The New Morality

Sir: The advent of nuclear warfare has added a new chapter to the age-old paradox of the morality of war. Conventionality, not humanity, is the new criterion to rationalize the act of killing.

The hundreds of thousands killed in the fire bombings of Tokyo were acceptable: it was done by conventional means.

The millions of casualties incurred by the clash of land armies on the Japanese mainland would be acceptable: it would be done by conventional means.

The starvation of millions of women and children as a result of a continued blockade of Japan would be acceptable: it would be done by conventional means.

The killing of 100,000 at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a tragedy of mankind: it was done by nuclear weapons.

The TIME Essay [Aug. 10] tends to underestimate the tenacity of the Japanese by applying Occidental standards of defeat to the Oriental principles of war. Tarawa, with its six survivors of 4,000; Okinawa, with its kamikaze, bear true testimony to the prevalent fanaticism.

The scenario of a "blow for show" has one fatal drawback: there were no more bombs. It would have taken at least another year to produce enough fissionable material to manufacture another bomb.

FRANK H. MALLEN

Lieutenant Commander, U.S.N.

Newport News, Va.

Sir: After acknowledging the incredible destruction and horror of the atomic bombs, and after considering the alternatives, I find it inconceivable that your Essay could begin to imply that dropping the Bomb was anything vaguely related to a "consciously moral decision." I suppose there are rationalizations that can be adopted to soothe this nation's guilty conscience, but to justify a mistake by tagging such an abomination as moral is only to emphasize the perversion of any remaining moral sense in this country today.

ANNE MARY WHITING

Farmington, Mich.

Sir: Your Essay implies that the Japanese were not warned. This is untrue: for ten days prior to Aug. 6, U.S. bombers rained thousands of leaflets upon the Japanese mainland spelling out the consequences of continuing the war. The first bomb was followed by a three-day waiting period, during which the Japanese High Command had triple the time needed to change its mind; when no reply was forthcoming, the second bomb was unleashed.

I feel we were completely justified. As is usual with the liberal media nowadays, Uncle Sam is always at least partially wrong in whatever he does.

RICHARD F. OLES

Baltimore

Sir: I was reminded of the words of Robert E. Lee: "It is good that war is so terrible, lest we grow fond of it."

EDWIN MOORE

San Diego

Living Life Whole

Sir: The sensitive and knowledgeable cover story on aging [Aug. 3] could not have appeared at a more appropriate and helpful time, as we prepare for the 1971 White House Conference on Aging. The attitudes and knowledge of the nation about its older citizens will have major effect upon the success of such a conference.

The concept of living life whole--at every age--is essential to the well-being of today's 20 million elderly and of all of us, since we all grow older. It is of the utmost importance that the last one-third of our lives contains opportunities and satisfactions as does the first two-thirds. Whatever can be achieved in this regard, we think is worth doing and we are working to that end, both in Washington through the Administration on Aging, and in each of the 50 states and the territories through the state agencies on aging.

JOHN B. MARTIN

Special Assistant to the

President for the Aging

The White House

Washington, D.C.

Sir: After climbing the ruins of Palenque, Uxmal and Chichen Itza, snorkeling at Cozumel, flying to Chicago, then driving a nine-year-old Thunderbird, our 15-year-old grandson and Willy, our dachshund, home to Wellsburg, W. Va., in eleven hours (legally, too), f grab my beloved TIME and find I "passed the arbitrary milestone of 65 into the limbo of old age" five years ago. I didn't know.

MRS. DEWEY OLSON

Wellsburg, W. Va.

Sir: Marie Dressier summed it up nicely: "It's not how old you are, but how you are old."

PHILIP G. LAMARCHC

Westerly, R.I.

The Really Weaker Sex

Sir: I agree wholeheartedly with Dr. Edgar Berman about the danger of having members of the weaker sex in the White House or any other position of power [Aug. 10]. Let us get rid of all the hormonally unbalanced, aging males with mounting anxieties over their own impotency and inadequacy, and corresponding need to prove themselves on the national and international battle fronts.

The situation is extremely dangerous and ought to be changed immediately.

BJORN KUMM

Lagos, Nigeria

Sir: Glands! Glands! Glands! I think the good Dr. Berman erred by omission rather than commission. He neglected to state that middle-aged men frequently suffer the miseries of the male climacteric. The cycle occurs every 51-55 days.

As an industrial health consultant, I witnessed this rarely publicized male condition time and again. Nice men became monsters, foremen grew horns and some decisions were made that had to be hastily changed.

MARGARET S. HARGREAVES

Santa Barbara, Calif.

Sir: I just dare Dr. Edgar Berman to say that to Mrs. Meir.

(MRS.) ELIZABETH HARBERS

Manhattan, Kans.

With a Whimper

Sir: In your article "Smog Goes Global" [Aug. 10J, you state that "the world will end with a cough, a wheeze, a mass gasp of emphysema." Not so. Poetically, and ironically enough, it will end with a whimper--of a newborn baby. Pollution is only the major symptom of the very fatal disease called overpopulation.

When will we stop reproducing ourselves with the speed and malignancy of cancer cells and turn our energies to saving what little is left of the tortured, exhausted body of this planet?

(MRS.) MARY Q. SMITH

Virginia Beach, Va.

Who's to Miss Us?

Sir: Re the statement "Curbing carbon monoxide in cities is more important than saving caribou in Alaska" [Aug. 3]: More important to whom? The validity of this question would become clear if we could set ourselves apart for a few minutes and look at Homo sapiens as just another animal species. Then ask ourselves if humans became extinct tomorrow, who would miss them? The birds, the fish or the caribou? Would it be more likely only the rats and the disease bacteria that are able to live off man?

JERRY R. COLEMAN

Buena Park, Calif.

Father of Op-Ed

Sir: In your Press section, the Op-Ed page was described as "pioneered by the Pulitzers in the old New York morning World" [Aug. 10]. It is quite true that Ralph Pulitzer, gentleman, poet and husband of famed Historian Margaret Leech, was publisher of the World during those great days of newspaperdom.

However, I believe it is universally agreed and accepted that the Op-Ed page was the brainchild of World Executive Editor Herbert Bayard Swope, who placed the likes of Heywood Broun, Franklin P. Adams, Alec Woollcott, Laurence Stallings, Harry Hansen, Samuel Chotzinoff and many other greats on that page, including Cartoonist Rollin Kirby.

What with books being published daily that attempt to alter history, I thought it might be well at least to give Swope credit for this creation, not forgetting three Pulitzer prizes the paper won under his stewardship--and a cover of TIME for Swope himself [Jan. 28, 1924].

HERBERT SWOPE JR.

Manhattan

Round Trip

Sir: Let's face it. The midi [Aug. 3] is for fun and games. Who in their right mind wants to look like a stylish mushroom? Who wants to grease the palms of Paris "designers" (who all had the same vision at once) and textile companies?

You've come a long way, baby, but they are trying to send you back.

(MRS.) PATRICIA G. MYERS

Pasadena, Calif.

Verse Yet

Sir: That popping, cracking sound is new And doesn't seem subsiding. It's not a breakfast food, it's two Nutritionists colliding [Aug. 3].

RICHARD ARMOUR

Claremont, Calif.

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