Those Chicago Cops

Sir: Liberty and the Democratic Party died today on the streets of Chicago.

MR. AND MRS. MELVIN J. DAVID Encino, Calif.

Sir: The Gestapo has been reborn as blue-helmeted Chicago policemen.

PALMER B. RAWLEY JR. Albuquerque

Sir: The public beating of any man is a terrifying example of what must happen to individuals in the hands of the police. The glimpses of law and order we saw in Chicago must not be tolerated.

JAMES KANE Cleveland

Brutality and Hysteria

Sir: The invasion of Czechoslovakia [Aug. 30] further demonstrates the brutality and treachery of which the Soviet leaders are capable. We've been painfully aware of these traits for some time. What I had not realized was the state of mind of these men. They have sacrificed improved Soviet-U.S. relations, dealt the antiwar faction in the U.S. a severe blow, lessened the chances for a peaceful end to the Viet Nam war, and even blackened themselves in the eyes of other Communists, all to smash a growth of freedom that was in no way a threat to Russia's security. The invasion was conceived in panic and carried out in hysteria. The hope for peaceful coexistence rested in the good sense and rationality of the Soviet leaders, but men controlled by fear have neither.

NIKKI PATRICK Pittsburg, Kans.

Sir: I am a 20-year-old university student who watched with great hope and anticipation while a man I never had heard of, in a country never spoken of, built carefully, step by step, that intangible but priceless object--freedom. Then came the familiar rumbling of iron tanks. Bitterly, I look to my leaders to find them afraid of intervening, yet ever anxious to send more and more troops to a corner in Southeast Asia, where they care about neither Communism nor freedom. I turn to the United Nations and find them playing a game that they can never win. And most bitterly of all I turn to face the hippies, the beatniks and all the other dropouts who profess to be lost souls, wandering in search of something to believe in. Yet all the time that lost ideal has been shining brightly in front of them.

JOHN MILLER Huntington, W. Va.

Sir: Behold how quickly doth the bubble burst! Too bad there had to be a sacrificial lamb to point out the inevitable, but better Czechoslovakia now than us later. Conservatives are profoundly entitled to utter the loudest "We told you so" of the decade.

JOHN H. DREW Milton, Wis.

Sir: Senators McCarthy and McGovern state that our capacity to protest the events in Czechoslovakia has been weakened because of our involvement in Viet Nam. I suggest that besides withdrawing from Viet Nam, we could further strengthen our capacity to protest by withdrawing all U.S. forces from Europe and Asia. If our protests still prove to be ineffective in preventing more Czechoslovakias we could escalate our protesting capacity by unilateral disarmament.

A. SCHNORE Scotia, N.Y.

Sir: On a visit to Prague, an elderly man gave me the text of an anonymous old German song that he felt reflects the gallant spirit of his compatriots:

Thoughts are free

Who can guess them?

They fly past

Like evening shadows

No man can know them:

One thing is sure:

Thoughts are free.

I think what I will

And what rejoices me:

Yet all in silence

As is befitting

My wish and my longing

Can none forbid:

One thing is sure:

Thoughts are free.

Though they shut me up

In a dungeon dark

All this is vain

Availing them nothing;

For them my thoughts

Shiver the bolts

And shatter the walls:

Thoughts are free.

FRED A. KAHN Washington, D.C.

Defiance in Biafra

Sir: Your article "Biafra's Agony" [Aug. 23] testifies that journalism still accepts the role that justifies its existence--that of being a spokesman for the conscience of mankind. How many realize that the arms that kill Biafrans are of the same provenance as those that clatter through the streets of newly enslaved Czechoslovakia? Dubcek and Ojukwu may go into ruin, but free men will treasure the memory of their defiant spirit of freedom.

CHARLES B. ASHANIN Indianapolis

Sir: The cover story is brilliant, heartbreaking, concise, comprehensive. What we are witnessing in Biafra today is the emergence of a new form of indigenous African nationalism, with a large number of tribes joining in a common cause. Ibos, indeed, are in the majority, yet there are millions of Ijaws, Ibibios, Efiks, Ekois, Annangs and others living in the former Eastern Region. The holders of five out of eleven portfolios in the Biafran government are minorities men, exactly reflecting the composition of the population of the whole of Biafra. Colonel Ojukwu has time and again called for a plebiscite in disputed areas in and outside Biafra to establish beyond doubt the will of all the minorities. This call is unique in modern Africa and, of course, is being rejected by the Lagos military government, as it knows full well that the vote would go overwhelmingly in favor of Biafra.

MICHAEL WOLF London

Sir: The Ibos are regarded as the Irish of Africa--ready-witted, strongwilled, carefree and gay, with a burning sense of patriotism for their own. The federal Nigerian government should remember Ireland. England tried to subdue us for more than 700 years and failed. Federal Nigeria will never conquer Biafra.

