MacNamaraism Sir:
With apologies and acknowledgments to he composer of MacNamara's Band, this seems to show how things are going in God's Own Country:
The drums go bang and the cymbals clang And the top brass blaze away, McCarthy plays the big baboon And Stevens jades away. The country's in hysterics, Such tunes were never heard. Molotov sits in the grandstand And applauds the discordant play.
F. V. HARTY
Warrenpoint, Northern Ireland
The McCarthy Issue (Contd.)
With all the bickering about McCarthy's methods, etc., what's becoming of the Reds?
don't care whether he browbeats them or not, for if they were the investigators, think of the treatment they would give us ... It amazes and startles me to think of the time wasted while . . . the primary issues are being lost in the dust of battle . . .
ROBERT GHELARDI JR. Bloomsburg, Pa.
Sir:
Please, will someone in the top echelons of our Government find the guts to cut Senator McCarthy down to size! . . .
MRS. B. B. BANKS Greenwich, Conn.
... It is not McCarthy who weakens the faith of the American people -- it is those in authority who coddle the Communists and are afraid to take a firm stand on the vital issue.
MRS. W. J. CUMMINGS Tiffin, Ohio
Sir:
Thanks for the excellent cover stories which have been appearing in your magazine. The best of the bunch is the one on Senator McCarthy [March 8], which gave the facts and let them speak for themselves.
REGINA SILVERMAN The Bronx, NY.
Sir:
I want to congratulate you on your enlightening and whimsical delineation of Senator Joe McCarthy's kaleidoscopical antics which were all mixed up with frozen pork chops, Maryland ham, Wisconsin cheese, bourbon--to say nothing of bottled-up frustrations.
F. A. GRIFFITH
Los Angeles
Sir:
Congratulations on your article . . . written with good humor and marred by only a few . . . anti-McCarthy conclusions. I chuckled at your exposure of the stupidity of big-shot coverups for little-shot fumblings with enlisted Communists . . .
ALFRED KOHLBERG New York City
Sir:
Your story . . . contained one of the most fascinating sentences of the year, to wit: "As he [McCarthy] said it, he playfully kicked a reporter under the table." Can you tell us more? How did the reporter respond to this cavalier treatment? . . .
EARLE DOUCETTE Augusta, Me.
P: The New York Times's Correspondent Bill Lawrence said: "It hurt."--ED.
Sir:
... Of course, McCarthy's efforts to unearth Communist rats (not "witches"), and bring the issue of Communist infiltration before the people, has caused this unequaled concentration of venom to be directed on him. His success is to be gauged by the violence of attacks made on him . . .
EVVA S. TOMB Toledo, Ohio
Sir:
. . . McCarthy is tearing down the bridges of understanding and sympathy which reach between Americans and foreign peoples. Let our Senator not forget that we have sacrificed many lives and have given millions of dollars in building these bridges . . .
MITZI FERGUSON
Teheran, Iran
Dust-Up in Any Language
Sir:
Probably 10,000 TIME readers have written you concerning the sentence: "The brouhaha with Stevens hurt McCarthy as well as the party . . ." What does "brouhaha" mean? The word appears in no dictionary I have consulted--and is unknown to researchers at local libraries . . .
LEONARD BERRY St. Louis, Mo.
P: It's a hullabaloo with a French accent--ED.
Mom Is Still a Viper
Sir:
I must admit to being somewhat horrified by Author Philip Wylie's "backpedaling" act as heralded in your March i issue. To an old believer in the subjective approach to life . . . this is akin to a discovery that Santa Claus is actually Malenkov in disguise . . . Having been powerfully impressed by the floodlight of logic that shone from his Generation of Vipers . . . one wonders how Wylie can abandon his brothers . . . PAUL W. PYLE Rochester, N.Y.
Sirs:
TIME, March 1, erred--pardonably--in its pleasant report of a recent New York Times interview of the undersigned on the topic of "Mom" ... I never have "backpedaled" about Mom, but TIME was correct in saying I like women. It is the intensity of that passion which makes me deplore those who turn into Moms--an addlepated aggregate of self-made tyrants who turn upon truth or freedom as swiftly as upon evil, if either hurts their vanity. And this last is founded on the busty credo that any act of procreation, including the accidental, gives them title to the helm of our currently beleaguered Republic . . .
