Byrd Man

Sir:

I have just completed reading the Aug. 17 issue of TIME containing the cover story on Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia. I congratulate you on an excellent story on the character, dedication, and principles of a man whom the nation will always remember as a truly great American.

I have had occasions to visit with Senator Byrd in his Washington office and have attended his annual August picnics. I can attest to the fact that if there is one man who is responsible for keeping our country from going completely socialistic since the Roosevelt era, that man would be the gentleman from Virginia.

DONALD BALDWIN Alexandria, Va.

Sir:

All his political life Senator Harry Byrd has been guided by a few simple and unchanging maxims about business and government. Today he is an intellectual fossil. His retirement will be a blessing because he gives some small measure of dignity to ideas whose only relevance to the U.S.'s pressing domestic problems is to obstruct their solution.

RICHARD F. TOMASSON Department of Sociology University of Illinois Urbana,III.

Sir:

Regarding your article on the Honorable Senator Harry F. Byrd: Is the axiom that the laws ought to "be enforced by the white people of this country" one of the lessons this man of reminiscences is to teach to "that attractive young fellow in the White House"?

A teacher of such doctrine should be viewed with something less than absolute trust.

ANTHONY G. DIBARTOLOMEO Weirton, W. Va.

Sir:

Harry Byrd should be Man of the Year for protecting the American people from the Boy of the Year.

GERALD SIMMONS Cincinnati

Early J.F.K.

Sir:

A hearty thanks for your generous approval of the fine arts exhibit at our Seattle World's Fair [TIME, Aug. 10].

Your reporter seemed to have overlooked, however, the unexpected appearance of J.F.K. in the painting Salutat done by Thomas Eakins in 1889. The painting shows Kennedy, accompanied by Bobby and Ted, approaching the coalition of Democrats and Republicans who have given him so much trouble in the present session of Congress. He seems to be attempting some sort of truce.

ALAN B. WILKIE Tacoma, Wash.

>See cut.--ED.

Man on the Moon

Sir:

P:I thank TIME for an exceedingly interesting article on D. Brainerd Holmes, his team, and the progress of the United States in their efforts to reach the moon [Aug. 10]. Your article shows, in a concise and easy to understand way, the problems that must be solved before the big day arrives.

S. BRUUN-MEYER Johannesburg

Sir:

Your story on the fabulous moondoggle is possibly one of the most painful expositions of screeching insanity ever seen in print. At a time when our crushing load of taxation is stifling our industry, blocking our social progress and bringing joy to our enemies, an endless torrent of taxpayers' dollars is being recklessly poured into an open-end inverted rathole.

Those of us who pioneered aviation could always define the benefits we were trying to offer mankind, and we spent our own resources trying; the space promoters can offer no better excuse for their wild financial orgies than such vacuous blurbs as "space is the future of man," and it costs them nothing to laugh off a fizzle such as the recent $20 million Venus fiasco.

The future of man is here on earth. Artificial satellites, bound to us by earth's gravity, can be put to man's use, but let some other nation bankrupt itself playing eggheads' games in outer space.

FRANK T. COURTNEY La Jolla, Calif.

Sir:

At long last an engineer breaks through. Your write-up on Holmes will do more to boost the sagging engineering enrollment in our colleges than an equivalent amount of ink devoted to "career" booklets.

C. L. McCABE Head of the Department of Metallurgical Engineering Carnegie Institute of Technology Pittsburgh

Alliance Spends

Sir:

P:I am afraid that the statistics you published [TIME, Aug. 10] on the magnitude of the Alliance for Progress compared with previous U.S. aid efforts may have been somewhat misleading.

There are two relevant sets of figures in measuring aid. The first set is the money actually committed to various projects, i.e., an amount formally promised for the construction of a specific highway, school or any other project. The second set is disbursements, or money which is actually spent on such construction. Since it may take two, three or more years to build a road or a dam, the" amount of money disbursed often lags far behind commitments.

However, once the money is committed, the project goes ahead and completion can be counted on. For example, much of the money which you listed as having been spent in 1959 and 1960 was committed in those years and has not yet been spent. Thus, in comparing aid programs it is important to compare commitments with commitments or disbursements with disbursements, and not to mix the two.

Using this standard, it is true that an average of $500,700,000 per year was committed to Latin America in economic aid in 1959 and 1960. However, $1,517,300,000 has been committed in the period between the announcement of the Alliance for Progress on March 13, 1961 and June 30, 1962. This represents a rise of over 200% in the rate of assistance under the Alliance.

In addition, more than half of the money committed in 1959 and 1960 was of the so-called "hard loan" variety, repayable in dollars, at interest rates of between 4% and 6%, whereas less than a third of the money committed under the Alliance for Progress was of this variety. The balance was primarily longterm, low-interest loans, which are far better adapted to the construction of roads, schools, waterworks and other vital projects.

