Faithful in Their Fashion

Sir: It was refreshing to read a crisp, smog-free Essay on patriotism in these United States [Nov. 10]. I belong to a rather ambiguous generation, many of whom have forgotten what it is all about. The draft dissenters wade through the crumpled bubble-gum wrappers on the streets of our cities waving signs and mumbling chants, but it is the men "over there" that must wade through the muck and mire of war as it really is.

Having someone you love on the other side of the world makes you realize what it is all about, and getting a lump in your throat is telling it like it really is. KIT CHAMBERLAIN Grosse Pointe, Mich.

Sir: I find it encouraging that the conscience of today's youth is expanding, that we are concerned with making our country worthy of being loved. Many good Americans do not find it necessary to constantly reaffirm their loyalty, but patriotism is latent in most of us today--even those who demonstrate their dissent so adamantly. CHASE WEBB San Francisco

Sir: You have correctly identified true American patriotism grounded in the purest motives and motivated by the loftiest ideas. Pity that we are blind to the truth and have not the ability poetically bemoaned by Robert Burns to see ourselves as others see us. THE REV. W. EUGENE HOUSTON Manhattan

Sir: May TIME'S trenchant elucidation of patriotism pay tribute to our fighting and dying men in Southeast Asia; may it thunder bolts of ridicule and scorn on the ever-increasing numbers of extreme dissenters who question America's so-called entanglement there.

To these malcontents, listen to the immortal words of Hilaire Belloc: "They died to save their country and they only saved the world." JAMES M. BOUSHAY Lockport, Ill.

Sir: Love of country requires criticism when it appears to be warranted. Criticism is carried out according to one's abilities and modes of expression. Adults criticize verbally; children rage and break things. When verbalization moves our country's course absolutely nowhere, why is it assumed that the storming of the Pentagon was not largely the raging and breaking of children, many of them intensely in love with their country? POLLY BOHMFALK Dallas

Sir: Patriotism is alive and well at Con Thien. KENNETH F. STRICKLAND Captain, U.S.A.F. Hampton, Va.

Seniors at the Center

Sir: Three cheers for the voices of sanity: Citizens Committee for Peace with Freedom in Viet Nam [Nov. 3]. The riff-raff have held center stage long enough and their performances grow more sickeningly disgusting with every added publicity stunt. It is heartening indeed that some of our forthright and knowledgeable leaders have taken the initiative in speaking for the vast majority. BEATRICE PUNG St. Johns, Mich.

Sir: You state, "If the silent center in the U.S. can find an effective voice, through the new Citizens Committee . . ." For "silent center" read "senior citizen" apropos of the ages of the founders: Dean Acheson, 74; Omar Bradley, 74; James F. Byrnes, 88; Lucius Clay, 70; James Bryant Conant, 74; Paul Douglas, 75; Dwight Eisenhower, 77; Harry Truman, 83, etc. EVERETT THIELE Baltimore

Sir: Objective thinking is harder work and a lot less soul-satisfying than passionate indignation. I think President Johnson's public image no more endearing than anybody else does, but I'm increasingly convinced that few men in our history have been more unjustly vilified. Having no idea what I would do in his place, I will continue to squelch whatever whimsical criticisms, unweighted by mental effort, get voiced to me. This is not to say that I think Johnson has usually been right; only that he stands fair to be martyred by a generation of critics who have not tried or troubled to understand his horrible position. JUDITH MOFFETT Fulbright Lektor in American Studies The University at Lund Sweden

Sir: The words of Singapore's Prime Minister Lee remind us that most Americans see Viet Nam from far away [Oct. 27]. We who live in Southeast Asia have a different perspective. I have now lived 18 months in Malaysia. Few people here doubt that Communism is a real threat everywhere in Southeast Asia. I do not view Communism as a bogey. I say that if the Commies want to hold the hot potatoes of the developing countries, let them; if a thankless job has to be done, let your enemy do it. But African and other Asian nations send delegations here to see what makes Malaysia tick. If democracy has a show window in the East, this (with Singapore) is it. Do we want to throw these countries to the wolves? Confronted with a choice of evils, the wise man chooses the lesser; that's what we have to do in Viet Nam. But let's not forget, as we make our choice, that the lives of the most successful democracies in Southeast Asia hang on our decision. PAUL PEACH Professor Faculty of Engineering University of Malaya Kuala Lumpur

On the Nose

Sir: I have read that the right of a man to swing his fist stops just short of the other fellow's nose. I just saw where the nose of the American taxpayer has been violated to the tune of $1,078,500 by the recent Pentagon panty raid [Nov. 3]. In addition, as the war is prolonged by this show of dissent to the policy of checking the spread of Communism, more American boys must lose their lives. Why? Perhaps Dr. Spock can fly to Hanoi and bring peace in our time. DR. N. B. GRANTHAM Smithfield, N.C.

