The Persuaders
Sir:
As a copywriter may I thank you for your article on advertising, "The Visible Persuaders" [Oct. 12]. For ten years my family and relatives have been wondering what the hell I'm up to.
BOB DOOLITTLE New York City
Sir:
Penetrating, valid and well written.
DAVID OGILVY Chairman
Ogilvy, Benson & Mather Inc. New York City
Sir:
You refer to research as the "occult art of head-candling." This statement does not make it any easier to win acceptance among client and agency executives for a fact-based method of carrying on work long since accepted by other business enterprises.
ALBRO MARTIN
Account Research Manager J. Walter Thompson Co. New York City
Sir:
I feel strongly that the ad industry as a whole has done much to give the American people a false and distorted sense of values. It is all-encompassing, like a poison gas that permeates the atmosphere, no matter how diligently one may try to escape.
I admit the self-made necessity of advertising in our economy, and cannot help wishing that all these brilliant minds were concerned less with making the gullible public want things they don't need, and more with true, constructive goals.
(MRS.) LAURA S. RUEKBERG
Park Forest, Ill.
Sir:
A fair and factual report on the industry. If it deserves any criticism at all, it is the failure to mention the amount of work done by volunteer agencies for the Advertising Council on such public-service campaigns as Smokey the Bear, savings bonds, college education and many others.
R. W. GRAHAM
Partner Gray & Rogers
Philadelphia
Sir:
Congratulations, TIME. Your piece on advertising says it all. It should be prescribed reading for every board room in America. WALKER Y. BROOKS Executive Vice President The McCarty Co. Los Angeles
Sir:
A thorough, objective investigation that should not only provide material for introspection by the advertisers, but also supply criteria and facts for examination by critics of their charges against the art of mass persuasion.
RAYMOND D. HERMAN Ensign, U.S.N. Navy Supply Corps School Athens, Ga.
Catholics Convene
Sir:
Thank you for your article on the Vatican Council [Oct. 5]. I am a member of a Presbyterian Church, and I have little knowledge concerning Catholicism, so I enjoyed learning about many phases of the Catholic world: past councils, Pope John XXIII and the present Vatican Council.
Your outlining of the topics which are to be brought before the council proved to be very interesting, and the background of these issues was especially helpful.
MILES McKEE
Grosse Pointe Park, Mich.
Sir:
Every religion class in my school is using this article when covering the council's main objectives and aspirations.
PETER SANTULLI St. Mary's High School Manhasset, N.Y.
Sir:
In answer to the letter from Betty Hanson [Oct. 12], Catholics believe that the Pope is infallible only when he speaks to us in his capacity as head of the church in regard to matters of faith and morals.
Of course, it is possible that his words may need editing before being printed. Which of us has never used an ungrammatical word or phrase, or written an awkward sentence? CATHERINE RONDINELLI Milwaukee
The Sound and the Fury
Sir:
I must take exception to the remark that the Ole Miss faculty "timidly failed to make any serious effort to quiet down the students [Oct. 12]."
While I admit that in certain respects we could have done much more, during the week before the riot as the crisis was mounting, many faculty members took much class time to talk to our students of the necessity for calm and respect for law and order. The week after the riot, we intensified our efforts to impress on our students the fact that (as the University A.A.U.P. chapter put it) "riots, weapons, and agitators have no place at a university."
Some of the faculty even moved among the students on that fateful Sunday and tried hard to persuade them and the horde of "outsiders" to disperse.
JOSEPH O. BAYLEN Professor of History University of Mississippi Oxford, Miss.
Sir:
Re your remark that the University of Mississippi is "cheerfully unintellectual": Ole Miss ranks second in the South in turning out Rhodes scholars, ranks above the nation al average in faculty Ph.D.s, and our distinguished chancellor, John D. Williams, has been honored over the past few years by the presidency of the American Association of College and University Administrators.
BILL SETH, '63
JOHN GEISLER, '64
MARTY COOK, '66
University of Mississippi Oxford, Miss.
Sir:
The recent incident in Mississippi once again shows the defects inherent in the Southern system of education. A university, dedicated to the broadening of minds and destruction of ignorance, has succeeded in destroying an already weakened image of Dixie higher education.
The student body of Ole Miss should hang their heads in shame for their part in the fiasco. Apparently saturation with higher education hasn't dented their archaic ignorance. Ole Miss, old indeed, isn't it?
KENNETH GERLACH University of Maryland College Park, Md.
No Red
Sir:
Your story on the British colony of Aden [Oct. 5] described Abdullah Asnag, secretary of the Aden Trades Union Congress, as "Red-lining," a shorthand phrase which I take to mean that Mr. Asnag is a Communist or a fellow traveler or a follower of the Communist Party line.
