What's Happening?

Sir:

What in heaven's name is happening to this country? Is every editor and everybody--not excluding McCarthy's nonstop idiocies and Eisenhower's latest fiasco in the tactless gift of a pistol to General Naguib--all hellbent on the suicidal lunacy of showing just how cheap and silly we can be? . . .

HUGH R. SHELDON

Piedmont, Calif.

Sir:

Your [May 25] articles about the Church-ill-Attlee attacks on the U.S. were very interesting. Although as an American I was greatly nattered that another nation should dominate its parliamentary podium with debates on our Constitution, a far more intrinsic item kept stealing in between the lines: the memory of a man with an umbrella returning from Munich in . . . 1938.

W. C. HELLER

Rome

Sir:

Re the [June 8] letters of C. C. McKinnon and Philip R. Stephenson: Who are these British subjects who feel they have the right to criticize our President? President Eisenhower had every right to offer the hand of friendship to a man [General Naguib] whose only crime seems to be that he possesses the courage to tell the almighty British where to get off . . .

ELIZABETH A. Fox

Bayonne, NJ.

Sir:

. . . Why do you print a letter like A. A. Marshall's of Toronto? . . . It has my blood boiling. So he "knows America very well"? And he's "damned if Clement Attlee's speech didn't hit the nail on the head . . ." I think Mr. Marshall is an-ignoramus . . . and I hope that his sentiments are not shared by most Canadians . . .

RUTH ROWLEY

Philadelphia

The Coronation

Sir:

Why . . . the big old fuss made over the coronation in the U.S.? I am sure that England did not go wild over our inauguration . . .

(A/2C) E. B. WHEELER

Robins A.F. Base, Ga.

Sir:

Your excellent coverage of the coronation sets new standards of high-level reporting, with the best of historical and political perspectives added for good measure. We share the happiness of a close neighbor who is throwing a swell shindig . . . We strongly suspect the drinks--and possibly the eats--are on us, so we may be pardoned if we view the proceedings with a jaundiced eye, [but] remembering always that our neighbor has lost much more than money in fighting two wars that were ours as well as his own--even before we got into them. So we doff our hats and raise our voices in enthusiastic salute: "God Save the Queen!"

ARTHUR T. GRANT

Philadelphia

Right in Their Element

Sir:

"Titanium, the wonder metal, is even lighter and stronger than magnesium" [TIME, June 8]. To those of us who know and love the metal magnesium, it nearly broke our hearts to see you put it in the heavy weight class of metals. We would like to point out that titanium is approximately 2 1/2 times as heavy as magnesium. We still believe that magnesium is the lightest of all structural metals.

J. S. KIRKPATRICK President

The Magnesium Association New York City

The Company He Keeps

Sir:

Please allow me to correct a statement made in the May 18 issue of your widely read magazine. I am not commanding the 140th Tank Battalion, only Company A of the 140th Tank Battalion. The battalion commander is Colonel William Fondren, Armor, U.S. Army.

GEORGE S. PATTON

Captain, Armor, U.S.A.

c/o Postmaster San Francisco

P: TIME'S thanks to Captain George S. Patton IV for setting its treads straight. For a view of Colonel Fondren just after returning from a sharp firefight at the front see cut.--ED.

3-D & Kindred Gimmicks

Sir:

In the 3-D cover story and your speculation as to "how real can movies be" [TiME, June 8], you neglect a mention of the "feelies," [Aldous] Huxley's prophetic description [in Brave New World) of what civilization will be satiating itself on in some future popcorn bazaar. The feelies could not only be seen, smelt and heard but they could be "felt" with the aid of knobs attached to the arms of the viewer's chair. Thus a passionate kiss will become a personal sensation and a painful blow will become a source of masochistic satisfaction . . .

ROBERT W. POPELKA

Bloomington, Ill.

Sir:

Hollywood can proceed to the ultimate in cinematic realism by using a hemispherical screen and central projector (as in a planetarium), by using an annular lens (as sometimes used on submarine periscopes), which presents a doughnut-shaped picture to the eye (or camera) covering 360DEG around the horizon, and practically to the zenith. This picture, projected back through the same type of lens, would recreate the original scene; the camera could project downward from the center of the theater, and could include two such lenses in a polarized system on a common axis for 3-D; also the vibrating-prism system of Citizen Kane for all-in-focus effect . . . A few problems remain (beside the presently unsolved nicker effects, etc., emphasized by 3-D), such as--which is the best way offstage? Into a subterranean cavern below the camera, or over the horizon, or behind the nearest hill or building? . . .

CHARLES C. LITTELL JR.

Dayton

Sir:

Can't help but express my disgust for Artzybasheff's picture on the June 8 cover. It was way below . . . the usually good products of his pen and brush.

(REV.) FREDERICK J. BECKA, M.M.

Maryknoll, N.Y.

SIR:

CONGRATULATIONS FOR YOUR WONDERFUL REPORTORIAL JOB ON 3-D, BIG SCREEN, ETC. I WOULD LIKE TO CORRECT, HOWEVER, THESE SOMEWHAT MINOR ERRORS: DR. JULIAN GUNZBURG IS NO OPTICIAN BUT AN OPHTHALMOLOGIST WHOSE CHIEF ACTIVITY AS AN M.D. IS EYE SURGERY ; THE 3-D EXPERT . . . WHOM YOU QUOTE AS SAYING THAT THE FIRST 3-D PICTURES WERE PHOTOGRAPHED WITH A 4-INCH INTEROCULAR, IS IN ERROR. MOST NATURAL VISION EQUIPMENT USES APPROXIMATELY A 3-INCH INTEROCULAR, SOME 2 1/2.

