Tempering the Wind

Sir: TIME'S thoughtful Essay on Red China [May 20] should do much to temper the rantings of the bomb-'em-now crowd. It brings hope that China might yet, given another generation, become a world neighbor again.

MILTON S. KATZ Sherman Oaks, Calif.

Sir: It is unwise to boast that "the U.S. knows more about Red China than does any other nation, with the possible exception of the Soviet Union." Probably Sinologists in America have collected more facts about the physical aspects of China than have Sinologists elsewhere. But Chinese national psychology is far more important than any other factor in understanding the Chinese and other ethnic groups in Asia. China's perverted national psychology--anxiety to prove the myth of "center of the world," suspicion against the former "imperialists," and frustration at having been an underdog--cannot be easily understood or readily compensated for by those who have never had a similar experience.

HAK INN RHEE Eastern Michigan University Ypsilanti, Mich.

The Iceman Cometh

Sir: Fulbright's accusations about Saigon as a "brothel" [May 13] are the last straw. I have been stationed all over Viet Nam, and I am positive it would be most unusual to "hear a report that a Vietnamese soldier has committed suicide out of shame because his wife has been working as a bar girl." I strongly advise Fulbright to come to Viet Nam and see for himself before he gets in over his head with his faulty and ambiguous statements about the dying youth of America and their behavior in time of war. Washington's biggest problem concerning G.I.s in Viet Nam is their morale. It is not unlike the problem the U.S. had in the Korean War, and the good Senator isn't helping one bit.

(PFC.) JOSEPH P. NYE JR. U.S.M.C. Hue, South Viet Nam

Sir: Following your guide, I called FRANKLIN 4-2181, Little Rock. A gruff voice answered in response to my request for "Rocket": "You have wrong number." Maybe the ice has melted.

C. W. CRAVEN Arlington, Va.

The Other Side of the Story

Sir: The two dedicated Michigan physicians referred to in "Volunteers for Viet Nam" [May 20], Hugh Sulfridge and Hugh Caumartin are from Saginaw, Mich. Evidence of what this city thinks of them: they were given $2,000 by one of the churches to buy medical supplies and equipment, and more than $1,000 worth of Chloromycetin has been shipped to Viet Nam, paid for by popular subscription.

CARL G. KING Executive Secretary Saginaw County Medical Society Saginaw, Mich.

Sir: You might be interested in our five-year-old Holy Family Hospital in Qui Nhon. It is staffed by eleven Medical Mission Sisters, among them the only American Catholic Sisters working in Viet Nam. Their services include surgery and obstetrics. A venture, started by a Protestant Army chaplain and his unit with the hospital, has been labeled "Operation Harelip." For the past few months, the men have been bringing Vietnamese children with harelips to the hospital, passing the hat to cover the expenses of corrective surgery performed by Sister M. Virginia Sayers, M.D., of Toledo, Ohio.

SISTER BERNADETTE MARIE, SCMM Medical Mission Sisters Philadelphia

Better Things in Smaller Packages

Sir: Every time Detroit makes cars [May 20] that are too long, too big, and too expensive, car sales drop, and we have to listen to theories about the "sagging economy" and "tight money." I wish the manufacturers would get out of those smoke-filled rooms and ask me how to run the auto business. What most of us want is a small, good-looking, economical car, as demonstrated by our eagerness to buy the compacts. Since they've made those bigger and bigger, we've stopped buying them. I notice Mustang sales haven't dropped.

(MRS.) NANCY STEVENSON ADAMS Athens, Ohio

Sir: W. B. Murphy's prediction that the auto-safety issue will probably blow over within six months reminds me of the pharmaceutical executive who told me, shortly after the thalidomide story broke in, 1962, that his firm would be marketing thalidomide in the U.S. within six months. Some businessmen seem closely related to snails, judging from the rate at which they're facing up to the fact that consumers are not so dumb as they used to be.

G. ALAN ROBISON Nashville, Tenn.

Answering the Call

Sir: I was delighted to read TIME'S Essay on the family physician [May 13]. For years the American Academy of General Practice has been telling this story to medical educators, but our words have fallen on deaf ears. We do not advocate the family doctor of 50 years ago, but a bright, modern family physician well trained in comprehensive medicine, and schooled in those attributes so well described in your Essay. Though it is true that most modern medical knowledge is best applied in the hospital and office, there are many instances when the house call is most useful, convenient and economically sound. But to make these calls possible in the future, we must have more family physicians.

GEORGE E. BURKET JR., M.D.

Chairman, Board of Directors American Academy of General Practice Kansas City, Mo.

Sir: I quote from the presidential address of Dr. Robert Boal to the Illinois State Medical Society:

"The amenities of professional intercourse, and the obligations of medical men toward each other and the public, were perhaps better observed in 1850 than now. Then the doctor, next to the minister, was the trusted friend and counselor of every family to whom he ministered. He shared their joys, soothed their sorrows, and every passing year added to and cemented the attachment and affection between them. Now the doctor is regarded more in the light of a tradesman or mechanic, and is employed from the same consideration that a grocer, tailor or shoemaker is. The strong ties of gratitude and affection have almost ceased to exist. Relationship is now placed upon a mere commercial basis, and for this the profession is more to blame than the public."

The speech was delivered in 1882.

DR. SAM BITNUN, M.B., Cn.B. Nelson, B.C.

