Praise & Censure
Sir:
The dark cloud has finally passed, hallelujah!
Our traditions, heritage and reputation emerge bright and strengthened. By the action of the Watkins Committee [TIME, Oct. 4] every honest citizen may again take pride in his Government and be happy in the knowledge that his Government is there to serve him and defend his rights.
May I be the first to nominate Senator Watkins as Man of the Year?
NANCY RICE
Weston, Vt.
Sir:
As long as you are on a "get Joe McCarthy" kick, why not go all the way and censure the real culprits?--viz., the people of Wisconsin who sicked Joe on Washington in the first place, and the all-wise inner council of President Eisenhower who dreamed up the policy of coexistence with Joe as a matter of expediency . . .
GORDON SMITH
New York City
New Directions
Sir:
Congratulations on your handling of the Riesman story [TIME, Sept. 27]. Our pueblo culture--meek, docile, fearful of individual variation--is a triumph of the contemporary medicine man, the writer of advertising copy.
Your reporter might have strengthened his piece by describing Riesman's view in terms often employed--of the thermostat (the inner-directed person) that controls the ternperature, and the thermometer (the outer-directed person) that merely records it.
(THE REV.) WILLIAM S. HILL
Wilkinsburg, Pa.
Sir:
Never have I read such monumental nonsense . . . No wonder the world is mad! . . .
ALLEN W. HINKEL
Wichita, Kans.
Sir:
. . . I have at long last hit on a handy explanation for a certain Thurber cartoon. It's the one [see cut] where the family is sitting around gloomily and the wife says, "Well, I'm disenchanted too; we're all disenchanted." Plainly, the husband is inner-directed, the wife is tradition-directed, and the poor little girl is other-directed but not well liked.
JOE V. BAKER
New York City
Sir:
TIME'S definitive article . . . failed to crystallize a guiding tenet to help point lost sheep toward the fertile plateau of autonomous existence . . . So live that you can look any man in the eye and tell him to go to hell!
ROBERT THOMAS ELLISON
Chicago
Sir:
Not since The Mature Mind has there been an analysis of humankind so important as Professor Riesman's menagerie. Left unsaid, however, is the clear and correct identification of "other-direction" with Democratic voters. Less clear are the categories into which Republican philosophy and its voters fit. The Taft-wing philosophy most matches a combination of "tradition-direction" and "inner-direction." The Eisenhower wing struggles in an atmosphere composed of this tradition-inner combination overtoned with a fishnet mesh of other-direction . . .
SHERMAN BENNET LANS
Chicago
Sir:
. . . While sitting in the Orderly Room today, I heard a trainee platoon sergeant talking to his men in the chow line. He said: "If any of you think you're better than the next guy, let him speak up now. And he can quit, if he does. You're no better and I'm no better."
. . . I'm just wondering, with [the] possibility of a continuous universal military training program, how much more our nation will tend to push its basic concepts of democracy to the limits and approach closer to a, military other-direction type of culture . . .
(PvT.) WILLIAM I. MCREYNOLDS
Fort Bliss, Texas
Sir:
A statement in your cover story is very revealing, namely: "The intellectuals, to whom a society looks for its picture . . ." This is the sort of rot that makes "intellectuals" think they are intellectuals. It is the same sort of rot contained in the idea that newspapers are molders of public opinion . . .
Your David Riesman . . . is indeed an intellectual, but I doubt very much if he thinks of himself as a leader, or believes that society looks to him for its "picture" . . .
I think TIME needs some self-analysis. It is obvious that the people mold newspaper opinion, but who molds TIME'S opinions is beyond my imagination . . .
LESLIE L. DAGGETT
Fresno, Calif.
Drawing the Line Sir:
I have just finished reading your article in the Oct. 4 issue about my case, and I wish to state that you are in complete error when you state that "the outcome did not seem to bother Fleming very much," and "relieved by the light sentence, he happily made plans for his civilian future."
First, let me emphasize that I was, and am, deeply shocked at the "outcome."
Second, anyone who considers dismissal from the service as a "light sentence" is either ignorant of the facts or coloring the truth.
Third, my plans for the future are very uncertain, and will depend solely on the outcome of the appeal of my case. And I can assure you I'm not "happy" about it.
HARRY FLEMING
Lieutenant Colonel, Infantry
Fort Leonard Wood, Mo.
P:TIME gladly accepts Colonel Fleming's own word for his personal reactions.--ED.