The staunchly antitotalitarian, anti-Communist International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, with which the Aden T.U.C. is affiliated, in July supported the complaint of the Aden T.U.C. against British policy in the area, a complaint which was also supported by the British T.U.C.
His fellow trade unionists in the I.C.F.T.U. have found Mr. Asnag is an outstanding labor leader about whom the British government may be unhappy, but there is a large difference between fighting the colonial policies of the British government and being a "Redlining" unionist.
IRVING BROWN
Director I.C.F.T.U. New York City
Views of Manhattan
Sir:
As a native New Yorker I applaud your article [Sept. 28] for its excellent portrayal of New York as a vibrant, growing and, in many respects, beautiful city.
In regard to the quality of the new buildings, as an architectural student I can only add that their similarity in looks is but a reflection of their similarity in function. To have them otherwise would be an architectural mistake.
GERALD GURLAND Scheveningen, The Netherlands
Sir:
With minor reservations, you seem to find some virtue in New York's ''uncoordinated" development. What you are describing in fact, to use Lewis Mumford's phrase, is "solidified chaos." What pride or comfort you can take from a city that is totally out of control, and almost completely in the hands of venal speculators and banal bureaucrats, I can't fathom.
Why, for example, on adjacent corners could not corporations such as TIME Inc., Equitable Life, CBS, and the Rockefellers create a truly stirring civic space?
This was accomplished during the '30s in the original design of Rockefeller Center. We have steadily degenerated since that time, and until we start trying to find the basic causes of that degeneration, and take bold action to rectify the situation, we shall remain in the laissez-faire jungle that is the real New York.
ALLAN TEMKO
London
Sir:
Your statement that the Americana Hotel is the world's tallest is incorrect. It is actually the fifth tallest hotel.
The Waldorf-Astoria still claims the title at 625 ft. The Sherry-Netherland is second at 560 ft., and the Ritz Tower Hotel comes next at 540 ft. The Hotel Pierre is 525 ft., and the Americana is 501 ft.
HOWARD CONNOR JR. General Manager Ritz Tower New York City
>Right. The Americana bases its claim on having more stories (50) than any other hotel.--Ev.
Sir:
My wife and I both read this article, and we want to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for bringing us up to date on the latest changes in our home town. We have been away from the world's greatest city for 21/2 years, and your article was the next best thing to actually being there seeing these changes taking place.
PHILIP V. LELLE JR.
Madrid
Channel Time Sir:
We at ABC are constant readers of TIME, and of course we read your Show Business pages with particular interest. The Oct. 12 issue is likely to confuse your readers who might be searching the wrong channels for certain television programs.
To set the record straight, ABC is the network on which The Jettons and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington are broadcast. The Beverly Hillbillies is on another network.*
.MICHAEL J. FOSTER Vice President American Broadcasting Co. New York City
Norway & Cuba
Sir: In TIME of Oct. 5, you state that the Norwegians have ''remained deaf to U.S.
pleas" to stop "shipping Communist cargoes to Cuba." On Sept. 13 the Norwegian Shipowners' Association stated that no Norwegian ships had carried military equipment to Cuba. Furthermore, on Oct. i it pointed out that the very few calls made at Cuba by Norwegian ships had in most cases been dictated by those who had chartered the ships and not by the Norwegian shipowners. In a letter of the same day addressed to its members, "the Norwegian Shipowners' Association requests its members to the extent possible to take steps to secure that their ships will not be employed in transportation of goods to and from Cuba."
OLAF MALTERUD
Norwegian Shipowners' Association Oslo
Note for the Record
Sir:
Re your article on Marcello Mastroianni [Oct. 5]: La Nolle was made by Michelangelo Antonioni, not Luchino Visconti.
MEL STUART
Hollywood
Tribal Art
Sir:
As a Nigerian, let me congratulate TIME for its excellent and unbiased reporting about African art [Sept. 28].
Those figures in bronze, clay or wood often speak more than the "experts" can understand, and perhaps only the African can feel, in depth, their silent communion. IFEANYI MENKITI Pomona College Claremont, Calif.
Sir:
Is it not possible for your magazine to report on any subject African without resorting to racialism in reverse? Even the current display of "African" art here? Is it an indication of color prejudice to believe that Renaissance art possesses a beauty lacking in the primitive and basic art of Africa?
Please excuse me for being white and domiciled in Africa.
P. J. HUGHES Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia
Sir:
I protest your statement implying destruction of African sculptures because of the "iconoclasm of Christian missionaries."
Through 20 years as an educational missionary in Africa, I have never known one instance of missionary idol-smashing. Instead I can attest first-hand a long record of missionary scholars who have reduced African languages to writing, collected and preserved African fables, proverbs, songs, art objects and missionary teachers who encourage young Africans to perpetuate their ancient arts.
MRS. WILLIAM F. PRUITT American Presbyterian Congo Mission Lulabourg, Republic of Congo
*CBS
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