1924* A few weeks ago you called me a Bolshevik, which I am not. Now I notice that you call the Searchlight on Congress a Ku Klux Klan organ, which it is not. The Searchlight on Congress has nothing to do with the Klan. You have, since it appears that you are supporting the Klan Kandidate Koolidge.
UPTON SINCLAIR Pasadena, Calif.
The charge that TIME supported Candidate Coolidge (or any other candidate) during the campaign seems to the editors to be baseless.--ED.
1925 Is the glorification of the Negro now an accepted policy of your magazine? I had hoped that after the protest of one Southerner you might show some consideration for the sensibilities of our people by the discontinuance of your practice of referring to the colored man as "mister." I was deeply grieved, therefore, to find two new instances in your Sept. 7 issue.
This practice, in the face of previous protest, impresses me as a flagrant affront to the feelings of our people. If it be your desire to alienate and force from your ranks such readers of TIME as hail from the South, you are pursuing a most effectual course.
BARLOW HENDERSON Aiken, S.C.
It is not TIME'S desire to lose the good will of its Southern friends. TIME will, however, continue to employ the "Mr." in referring to men who lack other titles.--ED.
1926 I am growing old but duties require me to keep in touch with momentous issues of the world. TIME for two years has spared my feeble eyes much labor among papers and magazines in sifting for me the gold from the sand. But how cruelly you have betrayed my trust in you with your flippant sarcasm!
In your article on the sincere religious words of the Bishop Brown, why must you show your irreverence, your sacrilegious snippery by appending to it in parenthesis, "Applesauce?"
Gentlemen, may the Lord deal gently with you and forgive you.
SILAS R. CLINTON Columbus, Ohio
The word within the parenthesis was NOT "Applesauce." Let Subscriber Clinton look again. The word was "applause."--ED.
1927 Personally, there is only one item I object to and that is where I advocate the players should not eat bananas. This should read "unripe bananas" as I have no objection to the fruit when it is ripe.
I have some very good friends in the banana business and I would not care to say something about their business which is not true.
K.K.ROCKNE Notre Dame, Ind.
1928 Says Grace Gordon Cox, of Boston, under LETTERS in the Jan. 9 issue of TIME:
". . . There will never be a man on your staff big enough to 'stand in Lindy's shoes.' "
Why not give Robert Emmet Sherwood a job? JOHN H. O'HARA New York City
Robert Emmet Sherwood's feet fill size 13 shoes. He is author of The Road to Rome, highly successful comedy.--ED.
1929 I formerly thought your magazine was a rather dependable institution and read it every week. Lately, however, your magazine undertook to publish a statement of the impeachment effort made against me in this state. It is almost unbelievable that you would have been guilty of propagating the fraudulent misrepresentations of fact, and refusing to mention the abandonment of such various and sundry accusations even by those making them.
For instance, you published to the world my picture, as though I had undertaken to hire some scoundrel to kill a member of the State Legislature; and when, after hearing no testimony except that of the witnesses against me--even the anti-Long leaders themselves did not allow a vote to be taken on such a charge--you said nothing about it.
You pictured everything under the sun from these libelous and scandalous persecutors, but you did not take any note whatever that it was my administration which had aroused the old time element, because:
1) We began to give school books to all school children of the state, so as to get them in the schools and cure illiteracy.
2) We began to open up night schools so that we might teach the people from 20 to 70 years how to read and write and spell. We have already turned over thousands of people from illiteracy to literates by this process.
3) This administration turned the State Penitentiary from an institution losing a million dollars a year, to an institution making money.
4) That we voted a good roads program in this State to pave the highways and build a thousand miles graveled farmers' roads every year, and we are building them of the highest type.
5) That we took the Charity Hospitals of the State and reformed them so as to reduce the death rate from 30 to 40%, and increased the capacity.
6) That we went into the Insane Asylum and extracted as many as 1,500 abscessed teeth in one week's time, that had been left in the heads of those poor people as long as 20 years.
7) That we stopped the pardon craze in this State, forced a few people to be hanged, and used the militia where it was necessary.
I begin to wonder what kind of respectability or conscience can be attached to your magazine, with the kind of filthy falsehoods that you circulated.
HUEY P. LONG
Governor
Baton Rouge, La.
Governor Long was impeached by the Louisiana House of Representatives. Proceedings were dropped when it became apparent he had sufficient friends in the Louisiana Senate to make his trial by that body a farce. TIME reported the Long campaign promises, the whirlwind Long reforms including making cobblers out of convicts.--ED.
