Image-Makers

Sir: After reading about the "Affection Gap" [Sept. 23], I questioned myself as to just who dislikes President Johnson. It is plain that no man can satisfy all the people at all times. I wonder if it is not part of being "in" to dislike the man running the country?

MARTIN F. STUDER A.P.O. San Francisco

Sir: To a member of the go-go generation of the space age, it is not difficult to see why the Kennedys are more popular than Johnson. They have flair, charm, a witty intensity, dedication to their country, and, Bugs Bunny to the contrary, we would rather hear that rapid-fire New England accent than that twangy Texas drawl preaching at us. Johnson is square, folksy and dullsville, sounding just like dozens of boring politicians from the past. The Kennedys are bright and new; they're with it. So are their in-laws: Jackie still commands more newsprint than Luci, cum wedding, Lady Bird and Lynda combined.

SALLY SLOCUM St. Louis

Sir: Though I am no great Johnson fan, your article left me aghast--not at the President but at a supposedly advanced society which judges almost solely on the basis of "likability" and "personality gaps." I am concerned that the American public watches too many soap operas. If the nation's highest official is weighed on the scales of "image" rather than reason, isn't it about time that we stopped feeling and started thinking?

DOUGLAS MCCURRACH

Staff, COMFAIRMED

F.P.O. New York

Sir: President Johnson may have just passed Kennedy in the number of days in office, but he surpassed him in performance a long time ago. Johnson is a capable, efficient, hard-working President who has got things done that other Presidents could only talk about. He has already done the possible. The impossible will just take him a while longer.

JEANELLE JAMES Nashville, Tenn.

That Grand Hunk

Sir: Heaps of kudos on the Canada cover story [Sept. 30]: informative, illuminating and timely. I hope some conservationists in the U.S. read between the lines and instigate some cooperative move with kin dred interest in Canada. Booms are good, but at least a dab or two of that grand hunk of real estate needs protection.

MALIN F. FOSTER Salt Lake City

Sir: Your article has virtually ignored Canada's most dynamic and exciting city --Toronto. It is much larger than Buffalo, New Orleans or Houston. Ten radio stations, six receivable television stations, one of the world's most luxurious race tracks, over 30 hospitals, over 600 elementary and secondary schools, and two major universities are just everyday facts of life to Torontonians.

PETER H. WHELEN Toledo

To the Lions

Sir: Apropos of Adam Clayton Powell, alias "Daniel" [Sept. 30]. Am I mistaken, or didn't ministers use to preach the Gospel from their pulpits on Sunday morning? Apparently Mr. Powell feels that the denunciation and abasement of his House Education and Labor Committee as "racists" is more important than God's word. MARK J. HARDCASTLE King of Prussia, Pa.

Sir: Pistol-packing Preacher Powell's televised remarks prove that he is the worst racist demagogue ever in Congress. His abuse and misuse of congressional privilege is an American disgrace. Powell's fellow Congressmen should censure and expel him.

ERNEST L. MCLAUGHLIN Union, S.C.

The Man & His Position

Sir: As a former employee of the Met, I think the story on Rudolf Bing [Sept. 23] is an almost totally accurate presentation of the man and his position in the world of opera.

JAMES BROWNING National Music Council New York City

Sir: Your story concerning Rudolf Bing and the new Met was most interesting and enjoyable. However, I hasten to point out the inaccuracy of Mr. Bing's statement, "After all, nobody knows who conducts in Vienna when it isn't Von Karajan." Conductors at the Vienna Staatsoper during the 1965-66 season included, among others, Lorin Maazel, Leopold Ludwig, Josef Krips, Andre Cluylens, Karl Boehm and Leonard Bernstein--a rather distinguished group of unknowns, I think even Mr. Bing would admit.

STUART J. LING The College of Wooster Wooster, Ohio

Old Army Game

Sir: In reply to your article on Army education [Sept. 16]: 1 am a living example of the experience of the French army, where teaching of reading and writing for dropouts or illiterates has always been done. I was a Greek refugee in France at the age of 16. I did not go to school on arrival, but earned my living as an apprentice. Serving two years in the French army, however, I learned French grammar, a good style in writing and speaking, and developed a craving for learning which I followed ever after. I hope it will be the same for your Negro or white underprivileged soldiers.

