Capital Punishment

Sir / With regard to the TIME Essay, "The Death Penalty: Cruel and Unusual?" [Jan. 24], the main reason for imprisonment is the protection of law-abiding citizens and numberless future victims. It follows that as long as a life sentence means only a few years in jail before parole, as long as prisons are not secure and convicts can escape from them or continue from there to mastermind killings, as long as prisons do not rehabilitate, the death penalty should not be abolished. However, such a penalty should be used very sparingly and only in clear-cut cases of mass killings committed by true psychopaths, since such criminals are very unlikely ever to be rehabilitated.

JUAN B. CORTES, PH.D.

Professor of Psychology

Georgetown University

Washington, D.C.

Sir / Your Essay, like all the other anti-death-penalty discourses, has but little to say on behalf of the victims.

Those who vomit and faint at executions would doubtless be less queasy had they witnessed the lonely terror, agony and death suffered by the innocent victims of the criminals.

W.L. WILLIAMS

Salt Lake City

Sir / There are three good arguments to be made against capital punishment that your Essay fails to mention. First, any prospective execution creates a sensationalism that makes manifest a morbid fascination with homicide. Second, execution has irreversible consequences that imprisonment does not have. This irreversible nature of the death sentence can influence juries to acquit defendants whom they actually believe to be guilty. Third, what does the rapist have to lose by killing his victim? Nothing, if the punishment for both crimes is death.

WALTER L. HARRISON

Eugene, Ore.

Sir / Re your excellent Essay "The Death Penalty": about the only good thing that may be said about imposing this barbaric sentence is that it reduces recidivism 100%.

LOU MONTELEONE, D.D.S.

Tampa, Fla.

Sir / In your Essay on capital punishment, you claim that the Bible contradicts itself on this issue. You quote "Thou shall not kill" from Exodus 20:13 and "He that smiteth a man so that he die, shall be surely put to death" from the next chapter. There is no contradiction. The passage in Exodus 20 should be translated "Thou shalt not murder." Hebrew has a specific word for murder, a word that is never used where the context is war or the execution of a criminal.

RABBI ELI A. BOHNEN

Providence

The Pain of Zero

Sir / You have undoubtedly reported the most important single discovery of the decade in your Environment story on the study of the limits to growth [Jan. 24]. The Club of Rome and the 33 greats of England know who our enemy is, and even how he can be beaten.

It won't be easy to convince the world (in 25 years?) that growth gets to be pathology, that we must cease reverence for the plus sign; it will be painful to show us how to view zero as a worthwhile goal, as in the zero population growth of Japan, zero pollution, zero waste. But it must be done.

ARTHUR E. CEBELIUS

West Hartford, Conn.

Sir / Now that a machine has said it, perhaps this machine-mad society will believe what we human ecology nuts have been saying for years. The human race is breeding itself into extinction, and, in an all-too-human way, bringing about the destruction of all other forms of life on this planet as well. What a shame, too --we had a great potential!

(MS.) ANN S. PATRICK

Portland, Me.

Sir / How ironic that the data for your article "The Worst Is Yet to Be?" in which you deplore growth and progress, was obtained from a computer, practically a synonym for growth and progress.

WILLIAM R. TAYLOR

Old Lyme, Conn.

Sir / Alas, when in recorded history did the bulk of any population voluntarily discipline its appetites? What problem could seem more insoluble than moving all of us to do so, especially in the light of what Alexis de Tocqueville wrote 130 years ago about us and our love of physical well-being and convenience, "to satisfy even the least wants of the body, and to provide the little conveniences is uppermost in every mind. The love of well-being is now become the predominant taste of the nation; the great current of human passions runs in that channel and sweeps everything along in its course." And he seemed to think this would be a characteristic of all democracies.

Do you suppose he is right? Will the Chinese outlive us, and the cockroaches outlive them?

(MRS.) ELIZABETH GRANOFF

Carmel Valley, Calif.

Sir / With Americans still believing that "continual growth is the solution to all problems," it is obvious that in body and soul, America's reality is but a death wish.

SUSAN SUPPLE ZOLLER

Southport, Conn.

Sir / Modern technological man is insane. We have built, invented, designed, organized, insulated and bottled ourselves into a world of our own making. Like bees in a beehive or ants in an anthill, we function effectively, but we have separated ourselves from the real world. To survive we must recognize our illness.

ED WOOLVERTON

Cook, Minn.

