Letters, Nov. 8, 1948

Lingering Radiation

Sir:

“. . . Two years and three months after Bikini, all four [ships] were still radioactive . . . The carrier Independence is still afloat . . . but is so ‘hot’ that it can be used only as a laboratory for decontamination training . . .” [TIME, Oct. 18].

In an advertisement elsewhere in this issue, entitled “The truth about atomic hazards,” sponsored by the U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force, it is stated that radiation is the least important aftermath of an atom bomb explosion, as regards danger to humans, and that “only 15% of the deaths at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were caused by radiation . . . No significant amount of radiation appeared to linger after the explosions.”

Explain, please.

PAUL VAN AUKEN Indianapolis, Ind.

¶ The advertisement was right about above-ground explosions like those at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There radiation was the third hazard, since most of the radiation went upward and was absorbed into the atmosphere. But the Army failed to say that with underwater explosions like the Bikini bomb blast (as TIME reported), radiation is the No. I hazard.—ED.

Current Credit

Sir:

It has come to my attention that in your Current & Choice section, Lauren Bacall has consistently been left out of the cast of Key Largo.

Inasmuch as there are those of us in Hollywood, Miss Bacall among them, who would rather make Current & Choice than win an Academy Award or make Men of Distinction, won’t you please include her in the cast of Key Largo in Current & Choice just once, as she is my wife and I have to live with her. Miss Bacall is extremely tired of being labeled et al.

HUMPHREY BOGART Beverly Hills, Calif.

¶See Current & Choice.—ED.

Good Word

Sir:

Your parenthetical tips on pronunciation

are a great help, but TIME’S Press editor forgot to put readers wise on the right way to

say “Btfsplk” [TIME, Oct. 18]. What’s the

good word?

HARRY FRANKEN Columbus, Ohio

¶Btfsplk rhymes with a Bronx cheer, more or less.—ED.

60-Horsepower Surprise

Sir:

PACKARD, WITH A 160-HORSEPOWER ENGINE, WHICH HAS FEATURED ITS CUSTOM EIGHT SINCE 1939 AS “AMERICA’S MOST POWERFUL MOTOR CAR,” GLADLY WELCOMES CADILLAC AS A WORTHY COMPETITOR IN ITS POWER BRACKET WITH THE 160-HORSEPOWER ENGINE YOUR ISSUE OF OCT. 25 REPORTS, BUT IS SURPRISED THAT USUALLY ACCURATE TIME IMPLIES THE CADILLAC ENGINE TO BE EXCLUSIVE IN THAT POWER RATING.

GEO. T. CHRISTOPHER President Packard Motor Car Co. Detroit, Mich.

¶TIME, surprised too, regrets that it fell for a piece of misinformation.—ED.

Double Entry

Sir:

Concerning Dr. Douglas Southall Freeman’s “‘account book’ in which his expenditures of time are recorded” [TIME, Oct. 18], would be interested to know if he enters in the “Time Wasted” column the amount of time he wastes in computing and disgustedly recording his wasted time.

ROBERT H. LEHMAN New York City

¶Historian Freeman calculates this waste at almost 30 seconds a day, admits that it goes unrecorded.—ED.

Abolitionist Movement

Sir:

Olivet College’s President Aubrey L. Ashby’s action in ridding himself of thorny Barton Akeley [TIME, Oct. 18], is to be commended . . . Watchdogs of the American intellect are no doubt waiting eagerly for his next step.

I suggest that he proceed to abolish geometry (invented by a pagan), algebra (influenced by Mohammedans) . . . music (its appeal is sensual), art (unattractive to red-blooded hemen) and . . . that when spring comes—if it ever does to Olivet, Mich.—he keep his students all indoors lest it freshen their blood and create unorthodox notions.

JAMES WHARTON Weems, Va.

The Glow that Smarts

Sir:

. . . Writing of Truman’s stops in eastern Pennsylvania cities, you say: “They watched with pleased but oddly silly smiles . . . acted more like a vaudeville audience than a political crowd” [TIME, Oct. 18].

I heard Truman speak in Bethlehem, and from what I could see of that crowd of 10,000, everyone was smiling. I myself wore a grin from ear to ear.

Would you like to know why . . . ? That beaming, commonplace-looking man stirred immediate good will within me. I positively glowed inside to see that the President of th United States was just one of the people . .

It made me smart to read that I looked “oddly silly.”

HAYDEN NORWOOD

Bethlehem, Pa.

Record Crowd

Sir:

As a possible point of information, I submit that the crowd witnessing Cleveland’, defeat in the fifth game of the 1948 Work Series was not “the largest crowd (86,288 to watch a baseball game anywhere, any time” [TIME, Oct. 18].

At the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin, a crowd of over 100,000 saw an exhibition game between two American teams.

W. H. GALLMANN JR. New Orleans, La.

Cortical Keyhole

Sir:

Artzybasheff’s Id must have been working overtime when he gave Dr. Menninger a key three-sixteenths of an inch greater than the height of the keyhole [TIME, Oct. 25], The key to the problem, while not yet quite a solid, will fit the lock, when found.

Even so, I liked the cover and think that your cover artists are the cleverest in the business.

NORMAN L. MAYELL

Chicago, Ill.

Humiliating Emphasis

Sir:

A cutting from TIME, Oct. 11, has been forwarded to me by an American friend. I am both humiliated and distressed to discover that . . . emphasis has been placed on minor remarks of a jocular nature, to the entire disfavor of Kent School, whereas the serious side of Kent life, which was stressed by me in enthusiastic terms, has been completely ignored . . .

I shall be forever grateful for the wonderful experience which I enjoyed at Kent School, intellectually, spiritually and physically … I shall be a better man, through having been to Kent . . .

ANTHONY S. ARNOLD

London, England

Sir:

… I was shocked to read … so many ridiculous and harmful statements . . .

I found the educational standards of my American school, St. James, as high as those of the very best English schools . . .

The schools of this country will have to face just the same problem of periodical grades when we have got rid of our antiquated system of “certificate” examinations . . .

The article . . . [gave] the impression that the boys were ungrateful for an experience that in reality they wish could have lasted longer. KEITH J REEVE Suffolk England

¶TIME regrets that in attempting a constructive comparison between U.S. and British schools it seems to have led the witnesses.—ED.

Time & Thought Sir:

Allow me to thank you for your . . . understanding article on my late husband’s work [TIME, Oct. 18] now being shown at the Museum of Modern Art . . . Your critic is … one of the very few who took the time and the thought, not only to look at the sculpture, but to see it and to evaluate it…

VIOLA M. NADELMAN Riverdale, N.Y.