Women: "Great to Be Alive"

To the Editors:

The comment on the Women's Conference at Houston [Dec. 5] that "it is a particularly exciting time to be a woman" had a traumatic effect on me. I have been involved in the suffrage movement since 1909, first in London and then in Alaska and on to the present day. What a change there has been in the kind of militant action called for now compared to what our sisters were compelled to experience in England in the early years of this century.

It is great to be alive today!

Jessie Bloom

Seattle

At the National Women's Conference the delegates traded in their Bibles for Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and a further psychological castration of masculinity. Test-tube babies, artificial wombs and government nurseries will finally give women the equality and the control over their own bodies they seem to desire so much.

Kenneth Quade

Pembine, Wis.

I hope it is written in my obituary that I had the joy and privilege of being a delegate from the state of Illinois to the National Women's Conference 1977.

JoAnn R. Horowitz

Chicago

I do not know how many votes the women's movement gained in Houston. I do know that by espousing lesbianism it lost one former supportive vote.

J. Stanley Cook

Bradenton, Fla.

Seeing Rosalynn, Betty and Lady Bird, the politicians' wives, looking upper-crusty, and the many other women in Houston looking like fools, I concluded hat I was viewing long-ago plays about; he aristocracy and the jesters who per-brmed and danced before them.

Lucy Profumo

Louisville

Right on National Plan of Action sisters! Even though we know you don't need us, there are thousands and dare I say millions of American men who are behind you 100% in your struggle for freedom, equality and dignity.

Our consciousness and numbers are growing too.

Terry Cosgrove

Urbana, Ill.

So, the women at Houston wanted the right to tear their unborn children out of their wombs. How ironic of them at the same time to call for federally funded programs for victims of child abuse. What selfish, twisted logic.

Kay Sheldon

Simpsonville, S.C.

Any woman who exercises her right to vote, any woman who exercises her right to an education, any woman who exercises her right to work is a feminist. Phyllis Schlafly is one of the leaders of ultraconservative feminism. Let's get our semantics right.

Fay Angus

Sierra Madre, Calif.

I could tolerate the unutterably silly Houston conference but for the fact that I was taxed to fund it.

Richard Sutcliffe

Little Neck, N. Y.

The Middle East Peace Plan

Your article "Toward a Just Peace: A formula that offers attainable goals" [Dec. 5] is the best and most daring I have seen on the Middle East. But you did not mention how to initiate it.

I envisage a scene of two people standing beside a pool filled with ice water, hesitating to jump in. All they need is a gentle push. And I think that such a push should come from Mr. Carter--on behalf of all the sympathizers of Israel in the U.S. --and others who are sick and tired of continuous war in the Holy Land.

George Haig

Washington, D.C.

Israel might agree with your plan, if this were the best of all possible worlds Reality, inevitably, intervenes. Israel will not deliver part of her security to the U.N. the very symbol of the world's capitulation to Arab economic power. Nor can it, sadly, rely on American guarantees, let alone the international variety; witness South Viet Nam in 1975. Final responsibility for its security will rest with Israel, and eyeball-to-eyeball negotiations with leaders like Sadat.

George Avery

Toronto

Your proposal for a just settlement in he Middle East is neither just nor realistic. It is instead a suicide plan for the state of Israel.

CliffGadye

New York City

Your peace plan rests on the naive assumption that there is a continuity of policy in the Arab states. Today's government espousing peaceful coexistence is likely to be replaced by a volatile military dictatorship bent on a holy crusade to destroy Israel.

Mark V. Sherrid, M.D.

San Francisco

TIME'S reasoned proposal for a just peace in the Middle East is basically the sort of settlement some of us have been advocating for a long time. But this peace must come soon. With astonishing rapidity, Israelis develop emotional and historical attachments to land they originally took for temporary security. Arabs, while remembering the glorious victories of past centuries, forget the devastating defeats of recent years with equal speed. Bruce Hardcastle Washington, D.C.

Risk for Peace

Congratulations to Sadat and Begin [Nov. 28] for taking the first steps in defusing the bomb, while the others sit back and listen to it tick.

Jeff Kirschbaum

Camp Hill, Pa.

President Sadat has betrayed the Arab world and has, for the time being, been partly successful in deceiving the Egyptian people. I term his visit to Israel as his government's complete surrender to the Zionists. He is surely incapable of representing the Arabs.

