Air Today, or Gone Tomorrow

Sir: Citizens for Clean Air welcomes TIME'S clear view of dirty air [Jan. 27]. Your cover story helps with the hard task of focusing attention on the need for pollution solution. This has been a major problem in New York, trying to keep "fun city" from becoming "foul city." At last in New York we have seen the beginning of consumer demand for cleaner air, leading to new initiatives by the mayor, his imaginative commissioner of air pol lution control, and business leaders. DAVID SHEFRIN Chairman Citizens for Clean Air, Inc. Manhattan Sir: Whenever the cost of cleaner air is calculated, let us remember that the cost of dirty air is far greater.

KENNETH KOWALD Executive Secretary Action for Clean Air Manhattan

Sir: My wife and I were pleased to see you devote so much space to air pollution. Now that everybody's talking about it, maybe something will get done. But we can't understand why you didn't print a picture of one of Baltimore's bad days.

R. S. TURCOTT Baltimore

Sir: As an engineer involved with curbing industrial air pollution, I have become increasingly convinced that a great deal of our pollution is caused by cars and trucks. Your story confirms my suspicions. One answer would be a vehicle combining a conventional internal com- bustion engine and an electric engine with batteries. In the country the car could be propelled by the internal combustion engine and at the same time charge up the batteries. At points on the highways ap- proaching metropolitan areas, signs would warn the driver to switch to electric propulsion. He would then have enough electric power to carry him in and around the metropolitan area. The unfortunate ones living in the smog area would have to rely on the home battery charger.

M. L. KAGANOWICH Binghamton, N.Y.

Sir: I'm shocked; all of us must be sleeping. In "Lighting Up With Coal" [Jan. 20], it is reported that the Mohave Power Project will "gobble up the equivalent of two 100-car trains of coal each day when its giant furnaces begin operating in

1970." In the next three years, our air will certainly become more and more polluted, even with everyone stressing the importance of cleaning it up. How can we be so blind as to let a future project pollute our air at the startling rate of two 100-car trains of coal a day?

JOHN W. BOORTZ Lawrenceburg, Ind.

War & Morality

Sir: Your Essay "The Morality of War" [Jan. 20] was thoughtprovoking, and on a subject about which thought should be provoked. I myself cannot justify any sort of mortal violence. Such abstractions as "freedom" lose their meaning when used as justification for killing. You can't save a man for democracy by shooting him and bombing his children (even if in "error"). Since life itself is the only sure human value, and therefore the measure of all others, the taking of it is certainly immoral. Viet Nam, with hypocrisy-cloaked brutality on both sides, only confirms my distaste for the concept of a "just war" and increases my sorrow in observing the eagerness of men to justify the vilest behavior in the name of the highest ideals.

WILLIAM M. ROBINSON JR. Baltimore

Sir: I liked your Essay, especially its conclusion. People submerged in details often lose sight of principles. We want peace, but a peace of justice, not of compromise. At the moment, the only way to attain such a peace is victory in war.

(THE REV.) JONAS STASKEVICIUS Rome

Giant Step

Sir: President Johnson took a giant step with the appointment of HEW Secretary Gardner [Jan. 20]. It should be a life time appointment: without him the Great Society would be a fiasco; with him, there is hope. God help us if this post ever again becomes a political sop. ROBERT W. CARSON, M.D. Salt Lake City Sir: Secretary Gardner's comments about top executives who cannot tolerate first- class men around them illustrate what is subconscious knowledge among supervisors and employees in business and Government. The symptoms of "injelititis or palsied paralysis" are best described by C. Northcote Parkinson, and the remedy is prescribed in a fine article written by

Secretary Gardner at the time of his presidency of the Carnegie Corporation, "How to Prevent Organizational Dry Rot."

What he suggests is a method for organizational renewal, but he admits that an organization's policymakers must take the initiative and make renewal possible. Therein lies the problem, for by discriminatory hiring and promotion policies, inept men have perpetuated and advanced mediocrity. Those who should best understand the need for renewal will be the very ones who will fight it. Good luck to Secretary Gardner; he's going to need it.

(FIRST LIEUTENANT) JAMES F. BLOSS Charleston Air Force Base, S.C.

