Debate Over the Dilemma

Sir: The very idea that abortion should present a dilemma [Oct. 13] infuriates me. The morality of satisfied, waistcoated male legislators complacently discussing the academics of ending a prenatal life while terrified women are desperately inserting pointed objects into their wombs is, to my mind, infinitely more questionable than the subject of abortion itself. What is the theory behind keeping abortions from those who need them most, wives who already have too many children and unwed pregnant girls? I assume it is a Puritan hangover of a need to punish them for enjoying sex, in which case denying them the operation is as logical as castrating their husbands and lovers. The objection that an abortion prevents a human from entering the world is purely intellectual, since a major problem today is precisely the fact that there are already too many people to be adequately fed, cared for. and loved. As for the Catholics, abortion legislation is none of their business; nobody wants to force abortions upon them, only to make the operation available to women who want it.

JACQUELYN S. LANMAN Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

Sir: If it is too delicate and shattering a concept for the overly idealistic and moralistic lawmaking males, then let's have a national referendum in the 1968 presidential elections. By using the anonymity of the voting booth, we could all publicly feign to be utterly aghast that it was approved, and privately, all those abortions would then take place in hospitals under competent medical attention. EILEEN M. MURPHY Syracuse

Sir: If you intended to set the cause of legalized abortion back, you could not have done better than that sentence: "Bureaucratic paper shuffling often holds up legal operations until the 24th week--producing live babies that sometimes cry for hours before dying." What a frightful picture. All the male lawmakers don't seem to understand that a pregnancy cannot be held in abeyance while an appeal, is made. Let the women write the laws.

HELEN ELIZABETH BEATTIE Brooklyn

Sir: It escapes me how religious leaders can be so sure that the fetus is a living soul. What seminarian has not grappled with the question of the origin of the soul in his anthropology courses only to come away as undecided as ever? The church today is in grave danger of dogmatizing beyond the clear teaching of Scripture and perpetrating a far greater misery than it did when it put Galileo under house arrest for his "heresy."

(THE REV.) ANDRE BUSTANOBY Arlington, Va.

Sir: To say that the final decision on an abortion should be an individual rather than a legal one is to assume that abortion is not murder--I take it for granted that TIME still feels that murder should be a "legal decision." And I can't help but ask those who favor abortions in cases where the child is expected to be healthy and the mother is expected to deliver without danger: "Were you not worth saving when you were yet unborn?"

JAMES M. HALLETT New Haven, Conn.

Putting the Parts Together

Sir: TIME deserves an Emmy. Television is part Show Business, but it is also part Press, Business, Science, Education, Sport. Art--and much more. By creating a separate Television section [Oct. 13], TIME recognizes television's compelling impact and encourages the medium to ever higher standards of service to the public.

NEWTON N. MINOW Chicago, 111.

Cop Out or Dig In?

Sir: Your cover story on Con Thien [Oct. 6] charts all too explicitly the erosion of this nation's will to withstand Communist depredations in Southeast Asia--or anywhere else. By all means, let's cop out on all those ungrateful Vietnamese. Especially, let's cop out on all our splendid young who went right on dying and getting mutiiated while we sat here savoring the drawn-out luxury of changing our minds. Then we can all get back to our color TVs and walnut-paneled cabin cruisers or, if we're the artistic type, our pornographic literature and our underground movies.

CATHLEEN BURNS ELMER Boston

Sir: It would appear that the Communist strategy in Viet Nam that was outlined in your magazine more than two years ago is about to win the war for them. You quoted a spokesman who said that all that had to be done would be to continue fighting until the American public grew tired of the war and forced a pullout.

HAROLD G. TUCKER Bayonne, NJ.

Sir: My association strongly feels that any reduction in effort is an insult to 10,000 dead. Korea showed that any stalemate or bombing lull will result in a rapid Communist buildup. This nation has never walked away from world responsibility, and to do so now because of the political aims of a few would be a catastrophe unparalleled in our history.

WALKER M. MAHURIN President

American Fighter Pilots Association Los Angeles

Sir: I cannot help feeling overwhelmed by the tremendous part your country is playing in protecting the free world. But

1 am embarrassed by this fact and fail to see why every Western country, some enjoying privileges obtained indirectly by the deaths of young Americans, should not be involved in the Viet Nam war on an equal stand with the United States.

PETER JOHNSON

Auckland, New Zealand

Long Division

Sir: The Essay "Divided We Stand" [Oct. 6] attempts to prove that opposition to Viet Nam is in a long and venerable American tradition and should not prevent us from pursuing our stated purpose. But, as opposition to our last four wars has been minimal, we have a 60-year tradition of being able to morally and politically support our wars. This may account, in part, for why we are so troubled by the extent of our national dissent on Viet Nam.