1930 You mention an alley cat being fed with milk by President Hoover from the White House. Is this at the expense of the American people or does the President furnish his own milk? W. W. J. JONES Batesville, Ark.
The U. S. people furnish their President with the sum of $25,000 per annum for "official entertainment."--ED.
1931 I have read your article on "Ponzi Payment." Found it interesting, but none too accurate. My hair is neither chestnut nor grey. It's gone. Have never worn lavender pajamas nor pink ribbons on my night shirt. Fur coat and overshoes on cold nights have been my limit.
Your statement that the destruction of my wrecked "web" brought down several Boston trust companies is perfidious. Under any other form of government, it would call for a challenge to a duel. For this time, I shall refrain from perforating your hide on condition that you make public amend by printing this letter verbatim. .. .
You know, I like you in spite of your jabs, because you have given me an opportunity of spending an hour writing this letter. If you come over to Boston after I am out, I have a good mind to buy you a drink. Two, if you can stand the gait. Will you libate with me?
CHARLES PONZI
Massachusetts State Prison
Charlestown, Mass.
932 I WAS IN THE CLASS OF '86 AT HARVARD. I WAS NOT EXPELLED IN '87 NOR ANY OTHER YEAR. I NEVER DID ANYTHING VERY BAD AT HARVARD NOR ANYTHING VERY GOOD EITHER. I WAS RUSTICATED IN '86 FOR AN EXCESS OF POLITICAL ENTHUSIASM AND A CERTAIN DEFICIENCY IN INTELLECTUAL ATTAINMENTS. I DID NOT RETURN TO BE GRADUATED. THERE DID NOT SEEM TO BE EITHER REASON OR HOPE. I THINK THE LESS SAID ABOUT MY COLLEGE CAREER THE BETTER. PERHAPS THAT IS SO WITH THE REST OF MY CAREER. HOWEVER, EXERCISE YOUR OWN JUDGMENT, ONLY PLEASE PRINT THE FACTS, OR PERHAPS I SHOULD SAY, PLEASE DON'T.
WILLIAM RANDOLPH HEARST Los Angeles, Calif.
Rustication: An old-fashioned academic penalty whereby delinquent undergraduates are sent away, generally to their homes to continue their studies under a supervisor designated by the college.--ED.
1933 Yes, very nice. Thanks for the wreathes. What about your doing a little constructive work????
1) My How to Read is intended for a textbook and ought to be in use. It wd. debunk 80% of the idiocy in teaching literature in high-schools and colleges and 81 and one-fourth percent of literary journalists. Literary teaching and criticism ought to get the best stuff to the reader with the least interposition of secondhand yawp.
2) You don't mention my having written two operas, i.e., the music. That is more important than my written criticism. I mean to say I have "set to music" a great deal of the best poetry of Villon and Cavalcanti with the intention of getting it out of books and to the consumer or recipient.
Whether anybody likes the tunes or not, there is at least the dimension or technical success of intelligibility. The music does not hide the words.
Naturally if I didn't think my melodic line was stronger, "better," had more guts than the general ruck of music I wd. have burnt the mss. instead of instigating its performance.
E. POUND Rapallo, Italy
1934 I do not know when I ever saw such a conglomeration of lies. The 638 was not the engine my husband was killed on and was never a passenger engine, and as to my son being a highway laborer, that was a base lie, he was never on a highway in his life unless he drove over it. Whoever gave you the information did not get it from me. I just want to tell you that I do not like one thing you said and please never attempt it again without my permission.
MRS. CASEY JONES Jackson, Tenn.
1935 What's this you've been publishing about the Dook of York that our distributors have been fools enough to censor and tear out over here? Please post me (letterpost) the censored article and send me a bill for a year's subscription to TIME. I don't know TIME: I ought to do so.
H. G. WELLS London
1936 I CAN TALK BUT I HATE TO INTERRUPT GROUCHO. I SPOKE IN PUBLIC LAST YEAR IN PORTLAND WHEN I ASKED FOR A RAISE IN SALARY BUT I DON'T THINK ANYONE HEARD ME. I MAKE A PRACTICE OF SPEAKING EVERY TIME CHICO MAKES A GRAND SLAM. SO YOU CAN LOOK FOR ANOTHER
SPEECH IN 1937.
