America with a C

Sir / TIME wasted a great many pages trying to point out reasons for the huge Nixon lead over McGovern in the polls [Oct. 2]. A single paragraph in the issue tells the reason: Americans are sick and tired of hearing people attack their country. McGovern is symbolic of those who spell America with a K, and most Americans prefer it with a C. Even millions of Democrats such as myself find him totally unacceptable on this one issue.

GEORGE H. SMITH

Inglewood, Calif.

Sir / I refuse to believe that your cover of Oct. 2 shows two profiles, each depicting a different view of American life. What is shown, in fact, is a chalice--the one from which all Americans drink up the hogwash that both candidates spew forth.

MO SAMSON

New York City

Sir / You describe McGovern's America as a land of peace and prosperity where inflation and poverty would end and the environment would be cleansed. You then go on to say that "it is a glowing vision, but is it realistically attainable? And if so, how much would it cost to sustain it?" As a college junior, I think McGovern's vision sounds all right; so if the guy says he can do it, I say let him try.

ROBERT J. BAKER

Los Angeles

Sir / Surely more of us represented on the McGovern side of the cover exist in this fair land of ours than those who exist on the Nixon side: more blacks, more of the ethnic minorities, more of the unemployed, the aged, the hungry: more of the crime-war-Watergate-satiated; more humans truly concerned for the rights and dignity of all human beings.

The question is: Can all of us be alerted to the real need for George McGovern in time to get to the polls?

KATHARINE SCHRADER

East Haven, Conn.

Sir / We chuckle at Watergate. The war is too horrible to think about. We are alienated from each other. We no longer care for our neighbors, or for people dying around the world. We know Government is corrupt, but we simply shrug. We don't care any more. Richard Nixon, in four years, has been able to pull off what no outside power ever could--the crushing of the spirit of the American people. McGovern represents new hope, but we have been hurt once too often. And so we will vote for four more years of Nixon.

AL SHEAHEN

Van Nuys. Calif.

Sir / Your cover picture "The Two Americas" shows the bias of your journalism. The pictures inside President Nixon's outline on the cover show Wall Street, China and the happy well-to-do. Senator McGovern's outline shows war. hopeless-looking minorities and the poor.

Are these pictures your indication that only McGovern cares about war, minorities and the poor, while Nixon tours China and Russia for the benefit of the rich?

RICHARD A. BARLOW

Larchmont. N.Y.

Sir / In characterizing the "two Americas," you seem to have employed the same simplistic contrasts that you criticize the candidates for. This year's voter is not only sophisticated; he is complex.

I would venture to guess that there are many liberal intellectuals who, like myself, will support Nixon on principle rather than from resignation. For through his actions of the past year he has managed to dispel much of our previous distrust and bring flickering visions of the New Frontier and Great Society back to life. It was Nixon who surprisingly became the champion of the old liberal values: social harmony, optimism, internationalism, and--above all--fairness. His moves on the diplomatic and economic fronts have destroyed what we feared in him: the image of an intransigent dogmatist.

MAHLON H. SMITH III

New Brunswick, N.J.

Finger-Shaped Monsters

Sir / Bravo to Stefan Kanfer for his Essay on "The Decline and Fill of the American Hot Dog" [Oct. 2]. His invigorating article on those insalubrious "finger-shaped monsters" has certainly deadened my desire for them. I will never again eat another hot dog!

NANCY GIBSON

Dallas

Sir / In the 20 years I've lived, I've spent at least 18 eating hot dogs, and now I wonder how many ears, throats, snouts, insects and rodents I've consumed.

SUE STEFANSKI

Chicago

Sir / The hot dog is fading away?

We know they are awful and gray,

But they really taste great

And we just couldn't wait

Till they dropped the price

on the filet.

ABBY NORLING

Skowhegan, Me.

Sir / TIME's apparent endorsement of a statement that the hot dog is a "deadly missile" is a great disappointment to me and, I'm sure, to millions of other loyal fans of this cherished American tradition.

Oscar Mayer All Meat Wieners do not contain esophagi, ears, lips and snouts; they do not contain poultry meat or "binders" like dried milk, cereal or flour.

