Good On Yer, Mate!

Sir: I had the honor of fighting beside the Yanks in the Southwest Pacific. President Johnson's visit [Oct. 28, Nov. 4] brought back many wonderful memories of those days. It is great to know we have the Yanks on our side. As we know, when the chips are down, the Yanks and Aussies are one. So we thank you for giving us the great honor of seeing a Dinkum bloke.

CLEM O'KEEFFE Salisbury, Brisbane, Australia

Sir: I hope the natural tendency for news media to feature demonstrations has not blurred the real picture of President Johnson's reception in Australia. The whole tour was quite fantastic--it even staggered Harold Holt. It was an uninhibited tribute to a man who faces an awesome task each day, best summarized by those words the President must have heard many times here: "Good on yer, mate!" His visit has established a very firm bridgehead across the Pacific.

W. F. FENN East Wahroonga, N.S.W., Australia

Sir: The paint-throwing incident in Australia is one more example of the abdication of political responsibility. Paint throwing humiliates many but persuades no one. Like draft-card burners, these people are not physical cowards, as they have often unjustly been called. They are moral cowards who reject the moral responsibilities of war and the moral responsibilities of serious political opposition. FRANCIS ANDREW HART Assistant Professor Fresno State College Fresno, Calif.

Bishop Pike or Uncle Noah

Sir: The controversy over Bishop Pike [Nov. 4] is merely a matter of truth v. superstition, and sooner or later truth always wins. In the meantime, Bishop Pike, like Luther, must stand challenged, and. laymen must go right on educating themselves in the hope that some day the church will catch up.

ALYCE JOYCE Middlebush, N.J.

Sir: Congratulations to Bishop Henry I. Louttit and his 30 fellow petitioners. I am not an Episcopalian. But the idea of a man with Pike's views as clergyman or layman in a Christian church seems as incongruous to me as a schoolteacher who does not believe in education. Either we are for Christ and the fundamentals of the faith or we are against them. I could have no respect for a church that lets a man straddle the fence.

MRS. JOSEPH BEACH Martinsburg, Pa.

Sir: Probably Bishop Louttit also takes seriously the funny little kindergarten story of Uncle Noah and his ark. If only people like him would come down from their clouds and set foot on earth, they might do a lot of good!

J. E. BECKER Bowmanville, Ont.

Sir: Strange that the church, bent on freeing men, gets entangled constantly in ideas that enslave the intellect. At least Bishop Pike is searching for the historical (and theological) truth of the Incarnation, cutting through man-made accretions that are unnecessary for the Christian to believe and that are great stumbling blocks to the honest, intelligent, truth-seeking minds of the younger generation. (THE REV.) ERNEST W. COCKRELL Newton, Mass.

Alpine for You, Ara

Sir: As members of one of the European outposts of Ara's army, we read with interest your cover story about our classmates Terry Hanratty and Jim Seymour [Oct. 28]. Not being able to follow our team in person, we appreciate the coverage you've been giving the No. 1 team in the nation. We're perfectly willing to let the Big 10 and the Southern teams fight over who is better; we know who's the best.

TED NOWACKI, ALEXANDER EGERT BILL CLARK, MANFRED BRAUCHLE Notre Dame Innsbruck Program University of Innsbruck Austria

Sir: Considering the state of the world --civil disorder in many countries, starvation threatening more than half of humanity, the uncertainty in the economies of many great nations, and a war in Asia that might eventually destroy us all--it is comforting that TIME sees fit to devote a cover story to two football players. Perhaps I worry too much.

H. B. PASCAL Geneva, Switzerland

Everything's Jake

Sir: Contrary to what you say in "The Blues Is How It Is" [Sept. 2], I am not retired. I am playing harmonica at the Copacabana three nights a week and at Mother Blues one night.

SHAKEY JAKE Chicago

Slam & Cheers

Sir: Hurrah for Military Historian S.L.A. Marshall's article on the horrible reporting of the Viet Nam war [Oct. 21]. The A.P. reports we get here are disgraceful and disgusting, to say the very best! A red-hot poker for all but one or two Viet Nam war reporters.

