Iron Curtain Churchmen

Sir:

I refer to the Aug. 2 article . . . dealing with my recent remarks in Congress on the subject of the Iron Curtain churchmen who are delegates to the Second Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Evanston, Ill. . . . My speech was given as an answer to the State Department press release, and not the reverse, as your article would seem to indicate ... I have no fear of subversion from the Czechoslovak and Hungarian members [but] I question their ability to further resist the infiltration of the churches in their own lands even assuming [that] Communist control ... is not already complete.

ALVIN M. BENTLEY House of Representatives Washington, D.C.

Low-Grade Schools

Sir:

Thanks to TIME for publishing French Author-Lecturer Pierre Emmanuel's observations on the trends of American education [Aug. 2]. He has voiced what perhaps many of us teachers are afraid to admit to the public ... Let's face the fact that we are no longer educating in the much-needed liberal sense. In attempting to counteract this situation in my own classroom, I have been met by an almost overwhelming opposition. Even my high-school seniors feel that an injustice is being done them if exposed to broader ideas than those rigidly laid down in the textbook .

DONALD R. JEFFERY Washington, D.C.

Sir:

After reading your description of Frenchman Emmanuel's opinion of American students, I must comment that the exact same criticisms can be made of the French. If they are such damn good history students, they should realize that fraternization and placation of the Communists will accomplish nothing ... If ambivalent French politicians dally with the Reds any longer, and continue to block EBC, they will soon be aware of a new cultural heritage--Communist style. American students . . . can see the obvious.

ROBERT H. DUFORT Durham, N.C.

Joe: Phobe & Phile

Sir:

Your issue of Aug. 9 ... gives us another bizarre facet of the McCarthy-Cohn combination in "One Enchanted Evening" . . . One is prone to ask if there can possibly be any sincerity in such a nauseating display of sentimentality ?

LAWRIE TYRRELL Edmonton, Alberta

Sir:

Whether one is a Joephobe or a Joephile, your story was most entertaining . . . Congratulations . . . from a Joephobe.

ROBERT S. DUGGAN JR. Atlanta, Ga.

Sir:

It ... reached the bottom in smear technique.

JAMES F. KELLY Forest Hills, N.Y.

Sir:

... As an embarrassed and humiliated Wisconsin Republican, I have news for the attending fanatics at the testimonial dinner for Roy Cohn: that was a McCarthy rally of the newborn "Joe-Bund." Everyone in attendance should be promptly investigated to see if he meets the strict requirements of the new party ... If you don't have a strong stomach and an empty head, you may prove to be a bad risk .

HELEN W. ZIEGLER West Bend, Wis.

Nourishing Drugs Sir:

In a snappy footnote to "The Church & the Cactus" in your issue of Aug. 9, 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 alternative to cocktails." Snappiness, alas, is apt to be in inverse ratio to accuracy. In actual fact, I did not prescribe mescaline for all mankind. I merely suggested that it might be a good thing if psychologists, sociologists and pharmacologists were to get together and discuss the problem of a satisfactory drug for general consumption. Mescaline, I said, would not do. But a chemical possessing the merits of mescaline without its drawbacks would certainly be preferable to alcohol . . . Unfortunately, the gist of my argument was too long for a 25-word footnote. Moral: don't try to say in 25 words something which, in the nature of the case, cannot be said in less than 150.

ALDOUS HUXLEY Hampstead, London

P: Author Huxley should be the first to know that TIME must have a stop.--ED.

Languid Beauty

Sir:

Re your Aug. 16 cover and story concerning Italian Beauties Lollobrigida, Mangano, Loren et al.: I would like to call attention to a discrepancy . . . The photo of the languid, dark-haired creature above the name Rossi-Brago is in fact Silvana Mangano, who is also posed prettily, but as a blonde, above her own name. Two Manganos are twice as good as one, but one Rossi-Drago is by no means to be ignored . . .

