Topic K

Sir:

I hope Jack Kennedy didn't call all businessmen s.o.b.s. If he did, he certainly was showing disrespect for one of the cleverest, who made it possible for him to get sunburned tootsies on the Cape while most other youngsters of his age were trying to pick up a stray buck working during the Depression.

HARLAN M. TWIBLE Michigan City, Ind.

Sir:

President Kennedy's salty language in repeating what his father told him should have drawn a snappy so's YOUR OLD MAN.

R. E. WALTERS Columbus, Ohio

Sir:

Your witty, interesting stories sometimes seem more like fiction than fact.

Could you please tell me how a reporter can overhear President Kennedy "whisper" to his wife. "You've got lipstick on your teeth." Now really

MRS. LAFOREST G. NORWOOD Machias, Me.

He just listened. -- ED.

Sir:

I read down the list of writers that attended the President's party at the White House and noticed that at the bottom it said: Novelist William Faulkner declined. O God, America still has an artist.

NEAL FAASEN Grand Rapids

Sir:

If ''culture" could win the cold war, we would be sitting pretty.

HALDANE DOUGLAS Los Angeles

Sir:

I looked with nostalgia at the photograph of Merrywood [May 11, where "from the time she was 13, Jacqueline Bouvier swam, played tennis and gamboled about." From the time I was 10 (seven years before the Bouvier arrival), I also swam, played tennis, etc. there, and it is sad to see the old place go.

Yet I should like to make the point that if its owner wants to sell his property, I cannot see what business it is of anyone. Contrary to the Secretary of the Interior, the Potomac Palisades are not "a great scenic resource" ; they are just pretty, and their only uniqueness is the curious richness with which the poison ivy grows.

It is traditional to torture Presidents with the doings of their relatives; the current President is particularly vulnerable since he is related to almost as many people as there are voters. I think it unfair to give the impression that my onetime stepfather* is committing an act comparable to filling in the Grand Canyon for personal profit.

GORE VIDAL Barrytown, N.Y.

Professors on the Half Shell

Sir:

Dr. J.V. McConnell's ideas [May 18] are distinctly alarming. When he chops up educated worms and feeds them to unschooled ones, the cannibals learn twice as fast as worms fed on uneducated meat. Hence, muses Dr. McConnell, "why should we waste all the knowledge a distinguished professor has accumulated simply because he's reached retirement age?"

So old professors will not simply fade away; they're to be chopped up and fed to the football team.

WILSON F. PAYNE Professor of Finance Babson Institute Babson Park, Mass.

Sir:

Good grief. Won't professors object to being chopped up and fed to their students? HELEN ELIZABETH BEATTIE Brooklyn, N.Y.

Bouquets for Blots

Sir:

Your editorial staff is to be congratulated for the splendid job that it did in reporting our research on the development of the Holtzman Inkblot Technique as it appeared in the Medicine section May 4. Although a number of reports have appeared, yours is by far the most skillful in its presentation and accurate in its details.

WAYNE H. HOLTZMAN

University of Texas Austin, Texas

A Young Comic

Sir:

In your May 11 Music section you state. "The unexpected comic on the faculty is normally glacial Jascha Heifetz." I am submitting photographic evidence to prove that while Heifetz today may be usually cool, his comic spirit got off to a fairly early start. A short time after his 1917 American debut, which turned out to be a hot night for violinists, a Bain News Service cameraman called at Heifetz' apartment and, to his astonishment, received cooperation beyond the call of publicity. Comic spirit, indeed.

D. JAY CULVER New York City

Who Gets Into College

Sir:

TIME'S article on college admissions | May 11] rightly looked at some important problems, including the danger of overly narrowing admissions criteria.

Its reference to Williams College's forthcoming 10% experiment might be confusing. The program is not designed as a haven for "poor grades." It aims rather at increasing the opportunity to search for individuals with exceptional strength in a given area or with outstanding broader potentials of contribution and leadership.

Meanwhile, in the standard admission procedures, superior academic performance must continue to play a primary role.

JOHN E. SAWYER

President Williams College, Williamstown, Mass.

Sir: Your piece on next year's bright freshmen was strong and clear. My thanks to you for the careful reporting that posed the generalists' fear of "skipping" and their approval of the Advanced Placement Program, an important distinction.

The program, described by Dr. Conant as "one of the most encouraging signs of real improvement in our educational system," is still small--13,283 candidates last year. There are still some colleges that seem to say to our best schools, "Keep your credit-picking hands off me," but there are other colleges--some our very best--that not only cheer aspiration and achievement but recognize and reward them. This, too, is an important distinction.

