The Final Straw

Sir / This is the final straw.

For months, I have been deeply concerned about the lawlessness and immorality of the Nixon Administration. But now, with the firing of Archibald Cox [Oct. 29], President Nixon has revealed in even sharper focus his obsession with power and lack of sound judgment.

No man, not even the President, is above the law and the courts that uphold the law.

I believe the only recourse now is impeachment.

BEVERLY BUNZOW

Portland, Ore.

Sir / It is not surprising that Mr. Nixon would fire his employees Cox and Ruckelshaus and force the resignation of Richardson. These are men of principle and stature, each regarding the law with reverence and humility. Based on President Nixon's past associations, it is understandable that he would be uncomfortable in such company.

Ironically, Mr. Nixon has shown his employers, We the People, just how easy it is to fire someone.

MICHAEL MCCARTY

Grand Rapids

Sir / I can see no other reasonable interpretation of President Nixon's firing of Prosecutor Cox but an admission of Nixon's personal guilt and complicity in Watergate. I hope that Nixon will ultimately be exposed and dealt with appropriately through the courage of other men. If not, then our democracy is surely lost.

JAMES W. ULRICK

Raleigh, N.C.

Sir / You write in reference to Spiro Agnew [Oct. 22]: "For nearly five years a man morally and intellectually unfit for national leadership had been just one life removed from the Oval Office." Big deal. For nearly five years a man morally and intellectually unfit for national leadership has been in the Oval Office.

MEREDITH WHEELER

Stanford, Calif.

Sir / We who worked in the McGovern campaign stressed chiefly the antiwar and pro-people issues. Now the nation knows that the real issue of that campaign has finally emerged: decency.

VAUGHN KENDRICK

Barrington, Ill.

The Agnew Affair

Sir / Mr. Agnew's affair [Oct. 22] clearly showed the importance of the watchdog function of a free press in a democratic society. Congratulations for your action.

RUI BARBOSA DE OLIVEIRA

Sao Paulo, Brazil

Sir / Anybody interested in a slightly tarnished, nonfunctional Spiro Agnew wristwatch? The only problem is the hands seem to be frozen in an upward clasping position.

RALPH S. WELSH

Bridgeport, Conn.

Sir / Said Mr. Agnew: "Perhaps judged by the new post-Watergate political morality," he did permit his fund-raising and contract-dispensing activities to overlap in an unethical and unlawful manner.

Rubbish! There is no new post-Watergate political morality any more than there is a new post-Watergate Ten Commandments. Some things always have been wrong in politics and the public has known it, even if some of our political leaders thought and acted differently.

HUGO W. SCHROEDER SR.

Randallstown, Md.

Sir / I am struck by the fundamental inconsistency inherent in the position Agnew takes. In one breath he attacks the practice of "plea bargaining," under which he charges four witnesses against him in the Maryland grand jury proceeding were granted some form of immunity in exchange for their testimony, and in the next he attempts to justify his own plea of nolo contendere and acceptance of a slap-on-the-wrist sentence. This contrived arrangement represents plea bargaining at the highest level.

L.D. BARNHART

Berrien Springs, Mich.

Sir / Agnew gave us his own epitaph in 1969: "We can, however, afford to separate them from our society--with no more regret than we should feel over discarding rotten apples from a barrel."

DAYTON W. HULL

GarrettPark, Md.

Sir / In return for his candid approach to the great issues of the day, Agnew has been mocked, falsely accused and publicly humiliated. He has been unfairly tried by a kangaroo court, the jury being the press. And his own Government has turned on him as a scapegoat for others' misdeeds.

America's treatment of one of her finest sons will forever remain a blight on her conscience.

KEVIN P. LYNCH

Edina, Minn.

The Ford Nomination

Sir / The White House affair to announce the nomination of Representative Gerald Ford [Oct. 22] was in conspicuously bad taste. A sad, disgraceful event was topped off by a festive social celebration. It would have been more appropriate to go to confession.

RICHARD C. BYRD

Abilene, Texas

Sir / The Nixon Government is still under investigation. Until its problems, consisting of blatant financial finagling, the Spiro Agnew love affair, and the Watergate scandal, are resolved, the Nixon Government has not the legitimacy to participate in the selection of a Vice President, or in any other constitutional act devolving on the Executive. Period.

EUGENE WERNTZ

Marina, Calif.

Sir / Regrettably, Mr. Ford is of vice-presidential stature.

TOD H. HAWKS

Topeka, Kans.

Sir / Perhaps Mr. Ford can help restore our trust and confidence, but it is very doubtful. Only the President can do that, and he is not about to do so.

ROBERT H. EISENBERG

Stratford, Conn.

The Senseless War

Sir / Another horrendous, senseless war! What have the Arabs to gain? Unfortunately they have no national pride and can only rally with a war cry against Israel.

Is it not strange that the oil-rich and powerful Arabs have allowed their people to have such a poor standard of living? If only they used their vast area, wealth and resources for improving housing and education for their masses, perhaps Israel would be allowed to live and develop in peace. It is obvious that this would benefit all the Middle Eastern nations--and perhaps the world at large.

PHYLLIS SUGAR

Willowdale. Ont.

