Extravagance Abroad
Sir:
As an American service wife in England with my husband, I feel that curtailing dependent travel abroad is deplorable. It carries the usual perfidious odor of Republican policy. During the past week Secretary of the Treasury Anderson and Under Secretary of State Dillon both stepped off the plane in Bonn with their wives.
MRS. L. M. PERZ Witney, Oxon, England
Sir:
Those of us who dwell in the military environment will be first to admit that there is a great deal of waste in the armed services, as there is in any gigantic or widespread business enterprise, and that it should be remedied.
However, we resent bitterly the intimation that members of the armed forces are gloriously high-living freeloaders.
ROBERTA L. MARRO
Syracuse
Sir:
The "gentle and gradual" reduction you portray comes in my case as a violent and shocking upheaval. My family (six children) has been residing temporarily with relatives in Pennsylvania and New York awaiting overseas orders. My household goods are partly in permanent storage in Denver, partly in temporary storage to be shipped when my family arrives, and partly with the family. My eight-passenger station wagon is here with me, while my wife drives her father's car. My children have been anxiously hoping for their travel orders, which would have brought them over in January. (When he was asked by my wife what he wanted for Christmas, my nine-year-old son burst into tears and said all he wanted was his Daddy.) This we all could take when we knew we would be together soon. It is more difficult now. This is as gentle and gradual as a guillotine.
JAMES D. KENT Captain, U.S.A.F. Clark Airbase Philippine Islands
Sir:
They finally located the culprit who has been letting the gold get out of the country --that much-maligned stereotype, the serviceman's wife (Nov. 28).
Of course, the Republicans were a bit concerned over the serviceman's ballot; they didn't make the decision until after the election.
JOE ROBERTS Madison, Wis.
Sir:
Your story is so replete with half-truths, insinuations and resentment that one must wonder whether you now stand for abolishing the armed services, or whether you merely advocate that their members be deprived of their right to lead a normal family life. If you can suggest a good substitute for the armed forces, I wish you'd come out with it.
GEORGE ZINNEMANN Lieut. Colonel, U.S.A.F. Dayton
Integration Reaction
Sir:
How can those Louisiana mothers derive such joy in intentionally piercing the tender feelings of a little dark-skinned tot? Can they puncture the heart of a first-grade girl and still hope to have Christ in their Christmas?
SUSAN LECOQ
Boulder, Colo.
Sir:
The time has come when the citizens of the United States of America should awaken to the dangers confronting their great democracy. The issues at stake today go far beyond integration and the rights of the Negro. Integration has merely been a trial balloon in an effort to see how far the U.S. Supreme Court can infringe on states' rights and the inherent constitutional rights of all citizens--regardless of race, creed or color! The colored folks of the South are merely guinea pigs.
EARL F. NEWMAN
Baton Rouge, La.
Sir:
As a resident of the New Orleans area for almost three years, I had very nearly become mesmerized by the charm of it all. Last week the idyllic veneer was torn away, and all the fears I had about moving South were glaringly revealed. Though prejudice knows no geographic bounds, here it revels in the raw, carefully nourished and dutifully passed from generation to generation.
Where is compassion? Where is tolerance? Where is the dignity of man? It is in the wide eyes of a small, lone colored child, walking for her race into a new world, jeered on by the catcalls of a white mob.
JOYCE C. HENKLEIN Metairie, La.
Sir:
This whole thing is so similar to the Nazi treatment of the Jews that it is frightening on that count alone.
ELEANOR ALLIS Andover, Mass.
Sir:
Today's heroine: one of the four little Negro girls who attended school in spite of all. How many adult whites would have faced up to the same ordeal?
C. A. PAINE
Young, N.S.W., Australia
Artistic License
Sir:
Artist Henry Koerner has a Van Gogh quality! [The Sylvia Porter] cover of TIME took my breath away. More of Henry Koerner's work in your future covers.
ROZELLA FRIELINGSDORF Northbrook, Ill.