Sir: What banner of rationality and what pretense of right justifies and permits such aimless waste? We must demand distinction between freedoms and their abuse. Clamorous dissenters, along with the silent majority of us, would do well to meditate upon the ominous words of the historian of Rome (Livy): "Then let him observe how when discipline wavered, morality first tottered and then began the headlong plunge, until it has reached the present stale of affairs when we can tolerate neither our vices nor their remedies." CARLOS M. BARANANO Detroit

Sir: I quote from a letter I received from France: "Part of the problem seems to be that Americans, on all levels, equate license and liberty" and "It becomes increasingly distasteful to acknowledge, as the leader of the free world, a nation where the intelligentsia, including representatives of the church and the guardians of justice, advocate disregard for the respect of law and order without which no civilized life is possible." The writer is 22 and a student at the Sorbonne. (MRS.) A. M. VARDALA Bronxville, N.Y.

The Baloney & the Grinder

Sir: Many thanks for your generous cover story on William F. Buckley Jr. [Nov. 3]. It is appropriate that the man most responsible for engendering the current conservative revival should be so feted. As a college student I can testify to Mr. Buckley's enormous influence on campus. For those of us who are conservatives his example is especially cogent; so cogent in fact as to inspire a respect, adulation, and affection for him that is oftentimes scandalously near idolatry.

Buckley has shown us that ideological welfare can indeed be fun. In fact, I must concede in part TIME'S point that victory and power are not all that desirable. For young conservatives, as well as for Bill Buckley, adversity is a rather blessed state. JAMES C. ROBERTS Oxford, Ohio

Sir: William Buckley is the most deserving candidate for the title of Mr. Marie Antoinette. FRED CICETTI Mt. Tabor, NJ.

Sir: Conscientious conservatives and literate liberals rejoice. DAVID F. REA Manhattan

Sir: The art of perverting the truth was not invented by Buckley but by the cynical school of Sophists thousands of years ago. Any fool can learn the rules, and if followed by a parrot, he could appear as a wise old bird to the child-brained. ALFRED FABRE Casa Grande, Ariz.

Sir: The large number of liberals that surround William Buckley is not surprising. It merely demonstrates that an articulate, logical representation of conservative positions will often confound liberals. They befriend Buckley in the way that the vanquished befriend the conqueror. GREGORY G. SCHMIDT Urbana, Ill.

Sir: He is a supercilious mountebank operating as a false-front intellectual, and wholly dependent for effect upon his unquestioned virtuosity as a gesticulator with hands, face and words. ARNOLD B. LARSON Manhattan Beach, Calif.

Sir: It is a shame that the Republican Party refuses to recognize a man who possesses personality and conviction. Perhaps after the G.O.P. blows its chances in 1968 with a ho-hum compromise candidate, someone in the party hierarchy will see the light. It would be a pleasure to see Mr. Buckley take on Bobby Kennedy in 1972: then there would be no way for the baloney to reject the grinder. RICHARD KRASKA Providence

The Hair of the Sheep

Sir: As a sheepman of sorts, I must comment on your suggestion that Bobby Kennedy may resemble a sheep [Oct. 27]. Sheep breeders have known for some time that open-faced sheep are more productive than those with wool over their eyes. Indeed, Bobby might be more useful if he could see more clearly. KEITH INSKEEP Morgantown, W. Va.

Premiere Postponed

Sir: TIME'S splendid story on Stanislaw Skrowaczewski. music director of the Minneapolis Symphony [Nov. 10], was received by the maestro's associates and admirers with both delight and sorrow. On Friday, Nov. 3, just before the orchestra's second Minneapolis performance of Krzysztof Penderecki's Passion, Mr. Skrowaczewski developed a detached retina of the right eye. In spite of the resulting visual difficulty, he directed a stunning performance of this complex orchestral and choral work. The performance received a standing, shouting ovation. Two days later, the maestro underwent surgery that was successful but that will require several weeks' recuperation. The Minneapolis Symphony's New York premiere of the Penderecki work, scheduled for Nov. 21 in Carnegie Hall, has therefore been postponed indefinitely. Eventually, we still hope to bring Mr. Skrowaczewski, the orchestra, soloists and choruses to Carnegie Hall as described in TIME'S story and to introduce an extraordinary masterpiece to New York concertgoers. RICHARD M. CISEK Manager Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra Minneapolis

Spinning in His Graves

Sir: Uncharitable TIME has abbreviated, mocked at and slightly miscopied the Shah-Graves literal English rendering of a mystical passage from Sufic Sheikh Ghiathuddin Abdul Fath Omar ibn Ibrahim al Khayaam al Ghaq's Rubaiyat manuscript preserved by the Afghan Shah family since A.D. 1153 [Nov. 3]. In 1856 (not 1889) this passage was "transmogrified" (his own word) by dilettante, freethinking, unuxiorious Edward Fitzgerald. He raised the Sheikh's minimal bread requirements from half a loaf to a loaf; misrepresented his gourd of wine as a bottle of booze rather than a sacramental drink; planted a tree in the wide desert as a picnic site (to assist the rhymes enow and thou, with bough); and substituted a singing houri for a meditative fellow adept. But TIME is right: bad poetry, like bad money, is apt to drive out the good. ROBERT GRAVES Manhattan

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