Science & the Future

Sir:

Thanks to TIME, Nov. 18, for its article on Edward Teller, and for showing the world that we do have men endowed with scientific talents who have a genuine interest in our country and its future.

MARIE DELISLE

Cohoes, N.Y.

Sir:

So you combed your wide land for a real scientist, and all you could find was a ruddy Hungarian.

BASIL STUART

Vancouver, B.C.

Sir:

A source of special thrill to me was TIME'S account of Dr. Teller's denunciation of the inadequacy of our present educational system, especially the high schools, and the letters to the editor protesting against the crazy trends in present U.S. car design.

P. L. BARGELLINI

Media, Pa.

Sir:

Why should our college students want to become intellectuals? It only requires a B.A., M.A. and a Ph.D. For a two-bit extension course and a cheap guitar, they could become famous.

WILLIAM H. MAYFIELD

Springfield, Mo.

Sir:

A good research professor in Russia can earn around $36,000 a year, with a number of interesting fringe benefits such as chauffeured limousines, free hospitalization and summer villas. Their income tax is low, too. Furthermore, scientists are more or less the pinup boys of the Soviet Union. Is it any wonder that a Russian high school boy, unlike our own kids, thinks science is a likely profession?

JANE S. WILSON

Ithaca, N.Y.

Sir:

The men in your "bright spectrum" are bright, and some scientists are making from 10,000 to 20,000 bucks a year, but that is because of the vast army of small, dark, unknown plodders in U.S. science (like myself) whose salary plus commissions, etc. runs between $5,000 and $10,000 a year (mine: $6,000), and plenty of them get less than that.

STEPHEN TABER III

Baton Rouge

Sir:

You report a lady "fashion arbiter" earns an estimated $40,000 a year. America must decide. Will it be fashion or fission?

S. S. BLOCK

Gainesville, Fla.

Sir:

I was fascinated with your Nov. 25 color pictures of the horrible monstrosities we have created to defend ourselves from destruction and to destroy other people who likewise are preparing similar machines to defend themselves from destruction by us. In the frenzied direction we are now headed, to avoid sudden destruction we seem to be preparing to perish slowly, like Laika, in a bigger and better metallic cage.

WATSON CLAY

Frankfort, Ky.

Sir:

Even supposing the U.S. material and scientific attainments are less than those of Soviet Russia, which I doubt, the ends to which those attainments are directed and the ethical values which undergird the scientific accomplishments of the U.S. place those achievements on an entirely different plane from those of the U.S.S.R."

JOHN Withall

Karachi, Pakistan

The Girard Case

Sir:

America has need of friends abroad, but the brutal shooting of a poverty-stricken, scrap-picking Japanese woman by Private William Girard has made enemies instead. Insult has been added to injury now that Girard has become the recipient of that modern legal farce, the suspended sentence. Girard not only has got away with murder, but he has cost Uncle Sam precious good will.

CHARLES L. PIZZANO

Dedham, Mass.

Sir:

Girard can be thankful his case became a political football, that Judge Kawachi didn't fumble. Let us hope the Japanese people understand there are many in this country who are amazed at the decision.

HAL HOBSON

Oakland, Calif.

Les Girls

Sir:

You were mistaken in saying that Painter Marcia Marx Bennett was the first woman to hold a one-artist show at the Institute

National de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. Babette Kornblith of Chicago had a solo show of sensitive, serious works there last February--which precedes "Marx" by eight months. Please correct your error before my grandmother, Babette Kornblith, returns from her successful one-woman show at the Andre Weil Gallery in Paris.

BABETTE HESS

Glencoe, Ill.

Fashions in Rome

Sir:

On the subject of clothes, Pope Pius XII says that though the cut be modest, the cloth "may be guilty of excessive luxury, which is an offense to the spirit of those who labor and toil." What would he call the brocades, velvets and occasionally ermine that he and other church dignitaries wear?