FINBARR SLATTERY Killarney, Ireland

Sir: Your Essay dealing with tribalism in Africa [Aug. 23] as the biggest obstacle to national unity was excellent. It is curious, however, that countries with great numbers of small tribes are making better headway in their attempt at unifying themselves than those with just a few big tribes. A big mistake was made in the beginning by forming Nigeria as one nation. The Ibos of Biafra should have been allowed to form their own country in 1960. Unfortunately, it is too late now. There won't be any of them left when the federalists get through with them. God help the Ibos. It seems no one else has the courage to do so.

(THE REV.) JOHN M. SCHIFF, M.M. Lima, Peru

Three Parts to the Pot

Sir: I object to your disregard for the context of my remarks on the use of marijuana [Aug. 16]. My first remark was to suggest that any judgment on the morality of marijuana must be based on conclusive medical and psychiatric studies, which at present are not available. My second remark was that the effect of pot on one's relationships with people would also be a necessary ingredient in reaching any ethical conclusions. My third remark was that one's personal motivation would be the final crucial element in developing a position on pot, assuming that medical, psychiatric and sociological studies indicated no detrimental results. When asked how motivation would figure in such a judgment, I gave the example attributed to me, intending to suggest that if one were using pot to escape from society or himself, then it could hardly be called a moral style of behavior.

TERRY L. COOPER Los Angeles

Bitter Pill

Sir: Your article "The Plight of the Black Doctor" [Aug. 23] completely shattered my belief that education would eventually solve a lot of the segregation problems. For if white doctors, with more education than most, treat Negro doctors with the same education so abominably, how can the average person be expected to be any better? For heaven's sake, what is the matter with those white doctors? Doctors more than any other people should realize that the only difference between black and white is pigmentation and certain physical characteristics that, I believe, involve only the outward appearance of the face and hair.

ELIZABETH AHLES Olympia, Wash.

But Aim Low

Sir: With respect to your article on corporal punishment of children [Aug. 16], it appears that the courts agree with the teachers. In Rupp v. Zinter, 29 Pa. D.C. 625, the court, while deploring the boxing of a pupil's ear, pointed out that nature had provided a part of the anatomy suitable for chastisement, and that tradition held that such chastisement should be there applied. The right of a teacher to punish a pupil is based upon the fact that they have assumed the parents' role while junior is in school. If they have it coming, swing away, but aim low and that law will protect you.

LAWRENCE J. NELSON Topeka, Kans.

The Navigator

Sir: My brother is a victim of the Church of Scientology [Aug. 23]. I have stood by while he has poured money into tuition, literature and E-meters. One of the concepts of Scientology is that a spiritual part of the being has lived before. By means of extensive, costly research, my brother has determined that he was a navigator on a ship in the 15th century.

BUFF GRAY Newton Center, Mass.

Fact of the Matter

Sir: There is a gross misstatement of fact in your story dealing with the efforts of a coalition of unions to try to force the Campbell Soup Co. into company-wide bargaining [Aug. 23]. You state: "Behind the demand is the burgeoning drive by A.F.L.-C.I.O. Organizer Stephen Harris to duplicate company-wide contracts that he won from the Union Carbide Corp. and the copper industry." This statement is as far from the true facts of the situation as it could possibly be. In 1966 and 1967, the Industrial Union Department of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. led a coalition bargaining drive against Union Carbide Corp., and Mr. Stephen Harris was involved in this effort. Eleven plants were struck for periods varying from 44 days to 246 days. Separate contracts were eventually negotiated on a local basis, each covering only the particular plant involved. The length of the individual contracts varied from twelve months to 38 months. On the basis of these facts, I trust you will agree that no company-wide contract was won from the Union Carbide Corp.

CARL H. HAGEMAN Vice President Union Carbide Corp. Manhattan

Free as the Wind

Sir: To describe Vladimir Tallin as a product of Communism [Aug. 9] is incorrect. He was a rebel and a free thinker. I knew Tallin in the mid-thirties, in the days when Russian men of culture were slaughtered in the name of international Communism. I last saw him in his tiny one-room apartment in Moscow, which was dominated by a huge black and white canvas entitled The Fish Merchant and Fish. Neither merchant nor fish were in evidence--it was hardly an example of having "knuckled under" to Communist social realism. We drank tea and listened to Tallin playing a lute (made with his own hands) and singing old Russian ballads learned from blind minstrels, with whom he traveled from village to village begging alms when he was a young boy. I was told that he ran away from home at the age of nine and lived free as the wind ever after.

I asked him whether Ihe flying machine that he was building in the bell tower of a nearby monastery would really fly. He grinned and said, "If it looks like flight itself, does it really matler?" This is my memory of "Tallin al Home."

NICHOLAS D. BORATYNSKI Pasadena, Calif.

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