The Lonely One

Sir:

Your story of Boris Pasternak was a direct and inspiring piece of literature. You have never failed to give TIME readers a comprehensive report of newsmaking people. May you continue with this good reporting.

KATHLEEN T. MIGNANO

Staten Island, N.Y.

Sir:

It's a wonder the Republicans aren't trying to get Pasternak out of Russia and run him for President. He's a natural for them. He has a gift for platitudinous, humanistic twaddle designed for the female and fuzzy-male vote. As for his book, it's a conversation piece or gift for the culture snob.

E. H. LEONI New York City

Sir:

It seems a fit time to point out the rather embarrassing fact that the U.S. has really no right to look askance at Russia for her abominable treatment of Pasternak when the American Government is guilty of keeping Ezra Pound under lock and key during twelve years, for political dissension.

CHARLES MARTELL Paris

Sir:

Your cover painting showing Pasternak's loosened red tie, the thorny forest surrounding the gaunt, weathered face, the serene and snowy hair rising through the turbulence of the stormy sky portray a picture of symbolic beauty. The smallness of the figure in the corner confronting the immense forest, and the craggy jutting power of Pasternak's face convey the esteem that both Artist Chapin and America feel for the unyielding integrity of this lone man who has profoundly shaken the complacency of East and West.

JOHN MCCLOSKEY

Philadelphia

Sir:

I was shocked at the cover. The greatest kindness to Pasternak would be not to print one further word about him. He wants to stay and die in Russia.

ELEANOR HENTZ

Brunswick, Me.

Dial O for Ouch

Sir:

The news of American Telephone & Telegraph Co.'s decision [to split its stock] not only hit Wall Street like a bombshell, but it hit me the same way. All I've ever heard about A.T. & T. and New England T. & T. has been that they're losing money and rates have to go up. As a lifetime consumer, may I now expect a reduction in rates?

PAUL W. LEHMANN

Dublin, N.H.

Art Criticism

Sir:

Sculptor David McFall's statue of Winston Churchill [Dec. 15] is an impressive synthesis of the comic strip character, Alley Oop, and Churchill.

ROBERT I. ADRIANCE Orono, Me.

UNESCO's Palace

Sir:

It infuriates me to see the horrible mural by Pablo Picasso in the UNESCO headquarters in Paris [Dec. 8]. And if British Sculptor Henry Moore's Reclining Figure was carved out of travertine from Michelangelo's old quarry at Carrara, this is certainly the only possible connection it could have with real art. It might just as well have been carved out of reinforced concrete or, better still, left out altogether.

ANNE S. RITCHIE Atlanta

Sir:

I wonder if UNESCO will do a much better job, now that they have a $9,000,000 palace to house their 1,080 permanent employees and carry on their operations. U.S. taxpayers, with no voice in the approval or disapproval of the expenditure, have paid a goodly portion of the cost.

WILLIAM R. WEAVER West Trenton, NJ.

Smiling Through the Glaze

Sir:

We are smiling through our tears, or vice versa, for in the Nov. 24 cinema review of I Want to Live, you say: "To judge from the . . . dragsville dialogue that Krylon-sprays the whole film with a cheap glaze of don't-care-if-I-do-die juvenility, Producer Walter Wanger seems ... to provide the morbid market with a sure-enough gasser." We are pleased indeed that "Krylon spray" is so well known that its name is used to describe a spraying process. But then we read on to a "cheap glaze," and we become unpleased in a hurry! Krylon is the producer of the world's finest spray coatings.

JAMES W. BAMPTON President Krylon, Inc. Norristown, Pa.

Sparkling San Fernando?

Sir:

TIME, Dec. 22, is wrong in treating lightly, whatever "London newsmen" may say, the matter of Spanish "champagne." The vital question of true and false indications of origin is involved, by implication the copyright and trademark laws, and the whole fabric of international agreements concerning labeling. Without these we would have commercial chaos: "English woolens" from Hackensack, "Scotch whisky" from Illinois, "French perfume" from Mexico, "Florida oranges" from Spain.

In the last 50 years much progress has been made. "Australian port," so labeled, may not be sold in Great Britain, nor may Spanish "champagne" be sold in Spain. We in America have eliminated all but a handful of these so-called generic names, and American vintners may no longer market, as in the bad old days, "Chateau d'Yquem" and "Chateau Margaux" from California.

We would do well to go along with most of the rest of the civilized world (Russia and the U.S. are now the main holdouts), abandon the rest of such foreign names and call our wines after the California valleys and New York State lakes from which they come, rather than after French villages (Chablis, Sauternes), German rivers and the like.

FRANK SCHOONMAKER New York City

As Friend to Friend

Sir:

Ben Heineman, chairman of the Chicago & North Western Railway, the "commuter's friend"? Phooey!! Between late trains, unheated cars and increased fares, all we need is another "friend" like Mr. Heineman and we'll have to move our offices to the suburbs.

BETTY GROSSE

T. T. BADURA

J. D. DONOVAN

Chicago

Sirs:

I am grateful to this railway. En route to Chicago, I can catch up with my reading. The morning of your Heineman story I read TIME cover to cover. We were only one hour and 40 minutes late.

