Essay Assayed

Sir: "The U.N.: Prospects Beyond Paralysis" [April 2] was a powerfully written essay, showing concisely the unhealthy state the United Nations now finds itself in. But even in this position of weakness, the U.S. must not abandon this world organization which, as the late Eleanor Roosevelt said, "is the only place in history where the whole world has hung its hat and gone to work on the common problems of mankind."

JAMES R. COLLINS Lexington, Ky.

Sir: TIME, one of the great magazines of the world, has become even greater with the addition of the new feature, Time Essay. I hope that each installment will be of the same high quality and as constructive as the Essay in your April 2 issue.

GEORGE J. HECHT President International Federation of the Periodic Press New York City

Sir: Hurrah--Time Essay!

GEOFFREY C. KELLY Ann Arbor, Mich.

Sir: I thank God that the "U.N. stands mute and immobile" in Viet Nam today. "Keeping the peace" is not enough to save the freedom-loving peoples of the world.

JOAN K. MINK Danbury, Conn.

Sir: I have read TIME since my early teens. In those eleven years I have never read a better single article in TIME than your initial Essay on the U.N. In two pages, without a single wasted word, you have thrust to the heart of the U.N. crisis, laid bare the vital facts and presented an unparalleled perspective on the topic.

ROBERT T. DOUVILLE Great Lakes, Ill.

Tools or Tyrants?

Sir: TIME'S cover story on computers [April 2] helped tear away the shroud of fear that envelops the greatest tool our society has ever produced. Computers are not spectres of doom; they are friends of man.

ARNOLD E. KELLER Honeywell Electronic Data Processing Division Wellesley, Mass.

Sir: Now that the computer is out of its teens and on the cover of TIME, maybe we should now consider it a candidate for Man of the Year.

C. SICARD Berkeley, Calif.

Sir: Granting all that you say in their favor, would you want your daughter to marry one?

PAUL W. KEARNEY West Shokan, N.Y.

Sir: At our radiation detector station in Turkey, where giant radar scanners monitor nuclear-bomb activities inside the Soviet Union by rotating full circle every 90 seconds, a computer began to chatter every time the dish passed an azimuth heading of 270DEG. This area, almost completely opposite in direction from Russia, showed up on maps as the desolate valley of the River Jordan in Palestine. At length, when the scanner was again approaching this heading, the puzzled controllers pushed the computer's "speak" button. Reels whirled, relays clicked, and the message came pounding out: NO, NEGATIVE, THERE IS NO BOMB IN GILEAD.

POLLARD GARRISON Los Angeles Clear case of Jeremiah (5:22) ex machina.

Sir: Oh, there's really nothing cuter than a shiny, bright computer.

It blinks,

it thinks,

it calculates.

It pilots planes,

it chooses mates.

It gobbles cards

and spews out facts.

It's capable

of endless acts.

Oh, brave new world and future bold--will it also cure the common cold?

RITA BOSCIA Tuckahoe, N.Y.

Sir: I must admit my name is rather long, but the one your subscription department's computer gave me is tops: R. A. Monkewich JAN66 MNK 61621R-97T99 06 29. Down with computers!

RUDOLPH ALAN MONKEWICH Chicago

Sir: The most tragic aspect of the future of man is that computers will be masters, not slaves. Either laws must be passed to prevent displacement of men by machines or men must destroy the machines. The only thing machines can produce is a total welfare state. To employ machines to do the work men did is to display contempt for men. Most of the men behind automation have never known what it is like to be displaced by a machine, and have never undergone the humiliation of "retraining." The dream world they have created is a nightmare to everyone else. ROBERT P. FITZGERALD Havertown, Pa.

Sir: The next thing we know, computers will be singing We Shall Overcome.

FAZZULI MATUCCI Rosemont, Pa.

Gas War

Sir: Now that the world has suddenly become terribly "humane" about wars, why not use nonlethal gas [April 2] exclusively and prohibit bullets and bombs? I suggest using laughing gas so that war would produce at least one beneficial effect: a great big horselaugh.

AMELIA URBANO Bayside, N.Y.

Sir: The U.S. should stop the gas not because it is morally wrong but because it nauseates public opinion more than it does our enemies.

GUY DESTEFANO JR. Boston

Sir: Our so-called allies do not hesitate to castigate us for using nonlethal gas in Viet Nam. By courting a nebulous god called world opinion, we are rendering our foreign policy impotent.

(MRS.) GLORIA CHIARIELLO Riverside, R.I.

Echoes of Selma

Sir: While coverage of the Selma story by TIME has been unusually fair, reporting by most news media has been so selective as to violate actuality. Hate and rancor from Selma's "men on the streets" have made front pages everywhere, but Selmians' expressions of shock and confession are not making even back pages anywhere--except in Selma. While the newsmen have kept us remembering that Selma has her Sheriff Jim Clark, the press has failed to tell the nation that Selma also has her Roswell Falkenberry, the moderate editor of the Selma Times Journal, who voices for me, as for himself and other Selmians, a deep grief and shame. He speaks for the Selma I had known from 20 years of living there.

