George Jackson and Political Prisoners

Sir: Your Essay on political prisoners [Sept. 6] sadly represents the compromising logic of American liberalism. By asserting that George Jackson's $70 robbery "scarcely Warranted an eleven-year sentence" and that court "reform has proved to be a regression in many cases," you seem to be clearly aware of the inequities facing black political transgressors. Unfortunately, you are willing to prolong these inequities rather than risk a rapid overhaul of their source --America's outdated political and economic systems.

MAGGIE CONWAY Cleveland

Sir: In the hue and cry following George Jackson's demise at San Quentin, one slight bit of evidence is being overlooked by the bleeding hearts.

If Jackson's escape attempt was a hoax set up by prison authorities so they could murder him, what about the other five dead people? Did authorities kill the three guards and two prisoners to add authenticity to the hoax? Or did the five men sacrifice themselves in order to help "get Jackson"?

I say congratulations to the guard who killed Jackson with one shot through the head. Give him a big salary increase and a howitzer to aid him in aborting future prison breaks.

GEORGE G. HOUSER Nichols, N.Y.

Sir: Any penal system in which "authorities" are able to confine a man for as long as they desire, or until he is "rehabilitated," has got to be a poor one indeed. Certainly political prisoners exist in this country today. The authorities do not consider you sufficiently rehabilitated until you have lost all traces of any millitancy you once possessed. It reminds me, frighteningly, of George Orwell's 1984. DAVID SKINNER Santa Fe, N. Mex.

Sir: Your comment that "Even though he was a three-time loser, Jackson went to prison for a minor criminal offense, which scarcely warranted an eleven-year sentence," is a gross error which cannot go unnoticed.

It equates the seriousness of the crime with the profit it yields to the criminal. Armed robbery is a serious felony whether the robber nets $1 or a million dollars. The Panthers and their parrot-minded white liberal-running dogs should not feel they have lost an irreplaceable hero with Jackson's death.

The prisons and streets of our country are full of replacements adequate in every respect, from snub-nose revolvers to a pseudopolitical doctrine, to exculpate their licentiousness and shift the blame to where it does not belong.

JEROME G. QUINN Rochester, Mich.

Sir: Whether convicts are political prisoners or not, a parallel can be drawn between the lives of George Jackson and Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Jackson was certainly the victim in life, and quite possibly in his death, of "superiors" who hated and feared his ideology, as Solzhenitsyn is a victim of Soviet bigwigs who fear, or suspect, the power of his pen. Both were subjected unjustly to long, dehumanizing years in prison systems that try to destroy those who won't conform. Solzhenitsyn has survived, so far. Jackson did not but his letters show that his death was a waste.

CAROL GOODRIDGE Rockport, Me.

Nixon and the Unions

Sir: If anything, "Tricky Dick's" freeze saved labor's skin. Our greatest discovery for disciplining unions and fighting inflation has been foreign labor. Aggressive labor unions have been permitted to erode the domestic dollar and therefore wipe out millions of pension dollars.

Millions of consumers have learned that if it isn't foreign made, they can't afford it. The freeze may be too late.

MORRIS W. LIPTON Columbia, S.C.

Sir: Fie on Woodcock, Bridges and Meany, who have adopted the policy "What's yours is mine and what's mine is mine." The rank-and-file wage-earning public sees the wisdom of the President's efforts, even if labor leaders don't.

LARRY RIJNOVAN Hampton, Va.

Sir: The louder Czar Meany bellows, the more I work for President Nixon. A.F.L.C.I.O. leaders may think that they own 13 million workers, but they do not own 13 million jobs.

JOHN R. KILGORE San Antonio

Sir: Ours is a delicate and complex economy, and no elastic "one-size-fits-all" solution such as this freeze can cure its ills.

Complex problems require patient, assiduously studied, carefully planned solutions --not half-baked, overnight panaceas coupled with gaudy euphemisms.

THOMAS J. BACCALA Imperial Beach, Calif.

The Sound of Heaven

Sir: The Beach Boys' soft, euphonious music, "intended to evoke the rhythm of the ocean," is as Brian Wilson describes it: ''the sound of heaven" [Sept. 6], I'm surprised you did not go on to explain that in meditation one is thought to hear the "sound of the universe." Roughly, the sound is "Oommm" and is best equated to the sound of the ocean.

If a person were willing to listen carefully, he would then discover that all things have as their first component these "good vibrations."

