Man of the Year Sir:

Your selection of John Kennedy as Man of the Year is an insult to both the intelligence and integrity of your readers. Although articulate, he is a man of inaction; although forceful in appearance, he is inadequate in performance.

RALPH R. ANDERSON Secretary Young Americans for Freedom Englewood, N.J.

Sir:

TIME has indeed amassed an impressive list of failures for Mr. Kennedy. His chief asset seems to be that he is willing to learn from his mistakes. I hope we survive this year's "learning process."

CLAUDE S. NICHOLS Colorado Springs, Colo.

Sir:

Pietro Annigoni's portrait of John F. Kennedy projected a magnificent image of an individual burdened with the world's most critical responsibilities. But it can hardly be termed a comely honorarium for a personality awarded the title of Man of the Year.

OLLIE H. FRAZIER Fort Belvoir, Va.

Sir:

Artist Annigoni painted Mr. Kennedy with a cauliflower left ear, asymmetric pupils, ptosis of the right upper eyelid, an eversion of the left lower eyelid, a hint of edema in his left cheek. The President displayed none of these findings when I had the honor of meeting him recently.

J. B. BOUNDS, M.D. Hospital Director VA Roanoke Hospital Salem, Va.

Sir:

Your cover would make Charles Addams happy, Dorian Gray jealous, and Herblock anxious.

CORNELIA CLAY New Orleans

Sir:

A jaundiced Dracula in ragpicker's clothing--in a background of bile!

H. S. DALTON Key West, Fla.

Sir:

Man of the Year he is! But Artist Annigoni's conception of Mr. Kennedy is not in Sine with the image preferred by "the public.""For shame!

MARGARET E. SMITH Amherst, Mass.

Sir:

Kudos for TIME ! Kennedy as Man of the Year and TIME as Realist of the Year.

I was especially impressed with Annigoni's masterful portrait.

DAVID M. LITTIG Madison, Wis.

Sir:

The more I studied it, the more I realized there was some real quality work involved. Maybe that's the way good paintings are.

GENE T. DAVIS Coral Gables, Fla.

Sir:

Kennedy portrait--a masterpiece.

DAVID CHURCHILL Hingham, Mass.

Sir:

I would say that Maestro Annigoni paints as he lives, chaotically and simply. Certainly, the portrait is not characteristic of our President. And what injustice did he inflict upon the royal family?

FRAMPTON HARPER

York, S.C.

P:Annigoni's portraits of the royal family stirred considerable controversy in England. For a detail of his Prince Philip, see cut.--ED.

Sir:

It took guts to choose President Kennedy as your Man of the Year. Like several others in the past, the President needs the prayers and best wishes of all of us.

B. MATTHEW BLOOMFIELD Houston

Great Guy?

Sir:

I have just put down your story on Jackie Gleason [Dec. 29] with feelings of supreme disgust.

If you took a national poll on this man, I suppose it might turn out to be as close as the last national election, with the scales tipping slightly in favor of those who suppose he is a "great guy" (as you are evidently trying to prove) rather than those like myself, who consider him merely a big fat slob who happens to be funny.

JAMES McD. CRAVEN

Brooklyn

Sir:

Your informative article on Jackie Gleason proved that a person who is boisterous and egotistic outside can really be warm and humane inside.

DAN DANIELS Des Plaines, Ill.

Sir:

Something is radically wrong with a society in which a fellow like Jackie Gleason is paid $100,000 a year not to work.

W. W. WILLIAMSON Hickory, N.C.

Sir:

I guess Jackie Gleason realized you can't put a round peg in a square home!

P. A. SPINGELD Torrance, Calif.

Democracy of Worth

Sir:

Your lead article under Education [Dec. 29] was a revelation to me. Just when it seemed we might have to trust the national salvation to either of the two political extremes, you published that article on the moral curriculum and revealed thereby what I consider to be the only effective way not only to defeat Communism but to win the world.

Truly, our national salvation lies in Dr. Phenix's "democracy of worth," for it is the political and social ideal of the Judeo-Christian faith.

OWEN CLAYTON Fort Worth

Sir:

Phenix of Columbia--a onetime Quaker turned Presbyterian, an Army chaplain turned meteorologist, a physicist turned reverend, appears equally confused about the technique inherent in leading children to avoid "a gnawing sense of meaninglessness" in their adult lives.

Mr. Phenix has denounced the one great fundamental of education as the snake that has led us all to doom. Somehow he fails to see that self-realization, far from being morally shallow and a goal that produces "a democracy of desire," is the one most noble and difficult task of our lives. To Phenix, self-fulfillment is equated with selfish ambition, acquisition and success. It is obvious that he has distorted the meaning of fulfillment.

We cannot turn "to a life of loving and grateful dedication" until we have become free and courageous enough to fight toward bringing what beauty we have within us to tangible life.

ROBERT E. EPSTEIN Rye, N.Y.

