Sacred Cows Get the Lion's Share

Sir / It is very disheartening to look at Mr Nixon's budget recommendations for deep cuts into programs for unemployment, education, school milk subsidies and hospital construction [Feb. 5]. The sacred cows in the Pentagon continue to receive the lion's share, while funds for social programs are either cut out or impounded.

It appears that the old Nixon has returned.

HARRY CHERNOFF

Paramus. N.J

Sir / When President Nixon asserts that there has to be a choice between inflation and/or higher taxes, and cutting programs like pollution control, medical research, job development, etc., why isn't there a storm of laughter through our tears and a demand for rational priorities? Why shouldn't Congress slice the funds from the bloated Defense Department?

It is true that money doesn't guarantee success: the military has demonstrated that. But as you said, the lack of funds won't assure success either.

MIRIAM F. SCHWAG

Havertown, Pa.

Sir / The decision to end federal aid for hospital construction with the rationale that the U.S. now has enough hospital beds gives some insight into Mr. Nixon's reasoning processes.

Similarly, we can cut spending for mental-health clinics, grammar school milk programs and family assistance on the ground that America already has enough sane people, children without rickets, and families who are not slavishly impoverished. Of course, weapons research must be further funded, because you just cannot have enough ways to kill people.

JOHN D. VAUGHN

Pullman. W. Va.

Sir / The present hassle between the President and Congress over the impounding of appropriations is reminiscent of the common argument between a husband and wife. Congress is like a permissive mother who indulges her children in luxuries, thereby causing the husband to cut off her allowance to avoid bankruptcy.

ALVIN O. BINSWANGER

Reno

Speaking to the Millions

Sir / I think it is an error to appraise any kind of music from a principally commercial viewpoint as you did in your story on pop records [Feb. 12]. Music, after all, is music, a species of art. The promoters and wheeler-dealers couldn't have made Yesterday (to name one pop classic) any more meaningful or beautiful. The quality of a song is unalterable.

If Carly Simon, for one, speaks to millions of us--if only for a few months or years--it isn't because of someone else's salesmanship.

GORDON ACKERMAN

Albany, N.Y.

Sir / Although I expected more of a critique, I did enjoy your coverage of the financial bonanza that one mines in the music industry.

I am still in high school, so I expect to grow up with rock, age with rock and die with rock. Who knows? Maybe a millennium from now, if there is an ear that hears, no one will distinguish between Beethoven's Ninth and Alice Cooper's Dead Babies. One thing is for sure: rock is not ephemeral.

SIMON COHEN

Orlando, Fla.

Sir / For a magazine that really doesn't keep its nose in the rock scene, the story on pop records is up to date and surprisingly true. The rock-music business is filled with so much hard-core promotion that it is hard to see the reality.

Maybe with more recognition rock will receive the honest respect it deserves. Nothing makes it without being good first.

RALPH GOLDHEIM

Omaha

Which Is Preferred?

Sir / President Nixon, speaking recently on amnesty [Feb. 12], said that it is a rule of life that those who make mistakes must pay for them. If we live in a world of stubbornness and insensitivity, then this means that they must pay with great hardship. If we live in one of gentility and compassion, then they must pay with their consciences. The question is: Which of the alternatives does the President prefer?

ALEXANDER MCMAHON

Hyannis, Mass.

Sir / Amnesty? Any President or Congress who grants amnesty can hang it up. The American people, not just President Nixon, will not allow it.

CLAIRE M. CRAGIN

Boston

How Much for a Used Congress?

Sir / In your article on "The Presidency" [Feb. 12], you stated that the slightly used planks over which "the President has trod" would be sold at the usual exorbitant prices. What is the worth of a slightly used Congress, over which the President has trod?

MICKEY J. BITSKO

Ottawa

Underground Christians

Sir / You state in your article entitled "As Others Saw Us" [Feb. 12], which reviewed Japanese Namban art, that Christianity became extinct in Japan after the Christian revolt of 1637. This statement is perhaps misleading.