HARPO MARX Culver City, Calif.
1937 The records on "spittin' image" should certainly be kept straight. I don't think that the expression has anything to do with saliva. It originated, I believe, among the darkies of the South and the correct phrasing--without dialect--is "spirit and image." It was originally used in speaking of someone whose father had passed on--and the colored folks would say--"the very spi't an' image of his daddy."
JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS JR. Atlanta
1938 Pioneer and innovator in many ways of presenting the news, TIME through its first 15 years has shown a degree of originality that has been refreshing and oftentimes delightful. I wish the magazine a long life in serving the public by disseminating accurate information written in a manner to keep the reader from drowsing. . . .
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT
1939 TIME erred (perhaps only slightly) in saying that Col. Lindbergh in his broadcast speech represented "everybody." Although this is of no interest to the Colonel (or to TIME, or posterity) I beg to say that he did not represent me.
Neither I nor any other veteran of the First World War can quarrel honorably with the Colonel's sincere pacifism. But his choice of a simile, "We must be as impersonal as a surgeon with his knife," seems to me singularly unhappy. It is an insult to the medical profession.
If surgeons were truly impersonal (or, one might say, truly neutral) they would not heed the calls of distress from suffering humanity when they themselves were otherwise engaged in watching the ticker, or playing bridge, or writing thoughtful treatises on the insanity of their fellow men. They would not go to the considerable trouble and risk of using their knives to remove the malignant growths in the body of civilization. They would always find comfortable refuge behind the question, "Am I my brother's keeper?"
What Col. Lindbergh should have said is, "We must be as impersonal as the professional mourner, who doesn't lament the seriousness of the plague, or the number of fatalities, as long as it helps his own business."
ROBERT E. SHERWOOD
The Playwrights' Company
New York City
1940 Not for purpose of correction but for your own information, I am offering the following comment on your very friendly account of myself.
I was interested in the possible effect of the moon and the planets on weather. I obtained, therefore, the heliocentric longitudes of the planets from the Naval Ephemerises and the geocentric longitudes from an Astrological Ephemeris. The mathematics of astrology is simply Geocentric Astronomy. Was it possible that he angle of the planets to the earth might determine weather, or was it more probable that the angle to he sun might determine weather? I was never able to prove either one definitively.
I have argued that a belief in astrology as a guide to life would lead to a fatalism that might cause many individuals to accept hard times as the foreordination of the stars, instead of struggling to master their fates.
Incidentally, I never drive a car at night, or any other time, to clear my brain.
I do not play tennis before 7:30 in the morning. Oh, well!--it is impossible to correct all the cockeyed stories. Moreover, it is obvious your slant is friendly, so I don't mind.
HENRY A. WALLACE Democratic National Committee Indianapolis, Ind.
1941 MANY THANKS FOR THE FLATTERING REFERENCE TO MY GAUDILY CROWNED HEAD BUT MAY I FILE A GENTLE DEMURRER TO YOUR REPEATED USE OF THE ADJECTIVE "DWARFISH" IN DESCRIBING MY PERSON. ALTHOUGH I ACTUALLY STAND FIVE FEET FOUR INCHES IN SOCKS, I HAVE NEVER OBJECTED TO BEING RIBBED ABOUT MY SIZE. YOUR PET WORD HOWEVER, STRIKES ME AS INAPPROPRIATE AS IT CARRIES A CONNOTATION OF THE MONSTROUS AND STUNTED. LET ME SUGGEST THAT SUCH PHRASES AS "SMALLISH," "MINUTE," "MINIATURE," AND EVEN "POCKET-SIZE" BILLY ROSE WOULD BE CONSIDERABLY MORE APPETIZING.
BILLY ROSE New York City
1942 TIME used the words "yellow bastards" and "Hitler's little yellow friends" in speaking of the Japanese. I suggest that none of us use the word "yellow" in speaking of the Japanese, because our Allies, the Chinese, are yellow.
In this war we must, I think, take care not to divide ourselves into color groups. The tide of feeling about color runs very high over in the Orient. Indians, Chinese, Filipinos, and others are sensitive to the danger point about their relation as colored peoples to white peoples. Many Americans do not realize this, but it is true, and we must recognize it or we may suffer for it severely. The Japanese are using our well-known race prejudice as one of their chief propaganda arguments against us. Everything must se done to educate Americans not to provide further fuel for such Japanese propaganda.
PEARL S. BUCK Perkasie, Pa.
