Hail to the Duke

Sir: "Now listen, and listen tight. . . . " I can't tell you what a pleasure it was to open my mailbox this week and find John Wayne mounted on his faithful steed [Aug. 8] staring at me.

As usual, your reporter did an excellent job. His portrait of one of the last of the rugged individualists was as good as mom's apple pie and as carefully woven as granny's old shawl.

Many, many thanks from one who grew up with Sergeant Striker, Big Jim McLain, John T. Chance, et al.

WILLIAM N. WOODWORTH Ashtabula, Ohio

Sir: If the John Wayne kind of man ever perishes--the kind of hero who sees moral conflict in black and white terms and political conflict in terms of freedom or slavery--then all the evasions, half-truths and compromises of today's collectivist mentalities will not be sufficient to instill in mankind a passion for life. It is only by the grace of heroes that civilization continues.

BRIAN WRIGHT St. Clair Shores, Mich.

Sir: Wayne's politics is irrelevant to us young Americans today. As cowboy, he is the charismatic hero of a generation painfully aware of its placelessness in its own country: typically a stranger, he arrives in town with the unlocalized perspective which we youth have, plus the power--albeit on his hip--which we would have.

The cowboy Wayne would defer self-knowledge for moral achievement and devote his life to justice for the very local folk from whom he is hopelessly estranged. He is one who has managed to translate his alienation into a noble life style. He is our existential hero who dares to burst out of his lifeless anonymity and assert his ideals in that longed-for reality of time and place. The Wayne cowboy is the us who happen.

E. GORDON DALBEY JR. Palo Alto, Calif.

Questions of Standards

Sir: I was astounded at the results of your Harris poll on the Kennedy affair [Aug. 8]. If 68% of the people of this country condone Kennedy's actions in connection with the recent accident, then we are in real trouble--because our moral standards have completely decayed. If this individual was physically capable of walking back to the party, he surely was physically capable of going to the nearest residence to summon professional help. If his story is true, he is unable to think for himself and must be told what to do by his battery of advisers. He still needs a nanny to blow his nose.

R. C. LEE Los Angeles

Sir: One wonders if the other Senator from Massachusetts had been involved in a similar situation, whether these same people would have felt so charitable.

(MRS.) ALICE C. BERGERON York, Me.

Sir: The popular theory, sponsored by Senator Kennedy himself, that he "lost his cool" is not supported by fact. Events on that tragic night show that the Kennedy machine swung coolly and efficiently into action under the Senator's personal direction and in a scant few hours devised a master strategy. We can but marvel at the Senator's determination and the ruthless power of his political apparatus. Or should we be just a bit frightened?

R. M. PITTS Arlington, Va.

Sir: He was quick to criticize, from the safety of the Senate, the tactics of our generals at Hamburger Hill. At that time, he knew everything about saving lives. Unfortunately, he wasn't that quick-witted on the night of the accident. If he had any real greatness about him, he would have resigned without hesitation.

WALTER E. NAUMANN Baltimore

Sir: Aw c'mon fellas--Senator Kennedy has already lost his driver's license. What do you want? Remember, as Mrs. Rose Kennedy said, "It's how one copes that counts, not what happens." With all due respect to that lady, let us remember how her youngest son did cope: He ran away and started a conspiracy of silence.

So let us go forward into the breach and, in the true spirit of James Michael Curley, re-elect the Senator in 1970 and forget the rest.

MARY ELLEN CAMPBELL Fort Myers, Fla.

Sir: No mention has been made of whether or not the Senator was wearing shoes when he returned to the hotel. As anyone who has taken a lifesaving course can testify, swimming and diving are very difficult with shoes on. Senator Kennedy, after suffering a concussion and in a state of shock, claims to have dived repeatedly to the sunken car and then swum the channel. This would have been difficult for an experienced swimmer, but incredible for a man in his condition, wearing a back brace and all his clothes. If he was also wearing shoes, it would be unbelievable.

GORDON SHELTON Baltimore

Sir: Why is it wrong for a Kennedy to invoke the family image in a time of crisis? After all, he is part of it, and even millions of jealous Americans cannot deny that fact. Americans hate the Kennedys alive and then adore them in death. They forget that even now, Edward Kennedy's skill symbolizes to the world the strength of character, youth, burning intelligence and compassion of all America.

EMMANUEL AJIBADE Lagos, Nigeria

Sir: We've all heard of the iron-willed theatrical mother who pushes and pushes her kids to the top. Those mothers could all take some lessons from Mrs. Rose Kennedy. She never takes "no" for an answer. No wonder tragedy has stalked the lives of this blighted family. A little humility is in order for all of them.

JIM BURNETT Los Angeles

Sir: The Democrats should run Rose Kennedy for President. She is the only person who could make me switch parties.

JOHN ANKENBRUCK Webster Groves, Mo.

Straight from the Heart

Sir: Re "The Moon and Middle America" [Aug. 1] and your statement: "He chatted on and on with somewhat feeble witticisms . . . its triviality was strongly at odds with the solemnity of what had been accomplished."

We know, at least, that the President did not resort to a ghost writer to express his sentiments on the solemn occasion. He spoke with beautiful simplicity right from his heart, which the astronauts apparently understood perfectly and enjoyed thoroughly. Would they have felt more at ease had the President delivered a dry, solemn, meaningless, lengthy speech that the enlightened intellectuals would have enjoyed interpreting and criticizing?

The U.S. needs more and more, lots more, "feeble witticisms" to counteract the gloom and despair spread by the gloomy, solemn, woebegone, doleful pessimists who claim to be Americans.

