Cruel Slavery

Sir: Cheers for your exposure of the evil operations of the Cosa Nostra [Aug. 22], particularly drug traffic. As a former narcotics court news reporter in Chicago, I can tell you that educated estimates attribute 50% to 80% of all crime to narcotics. It is a cruel form of slavery, and those addicted to heroin can seldom afford it without resorting to crime.

Since crime on the streets is a smoldering political issue, the Cosa Nostra and its narcotics traffic should be included as a root cause.

ROBERT G. MORGAN Hinsdale, Ill.

Sir: You neglected to mention that any Congressman who would vote against legalization of gambling and narcotics is a friend, a good friend, an absolutely necessary friend of La Cosa Nostra.

FRANKLIN J. HENRY Associate Professor of Sociology McMaster University Hamilton, Ont.

Sir: I read your article with mounting horror. There can be no effective solution to our urban problems so long as these communities are in the grip of L.C.N.

L.C.N. is a foreign pirate government at war with our nation. Americans who become citizens of the underground state of L.C.N. renounce their U.S. citizenship and the civil rights that go with it. Their renunciation, de facto though it may be, could open the legal door for the Government to plan a coordinated military attack on L.C.N. The Marines should deal with these latter-day Barbary pirates, not an understaffed FBI or 50 uncoordinated, oft-corrupt police forces.

W. M. WALLACE Bangkok

Sir: You wrote: "Most city and state police agencies are still not equipped to deal effectively with clever, well-financed conspiracies that extend across city and state lines . . . Besides, coordination among law-enforcement agencies at all levels is frequently weak or totally absent."

Why is it that the "bad guys" can always unite in strength, while the "good guys" never can? One of the reasons is our fanatical loyalty to the concept of states' rights, in which both groups associated with law--lawmakers (politicians) and law-enforcement agencies --are willing to pay any price to preserve their precious autonomies. The result is divisiveness and weakness in every area, from the shameful unevennesses in the quality of our various school systems to the failure of law-enforcement agencies to unite effectively. This is only part of the price we are willing to pay. But, fools that we are, we are willing.

CHARLES C. FITE JR. Hightstown, N.J.

Sir: TIME is probably right as to the survival of La Cosa Nostra "until there is a popular revolt." Precisely why public indignation is a prerequisite to the enforcement of law remains an enigma. I had supposed the protection of the public through legal processes was the fundamental excuse for a government's existence. But if the weapon of public indignation is required to "knock off" the new breed of gentle hoods, let us indignate now.

(THE REV.) CHARLES A. WHITE Claremont, Calif.

Sir: You claim that " 'Mafia' means swank, dolled-up . . . beauty or pride." This is a latter-day meaning. Originally, this secret society was formed for good cause: to oust the despotic Bourbon kings and rulers in Italy. Mafia really stood for Movimento Anti Francesi Italiano Azione (Italian Action Movement Against the French). Its leaders became the respected rulers of Sicily.

S. O. MARCY Clifton Heights, Pa.

Jeremiah Indeed

Sir: It is an interesting measure of the relative priority given to various national goals that there have been periods in the past twelve months when several of the new "ecological Jeremiahs" [Aug. 15] that you mentioned wondered where the money was coming from to support training for a handful of students. For example, two of the so-called Jeremiahs have spent between them about 40 man-hours of effort negotiating with a major U.S. agency for support for a joint program to train one graduate student. The request to date has not been answered. You cannot imagine the bitterness I feel at the absurd discrepancy between the demands made on our time by the press and by politicians, which contrast so sharply with our inability to get the funds necessary to mount a program which makes sense in terms of the magnitude of the problems.

KENNETH E. F. WATT Professor of Zoology (Systems Ecologist) University of California Davis

Taking the Measure

Sir: I am stunned to realize, even in this cynical age, that Ted Kennedy has such utter disdain and contempt for the basic intelligence of the people he seeks to represent, and for their ability to measure deeds against empty words concocted in collaboration with his advisers. His reflex action toward self-perpetuation following crisis only underscores his lack of humanism and moral courage.

How well I remember the Senator's impassioned, albeit ill-advised charge of "irresponsible," which was leveled at the military. How very ironic that one of Webster's definitions for irresponsible is: "Not liable to be called to account or made to answer for actions."

