Irritating Itinerants

Sir:

Your Jan. 7 item on the junketing janes from the Senate Appropriations Committee was well received here, particularly by those of us who had the experience of coming into close contact with two of them--Grace Johnson and Mary Holloway. Grace publicly exercised her gift for invective in a way that would shame a Missouri mule-skinner into trying to enlarge his vocabulary of obscenities. She also endeared herself to local American business executives by insulting them as "carpetbaggers" and threatening to "put them out of business." Their trail was littered not only with "empty bottles" but also with the tattered shreds of good relations with Filipinos, which had been painstakingly built up and maintained by other, better Americans.

ENRIQUE L. WATSON Malate, Manila

Sir:

For your story on the two itinerant investigators--bravo! After a two-year assignment in Saigon with the U.S. Information Agency, I can confirm everything you report --even to their standard ploy of asking for a list of our staff personnel, salaries, etc. This is the sort of thing that is making work in the government--and especially the For eign Service--a fear-ridden existence where, more and more, people are becoming robots afraid to speak out against situations that are phony, costly and timeconsuming. If I were still in the employ of the U.S. Government, I would never dream of writing a letter like this. I have now resigned, so I feel relatively safe. Yours for more hollering and fewer Holloways.

THOMAS B. STREISSQUETH New Delhi

Sir:

Re Investigators Johnson and Holloway: shocking! Really more alarming is our U.S. officials' fear of exposing this situation. Because of this sickening lack of moral fiber, greedy, wasteful, incompetent person nel thrive on our government.

Sp/3 DAVID L. BROWN U.S. Army c/o Postmaster New York City

Views from Pittsburgh

Sir:

Concerning your Jan. 7 Education story "Dynamo at Pitt": the whole country, I'm sure, knows that the Cathedral of Learning can be seen from nearly every spot in the entire city of Pittsburgh. I'm sure it was for that reason that your picture of Pitt was photographed from the railroad track district of the city. Pitt is neither poor, inade quate nor wretched, though. It is one of the finest city universities, and our Chancellor Litchfield will make it even better. JOANNE EGERMAN Pittsburgh

Sir:

If someone should try to find the worst possible spot from which to photograph the

Cathedral of Learning of the University of Pittsburgh, he would select the location from which the TIME shot was taken. JOHN W. COPELAND Department of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh

P:I For one of Professor Copeland's preferred views, see cut.--ED.

Balanced Survey

Sir:

After the balanced sanity and insight of TIME'S survey of American painting [Dec. 24], the majority of prizewinners in the Chicago and Corcoran exhibits [Jan. 21] seem like the feckless choices of a madman. James Brooks's R-1953, which resembles nothing more than an imperfectly stained laboratory slide, cannot be interpreted as anything but a refined experiment in egomania. Lipton's The Cloak, even as a theme, could be more feelingly rendered by any class of fifth-graders. Glarner's Relational Painting Number 79 should be considered as an expression of pure design, not as art--it would make an excellent linoleum motif. Contrastingly, Loren Maclver's The Street shows a lyric tenderness; apparently there is still a bold blaze of originality in contemporary American art, for all of the maunderings of the abstract expressionists. TED LOVINGTON JR. Staten Island, N.Y.

Sir:

I should like to express my appreciation and enthusiasm for the wonderful spread which you gave us. The color reproduction of the Brooks R-1953 is, I think, the finest that I have ever seen in a magazine.

FREDERICK A. SWEET Curator of American Painting and Sculpture The Art Institute of Chicago Chicago

Knowing Knowland

Sir:

As a former combat historian in Europe in World War II, I feel that you should be more specific about Senator Knowland's wartime assignment [Jan. 14] than "public information and military government officer." During the Normandy days he was good enough to share his limited office space with several of us from First Army; he was combat historian with the Advanced Section, Communications Zone.

FORREST C. POGUE

Arlington, Va.

