The Archbishop & His Church

Sir: Having traipsed the length and breadth of England for Michael Ramsey's biography (Hundredth Archbishop of Canterbury), I am well aware of fascinating yet frequently elusive qualities of the Primate and his peculiar vineyard. These are matters of spirit and fact that TIME has seized, denned, and eloquently interpreted in its wonderfully readable report [Aug. 16] on His Grace's inspired leadership.

JAMES B. SIMPSON

New York City

Sir: I can never read your reports on the Anglican part of Christ's one, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church without wincing --and especially because you persist in categorizing us as Protestants, though we are nothing of the kind, notwithstanding what some churchmen may think in their superficial approach to religion. No informed Anglican will deny that his religion is reformed, but he must maintain that it is Catholic.

DON R. GERLACH

Assistant Professor of History

University of Akron

Akron

Sir: Having sweated out (literally--shirtsleeve sessions in the university's steaming Aula--and figuratively--ponderous theological peregrinations Uber Rechtfertigungslehre) 14 days of world Lutheranism in Helsinki, I snatched a copy of TIME at London's Central Airport to see if the Anglicans fared any better. The description of the Anglican theological stance (more like the twist) fairly leaped out at me. "Not the brain-numbing abstractions of Germany's sages, but an urbane lucidity spiced--a la C. S. Lewis --with literate Oxbridge wit." Well could we have used such a catalyst.

A friend observes that the difference between Anglicans and Lutherans is that of form v. content. Anglicans, via the B.C.P. and the episcopate, keep the form inviolate, even if theology runs helter-skelter. Lutherans, in spite of Helsinki, stand firmly on their Confessions, yet often go through the motions in the most outlandish manner, simply to demonstrate that form means nothing. Pray God that ere too long, the two of us will sit at the same table together--first to talk, ultimately to share the Supper of the Lord.

(THE REV.) EDGAR S. BROWN JR.

London

South Viet Nam's Woman

Sir: As a Vietnamese student now studying in the U.S., I congratulate you on your extensive research into the private life of the first lady of our country, Mme. Ngo Dinh Nhu [Aug. 9]. You have left no doubt as to the oppressive, dictatorial nature of the ruling family in Viet Nam.

But Mme. Nhu cannot be considered a typical Vietnamese woman-.--or any woman. She is sui generis. Generally feminine and able, the majority of Vietnamese women have neither the dictatorial temperament nor the vicious habits of speech that are characteristic of Mme. Nhu.

It is distressing to see Mme. Nhu's name side by side with past Vietnamese heroines. The three heroines whom you mentioned in your article arose as timely leaders for the Vietnamese nation against the oppression of foreign invaders. Mme. Nhu, on the other hand, is herself one of the enemies within.

HUYNH KIM KHANH

Berkeley, Calif.

Sir: Mme. Nhu represents all that our holy Catholic Church is fighting--pride, lust for power, intolerance, racial and religious hatred, and St. Paul's favorite subject for attack--a lack of charity not only for her former faith and her own people but also her very family.

(MRS.) SONJA NABIESZKO

North Bay, Ont.

Sir: Jesus "outlived" Pontius Pilate and the Roman Empire; Socrates outlasted the Athenian State, which executed him; Judaism thrives after Hitler's defeat; Gandhi will be remembered long after Nehru is forgotten; and Buddhism will outlast Mme. Nhu, the Diem regime, the state of Viet Nam, and it will point the way toward a full life long after all narrowness, be it Roman Catholic, Protestant, or any other, has vanished.

(THE REV.) DAVID C. OAKS

San Francisco

Sir: It is very convenient and very fashionable to blame every damn thing on Communism. But we Buddhists have never been known to favor Communists. Our long religious history of 2,506 years has been devoid of bloodshed. The demonstrations of those poor Vietnamese Buddhists just showed that they are still human beings and not yet Buddhist saints. They simply wanted to worship the god of their choice in peace. Maybe Diem thought in his meager brain that since the American President is a Catholic, he would look the other way and let him practice religious discrimination with equanimity.

CHANAI RUANGSIRI, M.D.

Betong, Thailand

Sir: You quote me as saying the war in Viet Nam will be over in December. Although I am extremely pleased with the progress made by the armed forces of the Republic of Viet Nam in the past 18 months, my optimism has not prompted me to make a prediction so specific. In January this year, Admiral Felt, Commander in Chief Pacific, ventured an opinion that the rebel Viet Cong could be defeated in three years. That target date is indeed realistic. However, if the current momentum and rate of progress are maintained, it is my considered opinion that victory over the Viet Cong could be achieved sooner. Since your article pins down only the month and not the year, perhaps it does not matter.

GENERAL PAUL D. HARKINS Commander

Military Assistance Command

Viet Nam

Death & Life

Sir: It was one of those impossible-to-explain days, known only to mothers as "lost." The temperature was 100 plus, our five kids scrapped, spilled milk, and scrapped some more. No. 6 was raising merry hell with my digestion, and my self-pity was growing with every domestic crisis. Then the news of Patrick Kennedy's loss [Aug. 16] hit me right where it hurt--in the side of my pride. I. suddenly "found" I loved all those little folks and that I was an exceptionally fortunate woman to be able to conceive and produce my sibs with a minimum of difficulty.

