Big Brotherly Worries

Sir: Re your communications cover story [May 14]: the reason I killed myself in January 1970 is because I no longer had privacy in my bathroom, man's last haven for quiet contemplation and omphaloskepsis. When it became mandatory to wear radio receiving sets so that people who had no idea where I was could call me, I could always unbolt the thing from my left ear. But when, in 1968, Congress passed the Numbskull Act requiring all male adults to have these receivers surgically implanted, brother, that did it! Big Brother, that is.

NEAL HOPKINS

Annapolis. Md.

Sir: The communications explosion seems to have much deeper consequences in this century than you imply. Radio and television have begun to dominate and to replace the press. Satellite communication is merely one more step toward the ultimate demise of the printed word in Western society.

BOB BAHR

Syracuse, N.Y.

> Well, even the TelePrompTer needs print.

Sir: That was a wonderful, somewhat Klee-inspired cover by Saul Steinberg.

MARCUS H. BARANDUN

Lima, Peru

Sir: The excellence of your recent covers --Moreau [March 5]. Nureyev [April 16], communications, etc.--is a hopeful sign of things to come. Bravo for leading the way! J. M. GUIRAGOSSIAN

New Haven, Conn.

Viet Nam. Assent & Dissent

Sir: The TIME Essay of May 14 should silence many critics of the current U.S. Viet Nam policy. It shows beyond a doubt that the Johnson Administration is correct in assuming the present burden in Southeast Asia.

STANLEY F. EHRLICH

Flushing, N.Y.

Sir: The unprecedented condemnation of U.S. policy in Viet Nam emanating from the nation's colleges is to me shocking and disgusting. Supporters of this wave of disagreement point to the First Amendment of the Constitution as a shield against criticism, and to their sincere belief in the errors of military involvement as a justification for mass protest. No one is about to deny these students their rights. They can wallow in their own naivete as long as they want. But mere disagreement and nonconformism cannot by any means explain the uncontrolled vehemence with which these boorish malcontents voice their objections.

ALAN DISLER

Pittsburgh

Sir: We were in your photograph captioned "Viet Nam debate at the State University of Iowa." The day the magazine hit the newsstands, we received phone calls from friends asking what we were doing with a socialist group "jeering, hooting and picketing" the Viet Nam debate. Actually, we were in attendance to lend support and strength to the visiting gentleman from the State Department. Not all of those in attendance were hostile. There was a scattering of so-called "right-wing terrorists" like ourselves who support present Viet Nam policies.

CHARLES E. NEWHOUSE

GREGG A. KRUSE

Iowa City

Sir: Thank God for McGeorge Bundy and the courage that permits him to speak in plain, honest language to his former colleagues [May 7]. Every word he uttered sliced like a knife through the professors' tortured and specious reasoning.

GEORGE P. MORSE

Silver Spring. Md.

Sir: McGeorge Bundy's churlish reply deserves high marks, if he wants them, for its chilliness and scorn. However, these are not qualities that I, at least, greatly admire in a public official so fatefully close to the President of the U.S. They are signs not of intellectual incisiveness or of moral rigor but only of bureaucratic self-righteousness and too-prolonged insulation from the ever-growing anxieties that Mr. Bundy's ex-colleagues in universities everywhere feel toward the foreign policies that he has helped to shape in recent years. His mind is more rapid than accurate, more facile than profound: for if he did acknowledge a special accountability to the scholars where questions of fact and of truth are concerned, the result might be an improvement in the quality of communications emanating from the White House.

HENRY DAVID AIKEN

Professor of Philosophy

Harvard University

Cambridge, Mass.

Sir: I am pleased that TIME publicized the text of McGeorge Bundy's "icily" appropriate reply to the incomprehensible invitation to explain the U.S. presence in Viet Nam and to specifically define "who is our enemy." A small minority of professors and placard-carrying students are making a noise far out of proportion to their numbers and importance in opposition to the national aims in Southeast Asia, and are actually playing into the hands of our enemies.

J. K. MACNEILL

Winchester, Mass.

Sir: McGeorge Bundy's reply to that asinine group of professors at St. Louis' Washington University was a masterpiece. It should go down in history as "the perfect squelch." Let us hope that more of our officials take McBundy's fine example and slap a few of these intellectuals down when they poke their academic noses outside of their classrooms. Let's put uniforms on a few of them for a starter.

JEREMIAH J. LOWNEY JR.

Kenmore, N.Y.

Comfort in a Big Stick

Sir: The U.S. intervention in the internal affairs of a small Caribbean nation is a flagrant violation of a host of international rights, but I sleep a lot more peacefully for it. It's really comforting to know that on the day when Communist subversion gets out of hand in our countries, the U.S. will intervene to prevent anarchy. North Americans should know that those of us who would rather be "dead than Red" are prepared to hold out against subversion--until your troops arrive.

NORMAN P. ANTELME

Buenos Aires

Sir: At last we Venezuelans can be sure that while Johnson or someone like him is President of the U.S., no Communist coup will be successful in Venezuela because the great U.S. Marines will be there to stop them.

EDUARDO ACHE

Caracas

Constant Writer Sihanouk

Sir: Re your article about Prince Norodom Sihanouk [May 7]: I'll be looking forward to reading a poison-pen letter from "Snookie."

