The Laager

Sir: In view of the assassination of Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd, it is remarkable that TIME, in the cover story on South Africa [Aug. 26], could have "pre-scooped" all other news media with such an interesting and educational article relating to "The Great White Laager."

NORMAN SILVERSMITH

New York City

Sir: As a matter of curiosity, was your Verwoerd cover story allowed to circulate in South Africa?

E. MORISON

Melbourne

> Though TIME has been banned on previous occasions, this issue was allowed to circulate after a delay of five days, during which Verwoerd read and personally passed the story through censorship.

Sir: You wrote about apartheid accurately and with remarkable insight; many South Africans will thank you.

ANTHONY VAN ZYL

Johannesburg

Sir: Your sensational article misuses our traditionally peaceful and happy country to justify the racial violence in your country.

A. W. SAUKE

Johannesburg

Sir: Your article was excellent. I was sorry that no reference was made to the small band of Christians who are courageously opposing the government and its immoral policies. Many of them have been penalized for their stand against its un-Christian methods. However, their witness is often undermined by the churches, which are afraid to take a firm stand for fear of loss of status. There are thousands of accusing fingers pointing at us, of the countless starving, the ones in jail, those banned, and especially those who in frustration and bitterness have left the church, because of our compromise.

(THE REV.) P. J. DIL

St. Albans Cathedral

Pretoria

Too Vividly Reminiscent

Sir: To a Korean who has lived through WW II, the current events in Red China [Sept. 2] are too vividly reminiscent of the prewar hysteria in Nazi Germany and imperial Japan. Both regimes sought scapegoats in what were considered to be foreign elements in their cultural, economic, religious and racial framework, and sought to justify their war effort as a national crusade against them. If the current frenzy in Red China is indeed the sign of a country preparing for war, God help us!

CHULL S. SONG, M.D.

New York City

Sir: One is truly frightened by the deliberate choice of barbarism over civilization that Mao has made. Such a rejection of anything involving the intellect surely goes to show that only when the people are ignorant animals responding to a war cry as inarticulate as it is destructive can a movement like the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" gain any momentum.

Keeping this in mind, one is reimpressed with the need to open wider the doors of higher education. Only as long as we educate ourselves and our children in as broad a manner as possible are we assured that a "Mao revolution" will not sweep over us, driving whatever man has accomplished of worth into oblivion.

BURTON J. GREENE

Toledo, Ohio

About Time

Sir: In your note about the 20th century being two-thirds gone [Sept. 2], you have resurrected a time-honored question--one that never has been settled to everybody's satisfaction.

The 1st century A.D. did not begin in the year 0; rather, it began in the year 1. After the lapse of 100--not 99--years, the 2nd century began in the year 101. The 20th century began Jan. 1, 1901. Therefore this century will be two-thirds gone on Sept. 1, 1967.

Right or wrong?

FREDERIC BABCOCK

Winter Park, Fla.

Sir: The first year of the Christian era is numbered A.D. 1. A century has not passed until 100 complete years have elapsed. The 20th century began with January 1901 and will end with Dec. 31, 2000. The present century will be two-thirds gone on Sept. 2, 1967.

R. L. BUNCOMBE

Director

Nautical Almanac Office

U.S. Naval Observatory

Washington, D.C.

Sir: TIME is, as so often, ahead of time.

MICHAEL SHIMSHONI

Weizmann Institute of Science

Rehovoth, Israel

Sir: If TIME can't tell time, who can?

PETER T. LEEURLAIR

Wethersfield, Conn.

Sir: Ticktock? Poppycock!

D. R. HORNER

Wassenaar, The Netherlands

Sir: Grandfather would agree with TIME'S timetable, which has the 20th century just going past the two-thirds mark. Grandmother would never be convinced because, as she explained, her baby, born on Jan. 1, 1901 (my father), was one of the first of the 20th century. I had to agree with Grandfather, as he said when 1899 came, the 19th century was 99, then turned 100 when 1900 came, and 100 is as old as a century can get.

DON SCHWARTZ

Los Angeles

Blood Curdling

Sir: "How the Tea Break Could Ruin England" [Sept. 2] is one of the finest analytical compositions that I have read in a long time. As an Englishman with some experience of U.S. business methods and industrial techniques, I groan when confronted with some of the outmoded systems still in operation. "What was good enough for my old man is good enough for me" is the slogan that typifies Britishers' inherent opposition to change. That does not apply to personal items like TV sets, cars, washing machines and holidays on the Continent. Alas, until the old school tie is thrown into the garbage can, the pounds, shillings and pence hear about the decimal system, and a few "work breaks" are substituted for tea breaks, we'll always have the blokes who do as little as they can so's to leave half the job for their fellow workers.

ROBERT N. WILKIE

Boca Raton, Fla.

Sir: Your statement that the alternative to a second Industrial Revolution for the British is "to sink slowly toward the status of Sweden" curdles my pint of Swedish blood. The British would be lucky to rise to the Swedish standard of living through a second Industrial Revolution.

(MRS.) ROBERTA W. McCUSKEY

Cleveland

Sir: As a Scotch engineer, faced with the prospect of working in England at the close of World War II, becoming nationalized, socialized and paralyzed, I found the solution.

GEORGE T. SKINNER

Buffalo, N.Y.

