Satan & Survival

Sir:

A quick glance at TIME's Aug. 25 cover of Ulbricht, and I thought the story was on Satan. A brilliant drawing of the goateed German gnome! I guess my initial impression wasn't far from the truth.

DAN HARRISON

Hartsdale, N.Y.

Sir:

Is it only the rights of the victors that the Western powers have to defend in Berlin ? No! They stand for the hope of millions in East Europe and for the belief in the ability of democracy to survive.

DIETRICH CASPARI

Berlin

Sir:

It ill becomes the Germans to wail about an impending "second Munich" now. I don't recall their protesting the first one.

SIMON RUBIN Brooklyn

Sir:

We are confronted every day now--especially in America--with all kinds of horror tales in the press about what is going on in Berlin. And the Germans are trying to convince the world that the West has to help. If the Germans had not started World War II, and many others too, there would not have been a Berlin question today.

Only because so many other countries and peoples of the West must survive, we are taking action. But I am sure that if this were not the case, millions and millions of Americans, and especially Europeans, would happily leave the Germans to their own devices.

THEO C. BERNSEN New York City

Sir:

It simply makes me sick to hear always about how these poor boys have to risk their lives again for others; "this time it is only the Germans they are fighting for." Why not give up Berlin? Why should anyone fight for it? Why do we not give all German to Khrushchev as a birthday present? That would make it easier for all parties, but it might also move the front line a little closer to those cute little blue-eyed babies across the Channel and across the ocean.

What reason should the Germans have for keeping the front away from this blue-blooded, degenerated British loftiness and from all those well-fed, well-bred, bridge-loving ladies? After all, we Germans have certainly been taught that fighting for one's own country is only heroic as long as you are on the winning side.

BRIGITTE E. KLUMPP Pforzheim, West Germany

Sir:

As a citizen of West Germany, one gets more and more the impression that since John Foster Dulles died, nobody among the Western Allies is really able to resist the Russian threat.

FRITZ DOeTTINGER Calw, West Germany

Backed by Bars

Sir:

Your TIME cover picture [Aug. 18] of C. Douglas Dillon has stirred quite an interest among us. What aroused our curiosity are the gold bars stacked like bricks on the background of your cover. We just could not understand what the numbers stamped on the bars represent.

JOSE B. CAPARAS

Malolos, Bulacan, Philippines

P: They are melt numbers. From one melting pot of gold, each bar (usually 20) receives the same number.--ED.

Sir:

Douglas Dillon is a great American, he is the ideal candidate for the Republican Party to endorse as President in 1964.

GEORGE SMIRK Manchester, Mass.

Tennis, Anyone?

Sir:

It is regrettable that TIME didn't verify the rumor it published [Aug. 25] regarding me coaching the charming Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy. I have never had the pleasure of meeting or coaching Mrs. Kennedy.

MRS. JEAN HOXIE Detroit

P: TIME was misled by friends of Tennis Coach Hoxie.--ED.

Not the Wali

Sir:

A People item [Aug. 11] refers to "Claire Ruth, widow of baseball's Sultan of Swat."

Being a citizen of Swat, the term Sultan of Swat has greatly aroused my interest. There is no such title as Sultan of Swat in the state. Our ruler is called the Wali of Swat. I hope you would let me know the idea behind the term which you have used.

MAHMOOD KHAN Saidu Sharif, Swat, West Pakistan

P: His fans believed that there was no one who could swat a baseball like Babe Ruth, the Home Run King. He was also nicknamed Caliph of Clout.--ED.

Jesuits & Indians

Sir:

Regarding the article on the "Vanishing Indian" [Aug. 18], I think you hardly bring any distinction to your magazine for the shoddy historical reporting on the Jesuits as exploiting the Indians so that their land could be more easily confiscated. The Jesuits' "reductions," were among the most civilizing and beneficial works ever undertaken for savages since the world began.

THE REV. JAMES SUNDERLAND, S.J. Chaplain, Kapaun Memorial School

Wichita, Kans.

