Man of the Year

Sir: Vice President Nixon. His visit to Moscow entitles him to this distinction. GRANT B. HUGHES, M.D. Nyssa, Ore.

Sir: "The Hungarian Teen-Ager," who fought for freedom in 1956, and is now being executed by the hundreds in Budapest. (THE REV.) JOHN L. E. DE PAPP St. Luke's Evangelical Lutheran Church Valatie, N.Y.

Sir: The Scientist, who has forced world leaders to act for peace. ALAN B. LEVY Princeton, N.J.

Sir: President George Romney of American Motors. EDWARD EIKMAN Tallahassee, Fla.

Sir: With one criterion, that ideas have consequences, I nominate our President, Dwight David Eisenhower. ROBERT WESLEY Macon, Ga.

Sir: Jack Kerouac and a Beat Generation that howls all over the world as a protest against dehumanization. MIGUEL GRINBERG Buenos Aires

Sir: Nikita Khrushchev. MARIJO C. NASER Oak Park, Ill.

Sir: Mao Tse-tung, because he was the only one who dared challenge Khrushchev's "peaceful coexistence." D. MATZANKIEFF New York City

Sir: Pope John XXIII. R. PAUL KROCZYNSKI Hartford, Conn.

Sir: General Charles de Gaulle. JAMES R. WILTSEE Dayton

Sir: Anna Eleanor Roosevelt. S. L. SHAPIRO Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y.

First Payola?

Sir: The first big-time sponsor was, I believe, Mitsui Hachirobei, a 17th century member of the famous Mitsui family. He subsidized authors and playwrights who mentioned the Mitsukoshi store in their dialogue. Even the great Hiroshige is not above suspicion. In his well-known wood-block print of Mount Fuji, a Mitsukoshi store can be seen in the foreground [see cut]. JOAN KLYHN EMERSON Berkeley, Calif.

Birth Control & Politics

Sir: Looks as if Bishop Pike and the Christian churches he speaks for have overstepped themselves this time [Dec. 7]. Who are these Christians who are so presumptuous as to assume that birth control is God's answer to so-called overpopulation? What nation dare be so self-righteous as to dictate spiritual and moral obligations to the rest of the world? MRS. F. KARENKA Inkster, Mich.

Sir: To make birth-control information available is not to make birth control mandatory. Those who are not interested in birth control should not be concerned about someone else's business. Certainly the distribution of knowledge to persons seeking it cannot be construed--no, misconstrued--to be an imposition upon their will. B. DAVIS Indianapolis

Sir: If "control" means regulation, are we not already imposing birth control in the underdeveloped countries by contributing to the increase of births through our aid? GERTRUDE T. MILLER Olympia, Wash.

Sir: Do not Protestant bishops attack gambling and alcohol because of religious beliefs without people making it an election issue? JOHN CHADWICK Yonkers, N.Y.

Success

Sir: Except for such stuffy lapses as when TIME speaks of The Tenth Man as "a play that succeeds as theater but fails as anything deeper," TIME succeeds as a newsmagazine (but fails as anything deeper). I have neither seen nor read The Tenth Man, but what the hell is wrong with succeeding as theater? DAVID OXLEIGH THOMPSON Los Angeles

P: Nothing--see LISTINGS.--ED.

Church & State

Sir: In a Dec. 7 article, the Rev. Neil G. McCluskey argues for Government aid to parochial schools in providing for bus transportation, textbooks and health services. He contends that these services can be extended without violating church-state separation. But if the U.S. Government started to buy textbooks, provide transportation and maintain health services, then the trend would be to throw more and more parochial-school expenses on the Government. Thus it would provide a way for state-supported religious institutions, hence a fusion of church and state. MAX G. PHILLIPS Berrien Springs, Mich.

Sir: It is morally right and proper for a state to assist children in getting an education. It is morally wrong and improper for a state to insist that in getting that aid the children must submit to an unreligious education. The solution will be to extend the aid to the parents directly, so that they may place their children in such schools as they deem proper. Free choice in education is the essence of the G.I. plan; the Government gives the assistance, but does not require the recipient to attend a Government school. Why should state educational assistance differ? ANTHONY W. DALY Alton, Ill.

