Prodigious Producer

Sir: On the current cover of TIME magazine [March 25] my name appears, along with the titles of many of the shows I have produced. There is, however, a very strange drawing of some person or other also on the cover, which is very puzzling to me. Could you possibly have substituted, in error, next week's cover picture in place of mine? I consider this figure you have attached to my name monstrous in appearance, bearing no resemblance to my likeness, which appears on the inside in the body of my story--the one in which I am attired in my Ascot suit, the one I wore when I played the lead in My Fair Lady. Therefore, this is to notify you that I am suing you for $1,000,000 for defamation of caricature.

DAVID MERRICK New York City

Sir: The spontaneous and sensitive painting of David Merrick is a delight. SERENE FELDMAN SUSAN TAMMANY Syracuse

Sir: Amid a riot of witty wordage and abundant alliteration, TIME portrayed Merrick not as a promethean, prolific, prodigious producer, or as a brilliant Broadway Brahma, but as (horrors!) the Abominable Showman! Couldn't you have kindly conceded that this charming champion of the theater has brought delight to thousands of theatergoers, given work to throngs of thespians, and made a place in the sun for worthy playwrights? JANE RENTON SMITH Plymouth Meeting, Pa.

Sir: All that attention to Merrick, entrepreneur, and not a mention of Harvey Sabinson and Lee Solters, his trusty publicists. Eighty percent of what comes out of Merrick's public mouth began in their heads. Even Merrick has been heard to say, "They are the greatest publicists in New York." Well he might. Without them he might be just another successful theatrical producer. (F.Y.I.: I do not work for the gentlemen in question.)

CORINE RIEVES

New York City

Brutal Tediousness

Sir: In your good Essay on American patience [March 25] you did not mention one of our (or anybody's!) most extraordinary examples of patient scientific research. After the discoveries of Uranus and Neptune in 1781 and 1846 it was suspected, because of small irregularities in the motions of these distant wanderers, that there was still another, even fainter, planet. Astronomers calculated a probable orbit, and in March 1929 young Clyde Tombaugh took up the search. He examined scores of telescopic photographs, each showing tens of thousands of star images, in pairs under the blink comparator, or dual microscope. It often took three days to scan a single pair. It was exhausting, eye-cracking work--in his own words, "brutal tediousness." And it went on for months. Star by star, he examined 20 million images. Then on Feb. 18, 1930, as he was blinking a pair of photographs in the constellation Gemini, "I suddenly came upon the image of Pluto!" It was the most dramatic astronomic discovery in nearly 100 years, and it was made possible by the patience of an American.

JOHN WHITE

Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory Cambridge, Mass.

Honest John

Sir: I certainly enjoyed your thoughtful and penetrating Essay on the U.S. Senate [March 18], even if my name is only John.

JOHN G. TOWER U.S. Senate Washington, B.C.

Sir: You should not have described Wayne Morse as "irresponsible" and Bill Fulbright as "the patient misunderstander" in an Essay that purported to value "creative tension." These two men, whatever you think of the opinions they express, provide the best recent examples of what you correctly define as the Senate's chief contribution.

CLARE PEPLOE New York City

Sir: When I read the nonsensical gibberings of the "Peace Senators" each week, I become more and more disgusted. Won't they ever learn to see Communism for what it is--repression, tyranny and sadism?

CHARLES D. MENCHIONS Bonne Bay, Nfld.

One More Example

Sir: When a white man of John McCone's stature attributes the discontent of black folk to "an unwillingness by Negroes to accept responsibilities as law-abiding citizens," [March 25] is it any wonder that lesser white men refuse to give us the basic thing we never have been offered: respect as human beings and individuals? Black as I am, I have never seen a riot, nor had I ever felt "irresponsible" enough to participate in one. But when a man like McCone says by implication that the Watts riot was "one more example" of my depravity and inferiority, I feel like giving him just one more example, at least one more.

