Letters: Feb. 25, 1966

The War Debate

Sir: In the past I have been an admirer of Senator Fulbright, and during Kennedy’s Administration I expected him to be the Secretary of State. Since he started the Senate investigation of Viet Nam policy [Feb. 18], I have been shocked. He could not choose a more inopportune time. I fear that the bitniks-pacifists will really succeed in making null and void all pur efforts to settle the war. I suggest making him a four-star general of the bitnik-pacifist army, and sending all of them to Viet Nam.

R. C. McCLURE

Pittsburgh

Sir: How can you deny so derisively the right of the Senate and the good American people to question our role in the Viet Nam war? What you do to Senator Fulbright is an atrocity. Senators Fulbright, Church, Gore and Morse appeal to a lot of us as sane, sober thinkers.

MRS. RALPH BIGELOW

Wyatt, Ind.

Sir: God save us from Dean Rusk [Feb. 4] in Viet Nam and God save us from TIME, should you continue your favorable treatment of incompetents like Rusk, McNamara and the others of their ilk in the Executive Branch.

L. S. ROGERS

CWO, U.S.A.F. (ret.)

Rome, N.Y.

Sir: Your country’s motivation for its participation in Viet Nam, as so frequently defined by Dean Rusk, is impeccable. Its validity is the issue that worries many a Vietnik. Perhaps Hanoi would agree to halt infiltration while a U.N. plebiscite dispelled suspicion that the present South Viet Nam government is not the people’s choice.

J. MOORE

Elizabeth Town, Tasmania

Divorce Dilemmas

Sir: In your penetrating Essay, “The Sorry State of Divorce Law” [Feb. 11], you refer to the conciliation court as a possible hope for the future and cite Los Angeles’ as an example of what can be accomplished. We submit that marriage and divorce are not the province of the law and the courts. Domestic breakup is an emotional tragedy that should be handled by family centers, where concentration would be upon the causes of marital discord rather than the symptoms, and where the jungle atmosphere that pervades the court and the lawyer’s office would be eliminated completely.

DAVID R. Moss

Executive Secretary

American Marriage and Divorce Reform Los Angeles

Sir: Your Essay accurately states the absurd, puritanical and self-defeating nature of most divorce statutes. But forced reconciliation negotiations before a civil servant are as much an affront to adults as present divorce laws. Respect for the dignity of the individual and for his right to terminate an intimate relationship is more important than the benefits of mass counseling.

PHILIP L. GRAUMAN

Attorney

San Francisco

Sir: One wonders if TIME is trying to prove Aldous Huxley right when he said, “In a few years, no doubt, marriage licenses will be sold like dog licenses, good for a period of twelve months, with no law against changing dogs or keeping more than one animal at a time.”

PETER P. ZUK

Bakersfield, Calif.

Feeling the Draft

Sir: This draftee congratulates you on your splendid Essay on the draft [Feb. 4]. Two years’ active duty is a small price to pay for a country that offers the privileges and opportunities of America.

SP4 JOHN W. HIBBS

Izmir, Turkey

Sir: To deem the draft as presently constituted as “about the best method available” is to admit serious incompetence. That our approach to military service has not progressed beyond the militarist mentality of much of ancient Greece should provide us with little satisfaction.

WALTER MAHLER JR.

Syracuse

Sir: As a draftee fighting in Viet Nam, I don’t appreciate being called an “underprivileged negative,” and I don’t consider myself “expendable.” In any case, we “underprivileged negatives” and “expendables” are going to help win this war.

SP4 WILLIAM R. RYAN

Viet Nam

Sir: The decision to draft college students in inverse order of academic achievement contradicts the national principle of equal justice under law. Deferment of our intellectual set weakens our national military, economic and political fiber. Potential leaders must get out and see for themselves what their heritage is all about.

MELVIN HOLST

Lewiston, Idaho

“The Real Man”

Sir: It was a privilege to know Chaplain Hutchens [Feb. 11] when we were students at Dallas Theological Seminary. No one who heard Jim’s sermon on “the real man” would be surprised at his Viet Nam work.

