Girls on Main Street

Sir / Why a cover story on Liv Ullmann [Dec. 4]? I see dozens of girls every day on Main Street with more of everything than she has. For one thing, her mouth is too "loose." Is this all that Hollywood can find?

GLADYS E.TALBOTT

Richmond

Sir / Your story on polyfaceted Actress Liv Ullmann and Director-Lover Ingmar Bergman is a most charming candid classic, a short love story of the lives of goddesses and gods of show business. The superb storytelling makes them fascinating.

JOSE LUIS AGUILAR DE LEON

Governor

Department of Guatemala

Guatemala City

Sir / I am grossly repelled by your ribald, raucous glorification of Liv Ullmann's adultery.

BOB S. FELTS

Los Angeles

Sir / Hollywood has not produced a single movie in the past ten years that compares favorably with The Shame or The Passion of Anna. I hope that Liv Ullmann has the strength to retain a balance between her Bergman-like innocence and the powerful klieg lights of Hollywood.

BILL WHALEY

South Lake Tahoe, Calif.

Sir / Curses on Producer Mike Frankovich, who was so smitten with 33-year-old Actress Liv Ullmann that he lowered the age of the fortyish heroine of Forty Carats (who has an affair with a 20-year-old boy). He has copped out on us women in our 40s who have married 20-year-olds. May he be run into by lady truck drivers, may all his female associates over 40 go on strike, and may Oscar evade him forever. Why can't Hollywood leave a good thing alone?

BETTY JANE JOHNSON

Bar Harbor, Me.

Sir / Growing old is picking up a new edition of TIME, for the umpteenth time, and not knowing the face on the cover. Liv Ullmann? Sic transit Gloria Swanson.

LARRY LING

Oakville, Ont.

Sir / Your comparison of Liv Ullmann and Nora Helmer in Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House was apt. Ibsen was one of the enlightened few of the 19th century who realized that women had problems requiring serious consideration from our conventional society. The saga of Liv Ullmann brings a live modern woman to speak her own piece from her own experience.

MACKENZIE DODSON

Oakland. Calif.

Sir / For shame! Even though her own people "denounced her as a sinner and a whore," you glamorized the actions of Liv Ullmann.

H.M. CALDWELL

Torrance, Calif.

Sir / You quote me as saying about Liv Ullmann, one of the most talented and versatile actresses in motion pictures, that she is "the nicest goddamn actress I've ever seen on a set." That is not my language but only a pitiful platitude in TIME style.

LASLO BENEDEK

Los Angeles

The Angry Man

Sir / You entitled your story describing Julius Hobson's one-man campaign against injustice and discrimination "A Last Angry Man" [Dec. 4]. Perhaps it would have been more appropriately titled "At Last! An Angry Man!"

I hope he isn't the last!

LUCIA CAPRON

Columbus

Sir / Your article on Civil Rights Activist Julius Hobson failed to mention one important facet of his career. Hobson will also be remembered in the future as a founder of political parties. He founded the D.C. Statehood Party and gathered 15% of the vote as its candidate for Congress in 1970. He ran for Vice President on the People's Party ticket this year and laid the foundation for its future development.

Don't be surprised if our 51st state is named Hobson.

RUSS GREENE

Brockton. Mass.

The American Dream

Sir / It is true, as you said in your Essay "The Emigrants" [Dec. 4], that the dream was here for millions. My father and mother left Poland in the early 1900s to find the American dream--first in the coal mines and steel mills around Pittsburgh, followed by the railroads in St. Paul, then on to Michigan and an automobile foundry in Saginaw. To fill the larder required hard work pouring molten steel in the core room.

They were also working on a family that ended with eleven children. They built a five-bedroom house in 1934, tacky by today's standards, but a mansion then.

Through the years their accomplishments were tremendous. They raised the family, the family spread and the members began their own families. Careers flourished. The American dream was fulfilled.

RAY KARBOWSKI

Shawnee Mission, Kans.

Sir / I came from Vienna in 1938, and I say three cheers for America!

BERTHOLD SCHEINBRUM

Waco, Texas

Mendelssohn and Bach

Sir / In reading your article on the Felix Mendelssohn festival in Berlin [Dec. 4], I was surprised that your musicologist did not take up what is perhaps the most vital aspect of this great composer's career, that is his exhumation of Bach's creative genius.

Since early youth. Mendelssohn had been an avid follower of Bach's music, and in 1829 he staged the first public performance of the St. Matthew Passion since the composer's death. Thus the Bach revival got under way.

LESLIE H. HURWITZ

Arlington, Mass.

