Concerned with Survival

Sir: The Anti-Ballistic Missile debate [Feb. 24] can be settled by asking both sides this question: "What if you are wrong?"

If the supporters are wrong, we will lose $100 per American. If the detractors are wrong, we will lose one American per American. Which would you choose?

It does not soothe me to hear McNamara say that our ability to vaporize Russia is our best defense. I am more concerned with America's survival than Russia's destruction. What if our deterrent does fail? Are we to shout hurrah because their pile of ashes is bigger than ours? Or are we to congratulate ourselves on how much money we saved?

DANIEL JOHN SOBIESKI Chicago

Sir: No matter what kind of ABM deterrent system a country may install, it will not deter an enemy bent on using nuclear weapons. All the belligerent nation need do is deposit nuclear explosives underwater off the coast of the target country, wait until the winds are just right, and detonate the weapon. The fallout will inflict the damage.

JAMES E. VANDELLY San Angelo, Texas

Sir: Many people are miserable nowadays, but in general life is heaven for the masses compared with what it was 22 years ago in some countries. This miracle of prosperity is as good a guarantee against holocaust as any missile offense or defense program man can create. For it is not machines that will deter man from certain actions--if he is desperate, he will always be clever enough to find the flaws in someone else's system. Rather, it is his inner feeling of what life is worth to him that will be the all powerful deterrent. This area must not be slighted while bigger and better bomb systems are installed.

JULIE PARKER Whittier, Calif.

Further Testimony

Sir: The record should be corrected on two points in "The Bombing Controversy" [March 3].

Secretary McNamara does not believe that the bombing is ineffective, as your own reporting in the rest of the piece clearly shows. The one out-of-place quotation from an unidentified source is in error.

Secondly, the same unidentified source erroneously indicates that the Secretary wants to call the bombing off and states that the Secretary gives this reason for not calling it off: "I've got my generals too."

The Secretary has made no such statement. No statement would be less typical of him. TIME should know what all of Washington knows: the Secretary of Defense runs the military establishment. The suggestion that his subordinates overrule him on a matter as important as bombing North Viet Nam is ludicrous.

PHIL G. GOULDING

Deputy Assistant Secretary, Public Affairs Department of Defense Washington, D.C.

One Man's Cloak, Another Man's Dagger

Sir: I am in no way scandalized that the CIA has supported the praiseworthy efforts of the National Student Association to portray the American image at international conferences [Feb. 24]. There is no reason for suspicion that the CIA has attempted to subvert the independent thinking of the N.S.A. or to use student delegates as spies.

I am, however, seriously disturbed that the Government, represented through the years by both Democratic and Republican administrations, quite evidently did not feel it politically expedient to support publicly, through a more appropriate federal agency, the N.S.A. effort toward international student understanding.

P. H. RATTERMAN, SJ. Xavier University Cincinnati

Sir: God bless the CIA and keep it free of congressional politics. The Communists must enjoy the exposure of one of our truly protective arms.

FRANCIS H. WENDT Racine, Wis.

Sir: I understand the need for espionage, for Government support of certain organizations and even for building a good image. As a Christian and a university professor, however, I cannot condone your uncritical defense of the CIA as an agency for molding opinion or atmosphere --as was apparently the objective in the N.S.A. subsidy--or for aiding the overthrow of foreign governments. It is this acting on intelligence rather than simply gathering it that frightens me. Incidents such as the U-2 flight and President Eisenhower, and the Bay of Pigs fiasco and President Kennedy, have suggested that even the chief executive is not fully informed of CIA actions and that American citizens have the right to demand that the CIA stay with intelligence and espionage, not propaganda and sabotage.

CARL F. ROTHE Indianapolis

Sir: Thank you for the common sense and research on the CIA and the students. We had just read a shocking, maudlin, sensational, full-page newspaper ad put out by Ramparts magazine, screaming to the world that "the CIA has infiltrated and subverted the world of American student leaders over the past 15 years," and other shameful accusations. We recognized it as a nasty, cheap attempt to stir up scandal in an effort to boost sales, but what would all of Europe think?

E. F. STEPHENS Palma de Mallorca, Spain

Sir: Until the recent publicity, I had no idea the CIA was doing such an efficient job around the world. It is reassuring.

FAY STROSS

Seattle

The Marine with Fall

Sir: I just finished reading about Bernard Fall, the journalist who bravely gave his life for his country [March 3]. Just as his family, and friends, and the people of America are proud of him, I, too, am proud of my husband, the Marine photographer who accompanied Fall on his last mission. He was not only a dedicated Marine, but an excellent photographer, and the one and only most fabulous husband and father in the world. I'm not sure of my purpose in writing this letter. Maybe it is that I want you to know who the photographer was who bravely gave his life for his country along with Mr. Fall.

MRS. BYRON G. HIGHLAND Lancaster, Pa.

At Gunpoint

Sir: The statement in "To Redeem the Worst, to Better the Best" [Feb. 17] that a firearms-control act "would be one of the cheapest, yet probably one of the most effective crime-fighting tools" is without logic.