Sir:

Thank you for bringing attention to another example of so-called civilized man's atrocities toward those whose mode of life is different. First come the missionaries with their insipid philosophy and hypocritical brand of Christianity, soon followed by the commercial interests. The Indian is soon confused with mythology and superstition, sick with TB, smallpox and mumps until he becomes a virtual slave on his own land. In exchange, he gets a little education, which consists primarily of learning to be humble and obedient.

FRANK BROWN San Francisco

Sir:

Throughout their four centuries of service to mankind the world over, the Jesuits have been falsely and repeatedly accused of divers devious dodges. But in reporting on the plight of Brazilian Indians, TIME has managed to come up with a new one.

Here is a pertinent excerpt from "The Jesuits in History," by Martin P. Harney, S.J., widely acclaimed by reviewers and critics as an accurate and objective study of that order.

"The Jesuit missionaries spared no effort to protect the unfortunate aborigines; they pleaded with the masters, denounced their cruelties and refused the obdurate absolution.

"The difficulties of the Brazilian mission, which were increased by the avarice and cruel harshness of the Portuguese traders, became so great that some of the Jesuits despaired of any successful outcome. Others, more hopeful, gathered the natives into villages remote from the white settlements, and there strove to teach the savages the Faith and the usages of civilization."

JOHN J. FINLAY

New York City

Sir:

Your TIME article branded the Jesuit missionaries in Brazil as oppressors and exploiters. I checked the matter, and find that even such critics of the church as Voltaire felt that under the Jesuits, these Indians had reached the highest peak of civilization. Educated and devoted Jesuits came from Europe to teach mechanical arts, agriculture and elements of learning to these unfortunate Indians. After the Jesuits were removed from this area, the Indians soon fell back into almost primitive conditions.

RUTH PETERMAN

St. Louis

Stay Near Home

Sir"

For the sake of Charles Davis, and others like him, I hope God is not a reader of TIME.

MIKE BURGOON Altadena, Calif.

Sir:

I was planning to get my parents to build a bomb shelter with a removable top that could double as a swimming pool. But after reading about the Davis family [Aug. 18], I decided that it would be much better to die from the bomb's fallout than live in a world ridden with people that would gun down their neighbors.

JOHN POLTRACK

Fairfield, Conn.

Sir:

Is Premier Khrushchev going to send Defender Davis' family an engraved invitation to run to their shelter? There won't be many trips or vacations in that family, will there? Or they may be caught in some very unfriendly town by people just as unchristian as they are, and then what good will their guns and tear gas do them? I doubt the warning will come when we are all within our homes, but more likely when we are at business, school or just traveling along a highway.

MRS. ALAN TYSON

Tiffin, Ohio

Sir:

We built a fallout shelter last year that is large enough to accommodate four people. We have tried to interest our friends and neighbors in building a shelter of their own.

For the most part we have met with amused smirks or polite disinterest. Since we have spent our time and money to prepare for something we sincerely hope will never come, we would not hesitate to defend ourselves with guns if necessary against these same people who would be threatening our lives because of their ignorance.

MARILYN DUFF

Fullerton, Calif.

Stay Away

Sir:

As a taxpayer, I can conceive of no better way to spend my money than to send Chester" Bowles and Soapy Williams to Africa. What I can't stomach is bringing them back.

D. D. WILCOX

Los Altos, Calif.

Way of Life?

Sir:

I think your article on Buchman [Aug. 18] is disgusting. Buchman has done far more good for humanity than your lousy magazine ever will.

JOHN G. THEAKER

Port Harcourt, Nigeria

Sir:

A sadly puny obituary on a great man! Is this TIME's real stature? Frank Buchman offers us an ideology powerful enough to answer the materialism of East and West. Why don't we acknowledge that fact?

A. B. CAHUSAC Entebbe, Uganda

Sir:

Dr. Frank Buchman was one of the greatest of American statesmen, and it offends me greatly to have an American magazine give such a distorted account of his life.

MARY TOWNSEND

St. Louis

Sir:

As a veteran of Mackinac Island interpersonal relationships, I admonish you ever so politely as to your oversight in categorizing your comments on the late Dr. Buchman under RELIGION.

Any islander knows that Moral Re-Armament isn't a religion. It's a "way of life."

Why not classify M.R.A. under MODERN LIVING ?

PAUL BACHMANN

Detroit

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