Interesting Question

Sir: How could TIME swallow Irving Howe's contention [Dec. 14] that the relationship between man 'master' and woman 'chattel' ". . . is perhaps the only such relationship in human history where the 'masters' sent themselves and their sons to die in wars while trying to spare their 'chattels' "?

On the contrary, oppressed groups are rarely permitted to pick up the weapons of war. Hitler did not send the Jews to fight and die on the Russian front. Most black Americans spent that war digging latrines, cooking, waiting on mess tables and acting as body servants.

Which raises an interesting question: Have women been shielded from fighting out of concern for their welfare or, as with other oppressed groups, out of concern about whom they would fight, once armed and trained?

MARGARET A. SMITH Los Angeles

Sir: We sick and silly women are joining with the rest of the world's sick and silly, like blacks, Indians, Mexican Americans, Vietnamese and the poor, to bring this corrupt, avaricious, diseased, inhuman society to its knees.

ELINORE KRELL Washington, D.C.

Sir: As a feminist I am indeed concerned with biology, sexuality and the incidence of mental illness and crime. What does TIME--and Lionel Tiger--make of the following statistics? According to the U.S. Public Health Service, the actual suicide rate of American males is 2 1/2 times that of females; according to the FBI, the number of males arrested for homicide is over five times the number of females; and according to the National Institute of Mental Health, males outstrip females in first admissions to state mental hospitals by a ratio of 3 to 2. Do you think an imperfect male biology is at work 365 days of the year?

SUSAN BROWNMILLER Manhattan

With Full Honors

Sir: Concerning your interview with J. Edgar Hoover [Dec. 14], Mr. Hoover is unquestionably a man of great talent, and probably this country's most singularly effective law officer. He seems, though, like a number of other recent and present public servants, to be seriously out of touch with many creative and constructive social (and political) values held by an increasing number of thoughtful Americans, and thus with these people themselves. True, his grasp of law-enforcement techniques and their generally fair means of application is admirable.

But surely in a country of over 200 million--or even within the present ranks of the FBI--there must live a man whose character combines determination and administrative skill with a lucid social consciousness. Let him stand forth. As one citizen, I summon him.

Mr. Hoover should retire, with full honors for a job well done.

ROBERT S. GREEN San Diego

Sir: I pity poor J. Edgar Hoover. Imagine having to contend with lazy judges, bleeding hearts on parole boards, Black

Panthers, the S.D.S., Weathermen, Jordanian and Algerian guerrillas, Puerto Ricans and Mexicans who can't shoot straight, longhairs, hippies, Joe Namath, Robert Kennedy, Negro agents, Martin Luther King, Princeton professors and student demonstrators!

Thank God he has his two dogs to keep him company.

(THE REV.) BRUCE ATKINSON Menlo Park, Calif.

Sir: The children and I have always understood the significance of my husband's work and would have preferred personally to ignore Mr. Hoover's ungentlemanly attacks on my husband, but my husband is dead and cannot reply for himself. Moreover, his memory is too precious to us and to tens of millions of Americans, black and white, to permit unfounded slurs to remain unanswered. J. Edgar Hoover, in alleging that he called my husband a liar during their meeting in 1964, has exposed himself. There were witnesses present, three distinguished clergymen, who explicitly denied that Mr. Hoover made such a statement or any other attack on my hubsand's veracity to his face.

It is unfortunate for our country that a person of such moral and mental capacity holds a position of such importance. It is equally unfortunate for race relations in these troubled times that a person revealed in this interview to be so arrogantly prejudiced against Puerto Ricans, Mexicans and blacks is a high Government official.

MRS. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. Atlanta

Redistributing the Inequities

Sir: Your article on seniority in Congress [Dec. 14] missed the point. The so-called reformers who wish to eliminate this archaic practice are not really interested in reform. They merely want to redistribute the inequities. The real issue is the abundance of power in the hands of the committee chairmen. The essence of a representative democracy is equality among representatives. As long as a few Congressmen have the ability to interfere with the will of the majority, democracy certainly will not be served by merely changing the way by which those few are selected.

ALAN J. GOLDSTEIN Fairborn, Ohio

Clearly Stated

Sir: Hurrah for your Essay, "Letter to a New Expatriate" [Nov. 30]. You have expressed most beautifully the full meaning of being an American. You have clearly stated the obligations, responsibilities and privileges of living in an open country. Now let the people read and understand. (MRS.) DIANE BARISH Livingston, N.J.

Sir: A New American flag should be made out of your tremendous Essay.

BARRY NELSON Sausalito, Calif.

What Did He Find?

Sir: Thank you for your article "No Sanctuary for Simonas" [Dec. 14]. Having lived under Soviet terror in Russian-occupied Lithuania, I know how this man dreamed of reaching a land in which he could be free. What did he find here? What did our brave defenders of freedom do when this man was on his knees praying and begging them to save his life? Nothing but bureaucratic buck passing. The question is not whether we still have freedom in this country, but rather whether we are still a part of a much larger country called Humanity.

SAULIUS J. ABRAITIS Mount Pleasant, Mich.

Not to His Taste

Sir: There's such a paucity of good family entertainment on the screen these days that it seems to me particularly lamentable just now that your jaded sophisticate who reviewed the British musical production Scrooge [Dec. 7] took such an intemperate slash at it.

Why couldn't he just say that it happens that this Scrooge is not to his taste --but that the film itself is well done, handsomely mounted, sets designed with every attention to accuracy and detail, good performances, great characters, types that are intrinsically true and faithful?

Even the special effects--and there are a lot of them--are quite wonderful.

And it's a good score too. I don't say there are any hits in it. Who knows when there's a hit, but everything that Bricusse wrote fits the story and advances the action and is proper to the time.

I enjoyed the film immensely; so did my children; and so did everybody else in this area that I've talked to. Most of them have gone back.

BING CROSBY Hillsborough, Calif.

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