Man of the Year

Sir: I rejoice at your vision in the selection of Willy Brandt [Jan. 4]. Would that some of our other leaders might learn from him that only the strong can afford to be weak.

MARC RONDEAU Ayer, Mass.

Sir: Willy Brandt is the best German Chancellor the Russians, the Poles, the Britons and the Americans ever had.

HARRY STURMER Cobourg, Ont.

Sir: The U.S. had 25 years to unravel history's worst mess--which we helped create at Yalta--only to make things worse by allowing the Berlin Wall. The Germans have no choice but to take matters into their own hands, if there is to be any hope for a just solution between the two Germanys and to the cold war. I am glad that Willy Brandt has the courage to seek new ways of establishing peaceful coexistence with East Germany and the countries east of the Oder-Neisse line. This man and his countrymen deserve our support.

EBERHARD L. BULACH West St. Paul

Sir: TIME has selected a two-time "Benedict Arnold" as Man of the Year for 1970. But perhaps you meant him to represent the "greatest influence for ill on mankind"?

WERNER V. BRACHT, M.D. Dayton

Sir: Your Man of the Year selection proved one thing: there was no Man of the Year in 1970.

GENE T. DAVIS Homestead, Fla.

Happy All This Time

Sir: A few months ago you informed me that 1 was a member of the Silent Majority (I am 30). Now [Dec. 28] you tell me my husband and children and I are an "isolated nuclear family" (nearest relative 480 miles away) subject to the pressures of all the roles we must play. And all this time I thought I was happy.

(MRS.) CAROL RUFFONI Torrance, Calif.

Sir: So you are now practicing trio marriages in the United States. You are just experimenting with what Africa has been doing for centuries. Goddammit, we are ahead of you this time.

JOSEPH G. GONO Monrovia, Liberia

Shudder in Fear

Sir: The ruthless manner in which the administrators and employees of Traverse City hospital have attempted to intimidate The Weekender for its reporting of John David Cronk's death [Dec. 28] can only lead one to believe that they are far more frightened by the prospect of public disclosure than by the possibility that a patient was beaten to death while in their "care."

How can any medical professional, dedicated to the care of ill and injured human beings, continue to work where such Dark Age practices are permitted? I shudder in fear for the remaining patients subjected to such "enlightened" treatment.

ROBERT A. STIFF

Administrator

Lindsay Municipal Hospital Lindsay, Okla.

Polish for Little Pests

Sir: The "Warts and All" [Jan. 4] really grabbed me. For over an embarrassing year, my warts were so rampant that I feared a doctor's estimate for removal. However, while preparing for a large party, I polished silver daily for a week, and the silver polish disintegrated the little pests in short order.

(MRS.) BARBARA MUSSER Martinez, Calif.

Sir: Eat vegetables. It works.

EUGENIA K. PALMER Washington, D.C.

Sir: Put as many knots in wool yarn as you have warts, place the yarn under a rock, by the time the yarn rots away, so do your warts.

ANNA-LIISA RINTALA Manhattan

Sir: After soaking my wart-ridden fingers in ordinary liquid laundry bleach twice daily, my warts permanently disappeared in less than two weeks.

(MRS.) MARTHA N. MCKIMMEY South Lake Tahoe, Calif.

Sir: Copper pennies, raw potatoes and drawings are fine for children. Adults take heed--all that is common to these remedies is that the wart victim believes in them. After painful, scarring surgery on warts ten years ago, I decided to think the rest away. They went, all at once, in less than two weeks.

(MRS.) JOHN M. JOHNSTON Silver Spring, Md.

Outgrowth of Confusion

Sir: The helicopter carrying Ambassador Joseph S. Farland and emergency relief supplies to the cyclone disaster area did not cause any injuries as described in "East Pakistan: The Politics of Catastrophe" [Dec. 7]. I accompanied the ambassador on this mission and can make an authoritative denial. The erroneous news-agency dispatch on which TIME may have based the reference was the outgrowth of confusion stemming apparently from an incident involving a small civilian reconnaissance helicopter on a medical survey assignment on the same day but many miles away on another island.

EDDIE DEERFIELD Press Officer

American Embassy Islamabad, Pakistan

Editorial Needle

Sir: Having immensely enjoyed TIME'S editorial needle for the past quarter century, I was electrified and highly amused to find it injected into me [Jan. 11].

In accordance with your critique, I hereby promise to: 1) stop "wearing my religion around my neck"--just as soon as all 10,000 of my fellow Episcopal priests discontinue their (definitely optional) use of the round collar; 2) stop being an "advocate" and a "participant" in causes--just as soon as all of my fellow columnists do so, such as Messrs. William Buckley Barry Goldwater and S.I. Hayakawa: 3) stop "buttonholing editors"--just as soon as TIME loses interest in its own circulation. Irreverently, and with continuing "acerbic peripatetics,"

(THE REV.) LESTER KINSOLVING Berkeley, Calif.

Invoking Protection

Sir: Any downgrading of the angels can hardly be attributed to Luther [Dec. 28]. In his small catechism on the order for both morning and evening prayer, he invoked their protection: "Let thy holy angel have charge concerning me." Otherwise an excellent article!

(THE REV.) DAVID A. MENGES Menges Mills, Pa.

Sir: Your story toasting angels was delightful reading, but it's a little harsh to blame the general elevation and enlightenment of humanism for "the fallen angel." The difficulty with angels was that they had no reality of their own. outside and independent of a delegated script. They rehearsed well, but their performances were generally second-rate and upstaged by every other spiritual Happening. Not even the most dedicated artistic vision and imagination could continue to give content and depth to a puffed-up fluttering bureaucracy in the cosmic circles, for in the end angels proved to be underdeveloped and lacking in the sexual fiber that became so vital to Christianity.

MAIA-MARI SUTNIK Toronto, Canada

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