the construction. When the buildings house some of the best-known and highest-powered celebrities and business moguls in the world, the publicity is, of course, magnified many times over.

What should be clearly acknowledged is not the internal power struggle nor what appear to be rectifiable construction and maintenance issues but, rather, the superb architecture of the Perry Street towers. The infighting will soon be forgotten and all that will be left is a New York architectural treasure.

CHARLES GWATHMEY

New York, New York

I WAS APPALLED to learn about the dreadful circumstances these terribly deceived people have had to endure. Imagine if we all had to live with congested elevators and peeling, unmatched paint!

NIKKI BAZAR

West Hollywood, California

MOVING TARGETS

FOR WEEKS, I had been asking myself as I read the news, Why are so many of our soldiers in Iraq dying in attacks on Humvees? Now, thanks to Graydon Carter ["Dude, Where's My Humvee?," June], I understand that these men and women are inadequately protected because their military vehicles are barely canvas-tent coverings over old chassis. We all can be sure that Bush and Cheney don't even go into an unarmored bathroom, much less take a ride in an open Humvee down any street in America.

CHERI HOLLINGSWORTH

San Clemente, California

I COULDN'T RESIST highlighting my favorite parts of the Editor's Letter, especially the bit about Marines' not receiving proper trucks but instead being issued a pocket-size prayer book. If I were in Iraq and received one of these, instructing me to pray for the president and send a tearout page to the White House for confirmation of this action, it would not only demoralize me but make me not want to fight for America. I could never be in the armed forces myself, but I give a lot of credit to those who choose to go overseas and fight for the land of the free.

SAMANTHA STEIDL

Scottsdale, Arizona

HISTORY LESSONS

"THE PATH TO WAR" [by Bryan Burrough, Evgenia Peretz, David Rose, and David Wise, May] may be a disheartening story, but it restores my faith in our country in that a popular journal such as yours has both the gumption and the guts to tell it like it is.

Perhaps it is not irrelevant to mention that my father, Ferdinand Eberstadt, drew up the original bylaws for the C.I.A. His central objective was to make it a purely academic and unpolitical organization, somewhat like M.I.5. It would only process information and provide its findings to the appropriate bureaus. It would never, under any circumstance, act on it. While the Dulles brothers, my father's lifelong friends, urged the adoption of his organizational plan, he told me they dismissed his idea of separation as naive and unworkable. We now see who was right and who was naïve.

Although I am a lifelong registered Republican, I have at times felt that some of your articles were too permissive of this administration. No longer. Thank you for this contribution to our security and freedom.

FREDERICK EBERSTADT

Key West, Florida

FULANI COURT PRESS

IF, AS GRAYDON CARTER wrote in May's Editor's Letter, "Iraq was always the G-spot for the Bush administration," Fred Newman and I have long been a G-spot for the liberal left. Mr. Hitchens's streamof-consciousness diatribe ["Unsafe on Any Ballot," May] reinforces that pattern.

Ralph Nader campaign manager Theresa Amato's comments to Vanity Fair [Letters, July] about the ridiculous allegations of fascistic zombie cultism are on point, though, I would add, as the fascistic zombie-cult co-leader in question, I believe it would have been appropriate for Mr. Hitchens to interview me. He didn't, though he tried to give the impression he had.

The Newman-Fulani "faction," according to Mr. Hitchens, "sometimes calls itself the Independence Party." What exactly is the reader to make of such a statement? That the Independence Party of New York is a fiction, a title one might use at a meeting with all those folks Hitchens depicts wearing "propeller beanies"?

Actually, there is something called the Independence Party. It's a ballot-status party that occupies Column C. It has more than a quarter of a million registrants. The New York Times recently ran a "Metro"-section cover story on it and how the independent voter is reshaping the political landscape. I am an elected Executive Committee member of the I.P.N.Y., which recently won a landmark federal-court decision admitting the state's 2.2 million nonaligned independent voters into our primaries. Michael Bloomberg ran on our line; indeed, the I.P. provided Mayor Bloomberg with his margin of victory. Senator Charles Schumer will run for re-election on our line this year. The Independence Party is not a nametag. It is a sought-after political partner, with a base among the very voters whose 2004 philosophy is "Anybody but Bush ... and Kerry."

Mr. Hitchens has the right to disapprove of me, Fred Newman, and Ralph Nader's candidacy. Most traditional leftists—including recovering Trotskyists—do. The American left has been run as a closed shop for many years, with the liberal intelligentsia (to use Nader's term) bullying everybody into submission, which in practical political terms has meant supporting the Democrats (even if Hitchens now supports Bush).

Newman and I and our activist networks across the country went down a different road. So now has Ralph. We are proud to support him—at any speed.

LENORA B. FULANI

New York, New York

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