In fact, more of this type of development assistance has been given in the 15 1/2months of the Alliance for Progress than in the previous eight years combined. Although the absolute figures for disbursements in the periods we are discussing would, of course, be much lower, the relative magnitudes are roughly the same.

P:I would be the last person to state that the success of the Alliance for Progress can be measured merely in terms of dollars spent.

What is done with the money, the progress of social reform, the completion of economic planning, are all vital to the success of a program which seeks to create rapid economic progress within a framework of increasing social justice. In terms of sheer magnitude this has been an effort which has already far exceeded anything we have ever attempted in this hemisphere.

TEODORO Moscoso U.S. Coordinator Alliance for Progress Washington, D.C.

>Taking into account all commitments, disbursements and expenditures, TIME still agrees with Coordinator Moscoso's earlier statement that there is as yet no reason to celebrate the progress of the Alianza.--ED.

Timeless Shot Sir: P:In reading your August 17 issue, I came upon the article on shot glasses that hold less than an ounce. This has been going on for years, as you know. Back in 1851, Herman Melville really laid it on the line. In one of the early chapters of Moby Dick, Ishmael drops in at the Spouter-Inn for a shot and observes, "Abominable are the tumblers into which he pours . . . Though true cylinders without--within, the villaneous green goggling glasses deceitfully tapered downwards to a cheating bottom. Parallel meridians rudely pecked into the glass, surround these footpads' goblets. Fill to this mark, and your charge is but a penny; to this a penny more; and so on to the full glass--the Cape Horn measure, which you may gulp down for a shilling." L. CASKIN JR.

New York City Wrong Numbers Sir: In your Press Section of Aug. 17, you set USA--1's circulation at 7,000 instead of 70,000.

FRANK B. GIBNEY Publisher Show New York City >-The error was caught in most of the press run.--ED.

Guerrillas from the "Y" Sir: General Paul D. Adams' "Operation Swift Strike II" [TIME, Aug. 17] proved a bit too realistic to our group of hikers from the Y.M.C.A. Camp Pioneer situated near Hiawassee, Ga.

Our fearless leaders will never forget being captured on the top of Brasstown Bald mountain and mistakenly interrogated as Renloa guerrillas.

CLAIR Fox WHITE Atlanta

Glint of Manhood

Sir:

Your coverage of the Outward Bound School in Marble, Colo. [TIME, Aug. 3] was both accurate and interesting. My 18-year-old younger brother, sponsored by the Boys' Club of New York, has just returned from the first 26-day session at the outdoor school. He claims that after his experience, beefing up at boot camp would be a picnic; but he praises Outward Bound in the same breath.

It seems that between eating half-raw frogs (on solo survival treks) and sleeping on windswept slopes far above the timberline, he went a long way toward acquiring a glint of manhood in his eyes.

My only complaint about schools like Outward Bound is that there aren't enough of them to go around for building character and self-reliance.

MIKE BAYBAK New York City

Summers in Washington

Sir:

I found your article on summer work in Washington for potential New Frontier pioneers [TIME, Aug. 17] of great interest. But how did the interested collegians secure their prized positions? Did each of them apply to a particular department or agency independently, or was there some master plan of recruitment?

RICHARD S. SELTZER

International Affairs Association University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia >-The college undergraduates who get the interesting jobs in Washington are mostly from Eastern schools (e.g., Yale, Vassar, Princeton, Mount Holyoke) that have special "intern" programs devoted to placing students with good averages in summer Government work.

The Y.M.C.A. and Y.W.C.A. also run a program that has placed some 53 students from 42 different colleges this year.--ED.

San Diego Protests Sir: Your report on San Diego [TIME, Aug. 17] said that last year our aircraft industry took in a bare $215,000,000 on planes and missiles.

You were short by $651,200,000. The correct figure is $866,200,000. Worse is your implication that San Diego is a one-industry town and that with the bumps this industry has taken the town is drying up. If all your tin-benders are leaving (and we have reason to doubt this), a great many more are taking their places and then some.

It should interest you to know that in the last two-year period 62 new industrial plants located in San Diego and 240 expanded, creating 12,000 new industrial jobs and $64 million in annual industrial payrolls.

MILTON F. FILLIUS JR. President

San Diego Chamber of Commerce San Diego ^ TIME accepts Reader Fillius' figures on aircraft industry income as correct, continues to look upon San Diego with friendly concern and considerable hope.--ED.

Wordsworthy Sir: Please advise the jobbernowl who reviewed "You English Words" [TIME, Aug. 17] that wordwise he's in desperate need of help.

"Finalize" means exactly what the author states--to finish. To confirm a tentative decision, as every modern communicator knows, is "to concreteize." RODNEY LARSON

Los Angeles

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