The Symbionese Shootout

Sir / I was appalled and disgusted at the savagery and violence of the attack by the Los Angeles police department on members the Symbionese Liberation Army during the recent Shootout in Los Angeles 27]. They not only destroyed valuable clues and evidence, but burned to death six frightened young people who could possibly have been flushed out by water, gas, hunger, lack of ammunition, or the waiting game.

M.C. SEXTON

San Diego

Sir / If the S.L.A. had occupied a house in Beverly Hills, would the L.A.P.D. have quite so blithely burned it down?

JOSEPH EARNER

San Fernando, Calif.

Sir / It is most appropriate that the members of the Symbionese Liberation Army be shot down like the common gutter rats that they really are. What is needed now is restoration of the death penalty to deal with the ones who are captured, such as the murderers of the Oakland school superintendent. Allowing them to live in prisons is an invitation for the formation of other groups.

THOMAS T. EARLES

Culpeper, Va.

Sir / If we are ready to blame the S.L.A. for the transformation of Patty Hearst from socialite liberal to violent radical within a few short weeks, then society cannot escape its responsibility for the creation of the S.L.A. Not only do the deplorable social conditions that spawn this kind of group continue to exist, but now, I fear, it is only a matter of time until we will be humming The Ballad of Cinque over our morning coffee.

DON SUMMERS

Daly City, Calif.

The Transcript Fallout Sir / The Watergate transcripts, surprisingly, increased my sympathy for Nixon.

I had suspected a ruthless, calculated and amoral attempt to cover up a major crime. It turns out to be a confused but very human attempt, motivated mainly by personal loyalties and a concern for the good name of the presidential office, to cover up the cover-uppers. He neither instigated nor condoned the crime itself.

Come on, America! Why this constant introverted breast-beating about a national peccadillo? I suppose that it is your Puritan upbringing.

BRIAN HARRISON

Adelaide, Australia

Sir / Seeing TIME'S report that several newspaper editors have withdrawn their support of Nixon after reading the presidential transcripts leaves me with mixed feelings. I am relieved to see that their sense of what constitutes proper behavior by a U.S. President is not so different from my own. But I am shocked to learn that the men responsible for delivering the news to such a large segment of the U.S. population could be so lacking in insight that they were surprised by the transcripts' revelations.

THOMAS E. BULL

Lund, Sweden

Sir / I have always believed that American Presidents were not devious or unscrupulous enough to cope successfully with an often ruthless international community. Well, we finally have a President who is able to handle foreign affairs rather nicely.

EDWARD COLBACH, M.D.

Portland, Ore.

Sir / Nixon seems more and more like a sow's ear that is trying very hard to look like a silk purse and not doing too well at it.

ROBERT J. YAES

St. John's, Newfoundland

Sir / I say keep the expletive, delete the executive.

ALEXANDRA KING

Berkeley, Calif.

Sir / The President says, "I am not guilty of any offense under the Constitution that is called an impeachable offense." How about "unpardonable offense"?

SHIRLEY MAXWELL

Houston

Attack on Abortion

Sir / Re the article "New Attack on Abortion" [May 27], the fact that the poor of Boston can no longer obtain abortions at Boston City Hospital except in cases of medical and psychiatric emergencies is the greatest news in a long time. Now many poor women will not have to live with the added burden of knowing that they have done away with the human life sheltered inside them.

TERRI KENT

State College, Pa.

Sir / I think that each person who asks for an abortion in Boston and is refused for fear of reprisal from the courts, should be granted, without cost, full prenatal care, delivery and postnatal care, and thereafter a full support payment for said child, up to and including college, the cost of which should be assessed to the Value of Life Committee. If one feels the need to order another individual's life, he should pay for it.

JOAN Q. HAZLITT

Pasadena, Calif.

The Ubiquitous Terrorists

Sir / Recently my son asked me if I had heard about the terrorist who had slipped across the border. Suddenly I had to think of which border he was referring to: the Israeli border, the Northern Ireland border or the California border. The violence has gotten too confusing.

GABE GIBBONS

Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

Farm Prices

Sir / I wish with all my country soul that the city dude who wrote in "The Gloomiest Outlook Yet" [May 27] "The one bright spot in the inflation picture is that wholesale farm had prices in April fell make an average of 3% . . ." had to try to make a living for just one year on a family-sized farm.

BERYL HARRIS

Bolivar, Mo.

A Partial Solution

Sir / One can hardly understand Israel's inconsistency in dealing with Palestinian terrorism [May 27]. While Israel sticks to its expressed policy of sparing the lives of captured Arab terrorists who really killed innocent citizens, it kills equally innocent Arab refugees in Lebanon. Rather than killing the refugees indiscriminately, why could not Israel change its policy on capital punishment and hang the terrorists that it has captured? That would at least deprive future Arab commandos of their alleged justification for committing further terrorism to force the release of their captured comrades.

K. ROKUGO

Tokyo

Their Turn

Sir / The findings of Labor Expert Doris B. McLaughlin that professional women are often exploitive of their maids [May 6] remind me of a story of a slave in ancient Rome. Upon being informed that his master, newly converted to Christianity, was soon to set all his slaves free, the man discussed with some of his fellows what each was going to do. While his fellow slaves had all kinds of ideas, his own was, "I'll buy two slaves to take care of me."

PI. COTS AP AS

Mogadiscio, Somalia

At Her Command

Sir / I was as intrigued by "God's chain of command" as assumed by the Rev. William William Gothard [May 20]. God to husband to wife to child. Interesting,but why would She do a thing like that?

CAROLYN FITTZ

Tucson, Ariz.

Sir / The article on Bill Gothard broke me up. Can't you see Golda Meir, Indira Gandhi, Queen Elizabeth and Queen Juliana going home after a hard day at the office to say "And thank you for this beating"? It makes one wonder if Andersen's and Grimm's fairy tales are not top priority on his serious reading list.

BARBARA ROGNESS

Leslie, Mich.

Sir / Unfortunately, the only statement by me that you quoted about Bill Gothard was a critical-evaluative remark, correct but introduced by a somewhat pejorative phrase (not mine). While I have reservations about some aspects of Gothard's teaching and his interpretation of the Bible, I am in substantial agreement with his theological position, and we at Wheaton College consider him an ally.

ALAN F. JOHNSON

Wheaton, Ill.

Douglas' Original Sin

Sir / Your review of Justice Douglas' autobiography [May 20] notes skeptically his alleged contention that "he leaped practically from the womb as a full-blown liberal and has never since been sullied by the errors of complacent conservatism." I don't doubt it; that is what the doctrine of original sin is all about.

STEVE CHAPMAN

Cambridge, Mass.

The Balance at Princeton

Sir / Your article on "restless" alumni [May 27] was a bit misleading as regards the Concerned Alumni of Princeton (CAP). What TIME seemed to miss was the drive to make Princeton's faculty more balanced by encouraging the hiring of more than a minuscule number of qualified and articulate conservative teacher-scholars.

JOHN H. THATCHER JR.

Princeton'53

Englewood, N.J.

Sir / There is a strong tendency among us old Princeton grads to think of the university as somehow a bit of our private property. Actually, it should be operated to give the young men and women enrolled there the best education and the best possible preparation to take their places in this strange world.

For their efforts to do just that in a time of great upheaval, I think the administration deserves our commendation.

THOMAS M. CULBERTSON

Princeton '39

Honolulu

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