From the letters quoted above, I would draw attention to several phrases in particular:
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not only was it quite impossible for him to surrender the Ring, in act or will, especially at its point of maximum power, but that this failure was adumbrated from far back
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unless 'bearing temptation' is taken to mean resisting it while still a free agent in normal command of the will.
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In the case of those who now issue from prison 'brainwashed', broken, or insane, praising their torturers, no such deliverance is as a rule to be seen. But we can at least judge them by the will and intentions with which they entered the Sammath Naur; and not demand impossible feats of will.
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It is possible for the good, even the saintly, to be subjected to a power of evil which is too great for them to overcome-- in themselves.
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Frodo deserved all honor because he spent every drop of his power of will and body, and that was just sufficient to bring him to the destined point, and no further.
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These passages indicate to me that Tolkien held Frodo blameless. Phrases like "a free agent in normal command of the will" indicate to me that he did not consider Frodo to be such. A previously quoted passage from letters used the word "sanity".
While I'm at it... Letter 246:
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Frodo undertook his quest out of love-- to save the world he knew from disaster at his own expense, if he could; and also in complete humility, acknowledging that he was wholly inadequate to the task. His real contract was only to do what he could, to try and find a way, and to go as far on the road as his strength of mind and body allowed. He did that. I do not myself see that the breaking of his mind and will under demonic pressure after torment was any more a moral failure than the breaking of his body would have been-- say, by being strangled by Gollum, or being crushed by a rock.
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But what Frodo himself felt about the events is quite another matter.
He appears at first to have had no sense of guilt (III224-5); he was restored to sanity and peace. But then he thought that he had given his life in sacrifice: he expected to die very soon. But he did not, and we can observe the disquiet growing in him.
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Tolkien follows with a discussion of two temptations that Frodo suffered: " a last flicker of pride, a desire to have returned as a 'hero'"... and the second "he was tempted to regret its destruction, and still to desire it." ... "He went {west} both to a purgatory and a reward, for a while: a period of reflection and peace and a gaining of a truer understanding of his position in littleness and greatness..."
Sorry, I'd have typed more of it out but I have chores to do... But I think that this much underscores exactly where Tolkien felt that Frodo sinned; and it was afterwards, in the Shire. Not in the "breaking of his mind and will under demonic pressure after torment".
<font size=1 color=339966>[ 7:32 PM January 20, 2004: Message edited by: mark12_30 ]