Lead Us into Temptation

Sir: After reading the results of the Louis Harris Poll on morality [June 6], it seems to me that the only conclusion to come to is that the American people are thinking for themselves more than ever.

There is no such thing as being immoral v. being moral. If a person doesn't accept the established morals, he is living by his own standards, not being immoral. To paraphrase Mark Twain, "Lead us into temptation ... it builds strong character."

BRAD BURKE Martinsville, N.J.

Sir: Ridiculous! I refer to "Changing Morality: The Two Americas" and especially to the comparison "A doctor who refuses a house call to someone who is seriously ill is worse than a homosexual." I mean, what is the point? That doctors are better than homosexuals? What'if the doctor himself is a homosexual (take a TIME-Harris Poll on that one)? I mean to say the questions were so worded, the comparisons so ridiculous, that it is no wonder intelligent people are questioning the polls--and no wonder they've proved wrong time and time again.

AGNES TRELOS Los Angeles

Sir: In a society where children are conditioned to develop conceptually profane areas in their minds to accommodate words that in themselves are neutral, that sends missionaries to teach innocent people living comfortably in warm climates to be shameful of their bodies--which, paradoxically, are made in the image of God --it is refreshing to read of the new morality, which, new or old, was always concerned with the whole man, his intent, not merely his flesh. The days of busybodies and social cancers with boots up to their knees and collars up to their ears are hopefully numbered.

WALTER SWAN Montreal

Sir: Allow me to express my incomprehension at a society that 1) condones, indeed in some ways encourages, premarital sex for girls (TIME-Harris Poll), 2) hastens to condemn as "women of easy morals" (BEHAVIOR) those of them who were not careful enough and became unwed mothers, and 3) makes news of the "soft bulge under [Vanessa Redgrave's] floppy white pants" and "the Italian actor who fathered the child but whom she feels no need to marry" (PEOPLE).

From these criteria, it would seem that the "moral" way to bed before and out of wedlock is exclusively and respectively 1) through the pharmacy next door to buy a pill, or 2) through becoming a member of the jet set.

SOUHEIL DIB Beirut

Behind the Vote

Sir: Why, oh why, must everyone who does not support a black candidate be labeled "racist"? Is every black candidate naturally better than every white one, regardless of accomplishments?

You state: "The trouble with any poll involving a Negro candidate, of course, is that many of those interviewed are reluctant to admit to racial prejudice." Were the "many" really racially prejudiced? Is it not possible that some people may have been for Yorty in their ignorance in still believing that they had the right of free choice? It seems that free speech and free choice are only available to the so-called liberals in this country and that those having a difference of opinion immediately become labeled and shouted down in the press as well as on college campuses. Shades of the "McCarthy era"!

MRS. ALVIN GRANT Encino, Calif.

Sir: Sam Yorty's campaign emerges as the most repugnant and cankerous opportunism witnessed in recent times. This particular variety of infectious demi-think is as sinister a threat to America as the nuclear stalemate or environmental pollution, for it moves the electoral decision from reason to the irrational and erodes people's belief in the democratic process. A greater tragedy, though, is the extent to which Yorty's racism has so aptly measured the temperament of the voter. How dare we feign shock at the news of a Watts?

ROBERT C. PADEN Wichita, Kans.

Sir: Thanks to Mr. Thomas Bradley's decision to run for mayor, the citizens of Los Angeles had the opportunity to see themselves in daylight. Not a very pretty sight to watch--fear and prejudice surface and prevail. Possibly even more frightening is the Los Angeles voter's lack of qualms about jeopardizing the future of his city by placing it in the hands of a ruthless opportunist.

WILLIAM H. HOFFMAN Indianapolis

Sir: One would assume from the tenor of your article that 53.3% of the voting public of L.A. is racist. The precinct analysis reveals that over 95% of the Negroes in predominantly Negro areas voted Bradley while the Whitey areas voted Yorty by only 65%. Who are the racists? STUART VON Los Angeles

Sole-Satisfying

Sir: I take umbrage with your interpretation of conditions at Midway [June 6]. True, the accommodations might not please the jet set, but heads of state will be satisfied with good, middle-class American accommodations. Some of the reporters may have to sleep in barracks, but if it's good enough for the Navy . . . Gooney birds are a problem to the planes but a joy to normal human beings. They are beautiful and unafraid, good no-nonsense parents, and they offer lessons in tenacity and calm that some people of our country might well copy.

