Buying Peace in the Middle East

To the Editors:

Jerusalem Bureau Chief Donald Neff said [Aug. 25]: "It appears that since the U.S. cannot negotiate peace in the Middle East, it will buy it." But the U.S. is not buying peace for itself; it is buying it for Israel. For this reason, this kind of peace will never succeed.

Joseph E. Khalili Indianapolis

Kissinger's Viet Nam peace plan led to the fall of South Viet Nam and a serious weakening of American strength in Asia. He is now conferring the benefits of his newest peace plan on Israel.

Let Israel (and America) beware. Henry Kissinger is the Neville Chamberlain of our age.

Bruce Aird Mountain View, Calif.

For his efforts, Kissinger's title to replace "Peace Ambassador" might be more exactly "Money Changer."

Stanford DeMille Cincinnati

The cost of providing new armaments to Israel by the U.S. might be balanced by the benefit of having these arms evaluated and proved by the Israeli armed forces.

The French armaments industry came into its own only after French-tanks and fighter bombers had been battle-tested by the Israelis in the Sinai war of 1956.

Henry Winters Arlington, Va.

Your story about the impending interim peace settlement in the Sinai brings me to think about how we have not thanked the United Nations soldiers for serving in what has to be the most unpleasant military duty in the world. Why not consider nominating the United Nations truce force in the Middle East for a collective Nobel Peace Prize at the next ceremonies in Stockholm?

David J. Gruccio Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio

There is no such thing as a slight pregnancy. No American advisers in the Sinai!

Edwin Harrington Carversville, Pa.

Queries for Castro

The lifting of U.S. sanctions on trade with Cuba [Sept. 1] by U.S. subsidiaries does not alter our embargo on direct trade with Cuba.

I feel that we should not initiate resumption of trade or diplomatic relations until Premier Castro and his government show clear signs of changing their policies and attitudes toward our country. Specifically, what does Castro intend to do about millions of dollars worth of expropriated property of U.S. citizens? What about human rights and his refusal to allow any international body to inspect the political prisons? What about travel rights for Cuban Americans separated from their families in Cuba? These issues require satisfactory answers and are the basis of a resolution I am co-sponsoring with Senator Richard Stone of Florida calling for advice and consent of the Senate prior to any change in our Cuba policy.

Lawton Chiles U.S. Senator, Florida Washington, D.C.

Deflating Meany

It is ironic that George Meany and the labor unions should be critical of the export of American grain [Sept. 1] on the grounds that the sale will drive prices higher. I can't think of any American group whose actions and demands have been more inflationary.

Richard L. Leary Springfield, III.

Mr. Meany's unions could well revise their work rules. His Plumbers and Pipefitters require two pipefitters and a welder to hook up the piping on a steam trap about the size of a breadbox. If American farmers worked the same way, there would be 20 men on a combine and wheat would be $10 a bushel.

Roger Conrow Indian Rocks Beach, Fla.

George Meany is one of a very few with the courage and conviction to speak out against our Government's policy of assistance for all but the American majority. We admire and support him for his efforts to thwart rising prices -something our elected leaders should be doing but are not.

Mr. and Mrs. Howard Bingham Richfield Springs, N. Y.

Odd Facts About Busing

The schools of Detroit and Boston [Sept. 1] were examined in court, far from headlines, and found to be racially segregated, offering today and every day inferior education to black children. Black people still cannot understand why busing was perfectly acceptable when it was used to segregate the races and only when it was used to desegregate schools did it become a monstrous thing.

Roy Wilkins, Executive Director N.A.A.C.P. New York City

Where Is Luis?

Thank you, TIME, for making the American public aware of the bloody repression that the Chilean government is practicing [Aug. 18]. I am but one of the thousands of relatives who are engaged in the painful search for a desaparecido [missing person]. The alleged corpse of my brother, Luis Guendelman Wisniak, not only had part of the coccyx bone -which in his case had been removed when he was five years old -but also its twisted denture bore no resemblance. The miraculously uncharred plastic identification card was ripped and sealed with metal staples, the last name was misspelled, the photograph and fingerprint were not that of Luis, and the signature was unmistakably forged.