Sir / One sure way to fragment America further is to continue to supply Israel militarily. In this case our interests clearly lie with both Arab and Jew. We and the Russians must see to it that neither side comes out of the present fighting with the idea that it is superior. If the U.S. and Russia can live feeling equal, the Israelis can learn to live without their territory-grabbing tactics and the Arabs without their guerrilla terrorism.

ROBERT L. KEALY

Oconomowoc, Wis.

Sir / It is tempting to dismiss arguments against cutting the military budget as "Pentagon propaganda." But the Middle East conflict demonstrates again that the Soviets have developed highly sophisticated weapons for use outside their territory. Also the high casualty rate resulting from Israel's waiting for the other side to strike first illustrates the human cost that is ultimately paid when--rightly or wrongly--other priorities are placed ahead of national defense.

SIMEON H.F. GOLDSTEIN

New York City

Democracy in Chile

Sir / While many things reported in your articles about Chile are correct, I think you missed two main points. First, without military intervention, democracy would have had no chance of surviving. Secondly, beyond a doubt, the military junta today has the support of the vast majority of the inhabitants of Chile, probably 75% plus.

WAYNE R. HIERSEMAN

Santiago

Sir / It would really be interesting to know what TIME'S definition of "democracy" really is. If what we were living under for the past three years in Chile was a democracy, then I prefer to live under a military dictatorship.

JEFF MYERS

Santiago

Uneasy Pedestal

Sir / As Paul Tillich's personal secretary during his Harvard years (1955-62), 1 was initially puzzled and somewhat dismayed to learn of the acutely personal revelations in Hannah Tillich's book about life with Paulus [Oct. 8]. But upon further reflection. I think her demythologizing will undoubtedly further public interest in a closer study of his writings, with the added insight that here was a philosopher-theologian whose wisdom sprang not from an antiseptic ivory tower but from the morass of personal anguish at being much too human.

Thank you. Hannah. Paulus never felt at all comfortable on that uneasy pedestal built by uncritical and unreading admirers.

GRACE CALI

Fajardo. Puerto Rico

Ministry for Women

Sir / The loud-shouting females who make up the "Episcopal Women's Caucus" represent no one but themselves. Had the scheme of the would-be priestesses at the recent Louisville convention [Oct. 15] been brought to fruition, the church would have split and the cause of Christ would have been dealt a grievous blow. Neither God nor the church has "turned down" these people. The church has always provided a myriad of ministries for women, which are both orthodox insofar as their theology is concerned and appropriate for the special skills and backgrounds that women alone can supply. We need nuns and we need the work of many women on such things as church school programs, altar guilds and as teachers in our growing school system as well.

(THE REV.) G.D. WIEBE

Assisting Priest and Archivist

Trinity Episcopal Church

San Francisco

Sir / Your Oct. 15 account of what you call "Episcopalian Backlash" at the 64th General Convention of the Episcopal Church troubles me. Your reportage of the facts is not untrue, but your interpretation of those facts seems perverse. Because, as you saw it, "the Episcopalians abruptly applied the brakes to innovation" at Louisville, you assume that this is a lapse into conservatism. Many of us regard it as a rise to responsibility. .

The word backlash in your headline is inaccurate and snide.

CARROLL E. SIMCOX

Editor

Living Church

Milwaukee

Sir / As a woman and an Episcopalian, I found it distressing that the Episcopal Church would be so puritanical in its views against women becoming priests, or should I say priestesses?

I fully believe that the Episcopal Church needs women as ministers. Women have a deep-seated respect for religion and belief and faith in God in their daily lives, more so than some of these men who claim they preach the word of God.

MS. BEVERLY A. DIXON

Pittsburgh

Sack on Galley

Sir / William Calley at My Lai was free-willed, responsible, culpable and individually guilty. There, I said it. True, as you say in your review of my book The Man-Eating Machine [Oct.22] I wrote: "Calley was nothing but a brass instrument that it [the massacre order] was trumpeted through." But the sentence states that it seemed that way to Calley, not me.

I reject--and Calley does too, now--the philosophy that in our technological system we are less responsible for My Lais. I say, quite dissimilarly, that in our system human beings are intolerable intrusions that--by inches usually, or with dispatch, as at My Lai--we choose to eliminate.

JOHN SACK

Los Angeles

Oates on Marriage

Sir / In her review of my novel Do with Me What You Will [Oct. 15], Martha Duffy states categorically that I portray marriage as damaging to women, causing their breakdowns. This is absolutely untrue. Some marriages are stifling, and thwart the individual's natural growth; but there are other marriages, healthy marriages, that allow both individuals their fulfillment. I am most upset that so perverse a belief should be attributed to me, since I have been married for 13 years. There is enough vicious, absurd anti-male and antimarriage propaganda in America today without Mrs. Duffy's deliberate distortion of my views.

JOYCE CAROL OATES

Windsor, Ont.

Tribute to Auden

Sir / Thanks for calling attention in your fine article to the "streams of translations" poured out by W.H. Auden [Oct. 8]. In trying to further the one-tongue aspect of world poetry, Poet Auden's translation of the Icelandic Elder Edda has gone a long way. He kept both mode of thought and the long alliterative line and stress count. Translations draw us together.

The poets of Alaska mourn Auden's death.

MARGARET G. MULKE

Chugiak, Alaska

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