The Events in Munich

Sir / The world weeps for the deaths in Munich [Sept. 18] and expects, even prays for retaliation.

God, must death always be our reward? Must we always treat the symptom rather than the sickness? Must retaliation always follow atrocity in the awful agony of the Middle East? Harsh retaliation has only forged patriots into terrorists and forced them out into the world to destroy peace.

Oh, Israel, let these people return to the land of their fathers. Show the world your great goodness. Destroy the cause of which terror is a symptom. Accept these beautiful, wonderful people into your country, or let them go into theirs.

ED DOBSON

Poway, Calif.

Sir / For this thing that they have done in Munich, the Black September mob are truly the scum of the earth.

On the battlefields they are nowhere to be found, yet these "martyrs," these degenerate "heroes of the sewers" shriek their hysterical victories over unarmed innocents, over women and children and airborne passengers, and then scuttle back to the dung heaps from whence they came.

MORRIS GRAUMAN

Johannesburg

Sir / It is nonsense to argue that the cancellation of the Olympics would have constituted a surrender to terrorism. The terrorists were not seeking to close the Olympics or to embarrass the Olympic Committee. They chose the Olympics for their attack because in their search for easy targets they found the Israeli team extremely vulnerable. The proper response would have been to end the Munich Games. By making this great sacrifice, the nations and athletes of the world would have thus proclaimed in more than empty words their belief in the insanity and immorality of terrorism.

HOWARD RABINOWITZ

Albuquerque

Sir / The madness at Munich has been hailed in some Arab quarters as necessary to draw attention to the Palestinian cause. What it draws our attention to, of course, is that the cause is utterly without rational or effective leadership and that its "foreign policy" is being executed by murderous psychopaths. Once again, the legitimate interests of Arab people have been betrayed--by Arabs.

JOHN BROTHERHOOD

Farmington, Conn.

Sir / We who follow the news out of the Middle East were not overly surprised by Munich. We have watched, so often before, this mindless, subhuman killing of innocents--in their beds, in their markets, on their school buses.

Damn the killers. And damn them over again for making us accustomed to the killing.

DAVID L. PASSMAN

Chicago

Sir / Like everyone else, I was deeply shocked and saddened by the senseless murder of the Israeli athletes in Munich. As a young German, I am twice as burdened by the event. The tragic recurrence of it all is shattering. It painfully reminds us of the past horrors and the stigma that we are trying to forget and erase. I personally would gladly have joined those German officials who offered themselves as hostages to free the Israelis.

(MRS.) RENATA BROEMSE-FURR

Atlanta

Sir / Clearly, the Olympics should have been forgone this year in favor of the Barbaric Games. Suitable sites would have ranged from Death Valley to a moon crater. Contesting teams would have made up in color what they lacked in numbers: the Arabian Assassins, the Belfast Bombers, the Pakistan Predators, and an unattached club--the Skyjackers.

Consider the appeal of the events. The grenade throw. The chop, rip and thump. The high dive (out of a 727). The .32-cal. ambush. The hostage relay. The knife in the backstroke. The decapithlon. The duel meet. The cemetery vault.

Traditional ritual could have been observed--if modified--had the official torch bearer put the torch to the entire Barbaric Village before it was vacated.

The Barbaric Games '72 might have provided an orgy of violence sufficient to satiate the bloodthirsty tastes of mankind for a century or two.

W.F.TAYLOR

Pittsburgh

Sir / No glory but shame on Swimmer Spitz for his sickening lampshade wisecrack --from one of the millions whose aunts were murdered at Auschwitz.

FREDERICK KOHNER

Los Angeles

Sir / I was disgusted to read TIME'S description of the slow-fire pistol shoot as an "event that only a Mafia button man could love." The millions of Americans and people abroad who like pistol and/or rifle matches are certainly not Mafia button men.

A. MATTHEW BARBERA

Westbury, N.Y.

Sir / The Olympics prove once again "it's not how you play the Game--it's who keeps score."

JAMES BANGS

Glendale, Calif.

Attacking the Source

Sir / "Search and Destroy--The War on Drugs" [Sept. 4] reminded me of the rhetoric so common to Pentagon briefings. TIME states: "To really stop the flow of hard drugs, the U.S. must somehow attack the source of supply." To really stop the flow of hard drugs, the U.S. must first recognize and take responsibility for the appetite for drugs that exists in this country. The supply of drugs only contributes to the actual problem, which is the demand for them.

CHRISTOPHER COOKE

Eastsound, Wash.

Sir / Heroin use is a contagious disease. Addicts teach nonaddicts during weak moments how to use the drug.

