Vietnam's New Phase

Sir: General Westmoreland [Cover, Feb. 19] is a soldier's soldier. Give him the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions and you'll see an end to this nonsense. HARRY W. ROSENTHAL Captain, Army of the U.S. (ret.) Millburn, N.J.

Sir: I was encouraged to hear on a shortwave broadcast that the U.S. had retaliated for a Viet Cong attack. However, the rest of the day the Voice of America appeared to be making excuses and apologies. Do we have to beg pardon every time we take action? Are the Viet Cong the enemy or not? Let's stop kidding ourselves, because we are not fooling anyone else!

CHARLES R. KAMM Lima, Peru

Sir: I am sorry to hear that some of my countrymen have been U.S.-embassy-demonstrating. What these people, along with many others in the world, fail to realize is that Viet Nam is not merely a local civil war, but a particularly violent symptom of the worldwide fight against Communism.

W.F.C. TAYLOR Christchurch, N.Z.

Sir: The American boys in Viet Nam are fighting not to protect a duly constituted and popular government from outside aggression, but on the side of a hated minority in a civil war.

NANCY E. FEDERMAN Waltham, Mass.

Sir: The eagle in the air and the whale in the sea cannot conquer the elephant in the jungle. Our overwhelming air and naval supremacy, even our bomb, cannot prevail over China's 700 million people. China warns it will not sit idly by if we attack, and made good a similar threat in Korea in 1952. Must we risk World War ITI to settle a pint-sized civil war in a feudal enclave 7,000 miles away?

TAYLOR ADAMS New York City

Sir: Prior to November, anyone who advocated bombing North Viet Nam was labeled "impulsive," "trigger-happy," "living in the 18th century," or "warmonger"; now it's called statesmanship.

JON LUNDGREN

Milwaukee

Sir: R. M. Chapin Jr.'s map of escalation in Viet Nam explains many things not made clear from news reports--especially how Viet Cong troops were in a position to attack our base at Pleiku.

DAVID W. FLUKE Sussex, N.J.

Sir: Your cover picture of General Westmoreland makes him look like an ostrich.

JEAN HALLIBURTON Greenville, S.C.

Profits & Motives

Sir: Your brilliant story on Libermanism [Cover, Feb. 12] ought to disabuse many Americans of the pleasant dream that use of a profit system for state enterprises puts the Soviet Union on the road toward a free society. The Russians adopted this technique to beat us at our own game. It will not make them free-enterprisers or lead to lasting greater freedom for the individual. The seeming decentralization of decision making will not last--as you correctly quoted me and some unnamed State Department experts as saying.

ROGER A. FREEMAN The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace Stanford, Calif.

Sir: Creeping Capitalism?

JOHN CHARLES POOL Boulder, Colo.

Safe Riding

Sir: It is good to see that the auto industry is at last making seat belts standard equipment for both front and rear passengers [Feb. 19]. After years of seeking solid statistical proof of their value, I have found it: of 34 persons killed on the New Jersey Turnpike last year, not one was wearing a seat belt. There is something else the automakers should do: place the ignition switch and the emergency brake near the middle of the dashboard, so that a front-seat passenger can reach them in case the driver is incapacitated. GILBERT CANT New York City

Loot Rate

Sir: Do you realize that to pilfer more than $171 million from Clark Field in nine months would come to about $630,000 per day? I figure it would require at least 100 large trucks per day just to haul it away--hardly pilferage; more like grand theft.

GEORGE GARCIA Lakeport, Calif.

TIME also got carried away--by three zeros. The pilferage amounted to $171,000.

Combat-Ready

Sir: TIME, usually accurate, is mousetrapped by a lady. Mrs. Reich did not appear from hiding behind a bush to confront me in Okinawa [Feb. 12]. Actually, she was given the VIP treatment by airfield personnel and ushered to meet me. How come? She told them that she was my wife.

V. H. KRULAK Lieutenant General, U.S.M.C. San Francisco

Sir: My husband is a marine, and he served his 15 months in Okinawa without his family (the tour of duty has since been shortened). I'm sure that I am just as devoted to him as Mrs. Norma Reich ap pears to be to her husband, but a combat-ready division in the Far East is no place for the wife and kiddies.

MRS. L. D. BAUGHMAN Middletown, R.I.

Just Like Him?

Sir: Vice President Humphrey's description of himself [Feb. 12]* is a very good description of a dog--man's best friend. Do you suppose President Johnson also picks him up by his ears?

MRS. S. L. LUNDQUIST Bloomington, Ind.

Sense in Congress

Sir: A few weeks ago, you did a particularly perceptive job of explaining Congressman Gerald Ford of Michigan's Fifth District [Jan. 15] and now you have done it again with Congressman Charles Weltner of Atlanta [Feb. 12]. They are both intelligent, sincere, honest, and above all, make sense. The Republican Party and the Democratic Party need more men like them, and so does the U.S.

WILLIAM I. DENMAN JR. Atlanta

A.M.A. President

Sir: You'd better find out who heads the American Medical Association [Feb. 19].

WALDO S. HOLT, M.D. Kansas City, Mo.

