Officers and Scholars

Sir: Your article on the crisis over ROTC [March 7] put the matter squarely in focus. The military has become the scapegoat for many of our social ills. And the converse is true: our present military system has been virtually absolved in areas where it has perpetrated the most vicious harm--notably, conscription.

ROTC will never be the answer to our ineptitude in the armed forces, but a sound officer-training program in the universities is one of many sensible approaches to effect reform. What our country and our military have a crying need for is intellectual leadership. Compulsory ROTC is as repulsive as compulsory anything, but a nation that scoffs at the prospect of men versed in the sciences and the humanities filling the crucial positions in the services deserves what it gets.

THOMAS J. SNELL Philadelphia

Sir: I question your statement that ROTC liberalizes the military establishment. The armed forces, while inherently conservative, are today more reactionary than is healthy. ROTC has not worked because 1) those students inclined toward the military are the ones who join the program, 2) the constraints of the military system extinguish whatever liberalism there might be and 3) those who maintain their liberalism leave at the end of their short commitments. If Curtis LeMay, an archconservative, is a product of the liberalizing forces of ROTC, then you have pointed out its failure. Our Government must review the entire military system to make it relevant to the principles of democracy. Then a volunteer army could successfully find the needed intelligent recruits.

BRUCE E. INGMIRE Rochester

Sir: It is one thing for members of the academic fraternity to knock ROTC because of antimilitary sentiments. But those who seek to eliminate it from the college curriculum because the classes lack academic qualities and are "boring trade school courses" might well examine a few other programs.

Classes such as headline writing, photography, classroom bulletin boards, pottery, jewelry, ballroom dancing, golf, horseback riding and--hang on to your hat--family planning and marital relations seem hardly more academic than "military staff operations."

Under the guise of getting broad lib eral educations, my wife and I received credit for most of the aforementioned courses and at highly accredited Western universities, too. Admittedly, that coeducational ballroom-dancing class was tough; I pulled only a C. (Never could get my hips moving in time with the music during the merengue.)

Better I had taken ROTC. At least I might have profited from the knowledge during my adult working life.

KENNETH GREEN Dallas

Sir: As an ROTC graduate of '66, I will vouch for the almost complete absence of academic material presented in the program. Furthermore, students who were enthusiastic about marching (which was always interpreted as "leadership potential") received A's. And how important is drill? During my two years of active duty in the Army, I didn't even see a parade. Today's ROTC program is as outmoded as the single-shot rifle, and discredits both the Army and the universities.

DOUGLAS D. SMITH Long Beach, Calif.

Sir: You stated that the Marine Corps "shuns" ROTC and "is currently satisfied with turning collegians into officers solely at OCS bases and summer camps."

The fact is that the NROTC program is wholly supported by the Marine Corps, which provides in excess of 100 officer and enlisted personnel to assist in the administration of the program at all of the 54 units. In this regard, midshipmen are provided an opportunity to pursue commissions in either service, and over 800 of these have been commissioned in the Marine Corps since the landing of troops in Viet Nam in 1965.

It may be of further interest to note that, as of December 31, 1968, there were 1,695 NROTC-trained officers on active duty in the Marine Corps and an additional 137 with Army and Air Force ROTC backgrounds.

J. PHILLIPS

Lieutenant Colonel, U.S.M.C. Washington, D.C.

The Mantle Becomes Him

Sir: Whatever the outcome of the talks President Nixon has had with the European heads of state [March 7], it is fair to say that personally he has made a hit both with statesmen and the general public. His European visit will affect, for good or ill, the lives of us all. The mantle of the presidency becomes him. There have been no hectic 100 days--no promises of pie in the sky. He has taken his time in forming his Administration and having a period of reflection. Now we see the guiding hand of the new leadership in action--moving forward on a dozen paths at home and abroad.

It was pleasing that his first visit abroad was to Europe--an old friend, much neglected of late. We know that at times Europe can be a headache and a bit of a nuisance. As at present constituted, it is too strong to be regarded as a satellite, too weak to be an equal partner. Yet there can be no peace without a strong Europe, which includes Great Britain.

JOHN S. McCowAN Stourbridge, England

Sir: TIME used some unfortunate adjectives to describe our President, who represented the U.S.A. in Europe so magnificently. Your correspondent may have seen the President as "uncertain, clumsy, uneasy, not quite relaxed in the midst of ceremony." But the marvels of television, so mercilessly true, projected the President displaying wonderful charm, superb sophistication, articulateness and complete, relaxed ease of manner. This once ardent Democrat and retired newspaper society editor was proud of him.

JULIA LEE MACDONALD Seattle

Sir: As a staunch admirer of the U.S. and its people, I think that President Nixon's pandering to General de Gaulle in Paris is a reprehensible affront to both his own people and to us Canadians. The leader of the greatest country on earth casts discredit on himself and his people to bend his knee to such as De Gaulle.

