Letters: The Atomic Bomb

Sirs:

Congratulations on your matter-of-fact treatment of the scientific side of the atomic bomb [TIME, Aug. 20]. After having struggled with the Sunday supplement-like nonsense which the newspapers have been printing recently on the subject, it was welcome relief. . . .

(RT 2/c) JAMES ROSENBERG

c/o Fleet Post Office San Francisco

Sirs:

. . . No one else has caught so well our sense of this still moment when we balance on the edge of the abyss and try to apprehend the heights which must be scaled.

GERTRUDE WILLIAMS

Stanford University, Calif.

Sirs:

… In any case, the split atom is here to stay. Let us accept it with some fear and trembling, but let us also accept it with all the faith we can muster in man’s intelligent capacity and desire to harness it beneficently, as he has electricity. . . .

THEODORE E. MERRITT Salem, Ore.

Sirs:

TIME’S discussion of the atomic bomb and its implications deserves serious consideration. . . .

Fortunately, the atomic bomb, in one fell swoop, struck down three enemies of human progress. It destroyed the hopes of the Jap fascists and their followers; it shattered the illusions of the isolationists; and it all but demolished the silly argument that governmental planning is ineffective and incompatible with democracy. It was public investment and government planning—the kind of planning that we rejected in peacetime—that enabled us to discover the instrument which finally smashed the last hopes of those who still think in terms of superior and inferior peoples, predatory individualism, and unrestrained aggressiveness.

IRVING H. FLAMM Chicago

One Small Exception

Sirs:

This letter is prompted by a paragraph in TIME [Aug. 6]: “Ken Murayama, a Japanese newsman, recently captured in the Philippines, wrote that Japan was ripe for surrender. . . .”

As usual, TIME has filled in a little chink for me. I thought that TIME might be interested in a little background on Ken.

We went to high school together long before the incident at the Marco Polo bridge. He was one of the brightest kids I ever knew, and so completely American that his almond-shaped eyes were almost forgotten. I say “almost” because I remember very well one particular incident that might have had some effect on Ken’s future.

. . . There was never any thought but that he was one of the crowd. Never, that is, until one day, a week or so before some high-school prom or other, he made the mistake of asking cme of our girls whether he might escort her. The girl said yes, she would love to go with him but she must ask her mother. And I know that the girl wanted to go with Ken. . . . Well, the girl asked her mother’s permission and her mother was horrified. The girl was forced to try to tell Ken why she couldn’t gowith him. Suddenly, I think, some sort of portcullis dropped between him and the boys and girls whom he knew.

I don’t remember whether he was born in America or not. His father was some sort of resident trade commissioner in Washington. Anyway, after high school Ken went on to George Washington University, where he made a fine record. After that he went to Tokyo to teach English, and it always seemed to me that somehow Ken really didn’t want to go. …

I wonder whether Ken might not have won a Silver Star on our side with that Japanese outfit in Italy, if, so long ago, a little girl’s mother hadn’t taken exception to his almond eyes.

RICHARD HOLLANDER c/o Postmaster New York City

The Last at Dunkirk?

Sirs:

The British claim that Field Marshal Alexander was “the last man off Dunkirk.”

The French point out proudly that Admiral Abrial, having watched the English “safely off,” was the last to leave.

TIME [Aug. 6] refers to Laborite Lieut. General Mason MacFarlane as the “last man to leave the beach at Dunkirk.”

Others say there was no last man, since the French divisions of General Prioux stayed back and fought their way to the main front.

Could TIME, once for good, pick out the real “last man” and tell me?

F. ARNOLD

Montreal, P.Q.

¶ The official French report says that Vice Admiral Abrial left June 4, 1940; the British official report says that Major General Alexander left June 3. But because the evacuation of Dunkirk was primarily a British show, Alexander seems most likely to receive history’s accolade.—ED.

Carmen, “Boilesk Voishin”

Sirs:

It was with a great deal of pleasure that we noticed the few lines mentioning the 63rd Division’s version of Carmen in your Overseas issue of August 6th.

The group of 45 combat infantrymen from the 253rd Infantry, 63rd Division, who comprise the G.I. version of the old favorite, have done 50 performances to date before some 56,000 troops. The show has appeared in Heidelberg at the world-famed Stadt Theater, in Mannheim at the onetime luxurious UFA Palast, at the Walhalla Theater in Wiesbaden and the Liberty and Montgomery Theaters in Kassel.

