Letters, Oct. 8, 1951

Pro & Con Kennan

Sir: The views of Mr. George F. Kennan [TIME, Sept. 17] pack the realistic wallop that somehow should be roundhoused to the chin of the formulators of our foreign policy.

The idealistic aura which surrounds our foreign dealings seems to be native only to us. If we look upon such idealism in the nature of a disease, one thing is surely certain: it is not communicable to our fellow nations . . .

While we cannot look upon our diplomatic relations as a business operation, business principles seem to be in order. Basically, the purpose of any business is to profit . . . Mr. Kennan has a wise message. I believe its conclusions can prompt but one logical question to our policy makers: if we do not think of ourselves, who will? JAMES H. SELWAY, SR. Baltimore

Sir: . . . We need clear-headed thinkers at a time like this. Mr. Kennan has summed up our problem so well, he should be back on his job with the State Department and having his full say now. EDWARD S. GARUF Minneapolis Sir: Thanks to George F. Kennan, I can now put aside my worn-out copy of Machiavelli’s II Principe and read in modern English . . . the warning against the “perils of idealism” that the clever Florentine secretary so strongly impressed on “the prince” . . .

Wrote Machiavelli: “Taking everything into careful consideration, one will discover that an action which appears to be virtuous will lead to the ruin (of the prince) and another action which appears to be vicious will lead to his security and prosperity . . .” Louis HANEGRAEF Liège, Belgium

Sir: In the past, the “rational and restricted purposes” that Mr. Kennan recommends as the proper basis for our foreign policy might indeed have served us well. But for the 1950s, this limited “practicality” would be another example of too little and too late.

With the U.S. and Russia both staring down the business end of an atomic gun barrel, nothing short of a sincere proposal of complete and universal disarmament under U.N. inspection and policing can be considered truly rational. HAROLD WATERHOUSE Santa Monica, Calif.

Low-Grade Pun

Sir: In your book review of Party Going, by Henry Green (TiME, Sept. 17), you say, “What remains in 1951 is the shell of a satire with about as much yoke as a ping pong ball.” Your word play on eggs falls short of U.S. AA grade . . . DONNA CONNELL Napa, Calif.

Sir: A very poor jolk . . . W. J. COMERY New York City

Discount the Chimps

Sir: Regarding Professor Garrett’s criticism of Dr. Gilliland’s finding that white babies scored a mean I.Q. of 103 and that Negroes earned 105.6 [TIME, Sept. 17], may I say that you are still right in the essence of the matter. Frankly, it matters little which “race” received the superior score. Professor Garrett must know that the mental differences within a race are greater than the average mental differences between two races. In the adult mental world it is not race that counts but individual rank on a valid test of intelligence. As for Garrett’s chimpanzees, they do not have enough psychological rank to give any reader of TIME an inferiority complex! EDWARD C. McDoNAGH Department of Sociology University of Southern California Los Angeles

Word from Little Mo

Sir: Thank you for the many compliments in your write-up of me and my lucky week at Forest Hills [TIME, Sept. 17] . . . However, the impression that I received lessons from Tennis Pro Wilbur Folsom in exchange for retrieving tennis balls is incorrect. He received payment from my family for my instruction from the beginning.

Mr. Folsom did not send me to Eleanor Tennant for coaching . . . It was after I had discontinued lessons with him that a friend of mine, Mrs. Curt Tree, of Los Angeles, recommended Miss Tennant and arranged our introduction. MAUREEN CONNOLLY San Diego

Guns & Dollars & Ideas

Sir: Your note, “William, Meet Juliusz” [TIME, Sept. 17] was unfair to Mr. Justice William Douglas. The Justice did not try to “persuade the U.S. that guns and dollars are wrong weapons”; he merely emphasized that ideas are still stronger . . .

Nor is it understandable why you ridicule the Justice’s advocacy of land reform in Asia, while you praise the land-reform program adopted by ECOSOC upon motion of the U.S.

The connection you tried to establish between the Justice and a Polish Communist is entirely out of place. If they both used the phrase “guns and dollars,” they nevertheless made clearly distinguishable statements . . . JOSEPH KASKELL New York City

Sir: . . . Both guns and dollars have their places—they may either “hold the fort” for us until we develop ideas, or they may be used in support of ideas, but we cannot rely on them and ever expect to have permanent peace. (MRS.) MARY GREENE Richmond, Calif.

Economy Move

Sir: . . . If the penny postcard goes [TIME, Sept. 17], why not simply abolish the penny itself? This would undoubtedly save the Government quite a bit of money . . . BERYL IVY MAYO Jackson, Miss.

