The Visitor

Sir:

The Khrushchev visit to the U.S. is a monstrous affront on the part of the President to almost any horizontal or vertical cross section of American citizens. It is an insult to our intelligence to be asked to accept this visit for the fatuous reasons advanced. If this visit will lead to a peachy-dandy world peace, then I'd like a top job in the State Department.

CHARLES P. O'CONNELL Middletown, N.Y.

Sir:

Regardless of our low opinion of the dictator, his visit may be a very important part of our last civilized chance to work out the survival of the human race. Every year that we can talk instead of shoot, the U.S.S.R. moves inevitably toward Western civilization.

CARR LIGGETT

Cleveland

Sir:

Nikita Khrushchev holds in his raw hands great potential destructive force with a sensitive trigger. Realizing this threat, how can anyone afford to ignore him because of his past? Let's get down to the facts and put aside that which is not pertinent.

EDWARD D. CARPENTER Oak Park, Ill.

Sir:

I wonder if Khrushchev is aware that America is more Communistic than Russia. We vote by our own free will to tax ourselves for the good of our neighbors--the wealthiest to pay the most taxes. We give to "drives" for the public good; rich men endow colleges and research foundations. Not so in Russia, a totally non-Communistic country, where nobody shares anything except at the point of policemen's guns. Nikita may learn something from a visit to the U.S.

HERMAN PINETTI La Jolla. Calif.

Portrait of a President

Sir:

Yours of Sept. 7 an interesting issue--but who is that unidentified, undistinguished, limpid-looking old man on the cover?

RICHARD FRANKLIN Carbondale, Ill.

Sir:

As if it were not enough for the real Eisenhower charm to encompass the Western Hemisphere, now Artist Wyeth has dipped his brush in molten gold and created a veritable sun god.

PAULINE TURNBULL Richmond

Sir:

What a dreadful picture of the President! We had to look inside to find who it was.

MRS. M. L. BARKER Oxford, Ohio

P: Among the portrait's admirers: sometime painter Eisenhower.--ED.

First Lady

Sir:

Re your Aug. 31 report on Mrs. Golda Meir: long before the two women leaders mentioned, the Jews had already been governed by another woman, the prophetess Deborah (Judges 4:4).*

M. HARUNI

London

Articulate Americans

Sir:

Sorry you did not point out the accomplishment of the old pioneer of them all in your Aug. 31 roundup of newly instituted training programs for Americans overseas. Founded in 1946, thus significantly antedating The Ugly American and other stimuli, the American Institute for Foreign Trade at Phoenix. Ariz, now has approximately 700 graduates living and working abroad in 70 countries of the free world.

CARL SAUER President

American Institute for Foreign Trade Phoenix, Ariz.

P: TIME bows to the American Institute for Foreign Trade, which breeds a most articulate American indeed; some 10% of the institute's graduates have called TIME'S attention to the omission of their school.--ED.

The Entertainers

Sir:

Hooray for your reporter who did the Prima-Smith bit in SHOW BUSINESS--clearly a writer with discerning eye, ear and wit. Although you'll receive heavy abuse from their fans, and Louis will chortle ''all the way to the bank." it's encouraging to read such a clear analysis of this gruesome twosome and their gutter-grade maneuvers.

BARBARA W. VETTERLEIN Greensboro, N.C.

Sir:

You've skimmed over the most important decade of Louis Prima's career, namely, the '40s. While disk-jockeying in wartime London and postwar Munich, I was swamped with letters from G.I.s and civilians with jaded musical appetites who asked for repeat after repeat of ''garlicky-dialogued" Robin Hood, Angelina, and the big hit of all, I'll Walk Alone.

KEN MARVIN KFMU Los Angeles

Blow for Freedom

Sir:

I read your item about Mrs. Margaret Lockwood, [who protested the Internal Revenue Service's attachment of her husband's paycheck by camping with her two infants at the tax collector's desk--Sept. 7]. We had similar troubles with the Internal Revenue Service. They attached my husband's check, and it was either pay up or lose his job. The ironic part of the whole deal was that it was their mistake, and a five-year-old error, at that. Hurrah for Mrs. Lockwood!

