Below the Summit

Sir:

Iraq is more important than ten Berlins, but the U.S. continues to study Berlin and act as if Khrushchev's "deadline" is something like a bureaucrat's lunch hour and must be taken seriously. Berlin is the deliberate decoy set up by the Communists to distract the U.S. from Iraq. Wait and see.

HARI DHARANA Hollywood

Sir:

Can we have less playing like puppets on the part of our press? The American people are not afraid. Let our editors and press absorb some of that courage.

SCOTT W. RYALL Bakersfield, Calif.

Sir:

From this side of the Atlantic, America appears as an overendowed, immature young nation ruled by a power elite of career politicians, military top brass, monopoly capitalists and tycoon gangsters--and, as such, is every bit as dangerous as the U.S.S.R.

MARTYN BERRY Oxford, England

Sir:

I agree with Senator Fulbright, who suggests "summit conferences as a regular thing, maybe twice a year, and approach them without expecting them to settle anything" [TIME, March 16]. It is hard to see how summit conferences can make relations any worse than they are.

JOHN N. WARFIELD Lawrence, Kans.

Sir:

We give and give, and the Russians take and take. Ben Franklin prophesied it succinctly: "Those who give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

ANNA MAE GAGNIER COUMBOURAS Springfield, Mass.

Well-Raked

Sir:

After reading the Art section in the March 16 issue, with the illustration of the "masterpiece" by Barcelona Abstractionist Antoni Tapies called Grey Borders, I went out quickly to my car. On the floor I found a similar "artistic gem." I had always known my treasure as the floor mat.

MORTIMER H. SLOTNICK Eastchester, N.Y.

Sir:

During the first stage of my absorption in Tapies' tricky abstract art form, I could have sworn that his work suggested merely a "well-raked garden" in an ordinary Buddhist temple, as distinguished from a "Zen Buddhist temple," as he described it. Finally, however, I caught the subtle clue to Tapies' entire revelation. I saw that had Tapies but an ordinary Buddhist temple to suggest, he would have used only eleven parallel lines against a background of mud. Actually, he employed twelve such lines, the twelfth line, of course, signifying the Zen.

Once you get the hang of interpreting these things, it is like having a new world laid out before you. You know, for example, that 13 lines against a background of mud, colored not too dark, nor yet too light, would depict a carelessly raked garden, planted heavily to leeks, in a Tibetan lamasery.

GEORGE WOLCOTT Antigo, Wis.

Sir:

To the cry that "nonobjective art claims validity only for its mechanics, for the material with which it is made" rejecting man, his life, his visions, his future, I raise one voice in dissent. In the few directions we were able to look during the 1920s, whether to past cultures or the scientific and social myths of our own, it was sharply clear that in them lay few answers valid for a man of vision.

Rather, it was necessary not to remain trapped in the banal concepts of space and time, nor yield to the morbidity of the objective position, nor yet to permit one's courage to be seduced by authoritarian devices for social control. It was imperative to transcend the seductions and qualities of materiel and its concomitant ethic. As for myself, I considered it necessary to evolve an instrument to aid in cutting through all such opiates, past and present, so that a direct, immediate, and truly free and human commitment could be achieved, and a responsible statement be made visible.

CLYFFORD STILL New York

P: For a sample of Artist Still's "responsible statement," see cut.--ED.

Eye-Opener

Sir:

Special applause for your article on Dr. Bontzolakis [who says that his abstract-artist patients are either poseurs or neurotics--March 9]. Let's hope it will open the eyes of all the snobbish dilettanti who unwittingly promote and support insanity, encouraging those unfortunate ones to stay away from doctors and sanatoriums where they would have a chance to be cured.

HUITT YARDLEY Sao Paulo, Brazil

Sir:

Could the flowery representational paintings of Dr. Bontzolakis' wife be responsible for her friends' (and his patients') emotional illnesses

HARRIETTE FISHER San Carlos, Calif.

The Choice

Sir:

TIME tried some fancy rewriting of history when it reported [Feb. 16] that the N.A.A.C.P., the United Automobile Workers, and the Americans for Democratic Action "killed" Part III "out of the 1957 [civil rights] bill by mutual agreement." I would like to set the record straight on behalf of all three organizations.

