ZAP! POW! SOK!

Sir: To those of us who voted for him in the Indiana primary, Senator Robert Kennedy [May 24] represents honesty, imagination, courage and leadership. These, in my opinion, constitute the ingredients of that special chemistry that Presidents are made of.

MICHAEL KOR

Terre Haute, Ind.

Sir: A carpetbagging snollygoster with Torquemada tendencies should be denied a license to pilot the ship of state.

POKA CARIAN

Detroit

Sir: The Kennedys promised us the moon in 1960, and that particular moon consisted of the Bay of Pigs, acceleration of the war in Viet Nam, the Berlin Wall, the disastrous Vienna conference and the failure to get one New Frontier legislative program through Congress. What is Bobby going to do for an encore?

EDWARD H. CALLAHAN Olean, N.Y.

Sir: If there's one thing R.F.K. has shown himself good at, it's recognizing past errors of judgment (cf. the significant difference between his early and recent positions on Joe McCarthy, civil rights, Cuba and Viet Nam). How many lives would have been saved if L.B.J. had this same quality?

CHARLES Louis JAGODA Huntington, N.Y.

Sir: Roy Lichtenstein's cover drawing of Robert Kennedy, the New York Senator from Massachusetts, was superb. It provided an at-a-glance character analysis: colorful, comic, callow and caustic.

CHRISTINA SAKOWSKI, '71 University of Illinois Chicago

Sir: The cover exemplifies the real Bobby Kennedy because it explodes with the youth, nationalism, pride and determination that are so characteristic of this great leader.

DOUGLAS KELT

Oneonta, N.Y.

Sir: Looks to me like the kid has the measles and ought to be quarantined until about Dec. 1.

A. M. BROWN Meridian, Idaho

Sir: The cover cartoon shows the Senator's hair parted on the left, as Ted wears it (and as John did), whereas in fact Robert parts his hair on the right. Like Alice, Robert Kennedy has gone through the looking glass, where inversion and distortion, of him as well as by him, are the only possibilities. Mr. Lichtenstein is less artist than oracle.

MICHAEL G. DULICK St. Louis

Sir: Zap! Faster than a chartered 707! Pow! As powerful as Pappa Joe's Checkbook! Sok! It's the American Eagle! It's the Dove of Peace! It's Super Fraud! Who, disguised in beads and a turtleneck, leads a never-ending battle for touch football, New Camelot, and his own way! Bleah.

T. J. GREEN, '69 University of Missouri Columbia

The Name Game

Sir: TIME lists me among the supporters

of Senator Kennedy [May 31]. I support

Senator McCarthy. When political figures

seek our support, we have little to lend

but our presence, represented by our

names.

BARBRA STREISAND

Los Angeles

Sir: Pleased to be anointed as Beautiful Person. However, you have erroneously listed my name among supporters of one of the Democratic candidates. I have not lent my name in support of any candidate. I am in fact a member of the California delegation formerly pledged to President Johnson but expressing no preference at this time.

GREGORY PECK

Universal City, Calif.

Students at the Barricades

Sir: While reading the article concerning the student riots in France [May 24], I began to realize how influential our generation is, whether it be at Columbia or the Sorbonne. It's frightening to think that we could have a whole nation kowtow to our demands. We could eventually find ourselves with a 25-year-old President who couldn't tell the difference between a resolution and a revolution.

ANN KRANSTOVER Milwaukee

Sir: Where were you when I needed you? I read you all through high school and you and the rest of my outmoded society taught me wrong. I thought it was a privilege to enter a university. Imagine! A chance to listen and read and learn and question and maybe change an idea or two. You didn't tell me that my ideas at 18 or 20 were the only possible ideas and should be forced on an administration that, after all, had only been facing the same problems for an average of 20 years. So now that I'm too old to be taught anything different (22), I'm stuck with the ridiculous notion that freedom to follow convictions should be granted both sides of the question, and the suspicion that maybe, somewhere, somebody over 30 knows something I don't. Shucks.

ANNE C. DORNEY Ithaca, N.Y.

