The Emperor's New Clothes

Sir: Fashion Designer Rudi Gernreich seems to have a bag of answers [Dec. 1]. What's his prescription for those of us who want to swing, but have borne five or ten children, are plagued with varicose veins, "wash the gray away," are too old for the Pepsi generation and yet too young for the Golden Agers? MARY Q. AASTERUD Milwaukee

Sir: Hooray for the miniskirt! But only if it is worn by gals with gams like Cyd Charisse and the 1940-model Grable. The current crop of knobby-kneed kuties just ain't got what it takes to look attractive in that sort of stern-type wraparound. JAMES LOWRY Los Angeles

Sir: Are women being swindled out of $1,000,000 a year in the guise of fashion? How gullible can women be to part with so much money for these clothes and consider themselves fashionably clothed. It reminds me of the children's story about the Emperor's New Clothes. (MRS.) CAROL A. COOGAN Somerset, NJ.

Sir: If miniskirts get any higher, bikini makers will have to retire! PHIL CARROLL Chicago

Sir: Micro-mini is scientifically acceptable according to the International Committee on Weights and Measures but micro-micro since 1963 has been replaced by pica (pronounced peek-o). GEORGE COATS Physicist U.S. Public Health Service Winchester, Mass.

Sir: Boris Chaliapin has done well with his portrait of Rudi Gernreich, but what are the two things behind him? Refugees from Star Trek maybe? HARRY PRESTON Detroit

Nail on the Head

Sir: I expected to find some reference to the devaluation of the British pound in your November 24th issue, but I never expected the more than three-page cover article, so thoughtfully and clearly put. May I be allowed to congratulate you and your staff on a first-class piece of really rapid work. J. D. TYTLER New Delhi

Sir: TIME has, as usual, nailed the head squarely in its article on the English business malaise. There are the "city" men in bowlers and striped trousers, far too many of them. Then there are the social inferiors: "commerce" men. Until the class system is removed from business, the worker will continue to meet management with a built-in grudge, and commerce will not attract the level of businessmen that it needs. As an itinerant Englishman, I find the North American system far healthier. R. SANDERSON Montreal

Sir: Socialism failed miserably in Australia, is now a failure in Great Britain, and the welfare state Great Society presumes to take my money and yours to bail out Mr. Wilson. Question: When Johnson, Humphrey, Reuther & Co. are through with the U.S., who bails us out? JAMES D. TILFORD JR. Palm Beach

Sir: With the devaluation of sterling. I think it would be a suitable description to say: "It's Mini-Britain making minicars, wearing miniskirts and now having mini-pounds sterling." Y. M. ADAM Mahe, Seychelles

482 to Zip

Sir: Re your story on price gouging in the ghettos [Dec. 1]. I finally found out what makes TIME so zippy and so good. You talk like it is. In 482 words you have said what we have been saying in volumes. Congratulations! BENJAMIN S. ROSENTHAL Eighth District, New York House of Representatives Washington, D.C.

People of the Hills

Sir: Your article on the plight of Burma saddened me [Nov. 24], but your description of the Karen tribesmen as "warlike" is not accurate. My father, grandfather and great-grandfather spent their lives working with the Karen people in the Tharrawaddy and Toungoo hills, and I played with the Karen children and spoke their language during my childhood in Burma. We found the Karens cooperative, very eager to learn and loyal. Their desire to improve themselves and their successes aroused the jealousies of the Burmese who were content to live off the lush plains of the Irrawaddy River delta. EDWARD F. MARSHALL Cohasset, Mass.

Design for Living

Sir: The easily legible traffic signs being desperately sought for use in the U.S. [Nov. 24] are already available. They are the standard international traffic signs used almost everywhere but in the U.S. They are clear, pictographic and attractive. Continued selfish refusal by the U.S.--which claims to want foreign tourists--to adopt the international system has been based on economic arguments concerning the cost of changeover.

Perhaps if sufficient numbers of drivers kill themselves due to poor signs, the United States will find the encouragement to join the rest of the world. TERRENCE CULLINAN Rome

The Banal Generation

Sir: We, members of the Banal Generation (dean's-list students, over 20, and not even flower children) do hereby affirm our faith in the warmth and empathy of the poetry of Rod McKuen [Nov. 24] and do unanimously declare that your review is Truman Capote with a twist of formaldehyde. SANDRA BARKER CATHY TRACY MARGOT GRONHOLZ Wittenberg University Springfield, Ohio

Look at the Challenge

Sir: I found little cause for gloom in the dilemma facing the grad schools [Nov. 24]. I felt cheered by the thought that the faculties and facilities of the graduate schools might finally be available to undergraduate students, if only for a few years. While the administrators may be fearful, surely the professors must welcome the opportunity to come out of their stuffy libraries and labs and get in touch with the most challenging and questing generation of undergraduate students we have ever had. It could be a mutually rewarding experience.

