The Press & the President
Sir:
You are only proving that Democrats are right in tabbing the press Republican when you criticize the press for speaking favorably of the incoming Administration. When newspapers and magazines try to unite the country under its leaders, why counteract this attempt by turning it into a post-election political maneuver?
PAUL PILLAR Livonia, Mich.
Sir:
You quote Columnist Alsop: "After years of supineness, therefore, the American Government will now have to spring into sudden, vigorous, often risky action . . ." Brinkmanship, maybe?
ROGER M. WHITMAN Napa, Calif.
Sir:
So now Walter Lippmann has changed his attitude and thinks we should move slowly to the New Frontier as Mr. Kennedy needs time to get organized, etc. Is not this the "on-the-job training" that we were warned of during the campaign?
J. R. BROWN Mar Vista, Calif.
Sir:
I sincerely hope President Kennedy will stand on his Inaugural speech rather than on the Democratic platform.
W. M. WYATT NOLTING Miami
Sir:
I am in the fourth grade. I have been very interested in the elections of my Commonwealth of Massachusetts and of our country. I want you to know that you made a mistake.
Governor Furcolo did not want to become Governor. He wanted to become a Senator. So how could he lose something he didn't run for? He lost in the primaries for Senator. I don't remember who he ran against.* I only know that Salty won the election, and he's no Democrat. I hope that you don't mind my correcting you, but someone is always correcting me.
ARTEMIS STEPHANOU SCALLERIS Arlington, Mass.
First Lady
Sir:
It was surprising, to say the least, to find an inaccuracy in a TIME article.
I am referring to the remark made in your article on my niece, Jacqueline Kennedy: "But other Bouviers were not so enthusiastic" (i.e., about Jackie's engagement to John F. Kennedy). The statement is wholly untrue.
If I may presume to be the spokesman for the "disunited" (another untruth) Bouvier clan, let me say that all of us were proud and delighted about Jackie's engagement at the time, and that we are united in wishing her and her husband splendid years of service to our country.
MAUDE BOUVIER DAVIS New York City
Sir:
That baby carriage on the White House porch was a touch of Chaliapinesque genius.
I'm just a little tired of watching the royal darlings of European crowned heads grow up.
It will be much more fun looking in at the nursery at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
H. HARTMAN Mount Vernon, N.Y.
Sir:
Every time one of the Kennedy offspring has a leaky nose, will we be subjected to a detailed, blow-by-blow account of the catastrophe ?
G. A. SHERBERT Wausau, Wis.
Other Places, Other Slabs
Sir:
Obviously, the architects of the F.D.R. memorial were knowingly or unknowingly inspired by Stonehenge. Their concept is instantly thrilling. This would be the most thought-provoking memorial of our time.
BETTY GOLDSMITH Rochester, N.Y.
Sir:
We were astounded, when we saw the reproduction of the winning design for a memorial to Franklin D. Roosevelt, to note its amazing resemblance to the "Satellite City Towers" designed by our artist, Sculptor Mathias Goeritz, and erected in Mexico in 1957.
MARGARET SHARKEY Carstairs Gallery New York City
Sir:
The same concept was used for the new "Concentration Camp Memorial" in Yugoslavia, located just across the Austrian frontier.
RUTH IVOR New York City
P: See cuts.--ED.
Sir:
I say: "Put the statue back in style."
ROBERT DOLE Arlington, Va.
Saturation Points
Sir:
You can rest assured that the recent cover story on Physiologist Ancel ("Cholesterol") Keys was widely read. For the past week, my companions at the dinner table have discussed the cholesterol content of the current meal. Whether or not the salad oil is monounsaturated, my capacity for listening to such discussion has already become supersaturated.
GEORGE R. SNIDER JR. New Haven, Conn.
Sir:
The cholesterol values for the Japanese should read 160, 223 and 248 for the men in Japan, Hawaii and Los Angeles, respectively; not 120, 183 and 213, which are the values for beta lipoprotein cholesterol fraction only.
The U.S. Army K ration was jointly conceived with Colonel Rohland Isker, U.S.A. (ret.), supported by Colonel Paul Logan, U.S.A. (ret.). Ex-G.I.s may give (dubious) credit as they will.
Finally, our diet you label as "ideal" we consider as "basic," to which some additions are allowed except for hard cases.
ANCEL KEYS University of Minnesota Minneapolis
Sir:
I've wondered who the guy was who invented (?) those truly horrible K rations. A solid year and a half on those things. Ugh!
MARTIN CONREY Salt Lake City
Sir:
You state, "That same year the University of California's Dr. Laurance Kinsell, timing oxidation rates of blood fats, stumbled onto the discovery that many vegetable fats cause blood cholesterol levels to drop radically, while animal fats cause them to rise. Here Keys and others, such as Dr. A. E. Ahrens of the Rockefeller Institute, took over to demonstrate the chemical difference between vegetable and animal fats--and even between different varieties of each."
