Hot Spot
Sir:
Congratulations to TIME, Feb. 5 for alerting our State Department with its timely "Iran and Oil." This area is a veritable powder keg, the fuse of which has already been lighted.
Having lived in the Near East for 4 1/2 years, I have expressed great and deep concern over the lack of attention by our Government to the war potentialities of this hot spot. I heartily concur with TIME that here lies a "Background for War." And I should like to predict that this will be the first major Russian objective . . .
WILLIAM T. FORAN
Tacoma, Wash.
SIR:
CONGRATULATIONS. I NOMINATE TIME CORRESPONDENT ENNO HOBBING FOR THE STATE DEPARTMENT.
KARLENE ARMSTRONG BEIRUT, LEBANON
Sir: ... I wish to compliment you on the thoroughness and foresight with which you have dealt with this all-important matter . . .
... A small country such as Iran cannot possibly survive the ambitious appetite of its northern neighbor if it is not substantially assisted by the Western powers. Two years ago, extensive plans were laid out by a group of American engineers who unselfishly and wholeheartedly endeavored to bring order out of chaos. Had the seven-year plan originated by this group been enforced, or had it even received the blessing of the U.S. Government, the economic situation of the country would have been stable today, and the threat of Communism decreased rather than increased.
J. J. ZAND
Columbus, Ohio
The Rosy View [Cont'd]
Sir:
After reading "The Rosy View" [about Faith Baldwin's television show--TIME, Jan. 29], I cannot resist the temptation of telling you a thing or two. Many people resent your "know it all" approach to novelists who do not use your hard-boiled style . . . Who do you think you are, anyhow?
MARGARET WRIGHT Chicago
Sir:
I got a big (if frightened) bang from ["The Rosy View"] . . . You were kind to me, so I appreciate it ... The mention of my new book was a wonderful help .
FAITH BALDWIN New Canaan, Conn.
Thanks
Sir:
The nation and freedom-loving countries of the world can thank Warren Austin for what remains of the hollow mockery of a weak-kneed "world police force," known to us as the U.N., which cannot clearly define the word "aggressor" for fear of irritating a big bully.
Warren Austin justly deserves TIME'S Feb. 5 cover. Let us pray for a few more clear-thinking . . . Americans with the courage of their own convictions.
FRANKLIN J. WEYRICK
Bremerton, Wash.
Commentary
Sir:
We who have long known that Claudia Cassidy was a perfect expression of Chicago Tribune journalism are indebted to you for a public statement that she has "had no musical training" and that she has never "really thought about criticism" [TIME. Feb. 5].
What a commentary upon the American way of life, that this smart-aleck journalist can "make or break" (fortunately, only in Chicago) men & women of genius .
EDGAR H. AILES Detroit
Sir:
We Chicagoans have always admitted that Claudia Cassidy's broomstick gives her a slight advantage over our other critics, who have to manage with more earthbound transportation . . . She has not the musical appreciation of a four-year-old, or the dramatic appreciation of a stone, or the ballet judgment of my dog, Wolfgang Amadeus.
WALTER J. KELLY
Chicago
Jet-Propelled Challenges
Sir:
As an avid reader since Vol. 1, No. 1, I have been proud of and occasionally startled by the detailed accuracy of your aviation reporting. But the claims made on behalf of the Air Force's latest love, Mary Van Rensselaer Thayer, as being the first woman to fly in a jet [TIME, Jan. 29], are in error.
The real honor goes to a wife of some member of the 412th Group and a part of my wing--the 319th. The airplane: a Bell YP-59, with a seat in the nose and accessible only by removing the canopy and with the help of a shoehorn.
I suspect that in those days, when jet flying was an experience, the honor of "first" probably goes to [the officer's wife], but on this latter detail I could be in error. The year: 1944 or 1945.
STEWART W. TOWLE JR. Colonel, U.S.A.F. (ret.) Washington, D.C.
Sir:
... In the late General H. H. Arnold's address on Dec. 7, 1944 to graduating Women's Air Service Pilots at Sweetwater, Texas, he stated in part: "Certainly we haven't been able to build an airplane you can't handle. From AT-6s to B-29s, you have flown them around like veterans. One of the WASPs has even test-flown our new jet plane."
VIOLA T. SANDELL
Miles City, Mont.
Sir:
... In the fall of 1944 a very pretty member of the WASPs, who had been sent to Wright Field, to sit around in cold boxes and altitude chambers for testing WASP clothes, had also successfully talked herself into some flight test jobs ... One day the colonel in charge of flight test said: "You can fly the jet this afternoon if you want to. Get one of the boys to check you out." For a half-hour that afternoon, and more time later, this young woman pilot flew the YP-59A, an experimental fighter . . .
Now a young married woman with two children, Mrs. Ann Baumgartner Carl lives in Baldwin, L.I. and keeps up her flying interests through her membership in the "Ninety-Nines," an organization of 1,200 licensed women pilots . . .
NOVETAH HOLMES DAVENPORT Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y.
Corn with Dignity
Sir:
I have just read your Feb. 5 article about Colorado's Governor Dan Thornton's cowboy hat and pipe, and I'm as hot as chuckwagon coffee.
I_ would like to know just how many Denverites he has embarrassed with his "cowboy corn?" We are enjoying more dignity now with Governor Thornton, hat and pipe, than with our former governor.
ROGER L. HENDERSON Glenwood Springs, Colo.
Sir:
I sent this letter to Governor Thornton: "TIME Magazine sez some feller--a ol'-time cowpoke--wrote you to shed your Stetson an' boots an' take your feet offen the desk. Like as not the feller is a punkin roller with a cupple Holstein steers back of the barn, an' does his cowboyin' on a manure spreader while he waits for his goviment subsidy check "Jest because some New Yorker says it's" stylish to wear pants with pleats in 'em . you don't have to wear 'em. Harry Truman wears a shirt in Floridy which would
spook a bobcat . . . because 'it's stylish'
but it ain't beautiful . . .
"Your Stetson an' boots is the badge of a cowman ... They are the only tribe--as a group--who is still American enough to do their own thinkin', stick to free enterprisin' --an' have the queer idea of supplyin' their own security. They ain't lookin' for 48 hours pay for 40 hours work an' a penshun. They figger they kin grow old an' have their arteries harden without help from a goviment flunky."
F. H. SINCLAIR Sheridan, Wyo.
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