Getting the Old Irish Up

Sir: What is wrong with Academia [May 24] is what is wrong with contemporary society as a whole. When I was a young man, an old professor in Germany, who was the greatest man in our field, said to me musingly: "In our profession one needs a certain abnegation." Most of our young men and women today who follow in that old man's footsteps want maximum salaries and leave with pay before they have even begun to think of abnegation. This comes, of course, from the fact that universities and colleges have quadrupled their enrollments and they have to bid high for even the poorest of staff. We cannot do a great deal about this, immediately, but we can stop blaming the deficit on Anglo-Saxon and Sanskrit, on research papers and the writing of books, and on concentration on periods of interest which are not strictly contemporary. Only too frequently knowledge of the contemporary is quite a bore, and it offers very limited perspective. I should like to take in hand one of those bitter critics of modern Academia. Maybe I could get him interested in Vulgar Latin and Old Irish. He might change his mind and that would do harm to the sale of his bitter books.

URBAN TIGNER HOLMES JR. Kenan Professor of Romance Philology University of North Carolina Chapel Hill

Nothing to It

Sir: Anent your article on anarchists [May 24]: observing the anarchists' consistent alienation from reality, a 19th century critic summed up their program in two statements: 1) there shall be no law and order; 2) no one is required to comply with the preceding statement. Each generation of anarchists draws its inspiration from this "program."

JACK WREN Little Neck, N.Y.

Indictments All Around

Sir: "A Nation Within a Nation" [May 17] constitutes a powerful indictment of U.S. society. In the midst of unparalleled abundance, a third of the nation goes to bed hungry each night. The bare facts, without emotionalism, cry louder than the fervent oratory of Martin Luther King for overdue reforms in our thinking. It may make the smug fat cats gag on their much vaunted affluence.

EDWARD FRANZBLAU North Hollywood, Calif.

Sir: Men drafted into the Army must attend classes on how to have healthy bodies and teeth, sanitation, disease prevention, problem solving, character guidance. ' Those of us who feel it is almost heresy, in a land of opportunity, free schools and helping agencies, for a healthy person to live off welfare, would like to see those who receive social handouts be required to attend classes on birth control, nutrition, personal hygiene, problem solving, job opportunities, family budget and management and generally on how to keep the bartender and loan shark from getting the lion's share of any "guaranteed family income." Those who can't force themselves away from their television sets or the local tavern to attend classes can go hungry.

LEW MURDOCK Columbus, Ga.

Distaff Distress

Sir: It seems that women as well as Negroes are still having trouble taking their place in the business world [May 24]. In fact, the two groups have many other problems in common. Both have been denied the vote, equal education, access to certain places and events, and equal pay except in certain fields such as entertainment and sport where their talents are much in demand. Both have a major weakness--they are much too emotional. However, everybody knows they do have a natural rhythm. Both are tolerated, sometimes beloved, if they stay in their place; but, if they step out of it, are soundly whacked back where they belong. However, there is one difference. Negroes do not become un-Negro if they fight for equality the way women who do so are said to become unwomanly. Therefore, Negroes will undoubtedly achieve full status as human beings sooner. I do wish women progress in their dainty, nonviolent struggle. Some of my best friends are women.

MARJORIE RAY PIPER Palo Alto, Calif.

Trans-Obliterated

Sir: Skinny Monkey and Jade Woman are merely aliases used by movie critics and fan clubs when alluding to Frank Sinatra and Elizabeth Taylor [May 24].

They're never splashed across marquees. Virtually all stars' names are transliterated into Chinese by movie exhibitors. Thus Gina Lollobrigida reads Jenna Lo-lu-bo-li-gi-da, and Richard Burton becomes Lee-cha Bo-tun. But movie titles in Chinese are really a vault over the East-West language barrier. Casanova 70, starring Marcello Mastroiani and treating male impotence, became a box-office hit thanks to its Chinese marquee title of "He's Finished Before Tasting the Real Thing "

S. T. HSIEH Hong Kong

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