Off Balance

Sir: I was impressed by your concise and balanced presentation of the Administration's proposed balance of payments program [Jan. 12]. It is indeed surprising and somewhat disappointing, in the light of what economists now know about the mechanics of the balance of payments adjustment, that this package of direct controls over international-capital flows and foreign travel should be presented to the public as an operational remedy for the chronic American payments deficit. Even without considering possible foreign retaliatory measures, the combined negative "feedbacks" (e.g., reduced exports and return flows of earnings on loans and investments abroad) will do much over two or three years to reverse any immediate payments improvement brought about in this way.

Aside from such basic questions, Americans may be excused for being somewhat unimpressed by the argument that the balance of payments cost of maintaining military forces in various parts of the world is to a large degree responsible in making it impossible for them to visit these very countries on their vacations.

INGO WALTER Chairman

Department of Economics University of Missouri at St. Louis

Sir: Ultimately, our best hope for a peaceful, decent world must lie in the development of closer ties with all friendly nations. These ties are best built on the personal relationships between individuals, which come from tourism and business activity overseas.

The limitations on personal travel and spending will constitute a serious infringement of our liberties. It is an unfair price we are called on to pay for inept fiscal management in the Government and monumental giveaways at home and abroad.

CHARLES WALLACE PACKER Winnetka, Ill.

Sir: You give an account of the U.S. Government's purchasing $28.5 million worth of electrical equipment produced in Germany for the Tennessee Valley Authority. How many schoolteachers will have to cancel their contemplated trip to Europe to make up for the effect of this purchase on our balance of payments?

A. W. McTHENIA

Fort Spring, W. Va.

The Giant & Its Problems

Sir: Congratulations to TIME for recognizing the efforts of Governor Rockefeller, Chancellor Gould and the New York state legislature to awaken the long "sleeping giant," S.U.N.Y., and bring it to the forefront of American higher education [Jan. 12].

The people of the Empire State can be justifiably proud of the progress to date and with their continued support, State University (as we in the family prefer to call it), is destined to become the leader of public higher education in the nation.

ROBERT R. HESSE President, Alumni Associatior State University College Fredonia, N.Y.

Sir: It certainly is true that "bigness remains a problem."

My name is 0780212. I live on what you call a "glistening" campus, where I have about as much identity as last year's 14,000 rejects. Perhaps Mr. Gould "can't think of a single possibility for education . . . that doesn't exist in the state university," but I can. Isn't learning about people important any more?

Good luck to those students of the future. I sincerely hope they will be fully equipped with that "new maturity" required of them. They'll need it.

Lois BLOOM, '69 University of Massachusetts Amherst

Sir: East Carolina University is one of the four regional universities mentioned in your article. The taxable wealth of North Carolina has increased tremendously during the present decade, and many citizens feel that the state can now support additional universities. As a holder of two degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and as an assistant professor at E.C.U., I am convinced, as are the citizens of North Carolina, that the latter institution can develop without jeopardizing the academic position of the former.

JOHN S. FLETCHER II Greenville, N.C.

Sir: You report: "Harvard's Riesman rightly sneers at the spectacle of '150 Avises trying to become a Hertz.' " The quote is out of context; no sneerer, I was discussing how the many upwardly mobile institutions were raising faculty salaries and making recruitment difficult for the less affluent. I was not disparaging academic entrepreneurship, as my sympathy for Gould's ambitions should make clear.

DAVID RIESMAN Cambridge, Mass.

Home to the Wars

Sir: On reading your article concerning returning vets [Jan. 12], I was deeply ashamed of my country and fellow citizens. A nation that can afford to ignore and reject the people who defend it is marked by hypocrisy and decay. No government project can compensate completely. The gratitude for the personal sacrifice and danger these men endured must come from the people.

JERRY LUCAS University City, Mo.

Sir: Your reference to me, however jocular, as the "resident fascist pig" of Harvard's Adams House contained erroneous implications. Already I am receiving lauda tory mail from "rightists," confirming my fear that the article implied that I am an uncompromising hawk on the war and that I have been abused by doves at Harvard. Nothing could be further from the truth. The appellate "resident fascist" was a jest made in absolute good nature by a close friend. The vast majority of Harvard students accept returning Vietvets with much interest and understanding.

Far from being a hawk on the war, I have constantly been revising my views, and in recent months I have become a firm dove. In case my views are of any interest: I am a loyal American, and happy to fight for my country wherever our rights, or the rights of people who desire to be under our auspices, are questioned. I no longer feel that Viet Nam is such a place.

JAMES PARK SLOAN Cambridge, Mass.

To See the Future

Sir: I strongly endorse Dr. Van Allen's criticism of our Government's regressive attitude toward space exploration [Jan. 5]. One of the reasons for the greatness of the U.S. has been our willingness to explore and then constructively exploit new frontiers. A major portion of this country's future, not for the next few years but for centuries to come, must lie in space. Granted there's a war on, which pressures our economy, but this will pass. I only pray that when my generation takes over we will have the opportunity of maintaining a free space, as today's generation has had the challenge of maintaining a free world.