JOSEPH J. THOMAS

Philadelphia

Sir: As an anti-American, I thank you for your rotten article devoted to my person in your issue of May 7. Your insult to a head of state and your odious lies dishonor not only your magazine but also your nation . . .

I assure you that I would much prefer to die from the blows of the Communists (who are certainly hostile to royalty, but who have no contempt for us) than capitulate before you, who symbolize the worst in humanity, i.e., racism, discrimination, injustice, death and lies.

NORODOM SIHANOUK

Chief of State

Pnompenh, Cambodia

Visiting Princess

Sir: Princess Beatrix [May 7] was in the company of the Salvation Army's uniformed Major Boshart; they were not strolling but working on the Army's usual tasks in this area. For the Princess, this was part of a working visit to Amsterdam in which she was informed on social work done in this city.

P.M.M. GROOT

The Hague

> TIME had the wrong perspective on the Princess' visit to Amsterdam's seamier section. It is well known that the Princess, a serious student of social conditions, often walks through the city disguised so that she may observe unobserved.

Critic's Respect

Sir: I appreciate the fairness of your report on my movie-reviewing career [May 14]. I should like to clarify one point: my description of the "cowlike creature" in The Pumpkin Eater applied to the character and not to Anne Bancroft, an actress I respect.

(MRS.) JUDITH CRIST

New York City

Montana Pulitzerite

Sir: Yes, it takes skill to cover floods. Also courage. Mel Ruder risked life and health and shared news with competing media to keep the public informed [May 14]. When I nominated him for the Pulitzer Prize, there was no elaborate scrapbook. His Hungry Horse News spoke for itself.

DOROTHY M. JOHNSON

Montana Press Association

Missoula, Mont.

His Own Entity

Sir: I appreciate the kind things that you said about me in your review of Bus Riley's Back in Town [April 23]. It is difficult for an actor today to bring in any kind of contemporary feeling and not be compared with either Marlon Brando or James Dean. I would like to thank you for pointing out that I may have some entity of my own.

MICHAEL PARKS

Universal City, Calif.

Improving

Sir: Your Essay, "The Other South" [May 7], was long overdue. Your grudging admission that we perform certain functions in conformity with the standards that you sanctimonious people so freely set is appreciated. We think you're improving too.

E. ALLEN MCINTYRE

Beaufort, S.C.

Sir: I was born in the town of Hattiesburg, Miss., and feel nothing but pride when I say that I attended the University of Mississippi ("Ole Miss")--but I do feel nothing but shame when I say that I was a part of the unfortunate "Ole Miss" riots. I love Mississippi, and I'm proud of its heritage and traditions--the ones that give beauty and enjoyment, the ones that are so much a part of me and of the South. I wish to thank you for having the insight to grant the South a future instead of another condemnation.

MRS. ANTHONY CARAVETTA

Nutley, N.J.

Candid Admissions

Sir: I have reminded my 17-year-old son several times that the Southwest Texas State College isn't exactly what you would consider a "prestige school"--but that one of its graduates now occupies the White House. The inference in your story on college admissions [May 7] is that you can get a good education at a small school. This pearl of wisdom doesn't seem to have impressed the group of "Ivy League rejects" that hangs out at our house. The favorite topic of conversation at present seems to be, "What school are you transferring to next year?"

MRS. ROBERT CHELLEL

Glenside, Pa.

Science Worship

Sir: Dr. Vannevar Bush criticizes the excessive faith some laymen have in science and scientists [May 7], yet insists that man must have some faith. Science has so changed our lives that some veneration is not surprising. It has provided concrete changes instead of abstract impossibilities. Because people were taught that only prayer could alleviate their lot, and that blessings demanded enthusiastic thanks, they now bestow this on the scientific community. Dr. Bush need not fear that the problem will be with us for long: we are becoming blase already.

PATRICK G. GROGAN

Hamilton, New Zealand

Reminiscence of Murrow

Sir: I read of Edward Murrow's death [May 7] with considerable sorrow. In the early days of World War II, I worked in a BBC studio adjacent to one he used. On quite a few occasions. Murrow came into our room to try out his opening lines on a British audience. One of these remains in my mind very clearly: "I have just come in from Piccadilly Circus tube station. There is a heavy raid in progress. But in the station itself, things appear to be quiet with the exception of a small man in a dirty overcoat who is very busy. He has a stick of chalk in his hand and is dutifully inscribing on the wall 'Home Rule for Wales.' That, in its way, conveys the spirit of London in the middle of this bombing raid at 1 o'clock on a September morning." It is perhaps needless to say that our reaction was unanimous and most appreciative.

JAMES DOUGLAS

Geneva

Resalinization

Sir: I thought that your readers would be interested in knowing of yet another use of the Morton Salt Co.'s [May 7] product: making fresh water into salt water for the joy and comfort of the porpoises at the Cape Coral Gardens here in Florida. Fifty thousand lbs. of table salt were initially poured into the porpoise pool. The porpoise couldn't tell the artificial water from the real thing.

R. H. FINKERNAGEL JR.

Cape Coral, Fla.

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