Where Are the Sages Now?

To the Editors:

With Cambodia going down the drain, four provinces of South Viet Nam lost [March 24], Thailand turning neutralist and the Philippines re-examining its commitments, where are the great sages now who ridiculed the domino effect? Where are you now, Sevareid, Cronkite, Chancellor, Brinkley, Reasoner, Newsweek, TIME? Let's hear it for the media party line and adversary mischiefism.

John Romjue

Hampton, Va.

How long will it take before the American people realize that the continuance of the Cambodian government is the single most profound factor in the rebels' favor? The U.S. has a sorry history of aiding and abetting tyrannical leaders, South Viet Nam being the most recent example. Why should the people support their present government when it has long since ignored the needs and rights of the people and when any change could only be an improvement?

Joe McCully

Denver

It seems to me that "to save face," or "not to save face" is the real Cambodian question that now confronts Congress. If Congress decides to save face, by granting the aid, they will also have decided to prolong the hopeless war and along with it, the terrible agony of the Cambodian people.

Chris E. Gerli

St. Louis, Mo.

I can't believe that any Congressmen can look at the suffering of the Cambodian people and vote to withhold aid from these oppressed people. What difference should it make if we like President Lon Nol or not? If we help in every way possible to prevent the collapse of the Cambodian government and it still falls, at least we won't have the blood of all the innocent victims on our hands.

Dave Converse

Massena, N. Y.

Isn't it ludicrous that the President and his Administration still hold dear the bugaboo of Communism to perpetuate our ridiculous role of the world's policemen! I refuse to allow my sympathy to be aroused by the sadly gory pictures in TIME, but remember instead the pictures of our American servicemen who lost their lives in the war we never should have fought in Viet Nam.

Let happen there what will, and bring this war era to a close!

Milton S. Katz

Sherman Oaks, Calif.

You wouldn't take any U.S. politician's promises at face value. Why would you believe the Khmer Rouge's promises to pardon "virtually everybody"?

Stanley A. Bowes

Savannah, Ga.

The Good Americans

The good Germans have to live with death camps, and the good Americans with Indochina. Stefan Kanfer in his review of Hearts and Minds [March 17] seems to squirm too much when he says it is all too simplified with too many easy shots about the uniqueness of American evil, the violence of our culture. O.K., are we ready to hang this dirtiest episode in American history on the leaders in the White House and Congress who kept it going? Who needs chronology and complexity?

Robert L. Kealy

Oconomowoc, Wis.

Posthumous Giving

Perhaps the legacy, the monuments, the great acts of philanthropy and the record of achievement other than business successes will be left for Mrs. Aristotle Onassis [March 24] to make in her late husband's name.

James C. Rouman, M.D.

Hartford, Conn:

Cure for Migraine

President Ford can cure our unemployment migraine [March 17], not by tax rebates or by playing Santa Claus to lost causes in Asia, but by spearheading the SHAW (Share Hours and Wages) plan. For every nine employees, a factory or shop would add one currently jobless citizen to its staff--and all ten would work at 90% of full weekly hours and wages.

Consider the benefits: 1) jobs for all Americans; 2) lower taxes; 3) sharing of human dignity; 4) decrease in crime; 5) economic recovery.

George W. Feinstein

Altadena, Calif.

Credible Voice

As a former director of the Voice of America, I endorse the plan offered by the Stanton study group [March 24] for a reorganization of the USIA and the VGA. The hearts and minds of many USIA officers are with the Department of State anyway, and it makes great sense to recommend that their careers and their jobs be supervised by State.

The VGA badly needs to be given more independence. It stands now at the intersection of journalism and diplomacy, which means it can perform neither job properly. The study group proposes that the professional broadcasters at the VGA be allowed to broadcast professionally, without political or--more important--diplomatic pressure. If that is done, the VGA'S credibility will increase, it will attract more listeners and become a far more useful instrument for telling the American story to the world.

John Chancellor

NBC News

New York City

Sexier Than Cher

For this dad, calling Cher [March 17] a sex symbol is an outrageous libel against such genuine articles as Diana Rigg, who is sexier in a nun's habit than Cher as naked as network censors allow. If the American TV audience enshrines cheap, no-talent Cher as a star, there's hope for Phyllis Diller.

Robert J. Williams

Wyncote, Pa.

Even a lady of 83 feels relaxed and happy after Cher's program. Why? Is it the grace, style, rhythm and intriguing voice? I think it is because she evokes love in some of its many forms. The audience senses her sweetness and admires her courage as well as her talents.

Florence E. Marvin

Los Altos, Calif.

Never has there been a picture so sensual. Yet it is still tasteful enough to go through the mail without a plain brown wrapper.

Dale Boiler Pacific

Palisades, Calif.

Amidst the economic doomsayers and a sea of demagogues, you have photographed a most magnificent-looking woman to spin the stuff of dreams on your cover.

After all, how long can a person gaze upon such countenances as Yasser Arafat and most Democrats without wanting to cry?

E.A. Tessaro Jr.

Chicago

Hugh Hefner would be proud.

Alan W. Josephson

Superintendent, Bureau Township

Elementary School

Princeton, III.

The French Malaise

I read with great attention your article entitled "Rescuing the Ramparts of Order" [March 17]. It essentially concerned the reasons for the "malaise" in the French army.

There is a good deal of truth to the government's claim that the malaise is [in part] due to the action and propaganda of leftist political parties, above all the Communists. But in reality, a more profound cause of the morale problem in the armed forces is that the whole question of national defense has been badly presented.

Modern defense depends on the availability of technically advanced weapons. They are more and more expensive and, as credits are limited, less and less available. Moreover, to use them, we need specialists, and they can't be trained in one year of national service. So most of the enlisted men have the feeling they are useless, that they are contributing nothing to our national defense, and that they are wasting their youth.

The most intelligent of them, if they are not committed to the Communist Party, realize as well that the only national defense possible for France today has to be collective. That means that we need to establish close cooperation inside the Atlantic Alliance and first with the U.S. That's what I wanted to explain in my book Disarmed France.

General Paul Stehlin

Deputy, National Assembly

Paris

The writer, chief of staff of the French air force from 1960 to 1963, recently caused a political stir by declaring that U.S. fighter aircraft were superior to the Mirage.

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