Aches & Pain
Sir:
The statement of the President's aides that the new backache condition has no connection with his old ailment is ridiculous! It has as much truth as saying a fresh crack in the wall has no connection with a slowly settling foundation under the building.
G. JEDLICKA, D.C.
Houston
Sir:
We were led to believe during the campaign that Mr. Kennedy did not believe in the President's taking too many vacations. I think he has had more vacations in a short period of time than Ike had, and he is almost 30 years younger. What happened to all of that vim and vigor ?
I wonder how he could hurt his back when he has been falling on his face so much.
H. M. VERNON
New Concord, Ohio
Sir:
What President Kennedy needs is a good chiropractic adjustment.
FRANK A. CAMPANILE, D.C.
Chiropractor
The Bronx, N.Y.
The Right Voice
Sir:
Senator Goldwaters statements impress me as being logical, clearheaded and well-reasoned out, with the best interests of America at heart. He has converted me.
Why didn't we elect him President?
KRISTEEN BRUUN
Ashland, Wis.
Sir:
Though Senator Barry Goldwater is often tagged "far right" and "arch" and "ultra conservative" by our fearful, ultra-whited, journalistic sepulchers, he speaks and acts like a splendid classical liberal--one of the few public men producing sense instead of gobbledygook.
GABRIEL FREEMAN
Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Sir:
Barry Goldwater has the same faults that most of the top Republicans in this country possess. They come up with nice, simple solutions for all the problems that confront the U.S. and the world today. And the great danger is that the longer the cold war goes on, the more powerful these men are going to become. They are using the real fear of Communism for their personal ambitions.
I find it very hard to believe that men who are supposed to know what is going on in the world can really believe that all the nice, simple solutions they offer for the many complex problems of the world will really solve anything.
PETER A. BAILEY
New York City
Sir:
If the Soviet Union does succeed in its goal--world Communism--it will richly deserve it. The Communists have worked effectively and with steadfast determination in the extension of their ideology; they have fought for their beliefs. The U.S. has not pursued its interests with equal zeal. We need a strong President, and in Senator Goldwater there could be one.
MICHAEL DRIVER
San Francisco
Tractors for Humans
Sir:
Certainly, under the principles of humanitarianism every human life is valued highly. Yet in the tractors-for-freedom trade, it is a question of a thousand lives overshadowing the lives of millions throughout the world. If we provide freedom for these men by submitting to Castroism, we give aid to eventual enslavement of all people.
THOMAS MAXWELL
Worcester Academy
Worcester, Mass.
Sir:
In regard to the sacrifices the President has called for: Is the payment of blackmail and tribute one of them?
E. W. MARTIN
Forrestal Village, Great Lakes, Ill.
Sir:
Considering the circumstances involved, I would much prefer to be imprisoned and/or die as a proud American citizen than ever lay claim to the fact that my country traded me for a tractor with the Communists.
ANNE MCCLAUGHRY
Annapolis, Md.
Sir:
Every time I read a letter from someone who feels that world opinion is more important than the freedom of hundreds of human beings, I feel like throwing up. Idealistically, it would be great if we could ignore the loudmouthed little jerk and save face before the world . . . but could we look in our mirrors if we left those people to rot?
CHERYL NEWTON
Billings, Mont.
Berlin
Sir:
Senator Mansfield's remarks in reference to a "free city" of Berlin sounded like an echo from the days of Neville Chamberlain. Did not the death of half a million American soldiers in World War II and Korea prove the fallacy of negotiating with a dictator? When will we learn that peace comes only with firmness; that hesitation to a dictator means fear? When will we learn?
WILLIAM F. HOLLINGSWORTH
Birmingham
Sir:
If the West loses West Berlin to the Soviet bloc, we Americans might as well learn to like Communism, because this loss will mean, without a doubt, that time will bring Communist domination to the world.
BRUCE T. STINEBRICKNER
West Hempstead, N.Y.
Sir:
That the U.S.A. is willing to set off a nuclear war on behalf of Germany is, indeed, the world's crowning moral travesty. Its result will be deserved.
KENNETH PARRATT
Bronxville, N.Y.
Sir:
You are so right. If a showdown between the West and Communism must come, it would be better for the West for it to be over Berlin than Laos or the Congo. If we learn to stand on our own two feet, we will have taken our first big step toward winning the cold war. The sooner the better. To give up on Berlin now is to invite war later.
JAMES G. H. MITCHELL
Portsmouth, Va.
Pride of Capitalism?
Sir:
The Murchison brothers and their fast-proliferating type of "speculative businessmen" are the gravediggers of American culture. They are not at all in the tradition of free enterprise that made this country. Even at their competitive worst, the Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, Ryersons, McCormicks acted out of enthusiasm for their product first and for profit second. The Murchisons choke the country with every conceivable type of merchandise. A man matures only through assumed responsibility for his work, which must be the concrete evidence of his convictions. An economy whose responsibility is not to the consumer but to the financier is making America into a country without men, without pride, without quality and without a future--except the endless round of shifting profit ventures.
SIBYL MOHOLY-NAGY
Professor, Pratt Institute
New York City
Sir:
Thank you for the refreshing pleasure of reading your article about the Murchisons. This report should be an example to the too many "frightened" businessmen of the U.S. who overlook the abundance of opportunities for free enterprise for men with "guts" who do not need recourse to the Federal Government. My hat's off to the Murchisons for upholding the pride of capitalism. I hope they set a precedent and make a trillion dollars.
