Nixon and National Security

Sir / If Mr. Nixon is saving us from the "Commies" as Joe Bananas of Milwaukee believes [May 28], how does Bananas explain the gift of our precious grain to the U.S.S.R.? Mr. Nixon is taking the bread out of our mouths to feed "our enemy."

One fantasy follows another in this never-ending nightmare of Watergate.

(MRS.) STELLA J. ABLOW

Portola Valley, Calif.

Sir / President Nixon's recent admission that he authorized his staff to curb Watergate investigations for reasons of "national security" is the old red-herring tactic.

Political demagogues, Administration schemers and bureaucrat conspirators have been known to invoke "secret" reasons related to "Communist" threats and subversion, "national security" or "patriotic" defense of U.S. "honor" in order to cover their illegal or strictly political machinations.

Secrecy in our government has become an all too frequent refuge for scoundrels.

JAMES A. DONOVAN

Colonel, U.S.M.C. (ret.) Atlanta

Sir / I believe that the safety of the country is more important than the methods used to scare out the malcontents, subversives, miscreants and madmen. Exposing shenanigans, militants, self-servers and pie-in-the-skyers must be done, no matter how or by whom.

SAM M. SCHNEIDER

St. Louis

Sir / President Nixon's reason for the bugging and the hindering of personal liberties is national security. So was Big Brother's in Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.

KATHLEEN A. PIERSONS

Baltimore

Sir / Has "national security" now become what responsible citizens must fear?

M.D. ANDERSON

Crofton, Md.

Sir / When McGovern began spouting the Communist line on Viet Nam, the possibility of Communist financing should have been investigated at once. If it turns out that President Nixon did not order surveillance of Watergate, he is guilty of treasonable negligence and should be impeached.

ROBERT C. LUMPKIN

Pensacola Beach, Fla.

Pregnant Women Deserve Credit

Sir / Re the article on credit discrimination against married women [June 4] and the question, "What if she becomes pregnant?": as long as we live in an inflated economy, the imperative for a working-class woman to be employed outside the home will increase with each child that must be fed, clothed, educated and taken to the orthodontist. I can only hope for retirement after the last quarter's college tuition is paid for my youngest child. Leaving the work force was a luxury I could afford only before I became a mother.

CAROLYN FOUST

Memphis

Sir / In your article on credit you suggest that my letter to the Carrolls "was a bit late as Chase already had turned the couple down." You failed to cite that part of my letter which read, "If you did go to a Chase branch and got a negative response due to misinformation on the part of the branch officer, we certainly would appreciate knowing which branch it was so we can correct the problem immediately."

My letter was an honest attempt to rectify a possible mistake in judgment.

THOMAS A. HAYNE

Senior Vice President Chase Manhattan Bank New York City

Sex and Social Security

Sir / Your story "Romance and the Aged" [June 4] seems to imply that old folks are living in a sexual paradise. Perhaps some desire for kindness and companionship does influence these alliances. But basically, they are encouraged by the idea that the old lady has done no work for her Social Security, and it will be snatched away by the Government the moment she goes to the altar again.

MRS. YANCEY BELLSALL

Fort Worth

Sir / I hope I live until:

1) Older couples can marry without having to see their Social Security checks decreased.

2) Older couples can marry without risking the danger of being shipped off to the funny farm by their prudish children.

3) Men and women can work and make money without having their Social Security checks decreased.

(MRS.) ANNICE INGRAM MASON

Montgomery, Ala.

Sir / I believe that the solution to problems of old age, generation gaps, etc., is very simple--at least in part. If everyone over 35 would cultivate friendships with people ten or fifteen years younger, they would have lots of friends when they were old. The trouble is that most people stick to their own generation, and in later years most of their friends are dead.

ALLEN BROWN

Boston

Suburbia Heard From

Sir / Your book review of Suburbia, with photographs by Bill Owens [June 4], really got me. I put aside my TIME, went down to the family room of my suburban bi-level, poured a paper cup of Diet Rite, turned on the color TV, and tried to forget it!

