Letters: Oct. 4, 1963

Alabama & Civil Rights

Sir: Congratulations on your significant cover of Sept. 27. How beautifully it portrays those words of Christ, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” (Matthew 25:40).

KATHLEEN A. BOND New York City

Sir: The cover portraying Governor Wallace and a bomb-mutilated “Good Shepherd” window in a Birmingham church is a powerful sermon.

Thanks to TIME, millions of Americans both north and south of the Mason-Dixon line are beginning to realize the utter stupidity and un-Christian and antiquated thinking of those who for the past 100 years have done all in their power to keep the Negro in an invisible cage.

HAROLD DETLEFSEN Editor RFD News Bellevue, Ohio

Sir: Your clinically presented article “The Sunday School Bombing” will do more to arouse the wrath of fair-minded Americans than all the red-faced orators since the Civil War.

Such atrocities cannot go unheeded!

JOSEPH J. REMCHO JR. Lafayette College Easton, Pa.

Sir: To think that an individual or individuals could do this to a church gathering is shocking to say the least; however, it is not any more shocking than the fact that a group could go to a church and mix pep talks for integration with a form of worship.

It is sad that this had to happen to children, but it is war; and when the Negroes encourage their own children to lie in front of cement trucks, disregarding the laws of safety just to get arrested, it doesn’t appear they care too much whether the children are killed or not.

F. WAYNE CARTER Kerman, Calif.

Sir: No decent person can condone the bombing of churches or the killing of children, and the guilty should be punished and such happenings stopped.

However, the blame should not all be placed on Governor Wallace, for the “nonviolence” movements of Martin Luther King and his lieutenants have stirred up so much racial strife and feeling that they are directly responsible for these sad results. PHIL K. COCHRAN Shreveport, La.

Sir: Knowing that I am an American, some of my African neighbors who have radios have just asked me to explain today’s BBC news report of the murder of Negro children in Birmingham.

Sample question: “Why didn’t the Government protect them?”

Any suggestions?

MRS. R. G. BENSON Kamuge, Uganda

Sir: As an adopted Alabamian of ten years, I hardly recognized your description of the beautiful state of Alabama, created by God just as the other 49. We as a nation build on our past heritage, and we as Alabamians have contributed our share of educators, statesmen and N.A.A.C.P. leaders.

We think that our Governor is trying to keep law and order under difficult situations, and we think that TIME does not give us a fair deal. How about a “new deal”?

(MRS.) FRANCES WEBB Montgomery, Ala.

Sir: Whatever interpretation conjure women may have put on the story that stars fell on Alabama, it is not legend but fact. “The night the stars fell” was Nov. 15, 1833, when a meteor shower put on a spectacular display remembered for a lifetime by those who witnessed it. My great-great-grandfather (no conjure man, but an M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania) was sufficiently impressed that he gave his daughter, born in Montgomery that night, the name Mary Meteora.

THADDEUS HOLT Washington, D.C.

Cinema Today

Sir: The so-called New Wave has shown us the sometimes ugly reality of life and its environments. It has been able, at long last, to supersede the Hollywood glamorization of life. Let us hope also that your fine cover story [Sept. 20] will stimulate a new interest in the cinema, not only for its own sake but as an alternative to the slick, stifling and vacuous “entertainment” that constitutes so much of television’s program offerings.

WILLEM P. J. Pittsburgh

Sir: Young people today are more realistic and serious than Hollywood’s masters of celluloid banality are willing to believe. We do not want to escape into a euphoric dreamland, but want to face life as it is. Unless Hollywood realizes this fact, the New Wave artists who can communicate reality, and communicate it meaningfully, may well sound Hollywood’s death knell.

R. J. RABE San Diego

Sir: I was relieved to read that TIME, too, remains puzzled about Last Year at Marienbad! I’m sure the U.S. film industry could create the same sensation by running PT 109 backward in slow motion. HULON W. MYERS San Francisco

Sir: The movies of today are without a doubt 90% responsible for the immorality, crime and all other complaints directed at teenagers. It is truly a shame to cor rupt the characters and minds of growing future citizens of this wonderful United States of America for the sake of a financial gain to a group of—shall we say —artists.

(MRS.) ELIZABETH D. CONWAY Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Sir: I dislike foreign movies because I hate to read what the characters are saying and I do not understand foreign symbolism. Also, it seems to me that if you can make movies on a cheaper budget, then they should be shown at cheaper prices. I don’t mind paying extra to see Ben-Hur or Cleopatra because these are long epics that cost extra to make. But why pay extra to see Shoot the Piano Player or a movie about a kid’s life in the London slums?

JACK HALLIBURTON Los Angeles

Sir: The movies of the current so-called “golden age of cinema,” in which “metaphysical poets” of the screen subject their audiences to tortured inner visions or declare their independence from the human race, will look as phony and irrelevant 20 years from now as the films d’art of the early 1900s—the delight of “cultured” movie audiences of yesteryear —do today.

For some of us who care deeply about the art, the best films of recent years seem to have come from the major studios and their stars and directors, and from the more traditional-minded independents like Stanley Kubrick. Their work is enjoyed and remembered by the international movie public because it is skilled, unpretentious, audience-conscious, and attentive to the rules of what James Agee called “the difficult and considerable art of really entertaining.”