Most of the latter half of the above statement is incorrect. Our laboratory was the first to report that the lipide-lowering effect [produced by vegetable fat] was directly related to the degree of unsaturation of a natural fat and also the first to report that synthetic fats containing linoleic acid and subsequently pure ethyl linoleate (linoleic acid is the major polyunsaturated fatty acid of vegetable oil) would lower plasma lipides to a profound degree in the absence of any of the other components of vegetable fats.
Dr. Ahrens of the Rockefeller Institute was the first to confirm our observations. But as recently as 1957, Dr. Keys was still maintaining vigorously in public and in private that this talk about differences between vegetable and animal fats was sheer nonsense, that is to say, fats were fats and all of them were bad. None of the foregoing is intended to detract from Dr. Keys's interesting contributions regarding dietary habits of the world population.
LAURANCE W. KINSELL, M.D. Oakland, Calif.
Sir:
You state that "nicotinic acid, to be effective [in controlling blood cholesterol], must be administered in massive doses. The result: flushing, itching, nausea, headaches, changes in the blood."
This is a misleading generalization because flushing and itching disappear, except in very few cases, after the first days of treatment, and transient nausea and headaches are encountered infrequently. Changes in the blood have, to my knowledge, not been reported. On the other hand, from your report one gains the impression that a restriction of fat intake will always lead to a significant lowering of blood cholesterol. This is not the case, and it is especially in refractory cases that nicotinic acid has proved its value. Nicotinic acid is not indicated for cooperative patients whose blood cholesterol responds to dietary restrictions.
RUDOLF ALTSCHUL, M.D. University of Saskatchewan Saskatoon, Canada
Sir:
We all have to go, Dr. Keys,
But the guy with the "heart" goes with
ease.
So why give up butter and cheese
And wait for some ghastly disease?
MRS. IRWIN DIAMOND San Anselmo, Calif.
How to Get Elected in Texas
Sir:
In your footnote regarding the special election in April to elect a successor to ex-Senator Lyndon Johnson, you state that William A. Blakely is "standing" for Johnson's seat. Heah in Texas we're still "running" for political office; in England they "stand" for office.
Since Senator Blakely will have at least a dozen candidates opposing him, he had better be "running," else he will be left "standing."
W. F. RILEY Ennis, Texas
Bread into Stone
Sir:
The back of me hand to C. H. Dodd [who heads the group working on a new translation of the Bible]. The "archaic phrases" are one of the features that make the Bible the jewel that it is. If the "moderns" want seduction, incest, etc., it's all there for them, only in poetic form. What modern novel cuts a prostitute in twelve pieces, one to be sent to each tribe of Israel?
B. J. WILLIAMS Evanston, Ill.
Sir:
Like the perpetrators of the Revised Standard Version of the King James Bible, this new group of Biblical scholars is doing irreparable harm to both religion and literature. The substitution of "that you and we together may share in a common life" for "that ye also may have fellowship with us" is obviously a plug for togetherness. Did the child ever breathe who would not have preferred Joseph's "coat of many colors," as in the King James Version, to the "long robe," which presumably flapped about his ankles, in the Revised Standard? If the purpose of the revisionists is to turn bread into stone, they should be congratulated on 100% success.
MARGARET LEE SOUTHARD Hingham, Mass.
Sir:
You speak of the complete obscurity of the King James Version to modern minds and then give a wonderful example of how it is going to be "improved." "Den of thieves" becomes "robbers' cave." Of course no modern understands the word thieves, and as for den--horrors, the word is virtually cryptic.
JAMES McD. CRAVEN Brooklyn
Master Flackmaker
Sir:
No performer could ask for better treatment than that which you gave me. It is regrettable therefore that I find it necessary to correct you on one point. Your article generously gives me credit for possessing two flacks. Being in the public eye, I am aware that I am fair game, and if I have two flacks the public should know about it. The fact is, however, that only one of the flacks your reporter noticed in my apartment is my own. The other was lent to me by Dr. Leon Page of Coolidge, Ariz. My own flack had unfortunately broken down and the good doctor was kind enough to allow me to use his until mine was repaired. Dr. Page's flack is a much better one than my own, having been made in Leipzig by Gustav Schmidt, an old master flackmaker. Leipzig, as you know, was for years the flack center of the world.
My own flack is a plastic-bottomed job with the four-inch base so common to American-made flacks. It has, of course, three speeds but no reverse, and if a mistake is made, there you are. I frankly was surprised to find that your man had noticed the flacks at all. In the past few months I have had very little need for flackery and had put the flacks in a closet along with my stults, which I haven't used for years. Incidentally, I do have four stults.
SHELLEY BERMAN New York City
* Thomas O'Connor, who won the primary but lost the election, and Edmund J. Buckley.
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