Saint Elmo

Sir: Re your cover story on Admiral Elmo Zumwalt humanizing the military: I know it is only a coincidence, but one of the patron saints of sailors is Saint Elmo.

LAWRENCE J. BUSH Claymont. Del.

Sir: Your article on Admiral Zumwalt is as timely as his actions toward the Navy's men and their problems. Liberalization of regulations will not solve all the service's ills, but at least the problems are being acknowledged.

As long as a man does his job and does it to the best of his ability, he deserves the right to be himself during his own time. While it must be admitted that this approach has not been effective 100% of the time, it has been most rewarding to deal with my people as individuals and men rather than tools of the trade.

WALLACE C. LYON III

Lieutenant (j.g.), U.S.N.

Providence

Sir: Admiral Zumwalt's iconoclastic revolution within the ranks of the U.S. Navy is bound to have the classic results: disorder, confusion and, worst of all, the masking of the real problems within the military. Anyone with his eyes half open cannot fail to see that you cannot maintain an elite corps of professionals with poverty-level pay. Fringe benefits like psychedelic fun and games are just another Madison Avenue approach to duck the issues.

I would wager my tarnished medals that if patriotic loyalty and excellence in technical performance were recompensed with cash on the barrelhead, the recruiting offices would be deluged with clean-shaven, dignified men eager to uphold those traditions that make the military a force to be reckoned with.

MANUEL KRAMER

Commander, U.S.N.R. (Inactive)

Lincoln, Mass.

Sir: It appears the military is becoming more like an educational institution and the university more like the military. Strange that the Navy has to be the first to understand and appreciate the value of today's youth. I hope they keep up the good work; I may reenlist.

JOHN T. FALKENBURY

Graduate Student

Kent State University

Kent, Ohio

Sir: Three cheers for the Marine Corps! In the next ten years the Army, Navy and Air Force will be throwing purses instead of bullets at the enemy.

JERRY HALL Belleville, Ill.

Sir: The hero of your story is clearly today's individual military man. He has shown by his performance and maturity both readiness for increased responsibility and privileges which the new regulations imply, and that he has earned the additional attention to his welfare and that of his family being given by today's uniformed and civilian leaders.

In that regard. I should point out that the credit for the $20 million family housing program mentioned in your story belongs not to me, but to the Secretary of the Navy John H. Chafee. Additionally, it was he who put forth major effort in trying to obtain sea pay for Navy people, and pioneered a program of construction for temporary lodging for military families at major naval bases.

E.R. ZUMWALT JR.

Admiral, U.S.N.

Washington, D.C.

Implacable Circumstances?

Sir: Your characterization of my belief that only price and wage controls will reconcile decently high employment with reasonably stable prices as the "voice of despair" [Dec. 14] is just a shade reminiscent of the bad, old, tendentious TIME. I've long felt that the age of Keynes is over, that strong unions and powerful corporations have insured that fiscal and monetary policy along the old and comfortable lines, will no longer serve. In contrast, your business pages and most of the very distinguished economists with whom you consult have, until very lately, disagreed. Now circumstances, implacable as always, have shown you and your advisers to be wrong. Instead of handsomely conceding your error and theirs, you rebuke me for advocating the only effective alternative. Is that gracious, let alone kind? Better. I would think, that you should wonder if you and your advisers, in now urging jawboning, other forms of incantation, an undefined evasion called an incomes policy and other banal gestures aren't still deep in wishful thought.

JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH

Trinity College

Cambridge, England

Insults and Misconception?

Sir: "Women's Lib: A Second Look" [Dec. 14] was an insult to all thinking women.

It is evident by the gross misconceptions of the critics that they are uninformed about Women's Liberation, and obviously haven't read any of the movement's literature to see what women really want. The women that were quoted in your article have been successful in establishing themselves in worthwhile careers and can afford to cast derogatory remarks on those of us still struggling. If anyone who claims to be a rational being thinks that the epitome of a good life (for a woman) is to sit in a house all day, cook, clean, watch television and raise children. I'm afraid that they're sadly mistaken. If a woman is going to be educated, don't deny her the right to use her mind!

