Give a Man a Horse . ..

Sir: Give it to me straight. Does the horse on your April 14 cover have a chance in '68? Otherwise, the situation remains perceptibly unchanged. I've had to choose between jackasses before.

R. BARNHILL St. Louis

Sir: "The Temper of the Times" was good until the last sentence, which was ridiculous. Just why is it reassuring to look forward to an unchanged situation no matter who wins? The purpose of a presidential election is not to provide a meaningless choice between two moderates but to give the electorate an opportunity to discard policies with which it is fed up.

MILES J. BREIT Brooklyn

Sir: You omitted the one Republican who has a chance of beating Johnson--Mark Hatfield of Oregon. Unlike such me-too supporters of the war as Romney, Rockefeller, Reagan and Nixon, Hatfield offers a real choice--he wants to end the war by stopping the bombing and seeking peace. The ticket is Hatfield-Lindsay. But it could never get the nomination from the present conservative G.O.P. organization.

W. BRUCE DEAN Seekonk, Mass.

Sir: In your otherwise excellent report, you neglected to mention a courageous, popular, respected public servant, a logical choice for the G.O.P. nomination: Henry Cabot Lodge.

DANIEL J. JOHNSON Elsmere, N.Y.

Life on the Other Side

Sir: Your story on East Germany [April 7] is to the point both in fact and judgment. Unfortunately, however, the contrast to West Germany is no longer "invariably an unfavorable one," as is most remarkably demonstrated by the much superior East German school system, which ranks among the best in the world--despite the obvious flaws in teaching humanities. As a matter of fairness towards our most "beloved enemy," this genuine achievement should not be ridiculed as a mere all-out effort of propagandist indoctrination.

F. W. APPOLDT Munich

Systems Analysis

Sir: In our search for truth regarding the Apollo disaster [April 14], our governmental investigations should reach beyond the Apollo program per se to encompass the total space-program context in which Apollo has been cast.

In 1962, working in the military space program, I presumed to suggest, in an unclassified thesis on file with the Air University Library at Maxwell Air Force Base, Montgomery, Ala., that in terms of personal safety and national economy, the U.S. could ill afford the luxury of two independent and jealously self-preoccupied national organizations for the development of national space programs, one military (the Air Force Systems Command) and one civilian (NASA), with the gigantic national industrial complex shifting as best it could between them. There should be a single program, with military and civilian correlatives and applications. This thesis was looked upon by many as heretical. But this program duplication, which perhaps constituted merely a lavish logistical travesty in 1962, may have materially contributed to a loss of lives in 1967.

JOHN B. CHICKERING Lieut. Colonel, U.S.A.F. (ret.) Arlington, Va.

Two-edged Sword?

Sir: As a Protestant who has no moral argument with family control. I take exception to your cover story on contraception [April 7]. To say that "there is no evidence that the pills cause blood clots that might travel to the lungs or develop in the brain" indicates that your information came only from gynecologists who have a biased viewpoint of "the pill." As an internist, I have seen many vascular complications of oral contraceptives, and all serious. Hence oral contraception in its present form has to be viewed as a two-edged sword.

DONALD E. DERAUF, M.D. St. Paul

Sir: Why not the pill? After all, it has prevented more headaches than aspirin has ever cured.

LEE DANA GOODMAN Newton. Mass.

Sir: The best oral contraceptive is still "No."

J. W. KNOX Trinidad, Calif.

That Book

Sir: We appreciate TIME'S analysis of Manchester's The Death of a President [April 7], but let's hope this is the last--the very last--we hear of this book.

R. T. SILAS Waupaca, Wis.

Sir: Manchester's book may contain flaws and errors, and he may not be a dry-eyed historian or tragic poet, but as I read the book, I wept the same bitter tears and felt the same raw agony that I did on that November day so long ago--or was it only yesterday?

ROBIN JONES San Francisco

Lamps for the Oil

Sir: I wonder why England did not provide the fuel-oil slick from the tanker broken off Lands End [April 7] with a wick to burn the oil and thus save the beaches.

