What's the Policy?
Sirs:
The question in Greece is: Who are the British fighting? (TIME, Dec. 11 et seq.).
If they are fighting a minority which is attempting to enforce its will by force of arms, then they are performing the first police job for the prevention of War III, concerning which we have been giving so much free conversation.
(SGT.) JOHN WARREN
Denver
Sirs:
. . . We have criticized the Chinese for fighting among themselves, instead of concentrating on the Japs. What are the Allies doing in Greece?
GEO. HENRY ELLIS Butte, Mont.
Sirs:
. . . The position of both the U.S. and Britain leaves much to be desired. The U.S. says, in effect, that we guarantee to you your right to form a government of your own choosing but we will do nothing to assist you in this. Great Britain says, in effect, that we guarantee to you your right to form a government of your own choosing provided that it is a government of which we approve.
There must be some happier policy midway between these conflicting positions.
JAMES T. KENDALL State of Mississippi Department of Justice Jackson, Miss.
Sirs:
... At this time when England has been taking it on the chin because of her definite stands in Greece, Italy and Belgium, it seems logical that the U.S. should make her ideas on policy clearly understood to the world. Could it be that we again find ourselves without a foreign policy in Europe?
HOWARD L. McVitty New York City
The Winthrop Plan
Sirs:
Subject: the Winthrop plan of interglobal strategy in World War III. According to this theory only a planet with a backside has a military future. The earth, alas, has no backside. It is immediately imperative for the U.S. to take the lead in rocket exploration of the moon and to establish bases there. The nation that controls the moon controls the earth.
In short: it is a well-known fact that the moon revolves in such a way that it always turns the same face to the earth. The other side of it will always be inaccessible to rocket fire from the earth. Thus it forms an ideal site for supplies, factories, munitions works, etc. Well placed emplacements on this side of the moon, on the other hand, could command every part of the earth as if it were a chicken turning on a spit, simply waiting for New York or Moscow to come within range.... A sketch is enclosed (see cut).
I offer this idea free of charge (out of selfless patriotism) to TIME or the U.S. General Staff. On with lunar exploration! It is later than you think!
GOUVERNEUR WINTHROP New York City
Immovable Nurses
Sirs:
As Surgeon General Norman T. Kirk and Army Nurse Corps Superintendent Colonel Florence A. Blanchfield scrape the bottom of the barrel for nurses [TIME, Nov. 20], let them ponder the fact that there are several thousand registered men nurses in this country legally denied membership in the Army Nurse Corps. . . .
RAY C. HUFF, R.N. Chairman of the Board Alumni Assn.
Mills Training School, Inc. Bellevue Men Nurses New York City
P: Federal law (1901) bars the Army Nurse Corps to male nurses (U.S. total: 7,500-odd). -- ED.
Book Business
Sirs: I have read your Books story (TIME, Dec. 18) with interest.
Grosset & Dunlap was not bought by a syndicate composed of Random House, Book-of-the-Month Club and Harper, but by a syndicate composed of those three pub lishers plus Scribner and Little, Brown.
It would be news, I feel pretty sure, to the author of your article that our biggest seller in 1944, after A Bell for Adano, was Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet, which will have sold over 60,000 copies in 1944 alone, although it was first published 21 years ago. He points out as remarkable, and rightly so, total printings of 30,000 copies for Russell Daven port's My Country. I wonder if he has heard of Walter Benton's This Is My Beloved, which was published in February 1943 and has sold in 1944 approximately 22,000. Then don't you think TIME might have mentioned Rikky Harrison's Look at the World, which also went places as an atlas but was much more greatly distinguished, I think, as an important contribution to cartography. . . .
New York City ALFRED A. KNOPF
Three Bronx Cheers
Sirs:
In a world rife with many injustices, it is hard to single out any one as being worse than another, yet the action of a Hood, Ore. American Legion Post in erasing from the town's honor roll the names of 16 Japanese-American servicemen seems to me particularly blameworthy (TIME, Dec. 25). . . .
To erase their names without cause, other than the accident of birth and race, reduces our honor rolls to an array of meaningless painted boards. To the American Legion Post of Hood, Ore., three hearty Bronx cheers! EVANGELINE S. McALLISTER (The Sage Hen) Bayard, Neb.
It's a Breeze
Sirs:
In your issue of Dec. 11, in the Science section, you imply that the General Electric engineers invented the technique for making pictures such as shown. . . .
As a matter of fact, this technique is precisely the same as that used in testing optical surfaces. Foucault, the famous physicist, who invented the method, was undoubtedly the first person to see a "breeze," nearly 100 years ago. Thousands of telescope makers, both amateur and professional, have watched warm air currents rising from the hand. . . .
R. B. BOURNE Vice President The Maxim Silencer Co. Hartford, Conn.
P: TIME erred in saying that "no human eye has ever seen a breeze," should merely have said that G.E. has developed better ways of seeing one.--ED.
Reminder
Sirs:
In several of your past issues I have noticed a fluent description of the plans being made for a V-E day celebration. The main theme seems to be one of bands, drinking, and a general carefree attitude. I am wondering if too many of us have forgotten what the God of our forefathers expects.
God in speaking to King Solomon said: "If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." (11 Chronicles 7:14). -.
CHARLES P. PITTS Chaplain c/o Postmaster San Francisco
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