A Tragedy Of Missed Signals The articles in your May 27 cover package, “What Bush Knew,” are the most illuminating of any I’ve read on the subject (U.S. affairs). How is it that this common-sense, realist, straight-talking, no-nuance administration morphed into one that now does so much word-parsing on its own account? It seeks sanctuary in familiar expressions like “I don’t recall.” It characterizes so much relevant and specific pre-September 11 information as generalized, nonspecific or nonactionable, and ultimately argues that these attacks were inherently inconceivable and unimaginable. Yet we now learn that at least some of these so-called dots were quite bright lights, and some were even star bursts. Dick Gold State College, Pennsylvania
NEWSWEEK has joined others in the print and electronic media in pointing out that better communications and faster actions by the executive branch could have prevented the September 11 attacks. You are also one of the few media outlets to mention the involvement of the judicial branch of our government. Judges who denied wiretaps at critical locations such as Phoenix and Minneapolis deserve a fair share of the blame. How can we expect results if the investigators are handcuffed? Having been an investigator during World War II, I can assure you it’s a difficult job, even without being deprived of the tools of the trade. Our adversaries are likely to do more damage if our government sabotages the efforts of our dedicated agents. Harry W. Ebert Madison, New Jersey
After September 11 America was united in grief. Now the Democrats are insinuating culpability by the president and his advisers, as if knowing an attack might occur meant they could have prevented it. The inquiry they are requesting changes the focus of valuable minds from looking ahead to the unproductive effort of looking back, where nothing can be changed. They are criticizing our leaders at a time when we all need to show our united support. Darlene Bennett Salt Lake City, Utah
President Bush was briefed that Osama bin Laden was planning a major strike against the United States, possibly with hijacked airplanes. Bush might not have known, though he certainly should have, about Al Qaeda’s earlier plots to hijack airplanes and crash them into the Eiffel Tower and the CIA headquarters. What is inexcusable is that Bush did nothing with this knowledge. Here is what a competent leader could have done: Alert flight crews. Secure cockpit doors on commercial jets. Put air marshals on more flights. If the president had moved on these things, some of the planes might still have been lost, but the World Trade Center and the Pentagon might well have been spared. How can we tell? The shoe bomber was wrestled to the ground because an unarmed flight attendant was alert to threats. Unarmed, unprepared passengers even diverted one of the September 11 hijack teams from its intended target-after they were alerted to the attack on the World Trade Center in cell-phone conversations. They didn’t say there was nothing they could do. Abby Hafer Bedford, Massachusetts
What went wrong on September 11? You can blame presidents Bush and Clinton, the FBI and the CIA, United and American Airlines, but the true blame rests with the Muslim terrorists who carried out these attacks and with the Muslim communities and countries that supported them. And they will attack the United States again and again until we stop playing politics and start blocking them from entering our country. Abe Krieger Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Given the frequency and variety of the threats that are constantly being leveled against the United States, how can we know which ones to take seriously, particularly when they can be so vague? Hindsight is indeed 20/20, but even if the threats had been specific enough, I am firmly convinced that none of us would have believed them. Rachel Boswell Harrisville, Michigan
Thanks for your excellent cover story, “What Went Wrong.” As the town supervisor of a large municipality in New York state, I am also concerned about the lack of information the FBI provides to local police departments across the nation. The latter are the law-enforcement people on the front line. There should be much more information sharing by the FBI and the CIA with state and local police if we are to succeed in fighting terrorism. Paul Feiner Greenburgh, New York
Here is some feedback regarding the current spin about the vague general warnings of planned aircraft hijackings by Osama bin Laden last August. The two embassy bombings in Africa were acts of war connected to bin Laden, and then there was the attack on the USS Cole, another act of war connected to bin Laden and Al Qaeda. And how did we respond? We sent English-speaking FBI agents to bumble around and investigate a semihostile country. Now we hear that our government was warned about more such acts planned by bin Laden, and still this did not ring any bells? It is not hindsight to have expected a more vigorous reaction. The current “unspecified August warnings” spin is the biggest snow job I have heard of since the Milosevic trial. Peter C. Boylan Nuremberg, Germany
Your May 27 cover story, “What Went Wrong,” was excellent. Finally the public is getting a whiff of accuracy about the workings of this administration. The only aspects of what you reported that I disagree with were periodic references to former president Clinton’s purported failings. It is time for the Bush team, with some cooperation from the mainstream media, to stop blaming Clinton for virtually everything. Your report neglected to mention an important achievement of the Clinton administration: the 14-member blue-ribbon commission that issued its report Jan. 31, 2001, on the causes and prevention of terrorism. The Hart-Rudman report provided researched, thorough and accurate details of the terror to be faced domestically and its prevention. This report was promptly ignored by the Bush administration, Republicans in Congress and the media. Let’s admit that the previous administration was in fact serious about terrorism but could not get anyone else to listen. Lisa R. Marshall Cape Elizabeth, Maine
