The War & Its Conduct

Sir: It seems very reasonable to conclude that if we had entered the Viet "Jam war to win [Sept. 8], bombing Haiphong, the dams, bridges, plants and power houses right at the start, instead of waiting till they had assembled the most powerful combination of antiaircraft weapons yet seen, our losses of men and material would have been reduced and the war shortened. A war asininely fought is half lost. Our substitute for a quick victory has pleased no one except the Viet Cong.

CHARLES HAMILTON Lansing, Mich.

Sir: You note that Americans have remarkably little hatred or fear of their enemy in Viet Nam. It is hard to hate people who are so fed up with fascist governments and foreign intervention that they are able to carry on with stolen and imported weapons and men against the most sophisticated weaponry that U.S. money can buy. "Hatred" doesn't fit; "respect" might be closer to the mark. It might be easier to work up some fear of Ho Chi Minh if he were leading a platoon of Viet Cong down the main street of Honolulu.

It is hard to contemplate being called into military service and asked to go peasant hunting in overseas jungles, risking Claymore-mine explosions at every step, when one cannot realistically hate or fear the enemy, and when one has the haunting feeling that he himself may be the actual aggressor, all things considered. It is, in fact, much easier to fear Mr. Johnson's foreign policy.

NICK NICHOLL Claremont, Calif.

Sir: A sobering prospect for Americans of all persuasions: what would we do in Southeast Asia if we did win!?

FRANK D. WEBB Wheaton, Ill.

Another Case

Sir: Three cheers for ITT's Harold Geneen [Sept. 8], who proves that there's nothing wrong with ambition that can't be cured by a lot of success. TIME'S explanation of this fascinating man's awesomely complex company was first rate--and your exposition on the question "What is a conglomerate?" is the first one I've read that makes any sense.

SAUNDERSON MACGOWAN Chicago

Sir: Sosthenes Behn was one of the last grand old gentlemen of finance, at ease with king or laborer alike. ITT represented, to its thousands of workers, one man, who commanded their fierce loyalty, love and admiration. I am glad Colonel Behn did not live to see his dream become a giant conglomerate, where the personal touch and human values are lost in the balance sheet, drowned in the quest for the almighty dollar.

MRS. SOSTHENES BEHN II Cascais, Portugal

Sir: Ever try to rectify an erroneous billing by the Puerto Rico Telephone Company?--grown men have been known to cry! Ever try to get a telephone in the Virgin Islands? Ever try to get the operator?--busy signals for hours on end. Ever get charged a service charge for placing a long distance call that doesn't answer? Ever see thousands of inhabitants with no telephones for years?--look at Puerto Rico and ITT. Maybe President Geneen hasn't opened that attache case yet!

JOHN BAKER St. Thomas, Virgin Islands

Campaign Songs

Sir: The race to fill Congressman Younger's seat in San Mateo County, Calif, has been in full swing for several months, with the men whom you so casually dismiss as "six other Republicans and three Democrats" running hard [Sept. 8]. It appalls me that you should devote a full column to Shirley Temple Black, without giving a word's consideration to the positions and experience of her opponents. Any of them seems eminently better qualified to serve as Congressman than she.

KATHARINE B. LAFOND San Diego

Sir: The thought of Shirley Temple Black in Congress makes me a good deal sicker than Night Games ever did.

DALE M. HELLEGERS

Manhattan

Sir: I liked her when she sang On the Good Ship Lollipop and I like the song she sings now even better.

GENEVIEVE M. DWIGGINS University City, Mo.

Sir: The country has been ruined by a man's point of view--why not listen to an intelligent woman?

MURIEL LYONS Sacramento

Brain Drain

Sir: The rather pathetic statement of Governor Romney that he was brainwashed in Viet Nam by the generals and diplomats [Sept. 15] raises two important questions: How can we trust the presidency to a man whose brain is so weak that it can be washed, without even the duress usually applied in such circumstances? How much brain is there in a candidate for the presidency who can publicly make such an asinine admission?

HARRY W. SCHACTER Manhattan

On the Heights

Sir: Re your article on the Battle of Golan Heights between Israel and Syria [Sept. 1]: of course it was understood that the odds against Israel were great. But your analysis reports just how great the odds were on this front alone. I have been following your reports of the recent Arab-Israeli war, and must compliment you for your detailed and impartial views.

LES KEITH Brooklyn

Sir: Only the handful of men subjected for 20 years to the Syrian campaign of war by assassination could have been expected to stage the triumph of the ultimate of desperation you have described so well in this battle. And hardly even then. Every sentence of your story is a new amazement.

DOUGLAS SEYMOUR Christchurch, N.Z.

