Baker's Web
Sir:
By printing the facts on the Bobby Baker case [March 6], you gave a valuable assist to public demand for further investigation and for an honest expose of just which Government officials are involved in the whole rotten mess.
VIRGINIA U. PROUT
Greenwich, Conn.
Sir:
It would appear as though that tangled web has ensnared everything from moonlighting, mistresses and mooching to President Johnson's acute (and heretofore undiagnosed) case of myopia.
ELIZABETH RITCHIE
Tonawanda, N.Y.
Sir:
From your story, it seems that the investigating committee doesn't actually have a shred of concrete evidence to prove that Mr. Baker is doing anything more than taking advantage of his associations to help further his speculative interests.
MASON TENSELEIGH
Kent, Ohio
Into the North?
Sir:
After two years of so-called "defensive" war in Viet Nam [Feb. 28], we are no better off, and possibly even worse off, than when we started. We should either get out or fight to win.
If we want to win, we must launch raids, by air and by land, into North Viet Nam territory. This is the only thing that will discourage them.
WILLIAM K. AILSHIE
Foreign Service Officer, Ret.
La Jolla, Calif.
Sir:
It is evident to me after spending 13 months in the neighborhood that the Vietnamese are still more interested in which night to allow dancing and whether or not their amphibian man-eaters are crocodiles or alligators, than they are in the successful termination of the war to protect their own country. Our millions are better spent at home on poverty areas or in medical research.
HENRY J. NACHTSHEIM JR.
Major, Infantry, U.S. Army
Augsburg, Germany
Sir:
If the U.S. is scared out of South Viet Nam and throws in the sponge, we, as a free nation, will perish within 20 years.
ROBERT H. PLOEHN
Meadville, Pa.
Sir:
The Pfc. from Milwaukee who was killed in the bombing of a Saigon theater was Pfc. Peter M. Feierabend, age 23.
MRS. R. W. LISTER
Milwaukee
-- TIME salutes a brave American, whose name was garbled in transmission from Saigon.--ED.
Cuban Trade
Sir:
I cannot help wondering how the U.S. Government [Feb. 28] has the right to tell other countries not to trade with Communist governments when the U.S. itself is trading with the No. 1 Communist country, Russia.
LUBA KUPCHYK
Baltimore
Sir:
May I suggest a trademark for the English buses sent to Cuba: an umbrella.
BENJAMIN I. GOLDEN, M.D.
Elkins, W. Va.
Sir:
When we have allies like Great Britain and France, who needs enemies?
MARGARET WHITE
Danville, Pa.
Help on the Range
Sirs:
The cattle industry [Feb. 28] is not sitting and howling for federal aid. We are asking for effective and immediate cutbacks in allowable meat imports to improve domestic meat prices to a profitable point.
BOB BUFFINGTON
Chairman
Cattle Industry Committee for Legislative Action
Shenandoah,Iowa
-- Last week Buffington's newly formed committee wired Congress a desperate SO S: "The cattle industry is now in a disastrous situation. The chaotic and desperate conditions of the industry cry for corrective legislative and administrative action." At week's end the U.S. Senate acted against the cattlemen. See THE NATION.--ED.
Sir:
After seeing the poster painting by Robert Indiana in the Sculls' Manhattan apartment [Feb. 21], I was reminded of / Saw the Figure 5 in Gold by Charles Demuth (1883-1935).
Could it be that Demuth's painting, which was inspired by the poem "The Great Figure" by William Carlos Williams about a fire truck, was the inspiration for the poster?
(MRS.) COLLEEN ROWAN BLACK
Oak Ridge, Tenn.
-- Yes. Hence Indiana's title The Demuth Fire.--ED.
After the Fight
Sir: Having personally covered the fight between Clay and Liston, I agree 1000% with your write-up of this classic title bout [March 6]. It was sickening to see the large number of responsible sportswriters and broadcasters who yelled "fix" after they were fooled by Cassius the Great. They had all picked Liston to win and were obviously covering up for it.
As for the agreement for the promotion of the next Clay fight of which Liston owns a piece, it should be recalled that Joe Louis gave James Braddock 10% of his career earnings in order to get a title bout in 1937.
ROGER STANTON
Sports Director, WDTM
Detroit
Sir:
That championship was an honest fight--between two phonies.
GERRY EDWARDS
Livermore, Calif.
Sir: Whatever his faults, Clay worked hard for this fight. He was in superb physical and mental condition. And he had a plan. His plan was to get Liston mad enough to make a mistake and to stay away from him until he did. It worked like a charm.
The sportswriters should have known better. They have seen the combination of youth, desire, conditioning, hard work and careful planning pay off in other sports. Why not in boxing?
ROBERT E. WILDS
Detroit
El Cordobes
Sir:
Your article about El Cordobes [Feb. 28] is nothing short of ridiculous.
Manuel Benitez is the best bullfighter anywhere. He makes others look like amateurs. Yet you say that the experts regard him as a clown and a tourists' bullfighter. If that be the case, then Mexico and Spain are full of tourists and I'm one of them.