LORETTA KRIPPNER

Addison, 111.

Today's Honest Carnie Sir / Re your article on our recent studies of the American carnival [May 28]: a major finding of our researches has been that the carnival world is rapidly changing and that crooked games and illegal activities are becoming quite rare. Like the circus before it, the carnival is today largely a "Sunday school" operation. In any case, the vast majority of carnival personnel have little involvement in--and often great contempt for--the illegal activities that go on in carnivals.

MARCELLO TRUZZI

Associate Professor of Sociology New College Sarasota, Fla.

Aid to Private Schools Sir / The myopia of those who like the National Council of Chunches, argue against tax credits for parents of nonpublic school students [May 28]. would be easier to accept if only these critics would acknowledge our support, through taxes, of the public-school systems we choose not to use.

Were we free of this obligation, perhaps the rest of society might have to make up the difference to support public schools.

MARTIN J. BUKOWSKI, M.D.

Media, Pa.

Sir / Bravo for the National Council of Churches, which asked the Catholic hierarchy: "If Roman Catholics are not exerting themselves any more sacrificially than $30 or $40 per year per capita to keep their schools going, why should the rest of society make up the difference?"

Shame, however, on the council's two top leaders for reversing themselves and ordering a revision when the statement aroused such anger among Catholics!

ERIC M. STEEL

Brockport, N.Y.

The Gladiators of Indy

Sir / The slaughter of the Indianapolis 500 [June 11] must end. Do we need this barbaric event that rivals the gladiatorial contests of Rome?

ROSEMARY BLOMEYER

Peoria, Ill.

Accepting the '60s

Sir / It is true. Activism is in retreat within America's "name brand" churches [May 28]. Denominations are retrenching. But to interpret the defeat of Eugene Carson Blake for Moderator of the United Presbyterian General Assembly as a repudiation of the '60s is to misunderstand. That same assembly deplored the continued bombing of Cambodia and Laos, supported the boycott of lettuce and grapes, and returned the U.P. Church to the Consultation on Church Union. Marks of an era not wholly spurned.

Why, then, did Activist-Ecumenist Blake lose? Because another candidate, Clinton Marsh, won. In contrast to Blake's understated style, Marsh's answers to questions rang with vigor and charisma.

What about Watergate and amnesty? Marsh: "Perhaps the former might teach the President something about the latter."

What of sexism in the church? Marsh: "I suggest that women begin to realize their power and use it."

Owing to his own incisiveness and candor, and not to rejection of a great churchman, the Rev. Clinton M. Marsh is now honorary head of his denomination.

(THE REV.) KENT M. ORGAN

College Hill Community Church Dayton

Sir / It was not the social objectives of the liberal Blake-ite leaders but their methods that cost the church members and money. When conservative Presbyterians pleaded for a little more common sense and a little less grandstanding emotion in church policies, they were brushed aside by their liberal brethren. Bigotry comes in many forms; Presbyterian liberals managed to display one of its least attractive aspects, the "holier-than-thou" complex.

(MRS.) PATRICIA GU1DAS

Wichita, Kans.

Colorless Taste

Sir / The President of Sierra Leone's creation of a "Medal of the Mosquito" [May 21] because the pest kept the white man from permanently settling in his country prompts me to remind him that the mosquito quite happily infected white and black. It was the hated white man, however, who brought the cure for malaria to Sierra Leone and indeed to all of Africa. This cure was enjoyed by blacks as well.

P.R. DE KOCK

Gwelo, Rhodesia

The Way They Are Sir / Thank you for your portrayal of gifted children [June 4] as the majority of them really are ("a thoroughly natural child," "he ran about the house and hurtled through the garden," "you can't do everything") and not as we usually see them depicted--in the last chapter in a book that includes the physically handicapped, the mentally retarded and the emotionally disturbed.

(MRS.) THERESA A. WATSON

Rosemont, Pa.

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