Observation from the South
Sir: It surprises me that Washington has been trying to disentangle itself from the "within or without city limits" argument over the recent aerial bombardment of a railroad yard and a truck yard close to Hanoi [Dec. 23].
One wonders whether the Viet Cong cared so much about that kind of question when, under instruction from North Viet Nam, they attacked the civilian airport two miles from the heart of Saigon on Dec. 4 and 5, or when they blew up many American billets in downtown Saigon. It is expedient for some political figures to express concern over civilian casualties in North Viet Nam, but conveniently to forget that North Viet Nam has deliberately killed, wounded or kidnaped thousands of poor South Vietnamese farmers, schoolteachers and social workers in the past few years. The Viet Cong boasted of a "brilliant victory" when recently they fired into throngs of Saigon people who in holiday clothes were watching their National Day parade. The shells also fell on a hospital, a cathedral, a school and a market place, killing eight Vietnamese and injuring 46 innocent bystanders.
These civilian casualties can be avoided if North Viet Nam and the Viet Cong will stop "liberating" the South Vietnamese in this cruel manner and put the welfare of their nation above their party's ideology and the personal pride of their fanatic leaders.
PHAM-HUY-BACH Third Secretary
Office of the Viet Nam Observer to the UN Manhattan
Public or Private?
Sir: About "The Battle of the Book" [Dec. 23]: Isn't it time that Jacqueline Kennedy accepted a simple truth? The Chief Executive of our country was murdered, and it is of no historic interest that he was incidentally her husband. She has no option about supplying whatever information she possesses, because nothing to do with a President's murder is personal. Mrs. Kennedy has been treated with greater chivalry and consideration than any widow since Queen Victoria, but she must not assume private rights over public property.
MICHAEL KUH Madrid
Sir: The Kennedy people have finally accomplished the impossible: they have made President Johnson a figure of sympathy.
No Johnsonite myself, I have thought that since the assassination, the Kennedys have shown what can only amount to petty petulance toward our President.
The moment Kennedy died, Johnson was our President, and theirs also, like it or not. He was magnificent during the weeks after the assassination. No matter how he may be depreciated by Kennedy admirers, he pulled his country through a trying time, and the Kennedy people should applaud this. They should have emulated his reticence. Right now he looks ten feet tall. None of the Kennedys do.
MRS. D. R. SHOUP Charlotte, N.C.
Sir: Author Manchester be damned, Lyndon Johnson be damned, Look magazine be damned, and everyone else connected with the publication of The Death of a President be damned. Jacqueline Kennedy has objected to publication of the book; therefore it should not be published. It is as simple as that.
RICHARD H. FAWCETT Uncasville, Conn.
Sir: TIME was mistaken in saying that I was approached by the Kennedy family to do the assassination story but declined, mostly because they were asking for final-review rights of the book. I was never asked to write the story, and never even knew about the family's terms until a few weeks ago when they became general knowledge. I was indeed asked whether I'd be interested in undertaking the project. I said I'd think it over. The matter was never pursued further.
WALTER LORD Manhattan
Everyone's Fair Lady
Sir: Julie Andrews is IT! Your in-depth cover story [Dec. 23] on the "World's Greatest" explains my viewpoint precisely. It was so refreshing to read about a successful personality who has not "gone Hollywood." As you say, she is everyone's ideal mother, sister or wife. I don't think anyone can resist the lure of her charm.
Lois R. BREDHOLT, AGE 14 Brooklyn, N.Y.
Sir: How nice to learn that Julie is a real person and almost like the rest of us, instead of all spun sugar.
JOAN HUMPHREYS Menlo Park, Calif.
Sir: Cover Artist Koch did not capture the Julie Andrews I know and love. Painting her without that beautiful, radiant, happy smile is like doing Durante without a nose or a Kennedy without hair.
CURT TETRAULT Hudson, Mass.
Acute Reaction
Sir: Your Essay "Right You Are if You Say You Are--Obscurely" [Dec. 30] was merely an acute masochistic reaction formation to your own hostile-aggressive syntax, which itself derives from an inadequate ego-syntonic defense system with paranoiac overtones.
Unpublished but dedicated men would gladly clarify this to say you are frightened by the verbal game that you yourself play in your own angry fight for status and identity.
However, except for the doctor's taking the student's wallet, which was too angry of you, it makes for interesting reading.
MARJORIE GREENFIELD Librarian University of Pennsylvania Hospital Philadelphia
Sir: We can never have enough alarm-shouting about this plague. It has spread far beyond academe and the professions:
we have Marshall McLuhan and Bob Dylan, and who can forget Colonel "Shorty" Powers, sometime Voice of Project Mercury, describing Gus Grissom's first landing? "The drogue parachute is deployed, and the astronaut has a visual indication of it" (The drogue chute is open, and Gus can see it), and "The astronaut has indicated that he will proceed to effect egress" (Gus says he's coming out).
How sad that such linguistic artistry wasn't taught earlier. Think of the World War II Navy pilot who had a chance to report, "Have received visual indication of hostile submersible and deactivated its flotation capability." Instead, all the poor linguistic cripple could say was "sighted sub, sank same."
Oh well, even Churchill could never learn the proper use of jargon. When he took over in 1940, he had every opportunity to tell the British people that "dispatches from the zone of hostilities indicate that the military situation on the Continent has deteriorated to an alarming extent." He muffed it, of course, with "The news from France is very bad."
