Mocking Tyranny

Sir / Here is one WASP who sat up too late, his imagination captured by your story on Flip Wilson [Jan. 31].

It has been proved that the best way to defeat tyranny is to mock it. With mockery Wilson may yet depose the tyranny of racism.

RICHARD P. PETTY

Plainview, Minn.

Sir / Long live the clown! He conducts a symphony with perfection of tempo, theme variation and delicate shading of tone. Laughter is music. Play on, Maestro Flip! Play your tunes, play your roles, and play to the children in us.

LISA SCHATMEYER

Kent, Ohio

Sir / What is universal about Flip Wilson is not his humor but his blackness. He does not transcend blackness, he just works in it. Whoever you are and whatever your race, when he makes you laugh, it's because he is showing you something that you instinctively have and are instinctively keeping alive--that touch of blackness that forces you to triumph over a world that insults you.

What you're getting is what you see --in this. Flip Wilson cannot have had any "white mentor."

(MRS.) MARY LUINS SMALL

Department of African and Afro-American Studies Brandeis University Waltham, Mass.

Sir / Flip Wilson is living proof that the average black is no different from the average white: they are both equally inane and vulgar.

JAMES IRONS

Hollywood

Turning to the Sea

Sir / After reading the fine article on the Soviet navy [Jan. 31], I must take issue with your closing comment concerning "such traditionally old-fashioned objects as naval ships." I think that statement helps perpetuate the American people's appalling lack of understanding of the importance of the sea and seapower to our country.

The ability to range over 75% of the world's surface without offense to other governments and yet to be able to project power over continental land masses without dependence on the land is an asset heretofore unique to our country. As America and the world turn to the sea for life, all ships assume an importance far greater than their physical size or the number of men in them. Our legislators, instead of cutting back our Navy, should examine more closely our priorities at sea.

JOHN M. YUNKER

Lieutenant, U.S.N. Pensacola, Fla.

Sir / The question of the survival of our aircraft carriers in the event of war would not be whether they would survive the first blow, but rather how many seconds they would take to sink. The Russian guided-missile cruisers constantly shadowing U.S. carriers in the Mediterranean make those ships the "sitting ducks" the Russians call them. I agree with Brigadier Hunt's analysis that our Navy is second-rate; it is old and outgunned. A World War II Navy cannot maintain the peace in the 1970s and '80s.

MAURICE G. WEINBERG

Philadelphia

Supporting Married Couples

Sir / As a bachelor, I have little sympathy for the married McGraths' complaint about their taxes [Jan. 31]. I've been supporting married couples for years by paying a disproportionate share of income taxes. I've been educating their kids, too, with property taxes. And I'll be footing the bill for their vacation. Married couples flying together have a cheaper rate than singles. It's time marrieds started paying their own way.

VENLO WOLFSOHN

Bethesda, Md.

Sir / I wish to congratulate Mrs. Kathryn McGrath for the letter she wrote to Wilbur Mills. The home is the pillar of American society, and it is this type of lawmaking in the past few years that has been gnawing away at the very foundation of the home.

FRANCIS ENRIGHT

Monterey Park, Calif.

Women at Annapolis

Sir / The joke of women applying to become midshipmen at Annapolis [Jan. 31] has gone far enough. The programs at Annapolis, West Point and the Air Force Academy combine intensive study with near-brutal physical and psychological pressures. The cadets must serve their time in dangerous and unpleasant duties on submarines or destroyers, or in cold, muddy foxholes under fire for days and nights on end. Nowhere in the history of the human race is there evidence that women excel as leaders under such conditions. Perhaps, in the pushbutton nuclear warfare of the future, women will be able to serve as well as men. But until we know for sure, let's not let them destroy our service academies.

ALBERT S. HESTER

Wyckoff, N.J.

Sir / Although equality and equal opportunity are among the highest American ideals, they are not always possible.

Annapolis is not Yale or Princeton. Its purpose is not to produce doctors or translators for the State Department, but to train combat officers for the Navy and Marine Corps. To the best of my knowledge, there are no women serving in this capacity now, and there are not likely to be any in the near future.

EDWARD F. MC DONALD

U.S. Naval Academy Annapolis, Md.

Sir / Revisions will have to be made in the regulations prescribing acceptable lengths of eyebrows, lashes and plebe (freshman) haircuts. Perhaps the best solution would be to revert to the queues worn by seamen in the old days of sailing ships.

THOMAS B. CONGDON

Greenwich, Conn.

Sir / Senators who appoint female nominees to the U.S. Naval Academy should be cognizant of the old adage "Don't make WAVEs."

JOHN R. EVRARD, M.D.

Providence

Apples and Grapes

Sir / "Vasectomy: Pro and Con" [Jan. 31] compares apples with grapes. The study quoted from Family Service-Travelers Aid deals with a select population of troubled marriages, while the Midwest Population Center study involves couples where the man has recently had a vasectomy. These groups are obviously not comparable.

It also seems doubtful that all vas-ectpmies should be preceded by psychiatric evaluation. Careful preoperative interviewing of both the husband and wife should reveal the family's motivations and their psychosexual health. A psychiatric consultation may be required in a small number of cases.

DENNIS A. BROWN, M.D.

West Point, N.Y.

Neanderthals

Sir / As a reporter for a New Hampshire newspaper, I can attest to the fact that the 19th century is alive and well in this retrograde poverty pocket of America.

The people here have in William Loeb, publisher of the Manchester Union Leader [Jan. 31], the personification of the kind of journalism that best mirrors their largely "Neanderthal" outlook. Loeb has no insight--he merely reflects the sad truth.

BURTON W. KEIMACH

Portsmouth, N.H.

Sir / TIME, by ignoring Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty as a Democratic presidential candidate, is just as bad as you claim Mr. Loeb is. While you imply that Yorty receives more coverage in Mr. Loeb's paper than do other candidates, that is not exactly true. Several other candidates have already expressed pleasure with the coverage given them by Loeb's Union Leader.

THOMAS D. JARDINE

Executive Assistant and News Secretary Office of the Mayor Los Angeles

Sir / As president of the state University of New Hampshire, I know how long the university has been the target of William Loeb's grotesque journalism and childish abuse. He has done all he could to destroy the effectiveness of the university and its faculty.

Though the campus at Durham was perhaps the quietest in the nation during the tense years from 1968 to 1970, Loeb manufactured a sense of crisis over alleged radicalism on the campus.

On my appointment as president last spring, Loeb's paper concocted a 25,000-word series of distortions, untruths and quotations taken out of context.

Though the newspaper is universally distrusted by thinking people in the state, it succeeds nonetheless in eroding confidence in leaders and institutions by its daily diet of innuendo, half-truth and venom.

Only a new coalition of forces aimed at restoring decency and fair play to the life of the state can bring the Loeb era to its richly deserved end.

THOMAS N. BONNER

President

University of New Hampshire Durham, N.H.

Striking Back

Sir / The necktie is not only the most useless item of apparel [Jan. 31]; it is also the most uncomfortable--a constant noose around a man's neck. The ladies are welcome to "strike back" as much as they wish.

Let's see them with jackets, collars and ties at work or leisure, whenever "jackets and ties are required." Actually, of course, women have too much sense for anything like that.

I don't think ties should be abolished --only the requirement that all men wear them. Men should have the privilege of free choice, such as wearing a tie, a turtleneck or an open collar.

JAMES M. JOHNSTON

Garden City, N.Y.

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