Talented Tartar

Sir: Oh, the gross incompatibility and lack of harmony in your pas de deux (cover and coverage) starring the great Nureyev [April 16]! In your marvelous coverage, Rudi is a colorful, vibrant and electrifying creature. Sidney Nolan's Rudi, however, is about as exciting as a dish of cold oatmeal.

BARBARA KIEFER Torrance, Calif.

Sir: TIME covers are no longer cepts to identify newsmakers; they are a whole semester of psychology study. Awful!

K. H. BERZINS Boston

Sir: It is not he. It couldn't be Nureyev on the cover of TIME. Where is the fierceness of this Tartar, the aggressiveness and the ever-present savage mystery? The colors the artist chose would have been better utilized for illustrating Dame Fonteyn.

B. F. LAUB Glen Oaks, N.Y.

Sir: Sidney Nolan's portrait of Nureyev was a brilliant depiction of the dancer's proud, electric genius--his concentration. It is the most poetic cover I've yet seen on TIME.

ANNE PLOTKIN St. Louis

Sir: What a fabulous cover! It just bristles with Rudolf Nureyev's moody, mysterious presence. Your article was a masterpiece.

ELLEN SAN HAMEL Chicago

Sir: The so-called ballet "renaissance" that you credit to visits by the Royal Danish and Royal Ballet actually originated in America's Ballet Theatre--the cradle of Jerome Robbins, Michael Kidd and Eugene Loring, to name a few. If anyone had anything to do with freeing the male danseur of sexual suspicion it was these gentlemen, and, of course, Agnes de Mille. Martha Graham, as well, influenced more forms of the arts than people would like to admit. To witness Miss Graham standing still for one minute has all the oomph of a Nureyev dancing for an entire evening.

CYRIL PETERS New York City

The Boredom of Pornography

Sir: At last there is a writer indifferent enough to the stigma of the word "square" to describe pornographers [April 16] for what they are--stultified and frustrated hacks who in their great crusade for "artistic" freedom and "broadmindedness" manage to be just two things: prisoners of their own vapidity and excruciatingly narrow-minded bores.

DAVID HEALD Baltimore

Sir: If those who worry about bad influences on American youth were consistent, they would simply apply the same rules to the sale of literature that seem to satisfy them concerning alcohol and tobacco. A "No Sale to Minors" sign in bookstores would still permit adults to obtain any and all literature. There would be no censorship at all.

MRS. G. F. DOERING JR. Philadelphia

Sir: Thank you for telling me that sex is too important a matter to be left to writers.

SIMON STAPLES New York City

Sir: Now that you have "essayed" a catalogue of the smuttiest books, why not follow up with "How to Murder Mysteriously," "Where to Buy Burglar Tools," "Dope, Drugs and Where to Obtain Them," "How to Become a Lady of Easy Virtue," "Easy Methods of Paying Taxes," etc.?

ERNEST DUDLEY CHASE Cape Cod, Mass.

War & Peaceniks

Sir: Critics who give aid and comfort to the Communists in Viet Nam [April 16] call to mind a quote from Winston Churchill, who once defined an appeaser as "one who feeds the crocodile, hoping that the crocodile eats him last!"

JOHN H. CRAMMOND Orange, NJ.

Sir: It is ironic that many Americans think Lyndon Johnson would lose Viet Nam at the conference table while the Chinese and Russians shy away from negotiating with him.

LARRY A. HART Dallas

Sir: What I would like to know is just what in the hell do the phonies at Columbia and their banal contemporaries at schools all over the U.S. know about our "barbarous attacks" on North Viet Nam? Obviously a lot more than they do about the "virtuous techniques of our honorable adversaries," the Viet Cong.

T. M. LISTON Lieutenant (j.g.), U.S.N.R. McGuire A.F.B., NJ.

Sir: It is possible that the hesitant rapprochement between Japan and Korea [April 2] might be the first minute step toward an eventual Western Pacific alliance. It is needed, desperately needed. The crucial battle--for Asian minds--is being progressively lost. From Thailand through Taiwan, one finds a near-fatalistic, wave-of-the-future resignation to eventual Communist takeover. "Patience" is no bulwark against seeping subversion and creeping defeatism throughout Southeast Asia.

The one urgent need is an East Asian NATO, a political and economic affiliation linking Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea in common defense against subversion and sabotage, a mutual Alliance for Progress. Failure to make common cause against fascist aggression brought Europe to Munich and World War II. The agonized forging of NATO as defense against Soviet designs transformed a cold war into peaceful coexistence. A similar strategy offers the only sound hope for an East Asia safe against today's threat, and the only viable justification for American military protection of Western Pacific security.

Will the Asian nations persist in disastrous disunity leading toward another Munich or accept the unwelcome necessity of a united front promising ultimate peaceful coexistence for Asia?

HENRY P. VAN DUSEN Seoul, Korea

Brown Study

Sir: Frequently TIME provokes me into wanting to write a letter blasting U.S. foreign policy. Then you come out with an excellent cover story on the Peanuts gang [April 9]. They are among America's finest overseas ambassadors, and cartoonists like Charles Schulz and Walt Kelly do much to maintain the tattered remnants of my faith in the basic decency of Americans.