JAN LEININGER Northridge, Calif.

Sir: Your article did not mention the basic reasons for Women's Liberation: the job and pay discrimination, the archaic laws in some states, and other irritants that today's woman faces. Nor did you mention, except in passing, the many women interested in Women's Lib who do not engage in the "splenetic frenzy of hatred for men." By these omissions, you do a disservice to the moderate individuals in the movement. JOHN A. GRIFFITHS Iowa City, Iowa

Sir: It is not only women who are angry --the people are angry. The Women's Liberation movement is very directly related to the entire protest movement in that both are involved in seeking radical social change. Don't you see. Women's Lib is people's lib. Whatever affects us will certainly affect a man equally, or more. Maybe if we got our way, fewer men would waste their lives in materialistic maneuvering, then die at 50 of heart attacks caused by fretting over their monumental responsibilities to the chattel and her children. Maybe he could find another role besides the great provider and she the great provided for.

HELEN VRADELIS Dayton

The Other Half

Sir: How about writing a story on the lives of some of us unglamorous congressional wives--the ones who exist solely on our husband's congressional salary?

We are not "swingers"--not that we wouldn't like to be, but we are too busy rearing our families without any help, doing our own cooking, cleaning, etc., and ending up the day by attending some boring national banquet with our husbands.

Not that we would change the circumstances, but why not tell the public that there are some political wives who don't spend their days playing tennis and planning catered parties.

(MRS.) GERTRUDE ROBISON Kensington, Md.

Making a Case

Sir: In "Trade: The Black Comedy" [Nov. 23], you say that the U.S. textile industry has never made a persuasive case that it is being badly damaged by imports. It is common knowledge that dozens of U.S. textile plants have closed this year due to imports, and that textile and apparel manufacturers' profits are the lowest of the major manufacturing industries, ranking No. 19 out of 20. The figures for 1970 show that the amount of Japanese textiles imported to the U.S. jumped 63% in 1970, whereas U.S. production, if anything, is down. Also, the year's statistics indicate that the domestic textile industries' current level of employment is virtually back to the 1961 level.

We know that reasonable quotas can work in our industry. The long-term cotton textile arrangement has proved this sufficiently in the past and has recently been extended through 1973. It belies the fact that quotas cause increases in prices to consumers, because the price of cotton goods has gone up only about 1% over the 1959 base, which is one of the best performances in all of the manufacturing industry.

R.W. McCuLLOUGH

Chairman, Executive Committee

Collins & Aikman

Manhattan

Flying Safety Pin

Sir: Your Milestones section [Dec. 14] was of more than passing interest to me because it noted the death of Ruth Law Oliver, pioneer flier, at the age of 83.

On her flight from Chicago to New York City. Mrs. Oliver stopped at Hornell, N.Y. Her landing occurred at the fairgrounds, about 300 yds. from my home. It was Sunday afternoon. Nov. 19, 1916.

I was four and my most vivid recollection of the event was my impression of the airplane as I first saw it from our upstairs dining-room window. The Curtiss pusher type, with its framework fuselage, looked from sideview exactly like a giant safety pin.

The landing was safely effected, and the brave (and profane) aviatrix was lifted half frozen from the framework seat in the front of her flying machine. She was dressed in a fur-lined leather suit and helmet and wore fur-lined gauntlets.

After she was taken to the Sherwood Hotel in Hornell, thawed out and given a hot meal, she took off again about 4 p.m. Her plane narrowly missed the chimney of the last house on our street. She landed just at dark in Binghamton. N.Y.. a distance of about 110 miles from Hornell.

Her flight of 680 miles nonstop from Chicago to Hornell was one of the most remarkable ever recorded, in consideration of the day and age. The landing and my subsequent first view of any airplane inspired me to become a pilot one day. That this has never come to pass is evidenced by my signature.

ROBERT M. INGRAHAM

Executive Secretary

American Kitefliers Association

Silver City, N. Mex.

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