Operation Brotherhood
SIR:
CONGRATULATIONS FOR CLEAR AND THOROUGH REPORTING ON THE SHOWDOWN IN SAIGON. JUST TWO DAYS BEFORE YOUR MAY 9 STORY WAS PUBLISHED WE RECEIVED THIS URGENT CABLE FROM PREMIER DIEM I "ALMOST 1,OOO,OOO HUMAN BEINGS FLED FROM COMMUNIST NORTH VIET NAM IN LAST FEW MONTHS. THIS IS GREATEST BLOW COMMUNISTS HAVE SUFFERED IN ASIA. THESE PEOPLE MUST BE SAVED. LAST GATE TO FREEDOM, PORT HAIPHONG, CLOSES MAY 16. 25O,OOO MORE NOW TRYING TO ESCAPE BEFORE DEADLINE."
THE INTERNATIONAL RESCUE COMMITTEE AND THE U.S. JUNIOR CHAMBER OF COMMERCE ARE JOINTLY SPONSORING OPERATION BROTHERHOOD TO PROVIIDE EMERGENCY AID FOR VIETNAMESE ESCAPEES FROM COMMUNISM . . . TIME READERS MAY WANT TO SEND URGENTLY NEEDED CONTRIBUTIONS TO OPERATION BROTHERHOOD AT 62 WEST 44TH STREET, NEW YORK, 36.
ADMIRAL RICHARD E. BYRD
HARRY A. BULLIS
CO-CHAIRMEN
OPERATION BROTHERHOOD
NEW YORK CITY
The Cloak & Petticoat Business
Sir:
Enjoyed your May 2 cover story on Designer McCardell. However, those California bathing-suit manufacturers have reached a low with a gimmick "evening convertible" (swimsuits that can be transformed to evening dresses). The thought of dressing for evening in something I had worn bathing a few hours before, or even a week before, sends chills down my fashion-conscious spine.
VIRGINIA DUNN
West Orange, NJ.
Sir:
. . . May you reap a fine harvest of praise for the informative and appreciative article, and may Claire McCardell's enthusiastic customers be multiplied to their own certain delight. You say anyone can wear McCardell's clothes, but "they look best on what countless ads have presented as the ideal American beauty--tall, slim, long-legged." As one of the most un-American types imaginable (short, curvy, unathletic), I would like to testify that McCardell's clothes have been as if made-to-order for me from the early dirndl and Monastics through to the recent classic shirtwaist . . .
SUE WARFIELD
Baltimore
| Sir:
... I consider it a most unfortunate article. I was nonplused by the stupidity of what you had to say about my "feminine look for the small rounded figure." I resent this ... It may interest you to know that my clothes are sized from 10 to 18 usually, and much of the time to size 20, and that a great majority of the women who buy my clothes are medium height or tall. But I do not cater to the small or rounded figure . . .
THOMAS F. BRIGANCE
New York City
Sir:
How in the world did you ever manage to find so many apparently breastless beauties to put into one story? For heaven's sake, let's portray more women who look like women . . .
WALDO RUESS
Los Angeles
The Folger Way Sir:
The Folger Library appreciates the space TIME [May 9] devoted to emphasizing the library's usefulness to historical students . . .
I should like, however, to correct a few statements. The Folger is not a one-man enterprise . . . Everyone from the guards ... to the bibliographical specialists appear to enjoy an enterprise that is fun--and significant. Its book-buying program is less indebted to the director than to his assistant, Miss Eleanor Pitcher, who spends six months out of each year searching for books in Europe.
We do not want to pillage English manor houses of books that ought to remain in Britain. Indeed, we have a gentleman's agreement that we will not bid on such material . . . But we did actually provide the funds for the repair of the roof of a parish church and the installation of a proper heating plant in exchange for the church's 17th century library. The books had not been opened in 300 years.
Louis B. WRIGHT
Director
The Folger Shakespeare Library
Washington, D.C.
Fantastic Figures Sir:
Your May 2 report of Bernarr Macfadden mentions that his third wife put him in jail.
I am his third wife, and although he has done me out of a fortune, I am not guilty of such a method to get what I helped to make--so please correct this mistake. At this writing I wish to belatedly thank you for your very fine review of my book, Dumbbells and Carrot Strips [TIME, April 20, 1953]. When it was first published, Macfadden wanted to get on my bandwagon. Since I did not acquiesce to his suggestions, he wanted revenge for this slight, so he sued Holt for $1,234,000. The figure is just as fantastic as he is ...
MARY MACFADDEN
Englewood, N.J.
The Integers of Texas
Sir:
I have been reading TIME for quite a number of years and have regarded it as practically an oracle. You can imagine my surprise to find out in "Beaumont Devastated" [May 2] that Beaumont has a population of "60,000" and Houston has a population of "385,000 . . ."
