To the Editor:
IN SONNY Bunch’s review of Sticky Fingers, by Joe Hagan, the description of the meeting between President Nixon and students at the Lincoln Memorial is completely false (“Remember Wenner,” January). Mr. Bunch writes that “the students “encountered a drunken Nixon…engaged in an impromptu 4 a.m. listening tour of protestors.” While one is accustomed to false charges made against President Nixon, this charge deserves special condemnation for inaccuracy and fostering falsehoods about the former president. Nixon was not drunk. The meeting at the Lincoln Memorial has been mischaracterized for decades but never so egregiously. Never mentioned is the extensive memorandum President Nixon dictated for the record upon his return to the White House about what he thought happened. This is the story of a president caught in a war that he did not start but was trying to end, and about his attempt to talk to the protestors. The memo is available at the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, California.  But it seems facts never get in the way of a story about Richard Nixon.
John H. Carley
Director, Nixon Foundation
Boca Grande, Florida

Sonny Bunch writes:
IF RICHARD Nixon were stone-cold sober during his early-morning walkabout—a contention some of the students on the scene would likely dispute—I offer my apologies. I may have been conflating that story with the tale of his (documented) drunken call about nuking Korea.