In response to:

Sons of the Morning from the January 25, 1973 issue

To the Editors:

In her review of David Halberstam’s The Best and the Brightest [NYR, January 25], Mary McCarthy notes that one of the few newly heard anecdotes in the book is one concerning Nixon on a visit to Vietnam in 1967. She mentions that Halberstam gives no source for this anecdote, going on to wonder, “Did Lansdale tell, and is Halberstam protecting him, or was a third person present whose identity has to be concealed?”

That third person is Daniel Ellsberg, who has mentioned this story in Papers on the War, in numerous speeches, and, if I am not mistaken, in a film about the Pentagon Papers, That the People Should Know. Mr. Ellsberg is not concealing his identity, whatever D. Halberstam may be about.

Paul Blanc

Eugene, Oregon

This Issue

April 5, 1973