Golam M. Khan

Montreal

In answer to your reporter's question about the TV networks' role in the Sadat-Begin talks: I stated that my perception of ABC's coverage of the story, which while not as dramatic, powerful, extensive or impactful as CBS's, was earlier and in our opinion certainly as decisive in bringing about the meetings. I willingly credited Walter Cronkite with a fantastic presentation and his usual high standard of journalism. I at no time accused him of trying to take credit. I said it was uncharacteristic of CBS News to project itself into a story by claiming credit for not only the interviews but also for bringing the historic meeting about.

Certainly neither CBS News, which has long been the leader in our industry, nor Walter Cronkite, who stands alone in his profession, needs me to applaud their enterprise and professionalism, but I will anyway.

Roone Arledge, President

ABC News, ABC Sports

New York City

TIME stands by its quote from Mr. Arledge which read as follows: "Cronkite took credit for breaking the logjam."

Help from the Handicapped

Your article "Helping the Handicapped" [Dec. 5] stated that the passage of the Rehabilitation Act would be a boon to the handicapped but costly for taxpayers. One must remember, however, that removing architectural and attitudinal barriers will begin to open doors to employment of the handicapped. Once employed, these people are no longer on welfare rolls but are on the nation's tax rolls. There you will find your remuneration.

Robert R. Peters

Bloomington, Minn.

Red-Hot Stove

As a fire-insurance adjuster in Minnesota, I can see benefits of the wood stove [Dec. 5] to the homeowner and disaster to the small insurance companies. You wouldn't believe the wild ideas people have. Cheap little stoves that get red hot. Good stoves too near the walls--so the heat sets fire to the dwelling. Stovepipes plugged into old or too short chimneys. They all spell unwanted fire!

John H. Stout

St. Louis Park, Minn.

Flynt's Conversion

I wouldn't dream of evaluating the sincerity of Smut Dealer Larry Flynt's conversion to being a Hustler for the Lord [Dec. 5]. But if Flynt has truly become a devotee of the "Big Boy upstairs," all I can say is that there must be some truth in the saying "miracles never cease."

For some strange reason, I'm inclined to believe that Flynt is sincere. Maybe it's because he sounds so hokey.

Joan E. Harrison

Escondido, Calif.

Larry Flynt converted? I don't believe it. He has just made a slick invasion of the enemy's camp, and once he starts printing and illustrating those purple parts of the Bible, it will make his Hustler magazine seem about as sexy as a seed catalogue.

George Dorsey

Eugene, Ore.

Foil for Radar

You mention dangers that Thor Heyerdahl may face on his new voyage because his reed boat will not show up on radar screens [Nov. 28]. It could be made to appear as big as a destroyer on radar screens by simply wrapping a roll of aluminum foil around each of those beautifully crafted hull points used only for aesthetic purposes. The foil could be laid beneath the outer covering of reed to preserve the "purist" intent of Tigris.

This impure fix would add no weight or surface alteration but might save the life of a man much respected and admired by all.

Ed Merrell

Paris

Man of the Year

President Jimmy Carter, a President who considers the ethical and moral implications of his actions. Whether we approve or not, whether he succeeds or not, this makes him worthy of our respect.

Daniel Neubourg

Millersville, Pa.

Man of the Year? I think West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt deserves it for the courage he showed during the nerve-shattering hijacking of that Lufthansa plane. His attitude taught some countries an exemplary lesson.

Firmin Martens

Eeklo, Belgium

George Willig was the newsmaker of 1977. By scaling a tower of the World Trade Center, he brought a new dimension to the art of mountain climbing. George went to the top.

Stephen A. Bregstone

Springfield, Ill.

I would like to nominate a true patriot, a man who is trying to make America strong again, a man who is trying to make America great again, a man who is trying to make America a better place to live in, Ronald Reagan.

Doug Jones

Dixon, Ill.

Yankee Manager Billy Martin. This year he showed himself to be sometimes serene, sometimes scrappy and certainly a superstrategist.

Joe Murphy

Attleboro, Mass.

"Red" Adair, for demonstrating excellence rarely attained by man, in preventing disaster in the North Sea when it was threatened by an oil blowout.

Thomas W. Mitcham

Tucson, Ariz.

The Man of the Year this year had better be a Woman!

Mrs. Kenny L. Goering

Wichita, Kans.

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