Block Those Leprechauns!

Sir: Your cover story is a succinct analysis of the Fighting Irish. It sends chills up the spine and echoes of the Victory March to the ears of Notre Dame men around the world.

VINCENT J. NAIMOLI (Notre Dame '59) Wayne, N.J.

Sir: As a fan of Notre Dame for more years than I care to state, I wondered if Ara would keep the "prayer before play." When he did, the word was carried that he might convert to Catholicism. When one of the team was questioned, the answer flew back: "No, the team is thinking of turning Protestant." (MRS.) ELAINE EDWARDS MCDONALD South Bend, Ind.

Sir: I've seen every Notre Dame team since 1908 play at least once, except in 1917 and 1918. I played under Rockne before and after he was made head coach. I helped coach at Notre Dame under Elmer Layden. I was a daily observer and reporter during Leahy's peak season, 1949, and his one offseason, 1950. I see in Ara Parseghian the first head coach we've had in Knute Rockne's all-round class. The supreme test, however, will come in late years, if he finds himself at the top with no place to go but down.

CHET GRANT South Bend, Ind.

Sir: Your story on the great Ara has found 50 particularly eager readers in Europe. Although trying to live like Austrians, those of us here in Notre Dame's first study program abroad have nevertheless caught the football fever. I don't believe an unsold copy of TIME remains in all of Innsbruck.

RICHARD VEIT Innsbruck, Austria

Reflections on Goldwater

Sir: Your review of NBC's Profiles in Courage [Nov. 20] set me to pondering the central theme of the book: that to follow one's beliefs wherever they may lead, regardless of expediency, pressure and probable political suicide, demands a courage rarely manifested by many politicians. The late President Kennedy lauded the particular Senators in his book for displaying such courage and fidelity to their ideals. I find it highly ironical that by exhibiting this type of political valor, Senator Goldwater satisfies, a no other political figure in America today, the idealistic criteria of President Kennedy.

ALAN DISLER Pittsburgh

Sir: Ex-Senator Goldwater emerges from his defeat not only unchastened but unenlightened. He seems to believe that 26 million Republican votes were cast in endorsement of his "attitudes."

It is a fairly safe guess that about 80% of that vote was cast by Republicans who did not want to desert the party and voted Republican in spite of the candidate.

MRS. CARLTON WHEELER SMITH San Diego

Sir: The two party system is dependent upon each party staying close enough to center and broad enough in platform so that a wide variety of ideologies can meet together. Unfortunately Senator Goldwater and his supporters were so intent on offering a clear choice that they left no room on the platform for the moderates to stand.

CALVERT W. AUDRAIN Allston, Mass.

Urban Renewal, Outside In

Sir: Since the blighted areas are usually the oldest and, as such, the closest to the center, they represent potentially the highest real estate values, made for high-density, high-rental and high tax-base use --not low-income housing. The converse is, of course, true of the peripheral sections and suburbs. Thus it makes the most sense to develop housing there, benefiting from lower land cost, less expensive construction and smaller revenue loss, and to relocate tenants prior to slum-site clearance. New kinds of commuter areas would thus be created, and with the provision of public transit, they would have the desirable effect not only of improved environment for the relocated and a more homogeneous urban-suburban population pattern but also of reduction of traffic congestion in Central City.

NORBERT N. TURKEL, A.I.A.

Riverdale, N.Y.

What Chou Grows

Sir: Your cover shot [Nov. 13] shows Chou barefaced. However, in a photograph supposedly taken the following day at the parade, he is distinctly mustached. Is it you ... or glue? qed (MRS.) LYNDA MEERSON Elmhurst, 111.

qedJust a day's growth, and some fuzzy photography.

Sir: The China-Russia rift is sure to mend. Look what China offers! Better barbers.

