WHO writes to TIME? As the editors face up to mail by the armful, it often seems that the whole cross-section of their readership has an opinion to deliver. M.D.s scratch notes on prescription pads; travelers scrawl on postcards; housewives pause in their day's rounds to comment on such subjects as religion, politics, nuclear weapons and sex.

It is a lively and far-flung correspondence, ranging from kudos to clouts, which last year elicited comment from theologians, politicians, playwrights and kings. This week prominent Episcopal Layman Charles P. Taft (brother of the late Senator) joins TIME and its Dec. 12 cover subject, Jesuit John Courtney Murray, in the "dialogue" of church-state separation (see LETTERS), an engrossing issue that last week was examined by Jewish Theological Seminary Chancellor Louis Finkelstein, Baptist Minister and Christian Herald Editor Daniel A. Poling and Socialist (and onetime Presbyterian Minister) Norman Thomas.

In the past year Jordan's King Hussein wrote in eloquent defense of his sometimes wayward brother, Crown Prince Mohammed; Kenya's Tom Mboya wrote to amplify his role in the London Conference on Africa. On the weighty subject of nuclear controls, former AEC Member Thomas E. Murray stated the case for continued testing, and Nobel Prizewinning Chemist Harold C. Urey argued in rebuttal that the issue was not technological but political.

Not all letters took up matters of such moment. John Fitzgerald Kennedy wrote in praise of the campaign efforts of Democratic National Committee Chairman Henry ("Scoop") Jackson; Brother Bobby Kennedy had words of praise for California's nonpolitical Community Service Organization for getting out the Spanish-speaking vote. Sam Goldwyn, Gore Vidal, Jack Paar and William Saroyan all ticked off TIME on matters of personal privilege. Last month eight writers and critics (James Baldwin, Jason Epstein, Lillian Hellman, Alfred Kazin, Robert Lowell, Norman Podhoretz, Lionel Trilling, William Phillips) collaborated in a letter in defense of the literary reputation of Fellow Writer Norman Mailer.

May the new year be as filled with the clamor of debate, the scoring of points, and knuckles well and truly rapped.

SINCE shortly after TIME began in 1923, each issue has been dated on Monday. Beginning with this issue, in keeping with the new earlier press schedule established in recent months, TIME will be dated as of Friday.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.