Blazes on the Trail

Sir: Senator Eugene McCarthy [March 22] has brought back the virtue Hope to the American political scene. Regrettably, the Senator's antiwar campaign is also based on hope, not reality. The Senator hopes that if we stop the bombing there will be peace--as if events had not cast even the slightest discredit upon such fatuous wishing. Until the Communists show an interest in a just peace that does not involve simple N.L.F. takeover, a bombing halt would be merely a quixotic exercise in futility.

JEFFREY LAURENTI, 71

Harvard College Cambridge, Mass.

Sir: It's in the air! You can smell it! The mood of the country has shifted toward a real abhorrence of our involvement in Viet Nam. Should McCarthy or Kennedy unseat Johnson, many of us Republicans will go to the polls to cast a resounding vote for the peace candidate. MARY C. SUNDBLOM Evanston, Ill.

Sir: What McCarthy has done already is fantastic: to mobilize formerly desperate college students and give them the one thing that has alienated them from society for so long--namely, faith in the American democratic process, hope from despair. Eugene McCarthy can do the same for the country if we support him. JOHN WOODWARD

Northport, N.Y.

Sir: I think McCarthy is full of mashed potatoes. I'm sticking with the older generation and with L.B.J.

JEROLD JEFFE, '71 U.C.L.A.

Inglewood, Calif.

Sir-Senator McCarthy offers some parallels with Barry Goldwater: he presents the politics of honesty and morality. But unlike the Senator from Arizona, McCarthy's intelligence gives vision to his honesty and takes the rasping edge of self-righteousness off his morality. He is a true successor to Adlai Stevenson.

ROBERT E. WOOD Associate Professor

Saint Joseph's College

Rensselaer, Ind.

Sir: Senator Kennedy's offer to save the nation from disaster amused me for its consummate conceit, disturbed me because his proposals are nothing more than an offer of surrender to Hanoi and Communism. Perhaps the Senator would do well to curtail his efforts to embarrass our President and spend some time studying contemporary history, vis a vis what results from a freely elected government's invitation to the local Communist party to join a coalition government. It is unfortunate that this very minor talent is so totally blinded by personal ambition.

CHRISTOPHER L. HENRIKSON JR. Chief Yeoman, U.S.N. A.P.O., San Francisco

Sir: Robert Kennedy offers us not only the pride of promise now but the promise of pride in the future.

DANIEL I. GOLDSTEIN

Syracuse

Sir: How awful to imagine that the flagrant, repeated opportunism of Robert Kennedy may be rewarded with the Democratic nomination. How can a nation of people searching for a rebirth of an idealism we once knew briefly believe, even momentarily, in a man who waits for someone else to test the bridge before walking across? It is cruel and tragic that McCarthy, a man of proven moral and intellectual values, a man who can and did stand firm in the face of possible disaster, may be defeated by the so-called magic of the Kennedy name and the synthetic charm of young Mr. Kennedy's smile. One wonders whom and what R.F.K. will be willing to sell out next.

BARBARA HARRISON

Manhattan

Sir: Bobby Kennedy found it necessary, or at least expedient, to go to another state in order to be elected Senator.

Hopefully, he will now choose to go to another country in order to be elected President.

RICHARD MCCOLLUM

Decatur, Ga.

Sir: One of the criticisms aimed at Eugene McCarthy when he announced his campaign for the presidency was that his record in the Senate was rather lackluster. Few people have mentioned that Robert Kennedy's achievements in that august body are few and far between. And his brother spent seven years as Senator running for President. Lyndon Johnson, on the other hand, was a great and powerful majority leader.

MARTHA CUSICK

Madison, Wis.

They Can Have It

Sir: Your statement that Communist gunners are so expert that they can fire 25 rounds per minute from 82-mm. mortars [March 15] seems a bit farfetched. Exceeding eight or ten rounds per minute is inviting the weapon to melt and ornament your homemade sandals with white-hot metal. Also, your reference to the fine quality of the AK-47 is somewhat discolored. Not only does the AK-47 overheat rapidly, as you stated, it also jams twice as fast as any U.S. weapon, including the M16, because of the cheap stamp ing of the gas cylinder. You mention that the weapon turns each V.C. into a machine gunner. How can he put out large volumes of fire when his harness is designed to carry only three magazines?

With one on the weapon, that gives him a total of 120 rounds. By comparison, using two universal ammo pouches and a ten-magazine bandoleer, I can carry 480 of M-16 ammunition very comfortably. After almost three years in Viet Nam, I have yet to find one piece of Communist-manufactured equipment that would meet the standards of the free-world forces in Viet Nam.

NELSON J. GARCIA Captain, U.S.A. A.P.O., San Francisco

He Had a Better Idea

Sir: In view of Pontiac's recent commercials [March 22], it is interesting to know what Clyde thought of the automobiles of the day in his own words. Enclosed is a copy of a letter written by him.

GORDON CRAIG Designer, Ford Motor Co. Dearborn, Mich.

Credit Where Due

Sir-TIME'S roundup on "Cities" dealing with the report by the President's Commission on Civil Disorders [March missed one important point: We should not condemn all of white America for riots in the cities. As I have said: ' I do not think it is fair to accuse all whites of racism with one big broad stroke. I think any fair-minded person would admit very readily that there has been discrimination in our country and that it reached the point where the Negroes were very angry--even Negroes who were well off were angry. I think that their anger was justified because of the long discrimination against them." I also feel that emerging Negro leadership with the help of President Johnson's programs constitute some of the best things that are happening in the U.S. today to improve race relationships. The President deserves more credit.

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