This Is the Army

Sir:

TIME points out in its cover story on the U.S. Army [Oct. 13] that the Eisenhower Administration greatly de-emphasized conventional weapons, concentrating instead upon missile and nuclear power. The theory was that this shift in emphasis would serve as a deterrent to war. Were there any wars?

If the current Army buildup is justified, let it build up. But let us also appreciate the success of the Eisenhower Administration's defense policies in saving money, building up our nuclear and missile capability to today's position and keeping us out of war.

R. J. SCHONBERGER San Diego

Sir:

It is regrettable that many talented, intelligent Americans such as General Creighton Abrams have made a life's study of military science rather than the political and economic alternatives to war. The professional status of our forces overseas bespeaks destructive competence, but offers no solution to the Berlin enigma. There is no plausible way to fight a "limited" war for Central Europe, and no hope that either side could win a larger, nuclear world war.

A strong defense is always a comfort, but it is distressing that the United States has shown no moral solution to the day's crisis.

ROBERT F. DORR San Francisco

Sir:

As the mother of two young sons, I can't decide whether war or Communism would be worse. However, your article cleared up one question for me. I say better either Red or dead than a kill-more-men, annihilate-the-enemy soldier.

In a way, I suppose a man trained to "respond instantly to stimuli, such as a command" (to bow and yell "Airborne" to a shout of "Hit it") is already partially dead.

JEAN POMYKALA Chicago

Sir:

I have read with interest your Oct. 13 analysis of the U.S. Army.

For the record, I would like to make clear that I have had and continue to have the highest regard for the chairman and members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. On May 26, when asked about this at a news conference, I said, "The Joint Chiefs are intelligent, experienced and dedicated men, and I consider it a very great honor to be associated with them." That statement is as true today.

This evaluation is specifically applicable to such officers as Generals Lemnitzer and Decker, whom your article mentions critically but whom I consider first-rate, loyal, forceful and competent military leaders.

ROBERT S. MCNAMARA Secretary of Defense Washington

Sir:

I know about the fine, brave city of Marshfield, Wis. During the reorganization of the 32nd Division in 1947, I recruited Marshfield's two fine batteries of field artillery for the 120th F.A. Bn., and in just 1 1/2 hours! You made no mistake in your fine report on General Abrams. As a staff officer in the 4th Armored, I saw the devastation he wreaked on German armor with the 37th Tank. Sleep well, America.

JAMES H. VAN WAGENEN Lieut. Colonel Wis. N.G. (inact.) Stevens Point, Wis.

Sir:

Your vivid, poignant report on the call-up of Wisconsin's Red Arrow Division exemplifies not only the high morale and combat readiness of National Guardsmen, but also the understanding and courage of their wives and families, who bear the real sacrifices. We hope the article is read by those few individuals, including some Guardsmen, who do not yet recognize either the urgency of our mobilization or the traditional duty of our citizens to respond, whatever the cost, when they are needed.

MAJOR GENERAL D. W. McGOWN Chief National Guard Bureau Washington

To Shelter or Not?

Sir:

I have been reading with interest your articles on fallout shelters. We think that our town has something unique in the way of a fallout shelter.

Three of our citizens bought an old railroad baggage and chair car. This car is 77 ft. long, 9 1/2 ft. wide, and 12 ft. high. A hole 12 ft. wide, 140 ft. long, and 15 ft. deep was dug. An offset entrance of concrete and concrete blocks has been built, and there is an escape hatch. A filtering system will be installed, along with rest room facilities, auxiliary power unit, and a reserve water supply. The inside of the car will be completely remodeled, of course.

HALLIE L. NORMAN Crosbyton, Tex.

Sir:

It seems to me that the American people are being tricked into accepting nuclear war as the only solution of the Berlin crisis. The construction of fallout shelters is a red herring being used to engage the attention of the gadget-loving, do-it-yourself, construction-happy American.

The first concern of our people should be to fully discuss, study and think about the alternatives to war. Many proposals have been made to make Berlin a free city, and yet the official American line seems to be: ''Hurry up and get into your cellars, there's no hope of peace."

ANNE MONAHAN Saugus, Mass.

Aristotle & the Bomb

Sir:

I enjoyed your short dissertation, "Aristotle and the Bomb" [Oct. 13], in which Sidney Hook so convincingly stated the principal issue involved in the question: Red, Dead or Heroic? For if we but strived toward mere simple existence as our only end in life, would we not merely be acting as an irrational animal and contrary to our very nature as that of a rational human being?