VERA MAZYMUK
A.P.O. 343
San Francisco, Calif.
Sir:
Your coverage of the Clint and John Murchison story was a masterpiece of clarity and understandability of a very complicated and tangled situation that most financial journals and newspapers to date have been unable to clearly explain to their readers.
ZAL LEVIN
Chicago
Sir:
I was rather heartsick to see the same old TIME drums beat reverently for the same old tycoons who are agile enough to outwit other tycoons. What difference does it make to us in a world where we wish to save our children from bombs and anarchy whether or not the Murchison types have more or less money? Can all the Murchisons together equal one Jonas Salk, for instance?
M. FOREMAN
Los Angeles
Dark Areas
Sir:
May I echo a hearty "Amen" to the remarks of Dr. Samuel Howard Miller in the article "Hunger of the Heart" [TIME, June 16]. The need is indeed great for a critical re-examination of ancient religious dogma.
How about starting from the point where the mystics should have started years ago, and building upon the premise that life is given to us to be lived and enjoyed and not to be lived only as a preparation for dying? Let us live, then, with the knowledge that man's happiness is his own highest moral purpose, and that his own inviolate mind and reason are his only absolute.
WILBUR S. LUMMIS
Honolulu, Hawaii
Sir:
After four years of college, three years of theological graduate school, and one year in the ministry, I hauled myself ritualistically before TIME today to read the real truth precisely put. It was Dean Miller's commencement address on the future for religion in modern civilization. After hearing theological mumblings for years, it is good to have heard the clearest, truest voice yet. It is sometimes a shock for young ministers to learn that they have been ordained just in time to preach the funeral of God. Often they haven't even heard that he was sick. Perhaps with the leadership of such prophets as Miller, there can be a resurrection--even for God.
(THE REV.) ALBERT B. HAMMONS
Honolulu, Hawaii
Sir:
Your report of Dr. Miller's address at Princeton implied that the dean of Harvard Divinity School is out of touch with the Protestant Church in our nation. If he feels that our churches are using a dead language to situations that no longer exist, he is ignoring the deep involvement our churches have in the racial situation, their support of public education, the battle they are waging against subversion from the left and the right, and their concern for the aging, the underprivileged and the displaced. He ought to leave his ivory tower to see if he is the man with the dead language.
WARREN C. McCLAIN
Assistant Minister
Westminster Presbyterian Church
Pasadena, Calif.
Sir:
The River Bishop James Ryan may well be appalled to learn that over and above his Amazonian problems he may have to cope with the "Three Dark Areas" cited by Dr. Miller in the adjoining column of the June 16 issue.
E. J. BROWN
West Hempstead, N. Y.
Identity
Sir:
I have read with much interest TIME'S June 23 report on Canada's Royal Commission set up to investigate controls to be applied to "foreign" magazines sold in Canada.
The Diefenbaker government's efforts at building a specific Canadian identity are commendable and understandable. Telling the Canadian people what they will read and when they will read it would meet with the same consequences in Canada as it would if Kennedy tried it in the U.S. If Diefenbaker is so concerned about the Canadian identity, he should consider this.
L. W. VIPOND
Bridgeport, Conn.
Sir:
I have read many issues of two of Canada's leading magazines, and TIME is so far above both that there is no room for comparison.
When is this Canada of mine going to learn that government help does not come without cost? It is indeed a weak and unimaginative industry that must turn to Ottawa every time its profits are threatened.
Indeed, the Canadian publishing industry must be weak and sorely lacking if it cannot put forward a weekly as dynamic and educational as TIME.
DANIEL KROSHEWSKY
Edmonton, Alta.
Food for the Pot
Sir:
I am recently returned from Peru, where a few days' stay at Cuzco enables me to reinforce the report of TIME Correspondent Rosenhouse in your issue of June 16.
The accuracy with which the report pinpoints the cause of the impending arrival of Communism in Peru (and Chile) is exact. The report, if anything, is an understatement of the malevolent conditions that exist among the peasants.
ALAN STEINERT
Cambridge, Mass.
Further Questions
Sir:
How foolish that government officials in Colombia are thinking of questions for the Peace Corps [June 16].
These young boys and girls are going to teach us Colombians quite a few things that even our high government officials don't seem to know. Among them, that not everyone who is good and helpful is a Catholic. I think the most important thing for a Colombiano to do is to stretch his hand out and say: "Bienvenido amigo. You come to help and we are grateful!"
RODOLFO FACCINI
Enid, Okla.
Troikas
Sir:
More vivid and more accurate than Soviet Delegate Georgy Pushkin's description of the Russian troika [June 16] is that of Dostoevsky's character Ippolit Kirillovitch in The Brothers Karamazov, Book XII, Chapter 9:
"Our fatal troika dashes on in her headlong flight perhaps to destruction and in all Russia for long past men have stretched out imploring hands and called a halt to its furious reckless course. And if other nations stand aside from that troika that may be, not from respect, as the poets would fain believe, but simply from horror. From horror, perhaps from disgust. And well it is that they stand aside, but maybe, they will cease one day to do so and will form a firm wall confronting the hurrying apparition and will check the frenzied rush of our lawlessness, for the sake of their own safety, enlightenment and civilization."
JANET MASSARO
Galveston, Texas
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