I think the possibility that Mom-oriented statecraft may wreck our land is more ludicrous than tragic . . . But the situation gets less funny every day . . .
PHILIP WYLIE
Miami
Whose Man Friday?
Sir:
Thank you very much for your March 15 cover article on Jack Webb, NBC's gold mine . . . His story is not only one of hard work and accomplishment, but it typifies the American success story . . .
MICKEY HART Modesto, Calif.
Sir:
Your article on Jack (Dragnet) Webb was very interesting, but it should have been entitled "What Makes Jackie Run?"
NORRIS HOWARD Hanover, N.H.
Sir:
I do not want to get into trouble with the law and be held in contempt for questioning Sergeant Joe Friday, but I note his comments about George Rosenberg, Jim Moser and Bill Rousseau, his former associates in Dragnet, i.e., "guys who are experts in riding on your back and putting their hands in your pockets." Those of us who are familiar with such matters are well aware that were it not for George Rosenberg, Sergeant Friday would probably have never achieved his present rank at all ... As Webb's agent he put the program together with the help of the aforementioned gentlemen. And what's more, he sold it ...
I note also another of Sergeant Friday's statements: "What the hell have they done since they left me? Just show me their track records." I will be glad to advise him . . . George Rosenberg for many years (before and after his association with his man Friday) has handled many of Hollywood's most important writers as well as actors . . .
BEN PEARSON
Los Angeles
Sir:
Mr. Webb, whom you quaintly describe in your recent article as "basically modest," gives the impression that the original radio Dragnet sprang full-blown, like Minerva, from his forehead. Just for the record: the radio audition which sold the original series was produced by William P. Rousseau and directed by Carl Gruener ... I wrote the script . . . You quote Webb as asking of those who ... are no longer with him: "You just show me their track records." He will be happy to learn that at present I am working toward a Ph.D. at Columbia. I consider it to be something of a promotion.
ROBERT S. RYF Rye, N.Y.
Family Matter
Sir:
Your issue of March 8 contains a letter from Upton Sinclair . . . Since I happen to be his first wife, I find his account quite inaccurate, but I am well aware that Mr. Sinclair knows everything and that he is always right . . . The unhappy incidents to which he refers occurred some 43 years ago. I had hoped that in these intervening years he would develop some qualities of compassion and humility . . .
META FULLER STONE St. Petersburg, Fla.
"This Modern Hoax"
Sir:
Re TIME'S Feb. 8 article, "A Farmer's Fun": I [do not] claim to have positive proof that Olof Ohman carved the Kensington Stone. The statement given to a reporter by me contained an express disclaimer of my ability or intent to specify the perpetrators of this modern hoax. The requirements of science and the declared purpose and spirit of my investigation were satisfied by a demonstration that the Kensington inscription can be completely explained as a modern fabrication . . .
ERIK WAHLGREN University of California Los Angeles
The Mau Mau
Sir:
Admittedly, Mau Mau threats against human life and order must be stopped. At the same time, however, soldiers, policemen and journalists will serve human decency, better by remembering that even Kenya Mau Mau are human beings. It is difficult to realize that your March 8 report, "The Fusiliers bagged 76 Mau Mau," concerns men, not jack rabbits or quail.
FRANCIS J. CORLEY, SJ. St. Louis, Mo.
The Root of the Matter
Sir:
I find that your March I article concerning the religious situation in France . . . distorts . . . the situation. It is not a question of authority, as you state. From my own personal knowledge, I can state that the visit of the most Rev. Emanuel Suarez, Master General of the Dominican Order, not only met no resistance, but the measures he employed were accepted . . . His visit served to strengthen the bonds which unite the French Dominicans with their leader in Rome. In fact, even before this visit, the Dominican worker-priests themselves had already submitted to the orders of the bishops and of the Holy See.
The root of the matter cannot be solved by speaking of the Gallicanism of 300 years ago; the root of the matter is simply the present tragic social situation which is driving the greater part of the French workers out of the Catholic Church. The priests involved were attempting to find an apostolic solution to that situation. . .
(THE REV.) R. L. BRUCKBERGER,
Dominican
St. Peter Martyr Priory Winona, Minn.
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