Letter: Milken's revolution

Sir: The current economic prosperity of the United States, which has produced 57 million new jobs in a generation while Europe produces almost none, emerged from the revolution in capital markets that Michael Milken started. That, and not any attempt to "reinvent himself" is why he is "heartily applauded" by economists, business leaders and the thousands of people who know the real Mike Milken. Such truths eluded your Andrew Gumbel ("The Resurrection", 9 June).

Mr Gumbel even goes so far as to make the outrageous and cruel suggestion that some people don't believe Mike Milken was diagnosed with prostrate cancer and that it is all just an invention designed to elicit sympathy. If he needed verification of the indisputable fact of Mike's cancer, he could have checked with some of the oncologists, urologists and radiologists who treated Mike for the last six years. His suggestion that Mike's generous and effective philanthropy is some kind of recent PR effort ignores the fact that it began in the mid-1970s and was formalised with the establishment of the Milken Family Foundation in 1982. How ridiculous to assert that a person who has been one of the 20 top philanthropists in the US for two decades is now trying to "reinvent himself as an altruistic philanthropic guy".

GEOFFREY MOORE

Senior Vice President

Knowledge Universe

Los Angeles