Prayer & the Weather
Sir:
. . . One reads [TIME, Sept. 27] that the Canon of Winchester wrote in the British weekly Time & Tide, "Our Lord . . . specifically ordered us to pray for and to heal the sick. But about the weather He had nothing to say. He simply accepted it." I do hope that before his face becomes too red the Reverend Canon reads Matthew 8:24-27* and reconsiders his statement that Our Lord "had nothing to say" about the weather.
REGINALD GARDINER
Beverly Hills, Calif.
Sir:
Lest readers be influenced by the Canon about not praying for rain, would it not be well to encourage people to pray for anything they wanted and leave it up to God as to what prayers He wanted to answer . . .
(THE REV.) ROBERT S. REGAN
Dublin, Ga.
The Petrov Case
SIR:
YOUR REPORT OF THE PETROV CASE [TIME, SEPT. 27] CONTAINS A HIGHLY INACCURATE REFERENCE TO ME. YOU STATE THAT PETROV HAD BEEN SUPPLIED WITH SOME VERY CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION IN DOCUMENT J "PRE. PARED IN PART WITH INFORMATION PROVIDED BY [LABOR PARTY LEADER HERBERT] EVATT'S TWO PRIVATE SECRETARIES." THE CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMISSION HAS STRESSED THAT THE MATTER ALLEGEDLY ATTRIBUTED TO ME WAS NOT OF A CONFIDENTIAL CHARACTER, WHILE THE THREE JUDGES REFERRED TO IT AS "INNOCUOUS" AND FURTHER COMMENT BY TWO OF THEM WAS THAT THERE WAS NO SUGGESTION WHATEVER THAT I HAD BEEN A SOURCE OF INFORMATION TO THE SOVIET EMBASSY. MOREOVER . . . IT CAN BE PROVEN THAT THE BRIEF REFERENCE TO ME IN DOCUMENT I IS NOT ONLY
FALSE BUT DEMONSTRABLY FALSE . . . ON BEHALF OF MY COLLEAGUE ALBERT GRUNDEMAN WE WOULD ASK THAT YOU CORRECT THIS OBVIOUSLY FALSE STATEMENT WHICH YOU HAVE PUBLISHED AS IF IT WERE JUDICIALLY ESTABLISHED FACT.
ALLAN DALZIEL
PRIVATE SECRETARY TO LEADER OF OPPOSITION
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
P: Australia's Royal Commissioners on Sept. 28 accepted Private Secretary Dalziel's denial that he had supplied any of the information contained in Document J and cleared him of any involvement. At the same time one of the three commissioners placed Grundeman in a "different category" because of meetings with Communist Rupert Lockwood, alleged author of Document J. Grundeman did not deny the meetings but has denied giving any information to Lock wood.--ED.
Governor's Lady
Sir:
Your description of Ed Muskie'swife [TIME, Sept. 27]--"will quite possibly be the youngest and prettiest governor's lady in the U.S." --arouses my curiosity. How about letting TIME readers see a picture of this beautiful young woman? [ see cut].
SEYMOUR D. LESSER
Berkeley, Calif.
Wishing Well
Sir:
J. J. Servan-Schreiber [TIME, Sept. 27] paints a beautiful picture of what Mendes-France is trying to do for France. We wish him well, and I am sure that if he succeeds Americans will be among the first to cheer.
But Servan-Schreiber fails utterly to explain what is wrong with EDC or why it is necessary for Mendes-France . . . to kick U.S. diplomats in the teeth in order to set France's internal house in order.
Has France sunk so low that the only means a French Premier has of gaining support is to thumb his nose at France's allies, even at the risk of sacrificing the future of Western civilization in Europe?
MENNO DUERKSEN
Memphis
Sir:
. . . The roots of present French weakness go deep into the roots of the very economy and habits of the country. Mendes-France is out to transform the economy of France from a cobwebbed cartelized stand-pattism into a vigorous competitive capitalism. To do this he must step on some well-shod toes, but in the ensuing process France will leave the bread line of U.S. foreign aid and take her rightful place in the community of Western nations . . .
SEYMOUR M. GOLDBERG
Dorchester, Mass.
Grimm's Way
Sir:
Surely Fletcher Grimm [TIME Letters, Sept. 27] takes his cinema too seriously if High and Dry conveys so much to him [i.e., strikes him as an allegory of a patient, generous U.S. cheated and sneered at by a wily Europe]. Heaven help America if we took you at face value of the American cinema.
(MRS.) K. M. MONTGOMERY
Hayling Island, Eng.
* "And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but He was asleep. And they went and woke Him, saying, 'Save, Lord; we are perishing.' And He said to them, 'Why are you afraid, O men of little faith?' Then He rose and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm. And the men marveled, saying, 'What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey Him?' "
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