The Selling of New York City

To the Editors:

If Manhattan goes on the block [May 26], I will bid 24 oil wells for it. If I get it, I will give Central Park back to the Indians.

Rudolph Dvorak Fort Worth

Secretary of the Treasury William Simon's tasteless joke about selling New York City to the Shah of Iran can be charged to his Wall Street background. But Gotham is no item on the commodity market. You cannot barter the vision of Washington at the Treasury Building or at Fraunces Tavern. There can be no dollar value on the pride one feels passing the site on Grove Street, where Tom Paine spent his last days, or at the site of Stats Huys, where Peter Stuyvesant read the mandate making New Amsterdam a haven for all people for all time.

Our town has been buffeted by bankers and maligned by late-night opportunists, but it remains the seat of culture in America and a living symbol of our democracy; and 8 million of us, for all our complaints, love every inch of it; and no, Mr. Simon, New York is not for sale.

Paul O'Dwyer President of the Council New York City

As a former mayor of New York, I salute Secretary of the Treasury William Simon on his "friendly" suggestion.

At the turn of the century, some New York "slickers" are said to have tried to make a few dishonest dollars by "selling" the Brooklyn Bridge to unsophisticated visitors. Mr. Simon has now gone our slickers one better.

In 1964 the Republican presidential nominee advocated separating New York from the rest of the nation and allowing it to float out to sea. Instead of casting off the nation's greatest city, Mr. Simon now proposes to make a neat profit through its sale, with municipal residents and assets being thrown in, no doubt, to sweeten the sale.

Mr. Simon is said to know the stock market; he should not sell New York so short.

Can it be that Mr. Simon shows contempt for New York and New Yorkers because most of them are Democrats and not Republicans?

Robert F. Wagner New York City

Mr. Wagner, a Democrat first, last and always, was mayor of New York from 1954 to 1965.

All New York City need do to alleviate its financial crisis is to legalize prostitution, consider it entertainment, and tax accordingly.

Earl Bouchet West Haven, Conn.

Would You Live There?

By the time the technology for "colonizing space" [May 26] will have been perfected, the world's population will have doubled, at least. By that time 500,000 "space colonies" might have to be put in orbit. Where will the material needed for such colonies be found (without ruining the ecology of both the earth and the moon)? Who, above all, will be willing to live out there?

Joong Fang Editor, Philosophia Mathematica Norfolk, Va.

O'Neill's space colonization scheme "to relieve the earth's overcrowding" would be well worth the great expense if the colonists were the antiabortionists and/or religious leaders who stand in the way of simpler solutions to the overpopulation problem.

William S. Doxey Carrollton, Ga.

One of the many virtues of the space-city proposal is that it may provide the first convincing argument for extensive manned spaceflight.

The earth is almost fully explored and culturally homogenized. There are few places to which the discontented cutting edge of mankind can emigrate. There is no equivalent of the America of the 19th and early 20th centuries. But space cities provide a kind of America in the skies, an opportunity for affinity groups to develop alternative cultural, social, political, economic and technological lifestyles. Almost all the societies on the earth today have not the foggiest notion of how best to deal with our complex and unknown future. Space cities may provide the social mutations that will permit the next evolutionary advance in human society. But this goal requires an early commitment to the encouragement of cultural diversity. Such a commitment might be a very fitting Bicentennial rededication to what is unique about the U.S.

Carl Sagan Ithaca, N.Y.

Professor of astronomy and space sciences and director of the Laboratory for Planetary Studies at Cornell University, Dr. Sagan is the author of The Cosmic Connection.

We would be better off to put a plastic dome over Death Valley, air-condition it, pipe in the excess water we have in Lake Erie, and save millions of people instead of just a few thousand.

Sam P. Antine Euclid, Ohio

A T.R. Kind of Guy

What the Senate must decide is whether Stan Hathaway [June 2] is what the public feared I was. People say I changed after I became Secretary of the Interior [under President Nixon, who later fired the independent Mr. Hickel]. Check a man's record. He seldom changes.

The job, as I see it, for the new Secretary is to bring about a meeting of the minds between the environmentalists and the producers. We cannot afford the negative attitude toward production that has crippled Great Britain. Without sacrificing the environment, production of all kinds can be increased, especially energy. This will depend on the Secretary of the Interior, who must be an imaginative, action-oriented person--a Teddy Roosevelt kind of guy.

Walter J. Hickel Anchorage, Alaska

Writing Britain Off

Do not write the British off [May 26]. Read your history books. We have been around a long time now, and we are still the most civilized country in Europe. You can feel safe here as nowhere else, and that is why so many Americans make their homes with us. We are still your best ally, and we won't rat on you if it comes to a showdown. We don't talk much these days about the "special relationship," but everyone knows that it still exists. We share more than just a common language--our men have died side by side in two wars. As for our being "ungovernable," Eric Sevareid has been listening to too much saloon-bar talk.

William J. Selleck Pulborough, England

Donovan on Foreign Policy

If the public would take the time to read Hedley Donovan's excellent Essay [May 19] on the need to change our perspective on foreign policy, there would be no "crisis" in our foreign policy.

Michael Conway Bowling Green, Ohio

You blandly dismiss the obvious trends toward independent action free of U.S. domination that are now taking place in Latin America. Indeed, you state that Latin America has a "special relationship" with the U.S.

That relationship has been arrogantly assumed by us for well over a hundred years under such pronouncements as the Monroe Doctrine and the Platt Amendment. If America is to truly develop a new relationship with the world, it should start in its own hemisphere. Surely Latin American nations should be allowed the liberty to determine their own affairs free of the coercive influence of "the colossus of the north."

William Millsap San Marcos, Texas

Full Steam

In the name of humanity, a poor country like mine has twice in the past 27 years given shelter to millions of refugees. Why are Americans so steamed up [May 26] over rehabilitating a mere 120,000 displaced Vietnamese?

(Mrs.) Perin Bharucha Bombay

Rewriting Herstory

When you place some blame for the slow progress of feminism on "women's own reluctance to abandon their submissive roles" [May 26], I know you have not read elementary and secondary textbooks, which provide only this model for young girls while denying them knowledge of a herstory of the accomplishments of their foremothers. Real social change is indeed far off if we do not begin at the beginning.

Carolyn R. Benz North Canton, Ohio

Continental Fault

In the story on land scandals in Florida [June 2] TIME incorrectly identified the firm that sold Floyd E. Campbell $35,000 worth of promissory notes. The correct name of the firm is Continental Land Development One, Inc.--not, as reported, Continental Investments, Inc.

Jack E. White TIME Correspondent Atlanta

TIME regrets the error.

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