The Nuclear Issue

Sir: So immune have the members of this affluent society become to the nuclear concept that in recent years, the danger of a holocaust has turned into a comfortable, abstract improbability. Your cover article [Sept. 25] may awaken the minds of those who have let partisanship rise above an awesome problem. The nuclear issue has turned into a maze of contradictions and evasions, thanks to those who have thrown it where it should have never been in the first place: in politics.

HENRI SHREM

Elmhurst, N.Y.

Sir: Your diagram of tactical nuclear weapons graphically illustrates the steps of escalation each side would inevitably be forced to take once the very smallest A-weapon had been used. As part of the same inexorable process, strategic weapons must follow until the "ultimate" (100-megaton?) bomb would be launched by the side still able to do it. This elementary fact must be brought home to those who still cannot grasp it.

ERIC GASTON

Jamaica, N.Y.

Sir: According to the founder of Christianity, men should prefer physical death to spiritual death. According to the American electorate, it is better to choose moral corruption than to run the risk of dying in a nuclear war. We have lost our sense of values. We may avoid a nuclear war, but our moral fiber is rotting away.

EMIL D. CRISCITIELLO

Mount Vernon, N.Y.

Sir: The Democratic National Committee's political commercial is poetic, not vicious. It speaks eloquently on issues that transcend politics: survival, beauty, and the survival of beauty. In an ugly political campaign, it reminds a hypnotized people of the real cost of living. RICHARD E. TURNER Nacogdoches, Texas

Sir: I was made physically sick by your description of the television commercials being presented by the Democratic National Committee. These made me realize that what I had refused to believe about Lyndon Johnson was true: that he would go to any lengths to remain President, even if it meant cheapening his office and subjecting the American people to an unprecedented hate campaign.

MRS. W. R. FELDER

New Orleans

Sir: The big question is whether Goldwater himself is fit to handle nuclear weapons. Can a man with his history of shooting off his mouth be trusted not to shoot off something worse?

JOHN F. HELLEGERS

Philadelphia

Sir: I prefer that the finger on the trigger be guided by Barry Goldwater, not a bumble-brained L.B.J.

J. R. FORBES

Hudson Falls, N.Y.

Sir: I hope Goldwater reads your article and uses some of your explanations to clarify his position! At long last, I have found an article that didn't raise an emotional storm of fear, but rather attempted to clarify the issue.

PETER B. WOOLLETT

Glendale, Calif.

Percy's Campaign

Sir: It is true that Percy's brand of Republicanism [Sept. 18] is less conservative than Goldwater's. Insofar as it is possible, Percy's campaign is being run on state issues, the most telling of which is the lack of leadership by our amiable but ineffectual Governor Kerner.

HAROLD & MOLLY BICKFORD

Crystal Lake, Ill.

Sir: Thanks be to TIME for further illuminating the brilliant, transparent career of one of the nation's most successful phonies, Charles Harting Percy.

S. B. SCHULLER

Chicago

Sir: Your story developed three or four points better than anything else I have seen thus far in the campaign. Your report on Jacob Arvey's comments is the talk of the town. Your conclusion that Chuck should be rated no better than an even chance will serve as a continuing challenge to us.

TOM HOUSER

Campaign Manager for

Charles H. Percy Chicago

Sir: The statement attributed to me in the article on Charles Percy is a distortion of what I said. Your quote contains only half of the sentence. I actually said, "Otto Kerner is an awfully nice fellow, but I do wish he had some of Chuck Percy's ability in the field of public relations and promotional gimmicks."

J. M. ARVEY

Chicago

Sir: I read with interest your reference to Charles Percy's "deep, dogged idealism." Prior to the Republican Convention, Mr. Percy did not say if he supported or opposed Goldwater for the nomination because he did not want to make enemies; he only supported him after a majority of the Illinois delegates did so. Mr. Percy now supports a Republican platform that in many ways repudiates the platform he helped draft in 1960. At the Republican National Convention, he ducked the votes on the civil rights and Rockefeller amendments to the Republican platform. He says he was for a fair employment practices act because "there was a consensus in the state for it," but that he was against open occupancy because "there is no such consensus for open occupancy." We Democrats in Illinois do not regard this as "deep, dogged," or any other kind of idealism.

ADLAI E. STEVENSON III

Chicago

Chub Snubbed

Sir: Although you mentioned Governor Endicott Peabody's "fumbles" in office [Sept. 18], you failed to mention his outstanding legislative record, his dedication to the job, and his honest campaign. The people of Massachusetts can be proud of the Service Corps, the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority, the Consumers' Council, tax cuts and housing for the elderly and the aid for education.

MANIE T. KEEFE

Boston

Barry's Forebears

Sir: It is a family tradition but not a proven fact that Senator Barry Goldwater is descended from Roger Williams, as one of your readers claimed [Sept. 18]. The family of Mrs. Baron Goldwater, the Senator's mother, definitely traces its lineage to Hurkey Williams, who lived in Brunswick County, Va., in the middle part of the 18th century. Some confusion exists about the lineage earlier than this point, for Hurkey's father sometimes has been identified as a Mr. Roger Williams who had emigrated from either Wales or Scotland to Virginia some years before.

