Labor on Trial
Sir:
Wonderful America--a racketeer is candidate for president of a 1.4 million-member labor union and makes the cover of the best news magazine in the country.
IVAN TRABAL
The Bronx, N.Y.
Sir:
You sure let "Goon" Hoffa down easy in your Sept. 9 story. I suppose it was a case of "have trucks--will truckle."
FRANCIS LYNCH
Laguna Beach, Calif.
Sir:
What if we who receive or ship merchandise by Teamster-member unions refuse to do so if Hoffa is made president?
EMERSON FELDER
Fulton, Ind.
Sir:
Alas for the poor Senate anti-rackets committee when Teamster Vice President James Hoffa "swaggered into the McClellan hearing like a crowing cock into a coop of capons." The illusion is perfect, with the committee certainly discovering its impotence in the fray, but we'll bet our bottom forceps that Hoffa joins the capon ranks in no time. New Capon Hoffa, certainly economically "fattened for the table" (Webster), will join the docile when the committee leaves the roost for the chopping block.
WILLIAM A. SNYDER
Secretary
American Capon Producers Association
Vineland, NJ.
Sir:
There are stinkers in both labor and politics. Why not let labor investigate the politicians ?
FRED W. BANE
Springfield, ILL.
Cussin' Cozzens
Sir:
James Gould Cozzens' literary stature is finally being appreciated. Your depiction reveals a man of letters sans fetters.
JOSEPH J. BAEHNER
Philadelphia
Sir:
No doubt Author Cozzens will come in for plenty of criticism from those who don't understand such a type. I personally am all for him, and I don't know when I have enjoyed an article [Sept. 2] so much. If more people lived the way he does, this would be a better world.
MRS. HARLAN SCOTT
New York City
Sir:
May I, as a reader, express my complete contempt for the entire article?
CHARLES C. HAIMO
New York City
Sir:
You quote Cozzens as saying, "I have no thesis except that people get a very raw deal from life." What is this idea but the very cornerstone of sentimentalism ?
By Love Possessed ends on a stoic note. Julius Penrose's statement that it takes real courage, intelligence, and discretion to carry on despite the recognition of one's sins, one's loss of honor and selfesteem, would appear to express the author's view.
BLAIR FULLER
North Stonington, Conn.
Sir:
Who in hell are Sinclair Lewis, William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway, anyway? Merely Nobel Prizewinners who have written sentimental slop . . . And Steinbeck--pooh ! A lowly proletarian who drips grief over his characters. Then there's James Gould Cozzens, awarded the Pulitzer Prize, whose quoted utterances reflect flashes of his own many-faceted snooty character. Sex. "What's a woman for?" "The thing you have to know is yourself; you are people." And so, his stable of characters, I suspect, is a hash-up of his own personality.
EDWARD RODENHOUSE
Grand Rapids, Mich.
Sir:
Author Cozzens should stick to picking his nose and leave writing to John Steinbeck, who really knows life and expresses it as such.
ETHEL I. SULLIVAN
Renfrew, Ont.
Sir:
Could you put me in touch with a lady literary agent, with good income, who would like to support me while I write? I, too, am 54, am a martini man and am somewhat snobbish.
C. G. WHITE
Newhall, Calif.
Sir:
Your story was by far the most satisfactory and precise examination of a man and his work that I have read in any recent periodical. I have just finished reading By Love Possessed, and I say your article did it justice.
CELIA M. SUMMER
Brooklyn
Misguided Tour
Sir:
I was very sorry to read that TIME thought that the Americans who went to China were off on a misguided tour. I was one of the 160 Americans who were in Moscow during the festivals, and never have I seen a finer group. Against great odds, all of us defended and explained America to the Soviets and other people who attacked our country. We had no support from our own government.