JEFFREY D. DUNKLE Huntingdon, Pa.

Sir: Why not give up our trip to the moon and build some hospitals? Give up our voyage to Mars and buy some beds and equipment. Let's leave Saturn alone for awhile and train more nurses. Let's have more doctors, more schools, more colleges, more teachers. Why not take care of us here on earth first and then investigate whether the Martians like vanilla or chocolate ice cream.

HARRY SIROF Brooklyn

Last Redoubt, Or Doubtful Glory?

Sir: It is sad, this movement afoot in the Christian society to abolish the expensive, massive and majestic cathedrals [Jan. 12]. In this day and age of constant stimuli, of incessant noise and overpopulation with pressing, vulgar crowds it is indeed unfortunate. Heretofore they represented one of the few remaining places where a man could go to think quietly, in relative safety--and be alone.

J. C. MAILANDER Ft. Riley, Kans.

Sir: After touring Europe for the past four months, seeing magnificent cathedrals, many situated in filthy poverty areas, I can say only one thing about Daniel Moynihan's remark: if the money that was spent on cathedrals in 20 centuries of Christianity (which came from the poor, directly or indirectly) had been used to help the poor, there may not have been three summers of rioting. Christianity's retreat from the humbleness that Jesus preached into self-glorifying magnificence has gone on long enough.

BILL BAYLEY Karei Deshe, Israel

Cracks in the Foundation

Sir: In California, the ABC foundation tax plan [Jan. 5] has been scrutinized by the attorney general's office. All that remains to be determined is whether the 100 or so California residents involved in ABC are victims or active participants.

The correlative to claiming tax advantage through the formation of a foundation is the acceptance of the highest trust obligation to the public purposes for which the foundation is formed. In California, that means you can't have your cake and eat it too. It means that assets placed in a foundation must be used for public purposes and not for the benefit of the donor or founder. It means that the ABC plan can't work. It means that the individual who operates his foundation as taught by ABC faces the loss of both his foundation and his assets.

LAWRENCE R. TAPPER Deputy Attorney General State of California Los Angeles

Turning the Stables

Sir: Mortimer J. Adler simply does not gain from historical experience. In his arguments against the possibility of an intelligent mechanism created by man [Jan. 12], he reminds one of those critics of past eras who loudly proclaimed the earth to be flat, or that man will never fly, or that space exploration will forever be flights of imagination and no more. Perhaps there is an ingredient missing in today's computer that prevents it from achieving intelligence. Remember: a glider is just a glider until one adds an engine. When Mr. Adler goes on to enumerate the qualities a computer must have in order to qualify as an intelligent mechanism, among them being the capability of committing "human error," he is betraying his own species' narcissism. When it is finally possible to create intelligent "machines," surely we will try to make them a little better, not a little worse. As for his arguments that animals are just animals, what will he say when biologists, through artificial genetic alteration, bring him face to face with an intelligent jackass? I'm sure the stables will be reversed.

JON DMYTRENKO Flushing, N.Y.

Sir: "Thinking" computers, based on random functions, exist today. These machines, programmed to learn by trial and error as humans do, are essentially Turing's robot. Hence, Mortimer Adler's argument is obsolete--and man's uniqueness again becomes questionable.

SHAWN BUCKLEY Milford, Conn.

Character of Caricature

Sir: The cover drawing of President Johnson [Jan. 5] is in poor taste and reflects great disrespect upon the highest office in our land. I spent three years as a prisoner of war, held by the Chinese Communists in North Korea, and know from personal experience how much they will enjoy such a drawing; it is the same type as that used in all their publications.

CHARLES L. PECKHAM King City, Calif.

Sir: How can we teach patriotism and respect with such antics? King Lear . . . King Smear!

KATHERINE GREENHAW San Antonio, Texas

Sir: Kudos to Caricaturist David Levine for his truly memorable cover drawing of L.B.J. as a beleaguered Lear. Artist Levine is a worthy successor to Hogarth, Tenniel, Nast and Low--those forceful masters of effective caricature.

LARRY BAUER Cleveland

Tell It to Little Red Riding Hood

Sir: Just to set the record straight regarding Reader Smith Freeman's letter [Jan. 12] it was my dad, the late James W. ("Jim") Curran, founder, publisher and editor of the Star, who put up and backed a $100 offer for 25 years (1925-50) to anyone who could establish "to the satisfaction of the editor" that a wolf had attacked a human being. The offer was limited to the Algoma District because "it would not be convenient for us to travel outside the confines of this large district."

Claims for the prize averaged about a dozen a year in the late '20s, and probably totaled 90 in all. In none was a wolf attack established.

It was dad who coined the phrase later attributed to the legendary Algoma prospector Old Sam Martin: "Any man who sez he's been et by a wolf is a liar."

An inveterate bush traveler himself, dad went out into the northern hinterlands to cut up the fearful tales about the ravages of "timber wolves that would tear a man to pieces" for the fantastic fabrications that they were, and to gather the material for wolf stories that made this newspaper famous and for his later book Wolves Don't Bite, now out of print.

JOHN A. CURRAN Managing Editor The Sault Daily Star Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.

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