Angels Who Drink Too Much Sirs: A number of letters and reports indicting the behavior of American troops in occupied countries--not a few of them signed by chivalric G.I.s--have been published in your periodical, without fear or favor. It would be unfair to deny the stand to a witness for the defense.

A friend of mine, a writer in northern Italy, who was in the anti-Fascist underground since 1931, wrote soon after the liberation, asking about my wartime broadcasts to Italy, which he regretted to have missed. My answer was that there had been no such broadcasts; all invitations from official or semi-official agencies I had declined, unwilling as I was to connive, even by implications alone, with an Anglo-American policy in Italy and Europe to which I strongly objected.

My friend replied (Nov. 20): "I can well understand your feelings about Anglo-American policy toward us. What should I say? Accustomed as we were to Germans and Fascists, when we saw the British and Americans go around--carrying no guns, since the very first day--in shirt sleeves, clean, handsome, kind, they looked to us like angels on earth. The Americans especially have been very much liked in Italy for their cordiality and spontaneity. Their childishness and innocence, in contrast to the false brilliancy and self-styled cleverness of so many of my countrymen, was delightful to me. Pity that they drink too much."

G. A. BORGESE Professor University of Chicago Chicago

Third-Class Country?

Sirs: In reference to Mr. Leroy Blodgett's letter [TIME, Dec. 3], in which he accuses the U.S. of being a third-class country with first-class equipment. . . . Tell me, Mr. Blodgett . . . would you act differently after months and years of living under adverse conditions, common only to a war theater, and not to your comfortable home in Burlington, Vt.?

You are a victim of a joke, my friend; just walk down your own Main Street in your own town and count the drunks and smell the liquor; does it shock you? Nauseate you? If those at home can do it, why not the boys who bled and fought for you? Instead of running down the American youth as you seem to delight in doing, you should thank your God that it is Americans running wild in Europe and not Nazis and Japs running wild in the U.S. . . .

(Two SERVICEMEN'S NAMES WITHHELD) % Fleet Post Office San Francisco

Sirs: So, Mr. Leroy Blodgett, you will hate to see the faces of those five children of yours when they find out they live in a "third-class country"? [TIME LETTERS, Dec-3]. . . . America is one of the few spots left on earth where you may rear your five youngsters with the relative certainty that they will receive a liberal and democratic education!

As for your charges against "a generation brought up on comic books, flabby popular music," and motion pictures, it seems to me that that so-called unthinking generation just finished one of the toughest jobs in history, and don't tell me it doesn't take brains to fight a war! . . .

(Sgt.) JAMES R. STEPHENS % Postmaster San Francisco

Sirs: I would very much like to continue the discussion which I started under your heading of "Third-Class Country?" because I feel it is one of vital concern to the future of this land of ours. I want to make it clear to those people who thought I was criticizing our Army for its behavior that I emphatically was not. I was criticizing us, me, the people who raised the men in the Army and made them what they are. The Army turned out to be the greatest, and I hope the last, fighting force the world has ever seen. But we cannot get away from the fact, as TIME and others have reported again & again, a large and growing body of our people, military and civilian, behave publicly as though they were mentally about seven years old.

LEROY BLODGETT Burlington, Vt.

UNO's Home Town

Sirs: I had the pleasure of serving in London as a member of the delegation sent to that city by Philadelphia, to invite the United Nations to establish its permanent headquarters in our city. I therefore read with considerable dismay the article in the Dec. 10 issue of TIME, entitled "In the U.S. Tradition," which dealt with the presentation of invitations by American cities. . . .

I was there on the day referred to and heard all of the eight cities make their presentations. It seemed to me that Boston, Denver, Atlantic City and Philadelphia presented their cases with dignity. It was definitely both unfair and untruthful to describe their . . . delegates as "boosters." . . .

Speaking of Philadelphia's presentation, the article states merely: "Philadelphia was touted by Judge L. Stauffer Oliver." The word "tout" has definitely a cheap and unpleasant significance. If I correctly understand the common meaning of that word, there was no touting by any member of the Philadelphia delegation. . . .

L. STAUFFER OLIVER Philadelphia

P: Tut.--ED.

The Quick and the Dead

Sirs: "Congress heeded the expressed views of the quick, who have votes, rather than the imperfectly known wishes of the dead. The cost of exhuming and transshipping all the shattered, canvas-wrapped remains might run into $200 million. The cost in reborn grief is beyond measure" [TIME, Dec. 17].

How can you be so damned dirty and contemptible?

My younger son was killed in action. He is buried in a barren cemetery of crushed rock near a smelly city in a desolate region populated by filthy, godless people. He is the father of a son born after his death. If my son's body is brought back it will be placed in a beautiful plot to be visited as a shrine by his son. . . .

FRANK MILES Editor Iowa Legionaire Des Moines

Sirs: Last February I was Chief Motor Machinist Mate of a Coast Guard-manned small Army F boat which carried 116 corpses from Oro Bay, New Guinea to Finschhafen, New Guinea, where a cemetery was being established for the Southwest Pacific Area.

Many of these bodies had already been moved two or three times, namely from the Solomons and New Britain to the beautiful little cemetery at Oro Bay, in which also the dead from the Buna-Gona campaign had been buried.

After all this moving even the all-steel coffins were showing the effects of wear and handling and many had been damaged and broken. Due to the damaged coffins and the advanced decomposition of the bodies, the nauseating job of disinterment for transfer to Finschhafen was given to native labor, but American G.I.s had to load them on the ship. . . . As the result of this experimental trip an order was issued that no Coast Guard-manned Army ship should load this type of cargo again because of the hazard to the health, well-being and morale of the crew.

Why can't the Army let its dead rest in peace where they fell? We, the crew, saw nothing but desecration in the above performance. If the relatives think otherwise, why not let them do the moving?

JOHN L. VAUGHAN Homewood, Ill.

Gypped?

Sirs: In your Nov. 5 issue I find, on p. 88, the adjective "persnickety." I have just bought, at no little cost to myself, Webster's New International, Second Edition, which is said to contain nearly 600,000 words. I find no such adjective as "persnickety." I do not mean to be pernickety, but have I been gypped?

JAMES D. WOOLF Santa Fe, N. Mex.

P: By an oculist, perhaps; but not by Webster. On p. 1827 Reader Woolf will find "persnickety" as a variant of "pernickety."--ED.

Canning for Relief

Sirs: I would like to correct a statement [in TIME LETTERS, Dec. 24].

The Victory Collection of Canned Food for overseas relief, which is on behalf of UNRRA, encourages local groups and organizations to conduct collections of canned food. For information on organizing such a collection or where to ship contributions of food, interested groups should write to The Victory Collection of Canned Food, 100 Maiden Lane, New York 7, N.Y.

DAN A. WEST

Executive Director Victory Collection of Canned Food Community Canning Program for War Relief New York City

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