Among the many magazines I devour each month, American Heritage is a personal favorite. The quiz-show vignette in “My Brush With History” (September) is one reason; it’s a good story, well written. But I was also interested in the account of the FBI’s counterintelligence activities (“In the News”). As it happens, the FBI once sicced an informant on me, and I wasn’t even heading up a militia. I was just a lowly mother of two and a Democratic candidate for Congress. The lad broke into my house looking for dirty laundry. All he found was the real McCoy. I was too busy shaking hands and passing out leaflets to keep up on the washing. It later turned out the informant had been a second-story man before he linked up with the FBI. Well, he was qualified.

He later went to jail, and I went to Congress. Which one of us got punished more?