Night life? Well, believe it or not, it can be soul-satisfying to walk on the beach after dinner in bare feet.

MRS. G. B. PERRY Scotts Valley, Calif.

Erratum

Sir: I was amazed, shocked and mystified when I read the remark attributed to me in a story entitled "Post Office" [June 6].

In the context in which it appeared, the quotation implied that I favor continued political patronage in the Post Office Department and had argued at the White House against President Nixon's proposal to convert the present postal system into a public corporation.

The facts are that I have repeatedly called for removal of politics from the Post Office Department in the past and that I issued a strong statement in support of the President's public postal corporation on the day Mr. Nixon sent his postal-reform message to the Congress.

I not only endorsed the proposal. I urged that Congress "take every vestige of politics out of our postal system." In addition, I urged a letter-writing campaign so that members of Congress will know that the people want postal reform.

GERALD R. FORD, M.C. Fifth District, Mich. House of Representatives Washington, D.C.

>> TIME erred and regrets the implication. Addendum

Sir: The case TIME'S Essay presents for a change in U.S. foreign policy as regards China [June 6] is a sound and moderately argued one--perhaps over-moderately. For example, when you pointed out that China "has been involved less dramatically outside its borders than the Soviet Union," you might have added "and than the U.S.," which currently deploys a million and a half of its armed forces in bases scattered around the world, while China's troops are all at home where they (and, for the most part, we) belong.

JEROME STONE W. Concord, Mass.

Enough Rope

Sir: Sending Governor Rockefeller to Latin America [June 6] is similar to talking of twine in the house of the hanged. The Rockefeller empire stretches from practically one end of Latin America to the other, representing the powerful wealth and prosperity of the U.S. and everything that goes along with it. This "fact-finding mission," nothing more than a gesture of appeasement to Latin America, has become a double slap in the face.

RICHARD WERNER GLUKSTAD Gainesville, Fla.

In Dubious Travel

Sir: Few of Temple Fielding's followers [June 6] travel his kind of first class. They may think they're treading in the master's Gucci-shod footsteps, but what it adds up to after the checks are spent is more like fatuous Frommer than fastidious Fielding. Just as Lucius Beebe and his private railway car made few if any sociological waves, so Fielding and his portable martini mixer are headed for inverted snobbism's dubious Hall of Fame. NORMAN READER Amagansett, N.Y.

Sir: Temple Fielding is a symbol of everything wrong with our society--superficial, antiseptic and self-righteous. In an increasingly complex and sensitive world, Fielding sends forth his legions of bores, who would rather pinch and proposition-than listen and understand.

DAVID Fox Providence

Sir: I am sore distressed. Months of European travel were motivated by intellectual curiosity; perhaps I have sinned. Henceforth, I shall avidly devote my energies to outwitting airline and customs employees, diligently hunting American food and drinks and, while my wife shops, perhaps engage in a bit of titillating research on new strains of VD. Oh, woe is me for a misspent life!

E. W. FREEMAN Brevard, N.C.

Sir: Your article on Temple Fielding was very interesting, and he certainly is a charming man. However, when he reported in his 1969 Guide to Europe that my father, General Arthur McChrystal of the Bristol Hotel in Salzburg, had died, our family felt it was a "gross exaggeration." He is alive and working at the Bristol.

ELAINE MCCHRYSTAL KNAPP Atherton, Calif.

Hip! Hip!

Sir: Three theological cheers for Bishop James P. Shannon [June 6]. What a joy to know there is one American Catholic bishop more Christian than churchy, more humane than inquisitorial, more open than parochial, more honest than face-saving. JAMES HESSEL HAYDEN San Francisco

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