Trouble in the East

Sir: The Japanese have good reason for being uneasy over their connection with America, I fear. I think they know--or guess--that when the Hundred Years' War between the big powers boils up into shooting again, both sides will hang back as long as possible from the irrevocable insult: direct attack on each other's home soil.

So not by policy but more by instinct, the powers will confine their fighting to "neutral" areas as long as they can. I suspect the "neutrals" realize this and know that there may not be much they can do to prevent it. But they don't have to like it.

RICHARD R. MOORE Rochester, N.Y.

Sir: The rotten harvest from the decision to recall General MacArthur is now being reaped: a signal victory for Communism, because of our ineptitude in foreign affairs. GEORGE S. WOOD JR. Alexandria, Va.

Sir:

Would someone please tell me when the Japanese "students" have time to study? RUDOLPH HOROWITZ New York City

Sir:

The reception given Eisenhower in Manila indicated strongly that our "best" friends in Southeast Asia are the Filipinos.

MARGARET HINCK Brooklyn

The Time of Peril

Sir:

We should have read our Kipling prior to the Paris summit collapse and when the spirit of Camp David prevailed. In 1898 he published The Truce of the Bear, containing the line, ". . . the bear that walks like a man!" The poem tells of a clawed and blinded old hunter who says:

When he stands up like a tired man, tottering near and near; When he stands up as pleading, in wavering, man-brute guise, When he veils the hate and cunning of his little, swinish eyes; When he shows as seeking quarter, with paws like hands in prayer, That is the time of peril--the time of the Truce of the Bear!

C. FRANK STONE III Arlington, Va.

Sir:

Our frequent losses in the current world war are not to be blamed on Republicans or Democrats. They are due to the fact that success depends on national understanding of the struggle and determination to win, and as a people, we in 1960 are unwilling to believe there is a war on and therefore unable to take the measures necessary to win.

STANLEY G. LANGLAND Minneapolis

Sir:

You probably remember the picture in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow by Repine, titled The Cossack's Reply to the Sultan.

After reading Khrushchev's invectives against the President, it seems to me that the same semibarbarian manners are still the ones of the Russians three centuries later. Just change costumes and faces and you can give it the title, Khrushchev and His Commissars Composing His Speech for the Summit Conference.

R. M. GOULDNER Wichita, Kans.

The Best Man

Sir: Your June 6 account of Adlai Stevenson's remedies for the relief of tension with the U.S.S.R. is indeed timely. Mr. Stevenson's proposals would not only remove tension but also the U.S. from the world scene.

SAMUEL BIGELOW Concord, N.H.

Sir: It was only natural that Khrushchev's tirade against Eisenhower should evoke the hackneyed professions of nonpartisanship and the united front among top Democratic leaders. However, it is both ludicrous and alarming that the only intelligent response at higher levels--that of Adlai Stevenson--gives rise to charges of appeasement.

M. K. FERDERBER Palo Alto, Calif.

Sir: I predict that a Stevenson-Kennedy ticket would launch the Democrats into at least a 16 years' occupation of the White House.

S. K. KARIMI London

Sir: If the Democrats don't choose Johnson, I'll choose Richard Nixon. CLARENCE L. BROCK JR. Lubbock, Texas

Sir: Richard Nixon is the only one of the six candidates now in the running who has often carefully and fully discussed all problems of both domestic and foreign affairs.

GERTRUDE E. TRONSEN Aptos, Calif.

Sir: Nixon is the best man in the country. FRANK D. ST. HILAIRE

Huntington, N.Y.

Sir: If Nixon is the best the G.O.P. can offer the voters in 1960, it is inviting defeat.

R. J. HERZIG

Glendale, Calif.

Urbs v. Suburbs

Sir:

If TIME'S dull-eyed cover girl with the homemade upswept [June 20] is indeed symbolic of the suburban American Hausfrau, then I'm grateful that my time is equally divided between town and country.

CATHLEEN BURNS ELMER Boston

Sir: Excellent! Your cover artist James Chapin captured the dumb, hurt, bewildered, what's-happening-to-me look of the typical suburban wife.

(MRS.) MARY GREENE

Wappingers Falls, N.Y.

Sir:

I am sure that Artist Chapin could have come up with a more accurate symbolic conception of the suburban wife. The face is O.K., but that hairdo--never. Wife of Associate Editor Birnbaum would have made an excellent model.

ADELE HAURLAN Suburban Wife Bountiful, Utah

Sir:

Your staffmen missed a very precious opportunity to expose the financial mire, construction bilk and pathological conformity such as we've mortgaged ourselves into in South Jersey.

(MRS.) SYLVIA BUMILLER Blackwood, N.J.

