Yips & Yelps

Sir: President Johnson succeeded in providing the Republicans with two of the greatest campaign issues of our time: driving too fast and pulling dog's ears. He needs only four more crises and he too will be able to write a book.

ORVILLE O. COLIANNI Chicago

Sir: The support of full body weight by the ears is not recommended for the care and handling of dogs, children, or any mammal, even if you want to "let them bark." I am shocked and dismayed. GILBERT O. SEW ALL, D.D.S. Secretary German Wirehaired Pointer Club

of California Los Angeles

Sir: I've been a straight-ticket Democrat for 50 years but if Lyndon Johnson picks them beagles up by the ears one more time, he's a dead duck in my book.

J. S. WHITE West Palm Beach, Fla.

Sir: Why all the fuss about L.B.J. yanking the ears of his pet beagles? He's been doing the same thing to those poor dogs up on Capitol Hill ever since he took office.

T. ANTHONY QUINN Washington, D.C.

Plaudits & Prunes

Sir: Such an admirable and unbiased account of our whirlwind President and a really delightful cover picture of him [May 1]!

Sometimes I wonder just how lucky we American people can be to have such a splendid man as Mr. Johnson holding the reins of government in steady hands at this awesome time. I'm of the rank-and-file but feel we should all be united in one thing--prayer for his continued health. (MRS.) CAROLINE C. JOHNSON San Jose, Calif.

Sir: What puzzles me is the fact that Johnson is making a joke of being President. His driving escapade in Texas, his reception of tourists at the White House, and his crude conversations are not characteristic of a good President.

RICHARD RADFORD Perry Point, Md.

Sir: Whenever we turn on TV, President Johnson is on the screen. He drones on with Pollyanna prunes and prisms and a string of soppy platitudes. He is the talk-ingest President we've ever had. It would be better for the country if he did less talking and more thinking.

MARGARET A. MANN Charlottesville, Va.

Sir: The disrespect shown the President of the U.S. at the World's Fair was shocking. Anyone who is so self-centered as to show this disrespect to the President deserves no rights.

MRS. NEAL COMPTON St. Louis

Sir: At last the Southerner feels a ray of hope, since President Johnson conceded that demonstrators should be arrested. It is noteworthy that he made this assertion only after he was inconvenienced by their unruliness.

CARL M. FOSTER

Columbia, S.C.

The Big Split

Sir: Your report on the Communist split and history of Leninism [April 24] was greatly appreciated. I am a student who is at present studying the Communist "isms and schisms," and I found your article an invaluable aid in my research.

BONNIE-JEAN HEASLIP Hampton, N.H.

Sir: When you explained the procedure that the Russians go through to preserve the body of Lenin, I was reminded of those wonderful lines from Robert Service in his The Ballad of Lenin's Tomb:

And there was Lenin, stiff and still, a symbol and a sign, And rancid races come to thrill and wonder at his Shrine; And hold the thought: if Lenin rot the Soviets will decay. Perhaps this explains why Khrushchev & Con go to the expense that they do to keep the old goat on display.

CHARLES A. PETERSEN Powell, Wyo.

Sir: Your cover on the occasion of Lenin's anniversary is an unpardonable sacrilege. Your utilization of such a flagrant artistic mediocrity to defame the memory of the George Washington of millions of people throughout the world is a sad comment on your own lack of fairness, objectivity and cultural comprehension.

GASTON BROSSOLET Paris

Sir: Ben Shahn's cover picture of Lenin speaks of Communism with an eloquence as powerful as Dostoevsky's The Possessed. Here is Lenin's face, not the likeness that God gave him at birth, but the likeness of the twisted, humorless, mad, rationalized world he built for his followers. That cramped, despotic teaching hand is the perfect portrait of a Communist textbook or a Party meeting.

GERHART NIEMEYER Notre Dame, Ind.

Sir: I was born in Russia very shortly after Lenin's brother was hanged as a Narodovolets, and in high school I was wooed unsuccessfully by both Mensheviks and Bolsheviks. "Narodnaia Volia" was still recent history, and the agitators used this slogan in the meaning of "People's Freedom" as well as "People's Will."

Obviously they didn't mean it either way; it was always "The Party's Will," but it was better for brainwashing.

S. GINZBURG

Berkeley, Calif.

Word from the Palace

Sir: In the article you devote to my person [April 3], one sentence strikes me as being particularly to the point: "Then why not leave Sihanouk to his theatrics and ignore him?" Since it is clear you consider me "unbalanced," "eccentric" and a "playboy," and believe my country to be a repair of cobras, vipers and cockroaches--to say nothing of the Viet Cong--where those who do not contract dysentery are liable to die from the heat, I am at a loss to understand why you should give such generous coverage to a topic which hardly seems to merit this treatment.

I gave up expecting anything from the Americans long ago, having had previous occasions to note the tenacious hatred with which they regard me, due to my refusal to be one of their Asian "puppets."

You imply that I am mad. I consider myself justified in returning the compliment. For the policy you are pursuing in Asia may be truly said to be an insane one, and is disquieting even your most trusted allies. Wherever you go, you spread war, revolution and misery. What do you reproach me with exactly? Not to have abased myself before the dollar? To have succeeded, where so many others in this troubled region have failed? With providing my enslaved Asian brethren with a "bad example" by my pride, patriotism and independence? With placing the interests of Washington after those of my country?

