St. Helens Blows

To the Editors:

You say Mount St. Helens [June 2] is something of a baby among volcanoes, or a mere 37,000 years old. Some baby; some burp.

Mabel Austin Las Vegas

I have searched my vocabulary for one word that best describes the photograph of Mount St. Helens. I considered gorgeous, fantastic, astounding, awesome, but decided on wow!

Patricia A. Kuehn Lakewood, Ohio

Humbug to all these highfalutin scientific explanations of the eruption! With all the pollution we've caused, the good ole earth just plain vomited.

Hayden Letchworth East Aurora, N. Y.

While sitting in the ashes and donning my sackcloth, I am contemplating the achievements of mankind. We split the atom, we walked on the moon, we invented every imaginable destructive weapon of war. Now there is a new rumbling in our midst presenting a different challenge: How do we tame an angry mountain?

Maria Brandenberg Chehalis, Wash.

Waste in Space

I am appalled that NASA and the Government are thinking of sending nuclear wastes into space [June 2]. Just because we have carelessly polluted our earth, we have no right to pollute the universe.

Dan Kluchinski Clifton, N.J.

Any risks involved in shooting nuclear wastes into solar orbit are nothing compared with leaving them here on earth.

Wally Simpson Jr. Waldwick, N.J.

Why not send all nuclear wastes in rockets whose trajectories would take them within several billion miles of a black hole in space? These gravity fields could become the world's nuclear garbage dumps of future generations.

Dwight H. Skeels Palmyra, N. Y.

Promised Land

TIME's Essay "Guarding the Door" [June 2] dealt well with the issue of a continued welcome to immigrants until the last paragraph. There Lance Morrow suggested that the rational lines must be drawn as to whom we can accept.

I submit that rationality is neither useful nor appropriate. These people need our country. That fact alone justifies their admission. They do not want welfare --they want independence. They still look upon the U.S. as a land of opportunity and are anxious to work for it. We must keep the door open, rather than guard it, lest we destroy ourselves by ignoring the needs of others.

Dana M. Schmidt Rochester

I find it interesting that although the U.S. is at a low point with respect to foreign relations and other problems, it is still seen as a Promised Land by many of the world's oppressed people, while often taken for granted by many Americans.

(A/1 C) Bobby T. Brooks, U.S.A.F. Monte Vergine, Italy

If events continue on their present path, eventually the Communists will have all the world's land and we will have all the world's people.

Emily Creswell Phoenix

Turmoil in South Korea

Regarding the recent political turmoil in South Korea [June 2]: How can the U.S. stand by and watch the resubjugation of a nation and a people? That we could continue to protect and trade with a fanatical military dictatorship is abhorrent. Let us use our economic and diplomatic power to alleviate this situation while we still can.

Richard Rosenthal Berkeley, Calif.

What Is the Line?

French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing's "Lone Ranger" diplomacy [June 2] with Moscow is just another case of dissatisfaction with the Carter Administration. Moscow would love to divide the West on today's problems, and if the Soviets are successful, it will be because Western Europe is probably tired of playing What's My Line?with Washington.

Michael Di Chiara Mount Vernon, N. Y.

Pablo and Fernande

Your cover story on Picasso and his art [May 26] was the best I've ever read.

However, a commonly believed error crept into the accompanying article on his life: that he never gave Fernande Olivier, his first mistress, any financial aid. I saw her in 1966. She was white-haired and bedridden, looked very small in her tiny apartment in the environs of Paris, and had pinned on the wall postcards of Picasso's Blue Period paintings. She told me she had never asked him for a penny, but that when she became too crippled to work a year or so before, a mutual friend had told Pablo, and since then he had paid for her rent and her care. As she spoke of him warmly, her face lighted up and you could see how pretty she had been.

Later that week I saw Alice B. Toklas, also bedridden. She told me she had been in love with Picasso. When I told her I had seen Fernande, she said testily, "Oh, yes. Fernande. So pretty--and so dumb." The old ladies remained in character, didn't they? And when I saw Picasso that winter he seemed half the age of either one.

Lael Wertenbaker Marlborough, N.H.

Princess Leia Needs You

I don't agree with Gerald Clarke's thought that there isn't as much "effervescent giddiness" in The Empire Strikes Back as in Star Wars [May 19]. Even more than Star Wars, Empire made me want to jump in my spaceship and rush to help the rebels against Darth Vader.

Chris Davis Urbana, III.

Mistaken Identity

While accurately identifying the Pentagon's manpower problems [June 9], TIME suffered an identity problem of its own. It transposed identifications under the pictures of Lieut. General Glenn Otis and Professor Morris Janowitz.

Don Sider

TIME Correspondent Washington, D.C.

In some copies of TIME the captions were indeed reversed.

God's Love

Atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair's son William [May 26] is a living symbol of what God can do for a person, no matter how far he may stray. God still loves his mother, if only she would turn to him.

Elsie Roach Altavista, Va.

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