Culture Capital

Sir: Cheers to Mrs. Buff Chandler and the Music Center. Cheers to Los Angeles, the culture capital of the West!

DOMINIQUE de LEON

Nicosia, Cyprus

Sir: Mrs. Chandler could be elected mayor of Los Angeles at the drop of a baton. But just now she's much too busy getting done the things that no mere mayor could do.

D. LYNN SPEICHER Los Angeles

Sir: Please take a memo to L.B.J.: "Suggest you draft Buff Chandler for your poverty program."

DOROTHEA J. BOHMAN Southfield, Mass.

Sir: As long as my neck never looks like Mrs. Chandler's in the cover painting, I shall always be grateful I never made TIME magazine.

BARBARA BURBANK Honolulu

Sir: I think the new opera house in Los Angeles is very lovely, and I also think you were very kind to the Chandlers, past, present and future, but regardless of how much culture they pour into Los Angeles, it will never get beyond a cow town.

WILLIAM R. HAMMER San Francisco

Sir: Re the Los Angeles Music Center: it is to be devoutly hoped that (excuse me) the new auditorium seating design (pardon me, sir) with its long rows of seats unbroken by aisles (I'm sorry, may I just get by here . . . thank you) will encourage those tiresome Los Angeles latecomers (oops, sorry!) to mend their ways and start arriving on time. (Pardon me, could you folks all move down one seat?)

MARIAN CARPENTER North Hollywood, Calif.

Sir: We wish to express our pleasure with the cover story, but would like to point out an omission in the caption of the two illustrations of Clowes Memorial Hall, which was built in memory of my father. You name John Johansen as the architect. In fact he worked in association with Evans Woollen.

ALLEN W. CLOWES Chairman

Clowes Memorial Hall Advisory Council Indianapolis

Sir: Does TIME know that two architects designed Clowes Hall?

EVANS WOOLLEN Indianapolis

Sir: In your coverage of the national cultural scene you mention the important support given Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts by the Rockefeller Foundation. Please note that the contribution of the Rockefeller Foundation is $15,050,000, not $50 million, as reported. This Foundation is among the thousands of donors-individual, foundation and corporate-participating in the center's financing.

HENRY E. BESSIRE Director of Development Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts New York City

McNamara's Ax

Sir: In evaluating Secretary McNamara's recent decision to eliminate the Army Reserve [Dec. 18], Congress will do well to remember that this genius is not absolute. He was the commander of Ford when they produced the Edsel!

ARTHUR ROSENBLATT Boston

Sir: The estimated savings, with no sacrifice to our defense capability, sounds fine, but it is, after all, the Defense Department's own estimate and open to challenge. Many people with knowledge of the actual facts do not agree with it.

Take the case of the Springfield, Mass., Armory, the oldest arsenal in the U.S., cradle of American industrial small arms, authorized by George Washington and the Third Continental Congress, now being phased out as an economy move. Economy? Watch prices of small arms skyrocket if the armory is forced out of the business it knows so well!

Each installation under the close-out order should be considered on its own merits. Some, like air force bases, were in existence for some 20 to 30 years and were staffed mostly by transient military personnel. That's quite a different matter from an installation nearly 200 years old. employing 2,400 civilians-an integral part of the community, its economic life blood, its cultural heritage.

(MRS.) ALBERTA CUSHMAN Longmeadow, Mass.

Sir: I served in that forgotten war in Korea in 1951, and have been a member of the Army Reserve ever since. I have never had a two-week vacation with my family. I have forgone family picnics for weekend drills; I have forgone evenings at home for meetings at the armory. In my "spare" time I have taken correspondence courses to keep myself educationally qualified. My family and I foolishly thought that each citizen in our country had a continuing obligation to serve his country. I don't appreciate being referred to by you as a "sacred cow," but then I suppose that patriotism is a sacred cow that we won't need in our Great Society.

DAVID R. ANDERSON St. Louis

Sir: With apologies to Lizzie Borden: McNamara took an ax And gave the Navy forty whacks. When he saw what he had done, He gave the Army forty-one.

MICHAEL BRAND

Van Nuys, Calif.

Politics & Religion

Sir: Your cover story on Buddhism and politics [Dec. 11] is thoughtprovoking. In the process of growing up as a species, we have learned that it is best to keep one's hand out of the fire, keep poisons out of the reach of children, keep drunken drivers off the roads, keep the ailing warm and protected. Why haven't we learned to keep religion out of politics?

M. A. KHAN High Range, S. India

Sir: As a Buddhist, I offer my heartiest thanks for such an illuminating article at a time when the monks, leaving aside their spiritual concerns, meddle with politics and all that which Buddhism stands so little for.

