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The report on Mark Whitacre, who acted as a whistle blower in an investigation into price fixing at the Archer Daniels Midland Co. [BUSINESS, Aug. 28], suggested that there were people in Decatur, Illinois, who considered Whitacre a villain. You inaccurately cited my letter to the local newspaper as representative of that view. My letter merely observed that Whitacre had violated the unwritten protective code of executive conduct shared by large multinational corporations. I also expressed sympathy for Whitacre and his family for what I thought they were about to experience as a result of what I presumed to be his tragically naive act. I have no reason to believe he is a villain, and I'm at a loss to understand how my letter could have been construed as saying so. EARL GATES Decatur, Illinois
PILOTS GET THEIR DUE
Hooray for the television movie the Tuskegee Airmen, about World War II's all-black fighter squadron [HISTORY, Aug. 28]! I was a top turret gunner on a B-17 bomber in Italy in 1944, and the troops always felt good when we saw the P-51s flown by those men. They stayed with us over the target, even through flak. At our base in Foggia, Italy, we thrilled to hear the roar of a P-51 "buzzing" our tents and to see its red nose appear above the olive trees. I am now copying my diary of the missions I was on for my grandchildren, and have many accounts of the protection we received from the Tuskegee airmen. CLAIR H. SCHMITT Greeley, Colorado
CORRECTION
Our report on the Tuskegee airmen mistakenly identified Lieut. General Benjamin O. Davis Jr. as the first black graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. That distinction belongs to Henry Ossian Flipper, an 1877 graduate.