A recently publicized series of letters written by Vice President Al Gore '69 during the spring of 1966 express his turmoil over America's involvement in the Vietnam War.

In letters to his future wife Mary Elizabeth "Tipper" Aitcheson on Harvard stationery, Gore described his mixed feelings about Vietnam--his admiration for a classmate who left school to enlist, and the presidential candidate's frustration with the war in general.

"It's wrong, we're wrong," he wrote. "A lot of people won't admit it and never will, but we're wrong."

Gore recently gave the letters to Douglas Brinkley, director of the Eisenhower Center for American Studies at the University of New Orleans, whose article on Gore's Harvard years will appear in the November issue of Talk magazine, to hit newsstands today.

"He trusted me as a historian," Brinkley said. "I asked him for primary documents, as historians do. Labor Day, in the pouring rain, I was at the Vice President's residence and he handed them to me in an envelope--'because you're not cynical,' he told me."

In one letter, Gore complained about his parents' opposition to his motorcycle rides to Cambridge and his long hair.

"I didn't even think it was long," Gore wrote.

The Vice President's office confirmed the validity of the letters.