Volcano on the Summit
Sir:
Let all Americans stand 100% behind our President, and let us be ready for the next summit conference without fear, but with peace in our hearts.
ROBERT STANTON
San Francisco
SIR:
PRESIDENT EISENHOWER DID NOT MUFF A THING. HIS GREATEST TRIUMPH AT THE SUMMIT WAS THAT HE TOLD THE TRUTH ABOUT THE SPY PLANE. BECAUSE HE DID, EVERY WORD HE SAYS CAN BE BELIEVED BY US, BY OUR ALLIES AND BY THE WHOLE FREE WORLD.
ARCHIBALD I. MCCOLL KALAMAZOO, MICH.
Sir:
A proud moment of belonging to truth, a feeling of recapturing some lost courage.
JAMES M. O'CONNOR
South Pasadena, Calif.
Sir:
It must have taken all degrees of decere-bration to have produced the froth that leveled the summit. I weep for the people of Russia, who must trust to such leadership --and for us who must find leaders who can contend with it.
CONRAD ROSENBERG Philadelphia
Sir:
I told you we shoulda' let 'em see Disneyland !
NORMAN B. KELLOW
Alloway, N.J.
Debate on the U-2
Sir:
I am amazed and shocked that the Eisenhower Administration should condone the flight of an espionage plane over the Soviet Union [TIME, May 161. This is clearly in violation of international law and is justified by the Administration solely in terms of expediency.
As a former Army officer, I appreciate the value of good military intelligence, but I do not believe that the end justifies the means; this has been a slogan of the Communists with which we have heretofore heartily disagreed.
MITCHELL DREESE North Arlington, Va.
Sir:
Why all the threats and simulated indignation on the part of Moscow because an American flyer was "shot down" over Russian territory? Russia has been carrying on an organized spy system in this country for a decade or more. Can it be that N. K. can give it out but can't take it? Or is the real basis for the uproar the discovery that they have been being spied on for several years and just found it out?
PAUL E. BLANCHARD
Grants Pass, Ore.
Sir:
I am sorry that we sent planes into Russia. I am ashamed that we lied and were caught lying about it. I am enraged that some of our leaders, probably in ignorance, beat vengeful war drums before the truth came out. But, most of all, I am proud that we had the guts and the greatness to let the truth out.
ARNOLD M. SWEIG
Plainville, Conn.
Sir:
The Central Intelligence Agency should be renamed Civilian Idiotic Antagonisms.
JACK C. BRACE Plainfield, N.J.
Sir:
If the dear hearts and gentle people would think back to Pearl Harbor, they might recall that the surprise blow was struck midst tea--and talks aimed at achieving a common ground of understanding. Such men as Powers and the agency they represent deserve our overwhelming gratitude for undertaking the perilous task of reducing the element of '"surprise." The idiots in this instance are the Pollyannas who, in blind faith, would close their minds to the possible parallel of tea and vodka.
DOROTHY D. DREIMAN
Fairborn, Ohio
Sir:
I nominate Francis Powers as the next Man of the Year for TIME--if there will be a "next year!"
MRS. DANIEL RESSETAR
McAdoo, Pa.
Sir:
I expect we can now anticipate the Republican presidential slogan as being: "Don't change spy planes in mid-jet stream !"
BURT PRELUTSKY Los Angeles
Sir:
Hurrah for the American U-2 Trans-Russia scheduled airline.
DAVID KARTER
Curaqao, N.A.
Aiding the Aged
Sir:
Re your May 9 story on medical aid for the aged: our nation is sick indeed, and no medical insurance can cure the paralysis of socialism. The aged do need medical care; but so do all new babies. In fact, there is none who escapes until death.
LEAFA THAMES TANDY
Dallas
Sir:
At last someone has topped the notorious Marie Antoinette, who, when told that the people of France had no bread, replied: "Let them eat cake." The topper is the Administration's proposal for a voluntary medical plan for aged persons of low income groups. In order to qualify for the proposed Medicare, an elderly person would have to scrape up $274, or a couple, $448. Do the backers of this plan know what it's like not to have $448? Or $48? Or 48-c-? Many old people do.
MRS. PETER YARISH Novato, Calif.
