Default Option in Jones Case

Re “What Clinton Should Have Known,” Commentary, Nov. 11:

Alan M. Dershowitz’s commentary certainly made me stop and think. The president actually had another option. Perhaps, the fourth option was to simply tell the truth. Tell the truth in the Jones and the Lewinsky matters.

Imagine how different the outcome of this affair--no pun intended--would be had President Clinton selected or been advised of option four. Clinton might have spared the cost of the investigation of approximately nine months. There would have been nothing for Monica Lewinsky to say. There wouldn’t exist the possibility of perjury. There would be no impeachment inquiry. There would be no sworn testimony about Clinton’s sex life. Finally, Ken Starr might have been able to leave for Pepperdine nine months early.

SCOTT WOLF

Beverly Hills

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Dershowitz castigates Bob Bennett for being so foolish as to take his client’s word--without investigation--that he never had a relationship with Lewinsky; in the next breath, he offers Bill Clinton’s unsupported word as gospel, that the president “did not know” he could default in a civil case. It beggars the imagination to believe that a graduate of Yale Law School, a former professor at the University of Arkansas Law School and the husband of a practicing attorney could be unaware of this option, four years into the case.

Even more unbelievably: Apparently, he did not read The Times, where this precise issue was expounded upon in the past year.

LISALEE ANNE WELLS

Long Beach

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Dershowitz left out the most important difference. The Republicans would have paid attention to legislative business, passed a large tax cut, elected more representatives and senators, and Newt Gingrich would still be speaker.

FRANK BUZARD

Rancho Palos Verdes