Cheers for Shriver
Sir / Cheers for Senator George McGovern on his selection of R. Sargent Shriver for his running mate [Aug. 14].
Perhaps now we can get back to the key issues of this campaign. The election of McGovern and Shriver may bring back the optimism, candidness, honesty and buoyant self-confidence of John F. Kennedy's thousand days.
RICHARD M. MENGES
Oak Park, Ill.
Sir / McGovern has finally done something right.
Sargent Shriver is a smart, experienced man. He knows that what goes on in the rest of the world is important to us. He knows a lot about dealing with the rich and the poor. He is not just politically motivated. (Now if he could just dump McGovern.)
THEODORE R. CLEMENT
Adrian, Mich.
Sir / A better headline for your story would have been: "A Veep Finally Accepts George McGovern."
WILL RUSCH
El Segundo, Calif.
Sir / Whom do the Democrats think they are kidding? We are not all a bunch of idiots who believe everything we hear or see. Mr. McGovern had to scrape the bottom of the barrel when he was looking for a running mate.
Now, Mr. Shriver is the greatest. If he is so great, why wasn't he nominated in the first place?
MARIAN B.GALPIN
Newark, Del.
Sir / You mention the Shriver family mill and home as being a museum operated by the Shriver Foundation. Actually, the 1797 house built by Andrew Shriver and his brother David Shriver Jr. is now owned and operated as a museum by the Union Mills Homestead Foundation Inc., a nonprofit organization with an open membership and, I might add, very little money. Their board only wishes that there were a Shriver Foundation to fall back on.
GEORGE M. SHRIVER JR.
Pikesville, Md.
Eagleton's Peers
Sir / As another of Senator Eagleton's peers, I was amazed at the attitudes and misgivings expressed by the shock patients [Aug. 14]. I can only doubt that these were fully recovered depression patients. I feel that TIME has done the Senator and the cause of mental health a great disservice by printing an article that allows such personal self-doubts to project themselves onto others. I am sure there are many successfully treated depression patients, like myself, who would voice complete confidence in Senator Eagleton. I request equal time.
BARBARA MINICH
Terre Haute, Ind.
The Price of Survival
Sir / In his Essay. "Can the World Survive Economic Growth?" [Aug. 14], George Church envisions for the U.S. a policy that accepts an increase in material wellbeing, rather than rising G.N.P., as an economic goal. I'm for it. But there would indeed be an onerous price to pay, even for survival, if "the Government would have to take over more direction of the economy."
It is idealistic perhaps to expect us as individual consumers and entrepreneurs to move voluntarily in the direction of responsible stewardship of our private incomes and our natural resources. I submit that it is no more realistic to assume that greater well-being is inevitably linked with more direction of the economy by Government.
CHARLES W. LARKAM
Austin, Texas
Sir / Professor Meadows' assumption that the natural resources available to man are restricted to this planet is no longer valid.
DAVID M. DA CUNHA
Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, Ind.
Spiteful Letter
Sir / Would you have printed that spiteful letter about Dick Cavett [Aug. 14] if someone other than Rudy Vallee had sent it?
As a sincere admirer of Dick Cavett, I resented it.
MRS. PERCY BRIDGELAND
Watertown, Conn.
Sir / Who is Rudy Vallee and why is he saying those terrible things about Dick Cavett?
BETTE BUDINGER
Haddonfield.N.J.
Sir / In case some of your readers are puzzled by Mr. Rudy Vallee's recent attack on me in your Letters column (usually he writes nasty letters to my employers--now he's out in the open), let me hazard two possible explanations: 1) Mr. Vallee once taped a show of mine on which he did his stand-up comedy act--and we put it on the air. 2) It could just be the Generation Gap. I missed his prime when he was singing through a megaphone. I've only known him since he took to wearing it on his head.
DICK CAVETT
New York City
Temple in Grand Forks
Sir / The ABM temple at Grand Forks. N. Dak. [Aug. 7], is but another paranoiac Defense Department expenditure to certify America's superiority over Moscow.