Sir / I am the Sergeant First Class Robert J. Nicholson (ret.) referred to in your story on Felix Mendelssohn as the U.S. Army sergeant who hunted up the grave and "cleared away the mess." I did not clear away the mess but rather pointed out to Berlin's Mayor Klaus Schuetz the neglected condition of the grave. There are many Mendelssohn descendants still living whom I would not wish to offend by the expression used in your article.

(SGT.) ROBERT J. NICHOLSON (RET.)

Berlin

About Gonorrhea

Sir / In a Medicine "Capsule" [Nov. 27] you give the impression that "silent" gonorrhea in males is a phenomenon found only in servicemen from Viet Nam, who, it is implied, are bringing it back to the U.S. in significant numbers.

Please permit us to set the record straight by pointing out that asymptomatic gonorrhea in civilian males is now commonly recognized in this country, and undoubtedly existed prior to any introduction from Viet Nam. Furthermore, the amount of venereal disease the Army has introduced into the U.S. from Viet Nam is infinitesimal compared with the 40,000 weekly cases of gonorrhea that the U.S. Public Health Service estimates occur here at home among the civilian population.

The Army is doing its best to prevent, detect and treat venereal disease. We're not perfect, but we're not to blame for the entire problem. If there were no armed forces, there would still be V.D.

JEROME H. GREENBERG. M.D.

Colonel, Medical Corps Director, Health and Environment Department of the Army Office of the Surgeon General Washington, D.C.

Seeing Ghosts

Sir / Return of the West Point phantom [Dec. 4]? The Irish cook Molly whom you mentioned was not the first astral presence to bestir West Point. General George Patton Jr. wrote the following letter to his future wife, Beatrice Ayer, in 1908:

"Had a dream and saw clearly a man with foalded [folded: General Patton wasn't at ease in the field of spelling] arms at the foot of my bead [bed] looking at me. He seemed to be gray and his head was sort of like the head of an Egyptian mummy . . . It was not in the least bothered by my sitting up but took his time and finally vanished and left the door open. Strange to say I was not very much frightened . . . Perhaps he was me 4,000 years ago."

Or now?

JIM DUNCAN

Ketchikan, Alaska

Inflation

Sir / As an American history teacher, I think it is ironic that after telling my students this week that the U.S. paid $15 million for the Louisiana Territory in 1803, I now find that each F-111 costs the taxpayers $15.1 million [Dec. 4]. It seems that inflation will eventually devour us.

ROBERT J. QUIRK

Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio

Sir / It seems that no one likes the F-111 except those who know it, the pilots.

DORMAN SIPES

Weatherford. Texas

Abbie Hoffman on Trial

Sir / Your article on our Chicago trial [Dec. 4] stated that the cost was $2,000,000. Actually the bill came closer to $5,000,000, but Jerry Rubin, Bill Kunstler and I skimmed $3,000,000 off the top without the others knowing. Also your writer failed to mention the obvious reason for dismissal, namely the arrangements we made with Washington that charges would be dropped if we in turn supported George McGovern. As to our innocence or guilt, everyone on trial was guilty except me. If you don't believe me ask my mother.

ABBIE HOFFMAN

New York City

Puerto Rican Wall

Sir / In your story on the Puerto Rican elections you state that Rafael Hernandez, the Governor-elect, argued for commonwealth status on the grounds that it served as a "great retaining wall" that protected the island's Spanish culture from U.S. domination [Nov. 27]--thus giving the impression that Hernandez is anti-American.

The simile "great retaining wall" was used throughout the campaign as the wall that permanently separates the extreme right, which advocates statehood, from the extreme left, which favors independence from the U.S. By avoiding a confrontation between the extremes, the commonwealth retaining wall will serve to prevent conflict.

REINALDO ROYO JR.

Vice President

El Mundo

San Juan

Broadcasting Corp.

Man of the Year

Sir / The person I nominate for Man of the Year is among the greatest of scientists, political and religious leaders, musicians and entertainers, a superathlete. He has, in the American tradition, worked hard for everything he ever obtained--the Black Man.

ROBERT F. SPANGLER

Harrisburg, Pa.

Sir / I nominate Dr. Alan F. Guttmacher, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

CAROLYN TYNER

Gainesville. Fla.

Sir / I nominate New York City's mayor, John V. Lindsay, as Man of the Year.

He's the only one with charisma enough to beat Spiro.

ARTHUR J. CUNNINGHAM

New York City

Sir / I nominate Jane Fonda for Person of the Year because of her courage and constant hard work in showing the American people just how tragic and foolish our involvement in Indochina really is.

SUE L. HERSHBERGER

Akron

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