Man in Space

Sir: In regard to Russia's astronaut shot: it seems sobering to realize that we Americans, who used to feel that we were first and best in everything, have reached the point where we not only calmly accept the Soviet "firsts," we expect them.

MRS. GERALD DURBIN Cresskill, N.J.

Sir: The hell with it. We'll get a more sophisticated man into space.

FRANK R. BRODBINE E ast Longmeadow, Mass.

Sir: Man of the Year--Major Yuri Gagarin. MAUDE HENNESSY South Bend, Ind.

Sir: Shakespeare, in addition to being one of the world's greatest playwrights, showed a fair hand at prognostication. Puck, in A Midsummer Night's Dream, exclaimed: "I'll put a girdle round about the earth / In forty minutes."

Not bad time, considering he stopped to fetch a flower for King Oberon.

STEPHEN E. TREGNAGHI Dumont, N.J.

The Eichmann Trial

Sir: The Eichmann trial can only be distressful to the intelligent non-Zionist Jew. What the Israeli perpetrators of the trial do not realize is that the combined anti-Semitic feelings of all peoples will identify with Adolf Eichmann, notwithstanding his unspeakably horrible crimes. For all of his deeds, Eichmann is a human being, literally speaking, and his 6,000,000 victims are now merely an abstraction. The worldwide audience can identify with the human being; they cannot identify with an idea. Couple this with the normal emotional tendency of mankind to support the underdog, and it must be certain that no matter what the proceedings in Israel reveal, the suppressed anti-Semitism of the Western Christian nations will at last have an objectivization.

ROBERT S. COHEN Berkeley, Calif.

Sir: In my opinion the trial of Adolf Eichmann is not only illegal but a gross injustice. With three Israeli judges who cannot help but be prejudiced presiding over the trial, certainly any contesting of the legality will be denied. Certainly our world has enough problems to take care of without being distracted by a mass vengeance by a country that did not even exist when the crimes against its people took place. It's not that I like Eich, but, in the words of someone much wiser than any of us, "Vengeance is mine saith the Lord."*

WILLIAM WEYERSTRAHS P ark Forest, Ill.

Unoriginal Sin?

Sir: Messrs. Rexroth and Christensen may believe that they created something free of Freud and Jung when they offered their San Francisco ballet titled Original Sin to the public. In reality, they are much closer to the two psychiatrists than to the original sinners. Their Adam and Eve dance is in the tradition of sorcerers and witches, young nobles and peasants of the 14th century (see cut from The Entry of Isabel of Bavaria into Paris as Bride of Charles VI).

ERICH A. ALBRECHT Tulane University New Orleans

P: The complete painting, by an unknown late 14th century or early 15th century artist, is in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris.--ED.

Jean for Pope

Sir: My compliments to your chef-d'oeuvre, "Children Run Longer than Plays." To write with humor and sympathy about the humor and sympathy of someone else (Jean Kerr) is an accomplishment both rare and, in this case, well-done.

CORINNA MARSH New York City

Sir: Your feature story on Playwright Jean Kerr was if nothing else consistent. A TIME-worn journalistic cliche on a creator of time-worn drivel. Please Don't Eat This Letter.

RICHARD K. GERSHON New Haven, Conn.

Sir: It was such a pleasure to read your cover story about a publicly articulate, liberal intellectual, devout Catholic wife-mother, that in humble gratitude my friends and I have formed a "Jean Kerr for Pope" Society.

JEANMARIE COOGAN Philadelphia

Warm Response

Sir: Our congratulations to you for presenting so impressively the important picture of Florida's growth. We are grateful for the fine manner in which you told our story.

FARRIS BRYANT Governor Tallahassee, Fla.

Sir: A magnum to TIME for your photopus on Florida! I regret that the format did not permit presentation of one of the most pressing problems in our state--educational quality in the several state universities. Quality is subtle, but there is nothing subtle about the continuing loss of outstanding teachers and researchers from one's alma mater for better opportunities elsewhere. The "pursuit of excellence" is becoming a rout! The demand for "rigor" in education is fast yielding to rigor mortis instead.

HARLAN Q. STEVENSON Gainesville, Fla.

U.S.S. Henry W. Tucker (DDR-875)

Sir: Why don't destroyer men get their due? The men of the U.S.S. Henry W. Tucker (DDR-875) are forever reading in TIME about their ship as an anonymous participant in the doings of the Seventh Fleet, of which they (and the rest of Destroyer Squadron Three) are proud to be a permanent part.

Last July the Tucker was one of the ships stationed in the Formosa Strait to guard President Eisenhower's way. We could see Quemoy and hear in the distance the muted thunder of the 88,000-gun salute. In January we were part of the special striking force assembled and deployed from Okinawa on New Year's Day. On Easter day we watched and waited in readiness on the South China Sea.

As one of the hardworking, hard-pressed destroyers, we make our duly appointed rounds like the proverbial postman, and nobody bothers about the postman's name. We would like to be mentioned not as "a destroyer" but as the U.S.S. Henry W. Tucker. Just once?