JACK N. ARBOLINO Director of Advanced Placement Program College Entrance Examination Board New York City T.F., Not F.W.

Sir:

I would like to be able to claim authorship of the succinct and thoughtful quotation attributed to me in the May 4 issue of TIME.

However, I am sure that the statement regarding the first atomic explosion was made by Major General Thomas F Farrell, who worked closely on the development of the atomic bomb as a deputy to Lieut. General Leslie R. Groves.

F. W. FARRELL Director

New York State Civil Defense Albany, N. Y.

TIME confused Lieut. General F. W. with Major General T. P.--ED.

Mulatto Saints

Sir:

St. Martin de Porres [May n] was certainly not the first mulatto saint in the Roman church. The great St. Augustine was born in Numidia, and his mother, St. Monica, was almost certainly a Negro.

Three early Popes, Sts. Victor (reigned 189-199), Miltiades (311-314) and Gelasius (492-496), were Africans, either Negro or mulatto.

(THE REV.) ROBERT E. CARSON O. PRAEM

St. Michael's Priory Green Bay, Wis.

All the saints Reader Carson mentions were African, but it is not possible to clearly establish their race.--ED.

As Easy As 3.14159265 Sir: YOur STory ON ALl NUmber CAlling [May 11] IS THe FUnniest THing I've REad IN YEars. PLease REnew MY Subscription.

DAVID V. SHAW

Peru, Ind.

Sir:

So what is so complicated about long telephone numbers? Self-respecting production planners know at least 400 six-digit numbers by heart, and once the general code is known, the other digits automatically fall into place. As a matter of fact, memorizing numbers is as easy as 3.14159265.

JOHN H. MILSON

Montreal

Sir:

In Andover, N.J., just 45 miles from Manhattan, the combination for getting Manhattan Information is 112-1-212-555-1212. After that, you have to dial 112-1-212 plus the exchange and five digits.

Simple ?

MARIA E. ECHEANDIA

Sparta, NJ.

Letterwise

Sir:

Thank you kindly for your attention to my protest against adding ness to so many words in the English language [May n]. TIME truly has feathered its own ness.

DOROTHY N. FOOTE Associate Professor San Jose State College San Jose, Calif.

The General's Lady

Sir:

Milestones are milestones, but this is incredible. Confederate General James Longstreet must have been a true cradle robber to leave a widow [May 11] who lived to see the war centennial.

(MRS.) SHERRON O'CONNOR Charlottesville, Va.

Longstreet married Helen Dortch in 1897, when he was 76 and she was 34. They met at Brenau College in Gainesville, Ga., where she was a classmate of his daughter's. The General died in 1904, and his widow survived him by 58 years.--ED.

Disappearing Act

Sir:

Your cover on Russian Poet Evgeny Evtushenko [April 13] received some unsolicited readership.

That issue of TIME disappeared from my room in Leningrad's Hotel Europa on a recent tour through the U.S.S.R.

HUGH J. SCOTT First Lieutenant, U.S.A. New Ulm, Germany

Old Reliable

Sir:

Re the Science section [May 18]: if your calculation (186,282 m.p.h.) of "that old reliable constant of physics," the speed of light, were correct, it would take the sun's radiant energy 500 hours to reach our lithosphere, instead of the generally accepted figure of a little in excess of eight minutes.

M. A. MILLER Baltimore

TIME'S old reliable typist slipped a key.

The correct figure is 186,282 m.p.s. (miles per second).--ED.

New Hope

Sir:

My deep appreciation for the magnificent piece on hemiplegia in TIME [May 11]. It is beautifully and sensitively done and should bring new hope and understanding to millions who are suffering from this condition.

HOWARD A. RUSK, M.D.

Director

Institute of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation New York City

Onward in Science

Sir:

I have read the article on the National Science Foundation [May 4] with great interest. We here at the foundation are pleased because of the accuracy with which the article was written. It is a most excellent summary of activities in the field of science course content improvement in areas where N.S.F. is concerned.

ALAN T. WATERMAN Director Washington, D.C.

And Now Here's Jack

SIR:

SHOCKED TO READ YOUR STORY REFERRING TO MY SHADED VULGARITY [May 11 ]. THIS IS ABSOLUTELY FALSE. MY VULGARITY HAS NEVER BEEN SHADED.

JACK PAAR

NANDI, FIJI

* Reader Vidal and Jackie have the same stepfather Hugh Auchincloss. Playwright Vidal's mother, Nina Gore Vidal, was Hughdee's second wife, and Jackie's mother, Janet Lee Bouvier, is his third.

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