CHARLES LYLES New York City

A Sa Disposition

Sir: You imply that the French church, in granting Napoleon an annulment from Josephine [March 18], acted according to Roman Catholic teaching. Napoleon twisted Catholic doctrine and worship to support imperial rule; certain members of the clergy were "`a sa disposition" to satisfy the Emperor's wishes, bypassing doctrinal matters if necessary. His annulment from Josephine was never ratified by the church. Pope Pius VII never gave his assent, knowing that Napoleon's marriage had been validly contracted and that the reasons invoked for annulment were unsound. Many prelates, faithful to Catholic teaching, refused to attend Napoleon's second wedding.

ANAIK N. VAN DAN Barry College Miami

Ruminations about Rumania

Sir: The epigram about Rumania [March 18] as neither state nor nation is contrary to fact. Situated at the crossroads of three expansionist empires, Rumania fought for a thousand years against invasions from east and south to save its national being and realize its unity and independence. It did not, as you seem to believe, wait for the corning of Soviet domination and Communist tyranny to become a state and a nation.

CONSTANTIN VISOLANI

Former Foreign Minister of Rumania Washington, D.C.

Sir: About Rumania's Communism: the regime's grip is lighter with citizens of Rumanian stock, but its nationalistic character makes it as cruelly barbarous as Stalinism for non-Rumanians, notably the 3,000,000 Hungarians in Transylvania. You say Cluj is "Hungarian in mood." With the Autonomous Hungarian Region, it can hardly remain so in mind or spirit. Hungarian-speaking schools have been closed; non-Orthodox churches are persecuted. A Hungarian name is the trademark of a second-class citizen.

IVAN BOTSKOR Buenos Aires, Argentina

LSD & After

Sir: The article on the prison sentence and fine imposed on Timothy Leary [March 18] presents only one side of this complex debate. Research on consciousness-expansion drugs, which are safer than alcohol and less addicting than nicotine, must be allowed to continue. We cannot afford to legislate out of existence such powerful educational tools as the psychedelic drugs promise to be.

WILLIAM MELLON HITCHCOCK Chairman

Timothy Leary Defense Fund New York City

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Sir: The picture of Nkrumah's statue [March 11] is a powerful commentary on the "eternal" influence of leaders. Shelley's 1817 poem "Ozymandias" describes a similar despot upon whose statue was engraved: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:/Look on my works, ye Mighty and despair!" And, as with the Ghanaian, "Nothing beside remains. Round the decay/Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare/The lone and level sands stretch far away."

CHRISTOPHER LOWELL Hamilton, N.Y.

Wrong Game

Sir: About Bret Harte and Ah Sin's "Poker" lesson [March 18]: I believe you have been euchred.

DONN HAMMITT Lincoln, Neb.

In Defense of Austin

Sir: I've stayed at the Driskill Hotel [March 18] many times and never been frightened by a mouse in my room as was Bill Moyers--it was a mouse, of course, not a rat. A little old Texas mouse is bigger than a Washington mouse, naturally, but a friendly critter, like the Driskill management and all the rest of Austin.

WALTER JUNIPER Canyon, Texas

Sweet Vilification

Sir: We who strive to be true to the Scriptures have long resented Billy Graham's careless handling of certain points in Christian doctrine. How refreshing to find someone with conviction enough to speak out. Billy Graham's turned cheek [March 18] should be red with shame.

(MRS.) SHERRI W. FRAZIER Milledgeville, Ga.

Sir: Many have praised Billy Graham, but no praise is sweeter than the vilification heaped upon him by the bigots of Bob Jones.

DEAN W. GIBBONS Seattle, Wash.

Sir: Don't equate all fundamentalists with the oddball types from Bob Jones! (THE REV.) FRED D. ACORD LARRY ALLMON Assistant to the Pastor Montecito Park Union Church Los Angeles

The Price of Hamburger

Sir: How come the President gets so upset at the increase of a few dollars a ton for steel, but when hamburger goes up $200 a ton [March 18], we hear no word except that there are no signs of inflation?

R. R. JACKSON Springfield, Mo.

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