Sir: Perhaps one of the most undesirable aspects of Suburbia from a sociological and ideological point of view is its racial homogeneity. Generally speaking, these are highly restricted all-white communities. How can the U.S. provide dynamic leadership in a constantly shrinking world populated by a great majority of nonwhite people when our future leaders have been reared on islands isolated from the main stream of social intercourse in their formative years?

JOSEPH F. MILLER Detroit

Sir: Your cover story read like a watered-down satire with tongue on rye, instead of tongue in cheek, until I reached the perceptive quote from School Psychologist Koss. The quotes that followed, especially the one from "Anti-Conformity Leaguer" Ginger Powers [whose league disbanded because it was becoming too organized], quieted my fear that even TIME had fallen into the easy rut of sameness that suburban living is apt to breed.

PHIL LINK Reidsville, N.C.

Sir:

You can have it--with its gossip (Who was that man who drove her home? It turned out to be the minister); the trick working man whose wife works while he spends his time trying to make out with the neighbor's wife; the "key" parties; the keeping up with the Joneses; carting out the trash to the curb; wells and septic tanks; gas mileage; the long days (6 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.) to cover commuting (from breakfast to dishes done after supper); and the person who feels snubbed because he was "left out" of a party.

Back to the city--if I can find anyone crazy enough to buy my suburban home. GLORIA McGRAw Chili, N.Y.

Sir: Shirley Vandenberg said that "the poor kids have no time to lie on their beds and daydream." This may be true, but most people I know (including me) think it is a waste of time. If you had to do that, you would be bored. I live in a suburban area and have an activity practically every day after school, such as orchestra, violin lessons, etc. I still have time for a Girl Scout troop (which does volunteer work), schoolwork and practicing. My mother goes to medical school and still takes my brother and me places. If we didn't want to do these things, it would be virtually impossible to make us. I have lived in suburban areas in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and New York. The attitude is the same.

MOLLY FRITZ Schenectady, N.Y.

Sir:

Taking one behind the scenes in "The Suburban Wife" presented a graphic description of the Birnbaum family that I thoroughly enjoyed.

It is my hope, and I can safely say the same views are held by thousands, that Mrs. Birnbaum continue her charity work in addition to her individual fields of endeavor, which should provide an inspiration and shining example for other suburbanites.

HENRY C. LAPIDUS North Wildwood, N.J.

Wearing the Flag

Sir: Being a loyal American citizen, I hope that Congressman Porter's bill will pass to stop desecration of the U.S. flag in Haiti, or any other place. I just noticed that Public Law 829 says: "The flag, when it is in such condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem for display, should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by burning." I would hardly call the costumes "a dignified way."

MRS. WALTER JOBSON SR. Louisville

Sir: Only those bereft of both a sense of humor and humanity would see something sinister in the grand symbolism of obsolete American flag material clothing the naked and lifting up their spirits by its bright colors. Can anyone suggest a nobler use for it? My patriotic pride remains intact.

A. HERBERT JUEDE Monticello, Fla.

Justice & the Law

Sir:

David Ben-Gurion's statement that "historic justice and the honor of the Jewish people" required that the trial of Adolf Eichmann be held in Israel is pure unadulterated chicanery and ludicrous nonsense. Ben-Gurion is holding to the Jewish tradition of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth."* Is killing Eichmann going to bring back the millions that he is responsible for murdering ?

GEORGE D. TILLMAN JR. Lowry A.F.B., Colo.

Sir: There seems to be doubt in some quarters that Israel may legally try Adolf Eichmann. In this connection I quote an old statement on the law of piracy: "Piracy has always been regarded as a crime against all humanity; therefore, a pirate, wherever his crimes were committed, and against whomever committed, wherever he is captured, and regardless of by whom he is captured, may be tried anywhere and punished anywhere." If this is true of one whose crime consists of the seizure and plunder of a single ship, surely it is true of one who murdered millions of his fellowmen.

AVRAM DAVIDSON New York City

Back to Normal

Sir: Thank you so very much for printing Mr. Kazin's criticism of the psychological rubbish invading Broadway, the movies and current literature. Once again I feel like a normal human being rather than an illiterate simply because I refuse to expose myself to this form of "dehumanism and degeneration." That article alone will result in a renewal of my subscription to TIME.

OLIVE S. ROBERTS Lancaster, a.

Post Mortem

Sir: I note that your June 13 issue is devoid of the Medicine section. This is the third time in the last four years that you have missed. How do you expect me to keep up with the latest in medicine?

DAVID E. SWANDA, M.D. La Habra, Calif.

* From the law the Lord handed down to Moses from Sinai (Exodus 21:22-25): "If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according to the woman's husband will lay upon him: and he shall pay as the judges determine. And if any mischief follow, then thou shall give life for life. Eye for eye. tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe."

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