Clean Textbooks
Sir:
Concerning the joint efforts of those valiant champions of the "American way of life," the D.A.R., the American Legion and Governor Barnett, to "clean up our textbooks" [May 16]: if the great enlightened state of Mississippi considers its educators less capable of deciding what is and is not to be taught in the schools than a combination of hysterical old women, myopic "Don Quixotes," prejudiced supremacist pressure groups and their puppets, I pity the next generation of Mississippi's children--condemned to a blinding, stifling ignorance.
WILLIAM D. DRAKE JR. Ithaca, N.Y.
Sir:
Having lived in the South all my life, I view this legislation as that of typically bigoted and diehard Southerners endeavoring to postpone for a season that which they know is inevitable.
FRANCIS E. WALKER JR.
Durham, N.C.
Sir:
For many years I've heard the statement that Mississippi had the highest rate of illiteracy in the U.S., but I was skeptical of this. I no longer have any doubt.
EDGAR S. HUBBARD
Philadelphia
Menderes' Turkey
Sir:
Having the most unfortunate coincidence of sharing Turkey's little dictator's name, I feel shame and anger towards the mess that my country is in now. The U.S. is to blame in a way, having sponsored the sheer follies of a little dictator who thinks he is Ataturk, meanwhile retrogressing the country from all the social and economic gains of the last
E. MENDERES 30 years. Detroit
Question Answered
Sir:
In answer to Reader Ethel R. Mirick's question of May 16 [about whether it is bigotry to fear the Roman Catholic hierarchy as much as the Kremlin]: not bigotry, Mrs. Mirick, just woeful--or willful--ignorance.
DOLORES M. LAWLESS
Long Beach, Calif.
Even Without Ross
Sir:
While some of the sparkle of the Harold Ross days has gone, The New Yorker [May 16] is still the most civilized magazine published in this country.
MARY S. WILBERT
Irwin, Pa.
Sir:
It is true that there are no Benchleys or Parkers to be found now in its pages, that Charles Addams is an embarrassing relic, and that the fiction is frequently all-of-a-kind. But the basic source of strength remains. The New Yorker is selective, personal, heterogeneous, stylistically original.
DAVID JENNESS Cleveland
Korean Revolt
Sir:
We Korean students must greet you for your fair articles about our revolution. But I hope you understand that we only hate Rhee's government. Our Korean people respect Rhee as our George Washington.
YONG SUCK SHIN Inchon, Korea
Sir:
I was greatly thrilled to read your most accurate presentation of the Korean students' revolution. We have been receiving a democratic education, and we know how democracy functions in other countries.
CHIN Soo KIM Seoul National University Seoul, Korea
Independent School
Sir:
Your May 16 issue states that the United Fruit Co. is operating an agricultural school in Honduras. Although the institution you refer to (Escuela Agricola Panamericana) was established by the United Fruit Co. and has received endowment and continuing support from the company, it is now a completely independent institution.
WILLIAM PADDOCK Director
Escuela Agricola Panamericana Zamoranos, Honduras
The Frog Method Sir:
I was somewhat skeptical of Reader Hakim Khan's unscientific method of birth control [May 9]. However, after having caught a frog, spat in its face thrice, and having left it where I found it, I find that I am not pregnant.
JOHN C. WATSON JR.
Sudbury, Mass.
Glad Girl
Sir:
I do not know who reviewed Disney's Polly anna [May 9], but the poor dear must have an awfully acid stomach, else how could he belch so? He would certainly have been revolted by my daughter's prayer, "God bless Walt Disney, he loves little children so and makes such beautiful things for them." I understand these are the sentiments of children around the world. I for one wish to thank Mr. Disney.
WINIFRED SMELTZER Youngstown, Ohio
Shielding Youth
Sir:
In reference to your article on pornography v. the U.S. teen-ager [May 16], I as an adolescent am revolted by the way every status-seeking parent wishes to shield us from some Gargantuan force known as sex. To wipe sex out of our lives, they will have the Herculean task of i) destroying 7$% of the advertisements seen on TV, 2) razing every bookstore, newsstand and publishing house from coast to coast, 3) bankrupting the film industry, and 4) installing blinders on every red-blooded teenager.
D. M. WARDELL
Celina, Ohio
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