So Give a Damn

Sir: As friends and former squadronmates of the 31 men lost last week in the Sea of Japan [April 25], we deeply mourn their deaths and ache with sorrow for their families. But we are angered and appalled, too, at the apparent contentment on the part of the American people to accept this loss with "cool" and "reserve," euphemisms for disinterest and apathy.

As a lowly Navy wife, I don't pretend to comprehend the intricacies of foreign policy and diplomacy. I refuse to understand, however, how a nation so full of people shouting "Give a damn" and "full commitment" can accept this so calmly. I suggest that the American people start to give a damn about those men doing so for them, to the last full measure. Shape up, America, and mourn your dead. You owe them that, and so much, much more.

ALICE DEWITT TRUSSELL

Beeville, Texas

Sir: In the case of the "Flying Pueblo" there is only one alternative. Retaliate! The next time a North Korean spy plane comes to within 100 miles of America's shores, shoot it down.

(THE REV.) GERARD S. MOSER St. Paul's Church Rochester, N.Y.

Sir: This is a great time for feminists. For years, some people have said that the President of the United States ought to be a woman. Now the North Koreans have succeeded in turning him into one.

NOEL G. PETERSEN Spring Lake, Mich.

By the Legion

Sir: Thank you for paying tribute to the mothers of America through Ethel Kennedy [April 25]. She is not alone in her struggle to bring up children to lead fruitful lives. As a teacher of young children, I am daily inspired by those mothers who are dedicated to the task of teaching moral and social values to the future citizens of our country. They may not be as spectacular as Ethel, but their number is legion. All is not yet lost in this country.

(MRS.) RUBY EATON West Concord, Mass.

Sir: Your writer etched Ethel Kennedy's many-faceted character with great care, pointing out the trivia, triumphs and tragedies of her rich life. Missing only was a reference to a personal relationship with the late Dr. Martin Luther King. Politically and psychologically, the two families had much in common, with sudden death to both fathers and husbands forming some kind of emotional tie. Thanks again for an excellent study of a complex, beautiful woman told by a writer who shows the rarest of gifts: loving concern for his subject.

GERALD F. MULLER St. Edward's University Austin, Texas

Sir: You must be hard up for news stories when you have to run another feature of an apparently endless series on the Kennedys.

I have had my fill of them, with their avarice for power, their ruthlessness, and the spellbinding facility they have over other people. I cannot believe that in their hearts they are truly for the poor and the underprivileged; the concern they show appears to be just a rung in the ladder to power. I further object to a feature on Ethel Kennedy because she should be left alone. She has had a lot of tragedy in her life, and baring it all to the public will not help her. She is a public personality, but leave her in peace.

S. ALAN BECKER Boston

Sir: TIME'S cover story on Ethel Kennedy errs in relating that Mrs. Kennedy led a small group of family and close friends to the roof of Good Samaritan Hospital for a "break" while Senator Kennedy lay dying. The fact is that except for the period when he was in the operating room, Ethel Kennedy never left her husband's side.

The incident to which you refer--when Mrs. Kennedy exhibited her incredible courage in trying to comfort those whose loss was so great (though not so great as her own)--occurred several hours after Senator Kennedy's death, while arrangements were being made to transport the family and intimate friends to the airport for the flight to New York and the Senator's funeral.

MRS. JAMES WHITTAKER Seattle

Eroding the Claim

Sir: It is distressing to read that Harvard has relegated its ROTC program to the status of an extracurricular activity [April 25] and that Yale has also withdrawn academic credit for such studies. Both schools evidently responded to minority demands founded on objections to war and the draft. However well-intentioned, the concessions erode the claim of these distinguished institutions to the name of "university."

John Henry Cardinal Newman succinctly defined a university as a place of teaching "universal knowledge." One may dispute the propriety of American military involvement in Viet Nam, even though we are there with the necessary concurrence and support of a representative Congress, elected and functioning under democratic principles of majority rule. One should not dispute the relevance of studies of military science, as a part of universal knowledge, especially at a time when the major portion of our national budget is devoted to war-related expenditures. One must not dispute the prudence of such studies while other potentially hostile nations are heavily engaged in military preparations which could threaten our very survival as an independent nation.

NORBERT J. MIETUS

Professor of Law and Management Sacramento State College Sacramento, Calif.

Sir: What conduct would you expect from the babies raised from the book of Dr. Spock? Respond to demand or you'll damage their psyche. Well, here is his theory visualized in glorious technicolor.

ELIZA SOLON Palm Beach, Fla.

Sir: How we wish these revolting students could spend just one day, as we did yesterday, with a young man named Mike in his remote oasis village in the heart of the Sahara. He, along with a score of other Peace Corps volunteers that we have observed here in Libya, is gay, high-spirited and keenly aware that there are things that need changing--and now. But instead of tearing the world apart he is, against such odds as extreme isolation and inadequate diet, cheerfully trying to hold it together. We just dare you students to stop all this commotion and start doing something too.

