Beware the Brothers

Sir: Presuming in good American fashion that the accused are innocent until proved guilty, my reaction to news stories on a plot to kidnap Henry Kissinger [Jan. 25] and to blow up the heating systems of federal buildings is that the church is alive and well in jail in the persons of the Berrigan brothers and their "co-conspirators."

I thrill to the new pattern these people are shaping, the life-style they are by example inviting others to share at no little cost to themselves. And I note the liveliness of spirit and the joy that sustain them in their trouble.

It is a great and perilous way they have entered upon, offering in deed and word an authentic Christian humanism as alternative to what they consider a cannibalizing society eating its young and destroying the physical habitat it lives on. The Government better be wary. These are lovely people, real hard-nosed good guys. They lay their lives on the line.

MATTHEW J. GUERIN West Islip, N.Y.

Sir: What transpires in Harrisburg is to a very great extent inconsequential. Had Christ's prophetic role and salvation mission been dependent upon Pilate's decision, it is not too likely that Christ would have attained even the notoriety of Superstar. Perhaps what Daniel and Philip Berrigan have said to all is that the genuine role of the prophet lies in his assumption of a powerless position in the face of the world's total rejection.

JOHN D. COX South Bend, Ind.

Sir: TIME'S story, concentrating on the Berrigans, obscures the main issue: the law of conspiracy is so broad and vague, the snooping powers of the FBI and the Department of Justice so pervasive and unregulated, that the fundamental right of dissent is in jeopardy. What will be on trial will not be, as TIME concludes, "the facts of the case and ultimately their [the Berrigans'] integrity." At issue will be the right of men to speak out against injustice without being subject to intimidation and persecution.

(MRS.) BARBARA B. SEGAL Brooklyn

Sir: The prosecution of the clerical conspiracy may yet happily produce another national holiday. After all, America has no equivalent to Guy Fawkes Day, commemorating an unsuccessful plot in 1605 to blow up the English Houses of Parliament.

Think of the reassuring ceremonies, conducted by J. Edgar himself, as the heating tunnels in the Capitol are examined and declared free of explosives and/or conspirators.

Ancillary boosts to the economy would include sales of fireworks, along with benefits to the motel and recreation industries.

CARLTON W. DUKES Trumbull, Conn.

Spawning the Macabre

Sir: Thank God for your cover story, "The Shame of the Prisons" [Jan. 18]. This could be the breakthrough that many of us who work in correction have been waiting for through years of discouragement and frustration.

Pity it did not come through the church, which carries the stigma of spawning the macabre teratism we call penitentiaries. If this is to be the decade for penal reform, may God grant that the church will not arrive on the scene "too late, with too little, and all out of breath." After all, it is of no small significance that Jesus Christ defined one criterion of judgment with crystal-clear simplicity: "I was in prison and you did not visit me."

(THE REV.) ALFRED H. DAVIES Director of Chaplaincy Services Topeka, Kans.

Sir: Your article was a very fine report covering the old story about prisons, but you are in error in saying "Everyone knows what prisons are supposed to do: cure crime."

Prisons have not cured in the past, and there is not much hope they will in the future. The cure, or rehabilitation, as it is commonly called, does not come from the prison but rather from each individual convict. He and he alone makes the necessary mental changes to bring about rehabilitation.

ART PENNEBAKER, No. 126263 Washington State Reformatory Monroe, Wash.

Sir: The evidence suggests that circumstance as well as psyche causes crime. If factors that reside outside a person's control are even in part responsible for his criminal act, then the concept of punishment is unreasonable.

The complexities of crime causation must be unraveled before our correctional institutions can correct. We aren't trying hard enough to uncover the roots of one of our most perplexing predicaments.

HENRY J. MASCARELLO Executive Director Massachusetts Correctional Assn. Boston

Sir: All prisoners find themselves between the crushing walls of social ostracism and prison mores. But which of the two can the prisoner bear more easily? Statistics show for certain that most cannot cope with free-world rejection. Ironically, the freer of the two worlds for the convict is prison; it is there that he finds no social barriers like the pretentiousness of the elite. Who can blame former prisoners and parolees for seemingly breaking-down gates to get back in?

JEFFREY RICHARDS Salisbury, N.C.

Sir: After reading your story about prisons, I am reminded of what G.B. Shaw once said: "To punish a man you must injure him; to reform a man you must improve him, and men are not improved by injuries."

JOHN F. PYFER JR. Nashville, Tenn.

Sir: I think TIME'S feature on prisons is one of the finest I have read in its pages, or indeed in any pages. Things are not any better here, I'm sorry to say, just dreadful on a smaller scale.

COLIN MACINNES London

Parched Tear Ducts

Sir: Whether or not Love Story [Jan. 11] represents a "return to romanticism" is not in itself that important. I think more significant is the fact that people have found something to cry about.