I was on the Empress of Australia, tied up at the dock during the earthquake that hit Yokohama Sept. 1, 1923. During the first night when the city was one huge bonfire, fuel-oil tanks along the shore burst their seams, spreading several inches of oil over the harbor. All that was needed was a wick. This finally came in the form of a burning, fully loaded lumber barge that drifted into the oil. It sucked the harbor surface free of oil in a few hours, spouting a flame 75 ft. high yet maintaining a burning area no greater than a circle of 50 ft. in diameter. The force of the suction was so great that crates and planks that had been in the water were lifted 15 to 20 ft. in the flames. When there was no more oil, the fire died.

Bombs, even of the phosphorous variety, cannot provide a proper wick for the continuous burning of the oil.

R. J. PAULY Albany, N.Y.

Schuyler's Syllabus

Sir: "Academy for Hard Cases" [April 7] was a nostalgic, memory-jogging article on one of the finest men I have ever known and one of the finest schools anywhere. Both Ben Becker and Schuyler High School have always been tough; both have also always had hearts as big as all outdoors. Although not shown on the school syllabus, maturity, responsibility and dignity lead the list of subjects the man and the school have always offered their students. I consider myself a better man today by virtue of having known them both.

A. C. BEVILACQUA Lieutenant, U.S.M.C. Philip Schuyler '49 Camp Lejeune. N.C.

Aspirin & the FDA

Sir: Your statement, in "Limits on Children's Aspirin" [March 17], that FDA wishes manufacturers would stop selling pediatric flavored aspirin in no way corresponds to the unanimous decision of a group of approximately 15 leading pediatricians representing the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association. FDA and the U.S. Poison Control Centers, as expressed in a conference called by Food & Drug Commissioner Goddard last November in which they agreed that they were "opposed to prohibiting the manufacture of flavored aspirin for children."

ABE PLOUGH President Plough Inc. Memphis

>Commissioner Goddard is also satisfied with the new limit of 36 tablets to a bottle and says "the agency supports this consensus although the transcript shows that FDA's medical representative, Dr. Basil G. Delta, was not in agreement."

Paperweights

Sir: About the story on off-campus high school newspapers [March 31]:

Apparently none of the cases you investigated encountered suppression by iron-fisted school administrators in spite of the private nature of the enterprise. Yet there is such suppression. Fear of reprisal on college recommendations is a sobering thought for talented students. Only recently, a worthwhile off-campus paper was suppressed by Trumbull high school authorities after its third issue.

Why should we discourage youngsters in their first attempts at individual initiative? We complain about juvenile delinquency and then suppress intellectual endeavor. Which way do we want it? Once discouraged by adult authoritarianism, these bright, responsible young people take their first step toward the pattern of mediocrity and conformity from which they could be our main hope of escape.

(MRS.) SHEILA B. HUSTON Trumbull, Conn.

Sir: You have made a grave mistake in publicizing high school underground newspapers.

I am a high school student who is disgusted with the children who publish these papers. The egghead who writes the Omelette is as mixed up as his paper. Students like this are constantly griping about trivial matters to get attention, as a small child would, while most of us are trying to get good marks and enter college.

A typical argument in an underground paper is over school rules. The kiddies cry, "We want to wear weird clothes, beards, and be able to smoke in school," which is terribly, terribly important to them. They like to tell tall tales about a friend who has a cousin who knows a person that takes LSD. Wow! They also like to criticize their teachers because, naturally, teachers are ignorant. Most of all, they like to criticize the draft, because the majority of them are cowards.

Luckily, these overgrown children are a minority, but your story may lead many others to join the "cause." We'll see just how important their cause is when they apply to a university and show up for an interview in bleached dungarees, a dirty sweatshirt, metal-rimmed glasses, sandals, and so much facial hair that their features are unrecognizable. If I were one of them, I'd hide my face behind a beard too.

BILL Ross Middletown, Conn.

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