Echoes of the Awful Roar

Sir: Regarding your cover story [Aug. 30] on civil rights, I think it is time somebody stood up for the poor, abused, white bigots. In pressing for their constitutional guarantees, the Negro community has every moral and legal right to sit-in, swim-in, wade-in, waitin, parkin, standin, lie-in and chain-in, but they have gone too far with the pray-in.

After all, freedom of religion is also a constitutional guarantee. Those whites who believe in a nigger-hating god have their right to pray to him unmolested.

They don't have a prayer otherwise.

RICHARD F. STOCKTON

New York City

Sir: You quote the Rev. James Bevel as saying: "Some punk who calls himself the President has the audacity to tell people to go slow. I'm not prepared to be humiliated by white trash the rest of my life, including Mr. Kennedy."

Any man who can make that statement should not have the right to live here.

DAVID M. SANZARO

Providence

Sir: I must compliment you on another well-written story; Mr. Roy Wilkins and the problems of the Negro are accurately depicted.

I have noticed, however, that whenever the subject of housing is mentioned in reference to the Negro, with or without a picture, it is invariably a slum area. This portrayal of the "typical" Negro area insidiously impedes the Negro's drive for better housing by presenting an unfair image. We cannot close our eyes to the fact that slum areas do exist, but I feel that if some of the pleasanter-looking Negro areas were shown in the press, as a change from the hackneyed slum picture, a wrong impression of Negroes and their relation to property values would be corrected, and the "showdown" between the ideals and wallets of other Americans would be unnecessary.

HAROLD NORMAN

New York City

For the People

Sir: After reading [Aug. 9] that by 1980 the Government at all levels will employ 1 in every 4 workers, does it not seem possible that Abraham Lincoln was speaking of a future employment program when he said, "government of the people, by the people, for the people"?

VINCENT CIAMPINI

Youngwood, Pa.

Sir: If the federal work force has increased 8% since 1955, what has been the percent of increase since 1955 in the U.S. population, which in effect is serviced by federal employees?

FRANK PARAN

Rockville, Md.

>12 1/2%.--ED.

America's Arsenal

Sir: I shall save your cover story of Aug. 23. It will be useful for scaring my grandchildren--if I ever have any grandchildren.

BARRY G. CLARK

Pasadena, Calif.

Sir: It is really refreshing to know the strength of the "arsenal of democracy" and its determination to preserve its superiority over Communist forces. But whether the U.S. will employ its strength to protect its weaker friends is debatable.

IQBAL Z. AHMED Lahore, W. Pakistan

Sir: I should like to propose that we turn over the billions of dollars appropriated for the military budget next year to the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, the Multiple Sclerosis Society, the Birth Defects Center, the Muscular Dystrophy Association, etc.

Then let those who wish to increase our nuclear deterrent raise the money by voluntary contributions.

A Pennies for Polaris drive, ICBM Christmas Seals, a Nickels for Nike-X campaign, a United Good Neighbors for Hardened Silos Fund, and a Mothers March for More Minutemen Missiles would be sure to appeal to the fabled generosity of the American people.

If we presently have enough weaponry to kill every Russian ten times over, must we be taxed to pay for overkilling them the eleventh and twelfth times?

HERMINE G. BASNIGHT

Seattle

Mr. Byrnes & Mr. President

Sir: You attribute to Mr. Averell Harriman [Aug. 2] the statement that "the last diplomat to report to the people before he reported to his President was Jimmy Byrnes, and 'he was fired.' "

This statement is completely false. On no occasion did I report to the people before reporting to President Truman and receiving his approval of my making a report. The statement that I was fired is equally false.

The facts as to my resignation are fully documented and set forth in my book All in One Lifetime. From that, you will see that in April 1946, because of the report of a physician at the Naval Hospital set forth in my book that he had found indications of chronic coronary sclerosis and advised that I must lessen my activities, I tendered my resignation to take effect upon the completion of the five peace treaties then being considered. The completion was delayed by the Soviets until the middle of December, when I immediately reminded the President of my resignation and asked that it be accepted. The President said he hoped I had forgotten it and requested that I continue until he named a successor. I agreed, and on Jan. 7, 1947, Mr. Truman announced my resignation with a flattering statement as to my services and his personal regret that I had resigned. That evening Mrs. Byrnes and I were guests of the President at his diplomatic reception.

