To the Editor:

For nearly the last ten years, Michael Milken, who recently spoke at Yale (“Fallen Milken speaks about society, next generation,” 1/24), and his image industry have ground out soppy mush, relying on spin to package and repackage a tired story which makes at least some of us more weary and more incredulous every day.

I don’t have the strength or desire to help the junk-bond wizard get right with the gods of fortune and fame. This is a man who took people’s money under suspect circumstances and didn’t demonstrate much compunction about it.

If anyone is too inured to the new, ‘born-again’ Milken to remember the old Milken, they only need to pick up Benjamin Stein’s or James B. Stewart’s books about the Drexel Lambert scandal. What Milken has done since 1993 with his foundation is wonderful, but let us just forgive than forgive and forget.

Aaron Goode ’04

January 25, 2001