Under the Umbrella

Sir: Re "The Great Missile Debate" [March 14]: A parched world groans with hunger, our cities broil in the hatreds of the dispossessed, and the Pentagon wants us all to sit under a multibillion-dollar ABM umbrella! And lo, the umbrella is full of holes! So is our national conscience and sense of stewardship.

To paraphrase the late President Kennedy, "Ask not what your country can do for your security, but what you can do for your country's sanity." The former is no longer even theoretically attainable--and that ought to be a liberating realization. The latter, God help us, may yet be salvaged, and our children's unguaranteeable future humanized.

DAVID S. WARREN Madison, N.J.

Sir: Be he black, red, white or yellow, Democrat, Republican or Socialist, every man, woman and child in these United States owes a solemn duty to the freedom he or she enjoys in this country to unequivocally back the critical conclusions of our President, who is ipso facto commander in chief in military matters. Virulent dissent asserted by politically minded doves in the U.S. Congress will do irreparable harm to the international strength of America, as it struggles for even a morsel of indication from North Viet Nam that an honorable peace is possible. Half a million men on Asian soil are bleeding and dying for a united America. We owe them nothing less than a united America.

Let God give the members of Congress the strength to place patriotism above selfish interest. Let the voice of freedom ring in America, as well as in the paddyfields of Viet Nam.

FRANK B. ELLIS Former Director of U.S. Office of Emergency Planning Pasadena, Calif.

Sir: Does anyone really believe that if Russia wanted to attack us she would start shooting from far-off Europe, giving us ample time to detect the attack and return it, as well as giving us a good opportunity to knock down her missiles?

Isn't it far more likely that she would sneak her missiles right up to our shores on her many hundreds of submarines, merchant ships, and fishing trawlers and knock us out before any $400 billion ABM system could detect the attack, much less block it?

So where's the likelihood of the 40-minute warning and the high missile trajectory that alone can give sense to the ABM expenditure?

ROBERT S. ALVAREZ Pleasant Hill, Calif.

Last Chapter

Sir: After reading your story on the fate of Poland's remaining Jews [March 14], I thank God for having successfully managed to get my parents and sister out of that country recently.

What is taking place in Poland today is the last tragic chapter in the noble history of Polish Jewry. From early in the 12th century, when German Jews sought new homes there because of persecution by the Crusaders, to the present day,' Jews have contributed much to the economic development and culture of that country. Their only reward has been a life of suffering at the hands of Poland's infamously anti-Semitic population.

ALEX RADEN Norwich, Conn.

Sir: William Mader's emotional conclusions regarding Poland's treatment of Jews demand contradiction. Let us retitle the article "Third Exodus," since the first, as a result of persecution in virtually all European countries (save Spain), was to Polish sanctuary. Beginning with the "Jewish Edict" of 1264 and its nationwide reaffirmation in 1334, the Jews in Poland enjoyed unparalleled freedom, to the extent of effectual self-rule.

If Poland, according to the author, is ridding itself of Jews more effectively than the Germans did, then a consolation prize should be awarded to the loser, for heaven knows, they tried harder.

ALBERT M. MICHEJDA Burnsville, Minn.

Motives and Methods

Sir: Your article on eccentrics [March 14] was desperately inaccurate and deficient in both its approach and conclusion. There is a great difference between the eccentric and the radical activist in both motive and methods, a point that you may have been attempting to make when you wrote "Genuine eccentricity generally stops far short of pathological conduct." Madalyn Murray O'Hair, Sirhan Sirhan, Thoreau, the current student radicals, Timothy Leary and Ralph Nader all are radical activists, not mere eccentrics as you have labeled them. Their motive is to change existing social mores or political trends by means of spectacular acts covered by the news media, whether these acts be legal challenge or murder.

On the other hand, John Zink, Korczak Ziolkowski, Clint Wescott, and Jim West (to name a few) are truly eccentric. Surely none of these men are trying to convince anyone else of the advantages of their own particular ways of life. They are simply "people who consistently follow their own seemingly exotic standards" and are clearly not bidding for attention. Consideration must be given to the motives and methods of the individual in relation to existing social standards and how he wishes to affect them. If he wishes to affect them at all, he is not merely eccentric, but is in fact a radical activist.

