Truman v. MacArthur (Cont'd)

Sir:

Again TIME scores a bull's-eye hit with its superb April 23 appraisal of the Truman-MacArthur controversy ... In a moment of shabby political pettiness, raging tempers and conflicting opinions it is refreshing to see such a clear, fair, objective analysis of the Far Eastern situation . . .

L. H. LINDBECK Hempstead, N.Y.

Sir:

. . . After being subjected to a labyrinth of ballyhoo, unequaled in my memory, of admiration of a man who is very easy to admire, and denunciation of another man who is all too easy to denounce, of pseudoauthoritative editorial comment ... I was gladdened when the clear light of TIME penetrated the hysteria and gave someone who wants to think something upon which to base his thoughts.

JOHN A. CAMPBELL Rimersburg, Pa.

Sir:

Whatever the outcome of the momentous controversy now raging . . . every reading American ought to have the benefit of your article . . . We like especially the article's fair-minded statement re the British attitude . . .

NORMAN A. MADSON Mankato, Minn.

Sir:

My respect for TIME has gone up a hundredfold as a result of your special article . . .

JACK A. WILSON Knoxville, Tenn.

Sir:

Dismissal of General MacArthur is a shock to practically all of us in the Philippines. Mac seems to be the only top American who understands the Asiatics and the Communists in Asia.

JOAQUIN G. FUNDA Dumaguete City, P.I.

Sir:

The wisest step ever taken by President Truman was to dismiss that General Bungler . . . From this remote corner of Africa I extend three hearty cheers to the President.

CHARLES A. ISAAC Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

The Truman Cover

Sir:

It's bad enough to hear and read about his asinine decisions and imbecilic boners week after week, year after year, without having to face Harry Truman on the cover of a wonderful magazine like TIME! . . .

MRS. JOHN L. DANA

Burlingame Calif.

SIR:

... AN ARROGANT AND CONTEMPTUOUS AFFRONT TO THE SENSIBILITIES OF CONGENIAL AMERICANS . . . DESTROY MY ADDRESS PLATE . . .

J. C. ADAMS TULSA, OKLA.

SIR:

THANKS FOR PUTTING THE SQUARES AROUND THE TRUMAN PICTURE. THEY WILL MAKE IT DANDY FOR MOUNTING ON MY DART BOARD.

FRANK JETER JR. GREENSBORO, N.C.

Sir:

What a slap in the face . . . The Prince of Appeasement!

(REV.) MURRAY SMOOT Towson, Md.

SIR:

HELD MY BREATH WAITING TO SEE IF IT WOULD BE TRUMAN OR MACARTHUR . . . CONGRATULATIONS.

MORTON K. BLAUSTEIN STANFORD, CALIF.

SIR:

... I FEEL THAT AS THE ELECTED HEAD OF THE GOVERNMENT OF THIS COUNTRY, TRUMAN IS DUE MORE RESPECT THAN THE PUBLIC AND THE REPUBLICAN (MY OWN) PARTY IS SHOWING, IF FOR NO OTHER REASON THAN THE FACT THAT HE BEARS THE TITLE OF PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. THE CURRENT MAKING OF POLITICAL HAY IN WASHINGTON OVER THE MACARTHUR MATTER IS DEGRADING AMERICAN POLITICS AND THE REPUBLICAN PARTY TO THE LOWEST LEVEL IN HISTORY . . .

WE ELECTED THE CURRENT PRESIDENT. IF WE WANT ANOTHER ONE, LET US VOTE HIM OUT, BUT WHILE HE IS IN OFFICE LET US PRESERVE SOME DEGREE OF NATIONAL DIGNITY, AND TREAT THE HIGHEST OFFICE IN THIS COUNTRY AS THOUGH WE HAD SOME RESPECT FOR THE COUNTRY ITSELF . . .

J. A. REID Denver

Whose Letdown?

Sir:

If ever my blood boiled (and, I might add, it has quite frequently the past few months), it really bubbled over when I read in TIME, April 9, that Secretary Marshall feels that the "U.S. public is letting down."

It isn't apathy that exists among the American people today, it is a feeling of ignorance in regard to the present world crisis, coupled with dismay and astonishment at the utter confusion and lack of leadership in Washington.

MILDRED B. MILLER La Mesa, Calif.

Sir:

. . . Assuming that Secretary Marshall is speaking for the Administration, one is inclined to say that this Administration has only itself to blame if this should be the prevailing sentiment. What transpired in Washington and elsewhere during the last few months certainly made many an American hide his head in shame, and could not inspire confidence.

