One of the curious characteristics of history is its selectivity: Critics regularly are willing to declare without doubt what the nation’s founders intended 230 years ago, but how many recall important events from 15, 25 or 30 years back? The few people who raised alarms about John Poindexter and Elliott Abrams were talking only to themselves when the Bush administration brought them back to prominence by naming them to key positions dealing with the current international ” crisis. Even Henry Kissinger was treated more often as an elder statesman than anything else.

Mr. Poindexter has been put in charge of a new Pentagon operation called Total Information Awareness, which is supposed to collect all sorts of information about everyone into a huge database. The purpose is to spot terrorists, but critics worry that it could become a weapon to monitor political dissent. Mr. Poindexter’s faded fame rests on his role in supervising the secret sale of weapons to Iran and funneling the profits to Nicaraguan revolutionists. While serving as President Reagan’s national security adviser, he helped counter the president’s professed policies, disobey a law prohibiting aid to those Nicaraguan Contras and possibly violate the Arms Export Control Act. And he destroyed evidence and misled Congress.

A federal jury convicted him of lying and obstruction of justice, but appellate judges saved him from jail time by overturning the conviction because he had been given congressional immunity as a witness in the scandal investigation.

President Bush has put Mr. Abrams in charge of Middle East affairs at the National Security Council. Mr. Abrams was another figure in the Iran-Contra scandal: He was convicted on two counts of lying to Congress, but the first President Bush pardoned him, together with five other participants in the plot, thus limiting further reverberations of the scandal.

Mr. Kissinger’s new position is chairman of a new commission to investigate intelligence and security flaws that may have left the country vulnerable to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. As memories fade, he remains famous for orchestrating the opening to China and for receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. But people tend to forget that the 1973 peace prize led not to peace but more war, and that his co-honoree, North Vietnam’s Le Duc Tho, declined the prize. Forgotten, too, are episodes including Mr. Kissinger’s management of the secret bombing of supposedly neutral Cambodia and his encouragement of a coup in Chile that led to the assassination of President Allende.

If President Bush is counting on people with experience in the areas of law-breaking and circumventing official policies to carry out dangerous and harmful operations, he could not have chosen better. These officials are likely to know exactly how illegal activity against the United States would be carried out. Still, it wouldn’t hurt for someone to keep an eye on these watchdogs.