Sir:

Re your statement that Senator Knowland "has since come a long way." Mr. Knowland, like Senator Dirksen, who, incidentally, recently received a pat on the back from, of all people, the New York Times, has come a long way by compromising most of his principles as a conservative Republican for what he thinks will be political gain.

JAMES S. TEMPLETON Chicago

Good for '60?

Sir:

Senator John Kennedy looks enough like

a Roosevelt to be one, and with your fine

boost [Jan. 21] he may well be the

next Democratic standardbearer. With the

world in its present state, we could use another F.D.R.

HAROLD WHITTLE

Youngstown, Ohio

Tit for Tat?

Sir:

If Eden has resigned in the interests of Anglo-American unity, then presumably we can expect a similar gesture from the U.S. Whatever he may believe himself, Dulles is a pontifical pain-in-the-neck to most Englishmen. Let's have a new man on your side too --fair's fair, y'know.

PETER STEVENS London

Sir:

Who can blame Sir Anthony for resigning? With his lifetime of training and experience in foreign affairs, he must indeed be sick-- sick of seeing the applecarts upset all over the garden by the inept interference and timid lack of support on the part of the U.S. and Canada, respectively. The approach of the U.S., in particular, to foreign affairs has resembled the dismally doomed efforts of a bright-eyed salesman to deal with a squabble of homicidal maniacs (viz. Hungary). Don't let Eden's banishment from his long-anticipated garden be in vain; let's pick up the apples, and then bear in mind that the price of freedom is not only eternal vigilance but an eternal and well-advertised toughness too. DONAL J. BLACK Montreal

Sniveling Yanks

Sir:

After reading the literary sobbings and wailings of your Sports editor for the defeated Yankee basketball teams [Jan. 7], I know he is a sniveling damyankee. How come he spent the greater part of his article saying that the Tarheel basketball team was nothing but a team of Yankee athletes? The only thing he proved is that there's something wrong with you Yankees up there. How come you Yankees can't keep those Yankee athletes in your own Yankee schools to play on your consistently mediocre Yankee teams?

CHIEF MANTEE Atlantic Beach, Fla.

Sir:

We particularly object to the reference to Chapel Hill, Durham and Raleigh as "a sleepy corner of eastern Carolina." Wake up! Chapel Hill has long been known as the "Intellectual Center of the South." Get out of your concrete office and come down to visit modern, industrial North Carolina. MARVIN BRODY SONNY EVANS Chapel Hill, N.C.

Around the World with Others

Sir:

Whilst being pleased to read your eulogistic review of Around the World in 80 Days, I was somewhat surprised to find that you state it took "34 directors" to make. Although this tremendous film (incidentally, my first in America) had the "mostest" of everything, it only had one director, and I was the person entitled to receive credit as such. I can only assume that you referred to my 33 assistants engaged on the production, and by adding myself, reached 34.

MICHAEL ANDERSON Associated British Picture Corp. Ltd. Boreham Wood, England

Marital Hi-Fi

Sir:

Re Psychiatrist Bowes's theory on audio-philia--the excessive passion for hi-fi sound and equipment [Jan. 14]: at least one-half of Dr. Bowes's evaluation of "hifi addiction" seems to be in perfect pitch. My husband (aged 40) is a devotee. However, we have four children; he is not maladjusted sexually; he is not concerned with "bizarre recorded sounds"; but, like the addict quoted by Dr. Bowes, hubby will also "not be satisfied until he can hear the drop of saliva from the French horns." I do request that he turn down the volume--not because I sense a rival to my shrill and discordant self, but so the fillings in my teeth will stop vibrating.

MRS. FRANK MIWA St. Paul, Minn.

Sir:

About Dr. Bowes's discovery: now I know why Eve ate the apple; Adam was listening to hifi. And:

Eve ate the apple Cause Adam was careless Now hi-fi threatens To make him heirless.

LILLIAN RUDOLPH

Denver

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