R. FRANK WIEDEFELD Tampa, Fla.

Sir: Edward FitzGerald, famous English translator of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, was one of a family of eccentrics, of which his eldest brother John was the most colorful. John was possessed of some kind of religious mania that caused him to wander around the countryside seeking an audience. His conduct in church was most amazing. Entering a pew, he would take off his shoes and stockings, then empty his pockets on the pew beside him and listen most attentively to the sermon. If anything the preacher said appealed to him, he would let out a shrill whistle that was heard all over the church. "England," writes Santayana, "is still the paradise of eccentricity, heresy, anomalies and humours."

(THE REV.) HARRY TAYLOR Portland, Ore.

Sir: Did you miss the point? Only the rich can afford to be eccentric. Everyone else is nuts.

W. A. FORESTER Eugene, Ore.

On the Square

Sir: In regard to "hip Harvard" and student "refusal to learn what they don't want to learn" [March 14], perhaps as a Harvard product and sociology professor I may comment.

Any communal enterprise requires work, discipline and ideology. American students tend to refuse the first two (of course, the Protestant ethic is dead) and cannot understand the third. Rebellion becomes non-cerebral, sensate, lacking the ideal of the continental student. Everybody talks at once, tries to epater la bourgeoisie with obscenities and refuses "work" courses, where reading replaces talk off the tops of many heads. McLuhan says we're postliterate anyway, so why read and write? Even hippiedom is huckstered. In short, white liberals are too busy feeling and emoting to change much of anything. Even their rebellious life styles feed the affluent pop consumer culture. Perhaps the blacks, being hungrier, can discipline themselves a bit better and do us all some good.

ANDREW R. SISSON Henniker, N.H.

Faith Restored

Sir: I read your article about Geel and its mental asylum [March 14] with great interest. I was in custody of the asylum at the age of two in 1938 and placed with a foster family in Geel. When Germany overran Belgium, I was forced to hide. A few months later, my younger sister joined the same household. Though the whole town knew of our Jewish origin, we lived through the entire war years without any harm, at the constant risk of many peo ple's lives. Never again have I known such love and care.

When I read of all the inhumanity that exists today, I need the knowledge of Geel and its compassionate citizens to restore my faith in mankind.

ROBERT A. Kiss Manhattan

Sir: Your story recalls an incident that occurred during my visit there eight years ago. Late one afternoon, I saw a poster announcing that the film to be shown that night was Psycho--Alfred Hitchcock's shockingly violent story of a maniacal killer. I envisioned the awful effects on Geel's paranoids and schizophrenics who dutifully attended the weekly shows.

I mounted my bicycle and pedaled rapidly along the cobblestone streets to alert Dr. Hadelin Rademaekers, the medical director. The 74-year-old psychiatrist smiled, patted my arm and told me not to worry. "My malades are not so sick they cannot distinguish between a mere film and reality," he assured me. Still worried, I hung around outside the theater that night. Finally, the people emerged--laughing and giggling as though they had seen a comedy. The old gent was right: his sick ones were too sane to be fooled by Hollywood's make-believe.

ROLAND H. BERG Science and Medicine Editor Look Magazine Manhattan

Nursery School

Sir: In your article "The Wild Flowers of Thought" [March 14], you mention a Russian proverb that according to you runs like this: "With seven nurses, the child goes blind." Obviously you had in mind the following Russian proverb:

Y C6MM HHH6K IJMTfl 663 TJiasy .

It can indeed be literally translated as "With seven nurses the child has no eye." However, it does not mean at all that the child in question goes blind, even in one eye. Rather it simply indicates that the child is without proper supervision, since no nurse keeps an eye on him, relying in that respect on other nurses.

WALTER BOND Syracuse, N.Y.

As Ye Sow ...

Sir: After reading of the cruel slaughter of the young harp seals in Canada [March 21], I experienced a feeling of very great and utter sadness. When we no longer care about the very young and helpless, we deserve all the horrors we may reap.

SHARON BATES Casselberry, Fla.

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