Sir:
Mr. Koerner's portrait of beautiful Sylvia Porter is more lifelike and less of a mere smear if you place it under a shaded light. Then stand eleven feet from the picture. It comes to life. At this distance, the blue bruises and red pimples on her pretty face, as well as her orange ears, somehow blend in and form a face.
MARY BELLE CHILDRESS San Antonio
Sir:
Sylvia Porter drives herself too hard. She looks green around the gills. Artist Koerner is wonderfully perceptive.
CHARLOTTE HARTWIG Melbourne
Sir:
If critics of Koerner's Symington and Reston (and probably Porter) portraits would follow my sixth-grade art instructor's suggestion to "half close your eyes and view at arm's length," they would see, instead of green hair and purple patches, the perfect shading and character so often attempted but seldom attained.
CURTIS G. SMALL Editor
Daily Register Harrisburg, Ill.
Sir:
How come you are seemingly in accord with great men like Jean Dubuffet, Appel, Lipchitz, Jacob Epstein etc, and still go for pseudo-Cezannes on your covers?
HALDANE DOUGLAS
Los Angeles
White Flag
Sir:
On the cover of the Dec. 5 issue of TIME, the Nigerian flag is shown in the background with its stripes running perpendicular to the flagpole. [In the flag chart accompanying your cover story in] the same magazine, the Nigerian flag is seen with its stripes running parallel to the flagpole. Which is the correct one?
IVAN DOSZPOLY
St. Bonaventure, N.Y.
P:Vertical stripes.--ED.
Squeeze Play
Sir:
In commenting on the performance of public-opinion polls in the election, TIME (Nov. 21) said: "Only Veteran Elmo Roper, who reported on election eve that Nixon looked to squeeze ahead by two percentage points, chose the wrong winner."
At no time did we predict that Nixon would "squeeze ahead by two percentage points." Our only prediction was that the race was too volatile and too close to permit a prediction--with 4% of the eligible voters undecided up to the very end. Kennedy's margin of one-tenth of i% of the two-party vote does not seem to us to make that prediction "wrong." We do indeed feel good about the closeness of our measurement--only 1.1% off the mark. In our business, one inch to the right of the bull's eye is as accurate as one inch to the left, and in a close election, one is as good as the other.
ELMO ROPER New York City
P:On election eve, Pollster Roper noted that it was "the most volatile elec tion we have ever measured," gave as his poll results: Nixon 49%, Kennedy 47%, still undecided 4%. Roper added that the undecideds still made it possible for the lead to change.--ED.
Sense of Nonsense
Sir:
Who wrote that delightful review of Sloan Wilson's new book A Sense of Values?
I can hardly wait to work "flashback-wards" into a conversation. "Vacuum keening" may take a little more time, but it's worth it too!
MRS. ROBERT A. TAUB Dearborn, Mich.
Outdoor Art
Sir:
I was delighted to read the article "Museum Without Walls" (Nov. 21), which commented on the wealth of statuary in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park.
We are very proud of our park system and deeply appreciate the recognition you have accorded its continuing contribution to our city's cultural excellence.
RICHARDSON DILWORTH Mayor Philadelphia
Man of the Year
Sir:
My choice for TIME'S Man of the Year, President-elect John F. Kennedy.
MRS. SRINI PERIES
Colombo, Ceylon
Sir:
Nelson Rockefeller, for making Kennedy our President by putting Nixon on the pan. LEWIS T. APPLE Clayton, Mo.
Sir:
Henry Cabot Lodge.
DALE RADCLIFFE
Trumbull, Conn.
Sir:
. . . the only real statesman we have, and most refreshing political figure of the decade: U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona.
NORMAN W. RAIES
Portland, Ore.
Sir:
It's Hyman Rickover, whose atomic subs safeguard the free world.
CARLETON STOVER Bath, Me.
Sir:
The man of Africa is the Man of the Year. WAYNE SHARKUS Paoli, Pa.
Sir:
Antony Armstrong-Jones, who married the woman of the year, Princess Margaret.
PAUL GRUNDLAND
Minneapolis
Sir:
There is no question but that the man who has done the most in 1960 to change the course of history is Fidel Castro.
JESSE M. LEVY III San Francisco
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