Secord's Secrets

After watching Major General Richard Secord's testimony in the Iran-contra hearings ((NATION, May 18)), I have come to admire this man. We live in a complicated world, and our Government must have people like Secord who are qualified both technically and temperamentally to handle the brutal realities.

Lance C. Jacobs

Cincinnati

I now realize why I and many other Americans support men like General Secord and Robert McFarlane. We agree with their objectives and see that these men are level-headed and competent, not ideologues, as I first believed.

Kevin Kennett

Midland, Mich.

The suggestion by Secord and McFarlane that Congress is too stupid to know how to run international affairs and should leave such matters to experts in the President's military elite is fascism. Having military men in high office is dangerous because they feel they owe their allegiance only to their Commander in Chief, the President, as if he were a monarch, and not to the people.

Tony van Renterghem

Malibu, Calif.

Someone should note the similarity between the Iran-contra affair and the American War of Independence. In 1776, Louis XVI of France, in defiance of his ministers, authorized secret aid to the beleaguered colonies and solicited 1 million livres from the Spanish government for arms with the guarantee that the King of Spain would not be implicated. Without this aid, the war would have been lost.

Virginia Murray

Woodbury, Conn.