I am, Sir, Yours

NORODOM SIHANOUK Chief of State Pnompenh, Cambodia

Wallace in Indiana

Sir: Thank you for printing Hoosier Governor Welsh's denunciation of Alabama's Wallace [April 24]. It appears that Wallace's "armor-plated skin" has met its match in another Governor's valor. It is not the first time Matt Welsh has stood up for principles that are perhaps politically unpopular.

ROBERT R. BROWN Seymour, Ind.

Sir: Before Governor Wallace's visit to Indiana University, reports came that one of his favorite devices was to stand before the audience, wave a copy of the civil rights bill and shout, "Do you see this bill? Have you read it? Do you know what it says?" With hardly any listeners having read the bill, he could then exclaim, "Well, I'll tell you what it says!" and proceed to distort the truth.

But when he came to Indiana University, held up the bill and shouted, "Have you read it?", several hundred informed students replied with a resounding "Yes!", as they held up their own copies. It was one of the few cases in which he lost his composure.

CHARLES A. WALLS III Bloomington, Ind.

Sir: You quoted Wallace as saying, "I think the Negro race ought to stay pure and the white race stay pure." As a Negro, I find it necessary to say that it is unlikely that there are any pure Negroes in the entire U.S.--that is why the Negro race has such a variety of skin tones. PHYLLIS L. Cox Richmond, Ky.

Remarried Widower

Sir: In your story on Chuck Percy, the G.O.P. candidate for Governor of Illinois [April 24], you identified three of the members of his family as "children of a previous Percy marriage." By failing to add that Chuck Percy's first wife died long before he even knew his present spouse, you left the highly erroneous impression that he may have been divorced.

HENRY J. COUCH Chicago

None but the Brave Deserves the Fair

Sir: Undoubtedly Robert Moses, more than any other man, is responsible for the New York World's Fair [May 1]. It is his genius that has molded the predominant theme of the fair--mediocrity.

Moses has botched a unique opportunity for positive good creatively accomplished. The 1964 World's Carnival and its drab, sterile skyline will be timeless reminders of Robert Moses' total ignorance of things artistic.

WILLIAM FUNK Harvard College Cambridge, Mass.

Sir: Thank you for the priceless portrait of the Pieta at the World's Fair. This marvelous work, and all other great works of art, belong to mankind. Now thousands of Americans who otherwise could not have known this deep experience can view it. It is fitting that it should be on display for all who pass by at the fair.

ELEANOR SANDS Bloomsburg, Pa.

Sir: How can the Protestant Council possibly justify spending $3,000,000 oh a pavilion in the face of incredible world need? With people overseas starving and dying of diseases that we can help cure! I pray that God will not let us bury ourselves in such crass materialism before it is too late to hear his call!

(THE REV.) RICHARD G. VINEY First Methodist Church Casey, Iowa

Sir: TIME was erroneously informed that some of the proceeds from "It's a Small World--A Salute to UNICEF" ride at the World's Fair go to the United Nations Children's Fund. UNICEF benefits from Pepsi-Cola generosity in the form of free land, an exhibit, and a sales counter staffed by volunteers. These are an outright donation--but not the proceeds of Walt Disney's delightful ride.

C. LLOYD BAILEY Executive Director U.S. Committee for UNICEF New York City

Sur la Pointe

Sir: I agree with Mr. Balanchine [May 1] that dancing to music with no theme or story can be entertaining, but it should never comprise the entire repertoire of a ballet company. The tremendous emotional and popular appeal of the great story ballets are the very lifeblood of the art.

(MRS.) LEE CASTER San Francisco

Sir: Your statement that George Balanchine has "undisputed stature as the world's leading choreographer" surely needs qualifying. He may be the world's leading ballet choreographer, but there are those of us who believe that in musical sensitivity, theatrical sense, urgency of communication, and pure choreographic inventiveness, Martha Graham leaves him far behind.

JAY KLEES Englewood Cliffs, NJ.

High Endorsement

Sir: In your account of the leading law reviews of the country [April 24], you failed to mention the Virginia Law Review.

The Virginia Law Review is one of our outstanding reviews. It has, indeed, the largest circulation of any, with the exception of Harvard and Columbia.

It has no superior when it conies to quality.

WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS Associate Justice Supreme Court of the U.S. Washington, D.C.

Drug Plug

Sir: Reporting on Dr. Nathan S. Kline's view of the humane, economic and sociological benefits of tranquilizing drugs [April 24], TIME reached millions of people with a most significant message. The prescription-drug industry has tried to obtain public understanding of value received when prescription drugs are purchased. We feel that a story like yours definitely contributes to more objective discussion of the role of this industry.

AUSTIN SMITH, M.D. Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Assoc. Washington, D.C.

From the Butter of Their Harps

Sir: We were so hobby to see your lublyrebue on Beatle John Lennon's writty [May 1]. We all considerate quite a good larf, you know, and think John vary cleaver.

Bu'really you should not hab ought to said that Beatle fiends could not understamp this bit of writty, becorpse we do frum the butter of our harps. We hab not began to talk like good owld Roger and Anne yet, buck we do lick to make writty as that.

MARGARET CHESKIN Chicago

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.