We heard stories of five-percenters, deep-freezers, influence peddlers, mink coats, RFC irregularities, cheap and party politics guiding policies of Government offices, influence of gambling interests in high places, and what not. Someone then suggested that the President return home (from Florida) and clean house, whereupon the President, in a most unconvincing manner, insisted that his house was clean and that there were only honorable men in his household . . .

Is it surprising, then, that so many people just can't bring themselves to be enthusiastic about their Government and its policies? (REV.) ALWIN E. GALL Bickleton, Wash.

Very Warm Inside

Sir:

In your April 16 issue you state: "The center of an exploding atomic bomb is even hotter" than "temperatures of millions of degrees [claimed for the Argentine atomic bomb]."

Just how much hotter than "millions of degrees" is the center of the atomic phenomenon? Billions? Trillions? Let's not get the national debt mixed up with the atomic bomb!

H. W. CLAYBAUGH Dallas

P: The first A-bomb's exploding efficiency was about 10 million degrees C. The new bombs are probably hotter. But--dollar for degree--they are unlikely to be as hot as the national debt: $255 billion.--ED.

Twilight of a Stalchanovite

Sir:

It may interest you and your correspondent, Mr. Robert Neville, to know that Ma Heng-chang, the much-publicized labor hero, the Chinese Stakhanov of "Inside Red China" [TIME, April 9] could not stand the production pace set up by himself and his brigade, and has suffered a complete mental collapse. He became a nervous wreck, and had to be taken to a sanatorium in Manchuria last August. This was unwittingly slipped through a report in a Communist newspaper, the Yangtse Daily, published in Hankow . . .

I wish to congratulate Mr. Robert Neville on his impartial and excellent reporting . . .

C. C. SUNG

Hong Kong Flotsam, Ph.D.

Sir:

You forgot to mention one more piece of flotsam set adrift by the current trend to depopulation and bankruptcy in colleges and universities [TIME, April 16]. It is the graduate student, working toward ... an underpaid, overworked, professorial position.

My husband has undergone three years of hard study, plus the weariness and deprivation that come with attempting to support a wife and child at the same time. Now he finds that he's all dressed up for a canceled party . . . What is happening to him and the few like him indicates that the nation is a perverse prospector, preferring gravel to gold.

CAROLL MACKEY

Milford, Conn.

Reason for Madness

Sir:

Your otherwise very excellent and illuminating April 16 article on Mr. Crawford Greenewalt and the Du Pont enterprises fell to a new low on the local market because of the spelling of the name of our town. It is Kinston, not Kingston. This has been true since Revolutionary War days.

The town was founded as Kingston, but, as a part of its all-out war effort the "g" was dropped. Local legend hath it that this effrontery was the main reason for the madness of George III ...

THOS. F. HEWITT Kinston, N.C.

To Er Is Human

Sir:

I wonder if TIME will grant me space to enter a protest to our ering radio commentators and correspondents. By ering, I refer to their continual use of the syllable "er" in their radio pronouncements . . .

Recently I listened to a broadcast of Invitation to Learning. Here were two college professors, men of wide learning, discussing the Nibelungenlied. Their presiding chairman is also a person accustomed to public speaking. The discourse would go something like this: "The er-myth has-er-what you might call a-er-nationalistic basis-er-er-" . .

I commend this protest to the attention of the executive heads of broadcasting stations and chains. I suggest that they call the matter to the attention of their ering broadcasters, and if necessary introduce a teacher of elocution to help in breaking up this silly and tiresome practice.

UPTON SINCLAIR

Corona, Calif.

The Fate of the Spies

Sir:

Judge Irving Kaufman said to Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, in passing the death sentence upon them: "I believe your conduct in putting into the hands of the Russians the A-bomb . . . has already caused the Communist aggression in Korea . . ." [TIME, April 16] . . .

If Judge Kaufman has allowed himself to be influenced by the intensity of public feeling ... he is denying to American citizens the right to be tried on the merits of their case, the facts and the law. If he has allowed himself to be influenced by the belief that the Rosenbergs caused the Communist invasion of Korea, he is using the sort of far-fetched logic applied by the Communists themselves in their infamous state "trials" . . .

A stiff prison sentence would be more in harmony with the principles of justice which the world associates with Western democracy.

J. NORMAN

University College Oxford, England

Sir:

The sentences for the atom spies are too light, and the electric chair is too merciful a death . . .

WILLIAM J. HUDSON JR. Owings Mills, Md.

Sir:

. . . May Judge Kaufman's words to the Rosenbergs reach the hearts of all others who would betray their country--and humanity.

BLAS A. GIBLER Mexico City

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