TIME emphatically agrees with Novelist Pearl Buck that raising a race issue is as unwise as it is ignoble. However, "yellow bastards" was not TIME'S phrase but the factual report of typical angry U.S. reactions. As for actual skin-color, U.S. white, pink or pale faces may well be proud to be fighting on the side of Chinese, Filipinos and other yellow or brown faces.--ED.
1943 I APPRECIATE GREATLY THAT NOT ONCE WAS THE WORD OBSCENE MENTIONED IN YOUR ARTICLE. EPITHET TOO EASILY USED WHICH ASSAILED UNANIMOUSLY THE APPEARANCE OF "INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS" BY FREUD, PSYCHOLOGIC DOCUMENT WHICH IS AND ALWAYS WILL REMAIN IN
SPITE OF ALL THE MOST IMPORTANT AND SENSATIONAL OF OUR EPOCH.
SALVADOR DALI Carmel, Calif.
1944 TIME'S STORY ON THE HOLLYWOOD FREE WORLD ASSOCIATION V. THE MOTION PICTURE ALLIANCE FOR THE PRESERVATION OF AMERICAN IDEALS INDICATES NO EDITORIAL PREFERENCE FOR EITHER ORGANIZATION BUT REVEALS IN COMIC STYLE AN ANTI-HOLLYWOOD BIAS. WE FILM-MAKERS REALIZE OUR COMMUNITY IS A GORGEOUS SUBJECT FOR SATIRE. WE GRANT, OR ANYWAY MOST OF US DO, THAT WE ARE THE WORLD'S FUNNIEST PEOPLE. YOU CAN WRITE MORE JOKES ABOUT US THAN YOU CAN ABOUT PLUMBERS, UNDERTAKERS OR FULLER BRUSH SALESMEN. HOLLYWOOD IS GUILTY OF DELIBERATE WITHDRAWAL FROM THE LIVING WORLD. IT SEEKS TO ENTERTAIN, AND WE SUSPECT THAT THE SUCCESS OF THE WITHDRAWAL IS WHAT MAKES HOLLYWOOD FUNNY. BUT LET TIME MAGAZINE VIEW WITH ALARM OR POINT WITH PRIDE, BUT NOT LAUGH OFF HOLLYWOOD'S GROWING RECOGNITION OF THE FACT THAT EVERY MOVIE EXPRESSES, OR AT LEAST REFLECTS, POLITICAL OPINION. MOVIEGOERS LIVE ALL OVER THE WORLD, COME FROM ALL CLASSES AND ADD UP TO THE BIGGEST SECTION OF HUMAN BEINGS EVER ADDRESSED BY ANY MEDIUM OF COMMUNICATION. THE POLITICS OF MOVIEMAKERS THEREFORE IS JUST EXACTLY WHAT ISN'T FUNNY ABOUT HOLLYWOOD. TIME MENTIONS "ROOM-TEMPERATURE BURGUNDY AND CHOPPED CHICKEN LIVER" AS THOUGH THESE LUXURIES INVALIDATE POLITICAL
OPINION. TIME, WHOSE EDITORS EAT CHOPPED CHICKEN LIVER AND WHOSE PUBLISHERS DRINK ROOM-TEMPERATURE BURGUNDY, KNOWS BETTER.
ORSON WELLES Hollywood, Calif.
Well-fed TIME feels that the public should be kept informed about Hollywood politics, from soup to nuts.--ED.
1945 I refer to TIME'S "piece" [Sept. 24] on the Imperial Hotel of Tokyo, Japan: I happen to be the ar chitect, and the time-honored formula for an un timely finish seems to be already well into its second stage where TIME is concerned. The formula is: first, Success, then, Arrogance, then Downfall. I refer to an all too arrogant falsehood in the piece, which was not only a gross misrepresentation of my sentiments but proving in black & white that TIME can be a reckless liar.
Let my secretary speak:
"Dear Mr. Wright: TIME'S quotation of your conversation with them . . . is entirely false. I was present when you spoke over the telephone to them and in reply to their questions you said: 'No, I have received no request from Japan nor from anyone to rebuild the part of the hotel that was damaged--but even if I were to receive such a request I would have to turn it down because I am much too busy at work building in my own country to go to any other country to build at this time. Besides, I prefer independence to interdependence.' You repeated this statement several times. Eugene Masselink, Secretary to Frank Lloyd Wright."