MRS. DON FAHRBACH Benghazi, Libya

Sir: I say college students should be permitted to rebel and riot--even for no cause at all. Why shouldn't they do so, faced as they are with melting into the streamlined sterility of corporate or governmental machinery after graduation? Why not let them wildly revolt before they must miserably submit to 45 terminal years of sadly dying in the suburbs and the cities?

JAMES S. ELMORE Lewis-Clark Normal School Lewiston, Idaho

Sir: Re Harvard's radical voice: As to the derivation of "Old Mole," why strain it out of Marx? Why not much more likely in cultivated Harvard from Hamlet, Act I, Scene 5, when the Ghost beneath the platform says: "Swear." And Hamlet: "Well said, old mole! Canst work i' th' earth so fast? A worthy pioneer! . . .

RENA VAN NUYS Wilmington, Ohio

Neighborly Note

Sir: With reference to your cover story of your Armed Forces [April 11] may I, as a Canadian Forces officer who has worked closely with members of all your services since 1952, be allowed to comment. The officers and NCOs of the U.S. forces with whom I have served are serving you--the U.S. public--extremely well. Your DOD is indeed the Department of Peace and I believe there are too few citizens who share the dedication to their country that your servicemen do. To be able to raise forces (under the threat of the draft) as professional, responsible and dedicated to the aims of political direction which gives them everything to do the job except authority to win, bodes well for America. If your university faculties and students could be endowed with one-tenth of the patriotic responsibility so evident in your servicemen of all races and skin colors, U.S. leadership in the free world would be unchallenged.

K. S. BATEMAN Major, Canadian Forces HQ NORAD (NEEC) Ent AFB, Colo.

The Proverbial Bear

Sir: A bit of advice that Dubcek [April 25] and his countrymen should have taken from Joseph Stalin: "It is not for nothing that the proverb says, 'An obliging bear is more dangerous than an enemy.' " Perhaps we should take Stalin's words a little more seriously in dealing with the Russians.

RICHARD O. HARDT Orlando, Fla.

People Pak

Sir: TIME, "On Flying More and Enjoying It Less" [April 18], spotlights increasing, overpowering chaos in air travel. Major problems are created by the need for superairports to serve superjets. Necessarily they must be located at great distances from the megalopolis each serves. And these airports will simply shift confusion from one place to another. Perhaps the answer is containerized people. A gargantuan crane straddles the plane, smoothly lifts the passenger compartment from the plane and deposits it on a monorail flatcar pulled by a power unit. The passengers unbuckle their seat belts and are whisked 150 m.p.h. to the downtown terminal.

CHARLES A. TURNER La Quinta, Calif.

Sir: I have a simple solution to the problems of highway/airway congestion and frustration: take the train. I've just returned from a round trip by train, New York to Miami, and it was a dream of comfort and efficiency. Board in midtown any morning, no queues, no long walks; baggage goes with you. Air-conditioned coaches are attractive, rooms/roomettes with private bath immaculate. Porters are cheerful, friendly, solicitous, dining cars spotless and there's TV in the club car.

There are still fine trains departing every day for Chicago, service to Washington is excellent, ditto for New England. And if the Government would divert to railroads some of the money it pours into airline and highway subsidy, we might even approximate the excellent train service one enjoys in Europe.

ELSA RUSSELL Manhattan

The Mouse That Gnawed

Sir: I enjoyed reading your article on Erasmus [April 25], but I do not think you went all the way when you endeavored to explain the name of my great compatriot. Erasmus' name in fact was Geert Geertsz (Gerard, son of Gerard) and as the humanists liked to translate their names into Latin (and/or Greek), Erasmus used the fact that "Geert" in his time was a form of a verb which meant "to desire," "to long for" (Latin: desidero). You know, of course, that Melanchthon wrote an epitaph for Erasmus: "Eras mus omnia rodere solitus [You were a mouse that always gnawed at everything]."

A. B. HOYTINK First Secretary to The Netherlands Embassy Paris

Prehistoric Equals

Sir: In regard to your article, "Intelligence: Is There a Racial Difference?" [April 11], if indeed there are significant differences in innate intelligence between contemporary Europeans and Africans, one would expect them to be reflected in the character and relative sophistication of the prehistoric technologies characteristic of Northern Europe and Africa. Even in far more recent periods the difference in complexity between the two regions was minimal.

In short, the case for racial differences in innate intelligence, unproved by the ambiguous data yielded by culture-bound intelligence tests administered to contemporary populations, collapses utterly when the overall record of human achievement, as unearthed by archaeologists, is brought to bear. Race is not a correlate of innate human intelligence.

C. SCOTT LITTLETON Occidental College Los Angeles

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