Winners & Losers

Sirs:

Does TIME only bet on winners, or how come you arranged to get the man who won on your Nov. 12 cover in advance of the election results? To cover a personal bet, did TIME hedge its cover by having Ike and Adlai plates at the ready?

H. ADAMS Chicago

P: TIME prepared four-color covers of both candidate pairs (Stevenson-Kefauver by Chaliapin, Eisenhower-Nixon by Chapin), printed 1,874,000 copies of each, waited for the voters to make the decision.--ED.

Man of the Year

Sir:

No single man can compete with the millions of nameless Hungarians and Poles who have defied Soviet tyranny in these past few weeks. Let these heroes be your symbol for this year and, indeed, for this coming decade of renewed hope for those still oppressed.

DONALD C. DE LA POER BERESFORD

London

The Middle East

Sir:

The fact that the British and French are trying to assume their former status as colonial powers by force is in no way different from the Russians imposing Communism on Hungary by brute force. The two democratic countries ignored the principles of justice in bombing Egypt.

R. L. KANNANGARA

London

Sir:

Thank you for truthful reporting on the Middle East. It now appears that we've been allied with thieves, liars and attackers. Do we, the United States, have the courage of our convictions? If we had advance knowledge of this dirty business, it could have been reported in advance and stopped before il got started.

(THE REV.) PAUL BERNHARDT

The First Baptist Church Elmira, N.Y.

Sir:

Very much at fault in the Near East situation is our own State Department. Where was Dulles when Israel, England and France took it into their own hands to take care of themselves?

RICA B. SILVERMAN Scranton, Pa.

Sir:

Eisenhower has blundered to the point of aligning our government with Russia and with Nasser, the dictator. How Russia must be laughing at seeing accomplished by our policies in Washington what she has been striving for these past ten years--any break with England.

ELIZABETH C. BEAUREGARD

Boston

Sir:

Mankind will never forgive Ben-Gurion, Eden and Mollet for the dirtiest blow to international justice and freedom.

T. M. SHAMMA Bell, Calif.

Semper Fi

Sir:

Regarding your tearful Oct. 29 reporting of the sending home of Marine dependents from Japan: I say--come off it, TIME, No one shed a tear for me when I did as I was supposed to do and stayed home.

MRS. DEAN N. MCDOWELL

Triangle, Va.

Sir:

I see the globe and anchor boys have done it again. As they told my husband, while he was on active duty: "If the Marine Corps wanted you to have a wife, they would have issued you one."

MRS. H. P. REILAND Wichita, Kans.

Sir:

Marine Commandant Pate's arrival in Japan with his wife in tow is just another example of RHIP (Rank Has Its Privileges). I can't see that her presence will in any way contribute to the commandant's efficiency while he is there.

CLYDE KOEHNE

Amarillo, Tex.

Drain from the Brain

Sir:

TIME'S poignant Oct. 29 story on how Industrial Technician John Holter developed a brain valve to save the life of his baby son, suffering from hydrocephalus, implied that only Holler's baby had been saved. At least 65 children suffering from water on the brain have had their lives saved by means of the surgical insertion of a Holter brain valve.

John Holter, then a technician at the Yale

& Towne Research Center at Valley Forge, had been testing new devices for large and heavy hydraulic valves used in Yale fork lift trucks, when he worked on and developed the tiny new silicone plastic valve in a stainless steel body on an entirely new medical principle to control the fluid from the head into the bloodstream. Holter now has been provided by Yale & Towne with precision tools in his home workshop in which to devote his full time to producing many more of the lifesaving brain valves.

MILTON M. ENZER Yale & Towne Manufacturing Co. New York City

Passing the Word

Sir:

Concerning Robert Mizell's letter in TIME, Oct. 22: the word merde positively is not "a form of farewell and best wishes." The word is considered so vulgar that it is not used in fashionable circles, polite conversation or in print.

P. M. ROINSARD New York City

Sir:

To claim that merde is an expression of affectionate farewell is to rank it with Owen Wister's injunction to smile when saying son of a bitch.