K. A. BRUFFEE Charlottesville, Va.

Aligned, Not Allied

Sir: One of the maps accompanying the excellent survey "Communists" [Nov. 13] identified Finland as "Aligned with Russia." Finland was strictly neutral before 1939, has resolutely hewed to the same line since 1945, without any alliance or "alignment" agreements.

JOHN H. WUORINEN Professor of History Columbia University New York City

qed "Aligned," in that instance, meant in response to the pressing circumstance of vulnerable proximity.

Man & Superman

Sir: Read with special interest the article on computers [Nov. 6]. My brilliant husband (one who is more objective would probably call him merely intelligent and clever) played three-dimensional, four-level tic-tac-toe with a computer that playfully responded during the course of competition: "Good try there," then "Let's see you get out of this," and "Now, really." When Jim won, the machine, showing the good sportsman it is, gamely conceded: "It is amazing, but you did it." Good for the ego.

MRS. JAMES M. APPOLD Saginaw, Mich.

Those Kennedy Judges

Sir: As a citizen of the middle district of Georgia and of the city of Columbus, I wish to correct the false image projected by your article upon Judge J. Robert Elliott and the federal court of the middle district. In Columbus, his hometown, the schools were integrated as scheduled under the plan submitted by the board of education without a riot, a boycott, or a sit-in. The stores, restaurants and theaters in Columbus cater equally to people of every race.

VINCENT F. BERGQUIST JR. Atlanta

Sir: I have studied Mississippi politics and power structure for more than ten years, and I think that the former Attorney General Robert Kennedy, the Justice Department, its civil rights division, the Negro leaders-in Mississippi, and the civil rights organizations are barking up the wrong tree in Mississippi, with their lawsuits, contempt trials against registrars, their voting schools, registration projects, freedom parties, etc. This is nothing more or less than political foolery.

Voting in Mississippi is no simple civil rights issue. It is purely and clearly a political issue, and it must, therefore, be dealt with by the rules of the game of politics. The Negro in Mississippi, as elsewhere, does not need anyone to fight his political fight for him. What he needs is the security of his life, of his person, of his property, and of his family, while he fights his fight. Anyone who cannot offer this security to him may as well get out of Mississippi because he can only succeed in failing, thereby prolonging the life of "white supremacy."

JAMES H. MEREDITH University of Ibadan Nigeria, West Africa

Eugenic Sterilization

Sir: I am so enraged after reading your article "The Difficulties of Getting De-sterilized" [Nov. 13], that I feel sick!

Have we degenerated into a society in which the intellectuals and politicians can dictate a man's private sex life? Thousands of men desert their families every day--is sterilization going to make them responsible fathers?

(MRS.) JOYCE S. COHEN New York City

Sir: Mr. Andrade's "punishment" for having a penchant for producing children that he can't support may seem cruel to some, but it is more cruel to bring children into the world without thinking of what kind of a life they will lead.

I only wish there were more Judge Sprankles.

GLORIA DOUNELIS Detroit

Antaeus It Was

Sir: Mr. Hubert Humphrey erroneously credits "that mythological god Atlas" with the ability "to touch the earth and gain strength" [Election Extra]. Atlas was a Titan, not a god, whose function in Greek mythology was the support of the earth on his back. His strength was sapped, not supplemented, by the crushing burden.

The character Mr. Humphrey should have referred to is Antaeus, a giant who was held in the air by Hercules and thus slain when he was unable to touch the ground and regain his strength.

BERNARD ROSENBLATT Toronto

Unselect Schools

Sir: While Mr. J. K. Jackson's letter [Nov. 6] is misleading, TIME'S statement on Mr. Wilson's education is correct. Mr. Jackson seemed to infer in his final paragraph that past Prime Ministers educated by tutors fall below the status of those with a grammar school education. The very opposite is the case. A good private tutor is a more costly form of education than even that of Eton. I should know, for I was educated by the former and my brother at the latter, and I cost my father a great deal more with probably less to show for it save for a sound taste in wines and fast cars.

ADRIAN CONAN DOYLE Geneva

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