Doves or Pigeons?

Sir: It is frightening to think that supposedly intelligent leaders of our country are willing (Bishop Sheen) to pull out of Viet Nam altogether and risk a terrible bloodbath [Aug. 11]. Others (Sherman Cooper and Stuart Symington) want to halt the bombing. They must have forgotten that we have stopped the bombing and fighting at several intervals and with no results. Such thinking only prolongs the war or brings negotiations that favor the enemy.

MRS. JACK L. COOPER Evanston, Ill.

Sir: President Johnson states that the nation's economy is rich enough to meet the responsibilities at home without neglecting our responsibilities in the world. The truth is we are not meeting our responsibilities at home.

JANE GENETT Brooklyn

Sir: Until I can see positive evidence of my tax money helping my fellow Americans, I am going to strongly object to a tax raise to be used halfway around the world. I never intended to be an isolationist or a dove but I am confused as to where the values of my Government lie.

MARTIN LINNOTT Hoffman Estates, Ill.

Sir: We sit in our comfortable homes, and it's hard to conceive what it's like to live in a place like Viet Nam. But if our boys fighting there think it's that worthwhile after seeing it all firsthand, the least we can do is to add a few more tax dollars to support them.

EDNA D. MAIN Jacksonville

Take the High Road

Sir: Congratulations on a long-overdue, well-done job of reporting. Whitney Young [Aug. 11] has much too long been in the background, and it's time he is given the recognition he so richly deserves. He is doing a tremendous job, not only for his own people but for the U.S. as a whole, in helping to provide the opportunity for the American Negro to make his much needed contribution to our society. We white Americans (as well as the Negro Americans) should be thankful that there is such an able spokesman as Whitney Young.

JAMES N. HUGHES Addison, Ill.

Sir: Sadly, what we failed to do through conscience we now must do through self-interest. In constructively attacking our nation's most critical internal problem, Whitney Young and other responsible, talented Negro leaders offer a sane and just alternative to Black Extremism. We must take it.

MILLICENT C. LEUBA Birmingham, Mich.

Sir: Bravo! TIME has rewarded the councils of moderation with badly needed publicity. But as a Negro I am still convinced that white people do not understand the lines of cleavage among us. Whitney Young and others like him represent the upper crust. They claim to speak for their oppressed brothers in the ghetto but cannot even speak to them. Those of us who live in the ghetto are doomed to name our own leaders and to select our own representatives.

RAYMOND GAVINS Charlottesville, Va.

Sir: To Whitney Young's "You've got to give us some victories": nobody's got to give nobody nothing. Victories are won, not given.

R. D. MILLER Manhattan

Sir: Economic opportunity, jobs, better housing and self-help projects in the ghettos may temporarily divert the rioting and bitterness, but for how long? One morning a dark-skinned, inarticulate, blues-singing Negro will wake up in his new ratless home and realize that he still lives in the annex. This won't be enough. Ghettos and colonies must be eradicated, not subsidized.

ROBERT L. TEAL Berkeley, Calif.

Sir: Whitney Young's mother was not the first Negro postmistress in the U.S. Minnie M. Cox was appointed by President McKinley in 1896 to the office of postmistress at Indianola, Miss., county seat of Sunflower County. She held that post until 1903. I am her great-grandson.

WELLINGTON C. HOWARD JR. Chicago

> Postmistress Cox held office for seven years without serious trouble, but then, in a period of rising racial tensions in the South, resigned and left town after receiving threats from a group of local whiles. Whereupon President Teddy Roosevelt shut down the post office until Indianola guaranteed her safe return. Said T.R., in a letter to a friend at the time: "I will be conciliatory with the South up to a point; then I stop, and stop short, too." Indianola was equally adamant, and the tug of war went on until eventually Mrs. Cox herself refused to return under any circumstances, after which the post office was reopened with a white postmaster.

Arabia Defense

Sir: TIME'S cheerful acceptance of the Israeli conquest of Arab Jerusalem and other Arab areas [Aug. 4 and 11] acquires considerable irony in view of recent developments, which inevitably attend extended military occupation. Your assertion that "emotional and fiscal" motives sway the Arabs as much as religion in their concern for the holy places would seem even truer of the predominantly secularist Israelis now vigorously exploiting the commercial advantages of the sacred sites. May I point out that in Arab eyes, those hordes of "festive" Israeli tourists visiting the occupied areas are analogous to the Germans who flocked eagerly to see the sights of Paris and other conquered areas.

THE REV. CHARLES H. WHITTIER Peirce Memorial Church Dover, N.H.

Sir: We have no right, as Americans, to stain the traditions and history of the Arabs, who even before the birth of our homeland were the masters of enlightenment. They have done us no wrong. Why should we?

WALTER A. ROBINSON Geneva, Switzerland

Friends to All

Sir: Regarding the Quaker Action Group and sending supplies to Viet Nam [Aug. 11], Friends have sent medical supplies to South Viet Nam, the National Liberation Front, and North Viet Nam. We have had a concern for all victims of the war, not merely those in the north.

EDWIN B. BRONNER Chairman

World Conference Committee Haverford, Pa.