NEIL ROBERTSON Trentham, New Zealand

Sir: I was surprised that you didn't mention Snoopy's doghouse. What other doghouse has a mural on the ceiling, winding stairs, a library, fluorescent lights and a pool table?

BERNARD BLACK Philadelphia

Sir: If Andy Capp was born within the sound of Bow Bells, then Daddy Warbucks is a dirty pinko and Superman can't outrace a speeding bullet. Capp is no cockney; he's a northerner.

WILLIAM BOYD Paris

Asian Disunity

Sir: Re your essay on hate in Asia [April 9]: recently I attended the second New York University Seminar on India, at which we conferred about an education that would lift men above the myth-filled categories of race, creed and class. We found that these were more than Indian problems. Selma, Ala., has much in common with color segregation in India. Hindu-Moslem conflicts reminded us of Catholic-Protestant-Jewish problems in the U.S. The U.S. has not had religious riots, but we keep the peace only by not mentoning our differences. But your suggestion that a strong nationalism, a self-reliant patriotism, a stronger sense of national unity would be a solution weakens your whole argument with dangerous nonsense. Nationalism did not solve the religious problems of Germany. It has not solved the color problem in the U.S. What we need is not a stronger sense of nationalism but a stronger sense of identification as members of the human race.

FREDERICK L. REDEFER Professor of Education New York University New York City

Christ & Temptation

Sir: So "the idea of Jesus as a sexual being" is "blasphemy to most Christians" April 9]. Your reporter and I evidently don't cover the same beat. In more than 25 years in the Christian ministry, I have yet to meet a single Christian who believes that Jesus was asexual or that the idea of his sexuality is blasphemous.

(THE REV.) CARROLL E. SIMCOX Editor The Living Church Milwaukee

Sir: Through the devil, we could even visualize Christ as a tempted murderer, rapist, thief, or any other form of filth on which our mind so desires to dwell. If Mr. Driver's theological opinions are samples of today's intellectually chic theological professors, I'll take the opinion of a poorly educated godly man whose spiritual belief has not been blighted by the ugliness of worldly filth.

MRS. GEORGE L. POTTS Ventura, Calif.

Sir: I agree that Christ was not sexless, but simply because he possessed sex does not mean that he used it. If this is called inhuman, then every priest, nun and uncorrupted single person is inhuman. Temptation is not a sin. Sin can only be committed when the person submits to the temptation. If Christ were not tempted, there could be no merit in his sinlessness.

MARGARET BUCHANAN Rosemont, Pa.

Up in Arms

Sir: I must register a most vehement protest to the implications directed to the National Rifle Association [April 16]. There is a serious problem with mailorder guns, but you seem to include the N.R.A. in this chaos. It is in the interests of marksmanship, national defense and the sport of shooting itself that the N.R.A. indulges in any "mailorder business." This honorable association was formed more than 90 years ago, and I doubt that any of the criminals that you expound on are members. Certainly the fact that Lee Oswald was not a member and that President Kennedy was should serve notice to you of the association's integrity.

EDWARD J. FREEDMAN Frankfort, N.Y.

Reliving History

Sir: As a student of the Civil War and one interested in helping to make the sacrifices of our forefathers meaningful to the general public, and as one who believes our heritage belongs to all the people and not just to the long-faced historian, I with my sons have participated in battle re-enactments over the past four years [April 16]. Vicarious though the experience may have been, we can begin to appreciate what Bruce Catton is writing about. We have stood on the heights at Manassas, Antietam and Gettysburg and watched the battle flags advance over the hallowed ground. Forgive us if we do not feel that we were desecrating the memory of our dead any more than those who re-enact the Passion play desecrate the name of the Lord.

JOHN DEWALT Harrisburg, Pa.

Unstaunch

Sir: The statement in TIME'S April 9 review of Kinross' Atatuerk that Turkey "through two world struggles has held staunchly with the free world against totalitarian tyranny" is clearly erroneous. In World War I, Turkey was an ally of Germany's against the French-English-Russian-American alliance. In World War II, Turkey remained neutral while the fight was going on and, in fact, provided thousands of tons of valuable chromium ore to the Nazis throughout the war. Finally, on Feb. 23, 1945, about two months before the end of the war and when the outcome was certain, Turkey declared war on the Axis powers--without ever committing a single soldier to the front.

LEO SARKISIAN Watertown, Mass.

Esthetics v. Traffic

Sir: A modern design for the La Canada, Calif., speedway you pictured [April 9] will allow: 1) little children to cross over or under the main traffic artery in safety rather than walk among the cars; 2) local traffic to do likewise; 3) the ever-growing mainstream to flow unimpeded; and, 4) through access control, protect the public's investment by preventing private encroachment. Some people oppose these things.

A. J. COOPER California Highway Commission Sacramento

Sir: In view of recent statements by President Johnson urging a more beautiful America, it seems more than a little ironic that the Federal highway program is indeed responsible for a large part of the continuing desecration of the American landscape. California, probably the most beautiful state in the Union, is rapidly being ruined beyond all redemption by freeways. Here on the Peninsula, they are busy blasting the way for an eight-lane freeway. This monstrous road will cut through a scenery of hills and lakes that has been compared to the Lake District in England or Killarney in Ireland. The California Division of Highways simply has too much money and too few restrictions.

MRS. S. K. McCURLEY San Mateo, Calif.

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