What confounds and upsets me about the media firestorm engulfing Washington and the Bush administration is that no one is asking: What should have been done? Should we have arrested every Arab student at every flight school? Pre-emptively invaded Afghanistan and destroyed Al Qaeda’s training camps supported by the Taliban? Shut down the civil-aviation system? And for how long would President Bush have been expected to ground commercial flights? If the president had acted on the vague and nonspecific threats and warnings he was receiving leading up to the tragedy, the very people who are now criticizing him in the media would have been attacking him as a right-wing extremist, an abuser of civil and human rights and a Chicken Little. Of course, with the benefit of hindsight, these actions would have been justified, and the inconvenience worth bearing if the tragedy could have been prevented. Chris Demian Sanbornton, New Hampshire
Can someone tell me what the role of the national-security adviser is? What talents qualify him or her for the job? Is there anyone there with some street smarts? President Bush said, “Had I known…” What I want to know is, was anyone in the White House actively looking? The president cannot expect intelligence to come on a silver platter. I say, look to the street and not to a silver platter. Vincent J. DePalma
Tacoma, Washington
Price-Cutting, American Style Kudos to Wal-Mart! Not just for bringing its stores and merchandise to the rest of the world but for transporting its service policies as well (“Wal-Mart World,” Business, May 20). Even the Germans appreciate the new, usually helpful salesclerks in the German Wal-Mart stores. And it is hard to deny that they are taking advantage of the prices inside the packed stores as well as the competition the company is inspiring. As new stores go up, watching the evolution of the local employee from growling beast to smiling, courteous clerk has become a new pastime. Just as McDonald’s popularized child-friendly restaurants in Europe, Wal-Mart is exporting friendly service. Who says Americans export only violence? Connie McCaslin Moscow, Russia
The revolutionary work that Wal-Mart is doing in the supermarket field is remarkable. No question it has a cultural impact in the places where it is introduced. However, I do think it is also thanks to Wal-Mart that inflation is holding its own in Mexico. Rodulfo Araujo Mexico City, Mexico
You say Wal-Mart is unionized. I remember about three years ago, the meat department of one or two stores in Texas voted to unionize. A few weeks later Wal-Mart announced the closure of the meat departments in all the supercenter stores in Texas! As for pay, I started at $5.75 an hour as a student in 1999. After graduating, I continued to work there while looking for a job in the computer industry, but full time at Wal-Mart guarantees only 32 hours a week. My full-time pay was below the poverty level for a family of two in my state. So does this sound as if “U.S. wages are competitive and its workers are happy everywhere”? J. R. Richardson via Internet
Skyscrapers, Anyone? In your sidebar “Skyscraper Engineering: What’s Next on the Horizon” (Architecture, May 27), the graph shows the Sears Tower in Chicago as the tallest skyscraper in the world. This is not right: the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur claims that honor. Ville Ahonen Helsinki, Finland
You say, “in the future, passengers will punch their floors into keypads in the lobby and be directed to a specific elevator.” Such an elevator controller is not new: Schindler started selling its patented Miconic 10 TM elevator controller five years ago. More than 1,000 elevators equipped with such controllers are running successfully worldwide. Chris Lindenmeyer President, Schindler Elevator, Ltd. Ebikon, Switzerland
No More Magic Thank you for your interesting and informative articles on magical realism (“Is Magical Realism Dead?” Society & the Arts, May 6). William Kennedy’s piece “Remedios the Beauty Is Alive and Well” was excellent, but why did he not mention his famous friend Hunter S. Thompson’s take on magic realism, namely, “gonzo” journalism? Isn’t this the essence of an Americanization of this style? In “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” Thompson spins the magic into a dark, humorous and inventive realism. Matt Blackburne Liverpool, England
An Indian Muslim Responds In your May 6 letters column, V. K. Rajan writes from India: “Neither the BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party] nor the Vishwa Hindu Parishad [World Hindu Council] is anti-Muslim. They are only against Muslims who are anti-India.” He’s right. But why do the BJP and VHP not have any such policy for Hindus who are antinational? And how do they decide which Muslim is antinational and which one loves his motherland? In fact, these organizations are working on the lines of Nazis who spread anti-Jewish feelings in Europe. As for the Pakistani letter writer who questioned India’s secular policy, I must point out that it is the protagonists of the movement to create a separate nation for Muslims who sowed communalism in the Indian polity. Otherwise, Hindus on the whole were secular in their outlook. It is the creation of Pakistan that gave vent to fascist elements among Hindus and gave rise to groups like the BJP and the VHP. Amani Ashraf New Delhi, India