This does not seem so outlandish or abstract when one stops to consider that to the physicists the universe is made up of waves, relative to one another in accord with universal harmony.

GARY M. KEENE Las Vegas

Sir: It's hard for me as a 26-year-old black American to applaud Brian Wilson's reluctance to write about social causes because nobody gives a damn about them.

If everybody gave a damn, there would be no need to write about social causes.

But as a black American, who is probably Black Beach Boy Fan No. 1, I close my eyes to their shoddy politics and simply groove on the music.

Half a genius is better than no genius at all.

ALAN BELL New York City

Faking It

Sir: Regarding the "Fakes of Hacilar" [Sept. 6]. Would it not defeat the new method of age testing (thermoluminescence) if a forger were to grind up known aged fragments, thus incorporating them into a "new" forgery that would react very much the same to tests as the genuine article?

VICTOR D. RYERSON Seattle

> No. In refiring the new vase or pot the heat would destroy the thermoluminescence that had accumulated through the years in the aged fragments.

In the Name of Jen

Sir: News that a Christian group is anticipating the "opening up" of China [Sept. 6] is encouraging. Christianity, however, is an underground religion in China today. Those intent on going to mainland China in the future to disseminate Christian thought had better do it in the name of jen (humanheartedness), not with the idea of "carrying the Word to the heathen Chinese."

Respect is due the other beautiful religions that exist in China. Those going must develop a new kerygma, one based on a thorough understanding of what mainland China is all about.

JOSEPH NEUSSENDORFER Prisoner

Minnesota State Prison Stillwater, Minn.

Sir: Please keep out the God Squads from China should Peking allow the barriers to drop. Missionary groups have caused more trouble throughout history than any other movement ever recorded. Don't yell blasphemy!

Learn from the errors and search for the intent of Jesus.

JOSEPH SHANDOR Harrisburg, Pa.

Sir: Why is it so hard for you to understand the impetus behind Christians wanting to tell the "good news" to heathen Chinese, heathen Auca Indians or, for that matter, heathen Americans? If you had something of inestimable value that was within your power to share with mankind, wouldn't you do so?

MRS. DELBERT ANDERSON Greeley, Colo.

Unearthly

Sir: You state that the moon's mountains have been softened by billions of years of erosion [Aug. 23]. Erosion by what I wonder? Torrential rains and blistering sandstorms no doubt.

KONRAD WESTERHOF Bramalea, Ont.

> Erosion on the moon is caused by large and small meteorites, solar wind and cosmic particles.

Best of Health

Sir: Your article on the Federal Building in Buffalo [Aug. 30] may be factual in part, but trying to read sinister meanings into the notice tacked on to the bulletin board by the "job coordinator" borders on the ridiculous.

Word for word, the same notice passed around several offices in the New York State Assembly two years ago. It even ended with the words "Best of Health," which you characterize as "an example of Mafia morbidity."

You fellows are so serious about things that you cannot distinguish between humor and reality.

S. WILLIAM ROSENBERG

Assemblyman

Albany

Ink Blot

Sir: Few of us, crew-cut or otherwise, would have guessed that during the wondrous decade of the '50s, the response to a single ink blot could be used as the standard by which to gain value judgment of this or any other period [Sept. 6]. Furthermore, probably only Psychologist Fred Brown would have discovered that a 51% "female" response indicates a breakdown in sex-role differentiation, whereas a 51% "male" response does not.

DONALD D. MCDONALD New Orleans

Sir: Fred Brown's assuming that a unisex society is sick and immature is a result of a pervasive fear of women and everything feminine, and should itself be closely examined by the psychologists. No wonder we feminists are angry.

Ms. GAYLE CRAWFORD Shaker Heights, Ohio

Pasture Oak

Sir: Surely TIME ought to know that it's no great shakes to have "discovered" that wind-buffeted trees have stouter trunks (and stronger limbs) than the skinny, cramped and sheltered trees in the middle of the woods [Sept. 6].

Environmental horticulturists would do well to read Captain Slocum's Sailing Alone Around the World and discover that "better timber for a ship than a pasture white oak never grew."

A New England pasture oak stands solitary, alone, unprotected by any other tree from line squalls, Atlantic hurricanes, or breezes from any compass direction whatsoever. On quiet mornings it stands still while scientists shake.

GELSTON HARDY Princeton, NJ.

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