PATRICIA H. PAINTON Paris

Sir: You seem to assume that all our wars, including Viet Nam, may be regarded in the same context. Have you forgotten the Bomb? We are now flirting with global nuclear war. We are placing ourselves and the rest of the world in great jeopardy. We do this by not facing the facts, however unpleasant: China is the great power in Asia and she cannot be contained by us; Communism and nationalism are inseparably fused in Viet Nam, and the fusion will not disappear short of genocide. We feel ourselves called upon to destroy the Communist philosophy by war. This is impossible, so we kill people, but not ideas.

HELEN M. CULLY Coatesville, Pa.

Sir: I object to the comparison of George lit to Ho Chi Minh. Ho should rather be compared with George Washington as a person who incites normally law-abiding citizens to revolt against their legal government. Now perhaps the Americans realize just how the British and the loyal Americans felt about the subversive activities of that rebel George Washington!

PATRICK JEHU London

Ultimate Enlightenment

Sir: An excellent analytical Essay on Race and Ability [Sept. 29]. Still, I doubt such objective reports will quiet the racial chaos in the U.S. What seems to be needed is an individual emotional experience, of the sort readily attainable by those of us serving in Viet Nam. When you witness both black and white Americans shed their blood for a common American goal, all the old filtering prisms flow away with that blood, and the sounds of "Nigger," "Whitey," "Black Power," and "White Supremacy," which echo from the States seem absurdly meaningless. A black American, offering his life beside you on a battlefield, is an ultimate enlightenment which emotionally shatters the white American's sensitivity concerning integration and intermarriage. After all, inter-dying is a much more profound interaction.

(SP4) ROBERT A. CHAMBERS U.S.A. A.P.O. San Francisco

Sir: The statements on skull capacity are apt to be misinterpreted. Skull capacity (and hence brain size) is not to be correlated with intelligence, once the human (Homo sapiens) stage is reached. Anatole France, for example, had a quite small brain--approximately 1,200 cc., while the general average for the European male is given at about 1,450 cc. Moreover, your statement that Negro skull capacity runs about 50 cc. below that of whites ignores the fact that there is about 76% overlap in brain sizes of Negroes and whites.

DOROTHY L. KEUR McLeod, Mont.

Pierre, Not Dior

Sir: In your story on Iran [Oct. 6], you state that for the coronation ceremony, the Empress Farah will wear a gown "on which 22 couturiers from the house of Dior have been working for four months." The gown is being created by Iranians under the direction of Monsieur Pierre, who has lived in Iran for more than 20 years and is a citizen of the country.

PARVIZ RAEIN Teheran

And Now Here's Jack!

Sir: In your article on "Variety Shows" [Oct. 13], Ed Sullivan referred to me as a "thoroughly no good son of a bitch." Mr. Sullivan always had trouble with the truth and I have a birth certificate to prove him false again. Furthermore, I state as a sworn fact that Ed Sullivan's office has called my agent on at least four or five occasions in the past year to get me to do a television special in cooperation with his company; and are you ready for one of the subjects that he chose for me? The Vatican. I declined.

JACK PAAR Bronxville, N.Y. oilermakers' Boil

Sir: The Purdue-Notre Dame story [Oct. 6] is incredible! Despite the victory, Purdue was mentioned only briefly. No mention was made of Coach Jack Mollenkopf (U.P.I. "Coach of the Week"); no reference was made to Purdue's 1967 Rose Bowl championship; no reference to Dick Marvel (U.P.I. "Midwest Lineman of the Week"); and only in passing were Leroy Keyes (U.P.I. "Midwest Back of the Week") and Mike Phipps (A.P. "Back of the Week") mentioned. Poor Notre Dame!

BEVERLEY STONE Associate Dean of Women Purdue University Lafayette, Ind.

Getting the Old Irish Up

Sir: "Boston for Bostonians?" Then the bigoted Mrs. Hicks [Oct. 6] herself does not belong here, since she is only a couple of generations removed from the Southies who were told by employers that "no Irish need apply." It is a curious quirk in human social behavior that the last downtrodden minority frequently forgets its past troubles to discriminate against the new scapegoat.

MADELEINE R. COUSINEAU Boston 4-Square

Sir: I protest your unfortunate choice of words in the article "Hippies" [Sept. 8], in which you refer to "Fralich and three other hippie 4-H types." 4-H stands for high ideals and should in no way be allied with that class of youth called "hippies." The 4-H youth--like the hippies--have a "love of dirt," but the 4-H Clubs love the soil and work for the preservation of our natural resources. They, too, plant "for dreams," but the dreams of rich fulfillment in green acres for their children and their children's children.

PHYLLIS C. SLATTERY Corresponding Secretary Michigan Division Woman's National Farm and Garden Assn. Northville, Michigan

The Millennium

Sir: I'm afraid it's not according to Hoyle that an author should send to a reviewer of his book anything but an angry rebuttal. Nevertheless, I can't help expressing my appreciation, and that of my wife and coauthor, for your generous, perceptive and brilliant appraisal of Rousseau and Revolution [Oct. 6].

WILL DURANT Los Angeles

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