Kennedy’s Mystique

I found your article regarding President John F. Kennedy (Column One, Nov. 22) troubling. Not for the fact that his achievements in and out of office have been greatly exaggerated but for the fact that his name topped a recent poll of the most influential people of the last 1,000 years. To think that within this same period of time there have been such remarkable technological geniuses as Thomas Edison, the Wright brothers and Henry Ford, and such cosmological geniuses as Isaac Newton, James Clerk Maxwell and Stephen Hawking, it is distressing that only Albert Einstein made the top 10. Except for Einstein, none of the names listed in this poll have helped to create any of our great wealth or added to our growing understanding of the universe.

In fact, the poll’s overemphasis on political figures is a disturbing sign that places far too much value on political power and interventionism and far too little on the significant works of great men and women of creative genius.

ROBERT L. BERNATZ

Santa Monica

* It is incredible that anyone in good conscience would rank Kennedy with the likes of Lincoln, Jefferson, Einstein, et al. He was President for less than three years. Considering his mores, had he lived, J.F.K. likely would have wound up in as much disrepute as his brother Ted.

DON WARE

Sunland

* Journalists continue to echo the misguided cacophony of the Warren Report without making the slightest effort to determine if it is true. It does not require strenuous mental gymnastics to realize that Lee Harvey Oswald was a patsy and that the official version stands like a pillar of Jell-O against serious inquiry. I would relish the opportunity to discuss the Kennedy assassination with a Warren Report defender, but they are harder to find than a doctor who makes house calls.

Perhaps it is because the only people who defend the Warren Report are government representatives, or those who worked on a government investigative committee, and journalists. The rest of us are just naive conspiracy nuts who aren’t quite as smart as journalists or government employees.

JAMES GRAY

Palmdale