Playing Fields of the U.S.

Sir: If the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton (as it probably was) [TIME, Sept. 17], then Iwo Jima and the Bulge were won on thousands of football fields in the U.S., where hundreds of thousands of stout-hearted young men have played their hearts out for the kind of honor that is not vitiated by the artificial codes of caste-conscious military gentlemen. RUDOLPH FIEHLER Magnolia, Ark.

Motion Adopted

Sir: In view of your explicit mention of my name in reporting the recent Evanston meeting of the Methodist Federation for Social Action [TIME, Sept. 17], kindly permit me [to say that] on my motion the Federation unanimously adopted a statement . . . specifying five irreconcilable differences between “Christianity and the atheistic Marxian Communism of our day.” . . . [Such an action] leaves no basis for the suggestion implicit in your report that the real aim of the Federation is to “promote Karl Marx.” The Federation’s only objective is to promote Jesus Christ. ALBERT E. BARNETT Emory University, Ga.

The Big Party

Sir: How paradoxical it is that The Big Party [TIME, Sept. 17] should prompt Barbara Hutton to dress as Mozart at the cost of a sum that would have given to the great composer a lifetime of relief from economic struggle . . . JAMES A. PAULSEN Captain, M.C. San Antonio

More Red Tape

Sir: In the Sept. 3 issue you carried an excellent account of what an airman must go through to get married to a Japanese girl in Japan. Since the war, over 5,000 of us have had to wade through the same red tape . . . You have struck upon an extremely interesting story, but you left out a recent FEC directive when you talked of the red tape . . .

Under public law . . . servicemen are authorized to bring their Japanese wives home . . . Many have availed themselves of this act … [but] if a Japanese wife’s husband dies in Korea (where many of us have had to fight) she is no longer eligible for entry into the U.S.; our children are only eligible for entry “based on the facts in each case”; she can no longer use military occupation currency (dollars); she can no longer buy groceries at the commissary and items at the PX; she is not eligible for medical care . . . They are generous enough, however, to allow her your insurance and other piddling compensations. But as far as being your wife—the Government no longer recognizes her . . .

This is certainly a morale booster. I recently was sent to Korea again. Quite frankly, I had many nights of horrible thoughts. If I should be killed “for my country,” my wife and family would be left all alone . . . the Government allowing her my insurance and some “memories” . . .

I’m not an agitator or a Red, believe me. I’m just goddam worried, that’s all . . . SERVICEMAN’S NAME WITHHELD c/o Combat Camera Units c/o Postmaster San Francisco

Sir: It was good to read that the U.S. soldiers in Germany and Austria are not the only ones who have a hard time getting married to local girls. I see our buddies in Japan have the same trouble. We in Europe have to start our paper work eight months before we go home and can’t get married till three months prior to leaving the command . . .

The tour of duty in this theater is from three to four years . . . So the soldier starts living with his girl, paying her rent and taking care of her till the time comes for them to put in the paper work. Those of us who don’t want to live the “sinful” life and have it on our conscience, can only get married in the local Catholic church . . . The soldier can get court-martialed for it, or shipped out of the command secretly and separated from his wife for life . . . SERVICEMAN’S NAME WITHHELD U.S.F.A. c/o Postmaster New York City

Too Smart to Survive?

Sir: You have quoted Lenin in a phrase that should be copied in large black letters and pasted all over the free world: “The soundest strategy in war is to postpone operations until the moral disintegration of the enemy renders the delivery of the mortal blow possible and easy” [TIME, Sept. 17],

. . . Prosperity and overindulgence in materialism have indeed weakened the U.S. to the point that nothing short of a bootstrap-pulling-upward of strength, both physical and moral, can possibly save it. We are pushing buttons in an age that is still using infantrymen; we are too smart for our own survival. R. SWAIN Los Angeles

Staunch Citizen

Sir: Virtue is its own reward, and it is exceedingly poor taste to praise one’s self or to say with the Pharisee, “Thanks, Oh Lord, for not having made me as sinful as that publican.” However, Adolf A. Perle’s letter [TIME, Sept. 17] will be seen by thousands who, not having lived in the States, might be led to believe that we are a nation of morons . . .

Appearances are certainly deceiving . . . Our young people may seem to be rude and insolent. Their manners and morals shock foreign visitors. But they most certainly grow to be the world’s most altruistic, philanthropic, idealistic and moral people . . .

I was brought up abroad. I thank God my children are being brought up in the U.S. MANUEL G. GARCIA Bronxville, N.Y.