Letters, Oct. 15, 1979

The “Big P”

To the Editors:

I felt stimulated on seeing the face of Luciano Pavarotti on your cover [Sept 24]. He is not to be compared with other greats: he stands magnificently apart!

Joan C. Conell

Fort Lauderdale, Fla

Luciano Pavarotti is the finest operatic tenor since Jussi Bjoerling, if not since the legendary Enrico Caruso. Ah, but you have to hear Pavarotti in concert. When all 300 Ibs. of him were here in our lovely Music Hall, the city fathers were concerned that the stomping of those in the balconies might cause the balconies to collapse.

Eugene E. Scanlan

Cincinnati

Pavarotti is a giver. His generosity and sincerity shine in every note. His desire to reach his audience is palpable. Long may he share his voice with a world yearning for sweetness and beauty.

Katherine Eshleman

Lafayette. Calif.

Luciano Pavarotti is the fourth greatest musicmaker of all times: 1) Apollo, 2) Orpheus, 3) Caruso, 4) Pavarotti.

Joseph T. Kelly

New Orleans

There can be little argument concerning the greatness of the Pavarotti talent. TIME is to be commended for honoring it. It is a shame that in the process equally great artists such as Renata Scotto, Placido Domingo and Jon Vickers, whose artistry differs, were so cavalierly dismissed

Steven L. Herrald

New York City

I am a fervent admirer of Signor Pavarotti’s voice and technique, but I find it unfortunate that you referred to Renata Scotto in such a negative manner. In the televised La Gioconda. Scotto, singing magically, was the full embodiment of opera as drama, intense, heartbreaking and constantly exciting.

Kemal Khan

Falls Church, Va

Your unqualified endorsement of the outrageous three-ring circus known as Luciano Pavarotti makes a mockery of opera as art.

Murray Schlanger

New York City

Marcos’ Law

TIME has rendered the cause of Philippine freedom a splendid service [Sept. 24]. It is now clear that Ferdinand Marcos’ latest excuse—economic crisis—for continuing martial law is the product of his own government’s corruption and mismanagement. Meanwhile, as with the Shah and Somoza, the U.S. will continue to support Marcos until the moderate opposition is incapable of administering a peaceful and orderly transition back to democracy. When will the U.S. learn?

Raul S. Manglapus, President

Movement for a Free Philippines

Washington, D.C.

As a Filipina from Negros Occidental, I can personally attest to the outrageous atrocities committed by the Marcos regime upon the Filipino people. Marked by graft and corruption, the terror imposed by Marcos will continue unobstructed until the U.S. decides to step in and put its “human rights” policy into practice.

Julie Londres Daley

Oak Harbor, Wash.

I am afraid that Marcos is as much a victim of circumstances beyond his control as are the majority of the Filipino people. If he relaxes his martial rule, his enemies will be out to get him. If he maintains the so-called democratic authoritarianism, his enemies will still try to liquidate him.

Eugenio V. Corazo

Granada Hills, Calif.

In terms of human suffering, give me Marcos’ martial law rather than the deathly peace enjoyed by Kampucheans and Laotians and the clean mass drownings of Vietnamese leaving the incorruptible Communist state.

Ian Wolf

Melbourne, Australia

Let the Seniors Work

The pension bomb [Sept. 24] need not go off. Defusing is simple: require potentially productive people to produce. A hcalthy 70-or 75-year-old voluntarily livng on a pension financed for the most part by today’s productive workers is livng on welfare. Jobs must be restructured to take seniors into account, and jobs must be available for seniors. If a person freely chooses leisure, he should not expect the productive working force to pay for it

William N. Thompsor

Kalamazoo, Mich

So our pension funds are running low, eh? I had better not plan on retiring until the day I die.

John P. McGrath

West Seneca, N. Y

Black Brains

In your story about Arthur Jensen’s conclusion that blacks score lower on IQ tests than whites [Sept. 24], you say “Jensen’s findings clearly have horrendous implications.” This is not at all true. Although the entire black population may (if Jensen’s findings are correct) have a lower average IQ than the white population, a given black person may have a higher IQ than a given white person. Thus one cannot say that all blacks are less intelligent than all whites. Jensen’s findings, regardless of their validity (and it may not be worthwhile spending time to disprove them), are no excuse for racial discrimination.

Richard G. Weiss

New York City

Come on, Mr. Jensen! Quit tossing stumbling blocks and do something constructive. Give blacks a chance, a few generations of good education, healthy diets and the knowledge that the best will get commensurate employment (regardless of race), and then do your research.

