Kennedyana

To the Editors:

….You would have performed a service had you gotten some knowledgeable person to review the current flood of adulatory fantasies about President Kennedy with an honest, realistic eye. It serves no purpose to turn Muggeridge loose to spout his own viperish anti-fantasies. His review answered the myths promulgated by President Kennedy’s idolators by dredging up the equally mythical—and long since discredited—charges spread by his detractors: that he was “too young,” that he was undistinguished save by his money, that his father bought the office for him, that he sympathized with McCarthy, and so forth.

This sort of thing serves only one purpose. Muggeridge’s smeary essay belongs in the same category as the laudatory treacle he affects to attack: it is all an easy way for the tasteless and unprincipled to turn a fast buck.

Robert J. Shea

New York City