Surrender Scoop

Sirs:

The irresponsibility of both daily press and radio during the past two weeks, with a very few exceptions, has been both disgusting and discouraging. And TIME'S [May 14] whitewashing of Edward Kennedy's inexcusable breach of trust, and echoing the A.P.'s bleating about "freedom of the press" was the last straw.

Since when has broken faith become gallantry, the glory of a scoop more important than fair play and international cooperation? And is freedom of the press (and radio), to be interpreted as license and deserving of praise ?

The A.P. sneakout was news on the black market, and should be condemned as such.

M. E. MORRIS Haverford, Pa.

Sirs:

It is entirely possible that Edward Kennedy betrayed some sort of an international agreement, but I find that I have to commend him for at least one thing--he reported the news while it was still news. ... I do condemn whatever powers there are that force him to use such tactics to get the news to the people.

JOHN L. DAVIDSON Marion, Ind.

P: TIME whitewashed neither Reporter Kennedy nor SHAEF's befuddled public relations staff.--ED.

Mr. Ritchie v. the Japs

Sirs:

No ordinary perversion of facts, even when as deliberate as your article "Races" in TIME [April 16], would activate me to go to the trouble of answering. I am one of those who have read you consistently enough to know your particular type of crucifixion-journalism.

But when your young correspondent . . . tries to hold me up as one who puts dollars ahead of patriotism and loyalty to his country, then, mister, I come up fighting.

For many years, both as a newspaper editor and as an individual citizen, I have been fighting the Jap menace in America. A year before Pearl Harbor, I saw what was coming and tried to get into the armed forces. I was turned down because of age. Three months ago my only son gave his life for his country. . . .

Of course, if you are one of those--and there seem to be many in this country--who want the Japs running your land, there is little we can do except to pray for your misguided soul. The only possible consolation we can see in that picture is that, if the Jap takes over, he perhaps might do a better job of running TIME than do some of you.

The Japanese Exclusion League, about which you carp ... is building public interest for a postwar election, after the 10,000,000 Yanks get back from the Jap battlefronts, to vote on a Constitutional Amendment that would make it impossible for a Jap to have citizenship, no matter where he was born. If the Jap-lovers are against that American plan, let 'em say it with ballots. . . .

A. J. RITCHIE Seattle

Sirs:

... It is embittering to fight the "superior race" myth halfway round the world, only to see its fundamental tenets being flagrantly promoted at home. It would seem more in accord with justice to deport and dispossess not Japanese-Americans, but all members of the Japanese Exclusion League.

JAMES L. SPENCER JR. WOLCOTT ELY ROBIN W. GRAY EUGENE C. RICE Lieutenants, U.S.A.A.F. % Postmaster San Francisco

Sirs:

. . . God help him if I get the chance some of us vets would like at such troublemakers. Promoter Ritchie should be made to eat the record of the tooth Battalion of Japanese-Americans in Italy--page by page!

(PHM. 2/c) DONALD C. McCANE Portsmouth, Va.

P.S.

Sirs:

I understand about the Old School Tie [TIME, May 7], but what the heck is a Rotary Club? Is it a policeman's stick, a society of egg beaters, or a group of soldiers waiting for a furlough?

NANCY HARDENBERGH Astoria, N.Y.

P: Is there a Rotarian in the house? --En.

No Place But

Sirs:

"Twelve Registered Nurses" from Atlanta [TIME, Letters, May 7] puzzle me. Do they went their "brothers, cousins, sweethearts and friends" in the service to be dependent on the Medical Corps alone? Also they say these same "brothers, cousins, sweethearts and friends" write them not to join the Army Nurse Corps, that it's no place for a lady. I say it's no place for anyone but a lady. . . .

HELEN BAIRD RAPUZZI, R.N.

An Army Nurse of World War I Abingdon, III.

The French

Sirs:

... A letter from Miss Jean Maier [TIME, May 7] certainly irked me . . . because her tirades at Gertrude Stein carried the same impression about France that I have found most people in the U.S. and Canada have. . --

If we here in North America had half the guts and courage that the French people had through four years of occupation, this postwar peace would be assured. How many people here would risk their life and that of their entire family for a perfect stranger from some foreign land? The people of France did. They did it for thousands upon thousands of American, British, Canadian, Australian, Polish, Norwegian, New Zealand and South African airmen and soldiers evading capture between 1940 and 1944. I know because I was one of them. . . .

There are hundreds of American airmen alive and back home now because of these "decadent" French people. . . . They kept alive the flame of freedom under the heel of the Gestapo.

WILLIAM G. BRAYLEY Ex-Flying Officer, R.C.A.F. Montreal

The 473rd

Sirs:

We have just finished reading an article in TIME [April 23] concerning the 473rd Infantry Regiment in which you referred to us as Negro troops . . . We are definitely a white unit and are getting sick & tired of being referred to as Negro troops. This letter is not being written to further racial discontent but only to get the facts straight, as we are satisfied to let the combat record of the Negroes speak for itself. . . . (PFC.) CHARLES WHITING (Ppc.) C. WEAVER (CPL.) LLOYD JOHNSON (PFC.) ROBERT WTARREN (SGT.) THOMAS TROGDON

% Postmaster New York City

P: TIME gladly rights the record. Dispatches from the Italian front failed to specify that the 473rd was an all-white regiment attached to the 92nd (Negro) Division.--ED.

Tribute

Sirs:

. . . With five children under twelve to take care of, and the present shortage of everything including time, I find that TIME is practically all that keeps me from being illiterate. . . .

I never feel really "well read" till I've digested what TIME has to say on the subject. You supply the saliva and digestive juices for the disconnected news items that would otherwise give us all mental indigestion. . . .

My husband and I both look forward to it tremendously. He reads it to me while I mend; I read it to him if we ever drive anywhere, and we keep the current copy in the bathroom. . . .

RUTH CHASE Ferrisburg, Vt.

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