At the time of resigning and for two years thereafter, our relations were most cordial.

JAMES F. BYRNES

Columbia, S.C.

Faithful Fires

Sir: It is quite disturbing to hear of Vietnamese Buddhists [Aug. 23] committing suicide in protest of the discriminatory measures of the Diem regime. Among the peoples of the Orient, these immolations are not considered as hysterical acts of self-destruction, but reflect what Buddhists feel is a true understanding of the relativity of life and death.

Buddhists feel that there is in truth no death, though every form must die. From an understanding of life's unity arises compassion and a sense of identity with life in other forms. They see that life and death are one process, both present in any single occurrence. For example, the ink must "die" in the inkpot before it can "live" on paper. Or again, flame is the burning of the wood, life is the dying of the person. The wood is consumed to ashes, but the fire, the principle of combustion, is immortal. So men appear and disappear, but the flame of existence burns forever.

WILLIAM GILBERT

Skokie, Ill.

Sir: Buddhist nonviolence embraces bugs but not Catholics. Besides the thousands martyred by Buddhists in China, India, Ceylon, Japan, Korea, Tibet, Siam, Burma and Malaya, the extremely conservative martyrology of the church lists eight bishops, 184 priests, 2,370 nuns and 75,380 lay persons beheaded, strangled, starved or dismembered by Vietnamese Buddhists between the Edict of Jan. 6, 1833 and the Peace of June 9, 1885.*

Just as the anticlerical French government used Catholicity as a pretext for ending China's 4,000-year suzerainty over Viet Nam, so is China's atheistic government using Buddhism as a pretext to renew that suzerainty.

PAUL COLLINS

Yulee, Fla.

Project Stormfury

Sir: During the 1919 storm in Corpus Christi, local citizens took refuge in several downtown buildings, one of which was the Nueces County Courthouse. How then could you write of Dr. Robert Simpson that "he swam to the roof of the courthouse" [Aug. 16]? Numerous watermarks have established that the tide crested at 9 ft. above mean sea level. Wave action above the tide level was about 2 1/2 ft., making the highest watermark 11 1/2 ft.

HOMER C. INNIS

President

Corpus Christi Chamber of Commerce

Corpus Christi, Texas

> Corpus Christi's civic memory is long and accurate. Dr. Simpson's father, with young Simpson on his back, swam over the backyard fence to the courthouse steps, where they took refuge with other storm-battered citizens.--ED.

The Working Class

Sir: Your report on two outstandingly successful businessmen in the Aug. 23 issue indicates that today's leaders have as little leisure time as a bondsman in the days of feudalism. Tomato Man Norton Simon "works seven days a week," and the Italian textile magnate "Bassetti works a 16-hour day seven days a week." Long hours are still apparently a most important ingredient in the successful business administrator's makeup!

HERBERT E. FRENCH

New York City

Ge'ez, Not Amharic

Sir: The writing behind the blue cross depicted in the Art section [Aug. 16] is not Amharic, the language of modern Ethiopia, but Ge'ez, the ancient liturgical language of that country.

BRIAN FARGHER

Richmond, New Zealand

> Reader Fargher is right, the show's catalog is wrong. Ge'ez is to Amharic, the language of modern Ethiopia, what Latin is to English.--ED.

By Slow Boat to Djakarta

Sir: TIME is banned in this country. I daresay that I am one of the very few people who have the honor of reading it. A friend in the States sends it regularly simply by removing the cover to avoid postal detection. Sea mail from the States takes two months to reach here, and the latest issue of TIME I have read is May 10. The article "Lincoln and Modern America" is an excellent one. Please pass my compliments to the author. Could he be the same person who wrote the article "The Age of Anxiety," which appeared in TIME, March 31, 1961?

Liu JUNG SIN

Djakarta, Indonesia

> Yes.--ED. *

*The Edict of Jan. 6, 1833 ordered all Christians to renounce their faith and, in token of the sincerity of their recantation, to trample the crucifix underfoot. The Peace of June 9, 1885 marked the end of Chinese influence over what is now South Viet Nam and subsequently the advent of French Indo-China.

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