Mailer, Money and the Defenseless

Sir / Pop slop. Grind, clunk. Dollars!

Norman Mailer [July 16] is like Varathane: bright, hard, but you can see right through him. Poor Marilyn. It's not nice to make money from the defenseless dead.

RUTH CAPER

Los Angeles

Sir / Your article on Marilyn Monroe was absolutely tantalizing. But did you have to include Mailer?

(THE REV.) JOHN GARISTO, O.S.F.S.

Center Valley, Pa.

Sir / In spite of everything that has been written about Marilyn Monroe, and every thing that was done to hurt her while she was living, one cannot help sensing that she will always emerge unscathed and undegraded, as a lovely, very vulnerable and tragic child.

SARA MULLIN

Watertown, N.Y.

Sir / After two decades of failure to escape the "one good book" syndrome, Mailer has finally opted for literary prostitution. No responsible author would contract to write a biography in 60 days.

But with beautiful Marilyn, spicy Kennedy gossip, and a dark FBI conspiracy, he can't lose.

PAUL B. HORTON

Plainwell, Mich.

Sir / My book Marilyn: An Untold Story, which will be published in August, is not a biography. It is a memoir, with completely new material, written by someone who knew Miss Monroe personally for the last seven years of her life. It is undeserving of the "also" treatment you gave it in your story.

NORMAN ROSTEN

New York City

Helga Sue, Meet M.A. Funt

Sir / Your story on Helga Sue Gromowitz [July 16], the imaginary high school student, reminded me of an equally fabulous person named M.A. Funt, who used to haunt the halls of Patrick Henry High School in Roanoke.

Funt's habit of writing his name on walls and blackboards was tolerated by the faculty, but when he devilishly listed as his phone number in the student directory that of the student government's faculty adviser, he was unofficially expelled.

I understand that he occasionally reappears even today. He cuts class frequently, however, and his name has dropped out of print.

TED BLAIN

Roanoke, Va.

Sir / My brother and his friend decided to liven things up a little bit by running Ed Walton for student council. Ed Walton was a rabbit.

One famous campaign slogan was "Win by a Hare -- Vote Ed Walton."

MOLLY BRANDENBURG

Medford, Ore.

Searching for the Truth

Sir / Who the hell appointed this bloated bigot Sam Ervin to be judge and prosecutor and jury? What a sickening travesty of justice; what a farcical "search for truth"; what a frightening reminder of the Joe McCarthy days!

WILLIAM E. LERNER

Newport Beach, Calif.

Sir / It seems that America is experiencing the divine right of kings under its President. Is a new Magna Carta needed?

MRS. SCOTT ANDERSON

Berkeley, Calif.

Sir / All of the men closest to the President and to the Attorney General were involved in many illegal activities--and they knew nothing about it.

What would happen if these men had been part of a group who wished to overthrow the Government? Who would have stopped them?

FANNIE HOTTEL

Monmouth, Ill.

Sir / The results of President Nixon's meetings with Russia and China are far more important than the whole Watergate affair.

JAKE PHILLIPS

Charleston, W. Va.

Sir / Historians will undoubtedly praise Richard Nixon highly for his role in establishing better relations with the Communist countries.

However, if this chapter in history is complete, it will note that this accomplishment probably would have occurred 20 years earlier had it not been for the opposition at that time of Mr. Nixon and his philosophical counterparts.

TIM BALLMER

Monterey Park, Calif.

Sir / I, too, noticed "a dark, novelistic quality" about the John Dean testimony. His vivid descriptions of one-on-one meetings with the President remind one of Clifford Irving's detailed accounts of his meetings with Howard Hughes.

If Irving were a sharp lawyer as well as a writer, his story might have held up longer than it did.

CHESTER S. FRIEDMAN

Oakhurst, N.J.

Sir / Clifford Irving must pass his now dusty "Con Man of the Year" award to another deserving trickster, Richard Nixon.

DON DUBLIS

Calhoun, Ga.

