De-Fusing the Powder Keg

Sir: In the language of Russian doubletalk, a nation is "peace-loving" if the Soviets think it is to their advantage to support it. However, there is no doubt that the "peace-loving" Soviets are chiefly responsible for the Middle East crisis because they armed the Arab countries and incited them to attack Israel.

Israel's crime in the eyes of the Russians seems to be that it refused to let itself be destroyed. By defeating the Arabs decisively, Israel inflicted a blow to Russian prestige; this the Soviets will not forgive. There is no doubt that the Russians are already beginning to plan for the next Arab attack against Israel.

NATHAN ROSEN

Professor of Physics

Israel Institute of Technology

Haifa, Israel

Sir: In view of the Soviet Union's demand that Israel return to its original boundaries, would it not be appropriate for the Israeli representative to the U.N. to request that the Soviet Union do likewise, that is, return East Berlin, Poland, Danzig, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, two portions of Finland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Rumania and several outlying bases to their original owners?

WILLIAM REEDE

Manhattan

Sir: To expect Israel now to reconstruct the original powder keg that has exploded in her face three times in the past 20 years, sparked by the desire to blow her off the map, is the height of malicious folly. Yet this is what U.S.S.R.-U.A.R., Inc. proposes. Israel's new borders will have to be determined by its need for open and unchallenged life lines.

FELIX POLLAK

Madison, Wis.

Sir: As one of the foreign professors who remained in Amman during the war but has since been evacuated, I was much impressed by the accuracy and fairness of your account. I have talked with dozens who eyewitnessed various phases in Jerusalem, Beirut and Egypt from the Arab side. Everything you said correlates, and I was happy to see King Hussein get due but not excessive credit for his heroic synthesis of conflicting loyalties. His people deserve all the help we can give them.

WARD S. MILLER

Athens

Sir: Having discovered myself cited by you as an example of "this curious double standard" on Viet Nam and the Middle East [June 9], may I point out that Viet Nam and the Middle East are two different situations, the former marginal, the latter focal to our interests.

In Viet Nam we are engaged in an effort to control the situation in Asia, which is essentially futile because it is contrary to history. We cannot control it because we are not an Asiatic power. The control, or dominant influence, must be exercised from within; that is what the end of colonialism means. If Chinese Communism is to be contained, forces from within Asia must do it. Hitler could not have been defeated if there had been no force opposing him from within Europe.

The Middle East, on the contrary, as the crossroads of the world between Asia and Europe, as the area of confrontation between Russia and ourselves, as the source of oil, is of paramount strategic importance to the U.S. Therefore the survival of Israel is a vital interest of the U.S. As a Western-oriented democracy, it is an invaluable and inalienable ally in the Middle East, and more than that, as has been amply demonstrated, is ready, willing and capable of fighting for itself. This is not an accidental but a fundamental difference from South Viet Nam.

BARBARA TUCHMAN

Cos Cob, Conn.

P.S. And the picture! Wherever did you get hold of that? It has split the family: my husband likes it and I am seriously considering a suit for pictorial slander.

Blitzing Blintzkrieg

Sir: Your otherwise commendable coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict was marred by the insertion of an unfunny and utterly tasteless collection of American-Jewish humor under the title "Blintzkrieg" [June 16]. "Witticisms," Voltaire once said, "do not accord with massacres."

A. JOSHUA SHERMAN

Manhattan

Sir: The author of "Blintzkrieg" should receive the Nobel Prize for literature. The photographer of the Jewish Superman also deserves an award.

SAUL Z. WASSERMAN

Brooklyn

To Tame a Tiger

Sir: Having just read the interesting Essay on sex education in the U.S. [June 9], I cannot suppress an ironical snigger at the spectacle of a highly rational society indulging in such magical thinking as to suppose that, having drawn a diagram of a tiger on the blackboard, the teacher may safely invite children to stroke the nice "pussycat" roaming in the jungle. Sex is probably the most powerful, and certainly the most mysterious, of the instincts, and cannot be tamed by a textbook.