M. L. GUNZBURG

NATURAL VISION CORP. LOS ANGELES

Sir:

. . . "A certain amount of eyestrain appears almost inevitable." It is definitely not inevitable, and there is good reason to believe that watching 3-D movies, properly photographed and properly projected, is easier on the eyes than watching a conventional "flat" or 2-D movie . . . Before a meeting of our society . . . Reuel A. Sherman, Bausch & Lomb's occupational vision specialist declared that various forms of 3-D have been used since 1895 for therapeutic and visual training purposes, and he predicted that technically good 3-D movies will have a profoundly beneficial impact on vision.

JOHN A. NORLING Chairman

Committee on Stereoscopic Motion Pictures Society of Motion Picture and TV Engineers New York City

Sir:

. . . "A certain amount of eyestrain appears almost inevitable" is the understatement of the week. In 2-D movies, eyes point at the screen and focus on the screen . . . 3-D techniques demand that the human turn his eyes inward, much nearer than the screen for which he is focused. Then he has a choice of letting the picture blur, seeing the object double, having nausea, dizziness or "eye-strain," or staying away from 3-D.

HOMER HENDRICKSON Optometrist

Temple City, Calif.

Sir:

. . . You can well imagine my dismay in seeing not only myself described as a "pitchman," but the whole subject of the motion picture industry's new dimensional developments presented with an air of erudite derision . . . The motion picture industry is in a critical phase, and it is true that there is a certain amount of groping at this stage of its progress. Uncertainty is characteristic of any institution, art or industry at a time of upheaval or radical change. On the other hand, aoth Century-Fox has completed two pictures, The Robe and How to Marry a Millionaire, in the new CinemaScope medium, and moreover we have shown scenes from both pictures to . . . thousands of . . . persons, both here and in Europe, who are versed in the technical aspects of . . . motion pictures. In not a single instance was there an expression of opinion that was lacking in respect for CinemaScope as a technical advancement . . . We are [also] completing the production of two other CinemaScope films [and] will soon commence production on nine more . . . This represents an expenditure of approximately $30 million . . .

When TIME electrified the publishing world by coming out with a new type of journalism . . . it was compelled to take an enormous moral and financial gamble. It took great courage . . . to . . . give the public something new and enlightening. With CinemaScope we faced a similar problem . . .

Your story deliberately dismissed the subject with glib levity and disparagement . . . Such a treatment is not only calculated to do great harm to the motion picture industry, but it tends to prejudice millions of motion picture fans in advance against an important development long before it reaches the theaters where the public can judge for itself . . .

DARRYL F. ZANUCK

Beverly Hills, Calif.

Sir:

Orchids for the 3-D article and its satirical take-off on Hollywood's last stand to drain the public's inflated dollars to fill the decadent, demoralizing industry's coffers . . .

GEORGE ROBERT DUNBAR

Palo Alto, Calif.

Old Hickory Switch

Sir:

With reference to the June 1 item on the death of Andrew Jackson IV, great-grandson of President Andrew Jackson: Andrew Jackson "IV" was my mess sergeant in World War I, and I seem to remember that he explained his name to me as some adoption, saying that he was not a lineal descendant of the seventh President.

I have always understood that Andrew Jackson had no children.

R. J. LONGSTREET

DeLand, Fla.

P: Reader Longstreet (a lineal descendant of Confederate Hero General James Longstreet) is right. His old mess sergeant was the descendant of Andrew Jackson Jr., who was adopted at birth by Old Hickory and his wife Rachel.--ED.

Whose Inhumanity to Whom?

Sir:

So Hans Klose . . . has been inconsiderate enough to ask the British for the staggering sum of $14,286 damages for his false arrest [TIME, June 1], and from a hard-pressed nation which spent $5,500,000 to crown its Queen.

Klose might have fared better in the time of [Cromwell's] protectorate . . .

CATHERINE GIBERT

Greeley, Colo.

Sir:

. . . If this is justice, British style--WELL!! . . .

PEGGY O'NEILL

East Longmeadow, Mass.

Sir:

Man's inhumanity to man continues, and you tellingly show . . . that the British are not behindhand in beastliness . . .

JOAN HANSEN

New York City

Sir:

In your coronation-preview number, published in England and for all I know elsewhere, you have, opposite a portrait of the Queen, six paragraphs on "The Case of Hans Klose" . . . I have only one thing to tell you: If [the story] is true, we should have brought it out in the open and repented in sackcloth and ashes; if it is not true, you should never have printed it. And anyway, you should not have printed it without names and chapter and verse. Did the American Army of occupation make no mistakes either? The whole writing of it is vicious, ending with: "No one really knew, and no one much cared." On the whole, the British and the Americans are the kindest races, and this was a vicious thing to do . . .

What was your possible excuse for publishing it?

F. TENNYSON JESSE

St. John's Wood, London

P: Author-Playwright Jesse (A Pin to See the Peepshow) is reminded that TIME is a newsmagazine.--ED.

Sir:

. . . It was very human to dedicate nearly half a page to this poor German fellow. But did they (the Germans) ever ask what happened to the thousands of innocent Jews and other human creatures in German concentration camps? A few really knew and very few cared.

MARION ANITA HAASE

Sao Paulo, Brazil

End of the Line?

Sir:

I read with interest your June 8 article, "Memories Before Birth?" With psychiatry entering into all phases of human life, psychological gobbledygook has finally reached the end of the line. Et tu, fetus?

SIDNEY MERLIS, M.D.

Central Islip, N.Y.

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