Sir:

Professor P. H. Phenix has correctly observed that again, amid unparalleled success, man has failed to equal the ideal. However, his ideas are somewhat less than "profound," more they are the "re-found" ideas of Plato's Republic. Like Plato, Professor Phenix slips into the habit of assuming that the lessons of truth learned by philosopher, professor, preacher, kings through protracted thought and laborious revelation can be taught to the average man. Is the "supreme worth" to be patiently taught and docilely learned, or is it rather to be discovered amongst wickedness, desire and imperfection, a kernel of redeeming grace?

H. BEN HANDER Cambridge, Mass.

Favorable Winds

Sir:

In TIME'S review of African Genesis [Dec. 15] your critic, in support of his own conclusions, makes a false statement concerning the conclusions of science. He refers to this "curious book, African Genesis ['a personal investigation into the animal origins and nature of man'], which has been widely discussed in intellectual circles and stirred a minor storm of irritation among scientists who are familiar with the subject matter."

The implication is plain: that the book, which may fascinate the uninformed layman, has been dismissed by science. The statement is untrue, unwarranted and unworthy of TIME. The book is frankly controversial in its nature, frankly attacks the premises of classical anthropology, and neither seeks nor expects wholesale acceptance. But to imply that it lacks scientific backing is a fraud. May I quote?

Harvard's Kirtley F. Mather, dean of American geologists: "What Ardrey writes concerning the nature of man and the origins of human nature should be carefully pondered by every person who is concerned in any degree, great or small, about man's future as an inhabitant of the earth." The British Museum's senior scientist, Kenneth P. Oakley, the world's highest authority on African anthropology: "African Genesis deserves the most serious attention on the part of scientists as well as laymen."

And the Smithsonian's biologist, Charles O. Handley, authority on African mammals, writing in the Washington Post: "Ardrey has approached his subject with rare insight. He has not suffered the restrictions or prejudices of any particular discipline. He has marshaled the facts with the precision of a scientist, has viewed them with the impartiality of a judge and has presented them with an arresting and intelligible style."

ROBERT ARDREY Rome

P:These are the more favorable winds of the storm.--ED.

Automatic Sinner Converters?

Sir:

Your story on automation and unemployment [Dec. 29] unfairly casts the electronic computer as the principal villain. Only a small percentage of computers are involved in the automation of production--the major cause of unemployment. The use of computers in the office, to perform scientific calculations, to keep records and to analyze trends, has resulted in the creation of jobs. Most office employees whose work has been taken over by computers have been transferred to better jobs within the same company.

DON MOORE Programmer Western Data Processing Center University of California Los Angeles

Sir:

Why must newswriters always say "computers can . . ." and "computers cannot . . ."? All they can really do is add (albeit in some rather ingenious ways), and they must be told exactly every step to do by a human being.

Speaking of a computer's ability gives people the impression of a superrobot that takes away jobs, when in truth many people are needed to program, maintain, build and administer computers.

MELVYN D. MAGREE Cleveland

Sir:

That's for me, automation! Please order lor this parish the following automatic machines: One sermon writer and preacher, one acolyte trainer, one paperwork machine with built-in duplicator, one parish caller, one sinner converter, one confession hearer and consultant. Both my curate and I are fed up with being human beings in a 70-hour week.

(THE REV.) ALBERT OLSON Rector All Souls Parish (Episcopal) Berkeley, Calif.

The King's Yard

Sir:

Now that Great Britain is on the verge of doing something about its impossible currency system [Dec. 29], perhaps the U.S. will do something about its impossible system of weights and measures.

(THE REV.) JAMES E. ALEXANDER The Gleasondale Methodist Church Gleasondale, Mass.

Sir:

While you acidly insinuate that the British are clods for their delay in decimalizing their coinage, you fail to mention that coinage is the only thing America has decimalized. It seems rather ignorant and inconsistent for a country that brags decimalized coinage since 1792 to retain in 1962 hopelessly antiquated systems of linear, dry and liquid measurement.

The yard that we all use was originally the distance from the tip of Henry I's nose to the tip of his hand. This distance, of course, varied from king to king.

NORM JONES St. James, Man., Canada

America Firster

Sir:

TIME [Dec. 15] referred to me as an America Firster, as if that diatribe covered a multitude of sins. It so happens that I never was a member of the once numerous and powerful America First Organization. However, I am proud to be called an America Firster today.

We are living in critical times, and there is more need than ever for those who put their country first.

HAMILTON FISH New York City

Message from Outer Space

Sir:

Von Hoerner's suggestion [Dec. 29] that we be listening for radioed advice from older civilizations out in space in order to avoid self-annihilation is intriguing.

My advice to Von Hoerner is to have him set aside his red-hot mathematical pencil. His longed for advice has arrived. In fact, it came a little over 1,900 years ago--loud and clear. Illiterate shepherds on Judean hills understood. A physician by the name of Luke decoded the message.

No doubt somewhere in Von Hoerner's library he will find a dust-covered copy of this message from outer space. The advice and directions for preventing human self-destruction are there in black and white. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear (Matthew 11:15).

MARTIN G. SCHROEDER Pastor Messiah Lutheran Church Grand Island, Neb.

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