Recently, speaking of "Non-Objective Art," I suggested that TIME (among others) take a course in "Non-Adjective Writing." The matter now seems hopeless. So, I disrespectfully suggest that we, right here and now, drop the whole Art Department of TIME as a malicious libel not only upon the entire subject of Art but all honest artists everywhere.
FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT Spring Green, Wis.
The facts: Domei reported the hotel's request, and TIME disrespectfully condensed arrogant Architect Wright's adjectival reaction.-- ED.
1946 When I have a highball or two I tell the truth about things. The truth, as you continually show in your pages, is tough. It is not then so much my talk that is tough as the stuff it deals with. But I'm not the town drunk. With the reputation you give me, I'll be expected to drink everybody in Kansas City under the table and I can't do it--not me.
THOMAS H. BENTON Kansas City
Said TIME: "Tom Benton, who does know how to drink . . ." No town drunk does.--ED.
1947 TIME reported words said to have been spoken by me to Samuel Putnam, in Paris.
"My God, Sam!" it begins. This is impossible; I don't talk like that.
It goes on: "You have no idea how dumb she is!
Why, when we were at school, I used to have to do all her homework for her." All quite impossible. "I used to have to do" puts my teeth on edge. Neither "dumb" nor "homework" are in my vocabulary.
Gertrude was a brighter pupil than I was, and more often "honorably promoted," that is, without the obligation of final examinations. We did no homework and the word was not in use with us. If Author Putnam had known better the ways of Oakland public schools in the '80s, he might have invented a yarn less easy to refute.
LEO STEIN Settignano, Italy
1948 It has come to my attention that in your Current & Choice section, Lauren Bacall has consistently been left out of the cast of Key Largo.
Inasmuch as there are those of us in Hollywood, Miss Bacall among them, who would rather make Current & Choice than win an Academy Award or make Men of Distinction, won't you please include her in the cast of Key Largo in Current & Choice just once, as she is my wife and I have to live with her. Miss Bacall is extremely tired of being labeled et al.
HUMPHREY BOGART
Beverly Hills
1949 I didn't know I had been hired and fired by Theatre Arts until I read about it in TIME. What else has been happening to me lately that I ought to know about?
WILLIAM SAROYAN New York City
TIME regrets that it is fresh out of Saroyan news. All that the present editor [Charles MacArthur] of Theatre Arts has to say about this crisis in American letters is that it occurred while he was in Europe and he remains Mr. Saroyan's most faithful fan.--ED.
1950 Shouldn't Ausserordentlichhochgeschwindigkeitelectronenenwickelndesschwerabeitsbe igollitron [TIME, March 13] read Ausserordentlichhochgeschwindigkeitelectronenentwickelndesschwerarbeits beigollitron?
(REV.) T. M. HESBURGH, C.S.C.
Notre Dame, Ind.
Yes, as TIME'S Los Angeles and Philadelphia (but not Chicago) printers had it.--ED.
1951 It gives me great pleasure again to find myself in your pages. Segment by segment I discover myself, as it were, variously listed in the index. I get myself into Letters; I've been in Books and also Radio & TV. Now I have achieved Press. I'd love to make Cinema, but despair of Art or Science. Milestones will one day catch up with me.
Thanks. But I am saddened by the adjective ["Old Standby"]; I've earned it, of course, but hate to be reminded.
FAITH BALDWIN New Canaan, Conn.
1952 In your June 9 Letters Column, Randolph S. Churchill says TIME was wrong in referring to Czechoslovakia as "Britain's ally" and denounces the "holier than thou" attitude adopted by some Americans towards the English in regard to Munich, and states that England had no more moral or legal obligation to defend Czechoslovakia than had the U.S.
Britain's military alliance with France under the Locarno Pact of 1925 . . . although it did not guarantee Czechoslovakia against aggression as it did Belgium, made it inevitable that if France went to war to fulfill its own direct obligation under the Franco-Czech Treaty of 1924, England would be drawn in . . . England was deeply committed, by her treaty with France and by her official actions . . . The illustrious father of Mr. Churchill has admitted that Great Britain was deeply involved and that "it must be recorded with regret that the British Government not only acquiesced but encouraged the French Government in a fatal course" (Churchill, The Gathering Storm).
The U.S. had no political involvement in Europe in 1938 . . .
JOHN F. KENNEDY
House of Representatives
Washington, D.C.