Plus, Not Minus

Sir: In that perceptive TIME Essay, "The Foreigner Discovers America" [Aug. 26], one observation seemed to me perhaps unfair: "Tops among minuses are rude customs officers." Perhaps this often used to be the case but, in the past two or three years, in my own frequent experience, the U.S. customs officer has become almost invariably a standout for politeness.

Sometimes some of our foreign visitors may forget that the U.S. customs inspector is supposed to achieve two frequently incompatible things: convey a cheerful welcome while rummaging through one's luggage to be sure that the laws of the land are not being violated. It isn't the customs man's fault that the visitor cannot bring in his present of home-town bologna or liquor-filled candies to relatives and friends here.

Being pleasant and strict at the same time is quite a trick, but I think we should give credit to our customs men for the way they are mastering that difficult art.

MALCOLM S. FORBES

President

Forbes Magazine

New York City

Haiku or Hokum?

Sir: Mrs. Finley's use of Japanese poetry as an educational device was more hokum than haiku [Sept. 2]. You state that haiku is "a 500-year-old Japanese poetic form," which places its development in the 15th century. Actually, haiku came into literary prominence during the Tokugawa period of Japanese history from 1600 to 1868. Among the poets who spurred the refinement of the form were Basho (1644-94), Issa (1763-1828) and Buson (1716-81).

Mrs. Finley's haiku are not true haiku at all, but rather a Western adaptation of the syllabic form. Haiku are not stiffly formulated commentary or instructional verses, nor do they seek to express an opinion or draw rational conclusions. A true haiku uses the 17-syllable form to distill spontaneously a single moment of awareness; impression, not conclusion, is the important factor. As expressed by Author Alan W. Watts, a true haiku is "a pebble thrown into the pool of the listener's mind, evoking associations out of the richness of his own memory. It invites the listener to participate instead of leaving him dumb with admiration while the poet shows off." Mrs. Finley may be teaching the form, but not the spirit of momentary awareness that is the essence of haiku.

JULIE ANN LEPICK

Long Beach, Calif.

Sir:

Haiku has me hooked.

All my waking time is spent

Sifting syllables!

CHARLOTTE JACKSON

Sylmar, Calif.

Keep 'em Flying

Sir: Regarding your story on Lufthansa's advertising campaign [Sept. 2], it seems odd that thoroughness and efficiency are considered evil in the German character; yet American industry spends millions hiring efficiency experts to instill these "negative" traits into the working habits of their employees. I, for one, hope that a crew of "mechanical fanatics" has worked over the next plane I board, no matter what airline.

EDMUND L. SCHERER

Shawnee Mission, Kans.

The Beatles 4 Ever

Sir: "Is Beatlemania Dead?" [Sept. 2]. That is the most ridiculous question I have ever heard! Please leave the Beatles to us--the teen-agers who understand them.

SHARI NICHOLSON

Milwaukee

Sir: Three of the Beatles being married has nothing to do with lessening their popularity. They are not here for fans to marry, but to entertain us.

PATRICIA CIPOLLA

Secretary

The Beatles 4 Ever Club

Haworth, N.J.

Scooped on the Scoop

Sir: 'You erroneously credit the Wall Street Journal with scoring a scoop in July on the fact that a 7-lb. TV camera developed by Westinghouse was scheduled to provide live coverage on the first Apollo manned mission to the moon [Aug. 19]. Aviation Week printed the first story on this camera and its moon mission Jan. 10, and ran a picture of the camera a week later, along with the story that NASA was studying the feasibility of converting its black and white capability to color for transmission from the lunar surface.

ROBERT B. HOTZ

Aviation Week & Space Technology

Washington, D.C.

Early Bird

Sir: TIME'S careful attention to research is evident in its piece on Jim Thompson [Aug. 19]. Not so palatable to the Midwest Stock Exchange is the inference that our Service Corporation only "recently" has been seeking advice about computers from the new president of Merrill Lynch. We consulted with Jim Thompson on numerous occasions over seven years ago. Actually, Midwest Stock Exchange Service Corporation has been in operation for six years. We are currently doing the bookkeeping for 60 brokerage firms, having 367 offices in 21 cities. Fifty-two of these firms are members of the New York Stock Exchange which, has yet to get its bookkeeping computer into operation.

JAMES E. DAY

President

Midwest Stock Exchange Chicago

The Founders

Sir: We find it surprising that you described Encounter [Sept. 2] without mentioning either of the cofounders, Irving Kristol and Stephen Spender. Mr. Spender has played a unique part in the literary life of our time. Horizon and Encounter, both of which he edited (the first with Cyril Connolly, the second with Irving Kristol and, after him, Melvin Lasky), have published much of the most interesting criticism and original writing in the last 30 years. The achievements and international standing of Encounter are scarcely conceivable without the influence of Stephen Spender's personal and literary authority.

MARY MCCARTHY

ISAIAH BERLIN

STUART HAMPSHIRE

ELIZABETH HARDWICK

ROBERT LOWELL

DWIGHT MACDONALD

>TIME has frequently noted Mr. Spender's and Mr. Kristol's achievements in the past. Spender resigned from Encounter last year to become consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress. Kristol left in 1958, is currently an editor of The Public Interest (TIME, March 4).

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