Letters: Nov. 10, 1961

Beat, Bored or Bunting

Sir:

Your article on Radcliffe’s Mary Bunting [Nov. 3] was most refreshing. After years of the beat and bored generation, the fact that someone could be passionately fond of anything or find something of consuming interest convinces me that Americans are once more ready to mold their fate enthusiastically rather than to deplore it in self-pity.

WALTRAUT STEIN Graduate Student Northwestern University Evanston, Ill.

Sir:

Hurrah for Mary Bunting! What a joy to find an educated woman who advocates no such radical goals as women in politics or big business careers but motherhood with some objective beyond diapers and rectal thermometers. Where do young mothers with fresh ideas and a desire to do something challenging go to register?

DOROTHY KRAUS La Grange, Ill.

Sir:

Your article on Dr. Bunting was the most dynamic I have ever read on women’s education. How can a woman be the someone she wants to be or do the something she wants to do if all her social circles dictate that she cannot and must not?

I am so glad to see that there are some who still have faith in the female of the species. Thank you.

ANDRÉE FENARIS Massachusetts General Hospital School of Nursing Boston

Sir:

Just when I was beginning to feel that I was peculiar because I want to do something with my life besides bear children, along comes an article about a woman who has lived the fullest life imaginable that proves to me, and I hope to a lot of other girls in college, that all this is not in vain.

MARY MARGARET BUKSAS Creighton University Omaha

Sir:

It seems to me that Mary I. Bunting is a perfect example of a woman who has been let out of the house too much.

ROBERT L. PYLES (’62) Harvard Medical School Boston

Sir:

My whole being rebels at women like Mary Bunting. Her notion that women should dedicate themselves to something ‘”more meaningful” than marriage and motherhood is the symptom of a sick mind. Feminists like Mrs. Bunting are unwilling to face the fact that fundamental biological differences have forever determined the relationship between the sexes—the man as father, provider and protector, and his mate as mother, companion and helpmeet. Fulfilling her role successfully requires the woman’s complete dedication to home and husband.

ERNEST W. LUTHER Minneapolis

Sir:

Mary Bunting would seem to be as hyperactive as an autumn hurricane, but her basic tenets are surely sound ones. The “climate of unexpectation” is the tragedy of the modern American girl. Untrained, uninterested, she stumbles into marriage, bumbles through child rearing, is chronically bored.

However, let’s not be so quick to encourage mothers to “leave the little darlings on their own.” A serious factor in childhood emotional disturbance is the unnecessarily absent mother.

EILEEN O’SULLIVAN Grand Forks, N. Dak.

Sir:

Mrs. Bunting, commenting on her surprise at being appointed to teach genetics at Bennington, said: “Bennington was so arty that they didn’t care how you taught science, even if you were a twerp.” Bennington’s art is in choosing “twerps” like Mrs. Bunting to teach science.

WILLIAM C. FELS President Bennington College Bennington, Vt.

Communism & The Bomb

Sir:

Under the guise of testing atomic bombs, Russia is already engaged in thermonuclear war with the U.S. and other nations.

Yes, of course Russia’s peoples will be affected, but this we also know: life, even the life of their own people, means nothing to the Russian leaders. Their final end is the control of the world by whatever means.

ELWARD A. PUGNIER Miami

Bombarding the U.S. with fallout is just as much an act of aggression as if the Russians dropped the bomb itself on us. Just how much more of the “shoe thumper’s insanity are we going to take?

STEPHEN J. CUNNINGHAM JR. Baltimore

Freedom & Survival

Sir:

It is a shame that the citizens of the U.S. do not understand the purpose and the need for fallout shelters. They do not seem to realize that those of us in the armed forces will fight or possibly give our lives so that they might have their freedom. We might as well pack our bags and go home if no one wants to stay alive to take advantage of the hard-earned freedom.

JAMES BEVIS Lieutenant, U.S.A.F. Waco, Texas

Sir:

Your article on bomb shelters was very interesting to this 78-year-old native of Wyoming Territory’s old frontier.

It is hard for one of my experience to picture modern Americans diving into holes. It brings back memories of childhood nightmares of diving into badger holes to escape the very real marauding Indian. We early Westerners never dived. We stood up and fought like men.

