Getting to Know Carter

Sir: Your article about Jimmy Carter [May 31] makes one feel sick. Your facts may be correct. Your observations are all wrong.

Carter might make a good Governor, but he will not be elected to any more offices, thanks to you. The people really did not know him, but they will next time.

The South is not changing as fast as you write. The thing that worries some people now is not race but that the South could become like the North.

W.M. FREELAND

Plum Branch, S.C.

Sir: Governor Carter epitomizes what has been happening in Georgia in general and Atlanta in particular for the past ten years. With a Jewish mayor and a black vice mayor, Atlanta may be not only the South's most progressive city but perhaps the nation's.

ROBERT P. MORRISON

El Granada, Calif.

Sir: TIME's attempt to label Jimmy Carter the precursor of a fresh wave of liberalism in the South overlooks the fact that in winning the Democratic nomination, Carter defeated Carl Sanders, the most progressive Governor in Georgia history.

Although Governor Carter projects a moderate public posture, he clearly stands in the genre of the traditional Southern politician.

DENNIS SLATTERY

West Covina, Calif.

Sir: If the writer of the article on Georgia had taken into account South Georgia, the picture would not be quite so bright.

Here, the Snopeses are alive and well and as mean as ever.

STAN GODBOLD

Valdosta, Ga.

Sir: Atlanta is not the Southern city of the future, it is the city of the future.

DORIS HAUSER

Boston

Sir: Much of the "new day" that has come and is coming in the South cannot be celebrated by us all. The 25% native population of Atlanta cannot take any pride in the polluted air that increasingly blankets the city's soaring buildings, in the clogged freeways for which there is no visible relief, and in the growing transient population that causes more problems than it cares about solving. Atlanta is too busy to hate, a native can tell you, simply because its white residents are too busy leaving town.

FRED BURGER

Atlanta

Abortion and Nurses

Sir: Nurses do not need "psychiatric first aid" to treat their responses to the reality of abortion [May 31]. Instead they should act upon their beliefs, speak out and stop the continued transformation of our operating rooms into human butcher shops.

Those Americans who feel that laws restricting abortion are an unfair restriction on the rights of women should be compelled to see the small, perfect, sometimes still moving human beings who are daily being thrown away in our hospitals.

JULIE G. DONALEK, R.N.

Philadelphia

Sir: There are many situations in nursing and medicine to be "distraught" about. Abortion is not one of them.

PAULINE ROWLAND, R.N.

Ithaca, N.Y.

Chorus-Line Kick

Sir: Crocodile tears for Walter Cronkite [May 31]. If the networks had their way, the only function of the FCC would be to ensure that the three network giants had no major competition. Does Cronkite believe that Agnew & Co. are responsible for his sinking credibility, when Cronkite has held his office longer than Nixon, Agnew and Johnson put together?

Until the three major networks cease their chorus-line kick approach to the news, a rich vein of public skepticism will be available for Agnew to exploit.

MICHAEL M. DUTCHER

Denver

Sir: Behind Cronkite's professional face, there are opinions after all. Wouldn't it be great to hear some of them on the daily news? Agnew's relentless attacks show a definite trend in the future use of the office of the vice presidency: for backstabbing, slander and big-mouthism that clearly shows vanity and the inability to deal effectively. The press is real; it cannot be dealt with lightly, ,and it does more to check and balance itself than the Government could.

R.L. KOLAR

San Jose, Calif.

Sir: Agnew rails,

Cronkite wails.

It is amusing to observe the reactions of the press to Agnew's attacks on their slanted news and angled cameras. They are like spoiled brats who, when chastised, try to take revenge on those who have taken them to task.

FRANK S. ENNIS

New Rochelle, N.Y.

Censored

Sir: In your story about Egypt's Anwar Sadat [May 17] you show a picture of him near some boulders on the Suez front.

What was the wording on the rocks?

DAN McKINNON

La Jolla, Calif.

> The inscription, apparently on a piece of metal from a downed aircraft rather than on rocks, translates from Arabic: "1. Phantom downed by [censored] at 1830 hours on June 30, 1970. M.L. 2. The second Phantom was downed at M.L. at 1509 hours on July 5, 1970. Pilot was taken prisoner. [Censored.]"

Call for Menzies

Sir: I would like to have seen in your story on Australia [May 24] a little more detail on the racial problem here. If the "new" Australians and the aborigines ever learn to stand up and demand their rights, there will be upheavals.

If there is not so much violence over racial issues here, it is because most Aussies are too apathetic to speak of these matters, much less act. But just try putting milk in their cups before the tea or spill their grog and they go berserk.

Australia does need another Robert Menzies to make its citizens realize their country's importance in world affairs.

BERNADETTE MAY

Goulburn, Australia

Sir: I am a transplanted Australian who likes the U.S.. but I would take exception to your comment that Australia should "think big." In so doing the U.S. smothered its cities, ruined its magnificent waters, defaced much of the land and forgot its poor and its minorities.

(MRS.) CAMILLE T. REED

Fort Wayne, Ind.

Raising the Fences

Sir: The godlike pontifications of John Steele in the Essay on neo-isolationism [May 31] were just too much. If he thinks that "there are hardly any real isolationists left," he does not get around much. Doesn't he know that the 20th century is almost over, and that after 70 years we should have learned a few lessons about trying to be the do-gooding, give-it-to-them, smug messiah for all the world's people?

It's about time we cleaned up the odiferous mess in our own barnyard and put up the broken-down fences.

FRANK L. MARTIN

Bronxville, N.Y.

Helping the Law

Sir: Like other cities, Chicago is plagued with rising crime while public cooperation seems to be declining.

Therefore, I recently called upon our local media to launch a reward-for-information program, which would help in the solution of crime and the conviction of those responsible for it. Fortuitously, you reported [May 17] the success of just such a program sponsored by the Detroit News. Thanks partly to that support for our plea, a major local paper, the Chicago Today, has announced that it will institute a similar program.

EDWARD V. HANRAHAN

State's Attorney

Chicago

Learned Janitor

Sir: Your story "Graduates and Jobs" [May 24] was right on, except that you seem to have missed the irony that a graduate often cannot get a lower-skilled job because of his degree! With my M.A. in history it took me six months to find an employer who accepted me for a janitor's position.

ATIS LEJINS

Berkeley, Calif.

Sir: Three-fourths of the seniors are graduating in the humanities. In a society made great by technology, we are now educating one to build and three to tell him what, where and how to build and after he builds what's wrong with it.

WILLIAM A. HECK Midland, Texas Sir: Job shortage is one of the real reasons for the problems on campuses. Why shouldn't we be disillusioned? We have been coaxed, pleaded with and even threatened throughout our lives to obtain a col lege education, and now nobody wants us. As a sophomore, I'm wondering whether to quit now and start work as a bar maid or spend $4,000 more and still be faced with that same job opportunity.

MONITA BURNETT

Fort Collins, Colo.

Constructive Destruction Sir: Your article "Vulcan's Fiery Forge" [May 31] dwells on the damage and destruction caused by Mount Etna.

In geology a volcano is considered a constructive force acting upon the surface of the earth. It increases this surface and it brings to it minerals from within the earth. These minerals are weathered into the soil and make it porous and rich.

Granted, a volcano is destructive but considering geological time, its ultimate value will be for the good.

DONALD H. WALES Warwick, N.Y.

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