(MRS.) PRISCILLA H. WINGER

Lawton, Okla.

Next Question

Sir: According to TIME [Aug. 9], a newsman prompted President Kennedy to a nonsyntactical filibuster on antimiscegenation laws. I am prompted to the following syntactical nonfilibuster: Is it common practice to refer to the redoubtable May Craig, who asked the question, as a "newsman"?

(MRS.) MARGUERITE L. SAECKER Oak Park, 111.

Sir: Where are the intellectuals who gleefully jumped on President Eisenhower when he answered reporters' questions with as involved sentences as President Kennedy sometimes uses?

GODFREY HAMMOND Scarsdale, N.Y.

German Reunification

Sir: You say, "As far as armaments are concerned, the protests from West Germans that they were about to be left in the lurch by the U.S. hardly came with good grace [Aug. 16]."

But what Bonn is concerned about is that the Germans behind the Iron Curtain may be left in the lurch, and to that neither Washington nor TIME has yet given a reassuring answer.

The attitude of the U.S. seems to be that of a rich young man who says to a girl, "I'll marry you and provide for you in every way, but you'll have to stop worrying or caring about your sister, who got raped by that no-good friend of mine."

H. GEORGE CLASSEN

Ottawa

Larry's Girls

Sir: Billy Friedberg, producer of Harry's Girls, is delighted with your interest in this new NBC-TV series [Aug. 16], but regrets he is not the man surrounded by beauties on the beach in your picture. That is Larry Blyden, star of the show.

JOSEPH STEIN Executive Producer

Harry's Girls

Nice, France

Investment in Tampa

Sir: Your article, "Sabotage in Tampa" [Aug. 16], failed to report that since 1957 we have invested more than $100 million in new and improved telephone facilities; the number of telephones in service has increased from 328,000 to 470,000; 761 new jobs have been created, bringing total employed to 4,129; and our annual payroll within the communities we serve has jumped from $16.6 million to more than $22 million.

In reference to labor-management relations, during its six years of operating in Florida General Telephone Co. has instituted, among other benefits, an improved employee pension plan, greatly in creased life insurance benefits, increased hospitalization benefits, and substantially increased wages.

Whereas the Florida Public Utilities Commission did criticize the company for inadequacy of telephone facilities, despite the fact that we had greatly expanded our plant and equipment, the commission also gave public praise to General Tele phone for its efforts to improve telephone service.

FRED D. LEAKEY

President

General Telephone Co. of Florida Tampa, Fla.

Literacy in Spanish Sir: What an intriguing idea New York's Mayor Wagner has there: to allow Puerto Ricans to take literacy tests in Spanish [Aug. 9]. Why couldn't we have oral literacy tests for people who can't read or write? EUGENE MOORE Lancaster, Pa.

Sir: The literacy test as a requisite for exercising the sacred right of the suffrage is a thorny problem, but does not the logic of the American democratic way of life dictate that means must be sought to in corporate 600,000 citizens into the political life of an American community?

ANGEL CALDERON-CRUZ

Rio Piedras, P.R.

Educanto v. English

Sir: Scholars in the academic disciplines have long suspected that pretentious edu cationist jargon [Aug. 9] betrays a scar city of actual content. This "educanto" seems to be a brave facade hiding a bleakness of thought, a paucity of ideas and an intellectual immaturity.

E. R. LOCKE

Orlando, Fla.

Sir: Although -- together with Professor Simpson -- I would be the first to admit that much sociological jargon resembles gibberish, it is an interesting comment upon the difference in status between disciplines that we do not criticize physicians for talking about pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, or physicists for talking about a "neutrino."

The simple fact is that human group behavior is complex and variegated. Lay language often does not do justice to this quality. Popular translations of sociological literature can frequently be compared to the difference between Disney's exploding pingpong balls on mousetraps and an original essay in fission by Albert Einstein.

RITCHIE P. LOWRY

Associate Professor of Sociology Chico State College

Chico, Calif.

Schlesinger's Painting Sir: As a former South African, I was interested in your story on John Schlesinger [Aug. 2], but I was even more interested in the sophisticated painting behind him. Please identify it.

(MRS.) MARGOT BARKHAM

New York City

Pucci, Pants & Parliament

Sir: I hope Mr. Emilio Pucci is a huge success in the Italian Parliament [Aug. 16]; then maybe he won't have time to design women's fashions. Mr. Pucci seems to think that we American women will abandon the tops of our bathing suits. Hasn't he heard that we are all inhibited by Puritan ethics? Besides, if you wear his pocketless Capri pants, the only place left to carry money, cigarettes, etc. is in a bra or swimming-suit top.

ANNE STEWART Chicago One Man's Taste Sir: How does your writer of "This Year in Marienbad" [Aug. 16] know what "well rusted steel wool" tastes like?

(S/SGT.) JOHN T. WIBLE

U.S.A.F.

> qedWell, his wife was away and he was doing his own cooking -- and ouch. Tasted rather like old turnips, he says. -- ED.

*A miner's disease caused by inhaling very fine silicate or quartz dust.

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