God & Man

Sir: What appears to us the death of God [April 8] is nothing less than God himself persevering in what he began long ago: nimbly eluding our impulse to idolatry, that our misdirected energies may better be joined in the perfection and celebration of his continuing creation, bringing order out of chaos, community out of crowd, authentic humanity out of animal existence.

ELIOT A. DALEY

Assistant Chaplain

Middlebury College

Middlebury, Vt.

Sir: The existence of God is not in question. But it is a good thing to call to review human concepts of God. It may be useful for theologians and laymen to read the Bible, not to find a description of God but to find a blueprint for human life. Doing this, the student will find himself with a much more nearly correct concept of God.

(THE REV.) NATHAN STRAUB

Church of God-Seventh Day

Portland, Ore.

Sir: The most provocative article you've ever printed. We shall never find God in this life; that is what makes life tragic. But to stop searching for God, that makes life meaningless.

MAURICE F. MACKEY JR.

Baltimore

Sir: At last the word is out that the sovereignty of God is not bound to the chains of medieval and Puritan culture. New doctrines of God and Holy Scripture are musts for the space age, even if the death question must be raised.

(THE REV.) C. FRED SANFORD

First Presbyterian Church

Winamac, Ind.

Sir: That such elaborate funeral preparations are being made for God by those who are not willing to let him die in obscurity shows that "God is dead!" is a desperate cry for help. May the church prove equal to its task.

(THE REV.) ROBERT B. MERTEN

First United Presbyterian Church

Coudersport, Pa.

Sir: God is a myth, like Santa Claus. The God myth is dying, with our energetic help. The myth was born in the minds of ignorant, superstitious Stone-Age men and has been exploited by ancient and modern witch doctors to the immense profit of the priest clan. The modern preacher finds the glorification of his imaginary god less profitable than support of civil rights and social reforms; hence his slogan, "God is dead."

JAMES HERVEY JOHNSON

American Association for the Advancement of Atheism

San Diego, Calif.

Sir: The "non-religion of the future" predicted by Religious Atheist Marie Guyau in 1886 is coming into existence. In 1957 Martin Buber told a Unitarian minister: "The old distinctions between religion and non-religion are dead. Religion has nothing to do with church attendance as such nor with doctrinal beliefs as such. These old distinctions are utterly meaningless in the present situation. Those who call themselves religious and those who call themselves nonreligious must join hands to find the first steps out of our human situation. In his readiness to do this, the agnostic or even the atheist may be more religious than his believing neighbor."

BERNARD RICH

New York City

Londonderry Airs

Sir: It was gratifying to read your cover story on "London: The Swinging City" [April 15]. This well-documented feature will do much to dispel the popular misconception that Britain continues to live in the past, beset by balance-of-payment problems, industrial inertia, old-fashioned methods, foppish aristocracy, eccentric politicians, inedible cuisine and inclement weather.

A. P. SPOONER

General Manager

British-American Chamber of Commerce

New York City

Sir: I hope my freshmen will read your story. I've had trouble convincing them that Vanity Fair exists today in all its vulgarity, sham, apple-polishing and status-seeking, the same as it did in Thackeray's day and before. I hope they see through it better than you did--Thackeray peopled his booths with puppets; you've filled yours with lemmings.

WILLIAM D. WOLF

Teaching Assistant

University of Wisconsin

Madison, Wis.

Sir: Holy understatement! Without the dynamic quartet, "the swinging city" would never have swung. London began swinging in 1963, and the Beatles "swung" it. Your article should certainly have swung more in their direction.

ARTHUR R. PICCOLO

Brooklyn

Sir: I have never read anything more certain to make London Out than your story.

DON L. PATLA

San Francisco

Sir: Your story is smashing!

ANNE ZENZER

Chicago

Retaliation on China

Sir: In your report on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings on China [April 8], you state that I "declared last week that all of Asia is China's proper sphere and disdained military containment of the Chinese as a step that will lead 'sooner or later to war.' " There is not a trace of such views either in my written statement or in my replies to questions, nor have I seen any newspaper report that attributed to me such views. I told the Senators, as I have said and written many times before, that if China should try to extend its military power beyond the limits the Chinese empire had reached about a century ago, it ought to be stopped not by our present ineffectual and risky policy of peripheral military containment but by the retaliatory nuclear power of the U.S. Thus my expressed views are about the opposite of what TIME reported.

HANS J. MORGENTHAU

Council on Foreign Relations, Inc.

New York City

Corrected Label

Sir: I commend TIME for coming to the rescue of that majority of scholars in the China field who have been frustrated by the political activities of a vocal minority [April 8] bent on creating the impression that they represent the profession when they press for a soft China policy. It is aggravating enough to see this group's inability to grasp Communism and to have to read that what were once "agrarian reformers" are now nationalist psychopaths who can be led back to sanity by the trade-and-recognition treatment. It is worse to be misrepresented as belonging to a group that allegedly holds this view. It is amazing how one-sided people who claim to be liberals can be in presenting the argument and how quick they are with labels of "McCarthyism" or "China lobby" whenever a view they dislike is expressed.

FRANZ MICHAEL

Professor, Associate Director

Institute for Sino-Soviet Studies

George Washington University

Washington, D. C.

