European Union

SIR:

I APPRECIATE DEEPLY YOUR VERY FRIENDLY ARTICLE ON EUROPE [Oct. 6]. I AM IMPRESSED BY THE THOROUGHNESS AND PRECISION OF WORK YOUR EDITORS HAVE DONE. THE ARTICLE GAVE ME SOME VALUABLE INFORMATION I DID NOT HAVE BEFORE. MY THANKS AND APPRECIATION TO THE TIME STAFF, NOT LEAST THE ARTIST. JEAN MONNET PARIS

Sir:

I enjoyed your article on Jean Monnet on a United Europe. I believe that the partnership of Europe and the U.S. would create not only a new force for peace but also the strongest force yet conceived.

ERNEST R. HEINZER San Francisco

Sir:

Your cover story on Jean Monnet and the European Common Market, where you took a very complex man and a complex economic situation and made them understandable and interesting reading, is the reason I am a TIME subscriber.

One small point: Jean Monnet did not originate the phrase "arsenal of democracy." Jean Monnet was alleged by Judge Samuel I. Rosenman, in his Working with Roosevelt, to have used this expression in late 1940 in a conversation with Justice Felix Frankfurter, and Frankfurter then urged Monnet not to use the phrase again in public so that Roosevelt could put the phrase to greater advantage in a speech.

However, in the New York Times of May 12, 1940 (about six months earlier), Jack Gould's article, "The Broadway Stage Has Its First War Play," quoted the late Robert Emmet Sherwood as saying that "this country is already, in effect, an arsenal for the democratic Allies." Sherwood, in his biography Roosevelt and Hopkins, treats this phrase gingerly.

CHARLES K. ROBINSON Newark

Preparation for Survival

Sir:

Your story on America's preparations for war [Sept. 29] was both timely and excellent. It reflected the vast awakening of the people and Government that has been so desperately missing for the past 50 years.

We have finally realized the fact that our security and very lives are challenged. This time we will not be caught napping.

NILES JACKSON '64 Colgate University Hamilton, N.Y.

Sir:

The rash of hole digging, which you gleefully report, looks like moderate response to your efforts at creating an American war spirit. This is the old "Beast of Berlin" routine all over again.

Conceivably, the American press could create a Frankenstein beyond the control of our responsible leaders. Alerting the public to the dangers of the Communist threat is one thing. Arousing the worst facets of American emotionalism is another. The difference is responsibility.

ARTHUR C. EHLERS Shirley, Ill.

Sir:

Race suicide, whether by H-bomb, fallout, or simple starvation in the months following successful survival of these, and destruction of the human cultural heritage are not justified by any issue now facing us, anywhere in the world.

We must refuse to walk into the H-crematoria you are cajoling us into, in the name of the dubious semantics of "freedom."

WILLIAM S. VERPLANCK Professor of Psychology University of Maryland College Park, Md.

Sir:

Your account of the bomb-shelter activities was stimulating. It's good to read of Americans preparing for Pearl Harbor before--and not after !

CHARLES ERICKSEN Rio de Janeiro

Sir:

Congratulations to you for giving a serious report on the value of fallout shelters. Why make people who build them feel like oddballs? We all can't be optimists!

JOHN B. WRIGHT

Hamilton, N. Y.

Cold Analysis

Sir:

Bravo to Senator Margaret Chase Smith for her searching analysis of the Administration's cold war policies [Sept. 29].

So far, the President has only shown that he and his advisers write excellent speeches that impress everyone except the Commies, because when the chips were down in Laos and Cuba, exactly nothing happened.

CARROLL WILLIS Wichita, Kans.

Sir:

Senator Smith has a point well taken. It is somewhat disturbing to one stationed only two tank hours from the East German border to learn that the U.S. would be hesitant to use its atomic weapons in war.

The NATO forces in Europe can contain, not without difficulty, an attacking army from East Germany but not the masses following from the east. Immediate atomic support would be our only chance for survival against a numerically superior enemy. The Russians' knowledge that any attack on the West would result in their immediate and certain destruction would cause a healthy pause for consideration.

JOHN E. CLARK JR. APO 171, New York City

Crossing the Elbe

Sir:

Re your article, "How Berlin Got Behind the Curtain" [Sept. 29]: as the commander of the regiment that established the first successful bridgehead across the Elbe River, I would like to make a few comments.

The bridgehead was established by the 329th Infantry on April 13 at Barby. The bridgehead made at Magdeburg by the 2nd Armored Division on April 12 was knocked back by German armor. The 329th bridgehead was severely counterattacked for three days but held firm, partly because we had rafted all our antitank guns across the Elbe.

