Letters: Dec. 24, 1965

MOY

Sir: I nominate Adlai Stevenson as TIME’S Man of the Year. Had he achieved his wish and become Secretary of State, his kindly diplomacy and forthright manner could well have found a solution to the Viet Nam problem.

(MRS.) KATHARINE K. MOORE

Glen Ellyn, Ill.

Sir: Since he is the most eloquent and chief exponent of U.S. foreign policy, I would like to see Secretary of State Dean Rusk as Man of the Year.

BIRGER JOHANNESSEN

Mahtomedi, Minn.

Sir: U Thant, for his eloquent peace talks in Kashmir, for his attempts for open talks in Viet Nam, for being the perfect international servant, stressing peace through understanding. EIRIK FORGENSUR

Steinsfjerdingen

Ringerike, Norway

Sir: Bob Dylan, who has an undying faith in mankind and works constantly for long-overdue justice and world peace.

BOB WRIGHT

Sterling, Ill.

Sir: The Peace Corps volunteer—12,000 men and women working in the city slums and rural villages of 46 countries—teaching, nursing, farming, helping people get on their own two feet so that the war corps need not go out again.

NELSON BALDWIN

Washington, D.C.

Sir: Bob Hope, a man who, in the true spirit of Christmas, annually gives to our overseas forces his greatest gift: self—heart, head and unquestionable talent.

LINDA CLINE SWEET

Tallahassee, Fla.

Sir: Richard M. Nixon, who has withstood the mudslings and arrows of outrageous fortune and remains No. 1 choice to lead rank-and-file Republicans.

EVELYN CRANE

Hollywood

Sir: The Rt. Rev. James A. Pike, Bishop of California, for his untiring efforts to thaw out God’s frozen people. The man I should most dislike to see nominated is the man whom everyone will select and who will be chosen by you, L.B.J.

GORDON D. WIEBE

Torrance, Calif.

Sir: With all he’s done and caused to be done, not only here but throughout the world, who else but L.B.J.?

W. W. RUMMELL

Ardmore, Okla.

The Meaning of Christmas

Sir: The writer of your Christmas story [Dec. 10] found out what Christmas means to the merchant, not what it means to the average American family. As the mother of four small children, I believe they won’t remember which store had the gaudiest display or what TV ad was most outrageous; they will remember making and wrapping gifts for the family, making holiday cookies for company, the family’s going to church together, Christmas carols, the stable under the tree, the smell of turkey, and all the visiting and getting together with family and friends. Christmas is the time when people are a bit less selfish than usual and have more love in their hearts for God and man. Maybe all the externals and trappings of Christmas have got out of hand, but the basic idea is still there. Christmas means the birth of a baby and love—simple things.

MRS. R. DEBAISE

East Syracuse, N.Y.

General Johnson & Viet Nam

Sir: The qualities of discipline, will power and deep faith that make General Johnson [Dec. 10] an outstanding man are the qualities that Western intellectuals seem bent on destroying. With their preaching of self-indulgence, they constitute a greater threat than Communism. Americans can be thankful they have leaders like Harold Johnson.

MICHAEL O’CURRAN

Nürnberg, Germany

Sir: Now there’s a pretty picture! Two men pounding each other in their Bakelite-encased genitalia, while a third stands by yelling “Kill!” And this edifying activity presided over by a fourth who has the effrontery to keep the Bible in his office. Darwin must have been wrong. Man is not an improved strain of ape; when the Harold Johnsons of this world auspiciously fade away, man might perhaps rise to the level of the ape.

CHARLES HAINES

Assistant Professor of English

Carleton University

Ottawa, Ont.

Sir: Your story reminds me of the disgust I knew at age 14, in 1944 Germany, when Goebbels was crying for “total war.” I believe there is no way out of the Viet Nam dilemma for Uncle Sam except to fight it through. But it depends on how you say it: you may stay American, or you may adopt the Hitler-youth mentality, as you do in that article. “New men are greeted at reception centers with brass bands,” you boast. Can you have forgotten that the same was true in Auschwitz?

PETER HEMMERICH

Visiting Professor of Biological Chemistry

University of Michigan

Ann Arbor, Mich.

Sir: I began working in New York when I was ten. I kept a full-time job while scrimping my way through high school. To get through college, I worked two jobs, slept only four hours a night. Now I can reap the benefits: a chance to become emasculated in a Viet Nam foxhole, to drop napalm bombs on women and children, to experience dysentery and malaria. Strive on, Horatio. Well, to hell with the U.S.A., Viet Nam and the Great Society. I’ve had it. I am on my way to Rio de Janeiro to open a pet shop selling armadillos to Chilean soccer players. Can you think of a happier ending for a sneaker-wearing Vietnik?

MARTIN O’BRIEN

University of The Americas

Mexico City

Sir: The report on General Johnson is inspiring. Here is what man can be when totally committed to being his best.

(MRS.) PATRICIA M. ATKINSON

Seattle

Sir: Your story should make every draftee and antiwar demonstrator realize that our leaders are not inhuman warmongers. The courage, loyalty, faith and determination of the U.S. serviceman have been demonstrated since 1776 and are being shown right now in South Viet Nam.

(SGT.) VICTOR A. NAGE JR.

U.S.A.

Fort Bragg, N.C.

Sir: Talk of nonintervention in South Viet Nam is unrealistic. Do noninterventionists believe there can be a treaty that will keep the Communists from aggression? There is no peaceful coexistence with Communism. Its ultimate goal is world domination, so there will be no peace until Communism is defeated. We must fight now and save democracy.

MAX DURNEY

Los Molinos, Calif.

Jobs After “R” Day

Sir: You are to be complimented on your foresight in publishing the story, “Executives—What They Work at After They Quit Working” [Nov. 26]. The large volume of U.S. and foreign inquiries Experience, Inc. has received since the article appeared indicates a genuine and growing need for counseling executives before retirement and opening new doors for challenging activities after “R” day..

JULIUS HENDEL

President

Experience, Inc.

Minneapolis

Sniff Before Injecting

Sir: Thank you for the straight story about the “lethal ether” accidents in Michigan [Dec. 10]. Newspaper accounts were vague, and we nurse anesthetists, having used Surital and Pentothal for years, found it impossible to understand how such accidents could happen. Our latest rule: sniff before injecting.

CONSTANCE MERIMS, C.R.N.A.

San Diego

Look-alikes

Sir: I think your review of my book [The System of Dante’s Hell, TIME, Nov. 19] about as accurate as your picture of “me.”

LEROI JONES

New York City

Sir: The question is not whether LeRoi Jones is Dante, but whether the photograph you published is Jones. There is but one answer: No! You have published a photograph of me.

CARL BASS

New York City

> To look-alikes Jones and Bass (see cuts), TIME’S apologies; to TIME’S errant photographer, 30 days in Dante’s ninth circle, sans camera.

The Spanish Conquistadors

Sir: You cannot mention Spain [Dec. 10] without prejudice. Our conquistadors may have killed Indians centuries ago, yet they also married plenty of them. Your ancestors have killed almost all the Indians left in North America, leaving a very small, sad residue to be kept in zoos or reserves, or whatever you call them.

FERNANDO P. ULLIVARRI

Madrid

31-lb. Pamplemousse

Sir: Why are you trying to belittle everything the French do these days? You call the 92-lb. Satellite A1 a candy-striped bonbon [Dec. 3]; let me remind you that your first satellite was only a 31-lb. pamplemousse.

NOEMI JOLIVET

Cannes, France