Monday, Aug. 29, 1960

The Campaign Sir: Congratulations on your colorful, informative and objective coverage of the Democratic and Republican national conventions. Americans who fear our nation's dying prestige and are shocked at our complacent government can put their trust and confidence in John Kennedy. His primary and convention victories give testimony to his brilliance in organization. By reading his speeches one can see that he has a firm grasp of both international and domestic affairs.

JOHN D. IBSON Santa Ana, Calif.

Sir:

I have spent much of my life abroad, and I am convinced that the anti-Communist peoples of Asia and Europe will pray for the Nixon-Lodge-team's victory, as being by far the more vigorous and experienced of the two contestants, and the one more likely to succeed in giving a hemorrhage to Moscow and Peking.

These qualifications must unquestionably be the ones to guide any intelligent American voter in November.

A. GREGG Hong Kong

Sir: I could not help but notice how calm, collected and easy Mr. Nixon was prior to his acceptance speech. This brought to mind one of the first principles of speech, that a person who shows no nervousness before or during an important public speech reflects insincerity.

A. B. WILLIAMS Kansas City, Kans.

Sir:

If we put Mr. Kennedy in the White House, there will be two small children, perhaps more, during his term of office. This means spilled milk and noodles, fingerprints and crayon marks on the hallowed walls, teeth marks on the furniture and puddles on the rugs. Perhaps we could issue a $5 bill with a line of diapers hanging from the Truman balcony!

On the other hand, if Mr. Nixon becomes President, it will undoubtedly mean pajama parties in the East Room, rock-'n'-roll music blasting forth from the windows, empty Coke bottles all over the lawn, and the White House phone forever tied up with teen-age chatter.

Decisions! Decisions!

(MRS.) CELIANN ROSE UHL

Markham, III.

Sir:

This is one diehard Calvinist who's voting for a good Christian Catholic over a hypocritical Protestant.

ANN ARTFELD Staunton, Va.

Sir:

As a Roman Catholic who is convinced that Nixon and Lodge are far more able to lead the country through the next eight years than are Kennedy, Bowles and Stevenson, I beg all the letter writers to let the religious issue drop.

I am confident that, if they are not constantly goaded, my fellow Catholics will vote their judgment rather than their clannishness, and the better man, Nixon, will win.

R. A. BALCH

Winona, Minn.

Who's for Whom?

Sir:

Now please don't think, "Oh, here's another angry Democrat!" I am not; I am an angry citizen and voter. Everyone knows that TIME likes the Republican Party--you say so yourself, and it is your privilege and prerogative to like whomever you please. But it is not your right, as a public news medium, to report the events in such a slanted, one-sided manner as to make one party appear all "white" and the other appear "black."

MABEL ROMM

Bellerose, N.Y.

Sir:

I realize, of course, that you may Well succeed in winning the election for Kennedy, but I would like you to know that the game is understood.

WILLIAM H. WORRILOW JR.

Lebanon, Pa.

Sir:

Let me commend your organization for the fine examples of the "sophisticated smear" technique, which you are so ably employing against the Democratic candidate, his family, friends, and hair.

JOAN B. STOUGH

Houston

Sir:

It seems clear, unfortunately, where you stand in the coming election. No wonder Mr. Kennedy is well pleased with the attention given him by the press.

WILBURT R. WALTERS Wyncote, Pa.

Hold the Fort, Mort

Sir:

Congratulations on the Mort Sahl story. It's the cheeriest sketch since Mort Darthur.

PAMELA SCOTT

Fresno, Calif.

Sir:

This "Herblock of the Bistros" is no successor to such satirists as Fred Allen, Sid Caesar, W. C. Fields or Will Rogers. "Back to the Borscht Belt" with Sahl and his egghead liberal left pseudo-comedy, actually witty political propaganda vended by a wiseacre.

D. F. BARRY

Brooklyn

Sir:

The idea that Mort Sahl's man-slam humor is really a helpful "implied positivism" is pretty humorous in itself.

