Letters, Jun. 29, 1959

Day to Remember

Sir:

Congratulations on your article, “DDay in Europe” [June 8]. It brought back many memories for me. I was a member of the 502nd Parachute Regiment of the loist Airborne Division, which dropped in the area of St. Martin-de-Varreville on Dday.

I was surprised and quite thrilled when I looked at the picture of General Eisenhower visiting my old regiment prior to our jump into Normandy. I was standing just behind the naval officer when the picture was taken, and I had not yet blackened my face for the jump [see cut].

SHERMAN J. OYLER JR. Topeka, Kans.

Sir:

The map accompanying your story on D-day in Europe is a wonderful piece of military reference material; I’ve filed mine away where I can always get at it. However, it seems to be drawn from the point of view of the German commander because, as any armchair strategist knows, the enemy is shown in red and friendly forces in blue. JOSEPH M. MASSARO Lieutenant, U.S.A. Fort Knox, Ky.

¶Says Cartographer R. M. Chapin Jr.: “Blue boats just wouldn’t work on blue water.”—ED.

Of Mice, Monkeys & Space

Sir:

I resent your tendency to gouge and sideswipe the growing number of those who feel pity for brute creation. In the name of religion, of commerce, of sport, of science, man has from the beginning tormented and slaughtered these less fortunate ones. Now little Able and Baker carry on the story of man’s prowess with the helpless. Four mice have known anguish in a nose cone that became a flaming oven. These are the forerunners of a host of speechless creatures that will be shot into air as coldly and indifferently as spitballs.

RUTH HORNBROOK Parkersburg, W. Va.

Sir:

I wish you Americans would cease to be disgustingly sentimental about the few animals that survive the tortures and deadly fear of being imprisoned and sent up in rockets. It makes me and many others sick.

A. M. HEEMSKERK Bilthoven, The Netherlands

Sir:

Whatever the faults of world leadership may have been, we now have “scientific fanatics” at the helm, with the fiendish ambition to propel humans into outer space.

ARTEMUS C. WARD Moose Jaw, Sask.

Politics y. Religion

Sir:

I am a Catholic and very proud to be one. I feel that it would be of great value if this country were to elect a Catholic President to disprove all the fallacies surrounding the now ambiguous “he.” But as much as I would like to see a Catholic become President, I say that I would not vote for Kennedy. I have many reasons, the main one being his stand on the labor question.

KAY RICHARDS La Grange Park, Ill.

Sir:

I am Jewish, and I’m proud to say that I’ll vote for the man I think best suited for the job regardless of religion—John Kennedy.

STUART GOLDFINE Cumberland, Md.

I am not a Catholic; I do not necessarily go along with Senator John Kennedy or his beliefs, but I am ashamed that the people who think that religion should be a factor in politics are citizens of this country, where all men are equal. Such a belief is not only insane, it is childish. I do not wish to defend Kennedy or his faith, but I do think that religion is not a basis for election. Religion should not enter into politics, especially those politics that concern a nation.

JOE CLAY

Fort Smith, Ark.

Objection Sustained

Sir:

TIME’S June 1 story on the Supreme Court got its figures mixed up. The court, always close to being current, does not have a backlog of 1,836 cases. Actually, as of June 4, [it had] 375, of which about one-half will be disposed of by the time the court adjourns for the summer late this month.

BANNING E. WHITTINGTON

Press Officer

Supreme Court of the U.S. Washington, D.C.

Republican Around the House

Sir:

Your June 8 account of [House Minority Leader] Charles Halleck’s efforts in behalf of “us taxpayers” leads me to believe that he would make a fine majority leader.

FRED N. WILLINS Albuquerque

Sir:

It took frustrated, gutter-fighter Halleck 25 years of backing losers to finally assume top spot in the Republican House by barely sneaking into it, just as he barely sneaked (not “squeaked”) by the last election.

HELEN M. DONAHUE Somerset, Mass.

Sir:

My reaction on reading your story on Charlie “Gut Fighter” Halleck was: “He’s their s.o.b., and it serves them right.”

EVAN BULLOCK Versailles, Ky.

Sir:

Your article on Congressman Halleck (R., Ind.) demonstrates what can be done by a man with conviction and know-how in spite of the odds. Let’s get behind the President and insist upon fiscal responsibility by our national legislators.

JOHN SCHOEPH

Fairfield, Iowa

Disk Jockeys’ Lament

Sir:

Lest the picture of egocentric, overblown disk jockeys sketched in TIME [June 8] be thought typical by sponsors, neighbors and the Internal Revenue bureau, it should be categorically stated that most of us are (relatively) sober, mildly hard-working types, quite outside the pale of the play-for-payola crown.

AL COVAIA

KJBS

San Francisco

By dwelling on the “conventioneering” of some disk jockeys, your story dealt a disservice to many who were motivated by a genuine interest in further developing the stature of the disk jockey in his role as the most powerful single influence in music, in broadcasting and in his community.

JACK KAREY WCFL Chicago

Last Resistance in Shanghai

Sir:

TIME’s picture of the Shanghai waterfront along Soochow Creek [June 8] brings back poignant memories of the Communists’ entry into the city. The large building in the center is the Embankment Building, whose penthouse, jutting out from the top, was my family’s home after World War II.

The Embankment apartments were occupied by the Nationalist army, which took over the top two floors, including the penthouse, for the placement of sandbags and machine guns. The tenants were moved to the lower floor, and it was here that a stand was made for about two days, just about the only serious conflict between Nationalists and Communists during Shanghai’s occupation.

ELIZABETH FOYN San Francisco

Mutual Aid

Sir:

Your article in the June 15 issue regarding my son Jaime Laredo [Bolivian violinist winner of the Queen Elisabeth of Belgium International Music Competition] has a misinformation about the help received from the Bolivian government. Instead of $600 a year, it is $300 a month.

EDUARDO LAREDO

Honorary Consul of Bolivia in Philadelphia Philadelphia

Another Gilded Monk

The gilding of Chih Hang [June 8] is not the first, nor will it be the last such deification of a revered monk by a Chinese congregation. My favorite is that of Abbot Soong Chiu-cheng, who in death takes a much nicer picture than does Chih Hang [see cut}.

Abbot Soong headed the Tien Chen Cloister in Shanghai. He died at the age of 62 in 1942. What makes Abbot Soong unique that he predicted, a year before his death, not only the time of his death but the fact that his body would not decompose.

Like Chih Hang, Abbot Soong was sealed after death in stone urns, placed one on another. But he did not stay there any five years. After 76 days of a heat wave and the covering urn was removed, Soong was found to be in good condition. But one of the incense sticks that propped up his head had snapped (children playing in the cloister had bumped against the urns), and so now his head rests on his shoulder as if in sleep.

In the mid-autumn Festival of the Eighth Moon, some five months after Soong’s death, his body was gilded by a member of his congregation. A red satin cloak was draped around his gilded shoulders, and he was placed in a glass case.

There he sat until the Communists came to Shanghai some ten years ago. Abbot Soong moved out just before the Pa Lu moved in, and where he sits now I do not know. But I believe his impoverished congregation, which moved with him, still reveres Abbot Soong — now as a god.

RICHARD P. WILSON JR. Batavia, N.Y.