Renew America

To the Editors:

Congratulations for the inspiring presentation of American Renewal [Feb. 23]. At last we are having a national conversation that is worthy of our intelligence, our courage, our commitment to democracy, and worthy of being overheard by our children. I am grateful, I am moved, I am scared by the ideas that some people have, and I am exhilarated by the problems and opportunities before us.

Jonette Christian

Boston

You offer a sober assessment of the state of the nation, as well as realistic options for the future. We have not been willing to dedicate ourselves to change, yet change is overpowering us. Does anyone think we can't alter the future? We do so every day, through our advocacy or our complacency. Accepting reality doesn't have to mean shelving cherished values and institutions, but it does mean making them work.

Eugene F. Cocco

Lansdale, Pa.

Editor in Chief Henry Grunwald says Americans have "the odd conviction that their country is still an experiment." The idea of the democratic experiment is one so central to our survival that it must be engraved on our consciousness.

Periodic "renewals" are endemic to the American way of life at all levels. We live in flux, have always done so, and probably always will. Therefore, while I applaud your articles, I wish that the idea of the experiment had been more central to them.

James Quinn

New York City

Mr. Grunwald's comment about "hysterical fears of nuclear power" convinces me that he does not understand that there is no middle ground in this issue. Sometimes something is clearly wrong. Nuclear power is a financial burden for the economy. It destroys the environment, indirectly challenges many liberties and is just too much of a risk.

Rick Klimowicz

South Orange, N.J.

Lance Morrow deserves recognition for his touching definition of child rearing as "the most profoundly humanizing and civilizing of all worldly experiences."

As a graduate of adolescence in the '60s, I assure Mr. Morrow that his assessment is perfectly tuned. Many of my peers have become remarkably good parents, bungling through the familiar territory their parents did. Like them, we are making mistakes and being human, to the dismay of our tolerance-strained offspring. My generation is reconciled to our parents, and have a lot of love to give.

Margaret Berman

North Miami Beach, Fla.

Your American Renewal project is one of the finest undertakings I've ever seen in journalism.

Albert Gore Jr.,

Congressman Fourth District,

Tennessee Washington, D.C.

Underlying most of the policies that you advocate is the assumed necessity for economic growth. Capitalist industrial economies require for their growth a continuous influx of new resources, a condition that no longer exists in the world.

Only economic systems that are oriented to people and to ecology can avoid disaster.

Greg Gerritt

Industry, Me.

You deserve credit for taking a narrow economic position--reindustrialization and revitalization of the economy --and developing that approach into what it ought to be: a national agenda and a society-wide renewal.

Amitai Etzioni

Washington, D.C.

Five years ago, we started a new company, because we still believed in America. This reader, then 60, was the youngest partner. We have fought against foreign imports at prices and terms we could not meet, but refused Government help. Rather, we looked for new ideas.

We have repaid 75% of our bank loans, and while the future still looks tough, we will not give up. This is the thrill of our system, and it upsets me to hear self-interest groups, including the aged, fighting for increased benefits at the expense of the workers. To prosper we must labor harder and sacrifice for the good of all.

Douglas McDowell, President

Tabor Yarn Corp.

Philadelphia

You dismiss the advantages of a parliamentary form of government for the U.S. as going "one step too far." Our system of checks and balances, designed by a frontier community at a time of deep distrust of both royal executive prerogatives and the tyranny of the masses, has become an anachronism. This generation has witnessed the debilitating spectacle of a President trying to operate with a Congress controlled by the opposition. Will it take a political Mount St. Helens to blast us into recognizing the need for a more effective way of governing ourselves?

Richard A. Buffum

Arlington, Va.

TIME's splendid issue on American Renewal is marred by its reaction to the proposal for a six-year presidential term with re-election ineligibility. TIME says, "The argument [for a six-year term] is not persuasive. It is a misguided attempt to depoliticize the White House."

In the first or last year of his tenure, any President who wants to pass a bill, build a budget, construct a program, negotiate a treaty or persuade the Congress must be political or else he is impotent.

Anyone who has ever worked in the White House knows that no sooner is the newly elected occupant settled in his chair than he is running for reelection. The six-year term would allow the Oval Office to take nasty alternatives. As the issues get tougher, as the nation's leader hunkers down under the daily assault of the press, his opponents and the intransigence of his daily challenges, the six-year term becomes more attractive.

Too many wise and thoughtful observers of the presidential arena believe the six-year term is an idea that should not be casually dismissed.

