In “Elsenhower the Dove” (September), Douglas Brinkley writes of “the unnecessary cost of lives in the Korean War” and mentions Americans having been killed “in a useless conflict.” I suspect that these are Brinkley’s sentiments and not Ike’s. The lives lost in Korea were not squandered; they had helped defend South Korea against naked aggression by North Korea. Any visitor to South Korea would argue that the conflict was anything but useless.