Architect of Defense
Sir:
"The U.S.'s holding of the free world's defense lines made 1958's most telling headlines. The architect of the defense was Secretary Dulles . . ." [Jan. 5]. By these words, you should have selected Dulles for your Man of the Year.
GERALD MILLER New York City
Sir:
Explorers, Atlas and Nautilus have all played their part, but the telling moves of checking Red intrigue, force and threats at Lebanon, Quemoy and Berlin, under the direction of superb "Architect of Defense" Dulles, are the ones that have done most to restore the Allies' lost ground.
GEORGE T. LADD York Haven, Pa.
Sir:
Mr. Richard A. Heller of Flushing, N.Y. has discovered what is wrong with American diplomats [Jan. 5]: Secretary of State Dulles has been dunking a cracker in milk in public. Who doesn't? Dulles is known and admired throughout the free world. But who the hell is Heller?
CLINT H. DENMAN Sikeston, Mo.
Sir:
I dunk my cracker in a glass of milk; not only does this make the cracker tastier, but it aids in softening the fingernails prior to biting them off.
JOHN M. SAVING
Chicago
Man of the Year
Sir:
I was glad to see your Jan. 5 cover showing Charles de Gaulle as "Man of the Year." No other person has or will change history as he did during 1958. France will soon boost her economy again owing to the new change in the value of the franc. The entire world owes your man of the year a great deal.
A. BLEVISS Edmonton, Alta.
Sir:
So De Gaulle is your man? He is too puffed up with conceit to see that he is no leader; he is just a front man for a gang of adventurers and torturers who disobey his most solemn orders under his nose and get away with it. A once great country and people take another long stride toward a Fascism that bids fair to combine the cruelty of Naziism with the bumbling incompetence of the Falange. If you think that France is going to be ruled by enlightened capitalists and a kind of Gallic modern republicanism, then your ignorance of the most elementary facts of French political and economic life is boundless.
JOHN C. HOLT 11 Boston
Sir:
I think Buffet's portrait is a masterpiece of art. It embodies the spirit of De Gaulle as a cold and impassionate leader of the French people. De Gaulle seems to hide behind a solid granite-like facade of militarism. I would not be surprised if a very warm heart beats beneath the somber appearance.
VINCENT A. MIRRIONE Santa Clara, Calif.
Sir:
The resemblance to the late Herr Hitler is striking. Perhaps this is a sign of the future for France?
DAN HARRISON Hartsdale, N.Y.
Sir:
About that cover. Every time I look at it, I am reminded of those mysterious monoliths on Easter Island.
EARL GYNAN
Squantum, Mass.
The Vets
Sir:
Re "Whatever Happened to the Veterans?" [Jan. 5]: an excellent article. If I hadn't been a G.I., I wouldn't be a Jesuit now. Our seminaries were crowded with vets after World War II. Last year saw our 100th vet ordained a priest; 1959 will see another 100 ordained.
JAMES C. SUNDERLAND S.J. Saint Mary's College Saint Marys, Kans.
Sir:
You quote a onetime B-29 instructor: "I think a lot of us got embarrassed over the loot we got from the Government." Well, me and a couple million other veterans haven't collected any loot. I served six years in the Marine Corps in World War 11 and one year doing police action duty in Korea, but I don't go around bragging about what the hell I collected or what education I got from the Government. Everything I got I got on my own, no Government handout.
J. F. DAGENHARDT Charlotte, N.C.
Sir:
I rather suspect that without a war or two they would have ended up in the same relative position in society as they have now.
JOHN K. DUNCAN
(Combat infantry, 1943-46) Alexandria, Va.
Getting into Journalism
Sir:
As a graduate student in journalism I feel very unhappy after reading your Jan. 5 article on J-schools. I cannot understand how you have the nerve to list outstanding graduates from Missouri and Columbia and then come to the conclusion that J-schools are below the status of other professional schools. A J-school graduate will write circles around a nongraduate. And who knows, if the good reporter who didn't go to college would have, he might be twice as good.