Still Protesting

Sir: True, Chicago students were protesting the use of class rank as a device for Selective Service boards [May 20]. But they protested not because such a device makes their academic "inferiors more vulnerable to conscription" but because it implies that grades could determine human expendability; because using grades for this extra-educational purpose perverts and disrupts the real goal of higher education: it diverts education from urging a student to learn to urging him to make good grades, which is not the same thing.

ROBERTA POLLACK University of Chicago Chicago

Sir: The students sat in not to force a substantive change in university policy but to bring about a suspension of the policy on rank until there was full discussion. At Chicago, as at many other universities, there is no provision for the expression and consideration of student opinion before policies are set. Normally, students are willing to remain unenfranchised and even uninformed, but they are morally outraged to find no sympathy for full discussion on an issue that so directly affects their nonacademic lives. Is it coercion for the unenfranchised to demonstrate for a full discussion (not even for a vote)? And is it not a fundamental confusion to talk of an academic community in which one essential element has neither vote nor provision to be heard before community policies are set?

FREDERICK STEGLER Associate Professor of Philosophy University of Chicago Chicago

Friend at Court

Sir: About "Reformers in Crisis" [May 20]: I call your attention to the section of New York's Family Court Act of 1962 dealing with juvenile delinquency. Under it, proceedings are deemed civil, but the juvenile has the right to counsel. He may remain silent throughout the proceedings, and the petition against him must be proven by a preponderance of the evidence. The occasions under which detention may be ordered are defined and limited. It cannot be said of juvenile-court proceedings in the state of New York that they are operating "farther and farther outside the Constitution." Formal proceedings protecting the child are not inconsistent with the philosophy of rehabilitation and correction that is a juvenile-court objective. HAROLD A. FELIX Judge

Family Court of the State of New York New York City

Lights Out

Sir: Only one light for TIME on its rowing-gizmo story [May 20], which failed to mention that the gizmo was not used at the E.A.R.C. sprints. Using a Wizard-equipped shell, Penn beat both Princeton and Yale earlier this season. As for Harvard, well, lightning may strike yet! Instead of "back to the drawing board" for McGinn, the Worcester results suggest that it's back to the lights for Penn!

JOHN H. McGiNN General Electric Co. Merion Station, Pa.

Sir: The electronic gizmo used by the University of Pennsylvania crew brings to mind a device developed by the Yale crew of 1947, on which I was coxswain.

At neck-and-neck moments, it is customary for the cox to call for ten power strokes; each man puts out extra effort to move his boat to the lead. The problem is that the competing boat can hear the call and will also make ten power strokes. Yale's coach, Allen Walz, agreed to install an electric bell in the shell, to be sounded in code by the cox at crucial moments. The bell was first used in the race with Harvard at New London. Both boats were even as they approached the finish line. I rang the bell, only to see Harvard pull ahead and win by a deck length. Later I asked the Harvard stroke his reaction to our bell. He said he had had no idea what it was, but on general principles raised the Harvard beat and called for ten power strokes, thereby winning. As far as I know, the Yale bell has not been used since.

Yale also developed a "secret weapon" for the '47 crew. An old Yale yachtsman suggested applying stale beer and graphite to the hull of the shell to reduce surface tension and make the boat slip through the water more easily. The stuff worked, because we lost only one race that year (to Harvard). When George Pocock, the famous racing-shell maker, saw Yale's dirty black boat, covered with graphite and smelling like a brewery, he said:

"Look what you've done to my boat! I'll never make another one for Yale."

ROBERT K. REYNOLDS Danbury, Conn.

Bombing the Toilet

Sir: I commend the Cornell researchers for their attempt to better the plight of the poor American in his bathroom [May 20]. However, I caution these well-meaning people: Consider the whole man! Washing, brushing, etc., are secondary purposes of the bathroom. The room with its famous chair is the family man's refuge. In what other place can he find that solitude required for serious reading and cogitation? So let's be careful of change.

ROBERT F. MEIER Silver Spring, Md.

Sir: These gentlemen must be kidding. Before they spend another $100,000 and six years more on research, I, as a layman who has spent 57 years concentrating on this subject, would like to ask a few questions and make some suggestions. What do we do with Aunt Fannie, who weighs 225 Ibs. and has to be helped in and out of an easy chair? Have you considered the leg length of a child and of a man 6 ft. 2 in. tall? Did you ever get up in the middle of the night, half asleep, and sit down after someone had left the seat up? This can be quite a shocker. My suggestions: raise the height to at least 17 in.; have a footrest flush with the floor, operated electrically to raise the feet to the desired position; outline the seat and push-up bars with thin neon lights for safe night use, and warmth, if necessary. Finally, how about stereo?

STEWART CRANDALL Laurens, N.Y.

Sir: As for the bathtub, any housewife can tell Kira what's wrong: It's too low. Scouring the far side is an exercise in contortion that makes the nine-inch squat a cinch. Besides, getting into or out of it is equivalent to lying down on or getting up from the floor. That nine inches you take away from the toilet could be put under the tub. No charge, Cornell.

SALLIE M. BRUTTO New York City

Sir: Let Kira get another grant and slip over to one of the older cultures--say Belgium--to view the most functional urinal yet conceived: a belt-high plaque of inch-thick slate, cemented to the wall and reaching to the floor, where a modest gutter is fitted. Suitable for tots or towers, wide enough for the whole team, cheap and indestructible, noiseless and unobtrusive: let's see Kira beat those features.

FREDERIC K. PATTON Washington, B.C.

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