Trade Key to Peace
Sirs:
Congratulations to Parker's Parker and Pan Am's Juan Trippe [TIME, Oct. 27]. Mr. Parker made the statement of the century concerning tariff elimination: "We'll take our chances on U.S. production and merchandising savvy any time against all comers . ." Protective tariffs today heighten the cost of living for the consumer. They cheat the producer of the advantage and necessity of meeting competition in foreign markets . . . Mr. Trippe's decision to keep abreast of the times by purchasing $6,300,000 worth of jet liners from Britain's De Havilland Co. . . . makes possible foreign sale of American goods, which are in demand; they can't be given away or loaned; they must be traded . . .
ROBERT JAMES VARTY
U.S.N.R.
c/o Postmaster, San Francisco
Judaism & Zionism
Sir:
In the Nov. 3 issue of TIME you carried an article concerning the American Council for Judaism. I have been a member of this organization since 1945; am on the National Advisory Board, the Chicago Executive Board and the School of Judaism Board. I consider this article to be a fair, accurate and complete statement of facts on a rather controversial subject, and want to compliment you . . . for your treatment.
There has been a good deal of misunderstanding regarding the American Council for Judaism and its aims, and I feel that you have done a very valuable service in creating a better understanding of our position.
MELVILLE N. ROTHSCHILD JR.
Chicago
Sir:
. . . Your report should be of great aid in furthering the educational program of the council, to wit--America is the only "homeland" of an American citizen, that citizen's religious affiliations, his personal privilege.
ISADORE SCHAYER
Columbia, S.C.
Sir:
. . . Most American Jews view their Israeli brethren with love. Rabbi Berger hates the Israeli Jew as any anti-Semite would . . . Rabbi Berger remains a front man for the anti-Semite and the extremist Arab groups . . .
MELVIN NAHUM COHEN
Baltimore
Sin & Salvation
Sir:
In your Oct. 20 review of Joyce Gary's Prisoner of Grace, you start out with a tribute to Dickens and Mark Twain. I was curious to see if you had anything new to say about them (you didn't), but read on to see what Joyce Gary was "gustoing" about . . .
It may well be said of Dickens that he usually had some laudable purpose in his novels --calling attention to practices that needed correction while Mark Twain wrote to make us laugh; but the rot . . . you dish out to describe Nina and all the other participites criminis in Gary's novel is unbelievable in the annals of decent literature, especially to a Southerner; we handle such affairs with a shotgun . . .
W. H. ISBELL
Russellville, Ala.
Sir:
TIME says Novelist Gary "is the very antithesis of Graham Greene, the guilt-ridden Catholic who keeps pecking away at the problem of personal salvation . . ." Please do not compare Joyce Gary with that genius, Graham Greene. Mr. Greene has set out to "teach" the world. He illustrates the purpose of man and what man is for: namely, the salvation of his soul . . . All Mr. Gary does is to tell us of a particular sin . . .
DONALD NICHOLAS
Saffron Walden, Essex, England
Sir:
. . . Greene is hardly deserving of the title, "guilt-ridden." As for his "pecking away at the problem of salvation," might we not say that he has dug his way through to the hard core of the problem?
JOHN S. FRANCESCONI
Brooklyn, N.Y.
Thoughts on Pittsburgh
Sir:
You will undoubtedly receive a flood of protests from horrified, or should I say enraged art lovers, following the much-too-generous presentation, in your Oct. 27 issue, of some of the smudgy and meaningless paintings submitted recently to the Pittsburgh Carnegie International art show . . . What on earth sane-minded people can see in these blotches of color is beyond me. Picasso was bad enough, but this is really the limit! Pittsburgh has long been noted for its smoky atmosphere, and I would not be a bit surprised if the soot coming out of its innumerable chimneys has finally obscured the judgment of Museum Director Gordon Washburn and other members of the jury responsible for this pitiful exhibition.