The country has no reason to restrict the mere possession of firearms: it is their illegal use that produces tragedy. Restricting possession of arms for self-defense and sport would restrict only the law-abiding citizens; criminals would continue to 1) smuggle guns in from out of the country, 2) steal guns, 3) make guns, and/or 4) use other weapons.

The answer is to make punishment for the criminal use of dangerous weapons swift, sure and effective.

EDGAR A. WILEY Temple City. Calif.

In the Name of the Law

Sir: Again, TIME has done a signal service to American justice in "A Classic Case of False Evidence" [Feb. 24].

I have written the American Bar Association to inquire whether it intends to permit Fulton County's Prosecutor Blaine Ramsey to continue his law practice despite the shocking revelations in TIME's report. If this is not malpractice, I do not understand the meaning of the word.

L. HURLBUTT DEWETTER Keene, N.H.

Sir: We should not tolerate persecution of the innocent by the law in the name of legal prosecution. To obtain the conviction of a man for murder by using false evidence, as did Prosecutor Elaine Ramsey in Illinois, is in itself an attempt to murder.

But, alas, the prosecutor is a politician and the public is apathetic, so Ramsey's misconduct will soon be forgotten and this frightening state of affairs ignored.

STANLEY I. FRIEDMAN Boston

Giving Them the Bird

Sir: I was interested in your review of MacBird [March 3]. I was especially interested in the photograph of the "L.BJ. cartoon" being used as a backdrop for the play.

Several months ago the director of MacBird approached my gallery with the idea of using a 1961 painting of mine called Clown in Armor as a backdrop for his production of MacBird. I did not wish to be associated with this play and refused him my permission.

Some of my friends, having seen the photograph in TIME, have expressed surprise that I would lend my work to such a play. I would like to make it clear that I had nothing to do with this production of MacBird.

ROBERT VICKREY Manhattan

Man with a Mission

Sir: It is refreshing to read that African leaders are finally beginning to ask Christian missionaries to go home [Feb. 17].

It is amazing that in 1967 some white men and women are still trying to persuade black Africans to abandon their religious beliefs and worship instead a blond and blue-eyed Jesus--the same Jesus whom the Ku Klux Klan and other racists in the U.S. and Britain and the apartheid white minorities of South Africa and Rhodesia worship; the same Jesus in whose name Jews have been persecuted in the West for ten centuries and 6,000,000 Jews were gassed in Germany only 25 years ago. For more than three centuries, Christianity has ministered to the American Negro's self-hatred; and today, many black Africans and some black Americans still sing Wash Me Whiter than Snow, Lord. Incredible.

It will be a great day for human dignity when the last white missionary leaves Africa.

O. JEMIE Manhattan

Be a Sport

Sir: Letter Writer Ryan's backhanded compliment to Negro athletes [Feb. 24] misses a sociological point. There has always been a hierarchy of emerging nationalities in American professional sports: the Irish in the '20s, the Italians and Jews in the '30s, the Negroes in the '50s and '60s. That the number of colored champions is disproportionate to the number of Negroes in America is not evidence of physical superiority and mental inferiority, but of the fact that the choice of opportunity is limited for Negroes and that they must try their luck in the rewarding, but strenuous and heartbreaking, realm of professional sports.

FRED B. CHARY Arlington, Va.

Low on the Lab

Sir: With "In the Lab: Too Many Defective Tests" [Feb. 17], you've opened the door on a very ugly situation.

I discovered very early that technicians are considered about as important as nurses' aides and secretaries. The salaries are at the poverty level. Yet registered technicians with a B.S. degree take many courses taught in medical school, including pathology, immunology, comparative anatomy, pathogenic bacteriology and at least 25 to 35 college hours each of chemistry, zoology and bacteriology. Often a good technician knows more about specific diseases than the doctor for whom the tests are run. The smart technicians will go on to medical school rather than work for low pay and with low selfesteem.

MARIAN WILSON Registered Medical Technologist American Society of Clinical Pathologists Williamsville, N.Y.

Ex Libris

Sir: Architect Philip Johnson was right: a wing added to the Boston Public Library [Feb. 24], or a building that would dominate it, would have been out of the question; a duplicate would have been more absurd than either.

But this being the case, the problem was impossible of solution and ought to have been declined by an artist who is these days the chief spokesman for monumentality. Three years of brooding brought forth only a far worse alternative than the obvious ones, an unmatched pair, too much like each other to be thought of apart, yet too wildly dissimilar to form a simple design.

The treasure Boston's City Fathers may imagine themselves to be doubling they are, in fact, destroying; for whatever force Mr. Johnson's building may possess, or the older one alongside it, will be utterly done away with by the presence of its neighbor.

PIERCE RICE Washington. D.C.

Sir: It reminds me of early transit garage or late National Guard Armory. One might well consider burning the library instead of the books.

PAUL A. POLLOCK Lowell, Mass.

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