It's a little like a man who slips a knife in your side and then says, "Don't take it too badly. There's an outside chance you've got appendicitis."

ROBERT J. TULP Brooklyn

The Loverly Ladies

Sir:

How dare you, sir, suggest--in fact, state --that until 1950 each and every British girl, unless she was born to the aristocracy, was dull, dowdy, poor complexioned, wore cotton stockings and shapeless dresses, and had poor teeth.

I don't wish to be catty, but this side of the pond, too, has its share of dreary-type women.

(MRS.) MURIEL GRIFFIN

Regina, Sask.

Sir:

Re your picture of Charles II's mistress, Nell Gwynn, you boys can't even tell Nell from Louise de Keroualle.

H. MEWHINNEY

Houston

P:Reader Mewhinney is not the first to confuse Nell with Louise, who served as the King's Catholic mistress. When an anti-Catholic mob in Oxford mistook Nell for her unpopular rival, the plain-speaking actress stuck her head out the carriage window and said, "Pray, good people, be civil; I am the Protestant whore."--ED.

Che & K

Sir:

Thanks for your cover-picture showing Mr. K., Mao Tse-tung and Cuban Communist Che Guevara. It makes us literally feel their venomous breaths over our shoulder.

LON HEALY

Colorado Springs, Colo.

Sir:

Your fine article on Che Guevara of Cuba was illuminating, and frightening for the future of our nation.

MILTON M. STEIN

Brooklyn

Sir:

What a disgrace to the medical profession! Instead of devoting his time and skill to the alleviation of human suffering, Che Guevara chooses to dedicate himself to the destruction of men's souls.

NAN RUSSELL

Fern Park, Fla.

Operation

Sir:

In your review of my book The Operators and me, you dismissed as "possibly legendary" the story of the California man who put his amatory activity down as a medical income tax deduction.

The incident you questioned was the one item in my book which I had accepted, without further checking, from a story in TIME, the weekly newsmagazine. It appeared in the issue of March 10, 1952 (p. 25). Was there a more responsible source?

FRANK GIBNEY New York City

P:Who could ask for anything more?

--ED.

White Black Silver Spain

Sir:

Your article on the joyless Spanish painters and sculptors, whose colors--black and white, dull greys, somber browns, putty greens you call the colors of joylessness, fails completely in trying to link their work to a Hollywood version of sunny and passionate Spain.

The sadness of Spain and the monotony of the Spanish coloring is admirably reflected in the work of T`apies, Millares, Saura, Rivera, Chillida, as it was in the work of their forefathers Goya, El Greco, Juan Gris, Julio Gonzalez, and still is in some of the best work of Picasso.

As Gertrude Stein put it: "One must never forget that Spain is not like other southern countries, it is not colorful, all the colors in Spain are white black silver or gold, there is no red or green, not at all."

JORGE NEWBERY St. Louis

Bongo on the Congo

Sir:

May I congratulate the American Government for reserving such a splendid reception to Mr. Lumumba. Humanity is indeed no idle word any more in the U.S.; for a Negro, thief and man responsible for the violation of hundreds of women is hailed with all honors.

ETIENNE VERHOFSTADT Antwerp, Belgium

Sir:

Belgium messed up her attempt at Empire. After systematically looting that unhappy land for 80 years was she honestly surprised at the outburst of hatred against her? To commit the indecency of shamelessly abandoning the Congo to chaos only to return a week later in the guise of cop appears to me typical of the hypocrisy that now seems the accepted hallmark of international diplomacy. I am not impressed.

PETER C. OBI Ikeja, Nigeria

Sir:

I wish to extend my congratulations to the U.S. Government for being so influential in persuading the United Nations to send troops to the Congo during a critical situation. I also wish that I could congratulate it for doing the same when the whites were shooting down the blacks.

JAMES OWENS Chicago

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