T. K. BARUA Dacca, E. Pakistan

Sir: Many years of service in Thailand as one of our ambassadors there, and my study of Buddhism and its objectives both religious and secular, make me feel that your portrayal is not only not valid but do.es our own country's friendly relations and efforts in South Viet Nam and elsewhere a serious disservice. Buddhism, the Buddhist Sangha or church, and Buddhist believers have and continue to constitute a substantial segment of the population of South and Southeast Asia that is antipathetic to Communism. It is most regrettable to give the impression that Buddhists in general are political troublemakers, while to link them with the Viet Cong or other Communists will deeply offend many friendly Buddhists.

EDWIN F. STANTON Devon, Conn.

>TIME made no blanket indictment of Buddhism or Buddhists, pointed out that in some parts of Asia, including Thailand, they are a constructive force in society. It is, however, sadly apparent that this is not everywhere the case.

Helpers or Meddlers?

Sir: Why doesn't the West completely abandon all of Africa to the U.S.S.R. and Red China? They would fight for power between themselves, we would save billions, and all Africa would despise them instead of us for a change.

A. E. FAVATA Windsor Locks, Conn.

Good Doctor

Sir: It didn't surprise me to read in your article [Dec. 11] on Dr. William Brady and his asinine practices that he had cracked a vertebra while somersaulting. I did the same thing nine years ago in following his advice on turning somersaults.

I have had a pain in the neck ever since-and today I am half his age!

MARY C. BECKER Oceanside, Calif.

Sir: The National Newspaper Syndicate of Chicago is wasting its time and space keeping Dr. William Brady's old columns. Dr. Brady will probably never die.

DONALD J. GRAVOIS New Orleans

Earth Movers

Sir: The diagram on Mars Encounter in the Dec. 11 issue of TIME appears to be in error. Mars and the point of encounter with Mariner need to be shifted around 180DEG.

THOMAS W. NOONAN Instructor of Astronomy Physics Department University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, N.C.

> After boning up on its Copernicus, TIME is happy to put Earth back in its proper place (see cut).

Only Atrocious?

Sir: We drove all the way from St. Louis to Chicago to see Ivan Albright's exhibition [Dec. 18]. The titles of his paintings show that he is a poet as well as an artist.

(Mrs.) DOROTHY JACOBY MAHON St. Louis

Sir: We are proud of our great city, and not only do we deny that Albright is "Chicago's painter laureate" but many of us detest his work. I personally was so sickened by his exhibit that if I had possessed a crayon at the time, I would have drawn a mustache on each ugly portrait. LAURA PUDELWITTS Chicago

Sir: It is not well-known that he also has a different style of painting in landscapes and seascapes, with no sign of people in them, decayed or otherwise. WARREN SNYDER Evanston, 111.

Southern Profiles

Sir: The example of justice that Commissioner Esther Carter portrayed in Mississippi [Dec. 18] would probably be enough to cause such early suffragettes as Susan B. Anthony and Lucy Stone to turn over in their graves. They fought to bring women into the forefront of world affairs with an image of virtue and integrity, which Carter tarnished in one brief moment.

MICHAEL J. HANIK Silver Spring, Md.

Sir: When I write a book entitled Profiles in Cowardice, Miss Esther Carter will be the subject of Chapter 1.

TIMOTHY JOHNSON Chicago

Sir: Why are small-town Southern sheriffs invariably fat, ugly, ignorant, and look like they smell bad?

RONN GINN Albuquerque, N. Mex.

Sir: The civil rights workers I've seen here in Georgia sure don't look like the clean-cut American kids that the national press pictures them as being. Why don't they teach them how to bathe and dress at Oberlin?

CARL R. CAUGHMAN Decatur, Ga.

Missing Label

Sir: You say [Nov. 28] that "For most of its 130-year history Wake Forest was known as 'North Carolina's best high school.' " We have yet to find a single case in which anyone has heard the phrase applied to Wake Forest College. I appreciate the complimentary things said in your article concerning the progress that we have made since 1950, but I do not want the record of this period to be highlighted against the background of an inaccurate statement concerning the previous period.

HAROLD W. TRIBBLE Wake Forest College Winston-Salem, N.C.

Bright Performer

Sir: We read with considerable interest your article on the mutual-fund industry [Dec. 18]. I would like to call attention to the results of our own fund, which was not mentioned. During the twelve-month period ending Sept. 30, 1964, Ivest Fund appreciated by approximately 38%. This was during the same period that Penn Square rose 29%, Fidelity Trend rose 27% and Dreyfus rose 23%. As a matter of fact, in the Arthur Wiesenberger & Co. service, our fund was the best-performing fund for the twelve months ending Dec. 31, 1963.

ROBERT W. DORAN Ivest Fund Inc. Boston

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