BURT HIRSCHFELD Italian Films Export New York City

P: Bemused by so much beauty, TIME's Picture Editor saw double. For a genuine Rossi-Drago, see cut.--ED.

Sahara in the Snow

Sir:

TIME's [Aug. 16] summary, "The New Tax Law," sums up this massive legislation superbly. My accountant tells me that the confusions, paradoxes and loopholes in the bill will keep lawyers and accountants dizzy and busy for many years to come. As for the average taxpayer, he could not make head or tail of the massive document. Outside the business community, few will benefit. Looking over the list of special categories, I am reminded of certain insurance policies where you collect if your right toe is shot off simultaneously with your left ear as you are riding over the Sahara Desert on a zebra in the middle of a snowstorm.

ALLEN KLEIN Mount Vernon, N.Y.

Diolch Yn Fawr Sir:

Your delightful article on Wales [TIME, Aug. 2], portrayed by picturesque and representative scenes, will be hailed by the Welsh people everywhere. Too often has the country been misrepresented and its importance discounted. Even the ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica dismisses Wales with a curt--"see England . . ."

(THE REV.) DAVID J. GRIFFITHS Mansfield, Pa.

Sir:

. . . After seeing your photographs, they will see and know that Wales is not a country of prevailing coal fields, mine shafts and drab valleys.

HELEN FYNOG RICHARDS Evanston, Ill.

Sir:

. . . Nobody in Great Britain considers Wales a province; it is a country, and part of the United Kingdom, just as England and Scotland are, and no one would refer to them as provinces. In addition, no one in the British Isles thinks of himself as a European. You have to cross the English Channel to get to Europe.

D. A. ALTAIAN Los Angeles

Sir:

. . . Diolch yn fawr,* for your deserving boost to travel in Cymru.

DAVID M. DAVIES Los Angeles

Men at War

Sir: Did TIME [Aug. 2] find it necessary to push the point that William Faulkner in 1918 "did not get beyond flight training," but that he has written "about air combat, the danger and boredom of infantry fighting, the deepest contemplations of generals, with a confidence that suggests he has experienced all of them simultaneously"? If superciliousness has become an end in itself, why not level a broadside at Stephen Crane ? Crane wrote The Red Badge of Courage about the American Civil War--a war which took place before he was born. Considered one of America's first legitimate works of realism, it was also written before Crane experienced the Spanish-American War . . .

JAMES ROBERT CAIRNS Beirut, Lebanon

Cure for Auto-Arteriosclerosis

Sir:

Your diagnosis on U.S. highways [July 26] is apt and clever, but the medication proposed reminds me of the patient who died under the successful operation. Why spend $50 billion to build perishable highways when we do not begin to use to-capacity the 220,000 miles of ... the steel highway system of the nation's taxpaying railroads? If they were unshackled from their subsidized competition and their outmoded regulations (conceived in a monopoly long since expired), the heavy freight now cluttering up and beating up our perishable highways would go back to the railroads where it belongs, and your auto-arteriosclerosis would vanish almost overnight . . .

JOSEPH A. BULL Baltimore

Okla. to Calif.

Sir:

... I deeply resent your publication [Aug. 9] of a letter from one Glenn Hoover of Oakland, Calif. This gentleman refers to Oklahoma as "that lowbrow-dominated commonwealth." For heaven's sake, Mr. Hoover, keep your own ideas of culture (bop music, pink trousers, ducktail haircuts, etc.--all those marks of true Californian culture and sophistication), but keep your mouth shut.

KENNETH E. DARNELL Hampton, Va.

Sir:

. . . You might tell Mr. Hoover that as far as I am concerned, the aroma in California isn't all orange blossoms.

WANDA JONES Fairfax, Okla.

Sir:

... It is just because of such attitudes of false superiority that we will snub California on our vacation trip to the West Coast, and shall spend our saved dimes in the states of Washington and Oregon . . .

Lois FESSENDEN Blackwell, Okla.

*Freely translated, "Thanks very much."

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