Rocket Restorative
Sir:
The U.S.'s Atlas should have been TIME's Thing of the Year--it has restored our country to a position of prestige in the world.
STUART M. GERSON
Long Beach, N.Y.
Sir:
With the problems of radio and TV transmission from outer-space satellites practically solved, we can at last look forward to laxative commercials from the region of Mars, and words from our sponsor on "How to Break the Habit" from the sphere of Venus. The Man in the Moon will no doubt switch to Chesterfields--and there will be more sinister orders to come. From the ridiculous to the subliminal is only a second step.
FELIX ANSELM
Evanston, Ill.
Oriental Charmers
Sir:
Your Dec. 22 cover picture is a real charmer arid a real pleasure to behold; moreover, it did justice (as did the article) to the enchanting Miyoshi Umeki and Pat Suzuki. DEBORA H. SNYDER Los Angeles
Sir:
Why smear your Dec. 22 issue with striptease pictures? No Christian wants to see such pictures at any time, much less in the last issue before Xmas.
JOSEPH PETRICK Chicago
Sir:
I was amazed to discover, upon reading your spread on Flower Drum Song, that in those many thousands of words devoted to the evolution of this Broadway success no mention was made of Mr. C. Y. Lee, the author of the book upon which the show was based.
ROGER W. STRAUS JR. President
Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, Inc. New York City
Sir:
It occurs to me that work at TIME is not too different from ours at the St. James; they both require externals, techniques and, above all, the same passionate interest in the matter at hand. Your Flower Drum Song issue has all of these. The story has such accuracy, good writing and warmth that even those of us closely connected with the enter prise and terribly jealous of everything concerning it are delighted with the way it has made us look.
RICHARD RODGERS New York City
Fourth Generation Nymphet
Sir:
I have just read your Nov. 24 story on "The Vanishing Geisha." Possibly Tokyo's 600 geisha are all aged; however, I assure you that there are as many geisha as before the war, both young and aged. I enclose a photograph which shows one youngster, now eleven, who will become a fourth-generation geisha. In training since the sixth month and sixth day of her sixth year, she received the right to her dance teacher's name (Onoe) a few months ago.
The geisha is not now and never has been for the young man or for American tourists; she is for the Japanese businessman, politician, professional man or artist who has made or inherited his name and fortune. Possibly the Japanese businessman who said, ''Frankly . . . they have become a bore" was referring to geisha parties for foreign tourists, rather than to geisha.
P. D. PERKINS Kyoto, Japan
The Muddling Ivys
Sir:
Re your Dec. 15 "Men of Miami." Little old middling-good Miami has beaten other teams, too. Sorry we can't play Yale or the other little middling Ivy schools, but we hate to see a lopsided score. Miami could spot any Ivy League team a touchdown or more and walk away from the fray with a victory. R. D. "BEN" LAIME Miami '60 Oxford, Ohio
Humphrey's Hour
Sir:
As a former student at Macalester College, St. Paul, Minn., where I had Hubert Humphrey as a professor of political science, it was no surprise to me that his "lesson" to Nikita Khrushchev should have lasted eight hours. Many times his classes (1943-45) would run beyond the end-of-the-class bell--sometimes through the dinner hour and into the evening. He was a stimulating teacher, and he would be an excellent choice for President.
HAROLD A. GOLTZ Bellingham, Wash.
Sir:
Caviar, pheasant and brandy were a cheap feast for the valuable service Senator Humphrey rendered to Khrushchev by conveying eight hours' propaganda, boasts and threats to the U.S. and the world.
ARTHUR E. WYNN
Forest Hills, N.Y.
Sir:
It is disappointing to see another Minnesotan straining too hard to become President. We went through that with our favorite son, Harold Stassen. If the messages were indeed "secrets" on which hangs our nation's security, then our Senator's action in using them to propel himself into the limelight must be regarded as the most reckless folly.
TOM DALE
Minneapolis
Baffling the Bluffer
Sir:
The degree of uninformed criticism of the Administration's foreign policy is pathetic. Your comments on Dulles in the Dec. 15 issue were excellent. If we permit Khrushchev to bluff us on Berlin, we can expect many more similar incidents in the years to come. We should appreciate Mr. Dulles, his firmness and his consistency.
M. A. RAMSEY
Fort Pierce, Fla.
Boycotting the Others
Sir:
Re your Dec. 15 article on world boycott of ships sailing under the so-called flags of convenience: regardless of flag, these ships contribute immeasurably to the U.S. economy. Many of the vessels were constructed in U.S. shipyards, supplied with equipment manufactured by American labor. Labor generally should count its benefits rather than damn their providers.
F. J. MCALLISTER Baltimore
Sir:
I am a Greek. You say that PanLibHonCo vessels ''have cost seamen in seafaring countries thousands of jobs." They have also created about 60,000 jobs for Greeks, Italians and others not eligible for work on American or British ships. What right have American seamen's unions to try to take our jobs away from us?
NICHOLAS TSALTAS
New York City
Reply from the Whirlwind
Sir:
1 am disappointed in your Dec. 22 articles on Archibald MacLeish's J.B. He is right in claiming that the God of Job is closer to this generation than any other. The world is not what we naively wish it were. Man should not have the feeling "that life owes him something . . ." When we begin to see that things no longer obey our wishes, we are matured. This is the answer of the Lord from the whirlwind to Job.
ALVIN GOLUB
Brooklyn
Sir:
Job was not an easily satisfied man. In both good and bad times, it was all or nothing for him.
JAMES E. SULLIVAN
Cohasset, Mass.
The Author & the Doctor
Sir:
Why the panegyric of Pasternak? His poetry is rubbish, and his Doctor Zhivago is puny. Zhivago is remote to any feeling of responsibility in the midst of great nationwide suffering. He is more concerned with bread and potatoes than with "the sanctity of every man's soul under God."
JAMES LESLIE Glasgow, Scotland
Sir:
I have read over a dozen Doctor Zhivago reviews in U.S. as well as foreign publications. In insight, breadth, clarity, craftsmanship, readability, intellectual scope, TIME's Dec. 15 article beats them all.
FRANK MEISSNER Berkeley, Calif.
Sir:
What is the color of Pasternak's eyes? Brown as on your cover or "liquid, steel-grey" as in the story?
VERREE TEASDALE MENJOU Beverly Hills, Calif.
P: Brown.--ED.
Backus Is Willing
Sir:
I was delighted with your three-quarter profile of me in your Dec. 15 issue. Outside of the fact that a used-car dealer is bugging me for back payments ever since you published my income, the results have been most gratifying.
JIM BACKUS
Hollywood
Sacrificial Bull
Sir:
Permit me to contradict the statement that I "flunked" my Cambridge entrance in Latin the first time and "barely squeaked" in on the second [Dec. 22]. The truth is that I managed it the first time, as anyone with the merest suggestion of intelligence could. At the level required, the subject matter is necessarily restricted to archaic absurdities that can no longer inspire the young mind, if they ever could: "The sailors sacrifice the bull on the altar of the immortal gods!" This is the sort of bull we have got to be prepared to sacrifice.
RAYMOND A. LYTTLETON St. John's College Cambridge
Navy Log
Sir:
Returning from Jamaica, I have just seen TIME's Nov. 10 review of my book Leyte. Of all the sheaf of reviews awaiting me on my desk, this stands out as the one which grasps what I was trying to do, and which, moreover, says that I did it. No wonder I am pleased.
SAMUEL ELIOT MORISON
Boston
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