Letters: Feb. 9, 1970

Tragic Testimony?

Sir: The holocaust in Nigeria [Jan. 26], with its 2,000,000 dead, is testimony to the white Christian dominance of world affairs. The Africans have been subject to white colonial dominance for centuries. When they were finally granted independence, they were ill prepared for it. The so-called civilized nations sold 20th century arms to both sides in a cruel and meaningless civil war. Now that the war has ended, Christianity demands charity and compassion. What hypocrisy!

MILTON YELLIN Jericho, N.Y.

Sir: Imagine being black and seeing Biafra as a white would see a 32-month-long rape of Czechoslovakia. Imagine being a man and seeing your country condone the act in the interests of “stability in the region,” not to mention a billion-dollar investment in said region. Imagine being one of the 2,000,000 dead Biafrans and not understanding any of this.

R. E. MAITLAND Elyria, Ohio

Sir: During the Nazi reign, humanity could pretend to know nothing about the atrocities. During the Nigeria-Biafran conflict everybody knew it was plain genocide —which will probably be the final Biafran solution, now that the conquest of Biafra is accomplished.

No amount of sleeky rhetoric or oil will ever wash the hand of those that facilitated either actively or passively the accomplishment of this inhumane feat.

E. RAMON Tel Aviv

Sir: The refusal of the federal government to accept aid (all it can get at this moment) from all relief agencies is deplorable. General Gowon’s accusations against someone as nonpartisan and obviously humanitarian as Pope Paul is truly shocking and can only confirm suspicions that the federal government will, in fact, permit (by its inaction and inability to control its own troops) large-scale genocide.

EDWARD KRAUSE Boston

Sir: One of the primary reasons for the formation of Biafra was the fact that scores of thousands of Ibos had been killed in pogroms by other Nigerians. Now, 2,000,000 Ibos have starved to death and untold tens of thousands have been killed along the battle lines. The end of the anti-Ibo carnage that had been hoped for metamorphosed into an intensification of the bloodshed. How many more innocent millions must be sacrificed upon the altar of barbarism before such bestiality is finally halted?

Father, do not forgive the Nigerians, for they know what they do.

IRV GERTEL, ’71 School of Law St. John’s University The Bronx

Drawing a Bead on the Bird

Sir: All hail! The pregnant Blue Bird of Happiness has nested in the ’70s! Who wants this finely feathered fowl, anyway? Will it be cheaper for the traveler? No, ticket taxes will go up. More comfortable? No, four abreast instead of three. Will it be faster? Yes, if you don’t have any bag gage. Who will benefit from it? Not the American traveler. The 747 [Jan. 19] is one pregnant bird that should have used the Pill.

JERRY C. WYSS Los Altos, Calif.

Sir: Disregarding for the moment pur terrible terrestrial predicament, what is needed in the air are small vertical or short takeoff aircraft operating with a minimum of fuss, short loading times, and flying only when and where demanded. The next installment fashioned by our current political incompetents is the ultimate mumbo jumbo of aviation—the bloody, ear-splitting SST. We have been to the moon and demonstrated some kind of “supremacy”; why not call it quits?

JOHN BIGGINS Berkeley, Calif.

Sir: What Pan Am must sell is people-to-people service. Until this airline ceases to treat its passengers as so much cattle, I and many of my colleagues will continue to fly any other airline. It appears that Mr. Halaby is depending on the possession of the Boeing 747 to re-establish Pan Am’s economic place in the sun—in the best of Pan Am tradition, but by all accounts a promising short-term advantage. People, Mr. Halaby, that is what it is all about.

DONALD G. CLARK Bloomington, Ind.

Sir: It would be wise to recall that growth, self-conscious and undisciplined, is the ideology of the cancer cell. Why this masochistic obsession with bigness? It is difficult to live in a society where even the physical proportions of artificial “accomplishments,” whether airplanes or buildings, dwarf man so much.

SUSAN BUCKINGHAM Washington, D.C.