But, on second thought, perhaps the shelters would preserve enough of the old creative productive breed of Americans to build anew. Let us build shelters, each family for itself and a few extras for those who cannot.

L. A. MORRISON Sheridan, Wyo.

Thank You

Sir:

The other night we had another alert here, the second in two days. My husband had just returned from the alert and got out of the car, when an elderly German couple, walking down the street, stopped. The gentleman turned to my husband and said in guttural English, “Thank you, Sergeant.” How refreshing an incident when many cries the world over are “Yankee Imperialists! and “Go Home, Yankee!”

THELMA R. HACKETT Berlin

Rattling Bones

Sir:

I protest your article “Decline in Detroit [Oct. 27]. It seems you have presented only facts that verify the title chosen for this article. Detroit has problems like any big city, plus a few that are unique. But the city is definitely on the upgrade.

Your “decline” can be found, but it is definitely not general. Detroit is becoming a beautiful, progressive, diverse city. Give a little credit, and come look again.

(MRS.) CAROL SEAMON Dearborn, Mich.

Sir:

Shame on TIME for its myopic peek at dynamic Detroit.

As a “middleclass exile” I would be proud to once again be a resident of Detroit.

MADELINE DAUSEY Dearborn, Mich.

Sir:

Your article in TIME [Oct. 27] regarding the decadence of Detroit brought many of our ancient civic bodies up rattling their bones in anger.

Actually, the article did not tell us anything we did not already know, but now it was in print. You were very lenient, indeed.

I had to make the rounds of the newsstands to get a copy of your magazine with this article. Detroiters raided the pantry when they heard about this report. A long fast had been broken.

E. G. GIRDLEY Detroit

Sir:

Guess all of us here have been too busy watching Detroit grow to realize we are about to become a ghost town. Busy watching miles of expressways being built within the city limits, new buildings going up in the downtown area. Apartment buildings replacing inadequate housing. New schools, and those classrooms will all be filled.

We are busy admiring and using our Ford Auditorium, Cobo Hall, City-County Building and Veterans’ Memorial. We may not make money, but we sure look good.

EVELYN HARWOOD Detroit

Sir:

I consider your article regarding Detroit to be most objective. You were somewhat conservative in addressing yourself to the ills of our city. It is high time that our “competent but complacent” mayor would address his administration to the alleviating of these ills. With the potential for greatness that this city has, it stands in need of strong and imaginative leadership at this juncture.

Detroit’s great labor pool, its strategic location, its educational institutions with direction can bring us once again to the point where we will be known as “Dynamic Detroit” instead of dying Detroit.

THE REV. JAMES E. WADSWORTH JR. St. Mark’s Community Church Detroit

Over the Border

Sir:

I call your attention to an entirely false statement in your Nov. 3 issue. In “Report from Viet Nam,” your correspondent states: “Last week, in an area where U.S. special forces have been training Vietnamese rangers, Communist Viet Cong guerrillas slipped over the border from Cambodia and brutally fell upon the civilian population, decapitating dozens of villagers . . .”

I am obliged to draw your attention to the fact that the top U.S. military adviser to Cambodia, in Phnom Penh on Nov. 1, denied categorically that Cambodia is providing Communist bases for aggression against her Southeast Asian neighbors.

NONG KIMNY Ambassador of Cambodia Washington, D. C.

¶TIME did not say Cambodia was aiding infiltrating Viet Cong guerrillas, but that Communist guerrillas do cross into Cambodia and use its territory is borne out by a Cambodia army communique of Sept. 6, which says: “Cambodian army units destroyed about 50 small houses serving as a Viet Cong military camp and captured several rebels, including a company commander.”—ED.

Picasso & Reality

Sir:

Thank you very much for the fine Picasso reproductions [Oct. 27]. I certainly do not expect first-class art reproductions in a week but this week I could find no fault with them. I hope more opportunities will arise for this type of work.

Pablo Picasso is one of the finest artists Western civilization has produced. No doubt you will receive many a letter asking you just what got into you to print such abominations as this. This letter is to let you know that some people at least do appreciate your efforts.

LAC BOUMANS Laverton, Australia

Sir:

If Picasso and his admirers were to wake up some morning and come face to face with these pitiful, obscene creatures, they would run screaming, pleading for reality.

LEE AGGER Portland, Me.