Trouble in Bolivia
Sir:
The reaction to your story on Bolivia [March 2] was more violent but otherwise in line with the response to similar factual descriptions of the Bolivian situation. A year ago Senator Theodore Green and I were bitterly attacked in La Paz for a speech in the Senate and for an article, respectively. I served as fiscal adviser to the Bolivian government on a special U.S. mission in 1956-57. I returned with the conviction that a continuation of U.S. aid policies would lead to further economic and social deterioration and disaster. Privately, most of the U.S. technicians in Bolivia will confirm your story and tell you of their frustration and the hopelessness of present policies.
President Hernan Siles Zuazo has shown more courage and determination than most observers close to the scene would have expected two or three years ago. However, the real power is in the hands of the armed and Communist-led mineworkers unions who will not permit the steps necessary to economic recovery. U.S. aid policy has, for the past six years, been strengthening their hand.
ROGER A. FREEMAN
Vice President
The Institute for Social Science Research
Washington
Sir:
There are enough tangled problems in our world without irresponsible journalism coming on the scene to complicate matters further. What TIME hopes to accomplish by setting Cuba, Bolivia and Latin America against the U.S., I do not know. TIME's smug self-righteousness and perverted sense of journalistic humor may tickle the fancies of the uninformed here. I was in Cuba, and I can no longer laugh with you.
JAMES ARMSTRONG
Minister
Broadway Methodist Church
Indianapolis
Sir:
As a citizen of Bolivia I would like to apologize for the stoning of the U.S. Embassy in La Paz. On the other hand, I demand an apology from your magazine for your controversial article about Bolivia. Your article reflected the still-remaining thought in the U.S. that friendship can be bought.
R. PAZ
Philadelphia
Sir:
Over a year ago when I was a Smith-Mundt lecturer in Bolivia, I heard the joke that Bolivia and her troubles should be divided among her neighbors. It was told to me by Bolivians, and it was not a new joke then.
JAMES E. MCKEOWN (Ph.D)
Professor of Sociology
De Paul University
Chicago
Bloody Harlan
Sir:
Reading your story about Harlan County, Ky. [Feb. 23] was like reading of a favorite old relative who had died. My father, a doctor, began practicing medicine there in the '20s. A schoolteacher we knew there, rumored to have given aid and comfort to an Internal Revenue agent, went out one morning with his daughter; he sent her back to the house for their lunches, stepped on the starter of their car, and was blown all over Harlan County by the dynamite explosion.
I have never seen another place where a sheriff could swagger around the polls advising voters: "I don't give a goddam who you vote fer--I'm gonna be your sher'f." And anyone who went fishing in Wallins Creek after an election was more likely to hook a ballot box than a fish.
I was born in Bloody Harlan County, and it saddens me to hear that it has fallen on bad times.
WILLIAM A. LAUGHRUN
Harrisonburg, Va.
Sir:
I've heard tell that those idle miners in Harlan County wouldn't think of going into the mines for less than the U.M.W. rate of $14.25 per day plus 76-c- per ton.
I'll bet old John L. is mighty proud of those boys.
T. C. MORAN
Pittsburgh
The Headliner
Sir:
Thank you for the first-rate story [March 2] on one of America's fine, expressive singers, Harry Belafonte. Watching him interpret his variety of songs on a recent television program was a moving experience.
HERBERT HENRY EHRENSTEIN
Philadelphia
Sir:
I have no record player; yet I have three of his albums.
GLORIA WRIGHT
Mobile, Ala.
Sir:
I can't help wondering if that tape recorder the great Belafonte carries everywhere with him could be the same $553.11 one I loaned him in 1954 (when he couldn't afford to buy one) and that he never bothered to return despite my many pleas.
MONIQUE VAN VOOREN
New York City
P: Says Belafonte: She never lent me a tape recorder. Says Actress van Vooren: I did too, and I want it back.--ED.
The Curse of Plenty
Sir:
When I read of our difficulties with the intransigent Russians in Berlin, our troubles with our uncontrollable labor racketeers, and our insoluble $7 billion-a-year farm problem [TIME, March 2], I am reminded of that line of Omar Khayyam's, "Yesterday this day's madness did prepare."*
LYON STEINE
Valley Stream, N.Y.
SIR:
YOU QUOTE SENATE AGRICULTURE COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN ALLEN ELLENDER: "IT LOOKS AS THOUGH WE NEED A MOSES IN THIS FIELD," REFERRING TO FARM-SURPLUS MESS UNDER SECRETARY BENSON. I AM READY AND ABLE.
ROBERT MOSES
FARMERS UNION RADIO DIRECTOR
EAU CLAIRE, WIS.
Sir:
The farm-surplus scandal has become so horrible even the politicians are puzzled and frightened. For many years the farm subsidies have been nothing but a large vote-buying scheme, nurtured by the politicians and the Farmers Union. It puts Boss Tweed in the class of rank amateur.
CLIFFORD G. NELSON
Minneapolis
Kinfolk on the Payroll
Sir:
After reading your March 2 story about Steven V. Carter [D., Iowa], I am firmly of the opinion that we should revive the whipping post--to be used generously on our so-called public servants who won't learn how to save our hard-earned money, and would rather vote themselves large sums to be wasted here and abroad.
Louis J. MARLOWE
Hollywood, Calif.
Sir:
I have a 19-year-old son who is going to college. With all due respect to my employees, I wouldn't trade my son's working for me in the summer time for any two men. I certainly can understand why Congressman Carter had his son working for him.
DARIUS D. BUELL
Elmira, Mich.
Sir:
Shades of the carpetbaggers! Some of Iowa's must have returned home to roost.
LLOYD MAFFETT
Florence, Ala.
Sir:
No wonder there aren't any prospects for a tax cut: Congress needs our money to reward all those "hardworking" wives and prelaw students, whose services are so necessary to "take care of the folks at home."
ROBERT R. SHINNICK
Omaha
Sir:
Do you think the embattled constituents of Representative Carter and his son will consider even the son's announced reduced keep-home pay as a sort of farm subsidy ?
SIDNEY B. ROSENBAUM
Hollywood, Fla.
School at Home
Sir:
Re your account [March 2] of the home school provided for Tommy Kral by his parents Otto and Mary, it occurs to me that their determination to give adequate training to children who meet no real challenge in our public school systems could well be rewarded with something better than court action. Let's have a movement to change our educational laws so that children educated at home would be required to pass examinations provided by the public school system. This would eliminate the undesirable leveling of above average children and relieve public school overcrowding.
ROBERT H. PORTER
Kansas City, Kans.
Sir:
The Krals' "isolationist" attitude will not help anyone, least of all Tommy. I believe Mrs. Kral could contribute something to the world by teaching her son to respect the law. Perhaps she could really help Tommy and others like him by starting a school for "gifted" children in their area.
HELENE M. FLANDERS San Diego, Calif.
Almost Happy
Sir:
Re your Feb. 9 article on my book, The Privilege Was Mine: I should be very happy indeed with your review, had you not reproached me for Russian nationalism. My greatest wish is to see Hungary, Poland, etc., regain their independence, but neither in Moscow during the Budapest uprisal, nor afterward was I optimistic enough to believe that the Soviets would surrender (without a new World War) a system on which they think reposes their very existence. Who could expect the masters of the Kremlin to act differently in this crisis?
PRINCESS ZINAIDA SHAKOVSKOY
Malaga, Spain
* The rest of the quatrain: Yesterday This Day's Madness did prepare:
Tomorrow's Silence, Triumph, or Despair:
Drink! for you know not whence you came, nor why:
Drink! for you know not why you go, nor where.
This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.