Sir: According to TIME, “even Ireland’s little Aer Lingus has asked for two 400-seat versions for jampacked all-economy flights.”

Aer Lingus is, in fact, the European arm of our company. It is Aerlinte, our transatlantic division, best known in North America as Irish International Airlines, that has two 747s on order. We rank ninth among the 19 IATA carriers on the North Atlantic in terms of traffic carried during the eleven months to Nov. 30, 1969. Since the Boeing 747 can, as you pointed out, be fitted with up to 490 seats, a 400-seater should hardly be called a jampacked version. In fact, our intention is to have 24 first-class seats and 348 economy seats.

The reference to “cut-price deals” was, perhaps, the unkindest cut of all. As a charter member of the International Air Transport Association we have been a leading proponent of observance of IATA regulations, which, among other things, prohibit deals or discounts.

THOMAS P. KENNEDY Public Relations Manager, North America

Irish International Airlines—Aer Lingus Manhattan

Listen to the Tick

Sir: Considering Indira Gandhi’s silence on India’s most pressing economic problem, the inexorable population growth rate of 15 million a year which keeps the annual per capita income at about $70 [Jan. 19], I am moved to ask if man’s urge to breed is greater than his will to live. Are we going to allow the population bomb to destroy our rather pleasant planet? India is not the only place where the ticking can be heard.

(MRS.) ANITA J. GIRARD Beverly Hills, Calif.

Proper Name

Sir: A new moon mineral named Kennedyite [Jan. 19]? Come on. It’s Nealite

V. FIELD Madison, Wis.

The Nature of Man

Sir: I was delighted to see your article on “Man: A Course of Study” [Jan. 19]. As a teacher, I am deeply committed to the program, because I thrill every day to the experiences, feelings and responses my children and I share. If we adults could but begin to comprehend the nature of man as they do …

RUTH A. GRANT Brookline, Mass.

Sir: One wonders if the baboons had an educational system, whether they would spend their bananas studying where the individual human being fits into the human hierarchy.

LOUIS F. LOMBARDI Richmond, Va.

$10 Billion Now

Sir: I don’t mind being called a “Modern Malthus” [Jan. 12]. Unlimited population growth will indeed present an overwhelming challenge to environmental quality. Unfortunately, your article implies that the nation cannot afford to combat water pollution now. But the total costs you derive lump together highest priority and lowest priority items; together they represent the accumulated debt for past neglect and apathy—with interest.

The immediate task is to achieve water-quality levels required by law. This calls for capital expenditures of approximately $10 billion over the coming five-year period for municipal waste treatment, plus smaller expenditures by industry—altogether considerably less than the $50 billion we spend for cigarettes in the same period. We must control pollution and we cannot delay any longer. Irreversible damage to the environment is mounting. In President Nixon’s words: “It is literally now or never.”

S. FRED SINGER Deputy Assistant Secretary Department of the Interior Washington, D.C.

Death Sentence

Sir: Will someone explain to Gina Lollobrigida that when she buys a coat made from ten wild tiger pelts [Jan. 19], she simultaneously orders the deaths of ten living tigers to replace her purchase? Her argument that “I didn’t kill anything; they were already dead,” is as extinct as this beautiful animal will soon be.

CAROL TEUBNER Erie, Pa.

Where the Smells Come From

Sir: I am delighted with the article about micro-encapsulation [Jan. 12], but chagrined that you did not credit IFF, the exclusive NCR licensee in the field of flavors and fragrances.

Over the past five years we have spent close to a million dollars in developing the techniques required for optimum utilization of fragrances and flavors in microcapsules for use in advertising, on packaging and in the goodies themselves.

So if you want to come where the flavors and smells are, IFF is the place.

HENRY G. WALTER JR. Chairman

International Flavors & Fragrances Inc. Manhattan

Sir: With the world going to hell in a handbasket what with overpopulation, air pollution, water pollution, the destruction of natural resources, war, racial hatred and famine, some clown had to invent —and invest millions in—ads that smell. As if they don’t anyway.

ANN BRADLEY Miami Beach