Primitive societies, in their simple wisdom, knew that sex could be propitiated only by rituals and taboos that handed on to succeeding generations the intuitive experience of the tribe. In our sophisticated world, there is only one efficacious object lesson in sex education--the authentic, God-given magic of unselfish parents who are loving and faithful to each other and to their offspring. The girl who fears motherhood does not lack accurate information so much as she lacks the reassuring experience, in her own life, of that genuine mother love "that casteth out fear." All the factual information in the world shrivels beside the power, for good or evil, of early emotional experience.

J. E. GILLMER

Johannesburg

Sir: Another fine and relevant Essay. But under the "why" of sex education, you omitted one important reason for it, that of preparing people for enjoyable sexual relations in marriage. The frequency of frigidity and impotence eludes statistics, but their occurrence is not infrequent. As a psychiatric social worker, I know that it is not uncommon to find one or both playing a significant role when couples present themselves for marital counseling. Both disorders stem largely from early taught attitudes toward sex. Education that helps instill a responsible and positive attitude toward sex may not ensure healthier marriages for everyone, but it could go a long way in that direction.

WILLIAM PAUL DERRICK

Waco, Texas

White Hats, Black Power

Sir: Living in a cool and calm suburban town makes it difficult to conceive of the violence that has occurred in places like Tampa, Los Angeles and Dayton [June 23]. But it isn't hard to recognize the guts of the "white hats" (City Youth Patrol) in Tampa and in Dayton, or the intelligence of the cops who made it work. There is the "black power" that all Americans can be proud of.

JANE MCMANUS LIENAU Mount Kisco, N.Y.

Silver Salvage

Sir: Your piece about the shortage of silver [June 2] correctly points out that photographic film is one of the largest single industrial users of silver. But you do not note that most of the silver used for this purpose could be salvaged. One of the largest users of these products, the U.S. Government, is one of the worst offenders in this needless waste. Black and white photographic images typically use only 10-25% of the initial silver manufactured in them. The remaining silver is removed as a part of the processing procedure, but is recoverable at low cost.

WILLIAM H. GROVES

Artisan Industries Inc.

Waltham, Mass.

Superabundant Middlemen

Sir: Why does the "aridity of the script" selected by the Minnesota Theater company for its first production of a new American play [June 16] testify "to the dearth of U.S. playwriting talent"? Does it not more specifically testify to the ludicrous judgment of those who decided to produce it?

And, perhaps, is it not possible that the big problem in our theater may not be a dearth of playwriting talent but rather a superabundance of sterile, mediocre middlemen (Guthrie Theater, TIME, etc.) in important positions, whose approval the talented playwright must somehow gain before his work can confront those who should be important--the audience?

MICHAEL LEVIN

Manhattan

Fantastic Sums

Sir: It is absolutely unethical for commercial firms to divulge the amount spent by their clients, whoever they are. In the case of H. M. the Queen of Thailand [May 5], for whom we make clothes mainly in her own Thai silks, without receiving any information from us, and even without having in any way contacted our house, TIME published sums of money supposedly spent with us. These were false and quite fantastic in their exaggeration.

PIERRE BALMAIN

Paris

Pearls of Miss Parker

Sir: The condescending tone of your writer's evaluation of Dorothy Parker [June 16] rankled with me. Obviously he wasn't around in the days he writes about. Dorothy Parker had the special gallantry it takes to laugh at oneself. To at least one Depression kid of the '30s, her banner of banter was a bright flag to follow. Wit is not always elegant or graceful; it may be a defense in days of desperation.

MARJORIE W. BURKE

Milwaukee

Cure for LSD

Sir: Thanks for the Gustav Mahler story [June 23].

We Mahlerites believe that no other composer speaks to and of our generation better than that short, emotional Austrian Jew who died way back in 1911. Mahler has become part of our way of life. His musical expression was indeed "existentialist," as suggested by Critic Diether. There is also the comment of a friend upon hearing the recording of Mahler's Tenth: "This has been a psychedelic experience." Gustav may even turn out to be a "cure" for LSD.

AVIK GILBOA

President

The Gustav Mahler Society of California

Los Angeles

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