1953 I am happy that Eleanor Steber had such a wonderful success in Richard Strauss's Die Frau ohne Schatten. I remember exhausting rehearsals with Richard Strauss. He really was a very simple family man, entirely devoted to his temperamental wife--he was really a henpecked husband. I sang a lot of his lieder, and often his wife Pauline would listen. Sometimes Pauline would run to him, throwing her arms around him, saying with big sobs of touch ing sentimentality, "Do you remember, Richard?"--and he would have tears in his eyes, too. They were a strange couple. They fought like mad--needless to say, Pauline always started these fights . . . He said to me when I departed: "You have seen a lot which you will find strange in this house. But believe me, all the praises in the world are not so refreshing as my wife's outbreaks of temperament."
LOTTE LEHMANN Santa Barbara, Calif.
1954 You inform your readers that in my last book [The Doors of Perception], I "prescribe mescaline, a derivative of peyote, for all mankind as an alterna tive to cocktails." Snappiness, alas, is apt to be in in verse ratio to accuracy. I merely suggested that it might be a good thing if psychologists, sociologists and pharmacologists were to get together and discuss a satis factory drug for general consumption. Mescaline, I said, would not do. But a chemical possessing the merits of mescaline without its drawbacks would be preferable to alcohol.
ALDOUS HUXLEY Hampstead, London
1955 Many copies of the article you have published about myself have been sent to me. Your reporter has made a good job of it, and I want to express my gratitude for the successful representation.
C. G. JUNG Kuesnacht, Switzerland
1956 In New York last month . . . I gave an interview to a representative of the London Sunday Times, who imputed to me opinions which I have never held, and statements which no sober man would make and, it seems to me, no sane man believe. That statement that I or anyone else in his right mind would choose any one state against the whole remaining Union of States, down to the ultimate price of shooting other human beings in the streets, is not only foolish but dangerous. . . . The idea can further inflame those people who might still believe such a situation possible. . .
WILLIAM FAULKNER Oxford, Miss.
Says Russell Warren Howe, New York correspondent for the London Sunday Times: "If Mr. Faulkner no longer agrees with the more Dixiecratic of his statements I, for one, am very glad, but that is what he said." -- ED.
1957 WHY DO AMERICAN MOVIEMEN REQUIRE PITH HELMETS, SALT TABLETS, QUININE PILLS TO VISIT THE CAO DAI CAPITAL, TAYNINH [to film The Quiet American-- TIME, Feb. 25]? THE CLIMATE IS SOMEWHAT SIMILAR TO A WASHINGTON SUMMER. PERHAPS THE INHABITANTS WERE MYSTIFIED BY THEIR STRANGE ATTIRE AND ECCENTRIC DIET.
GRAHAM GREENE London
American moviemen take about the same precautions in Washington.--ED.
1958 With your permission, I'd like to give my opinion of the Kokoschka picture of my sister. I think it's a hideous mess. As great an artist as this man may be today, he certainly goofed in 1926. My sister is a very pretty girl.
FRED ASTAIRE Beverly Hills
1959 I enjoyed reading about myself and my wife in TIME, but the nicest thing of all happened when a foreign citizen turned around from looking at my picture and said, "I did not realize you were Jewish." "I am not," I said, "but Our Blessed Lord is--I hope I've caught a little of the contagion."
BRENDAN BEHAN Dublin
1960 There was a slight error, which concerns my African name, and if I may, I would like to spell it correctly for you:
Zenzile Makeba Qgwashu Nguvama Yiketheli Nxgowa Bantana Balomzi Xa Ufun Ubajabulisa Ubaphekeli Mbiza Yotshwala Sithi Xa Saku Qgiba Ukutja Sithathe Izitsha Sizi Khabe Singama Lawu Singama Qgwashu Singama Nqamla Nqgithi.
A child takes the first name of all his male ancestors. Often following the first name is a descriptive word or two, telling about the character of the person, making a true African name somewhat like a story.
MIRIAM MAKEBA New York City
Freely translated, the descriptive word or two in Miriam Makeba's name say: "There is a saying that after dinner, the Xosa kick the dishes."--ED.
1961 I AM GLAD TO SEE YOU ARE STILL BATTING 1.000 REGARDING ANY INFORMATION CONCERNING ME. AS USUAL YOUR INFORMATION STINKS. I NEED A HOUSE AND A NIGHTCLUB IN PALM BEACH LIKE YOU NEED A TUMOR.