(THE REV.) RONALD E. GALLAGHER

Orlando, Fla.

In the Tube

Sir: A sidelight on gravity-powered travel [Feb. 11] is that the 42.2-minute period of tube vehicles is by no coincidence half the period of the Schuler pendulum, a theoretical pendulum the length of the earth’s radius, with a period of 84.4 minutes. Its behavior is simulated in the stable platforms of modern inertial-guidance systems. The Schuler period is also involved in the orbit time of artificial satellites. These behave like inverted pendulums, their point of suspension at the earth’s center of gravity. As solar pressure, atmospheric drag and other forces act on them, they obey Kepler’s law; their orbit times decrease until they approach the Schuler 84-minute period. Their orbits then decay, and they fall back into the earth’s atmosphere.

PAUL R. SMITH

New York City

Sir: The very same flight of fancy as Cooper’s was taken by Lewis (Alice in Wonderland) Carroll in Chapter 7 of his Sylvie and Bruno. Other knowing observers: Galileo in 1642, French Astronomer Camille Flammarion in 1909, and L. Frank Baum in Tik-Tok of Oz.

PAUL L. LYONS Chief Geophysicist Sinclair Oil & Gas Co. Tulsa, Okla.

Herky & His Friends

Sir: Your cover story on the Lockheed Aircraft Corp. [Feb. 11] brought back many unforgettable hours in the C-130 “Herky Bird.” As one of the original Air Force crew members assigned to it, and one of the charter members of the Lockheed C-130 Thousand-Hour Club, I can say that the plane is one of the Government’s greatest defense assets.

GEORGE P. DUVALL

Louisville

Sir: Each airframe must have a reliable, efficient engine and propeller combination to make it successful. Lockheed was fortunate that the Allison T56-A-7 engine and the Hamilton Standard propeller met performance and power requirements so well. From a pilot’s standpoint, the four turbo-prop engines, 4,050 horsepower each, make the “Herky Bird” a performer.

C. D. KRANTZ Commander, U.S.N.

Military Airlift Command (MAC)

Moffett Field, Calif.

Water Fallout

Sir: The Storm King bend on the Hudson River [Feb. 11], crown point of the “American Rhine,” is not only a national treasure but a world treasure. I do not believe that New Yorkers would knowingly consent to having this site converted into an industrial heap, its serenely noble ancient rock face denied with cables and chimneys or gouged out for sluice gates. In a time of general turmoil, let us be wise enough to preserve this tremendous outdoor temple.

MRS. R. H. MUELLER

Syracuse

Sir: Consolidated Edison has proposed a pumped-storage hydroelectric plant on the low-lying Hudson River shoreline area north of Storm King Mountain only after exhaustive study of possible sites and alternatives. The project would add to the beauty and recreational values of that part of the Hudson, sharply reduce chances of another blackout in the New York metropolitan area, reduce air pollution in that area and help meet immediate and long-range power needs in the most effective and reliable way.

H. C. FORBES

Chairman of the Board

Consolidated Edison Co.

New York City

Another Sister

Sir: You say that Pat Kennedy Lawford was the only Kennedy sister to marry a non-Catholic [Feb. 11]. Kathleen Kennedy married an English nobleman who was an Anglican.

(MRS.) THERESA MANTOVANI

Elmhurst, N.Y.

Protocol & Punctuality

Sir: That was a silly little error that crept into last week’s De Gaulle-Erhard story [Feb. 18]. Nobody kept anybody waiting; both men, being protocol-minded statesmen, were punctual.

HERMAN NICKEL

Time Inc.

Paris

Chinese Treasury

Sir: The color page on our Chinese metalwork installation [Feb. 4] was stunning. Everyone is most pleased here and joins me in saying thank you.

ELEANOR D. FALCON Metropolitan Museum of Art New York City

Top Bops

Sir: About “top painting” [Feb. 11]: Pop, Op and Top are all flops. We should have a fad to end all fads—Stop.

LESLIE TSENG-TSENG Yu

Frederick, Md.