Eliminating the Poor

Sir / The rapid increase in food prices at food markets is just a part of Nixon's anti-poverty program. He's planning to eliminate the poor by starving them to death.

WARREN H. RAAB

Dover, Pa.

Sir / The low-income people were using substitutes and selective buying before the present spiral began, but now they are hanging at the end of the rope with no relief in sight. What we are being told is, if you cannot keep up with the price rise then lower your standard of living.

D.M. SMITH

Livingston, Mont.

Sir / Let 'em eat cake or cheese or fish or less meat or much less meat or less everything or plant gardens or whatever. What do those people eat who keep telling us what to eat? With their incomes, it must be more than fish and chips!

RICHARD TOURANGEAU

Boston

Sir / If nothing is impossible, why not inaugurate the following: "For every 1% increase in the cost of living, all members of Congress will have their salaries permanently reduced $5,000 per month."

Instead of all the investigations and grandstand plays by the Congress, let it get busy with something to remedy the present situation.

E.R. PARR

Chanute, Kans.

Sir / Those protesting the high price of meat mean well. But the truth is that we have been spoiled for years by low food prices at the expense of the American farmer and producer. Let's be honest enough to admit that most of us would not become farmers because of the conditions and the risk.

(THE REV.) OSCAR T. MOLINE

McPherson. Kans.

No Repeaters

Sir / TIME'S Essay "Fighting Crime" [March 26] reviews death penalty statistics --incompletely. No mention was made of the low incidence of repeat offenders among the ranks of those who have received the death penalty. Further, no argument has been presented to prove that the death penalty is a precursor of violent crime.

HOWARD Q.DUGUID

Darien, Conn.

Sir / Mr. Nixon's "hard line" on criminals is obviously an elementary oversight in cause-effect principles. More precisely and elegantly expressed (with thanks to J.J. Rousseau): "A fool, if he be obeyed, may punish crimes as well as another: but the true statesman is he who knows how to prevent them."

With this in mind, let us hope that Congress rejects Mr. Nixon's "pound of cure" for the much more economical and reasonable "ounce of prevention."

KURT D. LUEDKE

Providence

Hamburgers and Polygraphs

Sir / From reading the article "Truth or Consequences" [March 19j I am of the opinion that your reporter-researcher is quali fied only to serve hamburgers. The commercial use of the polygraph is the only thing that is keeping many small and marginal businesses afloat. This machine is no sinister monster designed to deny people the right to earn an honest living. It is rather a scientific instrument that can guarantee the basic honesty of persons placed in positions of trust.

The polygraph is the best friend an innocent man ever had.

JAMES H. GRIFFITH

Cincinnati

Sir / I must sadly admit we have taken one more step toward the impersonal world of 1984.

To think that one would have to take a polygraph test in order to be allowed to sell hamburgers is frightening.

STEPHEN HEVER

San Mateo, Calif.

Sir / I have been bilked several times recently by employees of a company that reportedly subjects its personnel to polygraph tests, so this question immediately comes to mind: Are employees ever asked if they have ever stolen for the company as well as from the company? If so, does management hold that a truthful affirmative reply is a virtue in the first instance and a vice in the second?

WILLIAM L. BROCKWELL

Hopewell, Va.

The Family Quarrel

Sir / I can respect any female black's decision not to associate with a crusade that she feels is untimely and unimportant. And I can almost understand why Encore's Editor Lewis interprets Women's Lib as a "family quarrel between white women and white men" [March 26].

But I vehemently resent anyone's indicting the entire middle class of white women! Most of us do not have domestic help, many of us do work outside the home out of need, and the vast majority want an atmosphere of fairness for all women, regardless of color.

If you won't join us, for God's sake don't knock us!

MARY SHIREY

Pittsburgh

Sir / Black women who work and leave young children at home under the care of eight-and ten-year-old brothers, sisters or cousins need day-care centers, which Women's Liberation is working for.

Working women's need for child-care facilities is no "playtoy for middle-class white women."

(MRS.) MILDRED JACKSON

Detroit

Mosaic of Facts

Sir / Congratulations on your statement, "The freedom of the press ... does not belong to journalists; it belongs to the public" [March 19]. Freedom of the press is not primarily intended to convey privilege to journalists; on the contrary, it imposes an obligation.

EWALD SCHUETTNER

Los Angeles

Sir / It is high time that "poison pen" reporters were made to account for their writings I am sick of their crybaby screams of "Freedom of the press!" whenever they are called to account by the Administration. Yes, I want the news, but not colored with personal prejudice.

MORITZ A. KUHN

Milford, Pa.

Sir / My nomination for Man of the Year: the beleaguered journalist.

DAVID GROVER

Gallon, Ohio

Wounded Knee

Sir / You quoted me correctly concerning my suspicions of media manipulation by the American Indian Movement's leadership at Wounded Knee [March 26], but you omitted one observation of considerable importance. I also said that the AIM leadership had refined the craft of confrontation to a remarkable degree, making it pictorial as well as picturesque. They know that a mounted and armed Indian patrol is a rare and newsworthy sight in this century.

As for Sellers' observation that the thing could have been settled in a week without the press, it seems germane to say that Sellers and his superiors could have ended the matter by taking a less intransigent position in the negotiations.

BILL BROWN

ABC News Chicago

Sir / Has our Government forgotten how to deal with Indians? Promise them anything but give them a scrap of paper.

EDWARD C. MANN

Holly, Mich.

A Natural Consequence

Sir / Your cover story on Carlos Castaneda and Indian sorcery [March 5] presented me rather like the Clifford Irving of the mushroom-munching set, a reputation I neither enjoy nor deserve.

I made Mr. Castaneda aware of the fact that I intended to write a magazine article on him. Mr. Castaneda invited me into his seminar, invited me to visit the "place of power" described in my Penthouse article, and even gave me his home address in Los Angeles, a courtesy he extends to very few.

I did not deviously "procure" a copy of Journey to Ixtlan, nor did I "paste" one together. Even the most casual reading of my Penthouse article reveals that the greater portion of it has little to do with Journey to Ixtlan. In the few instances where there is redundancy between the article I wrote and Ixtlan, it occurred naturally as a consequence of the fact that during his stay at Irvine, Mr. Castaneda spoke freely of the material that subsequently appeared in the book Journey to Ixtlan.

JOHN WALLACE, PH.D.

Associate Professor of Administration/Psychology

University of California

Irvine, Calif.

-TIME is glad to print Mr. Wallace's side of the story. Castaneda, however, says he does not remember meeting Professor Wallace and was not aware that Wallace was writing an article about him. Wallace's wife did attend Castaneda's class and Castaneda says it is possible that he may have spoken informally with her husband.

One More Prayer

Sir / Under no circumstances would I put down in any way the gallant and courageous returned prisoners [March 19]. The contrast, however, between our happy and apparently healthy P.O.W.s, and the "grotesque sculptures of scarred flesh and gnarled limbs" who have been "politically re-educated" by Mr. Thieu, might make one more prayer of thanksgiving seem in order: "Dear God, thank you for allowing me to be captured by the enemy, and not by the friends I was sent to fight for."

JOHN M. MORRIS

Youngstown. Ohio

Sir / Now that we have once again been told about the tiger cages at Con Son and the barbarous tortures the South Vietnamese use in eliciting information from captives--ad nauseam--isn't it about time we have a decent in-depth study concerning the terror bombings of marketplaces and meetings, the kidnapings and murders of civilians committed by the Viet Cong?

MURRAY FURGANG

New York City

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