MRS. EDWARD H. McEwEN Vancouver, B.C.

In the Eyes of the World

Sir: One would expect a person on trial for murder in Russia to be told to shut up or else a muzzle would be placed on him and he would be chained to his chair. As an American citizen working overseas, I was appalled at the description of how Sirhan Sirhan was treated when he demanded to plead guilty and defend himself at his trial [March 7]. In "the land of liberty and justice for all," can a citizen sit still when a person is forced to accept lawyers he does not want and to be a mere pawn while law is manipulated and twisted to the point that neither truth nor justice prevails? Worse yet in the eyes of the outside world is the manner in which the judge threatened the defendant.

JOHN GARRUTO St. Julians, Malta

Caught in the Nutcracker

Sir: You state that Detroit has adopted a new police weapon known as the "nutcracker" [Feb. 28]. This is completely incorrect. The Detroit police department has not adopted such a weapon, we have not issued any to officers, we have not ordered or purchased any, and we do not intend to order or purchase any.

It is difficult to understand how you can write of "Detroit's success with the instrument" when we have never even had any experience with it. It is also difficult to comprehend how you can quote a "Detroit police official" as saying, "With six men carrying the sticks, we can penetrate 50 men and bust up their formation and come back out," when, in fact, the weapon has never been used in any crowd-control situation in Detroit or by Detroit police officers.

In these days of delicate relationships between the police and the community, I am sorry that you have mistakenly made it appear that our officers control crowds by flailing individuals with a weapon that breaks limbs and fractures skulls.

JOHANNES F. SPREEN Commissioner Department of Police Detroit

> TIME erred. The police departments of some independent Detroit suburbs have adopted the nutcracker, and some individual Detroit policemen have bought the device on their own, but it was never part of Detroit's official equipment and Commissioner Spreen has since banned its use altogether.

Lend Me Your Ear

Sir: If the U.S. should permit three or four Navy recruits to take command of a destroyer and fire 5-in. shells indiscriminately at Hanoi and Haiphong, the press and demonstrators all over the world would be up in arms; our embassies would be attacked by mobs, etc. On the other hand, an inexperienced group of part-time farmers can fire heavy 5-in. (122-mm.) rockets shotgun-fashion at Saigon [Feb. 28], a city of over 2,000,000 people, over a period of nine months and the attacks rate no more than a, few lines on page 98 in U.S. newspapers and less than that in European papers.

After living with these attacks for the past year and watching the poor Vietnamese cower in terror, I am convinced that the Communist world has the ear of the world press to the exclusion of all other views.

PHILLIP N. LEGO Saigon

Admire, Don't Degrade

Sir: The fact that London is becoming the "abortion capital of the Western world" [March 7] is an indication of the lead that Britain maintains in humane understanding of social problems. The abortion bill and the homosexual bill rank as outstanding achievements in bureaucratic understanding of modern society. The "painful lesson" that Britain is experiencing is a minor administrative problem brought about by the vociferous extremist minority. Let the rest of the world admire, not degrade Britain in this matter.

R. LYNDON ARSCOTT Oakmont, Pa.

Sir: You inform us that British women used to be ashamed to ask for abortions--but that now, since Parliament has seen the light on this matter, they walk in with heads held high to demand their new sacred right. Are we supposed to cheer at this? I used to think that women were born with the instinct of mother love, but now it seems that they have it only when we tell them to. If this is what the emancipation of women means, then there's a lot to be said for slavery.

LAWRENCE J. DICKSON Princeton, NJ.

Sir: Should the law insist that any unwanted child be born to its unwilling mother? Is not every new baby entitled at the very least to be wanted and loved from the start? The life it faces is full of too many hazards for it to have to face an additional handicap. Speaking from a sere old age, I am certain that what the world needs now is not more babies but better ones.

J. ADDISON SMITH Seattle

Giant with Style

Sir: Always glad to see mention of Celine in your literary section [Feb. 28], as this author is still one of the "undiscovered" giants of modern literature.

I would, however, like to call your attention to the fact that Castle to Castle is not Celine's final book. It is the first volume of a trilogy. The second volume (1960) is entitled Nord. The final volume, being published right now in France, is Rigodon. Also, your evaluation of Celine as an author who made the belated discovery of the applicability of street language hi literature is a gross misconception. Celine's art consists of a poetic transposition of the effects that spoken language have on the auditor, and not in the transcription of that language itself. As Celine himself explained to Professor M. Hindus in 1947, this transposition necessitates "a certain deformation of spoken language," since even "the most vivid dialogue, if directly transcribed on the page, inevitably falls flat, sounds complicated and heavy." In this poetic transposition lies the genius of Celine's style. CHARLES KRANCE Instructor in French Lawrence University Appleton, Wis.

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