Goldfine for What?

Sir:

A splendid report in TIME, June 30 on the doings of Bernie Goldfine. It always pleases men like myself--whose income is slightly less than Bernie's 90-proof expenditures of last year--when such shaggy dogs are at least brought up for a lecture or two. Too bad Judge Wyzanski can't slap him in the jug with as much ease as my C.O. might be able to under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

(SGT.) LAURENCE C. WINDSOR JR.

U.S.M.C.

Arlington, Va.

Sir:

You have done the nation a great service in your reporting on Sherman Adams and Bernard Goldfine. Actually, the behavior of Mr. Goldfine is in no better taste than that of other well-known immigrants who have peopled the underworld, and his ready access to the number two man in our Government is keenly resented by the millions of little people whose only contact with big Government is a vote every four years.

E. W. SCHMIDT

Pecos, Texas

Sir:

Mr. Adams was our Governor, and he is a man of great honesty and integrity. The reputation of this John Fox leaves one much in doubt. Only political jealousy of Mr. Adams high ethics could allow such vicious accusations to be used against him.

MARY SHARMAT

Berlin, N.H.

Sir:

I'm for an Assistant to the President who is never imprudent and never makes mistakes. Of course he'll have to be someone who does nothing.

BERT HANDY

Rochester, N.H.

Sir:

Bernard Goldfine for President.

M. D. AZERDO

Rio de Janeiro

Masters at the Louvre

Sir:

It is a relief to see the magnificent and inspiring art works of the Louvre after so much of the modern abstract trash. I wish you would reproduce more of man's great achievements that inspire rather than disgust.

MORTIMER H. SLOTNICK

New Rochelle, N.Y.

Sir:

We are rather surprised to read in TIME, June 30 that Leonardo da Vinci's Virgin of the Rocks is in the Louvre. This painting is usually regarded as being the finest example of Da Vinci's work in this country.

R. BEAMISH

H. KASHA

London

P: Both London and Paris proudly show an authentic Virgin of the Rocks by Leonardo. The version in London's National Gallery is a later one, may have been painted in part by the master's assistants, Evangelisto and Ambrogio da Predis.--ED.

Sir:

TIME'S reproductions of various Louvre masterpieces, with the usual glowing tributes to the great masters, raise this question: Why does no one ever dare point to the incredible ineptitude displayed by painters who clothe their Bible-era subjects in contemporary Italian Renaissance costumes? Are critics as charitable to painters of the 19505 who produced a crucifixion scene with Roman soldiers in U.S. paratrooper garb and with either Mary in a sack dress with a poodle haircut ?

E. H. LEONI

New York City

P: For the way one contemporary British artist views the Holy Family in modern dress, see Arthur Fretwell's Flight into Egypt, one of five pictures he painted for the Anglican church of St. Mary the Virgin in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, England.--ED.

SIR:

MANY THANKS.

GERMAIN BAZIN

(Conservatenr-en-Chef du Musee du Louvre)

PARIS

No Fun at the Fair

Sir:

Having returned from Brussels, we too were much disappointed with the American exhibit [June 30]. With the most beautiful building in the most beautifully landscaped setting, and with a basically sound theme--it's too bad that we Americans are giving the world an Eastside New Yorker's conception of "How America Lives."

CARLYLE E. ANDERSON

Evanston, Ill.

Sir:

The American Pavilion is the most beautiful of all--in architecture and arrangement as well as the exterior and interior. However, the art exhibit has disappointed me. Since it was expected to present some abstract canvases, was it necessary to present so many to the exclusion of others? Neither the masses nor the cultured (except for some exceptions who call themselves avant garde) understand these cubes, circles and dabs of color that signify nothing.

A. COPPENS

Brussels

Sir:

Our exhibit is a nostalgic presentation of old Ike buttons, old Western tumbleweeds and old newspapers. I suggest that about 50% to 80% of the artistic, nonsensical exhibits be taken out and replaced with exhibits that have some meaning to the average workaday visitor.

ROBERT J. SPIEGEL

Brussels

Sir:

Why didn't Americans and their Congressmen take a bigger interest in the proceedings in our Pavilion before it opened--instead of finding fault when it is too late?

MAIO OWEN

Washington, D.C.

Good Can Look Bad

Sir:

Your published list of crime rates [June 30] shows Los Angeles leading all cities. It is said that much of our crime is due to narcotics. Los Angeles probably needs national attention on a federal level because it is the entering gateway of narcotics traffic from both Mexico and Red China.

ROBERT L. MARSH, M.D.

Glendale, Calif.

Sir:

Your list concerning uniform crime rates of cities is unfair to Denver. The rates probably were computed by applying 1957 crime statistics to the 1950 population. Denver's 1950 population was 415,786, and 1957 was 517,700. Why not publish real rates?

JOSEPH F. DOLAN

Denver

P: TIME should have pointed out that for all cities listed the FBI used 1957 crime figures and 1950 census figures. --ED.

Sir:

Might not a high crime rate indicate a better job of detection and reporting of crimes on the part of a city rather than the actual rate of crime (which can never be totally uncovered) ? Perhaps Los Angeles' rate is high because the police department is doing a good job.

DAVID TATHAM

Syracuse, N.Y.

Pioneer Psychoanalysts

Sir:

Your article dealing with Otto Rank and Sigmund Freud struck a responsive chord. Believing that Freud erred when he stressed sex and the Oedipus complex, this institute has for some time been conducting a special research project on self-love as the basic motivational factor in human behavior and in all animal life. Whether it is a human being or a cat or a crocodile, there is always one primary symptom, self-love.

WILLIAM F. BURKE JR.

National Psychiatric Reform Institute

Altamont, N.Y.

Sir:

The excellent presentation of some of the basic tenets of Alfred Adler [June 30] might leave a false impression -- namely, that there are no training facilities for professional personnel in the theory and practice of individual psychology. Counseling and psychotherapy services, programs for the laity and professional training programs are being carried on in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.

M. DAVID RIGGS

Los Angeles

On the Other Hand

Sir:

TIME'S Cinema section commented on a Variety blurb that quoted Psychiatrist Martin Grotjahn on the subject of horror films. I prepared the original release on Dr. Grotjahn's views and was most disturbed by Variety's distortion of them, and the no doubt well-intended compounding of the error in your sparkling, Swiftian flick department which averred that Dr. Grotjahn "thinks that I Was a Teenage Werewolf, Blood of Dracula, etc., provide a means of 'self-administered' " psychiatric therapy for America's adolescents.' " But the original release continued: "But while the terror film has therapeutic values, Dr. Grotjahn warned that it could make the sick adolescent even more sick than he is -- he may become addicted to horror movies. In the case of younger children, the psychiatrist cautioned that they are so near ... to believing in the actual existence of witches, monsters and the like, that the horror film could only have harmful effects."

WILLIAM PETER BLATTY

University of Southern California

Los Angeles

Birds & Pigeons

Sir:

Your article "They've Got a Secret" claims that the entertainment "birds" who refused to answer House Un-American Activities Committee questions are behind the times. TIME is behind the times. Refusing to answer questions about one's politics -- especially after Hungary and Korea -- doesn't make one "a Communist or fellow traveler"; it does suggest an appreciation for our brand of democracy, which guarantees freedom of speech. It also suggests that these particular "birds" didn't want to be stool pigeons.

BORIS BURKE

Cambridge, Mass.

Sir:

Well, well. All these men holding backstage jobs on TV and radio. No wonder the output is so often Commie slanted.

W. HAUGH

New York City

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