Letters: Feb. 23, 1968

D’ye Ken?

Sir: The Galbraith story [Feb. 16] is a brilliant analysis of truth and reality. In reading it, one is struck by the fact that our country produces many such men whose wisdom should guide our destiny. Yet, as the 1968 elections approach, it appears that the American people will once again be denied the opportunity to select their President from the ranks of the truly qualified.

DAVID L. MEARS San Francisco

Sir: Economists criticize Dr. Galbraith because he is really much more than an economist. He is a critic of the purposes and direction of human life. Economics is only the vehicle that man makes to carry him through the world of nature. Which is more important: the fashioning of the vehicle or the enjoyment of the ride?

ALAN MAGARY Woodbury, Conn.

Sir: Gerald Scarfe’s cover of John Galbraith is distorted, unrealistic and grotesque, and perfectly parallels Mr. Galbraith’s socioeconomic philosophy.

H. H. HAMMER Manhattan

Sir: Surely, your delightful piece on John Kenneth Galbraith should have made note of the Galbraiths’ tiny Negro maid, Emily, the only person who has ever put Ken down.

Her own story is that when she entered the household, Ken sought to assert his domination by constantly using his 6 ft. 8 in. to place things out of her reach. Emily used her lack of height to place his toilet articles, etc., out of his reach. The standoff quickly developed into mutual admiration and respect, and Emily has long remained an indispensable member of the family.

PHILIP POTTER The Baltimore Sun Washington, D.C.

The Face of War

Sir: Your picture coverage of the bloody fighting in South Vietnamese cities was shocking and sickening [Feb. 9]. There are those who will cry “bad taste” or “obscene.” The fact is that war is obscene, but unrealistic complacency about it is as dangerous as it is uninformed. Hopefully, candid reporting will make shockingly clear to hawk and dove alike the horrible consequences of a peace-at-any-price policy, as well as the urgency of exhausting all channels to obtain a just peace.

JOHN BACHMAYER, ’71 St. John’s Seminary College Camarillo, Calif.

Sir: Like most other Americans, I have become steeled to the “television war” watched on the early news across the dinner table. Television coverage of the attacks on the U.S. embassy, therefore, caused only a momentary pause in the trajectory of my peas from plate to mouth.

In the sanctity of my office, I leafed through the Giap cover story while eating lunch. On the first page of your color spread covering the embassy attack my eating came to an abrupt end. No one, certainly, would applaud your printing of such photos, but maybe such gruesome sights are what we need to be brought back to the grim reality that the news on TV is not just reruns of Combat, where the guy killed this week will return to co-star next.

RONALD T. MENET San Pablo, Calif.

Sir: I look at your pictures of our boys’ bodies dumped on a truck in a country that no longer matters, and I weep. I am tired, tired, tired of this war. Why can’t we get it over with or get out?

(MRS.) JANE BATTEY Media, Pa.

Sir: No doubt your picture of the execution of a Viet Cong officer by General Nguyen Ngoc Loan will bring much satisfaction to the hairy 2% of our populace who revile the atrocities, some real and some imagined, committed by the U.S. and its allies while turning a deaf ear to murder and assassination by the Viet Cong. I only hope that alongside of it in the history books is placed the picture of the South Vietnamese officer carrying the body of his child murdered by these same Viet Cong.

JOHN S. CARSON, M.D. Rosemont, Pa.

>For more about General Loan see THE WORLD.

Write It Down

Sir: The President’s request that the Joint Chiefs of Staff put the ability to defend Khe Sanh in writing [Feb. 9] may begin a new concept and set new precedents. He could extend this policy to the State Department, where there is a great need to separate fact from fantasy about the political realities in Viet Nam. If it were put into writing and signed, we would be more inclined to believe it. It took a newspaper editorial to convince Virginia about Santa Claus.

PETER KOUGASIAN Cranston, R.I.

Even to the Ants

Sir: Thank you so much for the article on David Gitelson [Feb. 9]. I went to school with Dave from ages eleven to 13, and we used to be driven to school in the same car pool. During those few years, we would talk, and his humility was so great that he thought nothing of once—at the expense of a fist fight—stopping two boys from kicking over anthills. After he was killed, I called two local papers and asked the editors why they hadn’t done a column on , him, and one answer was, “Is that story really that important?” But God bless TIME—you did it!

CARLO CURTI Beverly Hills, Calif.

Choice of Mission

Sir: I was most pleasantly surprised at the fair treatment you gave Sister Marian Peter, my brother and myself in the article “Priestly Rebels” [Feb. 2]. However, you made it sound like our decision was a reaction to “tough government measures” of a few days’ duration. It was not. It was our response to a permanent situation of violence to human nature that can be seen in any set of statistics on Guatemala giving the infant-mortality rate, life expectancy, literacy, average income, distribution of the land, etc. You say we have broken the rule of noninterference in political affairs, as U.S. missionaries in a foreign country, siding with the rebels. We sided with the poor—the rebels also happen to be oh their side.

Sister Marian Peter and I have been married. We could have gotten permission from Rome, but decided not to. We want the church to know that it is time that her hierarchy begin preaching and living the Gospel of Christ’s love for all mankind, and forget their frantic defense of a legalistic system that has only served to alienate the clergy from the poor.