IRVING E. MEYERHOFF Chicago

Sir:

After reading that I am the commuter's friend, some might well say, "May the Lord protect me from my friends, and I'll take care of my enemies myself!" Numerous delays and overcrowding, frustrating to our commuters and disappointing to us, accompanied a radical changeover to the present service and shorter schedules. These difficulties are temporary only, and TIME correctly reflected the North Western's belief that an outstandingly good commuter service can be provided on a self-supporting basis.

BEN W. HEINEMAN Chairman

Chicago & North Western Railway System Chicago

Monopoly in the Vatican

Sir:

So we again have a new Italian Pope, and 13 new Italian cardinals out of 23. I have nothing against the Italians, but I am against monopolies.

R. MAKAREWICZ Los Angeles

Nonconformanship

Sir:

What a pleasure to have Mr. Morris Freedman pinpoint an ill of our times--the self-righteous, smug, pseudo-cultured attitude of the nonconformist [Dec. 15]. I am not ashamed of the lump in my throat when hearing The Star-Spangled Banner, and am utterly sick of the apologetic manner of many Americans who seem to think everything here uncouth, while everything European is cultured and avantgarde.

SARA N. GRIMES Lexington, Ky.

Sir:

And then there are the non-nonconformists who wouldn't be caught dead with their beards down or their big toes showing, and who occasionally take a perverse pleasure in astounding their nonconformist neighbors by defending Dulles or admitting that Marilyn Monroe might strike a chord of response after all. This super avant-garde attitude will soon be superseded by an equally avant-garde reaction of non-non-nonconformism, and so forth . . .

BARBARA G. MITTMAN

Morton Grove, Ill.

Sir:

I gleefully read Morris Freedman's message to my nonconformist friends. Their groans and rueful smiles admit 'tis sad, 'tis true. I read it to them because TIME is not on the approved list.

SARA M. MARTIN

Allison Park, Pa.

The Cowles World

Sir:

"Rotating majestically"--what an apt description of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune [Dec. 8]. You can always read in John Cowles's paper about what's going on in Ceylon or Java, but who the hell ever knows what's going on in Minneapolis?

LARRY SCHWARTZ St. Peter, Minn.

Sir:

If I ever read of a shorter cut to Brave New One World this would be it: having the Cowles dictate American policy as they see it.

H. DHARANA Hollywood

Trans-Atlantic Fog

Sir:

Regarding Mr. Alistair Cooke's remarks on British correspondents, and in particular Mr. Don Iddon. I am a Briton by birth and recently spent over two years back in England, where I was appalled at what Mr. Iddon wrote in his columns about the American way of life.

Most Britons are avid readers of newspapers, and on the whole believe what they read. It is such columns as Mr. Iddon's that make Americans misunderstood and disliked overseas, and instead of writing on his behalf, Mr. Cooke would do well to spend a little of his time making America better understood. Mr. Iddon always appeared to be most critical when he was writing from Florida--in the winter of course--for the consumption of the British public, who perhaps had not seen the sun through the fog for several days. His columns were a sickening experience.

P. ROTHLISBERGER Alexandria, Va.

Dunking Dulles

Sir:

Because of the bad manners and rudeness of many of our American tourists abroad, we have already become the laughingstock of Europeans. The State Department issues with each U.S. passport a complete booklet with instructions on how to behave abroad. Now, your Dec. 15 picture of our Secretary of State shows so adroitly what's wrong with American diplomacy. As Mr. Dulles dunks his cracker in a glass of milk in public, what about the manners of his underlings? Is it possible, with all his complacency and bombastic oratory, Mr. Dulles does not practice what his department preaches? Must we be classified as the nation with barbaric habits?

RICHARD A. HELLER Flushing, N.Y.

Flying Low

Sir:

TIME, Dec. 8 mentioned numerous times the $45,000 salary that P.A.A. pilots demand. You make it sound like $45,000 or else. I'm a P.A.A. pilot, and in my fourth year with P.A.A., my average salary has been $6,360. THOMAS WEINGARTEN Redwood City, Calif.

Sir:

Why not give the true picture of a pilot's pay structure? Only a top few senior pilots make in excess of $22,000 a year.

ROBERT J. CHRISTEN Pan Am copilot Los Angeles

Sir:

The fact that the gluttonous wage demands by the airline mechanics and pilots will push the cost of flying still further from my personal reach is inconsequential. What is important is that the entire public is to pay part of the bill without most of them leaving the ground. Uncle Sam is indirectly picking up travel fare.

N. L. KAUTSKY Littleton, Colo.

The Quare Fellow

Sir:

I enjoyed reading about myself and my wife in TIME [Dec. 8], and indeed it was very generous of you, but the nicest thing of all happened when a foreign citizen turned around from looking at my picture and said, "I did not realize you were Jewish." "I am not," I said, "but Our Blessed Lord is--I hope I've caught a little of the contagion."

BRENDAN BEHAN

Dublin

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