Jack Valenti, President

Motion Picture Association of America

Washington, D.C.

The need for an American Renewal will not be helped by a resumption of the draft. The notion that we will have a better, more fit Army if it's made up of unwilling soldiers is absurd. The task of national leadership is to restore the love our people have for our system, not to widen the schism of misunderstanding by again pitting generation against generation.

Hal Plotkin

Palo Alto, Calif.

Your proposal to revive the draft is outrageously demeaning to women. You assign women the same status as cripples and exempt them altogether from conscription. Women should not be sheltered from the hardships--or deprived of the benefits--of military service. Only when women share equal responsibilities with men will they be treated as equal citizens.

Laura E. Ard

Cambridge, Mass.

Rather than just the draft, let's use universal public service, which would provide supplemental workers in hospitals, mental institutions, homes for the elderly and child care facilities. Military service would be a breeze compared with serving in our state institutions.

Peter Silvia

Princeton, N.J

You advocate a return to the draft. Good. You have more courage than my political party, the Republicans. In spite of winning the campaign, the party stupidly blusters about a strong national defense policy, yet refuses to go along with conscription.

Frank Davis

Redondo Beach, Calif.

Reign of Terror

Chief Justice Warren Burger's speech on crime's "reign of terror" at the American Bar Association convention [Feb. 23] was characteristically wishy-washy. At the same time that he cited the deterrent effect of swift and certain consequences, he told us the war on crime "will not be won simply by harsher sentences."

The Chief Justice stresses measures that will increase the likelihood of getting caught (more police) and of speeding prosecution (more judges). Unfortunately, he does not call for increasing the severity of penalties.

Stephen J. Kasabuski

Northridge, Calif.

Isn't it ironic that the "experts" found so many reasons why Burger's blast at the "reign of terror" would be unconstitutional? The real miscarriage of justice is that the legal profession benefits more from the criminal than the victim. Consequently, the criminals are better served.

Walter Airel

Geneseo, N. Y.

To Save a Life

The most recent calamitous hotel fire in Las Vegas [Feb. 23] once again emphasizes the need for protection against death from smoke asphyxiation. Would it not be feasible to install in each hotel room simple gas masks and instructions for their use? This would give guests those extra vital minutes in which to escape or be rescued.

Paul B. W. Gollong

Greenwich, Conn.

A simple method by which people can protect themselves in the event of a hotel fire is to supply each room with a plastic hose that could be attached to a water outlet in the bathroom. The hose could be used to wet down a room completely.

Charles Gillman

Baltimore

Share the Wealth

If Ron and Patricia Zobel had filed their legal challenge to Alaska's wealth distribution schemes as a class-action suit [Feb. 16], they would have quickly learned that others are in sympathy with them. Not all Alaskans are as greedy, cruel or constitutionally ignorant as those who have amused themselves by abusing this courageous couple.

Lee Davis

Anchorage

It is not surprising that Alaskans haven't changed in the 83 years since the great gold rush. Nor should it be surprising that the Zobels are being treated as claim jumpers.

The "cheechakos" of 1898 invaded Alaska for the gold and other wealth that were abundant; any later cheechakos were looked upon as claim jumpers and treated as such. The Zobels and other newcomers who arrived after the passage of the great Alaskan oil-revenues rebate are not asking for the world. They just want their 10%, like all the other cheechakos who came before them.

Nona Taylor

Seattle

Choice for Brilliant Women

The "admission" of Author Marguerite Yourcenar to the company of "immortals," the Academie Franc,aise [Feb. 16], points up the two choices that are open to brilliant women who are praised belatedly and paternalistically. They can either refuse the honor on the ground that it is unacceptable from such groups, or accept it in order to set a precedent for others. Virginia Woolf responded to many universities offering honorary degrees in the first way. Yourcenar has replied in the second. If I were she, I would have suggested where the monkeys might put their peanuts. Judging from your article, however, I am not nearly as nice as Marguerite Yourcenar.

John Glyphis

Montpellier, France

Bloom's Giveaway

Hats off to Paul Bloom for distributing $4 million to four charities [Feb. 23]. Our country should use more public servants who can pinpoint the problem, slash the red tape and accomplish a worthwhile deed even though the Government hierarchy is indignant and outraged at his action.

Roselyn D. Silverman

Seymour L. Silverman

Washington, D.C.

Bloom's great giveaway of $4 milion from an oil company settlement to charitable organizations was a wonderful switch from Abscam.

Connie Makris

Lowell, Mass.

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