Food for Thoughts

Sir: I wonder if Mr. Charles Mortimer [Dec. 7] and his "factory maids" have given any thought to how mankind should eventually be reincarnated: canned, frozen, made from ready-mix or just plain "cold and serve"? G. E. HASSE

Montreal

Sir:

After reading what Mrs. Holstein "cooked" for her 14 guests, I think a woman would have to go out to work to pay her food bill! If more women would try making pea soup with a ham bone instead of buying it in can, there wouldn't be so much griping about not being able to make ends meet. MRS. FRANTZ Levittown, Pa.

Sir: A "culinary cubist" is certain, eventually, to come up with a tasty meal-in-one capsule. Then Mrs. Holstein can work overtime and still rush home to feed 14 admiring guests. If they were impressed with the factory-assembled meal, they will be ecstatic over capusules. EVELYN B. SPANG Ann Arbor, Mich.

Sir: In my work as a teacher of ceramics to students in the middle and older age brackets, I am in contact with what is happening to people as a result of our increasingly "easy life." People who relinquish the common home chores unknowingly also give up "status"--and the satisfaction of each one having done something himself. So, in one sense, all of the industrial advancements only make my work more necessary--building confidence in the latent abilities of each of my students. Now my students make the very soup bowl (out of clay, glazed and fired) into which they will pour heated frozen soup. And thus the cycle is still completed. HAL RIEGGER Clearwater, Fla.

Sir: Hurrah for Charles Mortimer! To think that he is working for the female sex is very gratifying. QUEENIE LEWIS Miami

Teacher's Rebellion

Sir: As another English teacher who was ousted from his position because he took matters into his own hands (I belted a couple of students who didn't know the difference between teacher and student because the almighty administration didn't trouble to orient them on this nice point), I shout hurrah! hurrah! migawd, hurrah! for James Worley [Dec. 7]. Probably Worley would disagree with me on the subject of physical restraint in the schools, but I want him to know that I agree with him 100% on the subject of teachers' paper work, especially in the euphemistically entitled lesson plans. HAROLD A. DE PUY ex-Pearl River High School Spring Valley, N.Y.

Better Than Leaf Raking

Sir: In TIME, Nov. 23, you state: "In U.S. hospitals, occupational therapy is usually make-work and little better than leaf raking." Correction, please. Make-work may be used in U.S. hospitals when objective is not the product, or service performed, but the effect the activity itself has on the patient's disability, e.g., woodworking may be indicated because the bicycle saw used exercises the leg muscles in a special way; or painting because the canvas serves as a medium for the mental patient to express feelings he can't put into words. On the other hand, a patient may be given contract work (at union rates) under the supervision of an occupational therapist. The real-work type of O.T. is practiced here as well as in the Soviet Union, contrary to TIME'S implication. HELEN S. WILLARD, O.T.R. President American Occupational Therapy Association Philadelphia, Pa.

Rescue at Sea

Sir: In reference to your Dec. 7 article on the rescue of William Buie, fireman third class, after falling overboard from his ship, U.S.S. Arnold J. Isbell, by the U.S.S. Frank Knox: I feel strongly that more credit should be given to the sailor directly responsible by hearing William Buie's yelling plea. You should have printed his picture and given his name. This boy deserves plaudits for being aware of his surroundings and using his ears not merely for hearing but for listening. L.R. Seyfried St. Louis

P: For Seaman Carl Fowler, the bluejacket on watch on the destroyer U.S.S. Frank Knox, who heard Buie's yell, see cut.--ED.

New-Time Religion

Sir: Sir Julian Huxley's "New-Time Religion" [Dec. 7] will have to wait for our grandchildren. As existing religions gained their momentum in an age of ignorance, they still flourish in an age of misinformation. We live in our own little worlds of delusion, content with our processes of reasoning, which only consist of finding arguments for believing our own notions of truth. Huxley's New-Time Religion offers no heavenly crown, or elated promises of a glorious hereafter. His is but a religion of the real world, a religion where the individual would be free from the spiritual bondage of ignorance, fear and anxiety. Such a religion excluding the mythical world of the hereafter will gain few converts. PAUL G. HUGHES Lowell, Mass.

Sir: After reading TIME'S account of the sophomoric views of Sir Julian Huxley, one almost despairs of hoping that he and his better known brother Aldous will ever grow up to the size of their intellects. HERBERT O. WILLIAMS Arlington, Va.

Sir: The ideas expressed by Sir Julian Huxley are the very thoughts which give my "creedless" church (Unitarian) a creed. JULIA S. WELTI Los Alamos, N. Mex.

Sir: Huxley joins Voltaire, Marx and Lenin in dismissing God from his universe. This too shall pass away. THEODORE CARCICH Lincoln, Neb.

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