Letters to the Editor: Pete Hegseth cannot be trusted with the nation’s secrets as defense secretary

To the editor: Regardless of whether the 2017 sexual encounter in which Pete Hegseth does not deny being involved was consensual or an assault, the police report supports the conclusion that he would be an unacceptable security risk as Defense secretary. (“A fateful night in Monterey: Drinking, conservative banter, sexual assault allegations involving Pete Hegseth,” Nov. 22)

At least one third-party witness described him being drunk to the point of public spectacle. He does not deny engaging in a sexual relationship that prompted him to request a nondisclosure agreement from the woman involved, indicating that he believed her story represented a threat to his personal and professional reputation.

The same year the encounter took place, Hegseth divorced his second wife while engaged in an extramarital affair with the woman who would become his third wife.

This kind of behavior clearly exposes him to possible blackmail. He cannot be trusted with the nation’s most important secrets or with decisions that affect the nation’s security at the highest levels.

John Miller, Irvine

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To the editor: In the 1980s, I served as the commanding officer of the Navy ROTC unit at UC Berkeley. Back then, women were prohibited from serving in combat, a policy to which our current Defense secretary nominee would like to return now.

One day, an assistant secretary of the Navy came to speak. One bright female student asked, “Why is it that the Navy will not assign women to jobs that might involve combat?” Our VIP visitor answered, “It is because women do not want to fight and die.”

“Do men?” she asked in response.

With those two words, the woman, who would later serve honorably as an officer aboard a ship, said all that needed to be said to clarify the issue.

I gazed at her. She looked at me. The assistant secretary glanced at me. I faced the secretary and shrugged my shoulders as if to say, “Well, do they?”

I wanted to commend the student right then and there. I tilted my head in her direction and nodded in the affirmative, but just barely, as if to say, “Well done.”

Stephen Sloane, Lomita