DONALD E. HUGHES Indianapolis

Art’s Wife

Sir: Your article on Art Buchwald [Sept. 20], that fascinating character who also happens to be a columnist of sorts, is the kind I enjoy reading. Although I have been pleasantly acquainted with Mr. Buchwald through his columns ever since his long Paris assignment, I know very little about his wife.

I seem to picture her as a very intelligent woman endowed with a deep sense of understanding, comradeship and devotion to her husband and children, and a strong stimulating force in his very successful career. Am I correct?

E. MENENDEZ-MANGUAL San Juan, P.R.

> Says Columnist Buchwald: “All these things are true, and everything I am and hope to be, 1 owe to myself.” Adds Wife Anne, “And whoever Senor Menendez-Mangual is, I’ll marry him next.”—ED.

A Vote for Dirksen

Sir: Being a young (23) and impressionable voter, not yet wholly committed to either the Democratic or Republican parties, I would definitely not vote for Goldwater, Rockefeller or Romney. They do not have the image that Kennedy has, and are trying desperately to build themselves one.

However, there is one Republican who possesses all the attributes and qualities necessary to make a wise and popular leader. My vote will go to Kennedy unless Republican Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen is on the opposing ticket. His age factor would swing my vote as I believe there are a lot of “smarts” in the minds of the “oldies” of this old, old country.

JERRY J. GSCHWIND Fayetteville, N.C.

Petroleos Mexicanos

Sir: In an article appearing in TIME’S Hemisphere section of Aug. 2, it is stated: “Organized to run the nationalized [oil] industry, Pemex [Petroleos Mexicanos] almost ruined it … Between 1952 and

1957, according to one unofficial study, graft and mismanagement cost Pemex $113.6 million.”

As a member of the U.S.-Mexico Commission of Experts in 1941 to settle indemnifications for the expropriated properties of U.S. nationals, I have followed the development of the nationalized industry closely and have no reason to believe the statement in TIME to be correct.

Sr. Don Antonio Bermudez, who was director-general of Pemex from 1947 to

1958, is one of the most respected citizens of Mexico. He must be given credit for laying the foundations upon which the success of Pemex has been built. At present, by appointment of President Lopez Ma-teos, Bermudez is director-general of Mexico’s National Frontier Program, a vast project involving $300 million to be invested over a period of 15 years and with which our border states are cooperating.

WILLIAM J. KEMNITZER Economic Geologist and Lecturer Stanford University Stanford, Calif.

» TIME misplaced its figure: the $113.6 million was a business loss. Senor Bermudez’ name, not mentioned in the story, was in no way linked with the graft that plagued Pemex.—ED.

Vive la Difference

Sir: I am the French TV reporter in your picture with Madame Nhu [Sept. 20]. But I am not the TV reporter quoted in your story as saying “I had a strong desire to slap her, but from very, very close.”

I have other ideas when I meet a woman—every kind of woman.

FRANCOIS CHALAIS Paris

The Quick & the Dead

Sir: Since American funeral directors, funeral services and Christian funerals are not on trial, and while the Christian funeral directors of America are minding their affairs, WHY don’t you mind yours [Sept. 20]?

Show me the way in which a nation cares for its deceased and I will measure with mathematical exactness the tender sympathies of its people, their respect for the laws of the land and their loyalty to high ideals.

May God bless the American Way.

RICHARD L. STUDEBAKER Coordinator

Universal Institute of Mortuary Directors Las Cruces, N. Mex.

Sir: The American buying public spends more money for pet foods and cosmetics in the course of one year than they do to bury their beloved dead.

This is their business.

The American buying public purchases automobile transportation in a price range from about $1,400 for a low-priced car to $30,000 for a well-appointed Rolls-Royce.

This is their business.

May God protect us from the day when the rantings and ravings of the Mitfords, the Harmers, and the foolish articles appearing in magazines from time to time shall deprive the American buying public of this freedom of choice and right.

GEORGE F. KIERNAN Past President

New Jersey State Funeral Directors Association Belleville. N.J.

Sir: If Miss Mitford does not like our American funeral customs, let her return to the less civilized customs from which she came.

WILLIAM E. WALKER Erie Burial Case Co. Erie, Pa.

Sir: It has got to the point where the mortician, with the soft and plush surroundings of the trade, gives off more and more the impression that he is a sort of “mediator” between heaven and earth, a role that Scripture assigns exclusively to “the man Christ Jesus” (I Timothy 2:5).

(THE REV.) ROBERT J. BODA Immanuel Lutheran Church Grove City, Minn.

Sir: It’s a sad day when TIME gets either conned or seduced into presenting only one side of an issue. In the several communities where I have served, the funeral directors have been a most efficient and highly ethical group of businessmen. In general, they are extremely sensitive to the needs of others. We often fail to realize that they are on call round the clock, must check out more than 200 fine details for every case, have a tremendous overhead and operating expense, and usually serve the public at a great sacrifice to their personal family life. (THE REV.) MALCOLM E. WETHERBEE Highland Congregational Church Somerville, Mass.