E. E. SCRUGGS
Houston
Sir:
Do you need a Diec kTracy tok now that Houston has nearly a million people, y'jerk? Yo ugoofed.
FRANCIS L. WILLIAMS
Houston
P: TIME'S apologies to the populations of Houston (714,000) and Beaumont (104,000). Neki hokey.--ED.
The Man on Formosa
Sir:
This is a bit late, but I must thank you for the great service you did with your story on Chiang Kai-shek and Formosa [April 18]. My family has lived all over China for the past 80 years and for three generations. Chiang has done more for the freedom of his people, for advancement of progress, and for an open door to the rest of the world than any Chinese leader before him or since.
It is a horrifying thing that a man and country can be pushed to ruin by a Communist smear campaign, which was carefully nurtured and spread by foolish and ignorant Communist admirers. Your story gave, all in all, an excellent picture of Chiang, his virtues, faults and tremendous problems. I sincerely hope it brings a bright clear light to so many people who have been very foggy on this issue.
EDITH FITCH TROYCHAK
Ossining, N.Y.
Sin & Sweden (Contd.)
Sir:
Your article "Sin & Sweden" and the subsequent Letters to the Editor are most provocative. Apparently the observations stem from emotionally involved persons who stoutly maintain their "liberalness," their lack of inhibition, their freedom from the fetters of the ethical standards of society. But rather than emotional name-calling, the article demands serious thought and answers to the questions proposed by Mr. Brown. If the situation is true as it is presented, then what is in store for Western civilization? How necessary is a Judeo-Christian ethic to our society and to our culture ? . . .
HELEN E. SHIMOTA
St. Paul
Sir:
... It is up to Americans if they want to go on dodging the sex problems of their own youth by looking at them as sin, crime and jokes, but no one of them should attack a country where they are facing the issue squarely . . .
ERIK PIERSTORFF
Oslo
Sir:
TIME'S alarmed Mr. Brown might have noted the shocking Swedish scarcity of such virtuous American improvements as call girls, panty raids, child brides, elderly lechers, middle-school drug addicts, the upholstered bust and rotary behind, pornography from comics to home movies, sadistic crime, and the concept of sex as an aggressive commercial weapon.
FREDERICK RENVYLE
Watertown, Mass.
Sir:
... To answer your correspondent's puerile question, "But what will this lead to?" It has already led to happiness for the people here, where instead of murdering one another, people sleep together. Perhaps your country will attain this stage of maturity when it is as old and wise as Sweden.
GREGORY PALSSON
Skottorp, Halland, Sweden
Chocolate with the Empress
Sir:
Upon reading your May 2 review of Louis Napoleon and the Second Empire, I felt I was shaking hands with history. When I was a kid, we had a country place at Farnborough, near Eugenie's retreat. In the village, the Empress was respectfully known as the "Old Lady" (as distinct from Her Ladyship at the manor). Children tugged their forelocks when she passed.
Once, we were invited to a "five-o'clock" (pronounced fiff-o'clock). We expected tea, but it turned out to be cups of hot chocolate topped with whipped cream. It was fun, having an Empress as a neighbor.
WILLIAM HARVEY
West Hartford, Conn.
Tribute to Einstein (Contd.)
Sir:
Congratulations on being the only ones to explain Einstein's E = mc2 correctly in your May 2 story. That in itself was probably the finest tribute you could have made to the great scientist.
ALLEN LENCHEK
Chicago
Sir:
It is pitiful that a man with such wide and profound mathematical ideas could have stayed right to the finish an ally of the thieves and assassins of Israel who stole the homes and lands of innocent Christians.
ISA EL MESSIH
Rio de Janeiro
Sir:
Your informative story is most sympathetically written. I felt no grief at the great scientist's passing, since, I'd say, he had earned the right to be relieved of witnessing any longer man's inhumanity to man .
FRANCIS MCCONNELL
Washington, B.C.
The Good Teacher
Sir:
As an admirer of Eldred Harrington, I congratulate you on your fine story [May 2]. As the mother of a former Dawn Patroller, my enthusiasm is tempered by fatigue. How the mothers of the 5 o'clock scholars ever managed, I'll never know. Seven o'clock was quite bad enough. I'm sure he absorbed chemistry by autosuggestion, because certainly he was walking in his sleep when he left home washed, properly dressed, fed and equipped with lunch.
WINIFRED REITER
Albuquerque
Sir:
Having had the incredible luck of once being a pupil-- of Dr. Eldred Harrington's, I believe he is an outstanding example of what many really dedicated teachers would like to be m. . . It is pitiable that the members of the National Education Association in Denver could not have had the singular experience of being taught by Dr. Harrington. They would not only have found him "interesting," but discovered why his students were, and are, willing to get up at odd hours in the morning in order to attend one of his early classes, or jounce over the boondocks to study an interesting rock formation when they could have spent an extra hour in bed.
S. J. LIENAU
Albuquerque
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