Letters

While We're on the Subject

Michael Dirda's review of Renee Winegarten's Germaine de Staël & Benjamin Constant is a gem (Book World, June 8). Both Winegarten and Dirda rightly emphasize that Constant was an important liberal thinker. Constant's liberalism, however, was of the classic variety. Like today's "liberals," he championed civil liberties. But unlike today's "liberals," he was constant in his liberalism, believing that individuals should be as free as possible from government in all matters, including economic ones.

And Constant still speaks to us, warning against the increasingly fashionable "liberal" insistence that government be responsible for our happiness. Let us all take to heart what he wrote in 1816: "The holders of authority are . . . ready to spare us all sort of troubles, except those of obeying and paying! They will say to us: 'what, in the end, is the aim of your efforts, the motive of your labours, the object of all your hopes? Is it not happiness? Well, leave this happiness to us and we shall give it to you.' No, Sirs, we must not leave it to them. No matter how touching such a tender commitment may be, let us ask the authorities to keep within their limits. Let them confine themselves to being just. We shall assume the responsibility of being happy for ourselves."

--DONALD J. BOUDREAUX

Chairman, Department of Economics

George Mason University

I read and enjoyed James G. Hershberg's review of Michael Dobbs's One Minute to Midnight (Book World, June 22). I remember the Cuban missile crisis well, as a young man at the time. My strong perception was that Kennedy, et al., did a magnificent job in confronting, staring down, and forcing the Soviets to remove missiles from Cuba. I believed it was not only courageous, but absolutely the right thing to do.

That said, it is important to understand why we found ourselves in such an untenable situation in the first place. It is my belief that a major cause, if not the major cause, was the very low opinion that Khrushchev had of Kennedy after their unfortunate summit the year before in Vienna. He seemed to consider Kennedy a lightweight and had little regard for him as leader of the most powerful nation in the world. Why else would he choose to take such reckless actions? He had not demonstrated such behavior before, even in his own backyard.

Therefore, it seems to me that one could say with reasonable conviction that Kennedy not only saved the day but may have been the primary cause of the near tragic confrontation in the first place.

--EDWARD I. POWERS

Washington, DC

In the review of Robert Patton's Patriot Pirates (Book World, Style, June 10) by Evan Thomas, there is an error. Perhaps it was in the book itself.

Gaspee Point, where the HMS Gaspee was burned, is not off the coast of Rhode Island. It is on the west side of Narragansett Bay, about five or six miles south of Providence, well away from the coast. For those of us who grew up in the area and spent many summer days swimming, sunbathing and partying on the Point, it is important to have its location correctly placed.

Otherwise, the book review was quite interesting -- upsetting but interesting!

--DORIS LANDAU

Alexandria, Va.

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