GLENN A. HIMEBAUGH Athens, Ohio
Sir:
Your J-school story has cleared up a problem for me. I now know what's the matter with the press. There is no more sharp, contentious writing on controversial subjects either in news stories or in editorials. Editorial writers particularly seem to feel their role is to obfuscate rather than illuminate. The only paper in the country today that sticks a needle into its readers is the Chicago Tribune--and it's slipping.
M. J. GRAHAM Chicago
Under the Hills
Sir:
Your caves of Rosenburg Hill story [Jan. 5] brought back many memories, as I was one of the first to be taken into Belgium's ancient quarried hillside honeycomb in 1944. The townspeople of nearby Maastricht had used one small segment of these quarries as an air raid shelter capable of housing 70,000 people easily. The Queen Wilhelmina art collection, including Rembrandt's The Nightwatch, was stored away in them with full cooperation from the Germans, who never realized that running right alongside the air raid shelter and art sanctuary was a path to freedom for Allied airmen. On some of these walls, men whiled away their time by chiseling inscriptions--one of them: "Izzy Bernstein, Brooklyn, passed this way, 1943, on way back to Brooklyn." It is sad to read that what was once a haven for men in war turned into a hellhole in peace.
BARNEY OLDFIELD-Colonel, U.S.A.F.
North American Air Defense Command Colorado Springs, Colo.
Nymphs All Over
Sir:
Since the initial review of Nabokov's Lolita [Sept. 1], TIME has scarcely missed an issue without a reference to that highly publicized parcel of pornography. The association proposed in your Dec. 29 Press section between comic-strip characters Popsie and Poteet and Nabokov's nymphet is apt, but where next will she appear? In National Affairs?
ROBERT E. SWENSON Billings, Mont.
Sir:
My thanks for the fine manner in which you handled the Poteet-Lolita-Popsie article. MILTON CANIFF New York City
Psychiatry & Being
Sir:
I want to applaud the exceptionally fine piece of journalism on existentialism and Dr. Rollo May's thoughts concerning its use as an approach in psychotherapy [Dec. 29]. However, I am puzzled by its placement in your Medicine section. This particular way of man looking at himself is so encompassing that the effects are felt in every aspect of living. It would be more meaningful to the reader to be introduced to existentialism (and other such concepts) in a setting that focuses his thinking on himself rather than on the physician as the one who "cures" him.
JOSEPH E. RESSNER New York City
Sir:
I still don't understand it.
JOHN B. REYNOLDS
Stamford, Conn.
Senator Morse's Right to Fire
Sir:
Under the title "Morse's Right-to-Work Law" [Dec. 29], you criticized me for discharging an employee on my Eugene, Ore. farm. My employee was not discharged because he was a Republican. Neither was he discharged because he was a supporter of President Eisenhower. He was discharged because I discovered that he was not loyal to the position of trust which he occupied in my employment. [He] lived rent free in my home and was really a member of the family circle; in that relationship, he was present at many discussions within my home, both political and otherwise, that involved matters of confidence and privileged information. I am very sad about the fact that it became necessary to terminate this employee's services, but the facts left open to me no other course of action.
WAYNE MORSE Washington, D.C.
P: The employee in question was Senator Morse's part-time gardener and horse-handler.--ED.
The Ego & Iddon
Sir:
The following distinguished British people would not, I believe, agree with P. Rothlisberger's letter [Jan. 5] concerning my coverage of the U.S. This is what they said recently in tributes published in the United Kingdom and elsewhere: Lord Brabazon of Tara: "I look forward to Don Iddon. He loves America, but won't have us bullied. Parliament should vote him a million pounds as a gesture for what he has done towards Anglo-American relations." Lord Boothby: "I know of no more vivid pictures of the kaleidoscopic American scene than those painted by Don Iddon." Sir Alan Herbert: "I like . . . Don Iddon who paints with such gusto the best pictures of the States." The Duchess of Argyll: "The special articles in the Daily Mail have a very wide appeal, especially those by Don Iddon who writes so perspicaciously about America . . ."
Simon Elwes: "A big bow to Don Iddon. His column is a necessity."
Eric Linklater: "Don Iddon is a match even for the exuberance and unceasing variety of America . . ."
DON IDDON
London Daily Mail New York City
*No kin to the late, great auto racer.
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