MRS. C. KREIDER

Ashton, Ill.

Sir:

Bless the sweet woman! I think she may have fired the shot heard 'round the U.S.A.

MARY MANN

Los Angeles

Sir:

She is one of the few Americans with the spirit of '76.

VINCENT L. TERWILLIGER Port Ewen, N.Y.

Sir:

A heartwarming display of courage in the face of almost insurmountable odds, an inspiration to every "housebroken," intimidated victim of bureaucracy's unbending and arrogant illogic: for Woman of the Year, who else but Margaret Ann Lockwood?

GEORGE L. POWELL Corning, Calif.

The Winner

Sir:

With a great number of younger Mississippians, a number that would frighten our embittered elders, I deplore the prejudice and ugliness of Mississippi politics as displayed in the recent primary elections. When we who love our state have a more powerful voice, we will be an effective instrument for lifting Mississippi from the mire of such as this.

Your Sept. 7 article on Governor-elect Barnett displayed the same one-sided, prejudiced, narrow-minded view that characterized the campaign. We do not ask you to excuse us, only seek to understand us, and write about us with intelligence and objectivity. Being a liberal here is hard enough without articles and attitudes that display the same bitterness we are fighting.

JOHN VIA Meridian, Miss.

Sir:

In reference to your statements concerning Governor-elect Ross Barnett, we would like to point out that it is common knowledge that he appeals to many of the less fortunate members of our society. However, it is also common knowledge that his strongest support comes from some of Mississippi's leading citizens. A more careful analysis of Ross Barnett will indicate that he is not a "bitter racist," but a benevolent, fair-minded Southern segregationist dedicated to helping the Southern Negro while maintaining Southern dignity and tradition.

EUGENE FISHER WALTER B. SWAIN JR. Leland, Miss.

Sir:

Governor-elect Barnett states that "the Negro is different because God made him different to punish him." I would have felt a lot better had you not mentioned the fact that he was a Baptist deacon.

(THE REV.) A. JOHN NASTARI First Baptist Church Santa Clara, Calif.

Sir:

It could be that God is non-white and it is we, the white race, who are being punished.

GORDON WARHURST Baltimore

Sir:

At peril of sounding unAmerican, let me point out one of the very few pitfalls of democracy. It permits someone like Ross Barnett to govern by popular vote.

JOSEPHINE LANCASTER Browns Mills, NJ.

Ye Boom

Sir:

The inspiration for Beatnik Gregory Corso's poem Bomb [Sept. 7] might well have been the oft-chanted Episcopal (Book of Common Prayer) Benedicite, omnia opera Domini:

O all ye Works of the Lord, bless ye

the Lord: praise him, and magnify him

forever . . .

O ye Sun and Moon, bless ye the Lord . . .

O ye Stars of heaven, bless ye the Lord . . .

O ye Nights and Days, bless ye the Lord

. . . etc.

Great literature, secular and religious, is often the basis for blather.

CHARLES E. THOMAS Diocese of Upper South Carolina Greenville, S.C.

Sir:

Boom ye screwballs Boom ye holy ones

Apes BANG monkeys

BING BANG BONG BOOM

Ye clod ye oaf ye moron ye imbecile

RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT

Drop dead ye

STEPHEN J. KOKINDA JR.

Cleveland

Sir:

And a Happy "Turtles Exploding over Istanbul" to you

Bing Bang Bong Boom bee bear baboon

Ye Bang--Ye Bong--Ye Bing

Ye Gods!

PEG MIMS Tampa, Fla.

Sir:

literature is not so non-beat as you seem to think or the test is time & i dont mean your publication--which is only another type of literature, feel free to print howl, moan or anything else. listen beat does not always mean unwashed or workless--i have 2 exhibitions here within the next fortnight--one at "city lights." gregory corso [is] first angel poet of america. stop laughing at artists.

WILLIAM MORRIS San Francisco

* "And Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth. she judged Israel at that time."

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