THOMAS R. MELVILLE Mexico City

The Welcome

Sir: Your splendid article on the “Homecoming” of James Edward Johnson to the State of West Virginia [Feb. 9] clearly illustrates the social and economic problems that are encountered by American Negro youth today. Here is a situation where a Negro, recipient of the Purple Heart for wounds received while fighting an enemy of the U.S., returns to his home only to find bigotry on the part of state employees and fellow police cadets while pursuing a course at a state institution. This story does not end at the state police academy near Charleston. The prevailing racial attitude of the remaining twenty-two cadets, if permitted to complete the course, will most certainly be reflected in the way they carry out their duties as police officers.

LITTLE D. TACKETT Captain, U.S.A. (ret.) Detroit

Stables or Sheep?

Sir: The Presbyterians of Iowa City may talk about “peace and unity,” but they certainly don’t exemptify it [Feb. 9]. How an they talk of faith, love, and Jesus Christ, then turn and threaten excommunication of two members whose opinions differ from their own? Had Christ done the same thing, he would have been his only follower. Are our churches becoming institutionalized nihilities with the power to turn people away from communal contact with God? Are the stables more important than the sheep?

VICKI SMITH Hughesville, Pa.

Home Is the Heart of It

Sir: Sincere congratulations for the colorful, informative and provocative feature on home decoration [Feb. 9]. The role of the professional interior designer projects other levels of skill, vision and involvement—just beginning to emerge and find expression in community consciousness. To implement this role, members of our professional organization have adopted a five-point plan that includes working toward: educational expansion and degree-granting curriculums at the college-university level; establishment of a voluntary accreditation program; and steps to increase the depth and caliber of its involvement and study in today’s complex areas of community planning, social-science research and public affairs. Living space should be created from the inside out because it is a most intimate extension of the dweller’s own personality—and we have only begun to explore the impact and significance of environment on human personality, judgment and behavior.

JAMES MERRICK SMITH, F.A.I.D. President

American Institute of Interior Designers Manhattan

Bitter Harvest

Sir: We are deeply concerned that the “Return of the Sea Otter” [Feb. 9] may well mean the demise of the sea otter. “What might the coat cost?” it was asked. It might well cost the loss of another of the world’s unique creatures. Since the inception of the present century more than 40 kinds of mammals have been exterminated. They are forever lost to us and all following generations.

The slaughter of the sea otter began in 1741 with a Russian exploratory expedition to the Commander Islands. Unfortunately, the sea otter’s trusting nature aided in its destruction. These naturally tame animals would swim up to the small boats, only to be clubbed to death by hunters.

Does the woman who purchases an exotic fur coat realize that one day she may wear the last sea otter, Somali leopard, cheetah, or any one of innumerable other mammals unfortunate enough to have a pelt sought by the fur trade?

As Conservationist William Beebe said: “The beauty and genius of a work of art may be reconceived, though its first material expression be destroyed; a vanished harmony may yet again inspire the composer; but when the last individual of a race of living things breathes no more, another heaven and another earth must pass before such a one can be again.”

JAMES M. DOLAN JR., PH.D. Associate Curator San Diego Zoological Garden San Diego

In the Eye of the Beholder

Sir: “Video Boy” [Jan. 26] prompts me to write to tell you how far-reaching are the influences of “the red and white jour nal.” I have for several years been conducting research on a glaucoma-like eye enlargement in birds. A TIME article, “Those Tired Children” [Nov. 6, 1964] prompted me to try subjecting chicks to continuous TV. After eight weeks, the birds seemed to be addicted to whatever was showing, and their eyes were markedly abnormal: 20% larger than those of birds reared under continuous incandescent light, and over 30% larger than normal eyes. What this exposure did to the chick’s psyche I cannot say, but the experiment certainly cut down on the viewing time of the humanoids associated with the project. Perhaps you overstate the case when you suggest that most TV fare is geared to the mental level of eleven-year-olds. It’s for the birds.

DR. JEAN K. LAUBER Assistant Professor of Zoology The University of Alberta Edmonton, Alta.

My Brother Tom

Sir: In reference to your review of Andrew Turnbull’s book Thomas Wolfe [Feb. 9]: As Tom Wolfe’s brother, I feel I knew him better than anyone living. You refer to Tom’s attempt to “pin down the Great American Novel” as “never getting beyond his barbaric yawp.” I feel sure that hundreds of thousands and more—who have read Tom’s “Promise of America” and “Credo,” both in You Can’t Go Home Again—would disagree. This same multitude of readers of Tom’s books would also take issue with (as I do) the statement “that Tom asked more of life than he had the talent to pay for.” He paid well with his talent for all he got from life, and has left his heritage as proof for readers. You didn’t think it worthwhile to even mention Tom’s second book, Of Time and the River (1935), which contains more of his powerful passages than anything else he wrote. What “drove” Tom to write is best expressed by him in his book of letters and more pronouncedly in his Letters to His Mother. It’s all there for the reader to grasp, whether Turnbull covers it or not.

FRED WOLFE Spartanburg, S.C.

Rabbit Punch

Sir: I enjoyed the article about Dr. Perell’s tipsy technique for retarding early birth contractions [Feb. 9]. I have used the same delightful method through three pregnancies and produced three lovely normal children. In fact, I get stoned the minute the rabbit test comes back positive.

MRS. A. LEWIS ROGERS Cohasset, Mass.