ELIZABETH MUNN

Buffalo

Sir:

Dior's successor should have been that self-appointed fashion expert--the Pope. CHARLES H. CLARK

Glens Falls, N.Y.

California Politics

Sir:

Nixon and Knowland have swallowed the canary, but they may not find it as digestible as you imply. Knowland's "powerful friends" do not include all the Republican voters of California, and I would not be surprised to see the state go Democratic mainly because of the smugness of those two.

HELEN RICKABAUGH

Lakeport, Calif.

Sir:

Nixon has just carved a California turkey, scooping up all the white meat and dressing for himself, while meagerly serving Emperor Knowland a wishbone and Court Jester Knight a wing and a prayer.

K. TILLSON San Francisco

Independence Granted

Sir:

Concerning your article "The Reluctant Potentate": Axel Springer owns only 26% of the shares of the Ullstein Company. Since Springer has granted the absolute independence of our papers, your statement that "Springer has already swallowed up almost half of the Ullstein papers" is incorrect.

KARL ULLSTEIN

Berlin

P:TIME concedes the editorial independence of the Ullstein papers but, as Reader Ullstein points out, it is Stockholder Springer who permits it.--ED.

Without Nonsense

Sir:

Thanks for "The No-Nonsense Kids." Ycu said a lot of things I have been groping to put into words for some time.

CHARLES ADKINS

Vice President

Wheaton College

Norton, Mass.

Sir:

I was quoted as advising college students never to take any stand that looks heroic, and never to show the intensity of one's beliefs. The quote was incomplete, and did not make plain that I was satirizing all such apathetic attitudes. Not until college students learn how to argue, deeply wonder, and be passionately concerned will America produce a really great culture.

PETE GUNTER

The University of Texas

Austin, Texas

Sir:

Is it complacency or fear of expulsion that quells uprisings on the part of the student? The days of freedom of expression are long gone--bulging enrollments and overcrowded classrooms leave no room for behavior contrary to administrative "suggestion."

KYLE ROBINSON

Michigan State University

East Lansing, Mich.

Sir:

As a college senior, I find the situation alarming. There is mass apathy, nothing creates an impression, no one cares about anything but themselves. One must conform to these apathetic tendencies and others or else be labeled a nut, a "turkey."

WARREN SCHWARTZ Hobart College Geneva, N.Y.

Sir:

The question that faces today's student is "What can I get with my degree?" rather than "What have I become when I get my degree?" After all, it is grades that count when applying for grad schools. Why get excited and involved in irrelevancies such as "knowledge for knowledge's sake?"

J. P. SNAPPER

Calvin College

Grand Rapids, Mich.

Sir:

All is not lost. Heard on campus the other day--girl student, seriously, to male student: "I couldn't live without my slide rule."

BOYNTON S. KAISER

University of California

Berkeley, Calif.

Man's Best Friend

Sir:

Your Nov. 18 issue carried the most depressing article I have ever read. "Dog Story" recounts with hilarity a little dog's flight into space. It is sickening to think that there were only gags, guffaws and wisecracks.

RUTH HORNBROOK

The Wood County Humane Society

Parkersburg, West Va.

Sir:

All that yowling about Laika gave me a pain. Do these dog lovers know that every day in our own grand and glorious country thousands of poor, worn-out old horses are driven up ramps to the slaughter--to provide food for their lousy pets?

E. W. THISTLETHWAITE

Independence, Calif.

Ghastlies from Georgia

Sir:

Unfortunately, here are some more "Hilarious Horrors" [Nov. 11] or, as we call them down here, "ghastlies":

You look a little pale, Socrates. Better drink this pick-me-up.

Oh, I wouldn't worry about Nathan too much, Mrs. Hale. He's probably still hanging around the East somewhere.

Didn't it just make your summer, though, Mrs. Trotsky?

Mrs. Hamilton, meet Mrs. Burr.

How's your wife's pneumonia, Lord Godiva?

DWIGHT W. CARR

Fort Benning, Ga.

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