Sir: TIME says the aphorism on Mr. Gardner's desk, "Das Beste ist gut genug," Is by an "unknown" writer. Actually, it is by the not entirely unknown German author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. In his Italienische Reise (Italian Journey'), we find: "In der Kunst ist das Beste gut genug" (In art the best is good enough).

HANS STEINHART Glassboro, N.J.

The Pinch That Hurts

Sir: It is clear from "Battle Over a Budget" [Jan. 20] that in his first weeks as Governor, Ronald Reagan has shown an ineptitude that astonishes even those of us who opposed his election. His economic myopia was not unexpected; in his crash program to "save" the California economy in 1967, Reagan has, by shortchanging the university, hit one of the institutions most responsible for this state's wealth and prestige. What is surprising is that he has also bungled his public relations. His inconsistent statements, his embarrassing lack of information, and his failure to consult the legislature and university officials before proposing budget cuts and tuition have worsened the crisis and created a large number of ex-Reagan supporters.

HONG DEA, '70 University of California Los Angeles

Sir: As a college graduate who paid for his education, I can muster no sympathy for the California students whose temper tantrums and tasteless tirades hardly portray the U.S. collegian as a responsible citizen. California's youth can afford surfing, LSD and the latest from Carnaby Street, but they are too destitute to finance their education. (Surely the word must have reached the West Coast that financial-aid is available for the student who needs it.) Though they brag about their superior education, they seem still under the immature impression that the state owes them something just because they exist. Reagan is courageous to tackle a financial mess by the unpopular but obvious method of cutting spending. His opponents are inflamed at this interference with their right to receive state largess. These enlightened ones, who seek to free the country from the shackles of materialism, are howling quite loudly at the pinch of reality in the pocketbook.

JERENE LOESCHMAN Jennings, La.

Human Condition

Sir: TIME says of Author Louis-Ferdi-nand Celine [Jan. 13]: "If he was antiSemitic, he also detested Christians."

Celine, whom I met when I was a resident of Paris, was really a great humanitarian. His eloquent defense of the internist Dr. Semmelweiss, who dared suggest to his superiors that they wash their hands before gynecological examinations or obstetrical operations, is proof that he was not antiSemitic, as such. His medical practice among the poor of Paris, a practice that barely supplied him with grocery money, confirms that he did not hate the human race, only most human beings.

That he was the eternal refugee from misery and wretchedness no one can deny. Neither can it be doubted that he was a genius--a misguided one. But many times after spending an evening in his company, I had my doubts that he was a right-wing extremist; I thought on many occasions that his rantings were a pose, a defense or an escape.

WILLIAM J. AVERBUCH San Pedro Sula, Honduras

If the Capp Fits

Sir: Prosit to Al Capp [Jan. 20] for his protest against the protesters. As an American abroad, I have witnessed the damag ing effects of this fanatic group of pseudo-intellectual ingrates. Capp has revealed Joan Baez as typical of the movement-- not only Queen of the Protesters but also Queen of Hypocrisy.

ANNE J. TURCOTTE Augsburg, Germany

End of the Tale

Sir: Letter Writer Mrs. Sidney Weingart [Jan. 27] reprimands you for using a word about Jack Ruby that she considers obscene. Schwanz is a Yiddish word deriving from the German word for tail. It is used in a derogatory manner, but only in the sense that to be the tail-end or follower is embarrassing to a Jew who strives constantly to better himself and become the rosh or the hop (brains) of the outfit. Ruby, a follower and a man used to brawn over brains, was a perfect example of a schwanz, and you are to be com- mended for describing him so aptly. No word and maybe not even a complete sentence in any other language can describe his characteristics better than this simple folk expression.

(RABBI) MOSES LONDINSKI Congregation Ohel Jacob Manhattan

Light Fantastic

Sir: Your story about Diana Dew's electric dresses [Jan. 20] reminds me of the cliche that there's nothing new under the sun. My mother, who as a young girl lived in Cuba, saw there a ball gown illuminated by hundreds of lightning bugs encased in the over-netting of the dress.

MARGUERITE LEE Springfield, Pa.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.