RAOUL CLOUTHIER
Outremont, Montreal, Canada
Sir:
Shame on you for printing them and shame on the "painters" for daubing those awful would-be abstracts . . .
MRS. GEORGE C. MORROW
Daytona Beach, Fla.
Sir:
If the abstractionists would just refrain from naming their pictures, it would help a lot.
W. F. BARBER
Lawton, Okla.
Sir:
Re Ben Nicholson's prizewinning December 5, 1949: The enclosed, by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Staff Cartoonist Cy Hungerford, is the average man's criticism of the 39th Carnegie show.
JAMES D. HABER
Pittsburgh
P:I Says the Post-Gazette: "After long study, Cy thought he saw what Nicholson was getting at. It should be Man with a Bottle" (see cut).--ED.
The Constant & the Bomb
Sir:
It may interest you to know that the two stories on Israel in your Oct. 20 issue were mentioned in Ma'ariv, the leading afternoon paper in Israel. Here is the translation from Hebrew:
"TIME, the popular American weekly, dedicated this week 67 lines to the Hakhel ceremonies in Jerusalem. In their same issue there is an item of only 40 lines, on the Foreign Ministry bomb. In the Israel press the proportion was inverse. It appears that the foreign press can better appreciate what is eternal and constant in a nation's life than what is passable."
That is a fine compliment to TIME. Congratulations.
PAUL JANCU
Haifa, Israel
With a Diphthong in Kenya
Sir:
Is TIME guessing about the pronunciation of "Mau Mau," one of the secret societies in Kenya? TIME, Sept. 1, says, "rhymes with yoyo" and TIME, Oct. 27, says, "rhymes with bowwow" . . .
DOROTHY M. OLIVER
Chicago
P:TIME'S Sept. 1 rhyming was so-so.--ED.
Malaparte & the Duce
Sir:
. . . TIME affirms that before 1943, I was "the Duce's tame intellectual, a pet journalist of Fascism . . ." If this perhaps were true, it would be true only until 1931, when I revolted against Fascism . . . From 1931 until the fall of Mussolini in 1943, I was arrested eleven times. In 1933, I was placed in prison and then sentenced to five years on the island concentration camp of Lipari. Freed in 1938, I still remained under police control and was put in prison as a preventive measure every time a Nazi chief visited Rome. In 1939, being sent to Ethiopia by the Corriere delta Sera to write some articles about the life of the natives, I was accompanied at the personal order of Mussolini by some policemen . . . who had the charge of not leaving me one minute for fear that I might escape . . . I was so much in the grace of Mussolini that I was never permitted to speak on the radio, to work in the theater or in the cinema, and from 1933 until the liberation, I was deprived of a passport, while all the other writers--for example, [Alberto] Moravia and [Elio] Vittorini--had them . . . In 1940 . . . I was recalled to the army as a war correspondent. Because of my articles from the Russian front . . . I was arrested in the Ukraine by the SS. I was one of the three Italian officers who organized the Italian Army of Liberation which fought with the Allies . . .
Why should a writer, such as [Arthur] Koestler, having abandoned Communism, be considered a hero or martyr to the cause of liberty, while a writer who abandoned the cause of Fascism at the height of its power--and for the same reasons for which Koestler abandoned Communism--be considered a traitor? . . .
CURZIO MALAPARTE
Forte dei Marmi (Lucca), Italy
P:Author Malaparte overlooks these facts: 1) in 1938, the Enciclopedia Italiana gave a glowing appraisal of his work (including a collection of poems dedicated to Mussolini); 2) in 1944, after Mussolini's fall, he began writing under the name of "Gianni Strozzi" for the Communist daily L'Unit a, the same year applied for, but was refused, Communist Party membership; 3) Italy's Defense Ministry, whose records show that he served as a liaison officer with Allied Headquarters, flatly denies that he had any part in organizing Italy's Army of Liberation.--ED.
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