Letters.

Lilly Acres

That Mitch Daniels is dangerous is beyond doubt ("The Third Man," July/August 2001). But if his career at Eli Lilly offers insight to his smarts, his competence is questionable. Daniels was one of the principal architects of Lilly's $4 billion cash acquisition of PCS Healthcare, a leading prescription benefits manager, from McKesson Corp. I was vice president of corporate communications at McKesson at the time, and it was apparent that the Lilly people didn't have a clue as to the nature of the business. Within a couple of years, they sold PCS for $2 billion, and since then, PCS has been sold again for $1 billion. The transaction helped drive McKesson's stock to record levels; I retired shortly after the deal closed and was sorely tempted to name my Sonoma retreat "Lilly Acres," in honor of the folks in Indianapolis who made it all possible.

MARVIN KRASNANSKY Sonoma, Calif.

Fan-less

Loch Johnson's reference to George H.W. Bush as the "most popular man ever to serve as CIA director" is outrageously wrong ("The CIA's Weakest Link," July/August 2001). Johnson failed to cite any of Bush's accomplishments at the CIA because there were none. Many CIA veterans, including myself, remember that Bush was solely responsible in 1976 for introducing a group of outside experts, the so-called Team B, to critique CIA national intelligence estimates on Soviet strategic capabilities and objectives and thus present a more alarmist alternative view of the Soviet threat. Bush's predecessor, William Colby, blocked efforts to establish a Team B the previous year because he knew that it would lead to the politicization of intelligence. The report of Team B, which was chaired by Harvard Professor Richard Pipes, was declassified and released in 1992, and it was wrong on almost all of its conclusions. The more recent naming of the CIA headquarters building after Bush was a political act, which unintentionally serves to remind us of the dangers of politicization within the intelligence community.

MELVIN A. GOODMAN SENIOR FELLOW Center for Intelligence Policy Bethesda, Md.

Socialists and Socialites

I find it implausible that you would attribute the Humphrey loss to Nixon to the union of Jackie Kennedy to Aristotle Onassis ("Tilting at Windmills," July/August 2001). Humphrey was a whimpering Midwest socialist who turned his back on the American Dream just as McGovern did.

LOUIS DABNEY, Brookline, Mass.

We've Got Mail

I wanted to give feedback on Brendan...