Aristotle's belief of living in accordance with certain good values in life held true then, does now, and always will, as long as the human race shall be in existence.

RALPH A. LORITZ Chicago

Sir:

I think Aristotle is being used. What about the other guys that we've been supposedly worshiping and revering all these years: Jesus, Gandhi, Schweitzer, et al.? Jesus allowed himself to be crucified, and he was nearly as good and right as we are. They all say one and the same thing. Anyone who has any spiritual development or a good sense of reality must conclude that nuclear war is out of the question and should not be considered as solving ''anything" or prepared for by any nation.

KATHRYN CAMPOLI Chicago

Dropped from the Lips

Sir:

We enjoyed your "Vox Populi, Vox Webster" [Oct. 6]. I personally think the new volume is a hopeless jargonaut. Editor Gove has pursued language "like a certified public accountant in search of the Holy Grail." Some people--TIME writers included--throw words the way a potter throws a pot: the result is unpredictable, but the act is an act of art; defining the act is non art and, if anything, retards the advance of civilization. Govism is wearying.

THEODORE O. CRON Managing Editor Overview* New York City

Sir:

Merriam-Webster should be commended for including the so-called ''four-letter words" in the new edition of their dictionary. I have looked up all of the words I searched for in vain during my childhood, and I find they look no more obscene than the words surrounding them on the page.

JIM RADER Chicago

Sir:

Alas! Wrangling Scrabble players can no longer look to the dictionary as a final authority on the correctness and usage of words. Now the ultimate test for word acceptance is merely whether or not it has been dropped from the lips of a famous person in the presence of a reporter, thus assuring it a place in the very next edition.

LYNNE E. CHAMBERLAIN Charlottesville, Va.

Frozen Fatherhood

Sir:

In your article ''Frozen Fatherhood" [Sept. 8], the case is mentioned of a deformed, mentally defective girl who resulted from artificial insemination with sperm that had been stored in a frozen condition. I had, as your article states, advocated the storage of sperm in deep freeze as a means of avoiding radiation damage to the hereditary material and, further, as a way of making possible the exercise of some "germinal choice" in procreation.

Although it has taken me some time to look into this case, I am now glad to assure those who read the article that the girl's impairment was found on medical investigation to have been caused by an infectious disease, toxoplasmosis, that is known to cause defects of the given kind. It could have had no connection with the procedures used in sperm storage or insemination. On the contrary, the considerable experience already gained with the use of frozen sperm has shown it to be highly reliable. At the same time, it should be remembered that more than 1% of naturally incurred pregnancies result in children obviously defective at birth. Thus one such case, among the scores of normal births already derived from frozen sperm, would really have provided no evidence against the method.

HERMANN J. MULLER Indiana University Bloomington, Ind.

Another Kind of Sugar

Sir:

The article "Liz Majeste" [Oct. 6] erroneously used Congressman Harold D. Cooley's name in reporting that several members of Congress while in Rome visited the Cinecitta Studios "to have their pictures taken with Elizabeth Taylor on the set of 20th Century-Fox's beleaguered Cleopatra." Mr. Cooley was in Geneva for the International Sugar Conference at the time some members of Congress were reported by TIME to have visited the 2Oth Century studio in Rome, and he at no time has visited that studio.

CHRISTINE S. GALLAGHER Clerk House of Representatives, U.S. Committee on Agriculture Washington, D.C.

Sir:

Bravo Elizabeth Taylor. She now convinces me that she has brains as well as beauty and acting ability by not wasting her time meeting the hollow, pork-barreling U.S. Congressmen on a needless and costly junket.

We American taxpayers are "the stupid ones" for allowing too many Congressmen to waste our money on valueless junkets, especially during these critical and trying times!

MRS. B. BERNARD KREISLER Rome

The Nullipede Society

Sir:

About your story on U.S. roads [Oct. 6] There will come a happy day when Americans will spend their entire lifetime, from cradle to grave, without setting foot out of their cars. They will be born in an ambulance, receive their education in a mobile school, fall in love in a drive-in theater, get married in a drive-in church, conduct their business from the driver's seat and, finally, retire to Florida on wheels.

Becoming nullipedes, or legless, they will somehow have to solve an up till now trivial problem, that of changing a flat.

ALUF ORELL Camden, Tenn.

* A national magazine for school and college administrators.

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