It Figures

Sir: Your essay on statistics [Sept. 8] correctly urges readers to be suspicious of the guesstimates that pass for numerical facts. Let's be fair, though. Most of the statistics so freely quoted are produced and used by persons with no claim to the label statistician. Professionally trained statisticians are much more than number collectors and graph drawers. Sir Ronald Fisher's work proves statistics was not a "grubby business" before computers, and computer age statisticians like Tukey, Savage and Blackwell are far more than "programmers."

You miss the point in suggesting that Dr. Alfred Kinsey's study was criticized primarily for the small sample used. A sample of 5,300, properly chosen, is ample for most purposes. Kinsey's work was criticized for exactly the same reason you say Nielsen's ratings are suspect: the respondents may not be a representative sample from the group they are supposed to represent. If the families willing to have a Nielsen recorder on the TV set are a special class, what about the men willing to discuss their private lives with Dr. Kinsey's researchers?

EDWIN Cox

Professor of Business Administration Boston University Boston

Sir: You have once again exposed another American folly, that of the "numbers game." As one who works in research, I am aware that the myriad ways in which statistics can lie is directly proportional to the studies employing them. RICHARD J. HAMERSMA East Lansing, Mich.

Sir: In exaggerating the snares you discredited the science of statistics. Even though my students affectionately call it "sadistics," Lord Kelvin's maxim still applies: "Unless yon have measured it, you don't know what you are talking about."

JOHN D. LAWREY Instructor of Psychology Mary mount College Tarrytown, N.Y.

Ignorance All Around

Sir: The case of Clarence Jackson [Sept. 1] makes an independent businessman's blood boil. Your article stated that Jackson, "could not have guessed what luck, lawyers and the law were about to do to him."

Sorry--wrong culprits! The real villains are surely (1) lazy, vacillating judges who stand aloof from life and decide cases by relying on technicalities cited from so-called relevant decisions instead of studying cases before them and dispensing justice on merit, and (2) the obsolete, phony argument that "ignorance of the law is no excuse."

When law-passing legislators enact millions of laws in these United States, the best excuse for any law violation has to be ignorance. Bureaus and agencies which issue rulings and regulations multiply the mess. Is it not as Dickens wrote, "the law is a ass"?

MELVIN C. COFFMAN President

Colorado Polytechnic College Denver

Sir: The luck of Clarence Jackson reads like something out of Dickens. It seems less a question of luck than of a remarkable incompatibility between law and justice. How is it that Sears, Roebuck, having retained this scrofulous attorney and empowered him to act in its name, does not have the same responsibility for his actions as it would if a clerk shortchanged a customer? Or has it no responsibility there, either? If it is possible for a lawyer to act "ostensibly" for a corporation while in fact pursuing private and nefarious interests, then we have some loose bricks in our legal structure--most of which seem to have fallen on Mr. Jackson's head.

MRS. GEORGE CUSACK Melrose, Mass.

Sir: This confirmed my suspicions about three sacred cows: the law, lawyers, and Sears, Roebuck.

EARL F. CODNER Tucson, Ariz.

Some Knights Are Still Bold

Sir: Your rundown of freelance writers [Sept. 15] is a put-down leaving a blunted impression. Many of us, for example, reject a good deal more than 20% of the articles we are asked to write. Many of us, also, though in our late 30s, still find ourselves constantly rejecting offers of "other ways to make money"--such as editing. But the main point is, I think, that most of us still like to approach writing --whether for magazines or books or newspaper supplements--more for the sake of expression than income, more in search of truth than rewards; and we are not so much caught up in "an American dream" as still seeking ways to resolve the American nightmares.

You neglected to mention that there are very few full-time freelancers; almost all of us have a bag going for us else where. Alas, it is indeed a vanishing profession; but when was it otherwise?

JOSH GREENFELD Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y.

And Children, Too

Sir: On reading your story about Sandy Dennis [Sept. 1], it seemed to me I might have given a wrong impression to your interviewer. We discussed Sandy's "shyness" with most people other than those she has known a long time. I pointed out that her main interests aside from acting were reading, her home, and her animals. In that context, I meant to convey that because of her shyness, she would naturally respond to animals easier than to most people. I could have, with honesty, also included her natural and loving response to children and theirs to her.

BARBARA BAXLEY Weston, Conn.

Hunt for Diana

Sir: In your item on "Diana" [Sept. 1], you state that the model was Nellie Fitzpatrick. I grew up believing that my mother's cousin, Annette Wildey, posed for this statue. We were told that no one outside our family knew who the model was. It came as a shock to read the name you gave. It is possible that she used her mother's maiden name (which I've never known) in order to spare the family "disgrace." Annette Wildey is no longer living, but I would like to perpetuate her memory by attaching her real name to the lovely Diana.

(MRS.) VIRGINIA C. PURDY Brooklyn

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.