They do contain cuts of pork from the side and shoulder and cuts of beef from the brisket, chuck and flank. These cuts compose 85% of the wiener, including lean, fat, and moisture as it occurs naturally in the meat. The other 15% consists of 10% added water to facilitate mixing and 5% salt, sugar, spice and cure.

As for nutritiousness, one Oscar Mayer wiener contains as much protein as one egg, and only one-tenth as much cholesterol. Pound for pound, Oscar Mayer wieners contain almost as much protein as T-bone steak--about 11% v. about 13%.

I take pride, as did my father and his father, in the products which bear our name.

OSACR G. MAYER

Chairman Oscar Mayer & Co.

Madison, Wis.

Hitler's Corpse

Sir / Your admiring review of Walter Langer's The Mind of Adolf Hitler [Oct. 2] smacks of the victor mutilating the corpse of an enemy (acting, no doubt, on the superstition that heaping indignities on the dead somehow diminishes the potency of their misdeeds).

Haven't we had enough ot this kind of psychoanalytic overkill? It seems to be inspired by the pathetic illusion that we can disarm society's malefactors by denying their membership in the human race. This is immensely comforting, but in dehumanizing Hitler, we also dehumanize his crimes.

WILLIAM B. FANKBONER

Ontario, Calif.

Sir / Re "The Two Hitlers": Psychoanalyst Walter Langer's conclusion that "the difference between Hitler and other psychopaths was his ability to convince others that he is what he is not" suggests to me that it is equally important to analyze what made so many others willing to accept and follow this irrational behavior. If the mass psyche is so vulnerable, it could happen again and again. Could it happen here?

SHIRLEY BILOW

Cranston, R.I.

Fools' Gambits

Sir / In your article "The Team Behind Archie Bunker & Co." [Sept. 25], you state that Yorkin and Lear are eagerly dreaming up a good chess title for a movie.

How about:

Pawn Yesterday

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Pawnography

Mate for a Knight

How Stale Is My Mate

LIVINGSTON BUNZL

Caracas

Sir / Crime and Pawnishment?

FLORENCE W. PATRICK

North Kingstown. R.I.

Can Exiles Vote?

Sir / I was shocked at the rhetorical question (Is a draft evader, who would face prosecution if he returned to the U.S., entitled to vote from abroad?) with which you concluded your article "The Vote Abroad" [Sept. 25]. The law of the land is "innocent until proved guilty." Remember?

WILLIAM H. VOIGE

Cleveland

Sir / We are American exiles--meaning Americans forced through resistance to a barbarous war to live outside our country. Our exile does not abrogate our right to vote, or any other right to which we are entitled as American citizens.

ED FITZGERALD

American Exile Project

Stockholm

Sir / How dare you even ask!

Be kind enough to send your pollsters to Korea and Viet Nam to query the young American dead there.

One of my buddies was decapitated by a Chinese Communist artillery shell in North Korea in 1951. He wanted to vote for Eisenhower when he got home.

GEORGE A. BRINSKO

Greenbelt, Md.

Rest Cure

Sir / Your account of the "Four Walls Treatment," the Morita therapy used in Japan [Oct. 2], shows it very like the now forgotten "rest cure" developed by Dr. S. Weir Mitchell (1829-1914) of Philadelphia. Like Dr. Morita, Mitchell put his psychiatric patients to bed for a period of quiet under medical supervision and then required them to exercise. When one woman refused to get out of bed at the end of the prescribed period, Mitchell started to get into bed with her; when another refused to take the daily walk, he took her for a drive and dumped her out of the carriage at a distance from her home. So what else is new?

ERNEST EARNEST

Gladwyne, Pa.

Constant Reader

Sir / I congratulate TIME, and also myself, on the 50th anniversary of the publication of TIME. I am fortunate to have discovered TIME even before its birth. My brother Joe (also Yale '20) sent me mimeographed copies of test issues which I read with pleasure. I have read every single issue from cover to cover, some more than once. I have also read every letter published--even when they were supplementary. I wonder how many of us original subscribers are still here!

HAROLD EPPSTON

Asbury Park, N.J.

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