A Touch of Flak

Sir: Your tear-jerking eulogy [Aug. 11] for poor, lonely, misunderstood Alfried Krupp was truly touching in its simple homage to a fine human being. As one who still carries in his body some of the odds and ends manufactured by Krupp's firm, I will always remember him. And to think of his unhappy marriages and that nasty old billionaire father and that awful echoing 200-room house and the 28-room bungalow and the 1,000,000 slaves who worked for him. Leave it to TIME to stick up for the underdog with a melancholy approach that, after all, poor Alfried was just another munitions maker trying to eke out a living, following orders, and in the end being beaten down by those ruthless bankers.

R. A. MULLINS Skaneateles, N.Y.

The Malt Thickens

Sir: Before this malted milk thing becomes a mini-controversy, everybody's right! Doctor Needles and Mr. Stuck-enrath [Aug. 11] are apparently referring to the plain malted milk shakes which were mainly composed of milk, malt powder and flavoring. But the plot thickens. The Walgreen original was inspired by a Walgreen fountain man in the early '20s, who had the happy idea of adding two scoops of ice cream, putting it in the mixer, and creating the thick malted milk shake. We called it the Double Rich Chocolate Malted Milk and it set a new standard for malted drinks nationwide. Hope this unmixes things.

RICHARD H. SCHNEIDER Publicity Director Walgreen Drug Stores Chicago

Scrambling the Nest Egg

Sir: Professor Samuelson feels that "the mutual fund administrators provide investors nothing that they could not gain by throwing darts and hitting random stocks" [Aug. 11]. That might be true if the average investor had a great many darts to throw, which he hasn't, and if he would truly throw at random, which he doesn't.

CLARE GRIFFIN Grad. School of Bus. Admin. The University of Michigan Ann Arbor

Sir: As a retired businessman faced with the clear necessity of making his nest egg grow as a hedge against inflation, I asked the treasurer of my company what he thought about the wisdom of investing in mutual funds. "Unless you want to spend every waking hour studying market reports," he told me, "you're crazy if you do anything else." Since, after long and careful study, I am now acting on the treasurer's advice, I am distressed to see the SEC and Congress, to borrow Paul Sam-uelson's phrase, "throwing darts" at the mutual-fund industry. The trouble is that saying "Buy mutual funds" is like saying "See your doctor" or "Ask your lawyer" or "Write your Congressman." What one should say is, "Buy a good mutual fund" or "See a competent doctor" or "Ask a smart lawyer" or "Write an influential Congressman." Let's not throw the baby out with the bath water.

CARLETON HOLMES DAVIS Old Lyme, Conn.

Diagnosis: Hippiosis

Sir: Your article concerning senility [Aug. 4] describes the sufferers as "illogical," "subject to mental depressions," bothered by weakened memories, "sloppy." "inattentive to details once cared about," "insensitive to the feelings of others and oversensitive to their own," "previously belligerent" but currently "pathetically sweet and placid," and "at times . . . completely cut off from reality." You have identified the malady afflicting those in contemporary "hippiedom." They are suffering from senility!

ROBERT E. BLUHM Colorado State College Greeley

Have a Little Courreges

Sir: Stop! Courreges' underbosoms [Aug. 11] bouncing in the breeze will be too much. The underendowed will be pitilessly uncovered and ignored, while we bountiful girls need all the support we can get. I shudder to think what type of underwear they'll devise for our "underbosoms"--minihalters?

DEE WILLIAMS WOLFENBARGER Brownsville, Texas

Color Blind

Sir: Your article on color television is in gross error regarding Motorola price reduction. The 20-in. table model you reported reduced from $429 to $329 was actually reduced to $419. At the same time, Motorola introduced a less deluxe model at $399.

S. R. HERKES Vice President, Marketing Motorola, Inc. Franklin Park, Ill.

You Devils!

Sir: Was it really necessary to make such a mockery of the Harewood-Tuck-well marriage [Aug. 11]? I found your treatment to be crude, distasteful and juvenile. If your aim was lightheartedness, you missed the mark, I fear. In my opinion the write-up very definitely smacks of lightheadedness!

MRS. E. D. OBSER Jamaica, N.Y.

Sir: You rakish, talented devils!

NORMA RICHARDSON Austin, Texas

Four Square

Sir: Allow me to correct the inaccurate and rather damaging statement in your review of Under the Hill by Aubrey Beardsley and myself [Aug. 11], that the book contains "four-letter words." None of the half-dozen well-worn crudities implied by this expression can be found anywhere in the text. All our own words have at least seven letters.

JOHN GLASSCO Foster, Que.

Just Wait Till Next Time

Sir: If the convertible is dying out in popularity in the U.S. [July 28], it is the automobile industry that is killing it. During the past 27 years convertibles have been designed to be as conventional as sedans; in the past seven years sedans have been designed to be as sporty as convertibles. Yet there is no cause for real alarm. With the increasing number of European sports cars in America, wind-in-the-face driving is not doomed. Further, there is an auto industry parallel to the current safety campaign as it seems to have affected convertible sales. During 1937-39 the industry became very safety conscious, practically discontinued convertible models. By 1940 the trend was broken and all makes were offering convertible models and the industry-wide proportion was at its 1936 rate. If history does repeat itself, we should see one more year of slackening interest in convertibles and then a sudden resurgence in their popularity in 1970.

NICHOLAS FINTZELBERG Salinas, Ecuador

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