BERT M. FIREMAN

Executive Vice President

Arizona Historical Foundation Phoenix

The Murdered Colonel Sir: As a prisoner of war in Germany, together with approximately 2,500 other Polish officers, I was liberated on April 1, 1945, near Borgentreich, Warburg area, by U.S. troops. This day remains full of light and happiness in my memory. The U.S. troops were mostly colored. They behaved in a profoundly human way when saving us--much better than many other people (all white) we met during later days and years. I wonder if Army Reserve Lieut. Colonel Lemuel A. Penn was one of them. I read with sorrow in your Sept. 11 issue-about his death in Georgia.

W. J. ROZYCKI

Beccar, Argentina

> Lieut. Colonel Penn survived combat in four major campaigns in the Pacific, but was not stationed in Europe.--ED.

Extreme Old Lady

Sir: I was unpleasantly surprised at your treatment of the death of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, head of the U.S. Communist Party [Sept. 18]. One would think that you could produce something besides laudatory little biographical notations concerning the woman. After all, she wasn't exactly a sweet little old lady in sneakers.

She was an ugly, venomous old wretch who worked for the destruction of our Government.

BARRY PARIS

Wichita, Kans.

$6.1 Billion in Exports Sir: Your Sept. 18th article on successful U.S. efforts to step up agricultural exports was excellent. It condensed the essence of a cooperative U.S. Department of Agriculture and trade association promotion effort, which has done much to push the annual value of U.S. farm-product exports to a history-making record of $6.1 billion.

ORVILLE L. FREEMAN

Secretary

U.S. Department

of Agriculture

Washington, D.C.

Professional Fund Raisers Sir: When the Rev. Theodore Palmquist [Sept. 4] says, "Our people don't like to give when they know that 10% of their money will go to professionals," he is suggesting that hosts of dedicated churchmen, including workers and givers, are victims of fraud.

Our latest survey of 63 campaigns conducted by members of this association alone demonstrates that the total costs of fund raising, including professional counseling fees, are well below that alleged 10% for fees alone, showing in fact a median of 2.6%. Please do not denigrate the tradition of voluntary action for which true professional fund-raising counsel provides experienced and economical know-how.

ELDREDGE HILLER

Executive Director

The American Association of

Fund-Raising Counsel, Inc.

New York City

Fake Doctor

Sir: Re Impostor Novak [Sept. 18]: the only justice, in my opinion, for this crime would be four years' hard labor at the medical school of his choice, or until graduation from a medical school. Anything less would penalize not only Thomas Novak, but the society in which he lives.

KENNETH SEUBERT

Buffalo, N.Y.

Natural Childbirth

Sir: No longer will women be satisfied with the curt denouncements by the uninformed doctor, who dismisses all inquiries with a smirk or a flat statement that naturalists are masochistic [Sept. 25]. Your fine coverage of a subject close to the hearts of all who know and use the Lamaze method is appreciated.

(MRS.) MARIE LYNESS LORELLO, R.N.

Philadelphia

Sir: I ran across Thank You, Doctor Lamaze, by Marjorie Karmel, just eleven days before the birth of my third child. I religiously practiced the exercises it suggested and enjoyed a delivery free of discomfort.

It was a tremendous experience! Even more important, my husband was also permitted to witness his baby's birth, thus making it what it should be--a satisfying experience for both parents.

MRS. ROBERT GERBER

Milwaukee

Raus mit Rauschenberg Sir: Enough is enough is enough! Rauschenberg and all others like him who leave their droppings like undisciplined, banal characters in the arena of contemporary art should not be given the prestige inherent in a color spread of TIME. Most artists anticipate your articles, but are becoming very irritated with these so-called "experiments."

PATRICK J. YESH

Detroit

Electricity Costs

Sir: Terrific was your article on Donald Cook, president of American Electric Power Co. [Sept. 11]. It's an amazing job that the electric utilities have done, to continuously reduce the consumer cost of electrical energy. Don Cook is an outstanding leader in the field. Why can't Ma Bell (A.T. & T.) take a few lessons from him?

ALBERT PETERSEN

Wheatridge, Colo.

Barnum's Bear Woman Sir: The grotesque plot of The Ape Woman [Sept. 18] has precedent in fact. Julia Pastrana, the Mexican "Bear Woman," exhibited by P.T. Barnum, married a man named Lent; after her death, he had her embalmed and exhibited the remains. Barnum tells of this in an 1877 letter to Professor Duhring, the famous American dermatologist.

JAMES T. VAIL JR., M.D.

St. Clair Shores, Mich.

That Old Jinx

Sir: As most baseball players are superstitious by nature, I was surprised to see Hank Bauer's picture on your cover [Sept. 11]. Doesn't he know that a cover picture on TIME is a jinx? He can never win the pennant this year.

HAROLD R. SORKIN, D.D.S. Syosset, N.Y.

>-'Tain't necessarily so. Among TIME'S recent and unjinxed cover sportsmen: Jack Nicklaus (June 29, 1962); Vince Lombardi (Dec. 21, 1962); Cassius Clay (March 22, 1963); Roger Staubach (Oct. 18, 1963).--ED.

Sir: I sure felt good when my doctor told me right before he operated on my arm that I had made TIME. I am the lady who dislocated her shoulder and had to go to the hospital. It was June 24th, in the 8th inning. I raised my arm up, started yelling--and couldn't get it down. All the Oriole boys autographed a ball and a card for me. I hope we make it. The pennant, I mean.

MRS. FLORENCE WINTERLING

Baltimore

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