FRANK SINATRA Beverly Hills
1962 Poem to the Book Review at TIME:
You will keep hiring picadors from the back row and pic the bull back far back along his spine you will slam sandbags to the kidneys and pass a wine poisoned on the vine you will saw the horns off and murmur the bulls are ah the bulls are not what once they were The corrida will end with Russians in the plaza Swine, some of you will say what did we wrong? And go forth to kiss the conquerors
NORMAN MAILER New York City
1963 Concerning the term "monk barbecue show," Viet Nam is a strange country where people often commit spectacular suicides before the gates of people whom they wish to curse. I find that custom barbaric. My aim was to try to stop the spreading of bad examples by ridiculing grotesque customs.
If sometimes I have to step in the fray, becoming a target of most cruel blows, it is not at all by natural taste, but because someone must finally make up his mind to take a position.
MADAME NGO DINH NHU Saigon
1964 You make a most unfair and incorrect reference to us in your story on Beverly Hills. We did not provide "sleds and skis for a couple of hundred friends." It was a long, hard, slogging job of several weeks' organization for a Christmas Snow Party for Mrs. Abe Leah's charity for needy actors.
Every item, including the artificial snow, was donated. On the day of the party a freak storm washed out everything in a few hours. With the assistance of the studios and some good friends, Mrs. Rathbone in a few hours reorganized her party inside the Beverly Hills Hotel and still realized some $10,000 for the charity.
BASIL RATHBONE New York City
1965 As an anti-American, I thank you for your rotten article devoted to my person. Your insult to a head of state and your odious lies dishonor not only your magazine but also your nation . . . You symbolize the worst in humanity.
NORODOM SIHANOUK Chief of State
Pnompenh, Cambodia
1966 On the current cover of TIME magazine my name appears, along with the titles of many of the shows I have produced. There is, however, a very strange drawing of some person or other also on the cover, which is very puzzling to me. I consider this figure you have attached to my name monstrous in appearance, bearing no resemblance to my likeness. Therefore, this is to notify you that I am suing you for $1,000,000 for defamation of caricature.
DAVID MERRICK New York City
1967 TIME owes it to its readers to name the anonymous Governor whom I allegedly told that "Dick Nixon is a loser." It will be especially interesting, since I have never said it or thought it.
RONALD REAGAN
Governor
Sacramento, Calif.
TIME'S source is not at all "nameless," but we are bound to honor his request that he not be identified.--ED.
1968 In TIME'S People section my photo was published with "a mysterious Chilean admirer" who, says the article, was accompanying me from Chile to Montevideo and was living with me in the same hotel. Unfortunately, I myself can classify this article as inaccurate.
First, this woman is not a Chilean. She is Uruguayan, and she has no reason to live with me in the same hotel because she has a home in Montevideo. Secondly: in the photo she appears alone with me, but at our side, at the same time, were many of my Uruguayan friends and friends from the Russian embassy who, together with her, accompanied me to the airport where I disappeared alone to Bogota. Third: in the photo she is at a distance from me of no less than 50 centimeters. Thus through TIME, I wish to advise all of the women of the world, including North Americans, to please stay a distance of no less than one kilometer away from this wicked Evtushenko, because immediately some reporters could interpret this as "amor-r-r," with three Rs. Be careful of Russian poets!
EVGENY EVTUSHENKO Bogota, Colombia
1969 Re your comment in the Buckley-Vidal story: George Sanders didn't divorce me, I divorced him.
ZSA ZSA GABOR Washington, D.C.
1970 Since you mentioned nudity in your review of the movie John and Mary, I thought you might be interested in the following example of current studio thinking.
Before filming began, I informed the producers that I would not consent to any nude scenes, and was reassured that there would be none. As soon as my work was completed, a double was hired without my consent, and several nude scenes were inserted. I argued and pleaded with the producers for a period of five months, but since I had no legal recourse, I lost the argument.
MIA FARROW Manhattan
1971 I would have preferred personally to ignore J. Edgar Hoover's ungentlemanly attacks on my husband, but my husband is dead and cannot reply for himself. Mr. Hoover, in alleging that he called my husband a liar during their meeting in 1964, has exposed himself. There were witnesses present, three distinguished clergymen, who explicitly denied that Mr. Hoover made such a statement or any other attack on my husband's veracity to his face.