Louis N. Clay

Detroit

It should not surprise any open-minded scientist that what we measure as IQ might have a genetic distribution similar to that found for other traits. The real problem lies in placing value judgments on the presence or absence of a particular trait. Who can really say which human characteristics will prove most advantageous to mankind over the evolutionary scale of time?

Steve Yeagle

Baltimore

Jensen’s studies of IQ may or may not be valid; however, TIME’s allusion to the Jews as being the smartest race on earth completely contradicts basic scientific knowledge. The Jews are not a race but are one of the world’s myriad religions. Indeed, Judaism includes in its numbers individuals of many different races, including black, Oriental and Caucasian.

Lawrence D. Freedman, M.D.

Newport Beach, Calif.

Unfriendly Skies

Your article on Air New England Sept. 24] is a subject close to my heart. The phrase cavalier attitude is one that I have used in reference to the several ticket agents it has been my misfortune to deal with. Indeed, I have seen people so angry that they seemed ready to punch the agent. I have been told by a snotty agent to “take another airline” if I didn’t like the way they did things, while I overheard another agent say that she didn’t “give a damn” if my bag was on the plane or not. Good God! They ought to pay us for flying with them.

Peter B. Mersky

Reston, Va.

My husband is a “regular” summer weekend commuter—regularly late. We fondly refer to the airline as “Scare New England.”

Suzanne H. Kraft

Pittsburgh

You fail to mention the improvements in Air New England since 1970. I can remember flying reconditioned World War II DC-3s and hoping I would get to Cape Cod on the same day I took off. These conditions no longer exist, except in the case of fog, and if there is a delay at least it is on a much more comfortable plane.

Pent Markowitz

Briarcliff Manor, N. Y.

Strategic Positions

The Americans negotiate, the Soviets act. These are the strategic positions of the two world powers at the moment. The presence of the Soviets in Cuba [Sept. 17] is downgraded by the White House. Carter intends to solve the problem diplomatically. But what the Americans want to show as sensitive diplomacy looks weak and planless to Europeans.

Michael C. Bauer

Kronberg, West Germany

Terrorists or Heroes?

TIME’s article on the freeing of the four Puerto Rican Nationalists [Sept. 17] twice referred to them as “terrorists.” The Nationalists were received in Puerto Rico as what they are: first-class heroes of a great historical cause. True terrorists cause meaningless death and destruction, and hide as they commit their acts. The Nationalists were willing to give their lives, and committed their revolutionary acts for the whole world to see.

Jorge Toro

Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico

According to your article, freeing the Nationalists “could help Carter politically among Hispanic voters in both Puerto Rico and the U.S.” The real issue should not have been the possible political benefit for President Carter, but the fact that by keeping Puerto Rico a colony, the U.S. is internationally considered an imperialistic power. It is not only a mater of freeing four Puerto Rican Nationalists but of freeing all Puerto Rico, of recognizing Puerto Rico as a sovereign nation.

Eladio Rodriguez-Marxuach

Cambridge, Mass.

The Seberg Case

About the FBI’s attempts to discredit with a planted rumor Actress Jean Seberg [Sept. 24]: How many more outrages and assaults on decency approved by the late director of the FBI must be revealed before we decide as a nation that the FBI temple in Washington needs to be renamed? The name J. Edgar Hoover has become synonymous with slander, intrigue, pettiness and uncivility.

Ted M. Benson

Colorado Springs, Colo.

Regardless of what the FBI did in the Jean Seberg case, as a champion and admirer of the Black Panther cause, why should she have felt disturbed, distressed or discredited? That is racist thinking, and if I were black I would feel insulted.

Grayce Torosian

Johnson City, N. Y.

Pass the Salt

Reader Paul W. Capor [Sept. 10] has a good sense of humor. He sees the oil that has been hitting U.S. beaches because of the accident in the Mexican well as a gift. We Mexicans, however, haven’t felt that way about the salt the U.S. has sent us for years, day after day, in the water of the Colorado River. We haven’t even been lucky enough to scrape it off our valley.

Susana Castellanos

Guadalajara, Mexico

Ansel and the Duke

As the German consul for cultural relations in San Francisco in 1968, I asked Ansel Adams [Sept. 3] if he would like to make an artistic tour of West Germany as a guest of the federal government. His answer was remarkable and convincing: “I have never left the U.S. except for a glimpse over the Mexican and Canadian fences. I have done that only because the nature, the landscape is the same on both sides of the frontier. I am afraid to visit Europe, to see all your ancient towns, all your fairy-tale castles because, as I understand, all the landscape in Europe is converted into overcultured scenery. I’ll never be the same after such a trip. I might lose my identity.”

In this sense Adams is indeed as American as John Wayne.

Erich F. Sommer

Munich