There is a greater possibility of a missile "accident" in the U.S. than there is of using the ABMs as "a defense of the retaliatory might of 150 Minuteman ICBMs." I have never understood military thinking; I have always thought that to avoid a nuclear holocaust you don't prepare for one, for preparation brings about the actual happening. My congratulations to the top brass at the Pentagon for once again getting what they want at the expense of taxpayers.
MICHAEL SIMMS
Oak Park, Ill.
Sir / We express disappointment in the content and comments of John Mulliken in his recent article concerning the ABM installation being constructed near Grand Forks.
In place of imaginative and constructive reporting, Mr. Mulliken takes refuge in attempts to be cleverly critical about both the ABM system and the area in which it is located. We do not feel that it is necessary to defend either, but we cannot pass the opportunity to comment that this type of reporting does neither Mr. Mulliken nor your publication justice.
North Dakota does have many advantages obvious to those discerning enough to notice. We regret that your reporter did not have that ability.
DAVID A. VAALER
President, Chamber of Commerce
Grand Forks, N. Dak.
Sir / So now North Dakota is declared "19th century." Perhaps it is because it still offers such rarities as a good education, breathable air, safe streets and decent public services, qualities nearly extinct in such "21st century" states as New York.
I'd rather live in the 19th century than have to worry about amenities taken for granted in North Dakota. Have Mr. Mulliken come back and take another look.
SUSIE HARRIE
Grand Forks, N. Dak.
Write On, Hans Kueng
Sir / Rather than being "as out of touch with grass-roots Catholicism as the old guard whom he criticizes," Hans Kueng is definitely where it's at [Aug. 7]. Since the inception of Pope John's aggiornamento Kueng has been fearlessly writing on what Vatican II was about: ecumenism. If the church of Jesus Christ is to survive and take its proper place of leadership in the community, it must do so as one body and one spirit in Christ. I say write on, Hans Kueng.
(THE REV.) JOSEPH B. PUGLIESE
New York City
Sir / Your estimation of Hans Kueng's position in the Catholic church seems wrong and misleading to me. Kueng lives, thinks, writes and acts as a Roman Catholic. Karl Rahner's remark that Kueng must be dealt with as if he were a liberal Protestant is quite untypical. What your estimate of Kueng does not appreciate is that the unity of Catholic thought is created out of an ongoing conversation in the church, in which different voices must be heard. Hans Kueng supplies a radical critique of Catholic life based on the Scriptures.
Even if other theologians attach greater importance than Kueng to the church's historical experience, they realize that the biblical witness never simply confirms the church. The Bible continues to embarrass the church, disapprove of its collective behavior, and undermine the authority of the merely human. Hans Kueng is not marginal, but central in the Roman Catholic Church's quest for a new future.
GREGORY BAUM
Professor of Theology St. Michael's College within The University of Toronto
Controlled Fires
Sir / "The Fires Next Time" [Aug. 7] informs your readers about a beetle infestation in Yellowstone National Park, and that's good. It also seems to imply that being careful with fire out of doors is unnecessary, and that's bad.
Professional foresters set fire to millions of acres annually for a variety of purposes, including the control of tree diseases, reduction of excessive fuel accumulations and the improvement of watersheds, wildlife habitat and conditions for regeneration of forests. But let us make it clear that the use of controlled fire is a professional matter--not one for the general public. The prevention of wildfires, on the other hand, is very much a public responsibility.
MAL HARDY
Director, Smokey Bear Program
U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service Washington, D.C.
Vietnamese v. Newsmen
Sir / In reply to Malcolm Browne's comment on Vietnamese hostility toward foreign newsmen [Aug. 14], perhaps this is a plausible reason: The TV camera crew that asked me "How bad are the Vietnamese f--d-up today?" during the Lam Son 719 operation while an English-speaking Vietnamese lieutenant colonel, major and two captains were present; and similar comments by other correspondents seeking sensationalism at the expense of impartial and factual coverage.
DAVID G.TAYLOR
Cookeville, Tenn.
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