After the Ninth Army had breached the Elbe defenses, there was no reason why they should not have continued to Berlin.

While we remained in our bridgehead, a German colonel showed up and asked us to evacuate 18,000 Allied prisoners from the camp at Altengrabow because he had nothing to feed them. We sent the 2nd Battalion 25 miles up the Zerbst-Berlin highway to Altengrabow and rescued them.

All this took place before the Russians entered Berlin on May 2. I think that had we advanced, Berlin would have been thrown open to us to avoid capture by the Russians.

E. B. CRABILL

Colonel, U.S.A. (ret.) Riviera Beach, Fla.

Sir:

Why Berlin got behind the Iron Curtain? Because, unfortunately, Bradley's answer to Eisenhower's question for an estimate of what it would cost to take Berlin was a case of mistaken intelligence.

On April 12, 1945, when the Ninth Army reached the Elbe at Magdeburg, most of Hitler's army commanders were ready for surrender to the West because the whole defense system had broken down. We know this from postwar interrogations of high German civilian and military officers. This shows the error of appraisal that an American march to Berlin would cost 100,000 casualties. Of course, neither Eisenhower nor Bradley can be blamed, because they had to rely on intelligence reports. The miscalculation of the fighting power of the Nazi units when Germany was already completely disintegrated was no less a myth than the fiction stories of the "Alpine Fortress."

ROBERT M. W. KEMPNER Former U.S. Deputy Chief of Counsel in Nuernberg Lansdowne, Pa.

Selfless Zeal

Sir:

Only a severe space limitation could permit TIME, in its sensitive coverage of the tragedy of Dag Hammarskjold's death [Sept. 29], to omit all mention of Dr. Heinrich Wieschhoff, who was killed at the same time.

Dr. Wieschhoff, the director of the Department of Political and Security Council Affairs at the U.N., was the Secretary-General's African expert.

Few white men in the world knew as much about Africa as Dr. Wieschhoff. He earned a Ph.D. in African anthropology at Frankfurt, taught at the university's African Institute. He taught anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. During World War II he served as consultant on African affairs in the OSS. He wrote a number of scholarly books on African cultures and colonial policies.

Like his gifted superior, Dr. Wieschhoff was utterly selfless in his zeal for the welfare of others--one way to describe a saint? NARDI REEDER CAMPION Bronxville, N.Y.

Rutgers' Gain

Sir:

Whatever or whomever Stanford may have captured from Yale, it did not and will not take on Yale's Center of Alcohol Studies [Sept. 22]. Stanford is, however, the site of the Cooperative Commission on Alcoholism, which is a project within the university's Institute for the Study of Human Problems.

LYLE M. NELSON Director, University Relations Stanford University Stanford, Calif.

> New home for Yale's Center of Alcohol Studies: Rutgers University, in New Jersey.--ED.

Bats & Bears

Sir:

We have read with interest and not a little trepidation the article titled "Beware of Bats" in the Science section [Sept. 29].

Dr. Constantine spent well over two years here at Carlsbad Caverns, studying the resident colony of Mexican Freetail Bats and the outbreak of rabies which began in 1955.

We have kept in contact with him and are aware of the seriousness of the problem.

To prevent any direct contact with the bat colony, the roosting area of the Caverns has always been closed to the public. The Bat Flight Program has been observed by over 1,000,000 visitors. Here again, protection of the visitors and of the, bats has been observed by restriction of the visitors to an area not normally in the flight path.

Studies within the Bat Cave have shown that there is enough natural circulation to prevent any of the so-called aerosol effect from contaminating the Caverns. It has also been observed that mice, ringtail cats and raccoons frequent the Bat Cave, but so far there have been no cases of rabies in any of the wildlife, other than the bats.

Studies of the situation will continue, with the safety of visitors as our primary concern.

O. W. CARLSON Superintendent U.S. Dept. of the Interior Carlsbad Caverns National Park Carlsbad, N.Mex.

Sir:

Curiosity overwhelms this subscriber. Please, what is the rectal temperature of one hibernating bear, as determined by the courageous Dr. Denny Constantine? ROBERT M. PALMER Honolulu

> 81.5DEGF. v. 100DEGF for an active bear. The research was carried out for the Arctic Health Research Center. Aim: to discover how man can better adapt to cold by studying how animals do it.--ED.

Review of Words

Sir:

I think your review of the Third New International Dictionary [Oct. 6] was the most sprightly and fascinating review of a reference book that I have ever read or can possibly imagine.

GEORGE J. HECHT Chairman of the Board Baker & Taylor Co. Hillside, NJ.

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