DAVID E. LAUTHERS Major, U.S.A. A.P.O. San Francisco

Sir: We New Zealanders, because of our relative isolation from most of the world's wheeling and dealing, spend a lot of our time as mere spectators. Unfortunately, we cannot always cheer you on, and I, for one, am unable to rejoice at what many Americans are doing or would have done to Senator Edward Kennedy.

I would be saddened if yet another Kennedy should be expended in a futile and senseless fashion. They say that every country gets the politicians it deserves. If this is true, and if Edward Kennedy's success has come too easily, perhaps Americans should take a closer look at themselves and their political system.

NEIL D. BURGHAM Takapuna, New Zealand

Sir: There can be no excusing Markham and Gargan for their part in the tragedy. Whatever Senator Kennedy's condition, it was incumbent upon them, morally and ethically, to summon whatever help was necessary to remove the girl from the car as promptly as possible. Any intimation that they were constrained from doing so by the canon of legal ethics is a slander of the legal profession.

DANA C. COGGINS Westwood, Mass.

Sir: Senator Kennedy says: "I feel the tragedy of the girl's death. That's what I'll have to live with. But what I don't have to live with are the whispers and innuendoes and falsehoods."

Oh, but he does; the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune are one of the facts of life, just as are slanted communication media, and to say that he doesn't have to live with them points sharply to lack of emotional and mental maturity.

There is a good deal of chatter about whether the Senator needs his mother to wipe his nose; with all due respect to Mrs. Rose Kennedy, isn't it possible that it is not the Senator's nose which needs her attention, but his perspective?

MRS. HENRY EGGERDING Belleville, N.J.

Sir: Senator Edward Kennedy today has made a slight revision in the magic 1961 inaugural pronouncement of his brother, John F. Kennedy: "Ask not what I have withheld from the people of Massachusetts, but what they can overlook for me."

(MRS.) KATHERINE GAGE QUINN Phoenix, Ariz.

Sir: I am appalled that 823 of your readers felt it was their place to pass judgment on Senator Kennedy's action. Perhaps your readers have never experienced an emotion called shock. It is not the place of one human being to judge what degree of shock another should or can experience, or to judge what the response to an unexpected, tragic situation will be.

I find it difficult to accept that anyone in Mr. Kennedy's political situation would deliberately jeopardize his entire political future by acting as he did; had he not experienced shock at the time, could his actions have been deliberate? I am sure every reader must answer "no," or re-examine his ability to reason.

VICKI FREED Doar Na Hof Ashkelon, Israel

> Be that as it may, 1,817 readers to date have voiced an opinion; 1,230 generally criticized the Senator and 587 expressed forgiveness and/or confidence.

Silver Lining

Sir: For several years I have disliked the public images of Mr. William F. Buckley Jr. and Mr. Gore Vidal [Aug. 22]. At last, it seems, these men's special gifts and inclinations command a bit of admiration--not for what they are, but rather for how they are being used. Buckley may rid us of Vidal, and Vidal may rid us of Buckley.

HANS BEACHAM Mexico City

Sir: Re your comment in the Buckley-Vidal story: George Sanders didn't divorce me, I divorced him.

ZSA ZSA GABOR Washington, D.C.

> True enough. Sanders filed to divorce Zsa Zsa and she then cross-complained, whereupon the judge ruled "ladies first" and granted her an interlocutory decree on April 1, 1954.

One Man, One Vote

Sir: Whenever a language expert begins pushing "standards" of English usage [Aug. 22], he is actually telling us what his standards are and what biases he holds concerning the language.

Fortunately, each of us holds exactly one vote in determining how the language shall be used, and there ain't a damn thing that Goldman, Barzun, et al., can do except bitch about it.

DON FARE Associate Professor of Education Stephen F. Austin State University Nacogdoches, Texas

Sir: Since the judges for the American Heritage's dictionary have decreed the death penalty for all who use like as a conjunction [Aug. 22], a hangman's noose would have been the appropriate end for Elyot, Shakespeare, Smollett, Southey, Newman, Washington Irving, Darwin and William Morris (of Morris chair fame, not the dictionary's editor). Edmund Spenser should perhaps have been flogged for anticipating the TVese use of host as a transitive verb. Since advise in the sense of "notify" is business and Army English, Willa Gather and Sir Richard Steele must have been members of the industrial-military complex. And since erratas reflects ignorance of Latin, Jonathan Swift was the Dean of ignoramuses. How good that we now have concerned and learned experts to guard the standards of our language and save it from such corrupters.

JOHN ALGEO Gainesville, Fla.

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