My family has uncontested evidence that Luis is in the hands of the DINA [Chile's secret police]. There are strong indications that he is being detained in a prisoners' camp in northern Chile and that high government authorities are purposely denying his detention.

Simon Guendelman Wisniak Berkeley, Calif.

We Are All Armenians

Stefan Kanfer's review of Passage to Ararat, by Michael J. Arlen [Aug. 18], was excellent and caught every vibrant note expressed by Mr. Arlen in his book. Turkish governments have always denied the massacre of the Armenians; and when they could not deny it, they tried to justify it by comments similar to those of the Turkish Minister of the Interior in 1918 who replied to American protests by saying: "Those who are innocent today might be guilty tomorrow."

Barry B. Papazian Toronto

Hold it. Saroyan's Armenians are no more sentimentalized than the Jews of Sholem Aleichem, the English of Charles Dickens, the Scots of Robert Burns, the Irish of Sean O'Casey or the Americans of Mark Twain. Read My Name Is Aram again, please.

Does Stefan Kanfer perhaps mean "stylized"?

Well, you can't get people into literature by any other method, and it is never "facile." It is both inevitable and the consequence of hard labor; and the desired end is laughing art, because crying art belittles people, whoever they happen by nature to be. We are all Armenians. Let's join Michael J. Arlen in being pleased about that, and then just move along to whatever is next.

William Saroyan Fresno, Calif.

Bleep Mary

You better believe that TV has grown up [Aug. 25]. So much, in fact, that it has reached a premature senility. Imagine cutting the word virgin from the script of M-A-S-H because they are afraid some child is going to ask his parent what a virgin is. Do the censors think we are not intelligent enough to explain it? Oh, and by the way, next Sunday's sermon concerns itself with Jesus and the BLEEP Mary.

Tracey Berse Howard Beach, N. Y.

Who Owns English?

Your article "Can't Anyone Here Speak English?" [Aug. 25] should be compressed into liquid form and injected into the veins of every schoolchild along with vaccines.

I believe your most fantastic example, however, pales by comparison to one utterance by a representative of our police not long ago. He said, "A number of shots were fired at the deceased person, mortally wounding him."

Glenn Bassett Los Angeles

What modern language lacks, as does modern culture, is life. De rigueur is rigor mortis. The world today is viewing language coming to life; much as the counterculture is bringing life back into humanity. Precision is for machines, hence the worshiping of the precise dead language Latin during the age of machines.

Michael T. Martin Phoenix, Ariz.

Your issue arrived just as I was reading an ad in the local paper. One of the leading department stores is running quite a sale on handbags.

COME IN AND SEE OUR WIDE VARIETY OF STYLINGS AND COLORATIONS, the ad urges.

Perhaps I will. I'm sure they have large numerations of sizings and shapings. A new purse may give me just the right kind of liftation I need to carry me into the coming seasoning.

Ann Goodwillie Omaha

The proclivity for esoteric words can be valuable. The Apollo-Soyuz rendezvous was called "an androgynous linking." The question of who did it to whom was diplomatically eliminated.

Charles A. Hogan Trenton, N.J.

In our city, a new apartment complex was advertised as a "pretentious suburban residence surrounded by an extensive landscape," and a particular breed of dog was described in a classified ad as "world renounced."

Georgia Bailey Frost St. Paul, Minn.

Ut tertius-annus discipulus linguae Latinae, credo ut haec vetus lingua Romanorum sit magnum auxilium ad discendum English. Itaque monear ut dis-cipuli legant, non Shakespeare, sed Caesar, Nepos, aut Vergil discere English grammarem et compositatem.

Fredrick C. Bader Bethlehem, Pa.

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