Hearts hardened by the nightly showing of killing and destruction are now affected by the tragic death of a young girl. The real tragedy is that we have not cried for a long while. Parched tear ducts are now filling up; and where there is compassion, there is hope.

DAN CALDWELL Cambridge, Mass.

Sir: It is sad to see that the standards of today's teeny-bopper have become the Now beauty. Star? Greasy flat hair, bushy brows, homely mouth, irregular teeth, etc. Somebody please look at the late-late shows to see what real beauty was.

JOSEPHINE HARNACK Whittier, Calif.

Sir: Ali MacGraw on the cover of TIME? Paeans for Love Story? Was acting ever more mechanical? Did a girl and boy ever deliver sillier lines? Was a script ever more obviously cranked out, propped up and preordained to try and suck the public in? Rarely in your magazine's long, self-conscious pursuit of intellectual respectability have you erred more completely. I love TIME. I love Middle America. What I do not like is seeing either duped by such cruelly corny stuff, such cinematic guile and cynicism.

BARRY HEREM Seattle

Breath of Life

Sir: I enjoyed your article on the Rev. Lester Kinsolving [Jan. 11]. I was a member of his church in Pasco while he was there. He was the reason that my family joined that church. He was and is an extremely dynamic man whose enthusiasm and talents breathed life into the parish and its youth group. He rewrote many Broadway plays which the kids produced each year (samples: Slowboat and Schmoklahoma!), and he also designed floats that they took to all the major parades in the state. He was a liberal in an ultraconservative area. People may have walked out on his sermons, but at least they did not fall asleep. If organized religion is to survive in this country, it needs more Kinsolvings.

DAVID M. JONES Bothell, Wash.

An Introduction

Sir: I must admit I wasn't quite prepared for the startling news that our President's hair "used to stick out in the back" [Jan. 18]. Quite frankly, I gasped. I'm quite sure all America was greatly relieved to hear that this shameful defect has been corrected. I can only thank God and Mr. Milton Pitts that we are happily out of the storm now that Nixon possesses a "more oval look."

And isn't it grand that Mr. Nixon has the strength of character to compromise on the width of his lapels. I simply shudder with excitement when I think of the great step this will be in bettering our international relations.

Thank you for reviving fresh support for the ever-popular belief that a tailored President cannot help doing a better job for the nation. Perhaps in a State of the Union address, Nixon would introduce us to his tailor and barber.

CHARLES BARMAN Northbrook, Ill.

Significant Difference?

Sir: I cannot pass your article "Of Guilt and Precedent" [Jan. 18] without comment. It is not my purpose to minimize the horror of what happened at My Lai or to argue its inhumanity relative to the Japanese atrocities in the Philippines. I do submit, however, that there is a significant difference, and that the two instances cannot be equated on a one-to-one basis.

What happened at My Lai took place in a combat environment and involved a small force of inexperienced men engaging an elusive and ill-defined foe in a remote area. It lasted only a few hours. What happened in the Philippines involved prisoners of war in the custody of relatively seasoned troops and was spread over a period of weeks. No theater commander can escape the possibility of an incident similar to My Lai.

Of greatest significance, it seems to me, is what happened as an aftermath. To the best of my knowledge, the Japanese government made no attempt during or after World War II to identify and punish the men involved in the Philippine atrocities.

In striking contrast, as soon as there was the indication of a massacre at My Lai, the Army ordered a sweeping investigation to determine what had happened and who was responsible. I know of no other time in history when a nation still engaged in major armed conflict has acknowledged openly the guilt of its military, accepted full responsibility and acted publicly to mete out punishment.

E.H. BATCHELLER Rear Admiral, U.S.N. (Ret.) Washington, D.C.

Classic Examples

Sir: It is small wonder that we middle-class Middle Americans find the Eastern liberal press hard to take. New York Post Editor James Wechsler's own statements on why he roots for a particular football team [Jan. 18] are classic examples of ultraliberal prejudice and bigotry.

Wechsler by admission is prejudiced against Middle Americans and Southerners, big business and traditionalists, plus others too numerous to mention here. With all of the intense hang-ups this man has, there is no chance that he could give these groups fair and unbiased news coverage. And they blamed Spiro Agnew for polarizing us!

(MRS.) JUNE DAY Minneapolis

Sir: James Wechsler's reasons for rooting for a football team are sound. I have a friend who always roots for the team with the greater number of minority blacks on it, but this is not always practical. Sometimes, when the defensive team comes on the field, he has to change sides in midgame.

Personally, I feel that rooting for the underdog is best. You never have to count the dark faces; just watch the Scoreboard to see which team is behind. Of course, the only truly satisfying game is a tie one, but it is a small disappointment.

J. DANIEL HANDY JR. Tempe, Ariz.

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