MRS. WILLIAM P. LEWIS Scranton, Pa.

Sir: A Confederate flag flies over Alabama's capitol? No sweat. When Alabama gets aid from the Federal Government, let's send it in Confederate dollars.

DICK PERRY Oxford, Ohio

Sir: I applaud the President's high purpose and sympathize with his anger, but I deplore his mentioning in a news conference the names of the four suspects in the Alabama murder of Mrs. Liuzzo [April 2]. The right of the accused to their own day in court, represented by counsel, is at least as important as the right to assemble and petition or the right to vote. Legal guilt must be proved in a courtroom, not announced from a speaker's platform.

KATHLEEN REASONER Weston, Conn.

Sir: I am writing this in anticipation of some of the letters you will get from people who will say, "If Mrs. Liuzzo had stayed home and taken care of her five children, she would still be alive." Perhaps to live comfortably with herself, she had to do what she did. She has left her husband and children a wonderful legacy of love, self-respect and honor.

WINNIFRED H. STEWART Kensington, Md.

Sir: A woman's obligation is to her husband and children first. To top it all, the President has attempted to cajole the people of our country to accept this unworthy woman as a "martyr" and "heroine" because she deserted her children and husband to seek other pleasures. Whom does our President think he is kidding?

HARRY KALUSTIAN Detroit

Sir: I wholeheartedly agree with the idea of abolishing racial discrimination in voter registration. However, Johnson's proposed program of blotting out literacy requirements for registration [March 26] would also abolish the responsibility that goes with the privilege of the vote. If we cannot require our citizens to have a sound knowledge of government, of how it works and what part their vote plays in the larger scene, then we are not creating voters in the sense that the founding fathers would have wanted.

CHARLES R. KEENS Panis Island, S.C.

Sir: Johnson did not say, "Beyond this great chamber out yonder." He said "ou chyonder." But in his civil rights address, he tied with Callas in giving the world "one of the best-acted performances it has seen in many a year" [March 26].

JANE YEAMAN Cheyenne, Wyo.

Shooting for the Moon

Sir: Your color spread and fine article on the National Aeronautics and Space Administration [March 26] is, by far, one of the most interesting and informative articles I have ever read.

LEE A. WOOD Portland, Ore.

Sir: Your cover story brought a quick re-entry into reality for many Americans who, like myself, had gone into orbit over this country's space success and had forgotten that, even now, the moon is closer to Perm than it is to Cape Kennedy.

MARGARET MLYNCZAK Florissant, Mo.

Sir: Re General Power's statement that we may some day find nuclear armed Soviet satellites "floating in stationary orbits over every part of the U.S.": if we can rocket a Ranger to within four miles of a bull's-eye on the moon, such floating satellites should be sitting ducks.

H. W. CLAYBAUGH Dallas

Sir: Isn't there anyone in America who will agree with me that these space trips and moon probes at a billion bucks a shot are not worth the price? Please, someone, be on my side until I can be converted! (An empty beer can found floating on the Sea of Tranquillity would do it.)

W. A. LANCE Sioux City, Iowa

Founding a Foundation

Sir: TIME'S March 26 issue was unlucky. It summarized my new book Pantaraxia before reading it. The book does not do what TIME says it does. It explains how the Gulbenkian Foundation was set up.

N. S. GULBENKIAN London

Fair Exchange

Sir: So, Farouk "symbolized a classically misspent life" [March 26]! O TIME! Give me Farouk's life--and I shall take his death! Give me 30-room hotel suites, belly dancers and beauty queens; make me spend my nights gambling $100,000 away; make me know every call girl in Rome by name. And then, TIME, give me that sordid death--I shall give you my social security, my medicare, my rocking chair, and my clean, "well-spent" past, present and future.

R. A. MICHAELIS Chicago

Name the Island

Sir: Ask any American this question: What is the name of a small island that lies south of a large country, has a bearded leader, receives Russian arms, threatens its northern neighbor and whose name begins with C? The answer would undoubtedly be Cuba. Ask the same question of a Turk and he'd say Cyprus [March 26]. We aren't as worried about the Redness of Makarios & Co. as the U.S. is about Castro & Co.; our main worry is that we have thousands of families living in Cyprus under the threat of death. If thousands of Americans were in the same situation under Castro, I think that the Bay of Pigs invasion would have been very successful.

HALUK TAYSI Ankara, Turkey

Order of the Tube

Sir: As members of the Royal Knights of the Boob Tube, we wish to commend you on your excellent article concerning collegiate TV customs [March 26]. The accuracy and insight that the story displayed have quite sufficiently done justice to this hallowed institution of academic America.

SANDY KING ('66) & FRIENDS State College, Pa.

Sir: All of us Princeton TV viewers who gather together nearly every evening in our dorms are known as the "tube team." Only those "weenie-grinds" (students who spend too much time in the "libe" and not enough watching the tube), lacking the basic cepts, call us the "viz squad."

RITCHIE L. GEISEL Princeton, N.J.

Sir: Yes, we college men also watch Peyton Place. Reminds us of home.

MILTON J. TATELMAN Western Reserve University Cleveland

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