In the old days we used quarantine to keep such problems from spreading. If all addicts in an area were rounded up and put in an absolutely tight camp, two problems would be solved: the disease would stop spreading and the crime rate would fall.

CHARLES E. BERTHOUD

Montclair, N.J.

Sir / The global war on heroin is being fought like the Viet Nam War. We are now witnessing a gradual escalation of pressure on the enemy's supply lines, and we measure success not by body counts but by an equally meaningless statistic: the number of pounds of heroin seized in a search-and-de-stroy mission. The prognosis for both wars is also similar: a prolonged, expensive and inconclusive stalemate.

ROBERT T.LYONS

Middleton, Wis.

Sir / Trying to cure the heroin problem by destroying the sources of heroin is like trying to cure the problem of overweight by destroying the sources of food. Fantastic.

J.E. SCHMITT

Salem, Ore.

On the Receiving End

Sir / Your article on Remotely Powered Vehicles [Sept. 11], which quotes a "high-level planner" as saying "It will be a great day when only machines make war and people make love," is tragically illuminating.

To overlook the fact that there will be people on the receiving end of such RPVs who will be engaged in the act of dying, not loving, seems to fit the truly Machiavellian if not evil mentalities of those who seek to salve the conscience of the military--and all of us--by such distortions of reality.

ROBERT J.WALKER

Berkeley, Calif.

Sir / From the time that man used his first primitive weapons against his fellows, the only real objection to war is the costly toll in human life and human misery. If we remove the human element, warfare is no longer morally objectionable and, indeed, could be rather a lot of fun.

Under this concept, a battle of the superpowers would be something that everyone would look forward to. Instead of waging large-scale war every 20 or so years, as is now the custom, we might, by popular demand, reduce the cycle to four or even two years. War could be held each time in some carefully selected remote area of sufficient size to give it the proper scope and background. This way, war production would never slacken, thereby creating jobs and stimulating economic growth.

Using cameras and TV, the average citizen could participate vicariously in the destruction of war. We would also lose the ambiguity of a war like the one in Viet Nam, and the whole endeavor would be won or lost in terms that Americans really understand--a decisive victory resulting from superior numbers, superior weapons, superior technology.

DARBYCOKER

Atlanta

Heights and Depths

Sir / You are dead wrong, TIME. Americans will again go to the moon, and well before the century is over [Sept. 11]. The law of averages militates against John F. Kennedy's being the only enlightened, adventurous President of this half-century. The "great, new American enterprise" has just begun!

CLARK G. REYNOLDS

Orono, Me.

Sir / That Apollo 17 sitting on its pad, the last in a series of spectacular ventures, does cause a "nostalgic sadness" in laymen and scientists alike. But as an oceanographer, I firmly believe that now is the time for down-to-earth, technologically complex marine projects to receive a vigorous shot in the arm. The ocean industry is far from having reached its full potential, and if given a boost could absorb at least some of the unemployed space workers. The overriding consideration, however, is the soaring pop ulation growth on our planet, with its obvious food, space and energy needs--and serious pollution problems too.

DANIEL JEAN STANLEY

Chevy Chase, Md.

Sequel

Sir / In TIME'S Press section of Jan. 24, you reported the arrest of Courier-Journal Reporter Frank Ashley in Owsley County, Ky., on charges of impersonating a lawyer in order to interview prisoners in a jail. Ashley had earlier written several articles about nepotism in a federal job program in Owsley County. It was a clear case of a reporter being harassed by local officials who disliked his stories. Ashley came to trial, after a change of venue, in Lee County Circuit Court in June. The jury acquitted him of the charges after deliberating only 23 minutes.

GEORGE N. GILL

Managing Editor

The Courier-Journal

Louisville

New Neckpiece

Sir / Your story about little Mary Frances Crosby killing the crocodile [Sept. 11] made me ill.

I'd like to take the skin and wrap it around her neck.

ALICE SIMON

Corte Madera, Calif.

Waiting Until June

Sir /1 am saving Vance Packard's A Nation of Strangers [Sept. 11] to read next June in hopes that it will ease the anxiety re sulting from my more than annual uprooting--eight moves in only seven years of marriage.

(MRS.) BARBARA MILLER GOLDMAN

Augusta, Ga.

Sir / Vance Packard speaks of negative "nomadic values" and then reports "one longtime resident" who still calls on new neighbors only when she is sure they are not at home. It is clear that empty custom is more important to that woman than meeting new people and extending genuine greetings to her neighbors.

Maybe some nomadic Americans are only trying to "rediscover the natural human community," in part by escaping staid, false social values.

(MRS.) DEE BOMAN

Agoura, Calif.

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