Carmen, billed as “a boilesk voishin,” was written and directed by 21-year-old Corporal Fred Wiener, who also plays the title role. Wiener claims to have beaten Billy Rose to the punch . . . for he first did a burlesque version of the opera as an 8th grader at Portage Path School in Akron, Ohio. . . .

The outstanding figure in the show, however, is Corporal Ray Richardson, 23-year-old Chicagoan, who plays “Tom Wand”—a take-off of the opera’s legit Don Jose. Richardson formerly sang with the Chicago Opera, which certainly doesn’t hurt his renditions of I Love You, A Little on the Lonely Side and Sweet Dreams, Sweetheart. . . .

(S/SGT.) A. B. MARTIN

c/o Postmaster New York City

Dartmouth’s Jewish Policy

Sirs:

It was gratifying to note that TIME [Aug. 20] carried a report on the recent statements by the president of Dartmouth College in support of the quota system there — particularly since most of the press completely ignored the story. . . .

Dr. Hopkins’ solution for antiSemitism, although it undoubtedly was not so intended, is reminiscent of the Nazis’ attempt to solve the problem by eliminating the victims. . . .

JOSEPH L. SHOLKIN Dartmouth ’35 Newton Highlands, Mass.

Sirs:

Thanks to TIME for an unbiased account of the position of Dartmouth’s President Hopkins re proportionate selection for college admissions. Though TIME did not directly damn the jingoism whose misrepresentations produced the controversy, TIME’S summary could lead any college man — student, alumnus, or administrator—only into agreement with President Hopkins and the principles of Dartmouth’s system. . . .

Said President Hopkins, “This policy was designed to preserve a balanced student body truly representative of our general population ; and thus we believed we could serve democracy best.” Such lines from Rosenberg would certainly have landed him in one of his own death camps.

(PFC.) DONALD M. SISSON Camp Shelby, Miss.

Sirs:

No one is asking Dartmouth’s President Hopkins to “accept unexamined the great blocks of Jewish applications which come in.” Let him subject them and the candidates from all other American groups, great and small, to as rigorous academic tests as are required to maintain the standards of Dartmouth. But let the “restricted enrollment” be determined by competition in those tests, and not by racial, sectional, religious, or any other quota—for which there is no real justification other than an arbitrary, antidemocratic prejudice. . . .

IRVING FINEMAN Beverly Hills, Calif.

Sirs:

Dartmouth, being a liberal college with a high academic standard and a fine reputation, has always attracted many Jewish men. There they have found as happy an attitude towards them as in any institution in the country. . . .

I daresay that if a poll were to be taken of Dartmouth Jewish alumni, they would back President Hopkins and the college almost to a man. . . . Dartmouth is a private school and the men of Dartmouth don’t need much outside help to tell us how we want our college run.

JAMES A. DONOVAN JR. Major, U.S.M.C.R. Dartmouth ’39 Quantico, Va.

Hirohito & Shintoism

Sirs:

In treating of the Japanese Emperor, you persist in recognizing him as the religious head of his people. As a matter of fact, only about one-third of the Japanese are Shintoists, nearly all of the rest being Buddhists who do not recognize him as anything but their Emperor in whose name all Government affairs are transacted. . . .

LAMBERT FAIRCHILD New York City

¶ TIME has correctly persisted in recognizing Emperor Hirohito as the official head of the state religion (Shinto).—ED.

Radar

Sirs :

When my favorite newsmagazine reproduces my favorite artist’s interpretation of radar [TIME, Aug. 20], it is a most noteworthy event in my life. Nearly seven years ago, in my capacity as officer in charge of radio research in the Navy’s Bureau of Engineering, I supervised the installation-planning of the first practical and successful radar ever to be placed aboard ship. Since then, I have been privileged to participate intimately in what to me is one of the most hectic, fascinating, and magnificent programs of co ordinated scientific research, development, and production the world has ever seen. . . .

TIME’S report is accurate and comprehensive. . . .

DUNDAS PREBLE TUCKER Captain, U.S.N.

Washington, D.C.