Children of God

Sir / I have just read your article on the Children of God [Jan. 24]. Having lost a son to this group as recently as December, I cannot help commenting from personal experience that this is not a religious group but a cover-up for something much more dangerous.

They claim that they are not interested in worldly things, yet they take from their recruits everything they own --bank accounts, automobiles, musical instruments, clothing and personal effects--leaving the parents to assume the debts their children have left behind. They do nothing in the way of charitable work in communities. Their biggest effort is to go out on the streets at night and "witness." They chant the Bible, but only specific verses over and over, taken out of context.

Parents who think it can't happen to their children had better wake up. Within a 24-hour period, the Children of God had my son converted. It was a very frightening experience.

MRS. B.W. PARMETER

Houston

Sir / I commend you on your accurate accounting of the Children of God. They brainwashed my young daughter in mid-December, and I have not received a letter nor seen her alone since. Evil lurks in the dark corners of us all, and it wears many guises. The Children of God may be such a guise.

(MRS.) BETTY P. GEHR

New Orleans

Dissipated Elation

Sir / I was elated to read of the coinage shown by Judge Robert R. Merhige in his court decision to further integration in Virginia by merging urban and suburban school districts [Jan. 24]. However, some of this elation was dissipated when I read further and learned that the judge's son Mark, age 11, attends private school. I eagerly await the day when such public officials show the courage of their convictions in deeds as well as in words.

(MRS.) KAY H. KAMIN

River Forest, Ill.

Sir / Judge Merhige's decision to consolidate the Richmond school system with the two surrounding suburban districts is frightening. How does a certain percentage of blacks and whites in a school prove the "equality of education"? If the money needed for busing were used to upgrade the materials and teachers in the inner city schools, then there would truly be equality of education.

KIM SCHAEFER

Littleton, Colo.

Sir / As a member of the executive committee of the Henrico County council of P.T.A.s, of which William S. Manner is chairman, I would like it to be known that not all of the members of this organization are as immoderate as Mr. Manner's statement would lead one to believe. True, consolidation is not looked upon with great pleasure, but the majority of the people will, if and when the decision is upheld, send their children to the schools to which they are assigned.

(MRS.) SHEILA SILVERMAN

Richmond

Sir / Judge Merhige can order until he is blue in the face. He cannot come into our homes and grab our children.

Our motto: The real Supreme Court of this land is We, the People. The judges are appointed by God; their names are Mommy and Daddy.

(MRS.) CAROLYN W. BAKER

Richmond

Optimistic View

Sir / The article "A Tough Year to Launch a Career" [Jan. 17] appears to take an unnecessarily dim view of the employment prospects for new college graduates, particularly those in engineering. The statement that ''the job market is especially bad for the engineering graduates" is simply not supported by the facts. In 1971 engineering graduates were largely placed before graduation, and indications are that those who did not already have jobs by the time they left school were employed before fall. In fact, new engineering graduates have better employment opportunities than practically any other group of college graduates.

JOHN D. ALDEN

Executive Secretary

Engineering Manpower Commission

New York City

Hunger for Mystery

Sir / In response to your story on Howard Hughes [Jan. 24], I can only say how splendid that in America of 1972 a mystery can exist. Would it not be a loss to have Mr. Hughes come out of his cocoon? Your probing story revealed enough. Let a public hungry for mystery relish that much. I say let him be. Hang back there, Mr. Hughes.

J.C. VIZVARY

Boulder, Colo.

Sir / Just great! It is fantastic that such a man as Howard Hughes, such a "doer," can remain in such accomplished seclusion in this age of "Big Brother is watching." Howard, I hope we never find out what you look like! It is time someone else had the last laugh.

ROGER K. SHUART

Fort Worth

Sir / I have read your article on Howard Hughes.

It is good, but I would like to make the following comments: 1) Hughes is 66, not 67. 2) The estimate of $2.5 billion is vastly exaggerated. Including the value of Hughes Aircraft, which is wholly owned by the foundation and therefore not really an asset of his estate, it would be difficult to assess his estate at over $1 billion. 3) The wardrobe-burning incident is wrong in its details. 4) My safari was in 1956, a full year prior to my parting with Howard. My offices were not locked when I returned from the safari. In fact, I was welcomed with open arms. The parting is completely wrong. No hat was involved. His last remark to me was, "Noah, I can't exist without you."

NOAH DIETRICH

Los Angeles

sbNoah Dietrich was Howard Hughes' chief executive officer for three decades.

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