It is unfortunate for our country that a person of such moral and mental capacity holds a position of such importance. It is equally unfortunate for race relations in these troubled times that a person revealed in this interview to be so arrogantly prejudiced against Puerto Ricans, Mexicans and blacks is a high Government official.
MRS. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. Atlanta
1972 TIME in its issue on American women made me sound like Shirley Temple!" I am not really against exploring depravity. I understand it's terrific both on-and off-screen and can be done by either sex.
ELEANOR PERRY New York City
1973 Whose voice gave Tarzan's call? I ought to know: I was there. Johnny Weissmuller can--and did--do his own Tarzan call. End of discussion?
MAUREEN O'SULLIVAN ("JANE") New York City
1974 Harry Reasoner recently took TIME to task on ABC-TV for certain instances of its obsessional and below-the-belt reporting on Watergate, which he said had betrayed the canons of both objective and ethical journalism.
It was predictable that sooner or later TIME would begin to pay the price for its editorial overinvestment in the destruction of the President. That price, as Reasoner noted, is the loss of journalistic prestige and credibility. How ironic, and how fitting, that a distinguished media colleague and certified Nixon critic like Reasoner should blow the whistle on TIME for its phobic Watergate reporting!
No President of the U.S. except Lincoln (in retrospect, now to be considered another impeachable character) has ever been more savaged by the press than Nixon. For one solid year the press has been beating on him mercilessly. And he has shown that he can take it and take it and take it, with cool and courage. But few journalists--none on TIME--have had even the sportsmanship, no less the journalistic objectivity, to report that whatever Nixon is or is not, he is one helluva gutsy fighter . . .
CLARE BOOTHE LUCE Honolulu
1975 Although I appreciate your unequivocal "No" answer to the question of my alleged presence in Dallas at the time of J.F.K.'s murder. I would like to point out that my noninvolvement rests not only on "drastic differences" between the specimen photographs, but more conclusively upon the sworn testimony of several witnesses who confirm that I was in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 22, 1963. It is a physical law that an object can occupy only one space at one time.
Correction: I am not a Watergate "burglar," but a conspirator.
HOWARD HUNT. FED. PRISON CAMP Eglin A.F.B., Fla.
1976 You quoted me and identified me as a "black leader." I consider this journalistic racism. No one refers to George Wallace as a "white Governor" or Gerald Ford as a "white President." If a label must be attached to my leadership, as a minister of the gospel I prefer "moral leader." Moral leadership, which essentially deals with ideas and values, is a universal category. Black is not.
(THE REV.) JESSE L. JACKSON Chicago
1977 Since it is really very difficult to answer personally so many letters after the Olympic Games in Montreal, let me tell you here how grateful I am to you all for your friendship. I wish you all good health, happiness and peace in the coming new year.
NADIA COMANECI Bucharest
1978 Discussion should not revolve around whether wife beating or husband beating is the more prevalent; rather, we should take a good look at the institution of marriage. Perhaps the wedding license should read WARNING: THE SURGEON GENERAL HAS DETERMINED THAT MARRIAGE IS DANGEROUS TO YOUR HEALTH.
KAREN DECROW Syracuse
1979 It must have been a stunt double who wrote that item about me and The Legend of Walks Far Woman. I have done most of my own stunt work, much more than the insurance company would have liked, suffering numerous injuries in the process.
By the way, the Indians do not refer to their women as "squaws"--this is a demeaning term used only by whites.
RAQUEL WELCH Los Angeles
1980 Just to keep the record straight: I do not buy $5,000 dresses; I do not have an extensive jewelry collection, or paintings, or antiques; and I do not have a hairdresser and interior decorator in tow. I get my hair done once a week, and I'm at a loss as to what an interior decorator would do. Perhaps rearrange the furniture in all the Holiday Inns I've been staying in.
NANCY REAGAN Pacific Palisades, Calif.
1981 Your article calling for the return of the draft is an enormous step backward in the striving for a humane world. No renewal. American or other, should be based on blood. A man who specializes in killing other men--regardless of ideology--is an assassin. Forcing youths to do this is a crime.
JORGE LUIS BORGES Buenos Aires
1982 Since your article on Jerusalem appeared, we have had innumerable phone calls from your readers trying out our home telephone number, which is now listed in TIME, as well as the Jerusalem directory. The callers telephone from as far away as Detroit and Perth, Australia, to ask if I am really mayor.
TEDDY KOLLEK, MAYOR Jerusalem
* TIME did not publish letters during its first year.
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