E. B. MEZGER Lieutenant, (jg.), U.S.N.R. U.S.S. Henry W. Tucker (DDR-875) F.P.O. San Francisco

P: All right.--ED.

Synanon House

Sir: Your courage to tell the true story of the Synanon House in Santa Monica [where narcotics addicts help themselves and each other kick the habit] and the poor dope addicts is truly commendable.

VERNON HOFF La Puente, Calif.

Sir: This "potbellied Irishman" of German ancestry thanks TIME for its excellent reportage of Synanon.

Your piece did much for our morale in that it reflected so accurately our acceptance on a public level. I mention this because the bulk of the badgering and harassment has come from official agencies whose work is presumed to be the search for answers to social problems.

CHARLES DEDERICH Synanon House Santa Monica, Calif.

Prophet Without Honor

Sir: I was pleasantly surprised to see Munch's beautiful painting, The Cry, reproduced on your cover. When Munch died in 1944, he left the majority of his life's work, 1,200 paintings, 3,000 drawings and 12,000 graphic works, to the municipality of Oslo, his native city. All of these works are now a part of the Oslo Municipal Art Collection, and are to be housed in a separate building to be known as the Munch Museum. It is now 16 years since Munch's death, and this museum is hardly started!

During the last 16 years, all of Munch's work has been stored in his last studio awaiting the building of the Munch Museum, and no one, not even scholars or artists, is allowed in to see any of them.

As a final insult to Munch, his house was demolished last year because it was considered ugly, whereas Ibsen's study is preserved intact in Oslo's Folkmuseum, and Grieg's house, in Bergen, is a national shrine. The often-quoted ". . . A prophet is not without honor save in his own country"* has never been more appropriate.

J. IRELAND COLLINS Oslo

P: Munch's house was indeed demolished, but his studio in the garden was not. Today it is the center of a small artist village built by the city of Oslo and inhabited by many of Norway's leading artists.--ED.

Organization Church

Sir: I haven't read The Organization Man, but I have just read your article on the organization church, and I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that just about the worst thing one can say about something these days is that it is organized.

I protest, however, this identification of a most valuable quality with ecclesiastical bureaucracy. If to organize is to bring one's time and energies into an organic whole, as the dictionary indicates, then the organized church is not especially the one with the greatest number of organizations.

Lest however, I be accused of conforming too much to the present, may I remind you of a certain Nazarene who organized his time so that most of his energies were spent in developing future leaders.

(THE REV.) CLARK N. Ross Waveland Avenue Congregational Church Chicago

Sir: It seems to me that a great deal of ivory-tower nonsense is being written about suburban churches, which are in many cases the most vital of our day. The minister cannot divorce himself from the life of his people and minister effectively. I fear that some prescriptions for the health of clergy would only enable them to fulfill the classic description of the same, as being invisible six days of the week and incomprehensible on the seventh.

(THE REV.) LAWRENCE M. HORTON The Noroton Presbyterian Church Noroton, Conn.

New Version

Sir: Re the changing [in the new translation of the Bible] of "I myself was not burdensome to you" (II Corinthians 12:13) to read, never sponged upon you": how much more beautiful and profound it would have been as "Man, like I never bugged you.

RICHARD T. FENWICK Montgomery, Ala.

The News in Dallas

Sir We are amazed and dismayed that the recent article in TIME on the Dallas News could suggest or even imply a cleavage between this distinguished daily and Southern Methodist University. It was 50 years ago this month that a charter for Southern Methodist University was drawn to activate the hope for a strong regional university in Dallas. Ever since that time, the already mature Dallas News has helped to nurture this ambitious dream.

Unlike Caesar's wife, the university has not been free from fault or mistakes. The News has always been free to caution or criticize. Many of its editorial writers have not agreed with all of our professors, any more than our professors have agreed with all the editorials. Both have exercised the treasured freedom to speak out and differ, but there has always been a mutual respect and common kinship of purpose.

WILLIS M. TATE President Southern Methodist University Dallas

The Show Girl & the Star

Sir: May I say thank you for the very good job you did on Richard Harding Davis, my father, and may I ask from you just one word concerning my mother: Will you please get back in step?

There is an immeasurable distance and difference between a show girl and a star. The show girl: the name declaims the action--though in this case the lack of action. The show girl was there (and still is) to show. With three feathers in her hair, a glued piece of glass in her middle and some yards of chiffon here and there, she was required to have a face, a figure, and the ability not only to stand still in one place but also to walk up and down stairs and cross a stage without stumbling over her headpiece. Under no possible combination of circumstances would she be required to open her pretty mouth except to show her pretty teeth. The star: a star is someone with talent, and works just that much harder than anyone in the show.

Bessie McCoy retired from the stage in 1924, died in 1931. Long years have passed, and she is, whenever you hum Cuddle Up a Little Closer, not forgotten. But, dear friend, never a show girl, ever a star.

HOPE HARDING DAVIS New York City

*Romans 12:19: "Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord."

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