Letters, Feb. 19, 1951

The Air Force & the Lady

Sir: Your Jan. 29 story regarding the commissioning of Mary Van Rensselaer Thayer to a lieutenant colonel in the Women’s Air Force Reserve interested me very much, because I too would like to become a lieutenant colonel. My qualifications:

Graduate, University of Oregon; business experience, 1932-44; U.S. Marine Corps, 1944-45 ; U.S. Naval Reserve, 1947 to date.

The only reason I am considering a change is that I think it would be easier to support my wife and three kids on a lieutenant colonel’s salary than on a seaman’s . . .

DICK STEVENSON Colusa, Calif.

Sir:

Well, I think that that li’l old Air Force is just the sweetest li’l old Air Force I know. And I don’t give a care who knows it.

Please forward my li’l old lieutenant colonel’s commission under li’l old separate cover.

R. F. McHALE Detroit

Sir:

… If she appears in uniform, she rates a salute. Hmmmph! . . .

J. D. RICHARDS

Galesburg, Ill.

Sir:

Fie on TIME for snapping Lieut. Colonel Thayer’s girdle. It reassures our confidence in leadership to see the Air Force so effectively buttress itself. Social champagne commissionings in the Pentagon boost the morale of the guys in Korea, especially anybody with less rank than lieutenant colonel . . . Best of all, this is swell strategy: when that company of fighting Chinese Communist females find out, they’ll vamoose, fearing a barrage of empty champagne bottles from the “colonel’s” plane. . .

C. E. HAMMOND Cranbury, N.J.

Sir:

“Molly’s” WAF commission is a “rank” insult to the many intelligent service women in all the branches who have had to earn their commissions the hard way … I suggest that on her next gift ride from the taxpayers, they take her up 30,000 feet sans oxygen and sans girdle, put her into a spin and let her bring it out herself.

E. K. PATTON Bergenfield, NJ.

Sir:

I wonder just what the moral effect of this appointment will be on the thousands of Air Force officers who worked so hard to get a commission . . .

In weighing the advantages and disadvantages of the few publicity-seeking Air Force officers who arranged this commission, as against the moral effect on the conscientious Air Force officer, I would say the thing to do is to decommission Miss Thayer and put her back in mothballs . . .

SAMUEL S. SHERWIN

Captain, U.S.A.F. Reserve Los Angeles

Sir:

… Why didn’t they make her a five-star general? It wouldn’t be any more ridiculous! . . .

ANNE DAVIS Brattleboro, Vt.

Sir:

… I suggest that the Navy commission Gypsy Rose Lee a commander and put her in charge of stripping ships for action. The Army should commission Hedda Hopper a lieutenant colonel and place her in charge of Army censorship.

In regard to the statement that Miss Thayer’s maid now answers the phone, “Colonel Thayer’s residence,” the only epithet I can think of that is fit to print is “Great Balls of Fire!”

T. S. MEDFORD Norfolk, Va.

Wonderland

TIME, FEB. 5, ERRED IN CREDITS FOR TWO

CARTOONS: CROCKETT’S “SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME?” APPEARED IN WASHINGTON “EVENING STAR.” THIS TIME-READER DOES NOT KNOW WHAT PAPER PUBLISHED EVANS’ “ALICE IN WONDERLAND.” THERE IS NO WASHINGTON “EVENING POST,” UNLESS IN TIME’S WONDERLAND.

ANDREW J. KNOX WASHINGTON, D.C.

¶ It was a proofreader among TIME’S Philadelphia printers who unaccountably went wandering in Wonderland. Editions printed in Chicago and Los Angeles had it right: Crockett’s cartoon ran in the Washington Evening Star, Evans’ “Alice in Wonderland” in the Columbus Dispatch—ED.

Terrifying Babes

Sir:

Jawaharlal Nehru’s “dynamic neutrality” is not “based on several stubbornly held notions” [TIME, Jan. 29]. He does not allow notions to govern India’s destiny. His foreign policy is based on truth and justice. To undermine him just because he is not a henchman of the U.S. State Department . . . shows intolerance. Again, Nehru has never claimed that he has superior wisdom.

P.N. AMERSEY Raleigh, N.C.

Sir:

How nice to see one paper knocking Pundit Nehru off his pedestal of superior wisdom! …The idea of the warmonger of Kashmir and Nepal dictating the peace of Korea is fantastic . . .

MARIANNE BROWN London, England

Sir:

Two terrifying babes in the woods are Nehru and Sir Benegal Rau, full of “understanding of the subtleties of the Eastern mind” and the wisdom of the ages. If they could force on the U.S. the kind of “peace” Russia wants, India might quickly fall. Then those two ignorant and idealistic [men] would be quietly liquidated . . . India’s hypocritical coercion of the plebiscite in Kashmir must look fine to Joe, who may consider Pakistan a tough nut to crack. It even makes us wonder about the idealism of the Mahatma’s successors . . . They should be firmly and loudly informed that any advantage they might throw to Russia will . . . bring world war that much closer.

PETER B. LOOMIS

Birmingham, Mich.

Useless Negotiations

SIR: HAVING LOST A SON IN THE PRESENT KOREAN FARCE, REPEAT FARCE, I FEEL THAT NO PEOPLE CAN FIGHT A WAR WITH THEIR HANDS TIED BEHIND THEIR BACKS. GO AND GIVE THEM HELL WITH EVERYTHING WE HAVE . . . OUR ALLIES MAY LOSE A VERY IMPORTANT CONCESSION TEMPORARILY, BUT WE CAN ALWAYS RETAKE IT ANY TIME. THE RUSSIANS DO NOT THINK AS WE DO, AND IT IS USELESS TO NEGOTIATE IF THEY START ANYTHING, GIVE THEM THE WORKS AND THEY WILL BE SORRY.

SELDEN F. SMITH

GUAM

History Lesson

Sir:

In your Jan. 29 issue, you report on President Truman’s address at the dinner of the Society of Business Magazine Editors … In view of the exceptionally high authority of the speaker, it may be surmised that from 25 to 50 million Americans have accepted these statements unreservedly. The President said: . . . There is no difference between dictators, if you study your history . . .”

One of the first dictators in history was Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus. In 458 B.C. he was appointed dictator by the Roman Senate, being called from the plow to save Rome from foreign invasion . . . Having fulfilled the task . . . imposed upon him by the Senate, he returned to his plow … The first dictator of our times was Lenin. He went to Russia in 1917 [from exile in Switzerland] … He called to the Russian armies … to drop their rifles, fraternize with the Germans, and run home “to loot the loot,” and then he seized power from the provisional government . . . After that, Lenin concluded peace with Germany and Austria … In other words, he betrayed his country and her allies. . . Cincinnatus saved Rome. Lenin sold Russia. . .

There is nothing unusual when such statements are offered to us by the irresponsible . . . [but] it is different when we hear such pronouncements from the voice of . . authority . . .

P. S. POROHOVSHIKOV Atlanta, Ga.

¶ The President’s “authority” does not extend to fields of learning or philosophy—ED.