Man of the Year
Sir:
Unless memory fails me, TIME has never awarded its Man of the Year honor posthumously. Surely this year is the time to establish that precedent. Nobody anywhere on earth deserves this year the recognition more than the late Dag Hammarskjold.
WILLIAM B. LIPPHARD
Yonkers, N.Y.
Sir:
Your forthcoming selection has not been so easy in many a moon. I am confident that even the Russians are placing a safe bet it will be that great statesman and worker for peace in our time, Dag Hammarskjold.
L. W. VAN KEMPEN
Detroit
Sir:
This year, unfortunately, I feel that there is no doubt that a Russian must be named. Yuri Gagarin, the first man to circle the earth in outer space, must surely be named to hold this distinguished title.
I only wish it could have been an American who opened these many new horizons.
RICHARD LOWE
Canoga Park, Calif.
Sir:
The year 1961 will leave many footprints in the sands of time--many of them crisscrossing, all deeply etched. But I believe the perspective of time will underscore this year as the year of man's first venture into space, as the start of a new era of voyaging into the unknown.
Therefore I nominate as Men of the Year Gagarin and Shepard, Grissom and Titov.
STAN COOPER
New Plymouth, New Zealand
Sir:
If the Man of the Year is chosen on a basis of "one who has done more to alter the world for either good or evil," the man for '61 has got to be "Mr. K." or a composite of all those who fled East Germany. These two nominees have done more to alter the picture of the world than anyone else.
PHYLLIS QUAYLE
Madison, Ohio
Sir:
Discounting the biological disqualification, I propose the most obvious, best-equipped choice for "Man of the Year": the Mole.
RICHARD A. SWANSON
Pastor
St. Matthew's Lutheran Church
Itasca, III.
Sir:
I know it's a man's world, but why doesn't TIME give us a "Woman of the Year," along with its "Man"? Say on the back cover?
EVELYN SPENCER
Toledo
Sir:
Have I the great honor of being the first to nominate Dr. Mary I. Bunting for an award by TIME of the title "Person of the Year"?
SUE MOYER BOSSERMAN
Baldwin, Kans.
Promising Painter
Sir:
Thank you for the wonderful reproductions in your Nov. 24 issue, particularly for that glorious and luminous cover. I often wonder what some of today's modern artists (drip, slop and hoodwink schools) feel when they look at masterpieces such as these. Awe? Envy? Shame?
VICKI WOODWARD PATTERSON
West Newton, Mass.
Sir:
I look forward to seeing more of this artist's work on future covers of TIME, and venture to predict that he will carve out a significant niche for his name among the ranks of the art world.
MURRAY GEWIRTZ
Brooklyn
Sir:
I believe you left out one all-important ingredient in your article on art. Snobbery. I cite as a case in point, myself. I happen to own an original Salvador Dali for which I have been offered $12,400. I am positive that without the Dali signature I would not have been offered $12. I happen to dislike the painting intensely, but I keep it for one reason only. Snobbery. People who come over to my house are invariably impressed when they learn that the rather grotesque painting hanging over my couch is indeed an original Dali.
JOE BRODY
New York City
Sir:
Your tremendously interesting cover story of the Erickson sale reminds me of an amusing incident at a country auction. The auctioneer, apparently more accustomed to a stock of pots and pans, put up a large folio Currier and Ives lithograph after a [George Henry] Durrie painting and asked for a $25 bid. As the bids were raised, the auctioneer started to shake and tremble. When the item was finally knocked down for $2,400, a recess was called while the auctioneer staggered to a chair, where he was revived by a glass of cold water.
I trust that Auctioneer Marion and the Met's James Rorimer celebrated the sale and purchase of the $2,300,000 Rembrandt with something stronger.
WILLIAM FARWELL
Rutland, Vt.
Liberal Criticism
Sir:
American liberals delight in criticizing conservatives on the ground that conservatives recklessly charge everyone with whom they disagree as being a Communist. However, in this recent furious liberal assault on conservatism, the liberals have been doing exactly the same thing--except in reverse. Any American who admits being conservative or who dares to express opposition to a particular liberal policy is immediately publicly damned as being an ultra right-winger, a warmonger or a fascist. Thus the American liberals, including unfortunately President Kennedy [Nov. 24], have reverted to a campaign of irresponsible name-calling and mudslinging in the finest tradition of the late Senator McCarthy.