ROBERT R. WALKER Boston

P: But the word was never printed as such in The Virginian. Said Author Wister, whose publishers blanked out the epithet, "I always regretted having to use '----' instead of the real oath that caused the Virginian to say 'When you call me that, smile.' I never had any sympathy with censorship; after all, if a word expresses an idea and only that word will do, it should be used."--ED.

The Rebels

Sir:

Cheers for Mrs. Mary Schoenheit and Mr. William Cheney for deciding to educate their daughters themselves [Oct. 29]. Too many parents refuse any responsibility whatsoever for the education of their children and then complain of school taxes and poor teachers. The law requiring attendance at school exists obviously to insure an education for all children. If, however, a child can get and is getting a good education at home, it is ridiculous to enforce the law.

ANITA DENTON KUSEL Madera, Calif.

Sir:

My mother taught her six children at home because time was wasted in school on nonessentials and the pace geared to the slowest. When my father, a lawyer, heard her plan, he said she was liable to be haled into court. Instead, the school department (Brockton, Mass.) sent us desks and chairs. Using her own original system, my mother telescoped six grammar grades into one year of home study. We went to school for the first time in the sixth grade at eight years of age; graduated from high school at fifteen and went to Radcliffe College or the Sorbonne or M.I.T.

MARGOT MALLARY

Los Angeles

The Dedicated Gentleman

Sir:

It usually takes weeks for my subscription copy of TIME to find its way here by railroad, truck and mule train; the last mail brought your Sept. 24 issue with John D. Rockefeller Jr.'s story. The following day one of our students died of typhoid fever. In her class, I heard the teacher comforting her pupils with the words you quoted from Laura Spelman Rockefeller, "Children are my precious jewels --loaned me for a season to be handed back when the call comes." Even here in this small town the good works of the Rockefeller bounty is felt. Unaware, perhaps, farmers in this area are beginning to use hybrid corn seed made possible by research and development grants from the Rockefeller Foundation. We are grateful to you for such an excellent portrayal of a gracious and dedicated gentleman.

JAMES N. WRIGHT Institute Ponte Nova Itacira, Brazil

Buss Stop

Sir:

Surely you received better explanations of Roman Catholic teaching on kissing in response to "The Venial Kiss" than the "I never heard of it being sinful" letter which you published [Oct. 29]. A kiss between unmarried persons which neither aims at nor arouses specifically sexual pleasure is not sinful. It was an excellent article on sinful kissing, but why not clarify that the Catholic Church doesn't consider all kissing sinful ?

(MRS.) LORETTA HARTFORD Milwaukee

Pride of Place

Sir:

Your film reviewer recently dismissed (Oct. 1] as "HOpera" and "bad bouillabaisse" Jacques-Yves Cousteau's The Silent World, surely one of the finest things ever put on film. I am delighted that your reviewer placed my film Friendly Persuasion [Nov. 1] in a similar category.

WILLIAM WYLER Beverly Hills, Calif.

Problems in Paradise

Sir:

I agree with TIME, Nov. 5, that "Uruguay is earth's closest imitation of a paradise" if we compare our problems, democratic achievements and cultural standing with those of many of our sister republics of the Americas. We have been suffering from the evils of a mild inflation but our peso still permits us to enjoy a standard of living which leaves nothing to envy in the U.S. Uruguay has resources and will undoubtedly overcome its difficulties in the economic field; its biggest assets: an ideal geographical position, a 3,000,000 all-white population and 100,000 sq. mi. of fertile land. With a political tradition of stability and freedom, full prosperity cannot be far away. We haven't noticed any special public or private favoring of trading with the Reds. If negotiations with Communist countries do prosper in a small way, it is mostly because the U.S. discriminatory tariffs against our wool prevent us from selling it to the U.S.

MIGUEL PAEZ VILARO Montevideo

Progress & Places

Sir:

Your excellent [Oct. 1] report on the Intracoastal Waterway deserves the highest of praise. The waterway has indeed opened up the Gulf's vast natural resources at bargain-basement prices. TIME editors and reporters are doing a wonderful job enlightening the people of the U.S. and the world on the progress of places that seemed, a few years ago, too remote and profitless to develop.

J. F. WORTHY Baton Rouge

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