ELIZABETH DEAN Bass River, Mass.

Beat Off the Elephants

Sir: As a regular hiking companion with Major General R. McC. Tompkins, U.S.M.C., former commanding general, Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, S.C., and now commanding general, 3rd Marine Division, Viet Nam, I wish to correct your statement concerning the general's " . . . limp at the end of a ten-mile hike" [Nov. 24]. From my observation of General Tompkins, as we hiked with thousands of (wide-eyed) recruits on weekly twelve-mile jaunts at Parris Island, I can assure you this statement is incorrect--there is no limp. The general does carry a walking stick when hiking which, in his words, "is used to beat off the elephants." RAY W. BOWLES Major, U.S.M.C. Parris Island, S.C.

Who's the Man of the Year?

Sir: That time for TIME is approaching, and so I nominate, as Man of the Year, 1967, Dean Rusk, the U.S. Secretary of State, really not because he gave his daughter to a non-white but rather because of his great courage, despite his own background, his apparent belief in "to each his own," whether it is in Georgia, Washington, or even in the White House. DAVID D. KPOMAKPOR Monrovia, Liberia

Sir: The Man of the Year is obvious: Ho Chi Minh, for not knowing when he's licked. Or Lyndon Johnson, for the same reason. KEITH HOOD Peace Corps Volunteer Western Carolines Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands

Sir: For Man of the Year, I nominate Richard Nixon, the John Alden who speaks in praise of every Republican--but never for himself. May the G.O.P. elephant, 1968, be named Priscilla! (MRS.) FLORENCE DREW Huntington Park, Calif.

Sir: The Israeli citizen-soldier, who humbled the Arab Goliath and continues to withstand the pressures of a hostile UN, the threats of Russia, the treachery of France, the nagging criticism of Britain and the lukewarm support of the U.S. S. LEVIN Johannesburg, South Africa

Sir: Mr. Average Citizen. Who else could have watched, listened to, and read the events of 1967 without having rioted, smoked pot, sat in, become a hippie, took a trip, struck, or protested the war in Viet Nam? He was the real newsmaker. L. I. VARNEY Huntsville, Ala.

Sir: The dissenter, of course. ARUN KHAITAN Madras, India

Sir: Colonel Robin Olds, U.S.A.F., a man of great courage and valor--the "typical" American. MRS. RUSSELL A. KAHLER Bonita, Calif.

Sir: The poor fish in Viet Nam, who will be lucky to get home in one piece but is still fighting until the bitter end. R. J. URLAUB Phoenix

Sir: The Rev. Cotesworth Pinckney Lewis, who seized an opportunity to speak for the country and world when he asked L.B.J. "why" we are in Viet Nam. LISA ALLIOLI Napa, Calif.

Sir: Charlie Brown. Who else has won so much respect and has brought more peace of mind and joy to people? JACKIE CARUSO Valley Stream, N.Y.

Sir: The plain but brave Bolivian soldier, who has just crushed the Castro-Communist intruders, giving thus a breath of relief to the Americas. J. L. COoRDOVA ELENA SALINAS A. J. CALDERON La Paz, Bolivia

Sir: Carl Yastrzemski, naturally.

JONATHAN B. DUBITZKY Brookline, Mass.

Sir: My vote goes to Captain Kangaroo. If more adults like him were in contact with our children, our next generation might be better able to handle the many problems facing humanity. (MRS.) SUSAN B. FRIEDMAN Pasadena

Sir: Carl Cohen of the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, who so ably performed a long-overdue public service by smacking Frank Sinatra in the kisser. JOHN A. BANGS Santa Monica

Sir: My vote is a rather unusual one, for I am representing a total of 596 voters--the student body and faculty of Deerfield. Our nomination is a rather obvious one--Mr. Frank L. Boyden, headmaster of Deerfield Academy. This is his last year and a fitting one for the honor of your award.

Mr. Boyden has innumerable qualifications. He has been the most influential man in American education for many years, and 20 Deerfield graduates are now headmasters of other schools. Personally, however, Mr. Boyden is the most marvelous, feeling, and truly amazing man I have ever met. This opinion is shared by all the people who now surround him, and all the old graduates also tell endless stories about Mr. Boyden's greatness. ELLIS MCKENZIE, '70 Deerfield Academy Deerfield, Mass.

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