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• Sunday, November 16, 2008 08:41 PM

  Fantastic interview! Fascinating interviewee.

  It is rare that Salon posts a four page article that completely sustains my attention and which I feel is worth the reading. This is certainly one worth it.

  It was on March 31, 1968 that Lyndon B. Johnson gave a speech and stated, "I shall not seek, and I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your President." (For those young enough to have missed the historical reference.) I watched that speech from my parents' living room, and when Johnson made that statement I screamed and jumped and cheered. Wrongly, I thought it would mean the end of the war.

  I am not one of those who believe that actions done by individuals can be wrong when worse actions done by governments can be right. Who was the terrorist? Ayers, who went to extremes to try to end an immoral war? Or Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger who continued the brutal Vietnam War, taking no care for the cost of human life, American, Vietnamese, and Cambodian?

  What people seem to overlook is that absolutely nothing was gained by continuing the war. The so-called "peace with honor" was much the same peace that could have been had much earlier. The so-called peace that was achieved was achieved by subtracting innocent lives from this earth.

  Evil men in power do evil things.

  To Ayers' credit, he tried to make a difference. What arrogance to try to actually end a war by violent means! How his arrogance pales in comparison to Johnson's, Nixon's, Kissinger's, and others.

  Whatever Ayers was wrong about, he was right about the war.

  —AKA Smith Read AKA Smith's other letters
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