Free Rock-Throwing

Sir: When a chain store sets one price for its product in a ghetto area and a lower price in a white suburban location, people are properly outraged.

When an airline charges a 25-year-old $200 for a flight to Europe and asks a middle-aged citizen to pay $600, the champions of fair play are strangely silent.

It's ironic that the victims of this outrageous discrimination do most of the work in our society and pay most of the taxes required to support the facilities used by these airlines.

As long as we're too old and too poor to visit Europe, perhaps we should spend our $200 on a trip to Washington, where we can throw rocks at the CAB.

BRAD SEBSTAD Winnetka, Ill.

A Natural Sense of Time

Sir: Gerald Clarke's discussion on punctuality [June 28] was a delight to read. However, Clarke ignores one dimension when he implies that a time sense is unnatural and a product of industrial man. The time habits of many birds, mammals and even fish are known by canny hunters and anglers, and the biological rhythms of man are currently under study. Some people may make an effort at unpunctuality, but it is unlikely that man could willfully break free from a sense of time. ROBERT G. FERGUSON Wheatley, Ont.

Sir: Time isn't running a race; eternity has no limit; forever has no end. Funny how people create the weapons of their self destruction, and believe it or not, the clock is a weapon. Disarm time and you can live forever.

CARLOS RODRIGUEZ Calgary, Alta.

Sir: The omission of India from "the supposedly languid Orient" was perhaps significant. As believers in the karmic theory of life, we can have but an academic interest in punctuality, for we have aeons of time before us. So if a thing cannot be done today or tomorrow, it can be done in the next life. Hence our belief that if you are there before it is over, you are on time. For a change, I would commend to the Americans the healthy art of keeping up with yesterday.

R.T. SHAHANI Bombay

Sir: Gerald Clarke's Essay charges Marshal Ney with responsibility for Napoleon's debacle at Waterloo. Surely the blame should go to the dilatory and unfortunate Marshal Grouchy for his failure to intercept Bluecher's Prussians, and not to the intrepid Ney, who on the contrary, attacked Wellington two hours ahead of time.

MICHAEL A. BUDNY New York City

>Napoleon was annoyed with both his commanders. In writing of the battle he described how Marshal Ney "wavered and lost eight hours" and "forgot the troops who were not under his eye." He also referred to the "inexcusable inertia of Marshal Grouchy."

Reply from a Pilot-Astronaut

Sir: In your article "Moscow High, Houston Low" [June 28], you revive the old "scientist-astronaut v. pilot-astronaut" issue in a way that is totally misleading.

1. Brian O'Leary, whom you quote on the dominance of the test pilot at Houston, left the program at an early stage of training. His qualifications to speak on NASA policy and procedures are little better than those of the man in the street.

2. The ALSEP antenna on Apollo 14 was initially aligned exactly according to settings supplied by Houston. Whether the base subsequently settled in the dirt or was pulled off position by one of the many cables attached to the station will never be known. In any event, to use that in your argument is ludicrous.

3. The statement that we "acted like robots," etc., may very well have been said. However, if so, that is the first derogatory statement we have heard from anyone purporting to represent the scientific community.

EDGAR D. MITCHELL Captain, U.S.N. NASA Astronaut Houston

>TIME regrets that Astronaut Mitchell was offended, but stands behind its report of the grumblings at NASA.

It Takes Two

Sir: Perhaps the idea of "victims in search of assassins" [July 5] is not such a new one after all, even if recently brought to public notice. About half a century back it was defined by D.H. Lawrence. In his novel Women in Love one of his characters says, "It takes two people to make a murder: a murderer and a murderee. And a murderee is a man who is murderable. And a man who is murderable is a man who in a profound if hidden lust desires to be murdered."

KAVITA HOSALI SYED Kent, Ohio

Sir: To transform a minor insight into "a new discipline known as 'victimology' " is to do a disservice to the serious study of human behavior. A neologism does not a new discipline make. To argue that a person with ambition longs "lustfully" for injury and to juxtapose that suggestion with a picture of Robert Kennedy and the title "Is the Victim Guilty?" is, in my view, nothing short of obscene.

HENRY BECK Irvine, Calif.

Sir: "Is the victim guilty?" Seldom, very seldom. When society does not have an answer as to why criminals are criminals, it tries to make the victim worthy of his injury or harm. We must do this to preserve our concept of the "just world," where evil is returned for evil and good for good.

HELEN ANDREWS Erie, Pa.

Joy-Stick Control

Sir: Your article on the eye-operated wheelchair [luly 5] made me see red. It is a prime example of technology running wild. As a quadriplegic, I can state that most of us can operate the joystick control on the battery-powered chair pictured by means of slight adaptations, the most extensive of which would be a lever reaching from the control to mouth level where it can be manipulated by tongue or lips. The costs of these adaptations are negligible compared with the $700-$900 price quoted for the Sight Switch, and they have the additional advantage of allowing the rider the luxury of seeing where he's going.

YVONNE DUFFY Pontiac, Mich.

The Pentagon and the Press

Sir: It makes one shudder to think how many other top-secret documents are in the hands of dedicated public servants gifted with prophetic hindsight such as Daniel Ellsberg.

CAROL KOENEMANN Rochester

Sir: Daniel Ellsberg--the only real hero to emerge from the Viet Nam War.

ALFRED B. BIGELOW Washington

Sir: It is a sorry state of affairs when we must look to the press rather than our Government for the truth.

VERNON L. WHARTON JR. Lafayette, La.

Sir: Now that we have freedom of the press, how do we obtain freedom from the press?

EDWARD HALBERT Major, U.S.A. Parkville, Mo.

Sir: Reporters like myself who covered Viet Nam in the 1960s often had the sense of desperation a railway signalman might feel as he sees a train bearing down on a straying child and realizes, too late, that the semaphore in his charge is not functioning. Yet there is no consolation in haying been on what is now the winning side of those crucial arguments of the '60s. There remains a bitter personal sense of waste and a conviction that the semaphores can and will break down again with catastrophic results.

MALCOLM W. BROWNE New York Times Correspondent for South Asia Rawalpindi, Pakistan

Calling for Loudmouths

Sir: Three cheers and a couple of beeps for Ralph Garr [July 5]. In a sport where false modesty and conformity are emphasized as essential behavior, Garr stands out as a distinct personality. With a few more "loudmouths" like the Roadrunner, baseball might just start to get the gate football, basketball and hockey are snatching up.

MICHAEL BOMBYK Grand Rapids

A Link to the Other Side

Sir: In your article on the coming production of the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar [July 5], you say "Some of the country's Jesus revolutionists--and Billy Graham--have complained that the rock opera asks who Christ is rather than affirming his divinity."

In fact, anyone who reads the Jesus story honestly is obliged to ask of Christ "Who are you? What have you sacrificed?"

Perhaps Mr. Graham has made the extraordinary leap of faith, but to those for whom the gap seems yet too wide and who find in Superstar an important personal link to the other side, his criticism certainly does beg the question.

(MRS.) JANE J. FUNK Mount Holly, N.J.

Sir: I had the chance to hear Jesus Christ Superstar recently, and I found it overpowering musically as well as dramatically and theologically.

If any question is raised, it is that of "what" Christ is, something each interested individual must answer for himself. But one answer is offered to that question in the opera. It is the too often forgotten simple and emotional humaneness of Christ that is strongly affirmed.

I shall certainly be one to queue up to see this opera. As for Mr. Graham, perhaps he should more carefully examine his own productions and not Jesus Christ Superstar.

JUDITH HOLLOWAY LOEFFKE Washington

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