Letters
…use of “major” was coined by William Rainey Harper…

Hersh hype?
I don’t think the U of C should be particularly proud of having spawned Seymour Hersh, AB’58, (July/04 UCHICAGO.EDU), a reckless, bigoted guy who has blown many stories. Perhaps the worst was the story of the Korean airliner with 69 people that Hersh claimed was a U.S. spy plane when the Russians shot it down. In fact, it was a civilian flight that wandered a bit off course, and the Russians—knowing it was civilian—shot it down in cold blood. I’ve never seen Hersh apologize for this outrageous error.

He will write anything about anybody any time—right or wrong. The Abu Ghraib stuff was leaked by the military to several sources—and held up for a while by U.S. requests for delay. Hersh didn’t discover the story, didn’t do any work really. It was handed to him on a platter. Big deal. No wonder he flunked out of law school.

Len Lamensdorf, AB’48, JD’52
Santa Barbara, California

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