Our mistake. Dr. Donovan F. Ward of Dubuque, Iowa, became president of A .M.A. after the death of Boston's Dr. Norman A. Welch last September.

Intolerant Liberals

Sir: Mr. Mclntire's right to air his religious convictions [Feb. 12] must not be jeopardized because of his failure to conform to the thinking of influential liberal groups.

JOHN W. OLIVER Assistant Pastor

Covenant United Presbyterian Church Hammond, Ind.

Sir: The so-called "liberals" are representatives of religious, ethnic and labor groups who believe that Mclntire's devotion to distortion disqualifies him for a broadcasting license under the "public interest" test required by the Federal Communications Act. He has 617 radio stations now to expound his views under the supervision of responsible licensees whom

"A Vice President must have a quality of fidelity, a willingness literally to give himself, to be what the President wants him to be, a loyal, faithful friend and servant." he does not control. This 618th station would be subject to no control except his own.

WILLIAM D. POWELL General Secretary

Greater Philadelphia Council of Churches Philadelphia

Sir: Thank you for the article regarding Carl Mclntire, fundamentalist. He is undoubtedly doing a tremendous job of contending for the faith if the Greater Philadelphia Council of Churches, the N.A.A.C.P., the Philadelphia Chapter of the Jewish Anti-Defamation League, and the Roman Catholic weekly Commonweal want to "muzzle" him.

MRS. JACK L. MORRISON Oklahoma City, Okla.

Top Ten

Sir: I think it is worth noting that on the lists of most desirable ( _ popular) colleges [Feb. 12], the several small liberal arts schools generally recognized by the academic community as as good or better than the big-name schools were entirely excluded. The most rigorous education, such as that at Swarthmore, Oberlin, Reed and the University of Chicago, is not the one sought by most of our best students. HOLLY HART Chicago

Sir: So how come most of them go to

Michigan State?

GREGORY A. MILLER

Associate Professor of

Education

Michigan State University

East Lansing, Mich.

Sir: In reference to your article concerning the preference of M.I.T. over Harvard: WONK!

DICK BERNER DICK DANIEL JOHN MERCER Harvard College Cambridge, Mass.

Sir: On, Wisconsin! Madison, Wis. FRED ZETA

Studies in Depth

Sir: Your reporter evidently interviewed sports-oriented students for the University of the Seven Seas story [Feb. 19]. Units of credit earned on the floating campus on a study voyage around the world have been accepted in approximately 50 colleges and universities among the 42 states from which students came.

DEAN C. DELMAR GRAY Vice President

University of the Seven Seas Whittier, Calif.

Black Orchids

Sir: Oh, good, good, good, I don't recognize any of the authors mentioned in your review of the black humorists [Feb. 12], except Heller, and I haven't read any of the books they have written, but I'm going to start all over again. To read something that isn't smelly, warmed over, thrown-up slop could be a treat of purest delight. I hope you haven't betrayed us.

A. BORST Auburn, N.Y.

Fundamental Problem

Sir: I don't know how many "old stories" from the Bible Bishop Chandler Sterling intends to "sweep away" [Feb. 12], but I hope he leaves intact the one about the supernatural Jesus who has the power to forgive sins and regenerate human lives.

(MRS.) WANDA ANDERSON Greeley, Colo.

Sir: Shame on TIME for saying that fundamentalism cannot withstand critical Biblical scholarship and scientific facts. Fundamentalists do not need to fear the facts of science. The much-maligned simple believer is in reality carrying a torch of truth to the next generation.

EDWARDS E. ELLIOTT The Garden Grove Orthodox Presbyterian Church Garden Grove, Calif.

Jewishness

Sir: As an American Jew who has always supported Israel, I was appalled to read of the injustice that the Israeli government has displayed to Rina Eitani [Feb. 12], and more appalled at your description of handbills circulated by the Nazarene Orthodox bearing a "warning against the 'Gentile in our midst.' " However, the Nazarene Orthodox are a small, fanatical group in Israel, in no way representative of the state itself.

JUDI ANN CORVIN Saratoga Springs, N.Y.

Sir: You are right, of course, in stating that in Israel, as elsewhere, Orthodox Jews maintain that the child of a Jewish father and an unconverted non-Jewish mother is a Gentile. Reform Judaism, however, accepts such a child as Jewish, if he attends a Jewish religious school and takes studies leading to confirmation.

RABBI MAURICE J. BLOOM Tremont Temple The Bronx

Sir: The religious precept that one's Judaism depends upon whether one's mother is a Jew is of such fundamental import that its violation would be shocking to the essence and being of the Jewish religion. RABBI CHAIM COHEN Brooklyn

Hiking Hippos

Sir: Even though the Zambezi hippo (unlike TIME, Feb. 5) may have heard of our Hippo Valley, 400 miles is still one hell of an overnight clomp to where you think we are.

A.J.G. BOWLES Triangle Sugar Estates Rhodesia

Sir: I always wondered why hippos have such short legs. Now I know: wear and tear from their nocturnal grazing habits. ANTHONY J. SMITH Salisbury, Rhodesia

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