ALFRED D. BERGER Manhattan Speaking of Bond
Sir: "Boyishly handsome" Julian Bond's statement "I admire the courage of anyone who burns his draft card" [Dec. 16] displays an irresponsibility that deserves to be closely scrutinized by the Georgia house.
Certainly, a legislator has a duty to speak out on controversial issues, but intentional destruction of one's draft card is a federal offense. Bond's statement, then, is not a constructive pearl of wisdom about a controversial issue but an irresponsible stand on an irresponsible, criminal act.
A private citizen may get away with condoning and encouraging a crime, but a private citizen has neither the status nor the responsibility of a lawmaker. As a legislator, Mr. Bond should be aware of the proper methods for amending both law and government policy. The Georgia house had damned good cause to bar him. TED KAPLAN '65 J. RICHARD MARGULIES '67 Cornell University Ithaca, N.Y.
Sir: Thomas Jefferson and James Madison would be, and every other American should be, proud of the Supreme Court's decision to uphold Julian Bond's right to dissent. Whether or not we agree with his opinion, let us never take away his right to state it.
PATRICK J. ARTUR Philadelphia
Sir: As a participant in the move to refuse Julian Bond a seat in the Georgia house of representatives, I take particular interest in the story entitled "Right to Speak."
No one, as I know, has questioned Mr. Bond's right to speak, only what he has spoken, which no one seems to want to print. You, like most of your brethren, have failed to grasp the motivation behind the "hostile sentiment of the legislature."
I quote from an article that appeared in the Summerville News, Summerville, Ga. after the Supreme Court of the U.S. handed down its decision:
"Representative Floyd said that Julian Bond, when questioned on the floor of the house, said he did not know whether he was strong enough to commit treason against the U.S. 'A man that doesn't know in one split second,' Floyd said, 'whether he can commit treason against his country in my opinion is not qualified and doesn't have the right to sit in the house of representatives voting on legislation that would affect my life or any other Georgian's life.' "
(REPRESENTATIVE) JAMES H. FLOYD Trion, Ga.
Scout's Honor
Sir: Must a motion picture depict wife-trading, homosexuality, crime, violence, or other perversity to receive a favorable review by TIME? Clean, wholesome pictures that emphasize the better values in life are consistently spoofed by your Cinema department. A recent case in point is "Into the Jaws of Heck," your cynical and smart-alecky review of the late Walt Disney's Follow Me, Boys!
[Dec. 16].
Your review of this fine picture is positively nauseating, and an insult to the hundreds of thousands of scouters who devote their time, talents and energies to the youth of this nation. They do this, just as did "Scoutmaster MacMurray," because they believe adherence to the scout oath, or promise, by the youth of today will make better citizens tomorrow.
ALTON A. MCDONALD Judge Court of Common Pleas Cambria County Ebensburg, Pa.
>>TIME feels that the movie--not the review--insulted the Boy Scouts.
The Transsexuals
Sir: May I compliment TIME on its dignified and accurate story about "sex change" operations [Dec. 2].
Letters of protest [Dec. 16] against the program at Johns Hopkins Hospital to perform this sex-reassignment surgery are largely emotional reactions that have nothing to do with science or with reality.
Transsexuals have so far been a badly neglected group of patients, "stepchildren of medicine," suffering intensely under their undeserved misfortune. Until psychiatry finds a cure for them, surgery is their only life-saving hope, just as it is for the patient with lung cancer.
It is unfair and--for physicians--unscientific to criticize if they have never seen and studied any of these patients.
Ignorance is still the basis of most prejudices.
HARRY BENJAMIN, M.D.
New York City His Turn In the Barrel
Sir: In reply to Letter Writer Charles Rosner, who criticized Truman Capote for having a party [Dec. 23]:
Let me first agree that Rosner and his 40 barracks buddies have it rough and may indeed go to Viet Nam. However, does his being in the Army mean that there should be no parties, no merrymaking, no New Year's Eve in the U.S. until Rosner returns? So Truman Capote had a blast. So what? Must we read the trite analogies about the Roman Empire and the U.S. every time somebody has a toot?
I also spent some time in the service (four years in the Marines and three years in the Army, all on active duty), and the world did not stand mournfully weeping because I had to eat C rations. Neither will Rosner mourn eternally for the slobs still in the boondocks once he gets his discharge. At the moment, it is simply his turn in the barrel, just as it was for the boys in Korea before him, and for the boys in World War II before them, ad infinitum.
I suggest that Rosner take it like a man and quit feeling so sorry for himself.
RICHARD WATERMAN Independence, Mo.
Pet Peeve
Sir: After analyzing at least 24 alliterative appellatives in your latest literary achievement [Dec. 23], I appeal abjectly for amnesty, asking that you abandon alliteration. Associate with alliterates anonymous.
I can live forever without all of these: Guttural guttersnipes, memorable moments, bugs in Berkeley, battles of the books, booms with booms, pragmatic views of privacy, official obstructions, pandemonium in Pittsburgh, mathematic models, contracting clouds, anxious ages, gawking goons, immature Ymas, frenzied flamencos, period pieces, copy cats, project parties, sins and souls, damn dots, Hiltons on the Hudson, nasties for Noel, and Concurrent Cliches.
For your New Year's aspiration, make alliteration an anachronism, alleviate ambiguity, amputate absurdity. Add artistry, authenticity, ability and accomplishment.
MYRNA R. TRUITT Brighton, Mass.
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