The bill that passed the Senate in 1957 was a "bitter disappointment" to the civil rights organizations, as they made clear at the time. But the choice was substantially the Senate bill or nothing; we preferred even small progress to political recrimination, and we urged enactment of the bill.

The day after the 1957 bill was enacted, we began working for Part III [which would have empowered the Attorney General to file suits in support of the Supreme Court's desegregation decisions], and we have never stopped working. The pending Douglas-Javits-Celler bill, which contains not only Part III of the 1957 bill, but also wise and generous assistance to Southern communities seeking to integrate their school systems, has the backing of the civil rights organizations.

JOSEPH L. RAUH JR. Vice Chairman Americans for Democratic Action Washington

The Other Side of Vulgarity?

Sir:

Re the March 16 article describing Pamela Mason and her unorthodox views, I must tell you that our senior class in sociology enjoyed it thoroughly. We wonder what she hopes to gain by expressing such laughably absurd ideas on the subject of sex. She approved everything from harems to homosexuality. We surmised, at length, that Mrs. Mason must be seeking attention.

MARY FRANCES WALSH Forest Grove, Ore.

Sir:

Pamela Mason may be coruscant; she is also extremely intelligent, articulate, frank, and altogether interesting to look at and listen to.

A. L. DAVIS Glendale, Calif.

Sir:

When Oscar Levant placed her "just this side of vulgarity," he was on the wrong side, and by a mile.

FRED GRESPAN Kitchener, Ont.

Sir:

I once met Mrs. Pamela Mason at a miserably bourgeois party (nobody even stripped), where we were the first to leave. Unfortunately, I was totally unaware of Pamela's views about sex, with which I enthusiastically agree. My hope now is to meet her again.

FRANK DE BRUIN VALERIUS Toronto

Spitting a Hair

Sir:

Re your story on the Welsh town called Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch [March 9]: How do you pronounce it?

GLENYS WALDMAN Secane, Pa.

Sir:

A native starts with unrecognizable noises that then degenerate into spitting, mouthing and breathy sounds as if he were trying to get a hair out of his mouth, but unless a visitor insists, everyone just says Llanfair P.G.

EDITH MOORE JARRETT Fillmore, Calif.

Budget Battle

Sir:

In your sententious piece on the budget battle [March 16] you ignored the expansion of consumer demand through 1) increased life expectancy plus pensions, dividends, social security, etc. giving older citizens a more active role in the marketplace; 2) near-universality of installment buying which offers increased facilities for buying consumer goods, housing and education.

THAYER WALDO Mexico City

Of Tillich & God

Sir:

I am glad that you gave Professor Tillich such a careful hearing [March 16]. I cannot agree at all that Tillich is "dangerous." For the rank and file Tillich has no message.

(THE REV.) WILL DOWTY (RETIRED) Church of the Holy Comforter Angleton, Texas

Sir:

Mr. Tillich has sounded a clarion call for all Protestants. His trilogy of Being, Existence and Life are reasonable symbols for the complex of engagement in life, which many of us have had the guts to face and plumb outside the protective rituals of the church.

ROBERT ERNEST SMITH St. Paul

Sir:

In one sense he is like the peace of God, for he passes all understanding.

(THE REV.) A. CULVER GORDON United Presbyterian Church Paterson, NJ.

Sir:

The smug condescension of the caption, "A Theology for Protestants," on your March 16 cover will, I trust, get something nailed on the church door--preferably your hide. I suggest you do a piece on our order, the Society of St. Martini. It has a ladies' auxiliary called the Gibson Girls, and much interesting history, miracles, art, and all that.

J. RAMSEY Racine, Wis.

Sir:

Professor Paul Tillich's treatises on theology are like cold, cloudy nights with occasional glimpses of a changing moon. In contrast, Billy Graham's sermons are like cloudless days with the unchanging sun giving dependable light, comforting warmth, and assurance of everlasting life.

S. E. ANDERSON, TH.D. Chicago

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