Letters, Sep. 6, 1948

TIME’S Chambers

Sir:

After reading the publicity given to ex-Communist Whittaker Chambers, Senior Editor of TIME Magazine, my first impulse is to cancel my subscription. It is inconceivable that a news publication of such influence can knowingly employ anyone who has ever been a Communist.

Being of a mind that there are two sides to every question, I am asking for an explanation . . .

THOMAS C. PRICE Baltimore, Md.

Sir:

The whole country should be, and I am sure is, eternally grateful for the courageous exposures Whittaker Chambers has made before the House Investigating Committee on the infiltration of Communists in our government. I sincerely hope that these efforts have the complete approval and hearty cooperation of his employers, so that this publicity will not jeopardize his position.

I want to thank Mr. Chambers for myself, and for everyone that I have spoken to, for his constructive assistance in publicizing the Communist menace.

MALCOLM G. DRANE New York City

Sir:

… Chambers is an editor of TIME since 1939, by your own admission, and it is strange, to say the least, that his accusations should be aired nine years later . . . A TIME editor, knowing of the facts as now bared, should have come forward much earlier . . .

A. STREIFF Jackson, Mich.

[Chambers told his story to the State Department in 1939, to the FBI in 1943.—ED.]

Sir:

. . . Whittaker Chambers, the Klieg-lit and politically unstable, has aroused my interest. I want to be able to trim ship while reading TIME so that I can feel I’m not being had . . .

R. ROBERTS BALDWIN Stockton, N.J.

Sir:

Your account of the Whittaker Chambers-Alger Hiss debate is a masterpiece of “bend-ing-over-backwards” fairness. Would like to shake your collective hand.

(MRS.) MARIAN MCCRACKEN Baltimore, Md.

Sir:

I am surprised beyond all measure that you still retain . . . Whittaker Chambers on your staff. It’s a disgrace.

B. WENDELL Washington, D.C.

¶ Whittaker Chambers renounced Communism in 1937. Two years later he joined TIME’S staff as a writer. TIME was fully aware of Chambers’ political background, believed in his conversion, and has never since had reason to doubt it. In the past nine years Chambers has written and edited TIME stories in such varied fields as Cinema, Religion, Books, and Foreign News; in the judgment of his fellow workers, he has proved himself an outstanding journalist. TIME believes that Chambers’ penetrating knowledge of the ways of Communism, at home and abroad, has been extremely valuable to TIME—and to TIME’S readers.—ED.

Israel—to the End of TIME

Sir:

Thanks for the sympathetic article on Israel and Ben-Gurion [TIME, Aug. 16] . . .

M. ALBRECHT Charleston, W. Va.

Sir:

No Israelophile, and never guilty of distinguished sympathy for Jewish problems, TIME remains true to tradition in [its] treatment of Israel’s Premier, David Ben-Gurion: By its subtle suggestion that Israel will be an irreligious state . . . By its intelligence-insulting simplification of British treachery in the Middle East as being a mere desire for “stability” . . .

The State of Israel—founded on ideals and aspirations as old as time—will flourish as a living symbol of humanitarian civilization at least until the end of TIME.

IRVING WALDMAN St. Paul, Minn.

Sir:

. . . You have finally printed an article that no other magazine and few newspapers have wanted or dared to print. For the first time, the small nation that has fought seven surrounding nations, England, and many other countries throughout the world, has been given a write-up in your magazine that is justified. The Aug. 16 edition of TIME should be preserved for posterity. Congratulations on a fine article.

CHARLES GERSTEN Brooklyn, N.Y.

Chinese Shrimps

Sir:

I read in TIME, July 26, about the aged Chinese painter, Ch’ih Pai-shih . . . According to your article he sells his pictures for a dollar. Knowing a bargain when I hear about one in the art market, I sent him $1 cash . . . and today the picture really arrived, a traditional Chinese brush painting of a pair of shrimps. His calligraphy is gross but his figures are sensitive and beautiful.

Ch’ih writes as follows: “I am nearly 90 years of age and I want more time to rest, so I charge U.S. $11 per sq. foot for my paintings abroad. I hope all is well with you.” Also, he wants … “a copy of the American magazine in which someone has written about me.”

CLIFFORD ODETS

New York City

¶ To Painter Pai-shih, by airmail, one July 26 TIME.—ED.

Mexican Miracle?

Sir:

In the Aug. 2 TIME, I read of José Clemente Orozco “flailing his arms like an orchestra conductor . . .”

In the early ’30s, when the artist was painting murals in Dartmouth College’s Baker Library, one arm was lacking. Has a miracle occurred? . . .

WALTER R. HARD JR. Montpelier, Vt.

¶ Muralist Orozco has two arms—but only one hand. When he was 15, he lost his left hand while playing with some gunpowder. He says: “It has never been a handicap.”—ED.