Questions of Safety

Sir: About "Safety in the Air" [April 8]: After four agonizing, mentally exhausting weeks in stewardess training, I am horrified by your inaccurate description of stewardesses. I spent about 152 hours sliding off wings, jumping into inflatable slides, memorizing the location and use of all emergency doors, windows, switches, buttons and valves on eight different aircraft, learning to care for cardiacs and diabetics and how to deliver a baby. I had exactly eight hours of "charm" instruction.

CHARLOTTE BALLARD

Whittier, Calif.

Sir: Why must the seats in commercial aircraft face forward? Why not let the seat absorb the "front lash" and the seat belt keep us in place if we must crash.

FR. PETER WRIGHT, O.F.M. CAP.

St. Anthony College-Seminary

Hudson, N.H.

Sir: Why isn't each aircraft equipped with parachutes, so that in case of trouble it could be gently lowered to the ground like a space capsule?

YENCHAI LAOHAVANICH

Boston

Vietnik Kick

Sir: Hurrah for the South Boston high school students and their handling of Vietniks [April 8].

HARRY SCHWETHELM

Kerrville, Texas

Sir: You fail to say that the mob, not the pacifists, are the anarchists in ignoring the law; that the mob were the cowards with their 10-1 odds; that the mob supported the Viet Cong by using its despicable, terroristic tactics. Incidents like this are an insult to the American democratic process; it makes me ill that TIME can write about it without condemning it.

RICHARD RAYSMAN

Boston

Bobby & Bill

Sir: You do Robert Kennedy a grave injustice in comparing him to William Buckley [April 8]. Buckley's "devastating repartee" is devastating only as a revelation of his florid rhetoric and flabby thinking. For all his egomaniacal viciousness, the vocabulary he frequently misuses and the logic he invariably abuses, I doubt that Buckley has contributed one original idea to public discussion or performed one act of public service. Why should a man of accomplishment debate a nonentity? Or, in Buckley's idiom, why use a saber to chop hamburger?

ROBERT J. EMMITT

Chicago

Sir: Question: What's yellow on the inside, pink on the outside and makes you laugh like hell? Answer: the idea of Kennedy's attempting to debate Buckley.

JOHN J. BRADLEY

The Bronx, N.Y.

Better Than Bats?

Sir: One hour of Barbra Streisand [April 8] is 60 minutes too long. Her chief "talent": she is bizarre, a particularly unattractive woman with an unpleasant voice and an insincere manner.

SUSAN THOMPSON

Arlington, Va.

Sir: Holy suffocation! A year between Barbra's shows filled with hours of operating rooms, court rooms, bar rooms, Batmobiles. Deliver me from the whop, smack and zap in the bat cave and let me suffocate in such appalling overcuteness as Barbra. If that hour of greatness was a myth, spare me the realities of "My Mother the Car," my wife the witch, my father the fugitive, and your reviews.

(MRS.) KAREN KIMBALL

Vernon, N.Y.

Grump

Sir: I do not want your readers to have to speculate about the identity of the 15-year-old photographer employed by Roger Price's Grump [April 15]. I am he. And the world should also know that I am now 16. Admirable as he may be in other respects, Roger refuses to note the passage of years.

ANDY KARR

New York City

Across the Wide Missouri

Sir: A. V. Sorensen of Omaha [April 15] may be an above-average mayor, but please note: he walked through the waters of the Missouri, not on them.

MR. & MRS. ROBERT B. JOHNSON

Omaha

Yakking at the Yak

Sir: I was holding an empty glass when I began to read Fangs A Lot [April 8]. I had so much pun galloping through your pheasantries that my crocodile tears fell so fast I thought I needed an eye-viper. It gladdened my hart to see the tears had fallen into the glass. Instantly I addered a mastiff slug of raw animal spirits, with ice--"crocs on the rocks"--thrush snaking my thirst in a swallow. Delicious. Pity I had no horse d'oeuvre. Such a stag party may never be held again. On the otter hand, I wonder wether the savoir-fare of your report could be repeated? Please pardon my chick in asping, but to meat my wish, please: moa, moa! Tiger best you can, hmhm?

MARGARET TAYLOR

Manchester, England

Sir: Wallaby damned! Next time some anteloper is Ghana snake in and monkey around with the gnus, lemur know ahead. I roared so, the cubs in our pride were all apeset. Father said: "How horribull, she's been pythoned! Alligator a drink--you kids call the dogtor and giraffter that go bison aspirin. We'll keep her lion down hunter the table and cassowary ibis on the rest of TIME." That'll rabbit up for now.

SALLY DEE

Salem, Mass.

Sir: The last thing iguana do is make anemone by speaking with too much condor or sound as if I'm yakking or harpying about trivia, but still llama bit put out at your aukward article about the Ghana fitchewation. Every minotaur language seems to be losing whatever lynx remain with the deer old English we once gnu and loved. It used to comfort ocelot to pick up TIME and read straight-forward copy without being exposed to the whims of devilfish writers. And, alas, even TIME is now tapiring off in a manner that has us aphid linguiphiles so worked up we could spitz! Weasel all be happier if you stick with straight news copy. Too much of that other stuff chinchilla guy!

DENNIS UPPER

Cincinnati

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