Killing Chicks and Eating Bison

Sir / "Systematically gassing, drowning and suffocating a million baby chicks" [July 9] might be one way to get even for the Administration's price freeze. Instead of sinful mass destruction, would it be possible to give the "unwanted" poultry to people who have nothing? After all, the farmers v. the price freeze concerns only the "buying" Americans.

Giving poultry away free to a hungry neutral group of people might be a constructive challenge for the Administration.

VICKI LOMBARDO

Akron

Sir / It is plainly time that we recognize one of our great natural resources, the North American bison. Not only is the buffalo possibly an answer to cheaper beef prices, but it could also prove to be a great help in our continuing energy crisis. Buffalo chips were a main source of fuel during the settlement of the western United States. Considering the condition of the air in some of our cities the introduction of buffalo chips would have a negligible effect on the olfactory senses of most people.

R.F. MARKS

Mobile, Ala.

Signal's Stock

Sir / In the article entitled "Gray's Eminence" [July 23], relating to the proposed merger between The Signal Companies and United Aircraft, it is stated that the present dividend on Signal's common stock is 50-c- a share.

The dividend on Signal's common stock is 60-c- a share per year. It is also stated that Signal's earnings have "dwindled" from $90 million in 1968 to $41 million in 1972. In 1968 Signal reported net income, before extraordinary items, of $52.3 million. In 1972 net income, before extraordinary items, was $42.7 million.

The article also says that some Signal directors were "reluctant" to team up with United Aircraft. Fourteen of the 15 directors of the corporation were present at the meeting at which the merger proposal was approved in principle. The vote approving the proposal was unanimous.

FORREST N. SHUMWAY

President

The Signal Companies, Inc.

Beverly Hills, Calif.

Wallace's True Colors

Sir / As one of millions who was fooled by and voted for George Wallace five years ago, I now thank God he lost. Upon witnessing his taking joy in sitting beside the pro-liberal, pro-busing, reduce-American-military-might Edward Kennedy [July 9], I've awakened and I hope that many more are aware of Wallace's true colors: a false prophet and political phony. Those are qualities that America, in her present condition, does not need in a President.

DUANE RAYMOND

Minneapolis

Sir / I would have sworn that your article, "George and Teddy Harmonize," was about Kennedy only. May I be the first to tell you that we here in Michigan went to see Governor Wallace. I certainly would not have taken the time, the effort or the expense to go to Alabama to see Kennedy.

C.A. EARLYWINE

Grand Rapids

Decision in Darkness

Sir / I most sincerely appreciate TIME'S Essay [July 16], "Deciding When Death Is Better Than Life."

As a doctor, I have faced this decision and, in the darkness of night, with hope for the patient lost, have been at the hospital with sorrow in my heart. Speaking meager words of comfort to an anxious family, I have put my arm around a mother, wife or husband as they sobbed on my shoulder, and then "pulled the plug." It is not easy. It also is not easy to awaken in the morning to find the newspapers rasping away at heartless, moneygrubbing doctors.

JONATHAN M. WILLIAMS, M.D.

Silver Spring, Md.

Sir / Perhaps we should not play God by granting painless prolonging death, painful but are we to play God by prolonging painful life?

LAURA JOHNSON

Stevens Point, Wis.

Sir / By taking a step toward legalization of euthanasia, we are also progressing toward active genocide. Once life or death is put in the hands of the individual, "misfits" also face elimination by a "humane" society.

MARK YOUNG

Coldwater, Kans.

Sir / May I add a footnote to the Essay on euthanasia? It is easier for Dr. W.F. Anderson of Glasgow than it is for American physicians to take the position that modern drugs can keep a patient sufficiently pain-free to make mercy killing obsolete. Dr. Anderson practices in Britain where it is legal for a doctor to give heroin to a patient (usually a terminal-cancer victim) after morphine has ceased to be effective. In the U.S. it is unlawful for a physician to employ this most potent of all painkilling drugs even for a patient in extremis, for whom there can be no danger of addiction.

GEORGE CROZIER

New York City

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.