CARLOS CABRERA
Monterrey, N.L., Mexico
Sir:
We congratulate you for your article about Spain's greatest actor, Manuel Benitez.
JAMES F. RAGAN JR.
Barcelona, Spain
TV Crime
Sir: In the Ruby trial, since the shooting of Oswald is neither denied nor questioned, why should the witnessing of the act on TV have been seriously urged as grounds for disqualification of jurors?
ROSWELL KING
Tallahassee, Fla.
-- Texas law states that a person is not qualified for jury duty if it is established that he was a witness to the crime. The prosecution argued that watching the shooting on television should be considered "hearsay" evidence, little different from reading about the event in the newspapers. The judge ruled for the prosecution.--ED.
Not-So-Periled Portias
Sir: On behalf of all the "one out of every 39" aspiring attorneys, I would like to say: that was a marvelous article on lady lawyers [March 6].
MARGARET FRENKEL
City College of New York
Sir:
The perils of budding Portias do not present nearly so fearsome a picture as you paint. As a female law student, I've never felt the academic pressures to "beat the boys" that you emphasize; nor have I felt the social loneliness and ostracism against which you warn. Rather, my years at law school have been wonderful--it's tremendous fun to be a girl, a law student, and "one of the boys" all at the same time! It's not every girl who's as lucky as I!
JUDY OLANS
Boston College Law School
Brighton, Mass.
Gleeful Brooding
Sir: Your fine Swarthmore College article [March 6] implies that the students are socially moribund. Perhaps, but my wife and I, and many of our friends who are "Quaker matchbox" graduates brooded gleefully while in college, and today attribute the enthusiasm, appreciation and vigor with which we live our adult lives to the "Rhodes spirit" absorbed in our college days and so well exemplified by our great President Courtney Smith.
JOSEPH W. KIMMEL
President
Swarthmore Club of Philadelphia
Downingtown, Pa.
Sir: As someone who strongly believes that a person can justify his presence on a university faculty by means other than government contracts, I was much impressed by your article on Swarthmore. The obsession with large-scale research and the publish-or-perish racket has seriously downgraded the quality and enthusiasm of teaching in many of our leading schools--to the point where those who are devoted to excellence in instruction find few opportunities for good positions. Let us hope that some of Swarthmore's guts will be spread around.
L. C. ERDMANN
Yale University
New Haven, Conn.
Marvelous Monstrosities
Sir: Recently we purchased a Victorian monstrosity as described in TIME [March 6] and are now reveling in touches of elegance such as five fireplaces, stained-glass windows in the stair well, marble lavatories and eight-foot windows.
When we get tired painting, papering and scrubbing the years' accumulation of grime from the butternut woodwork, we turn on the gaslights on OUT gleaming brass chandelier, light a fire in one.of our marble fireplaces and read about the three-bedroom ranchers with no dining room that we could have bought for the same price. Kalamazoo, Mich.
MARGARET BERRY
Unseen Treasure
Sir:
I am naturally honored and pleased by your enthusiastic review of my book, When the Cheering Stopped [March 6]. However, I wish to point out a disturbing error: you incorrectly say that my major "treasure trove was the still-unpublished diary of Wilson's doctor, Admiral Gary Grayson." I had no access to any such source, and nowhere have I ever claimed to have seen such a diary.
GENE SMITH
New York City
-- TIME was misinformed.--ED.
Monk & Jazz
Sir:
Thelonipus Monk [Feb. 28] typifies the new music, no longer merely a revolt but an art form. Far too often, modern jazz is thought of as a cacophonous battle between a sax and a drum. You present jazz as it truly exists, an artist displaying his soul on a piano.
WILLIAM M. BUCHHOLZ
Cambridge, Mass.
Sir: A deserving tribute to a cat who is so authentically hip that one might say, after Monk: What is jazz?
ALAN KARP
Madison, Wis.
Sir: I was able to discuss with my class aspects of the philosophy and temperament that have gone into producing Monk's genius in jazz.
JACK GOLDZWEIG
Director, Jazz Faculty
Rubin Academy
Jerusalem
Sir: Because of TIME'S treatment, we are privileged to enter the depths beneath the jazz and junkie facade of the tabloids and see a person who runs the risk of manhood--that of being misunderstood.
What's more, the real thrill is in knowing that, after all, Nellie must be the heroine of the piece.
MILES J. JONES
Minister
Providence Park Baptist Church
Richmond
Clothes Make the Man
Sir:
Doesn't the oaf who wrote the article on men's clothing [Feb. 28] realize that men's fashions originate in London (with an occasional assist from Rome) rather than Seventh Avenue? Fashion as such is not for the masses, who look alike everywhere, but for the very few who know how to dress because they are born to it.
H. THOMAS OSBORNE
New York City
Sir:
When a man buys a suit of clothes, he also buys self-respect. And if you think that a $50 suit looks like a $250 suit, then either you have poor eyesight or you wear $50 suits.
PATRICK C. LEMMERS
Chairman of the Board
Aksarben Men's & Boys' Apparel Club
Omaha
This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.