C. K. WONG Hong Kong

Sir: Three cheers for the current generation of war correspondents! It's about time someone put war, with all its viciousness and human suffering, in proper perspective.

BERNARD SEWARD Golden, Colo.

Sir: Three cheers for Marshall. It's about time someone let the public know that something other than riots and bombing of our own men takes place in Viet Nam. Lois M. GALLAGHER New Haven, Conn.

Sir: "Slam" Marshall is right! With notable exceptions, the press and television are doing a miserable job of reporting meaningful facts in Viet Nam. As an operations officer in the Mekong Delta last year, I came in contact with numerous reporters and was amazed by the inexperience, prejudice and hostility of some who, it seemed, had already written their stories (at least mentally) before leaving the U.S. Their stories usually wound up as half-baked concoctions of half-truths completely unrelated to what was really going on. People know how bad reporting really is because those doing the fighting write home, and the truth is passed to millions from friend to friend. The soldier, and through him the citizen, understands and approves the U.S. Viet Nam position.

DAN J. MYERS Lieutenant Colonel, U.S.A. Sandia Base, N. Mex.

That Other War

Sir: Hallelujah! That special breed of man, the AID volunteer in Viet Nam, finally got some recognition [Oct. 21]. If the American people could get more news of that "other war" and the special men who wage it, everything that is being done in Viet Nam would be in clearer perspective. We are not just tearing down--we are trying to build there, too.

CHARLES AND BETTY BRINK Clearfield Job Corps Center Clearfield, Utah

Open Up

Sir: You seem to think it's quite all right that the Negro family's average income is less than two-thirds that of the white man's [Oct. 28].-After all, you can't give them too much too soon. Bunk! Don't give us anything extra; give us our due and our birthright. You don't have to invite me to your social gatherings, but I demand entry to all public places.

I am an American who happens to be a Negro, and I am proud of both facts.

JOHN M. DRIVER Sunnyvale, Calif.

Sir: TIME'S Essay "What the Negro Has --and Has Not--Gained" is concise and beautifully written, and cuts to the heart of the situation.

ROBERT T. GORTON Newtown, Conn.

Found, At Last

Sir: About your Essay "Provincialism Is Dead" [Oct. 21]: Provincialism is alive and hiding in Salt Lake City!

RON CARLSON Salt Lake City

Dissent from Moscow

Sir: If Dr. Hall's unfavorable impressions of the state of Russian hospitals [Sept. 30] were valid, the state of the Soviet population's health would be equally unfavorable. Let us compare some of the world-acknowledged basic indices:

Life expectancy in the U.S.S.R. averages 70 years, comparing favorably with that of the most advanced countries of the world. The general mortality rate in the U.S.S.R. is 7.3 per 1,000 population, compared with 9.4 in the U.S.A. The child mortality rate in the U.S.S.R is 28 per 1,000 newly born, compared with 25 in the U.S.A. The Soviet Union has a total of 555,000 doctors, an average of 23.9 per 10,000 population. The respective figures in the U.S.A. are 351,000 and 18.4. The number of hospital beds per 1,000 population is 9.6 in the U.S.S.R., compared with 8.5 in the U.S.A.

These data indicate that public health in the U.S.S.R. is approximately at the same level as in the U.S.A., and that in some respects the Soviet Union is at an advantage. An indisputable advantage is also the fact that medical aid in the U.S.S.R. is free to every citizen.

I had a comprehensive discussion with a group of authoritative American surgeons who came to the Soviet Union at the same time as Dr. Hall and visited similar institutions, yet their impressions were different. For example, according to Dr. Richard H. Overholt, director of the Overholt Thoracic Clinic of Boston, Soviet surgeons use "all of the modern techniques that we have witnessed in other countries and in our own."

VLADIMIR ARSENTYEV Moscow News Moscow

Home, Sweet Home

Sir: I am not renewing my subscription because of your choice of Martin Luther King as Man of the Year [Jan. 3, 1964], your "God Is Dead" cover story [April 8], and your condemnation [July 8] of Ocean City, N.J., which happens to be my second home.

ESTELLA LOUDENSLAGER

Huntington Valley, Pa.

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