AVIK GILBOA
Salzburg, Austria
Sir:
My husband and I were tourists in Moscow during the recent Youth Festival, and we were ashamed of the so-called American delegation. Now that these young people have flauntingly defied the U.S. passport laws and, against repeated and sage advice, gone into Red China, I feel their punishment should be drastic. May I suggest that they be met upon their return to the U.S. by government officials who will immediately revoke their passports for all time and clap the offenders into jail?
LYDA R. TIDWELL
Albuquerque, N.Mex.
The Cold War & the Small War
Sir:
In Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy, Henry Kissinger has given us a brilliant analysis [Aug. 26] of what our foreign policy must be in order to maintain our present interests. Kissinger, however, makes the assumption that the leaders of Russia are reasonable men. Hitler proved this a dangerous assumption. The people of the U.S. must make a choice between a foreign policy similar to that outlined by Kissinger, or disarmament with the prayer that our ideals may triumph by peaceful means.
FRANK R. STEWARD
Woodbury, N.J.
Sir:
Your "me too" review of Henry Kissinger's book was more than a little unsettling. "It takes a firm hand and steady nerves to face a small-war challenge, to resist the outcries against atomic weapons, and to confront the enemy with the choice of backing down or risking all-out war." Let us hope that U.S. policymakers are not confused by this kind of glib back-seat driving. I am one of many in the back seat who would like to hope that there are other ways for man to handle his homicidal-suicidal drives.
RAY R. PRICE
Half Moon Bay, Calif.
Sir:
Now that Communism and freedom are being more clearly defined, it takes creative-minded men like Henry Kissinger to come up with an effective policy for combatting Communism. Our State Department would do well not to dilute this kind of thinking with compromise and fear.
JAMES HULBERT
Los Angeles
The Way the Ball Bounces
Sir:
I was shocked and ashamed upon reading the first two letters in the Sept. 9 issue. Insults--to a woman [Althea Gibson] who has brought honor to our country, and to you who told her story. What kind of people are these? How do I explain their letters to my children? How do I explain the actions of Americans in Sturgis, Nashville, Little Rock and Levittown, Pa.?
MRS. TENNER R. JONES
Laurelton, N.Y.
Sir:
As a tennis fan and player for many years, your Aug. 26 cover story on Althea Gibson prompted me to send her, through TIME, my heartiest and best wishes from faraway East Africa. I admire Miss Gibson not only for her superb tennis, but also for her courage in overcoming the side obstacles she met on her road to victory.
HENRY BEYDA
Mogadiscio, Somalia
Sir:
Did your cover artist purposely use the tennis ball as a symbol of Yang and Yin? Yang and Yin represent the Chinese conception of two opposite forces that create the universe. For example; day and night, right and wrong, black and white.
ROBERTA G. GLENN
Huron, S. Dak.
Sir:
The accentuated line of the seam on the tennis ball could mean that Mr. Chaliapin had the Yang and Yin symbol in mind.
WALTER FUCHS
Bonn, Germany
P: Artist Chaliapin says he meant to illustrate neither Yang nor Yin, simply ping and pong.--ED.
Sir:
I enjoyed reading your interesting article about Tennis Champion Althea Gibson. I can't resist mentioning that you left out one of my names, my middle name to be exact, when you were kind enough to include me as a good friend of Althea's. Actually, I was named after my great aunt, Sarah Hammond Palfrey who lived for over 90 years and remained a maiden lady.
SARAH PALFREY DANZIG
New York City
Honorable Mentions
Sir:
Thank you for publishing the picture of the synagogue and the article about it in your Aug. 26 issue. At the same time I am most sorry that no credit was given to my partners, Mr. David Reznik the architect, and especially Mr. Ignaz Olexinzer (79) the engineer.
HEINZ RAU
Jerusalem
Sir:
In your Aug. 26 TV & Radio section, you reviewed with great cordiality Studio One's The Unmentionable Blues and quoted from what was obviously a superior script. However, there was no mention of the author, and it read as though [Actor] Elliott Nugent had made up the lines as he was going along. The author's name: Helen Cotton.
DAVIDSON TAYLOR
National Broadcasting Co.
New York City
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