RUSSELL M. PELTON JR.
The University of Chicago Law School
Chicago
Fire & Heat
Sir:
TIME's rather lighthearted coverage of the fire in Los Angeles [Nov. 17] was but a series of quips about half-dressed movie stars, love letters and smoldering barbells. The true story was one of millions of people aghast for four days and nights at the devastation of an unbelievable holocaust. It was a story of trapped wildlife, of merciless winds, of the loss of thousands of acres of valuable watershed, of a city fearfully watching the yellow and orange rims of the mountains silhouetted against the night sky, wondering when it would end. And it is the story of black mountains and streets of broken chimneys standing where once were people's homes. It was the story of movie stars and their lost treasures, too, but somehow TIME missed the tragedy.
EDWINA M. LYNCH
Santa Monica, Calif.
Tracking Viruses
Sir:
Commendations to TIME for the fine article on viruses Nov. 17. Certainly the tissue culture method devised by Enders and his associates led to the modern progress in virology. If others are to be singled out for their contributions, I would nominate at least one more man--Dr. Thomas M. Rivers, formerly with the Rockefeller Institute and one of our great pioneer virologists. His leadership in the field has been recognized all over the world. As chairman of the advisory committee on virus research of the National Foundation-March of Dimes and later the Foundation's vice president for medical affairs, he helped institute and carry out a research grant policy that revolutionized virological investigation in the U.S. from 1938 up to now.
MORRIS FISHBEIN, M.D.
Former Editor, Journal of the American Medical Association
Chicago
Sir:
One gets tired of hearing about the "imminent breakthrough" in the war against the common-cold virus. This war has failed because of the fundamental delusion that a virus is the principal cause of colds, everyday experience notwithstanding. The fact is that a common cold is due to an overwhelming, generalized vasodilation of the body's capillaries, brought on by a combination of factors such as exposure, overeating, oversleeping, alcohol, viruses, dust, frustration. Thus the typical candidate for a common cold is a man who on Saturday night ate a big dinner, followed by several alcoholic drinks, then took a hot shower, overslept in the morning, and got into an argument with his wife about cleaning out a dusty closet.
WILLIAM H. KUPPER, M.D.
Hollywood
Converts to Judaism
Sir:
I was dismayed by your failure to cite the published source of your story on conversions to Judaism in your Nov. 24 issue. Jacobson's story was originally published in the October issue of "The Jewish Forum," America's 44-year-old monthly of Jewish news and opinion.
CHARLES RADDOCK
Editor
"The Jewish Forum"
New York City
Ivan & Johnny
Sir:
My sincerest gratitude for your handling of my book What Ivan Knows That Johnny Doesn't in the Education section of the Nov. 17 issue. I feel that TIME has performed a very valuable service in calling nationwide attention to serious problems in the quality of American education by the comments not only on my book but upon the book Tomorrow's Illiterates as well. Altogether the piece was in the very best TIME tradition.
ARTHUR S. TRACE JR.
John Carroll University
Cleveland
Sir:
We do have quality education in the U.S.!
Comparable to Ivan's anatomy, my third grader's last science exam dealt with mollusks, amphibia and reptiles. Recently she wrote and illustrated a five-part paper--the first part, "The Creation," Ivan will never have to do.
MRS. LAURA STEVENS
Tampa, Fla.
Sir:
Some educators may be fooled about the quality of the material in certain readers, but the children are not.
After hearing his older sister speak of her readers for a couple of years, our youngest thought the official title of the series was "Dumb Old Dick and Jane."
MRS. ROBERT H. WILSON
Lynchburg, Va.
Sir:
Have your readers heard about the first-grade teacher who banged up her car? Her first remarks were "Oh, oh, oh, damn, damn, damn."
(MRS.) GRACE M. SIECKMAN
Great Falls, Mont.
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