MARY MAHONY Dallas

Sir: Remember when trying to "go to the moon" was a synonym for forget it? Well, we did it. We went to the moon. And your "middle America" was just the flagwaving contingent for 200 million people who were all, in their ways, flying just as high as NASA's Columbia, because maybe, just maybe, they all of a sudden realized that hunger and poverty and ghettos and education weren't all problems whose solutions were as distant as the moon.

ANNE EDWARDS Radburn, N.J.

Sir: Yes, Apollo 11 was indeed a triumph of middle America. It showed what we and our values can create. That's one reason some of our liberal-radical detractors hate and fear the space program. They regard us of middle America as so many cows, to be milked without limit for their social programs. To keep us docile, they try to make us feel guilty for crimes we didn't commit, racial hatreds we don't feel (some of us are black too), poverty we didn't create. Apollo 11 smashed through that unearned guilt the way it punched through the Florida skies. Hearing "The Eagle has landed," no power on earth could have deprived us of the pride we had earned.

They tried, though. In our hour of triumph, while the Eagle was still on the moon, our carping critics kept on trying to suggest that we had no right to feel pride in Apollo because the poor were still poor. Back to the milking machine, old cow. Pride isn't for you.

But "The Eagle has landed," and we remember. We always will.

DAVID C. WILLIAMS Albuquerque

What Will Be Left?

Sir: Your new section, Environment, is not only an achievement in itself, but it has also spotlighted the men of the year, Senators Muskie and Jackson.

While we zip to the moon, wage wars, fight poverty, create ever deadlier weapons, and generally confine our thinking to today's world, the Senators and intelligent conservationists everywhere are trying to forge a positive answer to the question: If man survives his political and economic blunders, will there be enough left of mother nature to make survival worth surviving for? Now if we could just set up an International Office of Environmental Quality. . . .

MRS. GILBERT F. DONNELLY Cleveland

Sir: When pesticides and weed killers were first introduced, I, like most laymen, accepted the verdict of those who claimed to know, and took for granted that it was in keeping with the age of miracle drugs. Now I feel that the actual conditions are much more grim than you in your steel-and-concrete towers know.

For ten years I have worked here at the courthouse, and every year until last I saw hundreds and hundreds of the beautiful little pine siskin on the lawn, as the dandelions first went to seed. This year the tally was 17 or 18. And they didn't behave in a normal manner, for instead of spending a week or so here, they hung around as though lost until a few days ago --the last time I noted them.

We have always had dozens of robins on this lawn and other dozens on the lawns between here and home. This year four showed up on this lawn, two on the lawns between here and home. A cat got one of the four and now a third has disappeared. The lovely mountain bluebird nested everywhere in this town and the surrounding hamlets and farms. I can't vouch for anywhere but my daily route--but here we have exactly one pair.

We have feeders at home. Every year prior to the last two we fed dozens of juncos, chickadees, white-crowned sparrows and the like. And up here at the courthouse, I fed other dozens on snowy days. This year there's not a solitary one. I haven't seen or heard a meadowlark in this neighborhood. East of here, across the divide, the bird population has always been ten times--at least visibly--what it is on this side. On May 18th, I drove over there. Not a single horned lark, sage, field or song sparrow, nor a solitary pippet. Driving on above Alder, I stopped at the mouth of Water Gulch, got out and walked up to it a few rods where I knew that if all was normal I would find hundreds of these birds. I raised not a solitary bird.

My eyes and ears tell me that Rachel Carson's Silent Spring has arrived.

ELI B. CHRISTENSEN Philipsburg, Mont.

Sir: I am grateful for your interest in clean water and in helping to make the public aware of areas of pollution [Aug. 1]. However, as mayor of the city of Erie, I take exception to your inference that all of Lake Erie is a cesspool. We are a tourist area, and Erie's beaches and boating facilities are open, and have been open for many years. Last year more than three and one-half million people visited Erie's Presque Isle State Park. Sixty lifeguards man eleven beaches on the park. These beaches are tested weekly by the state and county health departments, and ten are open and have been open for bathing.

Louis J. TULLIO Mayor Erie, Pa.

qed TIME did not mean to imply that the city of Erie has unsafe beaches. We stated that only three of Lake Erie's U.S. beaches are rated safe for swimming but did not specify that one of the three is Presque Isle State Park, which is subdivided into eleven beaches. That ten of these are safe attests to the city's positive efforts to control pollution.

No Dolce Vita

Sir: You speak of Prince Souvanna Phouma "vacationing in France" [Aug. 1] while the North Vietnamese invasion in Laos is again making headlines. After a trip to London, where he met again with Prime Minister Wilson for his country's sake, and before going to Paris to meet with President Pompidou and some members of the new French government for the same reason, the Prime Minister of Laos spent exactly three weeks on a cure for stomach troubles at one of the quietest and most remote of French spas, Plombieres in the Vosges. This was no dolce vita on the Riviera with parties and yachts.

PRINCESS MOUNE SOUVANNA PHOUMA STIEGLITZ Marseille

Getting the Vibrations

Sir: Earphoned to Mancini and Exercycling, I skimmed your leisure article [Aug. 8] over a No-Cal snack while the Mrs. filmed the natives here at LoaferLux Ranch. As I started to ponder it, I felt like turning my vibrator belt up to "die," but the Bar-B-Q starts at 8 sharp, and I'll never find the Mrs. in the crowd if I don't hurry. God, I'd like to Dictaphone more, but you know how it is.

CHARLES LEE HORSTMAN Houston

Sir: Your article on Staffan Linder's book The Harried Leisure Class brings to memory an apropos little poem I once learned:

Time goes, you say,

Ah no,

Time stays,

We go.

DAVID W. HANNUM NewRochelle, N.Y.

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