While reading the letter to his wife I felt a sense of guilt and stopped reading. Why is it that after a person's passing their right to privacy is no longer respected? While they are alive to read and publish such information without consent would be bad, but why is it OK after their passing? Even if they will not feel the pain of the invasion of privacy, that does not give someone else the right to expose such information. I think for the good of the group should only extend until it starting impinging on the rights of the individual.
Important people arrange to have their papers handled by a trusted person or group. They usually select what goes where, and how it gets dealt with.
While certainly a private thing that gave him happiness or solace or peace in life, I'm confident that he chose to include it in his collected record on death.
This seems consistent with everything that (I imagine) I know about him from reading his own autobiographical stuff, as well as other peoples' attempts.
(Aside: Klaus Fuchs, the guy whose car he borrowed, turned out to be the mole at Los Alamos, and that car was instrumental in the performance of Fuchs' activities.)
I don't necessarily agree or disagree with you, because it's hard to make any argument given with how you frame the question. What does it mean that the deceased Feynman has rights? In life, it would be illegal (in America) for a hospital to disclose that he once came in for a flu shot. But it is completely legal to get a coroners report which explains the cause of death and all other related medical details. It doesn't make sense to discuss "rights" because Feynman as an alive human is not the same as Feynman dead.
I know you're not talking about legal matters, but some of the issues behind libel and speech law are derived in part from moral concerns.
As a side note, it's not all together clear that it would be illegal to publish something like this were he still alive, as he would be considered a person of public interest.
Now, the issue of whether it's bad? That's strictly a taste thing. Had the author of e biography chosen to publish any and all seedy letters found in Feynman's private collection, I think we could agree that that is "bad", as in, bad taste...but I think the case could be made that the publishing of this type of personal letter is not in that same category, in terms of taste
