Your editorial was right about Howard, wrong about Crean ('History will not be kind to Howard', CT June 4) . If Labor were foolish enough to reinstate the compromised Beazley, they would give up their strongest card in the next election: Howard is soiled, Crean is not.

Evidence that SIEV X was sabotaged to sink in 2001, and that Australian authorities had prior general knowledge of this murderous Indonesian police disruption team project but did nothing to stop it, is progressively building.

The issue is now likely to come to a public head while Howard is still Prime Minister. This process of exposing truth will end Howard's prime ministership in shame and confusion, as Richard Nixon's USA presidency ended. Howard should have gone now, had he been thinking of his party's future. Hubris has apparently overwhelmed prudence.