To the editor:

President Bush’s recent talk at the Lied Center was at times insightful and funny, yet it reminded me of the power of omission in political speeches. Here are three easily verifiable examples of how missing facts can skew the historical record:

1. Bush characterized the Iran-Contra affair that took place during his vice-presidency as a “hiccup” that “didn’t mean a damn thing.” Just how, exactly, the Reagan administration’s illegal sale of arms to Iran and the diversion of the profits to illegally fund contra-revolutionary forces in Nicaragua is a “hiccup” puzzles me. If it was really meaningless, then why did then-President Bush pardon six of the people involved on Christmas Eve 1992, less than one month before he left the Oval Office?

2. The former president also reminisced about his administration’s invasion of Panama in 1989 (Operation Just Cause), resulting in the removal of military dictator Manuel Noriega. Missing from the conversation was the fact that Noriega had been a long-time, paid CIA collaborator (during the time that Bush was CIA director) and an alumni of the U.S.-based School of the Americas that has trained some of Latin America’s most notorious despots.

3. Bush also said his presidency will probably be most remembered for the U.S.-led military operations in the Persian Gulf War (Operation Desert Storm). Not mentioned, of course, was the official U.S. support of Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War, which took place during the entire length of Bush’s vice presidency.

Robert G. Rodriguez,

Lawrence