N. VASSILIADES Marseille

The Price Is Wrong

Sir: Congratulations for your timely article on "the teacher shortage" [Sept. 23]. I think that many teachers would endorse your idea: Is there a teacher shortage, or is there a shortage at the price and conditions school boards and taxpayers offer? I hope, as a citizen and an educator, that more school boards and taxpayers will become cognizant of this national problem. As long as poor facilities, overcrowded classrooms and insufficient pay exist, this shortage will increase.

WILLIAM DAVID WELCH North Kansas City High School North Kansas City, Mo.

Tongue Twisters

Sir: It is true the new Random House Dictionary of the English Language [Sept. 30] defines supercalifragilisticexpialidocious as a nonsense word used by children to represent the longest word in English. But the same dictionary has the word pneitnionoiiltratnicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, which has the edge on Mary Poppins by 45 to 34 letters; it is the longest word in English. Poor old antidisestablishmentarianism has been left far behind.

C. MORTIMER CRIST Atherton Press New York City

Deep Delusion

Sir: How pitiful it is that so-called psychiatrists and theologians who are presumably in the position of helping people should instead be responsible for leading them into deep delusion. The heedless advocacy of using LSD to obtain mystical insights and the equation of the condition of St. Theresa and an LSD flight are not only fallacious, they are irresponsible. LSD fosters no lasting attitudes of either humility or love. LSD leads to a perversion of consciousness, making spiritual progress effectively more difficult. As the Eastern mystic Avatar Meher Baba recently said: "Love will make one a better man than drugs or any other artificial aid ever will." (MRS.) PAULA GORDON Berkeley, Calif.

Every Botch Has a Silver Lining

Sir: I only hope that everything in my career I manage to "botch" as much as you reported I did at the recent Venice Film Festival [Sept. 16]. For thanks to the festival, Italy's famed film director

Federico Fellini has signed me to star in his next film for Dino De Laurentiis. Not too bad for a young "starlet."

TANYA LOPERT Paris

Cafe Noir

Sir: For those interested in further facts re your PEOPLE item [Aug. 26], here they are: In 1960 1 offered $1,500,000 to the city of New York for the purpose of building a sidewalk cafe at the east end of Central Park South, near Fifth Avenue. Every relevant department of the city accepted the gift. I deposited over $800,000 with the city, as good faith, where it remained until recently without earning interest. I paid an architect fee of over $100,000 to Edward Stone.

As construction was about to start, Walter Moving, chairman of the board of Tiffany's, and others, sued the city to prevent it, claiming a misuse of park land. For almost five years, they carried their case through the courts of New York State, with no success whatever. In 1965, when the cafe was again about to be built, Mayor Lindsay came into office. He at once appointed Walter Hoving's son Thomas as the new Parks Commissioner, and flatly turned down the cafe. Mr. Thomas Hoving then suggested to me that I give my money to the Bedford-Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn. I finally agreed to give two-thirds of it to Bedford-Stuyvesant if one-third could be used for a smaller version of the cafe at the proposed site. For this offer, Mr. Hoving accused me of holding out "a carrot on a stick" to Bedford-Stuyvesant and causing racial unrest. There the matter now stands.

HUNTINGTON HARTFORD

New York City

Animal Crackers

Sir: I'm reading Pablo Picasso loud and clear. What a good laugh he's having at Chicago's expense [Sept. 23]. For who can look a gift horse in the mouth? "Unmistakably feminine" indeed!! The sculpture is obviously the head of a large male mandrill baboon--and in what better jungle could he make his home?

VIRGINIA AYERS GRAZIER Dixon, Mont.

Sir: The identity of Picasso's sculpture may keep the world guessing, but to me it can't be anything but a Russian hound. DOLORES E. RUDDY

Albany, N.Y.

Sir: Picasso's sculpture is an apt representation of the spirit of Chicago--a vulture.

JAMES BECKLEY Chicago

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