Christianity became publicly extinct in Japan after 1637. However, the descendants of the Catholic converts kept their faith alive in secret. When the Dutch were later allowed to operate in Japan, representatives of these secret Catholics approached them. Upon learning that the Dutch neither honored the Virgin nor acknowledged the Pope in Rome, contact was dropped. When Japan was once again opened to foreign contact in the 19th century, representatives of the hidden Christians again sought contact with the foreign missionaries. Once Catholic priests were located, a community of secret Catholics numbering in the thousands and centered around Nagasaki revealed itself. So Christianity did not die in Japan after 1637; it merely went underground.

ROGER L. HIATT

Brighton, Mass.

More Than Possible

Sir / Your story entitled "Do as We Say' [Feb. 5] about the kidnaping and release of the American Ambassador to Haiti Clinton

E. Knox would have been quite factual if you had not written that the French Ambassador persuaded the Haitian government to pay the ransom demanded.

The fact is that the President of Haiti, immediately upon being advised of the kidnaping, decided to do everything possible and perhaps something more than possible to safeguard the person of Ambassador Knox and his acting minister counselor.

RENE CHALMERS

Ambassador of Haiti Washington, D.C.

Waiting for the Chimp

Sir / FCC Commissioner Johnson thinks "television ought to be like a typewriter that's available to everyone" [Feb. 5].

We have heard the cliche that if a chimp typed continuously for a given length of time, the odds are that sooner or later an intelligent word or phrase would result.

Must the viewing public be subjected to all the unintelligible litter and wait with bated breath for the one intelligent work?

E. ANN GREENLOW

Biloxi, Miss.

Something Wrong?

Sir / After seeing the attacks on your cover story about Last Tango [Feb. 12], I can only hope that it is not indicative of the overall national reaction to the article. The article was well written, informative and showed both insight and discretion.

If the comments in the Letters section are truly indicative of national reaction. I feel that something really is terribly wrong.

MICHAEL E. LEAVELL

Kansas City, Kans.

Sir / I was amazed at all the protest letters re your cover story on Last Tango in Paris. The review that upset so many merely convinced me that this is a film I should miss. The $5 so saved shall go toward my TIME renewal.

BARBARA GAGE

Pointe Claire, Que.

Sir / To my satisfaction, most of the response to your article on Last Tango was negative. This showed me that there are still many sensible people in the U.S. who detest such material in their magazines.

HARRY T. SNAVELY

Woodbury. Pa.

Sir / Such self-righteous, moral indignation --methinks the masses doth protest too much.

JANET NARKON

Honolulu Sir / To make sure that I was thoroughly disgusted with your coverage of Last Tango, I read it very carefully word by word --twice.

THERESE BERRIS

Nanaimo, B.C.

Sir / I read the letters responding to your story about Last Tango and was astounded. I read your article and saw nothing lewd or obscene in it, nothing that isn't talked about in our elementary school.

So I don't know why all these people are having such fits. All I wish is that the movie was not rated X.

JENNIFER MONTGOMERY

Palo Alto, Calif.

Sir / I am disgusted (though not shocked) by the response to your article on Marlon Brando and Last Tango.

Had you reviewed Lady Chatterley's Lover in 1928, no doubt the same letters would have appeared. How long before we accept sex as part of life and rightly a subject of art?

ELIZABETH MANSFIELD

Freeville, N.Y.

Sir / My husband and I saw Tango and we found the film to be extremely moving, with innumerable thought-provoking complexities (not necessarily sexual).

Your article was both thorough and accurate, and should be appreciated for having brought such a finely wrought film and its essential truths and merits to the attention of the public. Granted it is a film about a certain kind of sex between two people; however, it is most importantly a film about guilt, hypocrisy and, most of all, the scourge of loneliness in an impersonal and indifferent world.

TONI HARRIS ROBY

Talence, France

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