Shrewd, Coolheaded, Determined

Sir:

Hats off to Ferdinand Eberstadt for his penetrating analysis of America's position in the world today [TIME, Oct. 30].

This is the most lucid and accurate commentary on our times that I have read . . . It is this realistic thinking on principle that can form the only basis for international policy and action for a freedom-loving country. Something our leadership has woefully lacked for a long time . . .

H. P. LANGWORTHY

New Orleans

Sir:

Mr. Eberstadt's suggestions for the attainment of world peace unnecessarily sacrifice the advantages that have accrued to the U.S. because it followed an "idealistic" program for five years . . .

Some of us believe that it is a mistake to build peace upon a basis of national rivalries, with the U.S. now encouraging another nation, now "tipping the scales" against it ...

And is this the most effective method of weakening the aggressive motives of the Russian government? It seems to foreclose any possibility of increased contact between Russians and the West. It provides a bona fide foreign threat against which the Soviet government can organize. It puts the development of backward economies, the development of free institutions, and the development of a common loyalty to the United Nations in a position clearly inferior to the development of military establishments . . .

A shrewd, coolheaded and determined policy of good will may pay as many peace dividends as a shrewd, coolheaded and determined policy of power politics. It may, just may, turn out to be more costly, but the gains may also be much greater.

DEAN A. WORCESTER JR. University of Washington Seattle

Sir:

Congratulations to Ferdinand Eberstadt for his wise and hardheaded thinking, and to TIME for publishing it. His logical points on the foreign policy and state of the world are sharp uppercuts for our policymakers in Washington . . .

EMMA LAPORTE Stephens College

Columbia, Mo.

Sir:

. . . So Wilson and Roosevelt were "more concerned with making history than with following its lessons," huh? What lessons? Perhaps you and Eberstadt overlook the fact that the only previous modern lesson in great-power leagues (the Congress of Vienna) brought substantial peace to Europe for generations? . . .

As for history's lessons for Roosevelt, there never was a 1945 A.D. or a World War II before, nor an ideologically dangerous U.S.S.R., nor an awakened and armed Asia, nor a United Nations in which the U.S. took part . . . [U.N.] could have been another Congress of Vienna so far as world peace goes, couldn't it ?

That it was not is no news today, nor is the fact that destruction of Germany and Japan and our demobilization gave Stalin an edge. I know it, my seven-year-old son knows it, his dog knows it, the dog's pups know it, and the fleas on all of us know it. So why is Eberstadt such a miracle for finding it out? Where was he when these things were happening, and what was he saying then? . . .

It is so lovely to be able to say we should do this-and-that-and-thus, and be able utterly to ignore the great human and political obstacles which are all that have prevented us from doing exactly those things long ago . . .

BILL CORSON

Los Angeles

Outstanding Picture

Sir:

In your Oct. 23 review of LIFE'S Picture History of World War II I was interested to see a photograph of the burning carrier Franklin, However, the credit line puzzles me.*

Having been afloat in a lifejacket several miles astern of the Franklin at the time the photograph was made, I cannot say from personal knowledge that Captain Steichen did not make that photograph. I do remember that in talking with survivors of the Franklin photo lab ... they told me that the pictures from which this is a selection were made by enlisted photographers aboard the cruiser which came alongside . . .

LOOMIS C. MILLER Seattle

Sir:

. . . The byline gave the impression that I made the photograph. I wish I had ... All I know is that it was made by a Navy photographer stationed on the U.S.S. Santa Fe.

I hope this incident will serve to reveal his name, as I have a Navy Photographic Institute citation for him in recognition of his outstanding work . . .

EDWARD STEICHEN Captain, U.S.N.R. (ret.) New York City

Storm Over Wake (Cont'd)

SIR:

"STORM OVER WAKE" [TIME, Oct. 30] CONTAINED NUMEROUS ERRORS OF TACT.

I BROKE NO AGREEMENT WITH MY COLLEAGUES AT WAKE. WE AGREED TO FILE A POOLED DISPATCH. THIS WAS WRITTEN JOINTLY BY THE A.P/S TONY VACCARO, BOB NIXON OF THE I.N.S., AND MYSELF. IT WAS ADDRESSED TO THE A.P., U.P. AND I.N.S. I DID NOT FILE ONE WORD OF INDEPENDENT COPY FROM WAKE.

THERE WERE TWO POOLS FROM WAKE, NOT ONE. THE REPORTERS FOR INDIVIDUAL NEWSPAPERS POOLED THEIR PRODUCT AS DID THE. WIRE SERVICES. THE CORRESPONDENTS SHARED TWO TELETYPE CIRCUITS, NOT ONE . . .

THE 40-MINUTE BEAT SCORED BY THE U.P. FROM WAKE RESULTED FROM THE INITIATIVE DISPLAYED BY OUR BUREAU IN HONOLULU, WHERE ONE OF OUR STAFFERS DEVISED A FASTER RELAY TO THE MAINLAND THAN OUR COMPETITORS HAD.

MERRIMAN SMITH UNITED PRESS WASHINGTON, D.C.

P: Let Correspondent ("Thank you, Mr. President") Smith quit kicking dust over his trail. As TIME said, Smith's agreement was with his two (A.P. and I.N.S.) wire service competitors; for them there was only one pool, only one circuit.

Says A.P.'s Vaccaro: "It was Smith who suggested the pool arrangement and the copy was to be pooled all the way to San Francisco. The U.P., in clear violation of the agreement, broke in on the copy in Honolulu and telephoned the message to its San Francisco office." Says I.N.S.'s Nixon: "A.P. and I.N.S. had men in Honolulu, and could have behaved as the U.P. did --except for the ethics of it." Says Carleton Kent, president of the White House Correspondents' Association: "Merriman Smith's . . . filing the communique twice, thus holding up the stories of the special correspondents' pool . . . was a dirty little trick."--ED

New Icing for Old Omar

Sir:

. . . I read with much interest your Oct. 30 article concerning . . . the Omar Khayyam controversy . . . Even if, in the "stringing of Oriental pearls on an English thread," Edward FitzGerald has taken extraordinary liberties (including some pearls of his own, such as "The Moving Finger Writes"), I feel he did such a superb job that his work will survive all criticism . . .

I would like to rationalize by recalling the couplet written by ... James Russell Lowell, who succeeded Longfellow in the Chair of Modern Languages at Harvard:

Though old the thought and oft expressed, 'Tis his at last who says it best . . .

JAMES EDWARDS Santa Barbara, Calif.

Sir:

Since authorities on Persian are scarce, how are we to know what liberties Professor "Arberry has taken with the Rubdiydt quatrains? . . . The fact that FitzGerald took them out of mothballs is proof that they were not best-seller material as Omar wrote them. In all probability Omar's wisdom would never have sold without a little romantic icing.

Frankly, it looks to me as though Mr. Ar-berry may be trying to sell his own icing . . .

MRS. A. E. NEAL San Angelo, Texas

* TIME credited the picture to "Edward Steichen--U.S. Navy," should have said "U.S. Navy, Courtesy Edward Steichen."

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