Fulbright: Hit or Myth?

Sir: Senator Fulbright [April 3] spoke truly when he said that it is Communist imperialism that threatens us--because this is a sophisticated imperialism that does not use clumsy, obvious gunboats and troops, but employs adroit propaganda and efficient penetration and subversion to accomplish its imperialistic ends.

But he is in error when he attempts to separate and exonerate one of the two faces of the same coin--Communist dogma and Communist imperialism.

BERNARD R. KATZ Hatboro, Pa.

Sir: There is something ironic in Senator Fulbright's telling us to forget our old myths concerning foreign policy and face the new realities, while at the same time he stands ready to take his place in the front ranks of Senator Russell's war on the civil rights bill.

JOSEPH ANDERSON Bridgeport, Conn.

Sir: Smaller nations surely cannot successfully resist Communism without the moral leadership of the U.S. To view the Soviet Union or any other Communist-controlled country as "a normal nation with normal and traditional interests" clouds the reality of dealing with the ever-encroaching menace of universal Communism. The only way to avoid an eventual hot war is to put an end to the cold war: win it.

LANCE CRAIG CARLSON Depew, N.Y.

Sir: TIME brought up the Monroe Doctrine in regard to the Cuban missile crisis. As a purely unilateral doctrine, forcefully imposed on an entire continent of people who did not ask for it, this document stands for a stark effrontery to international dignity and has never been recognized under international law.

Your thinking, if it can be called thinking, on foreign policy is exactly the type of archaic, paranoiac, if not dangerous thought that the Senator is remarking upon.

MARTIN MELTZ Philadelphia

Sir: Senator Fulbright said that our size makes it silly to treat our dispute with Panama with courage and resolve and that we should go further than halfway in settlement. Size is not relevant. We have nothing to be ashamed of. The end result of negotiating with Panama will be the gift of the U.S.'s canal.

Senator Fulbright feels the U.S. is compelled to recognize the Communist regime in Cuba. This would stabilize Khrushchev's puppet, Castro, and by example give the same guarantee to Khrushchev for any other subverted nation.

GERALD SHELLY Phoenix, Ariz.

Sir: I cannot understand how anyone (including yourselves) can give any credence to any statement made by Senator Fulbright. It is obvious that he is chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee only through seniority, not special competence. It is equally obvious that his seniority comes through coming from a one-party state, not any special competence.

He was conspicuously silent years ago during the Little Rock scene and by and large seems to have made a knack of not taking a stand on anything that might require standing for a principle.

For this nebulous person to sound off on foreign policy (especially in such a scattergun fashion) is, to me, ludicrous.

C. J. HEPBURN Elnora, N.Y.

Down the Highway with L.B.J.

Sir: A public figure such as our President can rightfully chafe under much of the morbidly curious scrutiny of the public. But when he breaks the laws of the land he governs, it is time to scrutinize!

Careening madly through the countryside in his Continental [April 10] endangers not only his precious hide and those unfortunates still trying to pry their fingers out of the upholstery, but all of the other young joy riders on whom we pay extra insurance premiums so they can chortle to frantic parents, "The President does it, so why shouldn't I?"

(MRS.) ALICE COBURN New London, Conn.

Sir: In reference to President Johnson's reported escapades behind the wheel of his car in Texas, we would like to nominate him as honorary chairman of the annual "Slow Down and Live" campaign.

PHILIP C. WALL WORK Safety Director Automobile Legal Association Boston

Sir: Your account of President Johnson's cavorting across the hills of Texas at speeds up to 90 m.p.h. while sipping a cup of Pearl beer, was, to say the least, disconcerting at a time when the nation is still adjusting to the tragic loss of President Kennedy.

I appeal to our President to exercise the greatest amount of care in protecting his life and limb, without, of course, curbing his zeal for life.

FRANK G. BARNETT East Lansing, Mich.

Streisand, The Greatest

Sir: Thank you, thank you. It is about time the world knew that Barbra Streisand is the greatest [April 10]. I now find great pleasure in flashing your fine cover and excellent article in the faces of my previously unenthusiastic and preoccupied friends, saying "Ha, did the Beatles make the cover of TIME?" I have been a fan since her first album. That girl is a spook.

JIM WINKER University of Wisconsin Madison, Wis.

Sir: Who ever heard of buttering a bagel? Where's the cream cheese in TIME'S soul?

HERB BRIN HERITAGE, Los Angeles

Sir: Streisand will have to go a long way to parallel Nefertiti. Their profiles don't even look the same.

L. A. MILES Austin, Texas.

For comparison, see cuts.--ED.

Sir: Brooklyn's gift to the world of entertainment. Long may she reign!

(MRS.) ELAINE GOLDMAN Brooklyn

Oriental Psyche v. Occidental Cupids

Sir: With Cambodia's small population, the dragon to the north, their weak neighbors in surrounding southeast Asia, and the so far apparent inability of the U.S. to guarantee political stability and independence in this area, who can blame Sihanouk [April 3] for playing the opportunistic bad boy? This is only one more reason to oppose the politically expedient in our foreign policy in favor of a course designed to carry through what must inevitably entail the unpleasant, the full commitment, and the unpopular use of statesmanship.

PETER M. BELL Fredonia, N.Y.

Sir: TIME has portrayed so well the image and the character of Prince Norodom Sihanouk as to make additional comments unnecessarily cruel to him. However, as a fellow Asian, I cannot help believing that it would add to the wisdom of the prince to make efforts to live up to the heroic meaning of his name ("lion-hearted").

Surely Prince Sihanouk would do justice to the great tradition of his illustrious ancestors, the Khmers, if he were to shelve his wondrous scheme of contriving an international guarantee for Cambodia's freedom, and take the rugged road the lionhearted should roam.

BOONCHARN PHORNNARIT London

Sir: Bravo! As a student of foreign affairs, I applaud your article on Cambodia's Prince Sihanouk and Southeast Asia. The American public was badly in need of your objective appraisal of the Oriental psyche and America's attempts to cope with it.

JUDITH JOHNSON California Western University San Diego, Calif.

Brooding Catholics

Sir: I attended Catholic grammar school, high school and college, but your article [April 10] was the most lucid description of the church's quandary about birth control I had seen or heard.

MICHAEL C. CRIMMINS San Francisco

Sir: Undoubtedly the Catholic Church will ultimately approve some effective chemical or mechanical method of birth control and, of course, justify its new position with self-righteous aplomb. Many suffer agonies of shame and despair in using contraceptives, deeming themselves heinous sinners in the eyes of God.

The sorrow caused by the church's stand on birth control is incalculable. (Mrs.) JUDY HAGERMAN Albany, N.Y.

Sir: Pshaw! Some of us Catholics with "a house-cramming brood" like it that way. Honest!

PAT SOMERS CRONIN Chicago

Laugh More, War Less

Sir:

Irving R. Kaufman is a judge with sense about humor [April 3].

His decision favoring satirical magazine Mad over lawsuit-minded Songwriter Irving Berlin was a wise one. It showed an all-too-rare recognition of the deep need in the world for more, not less, critical humor. Possibly, just possibly, if people can learn to laugh at themselves a little bit more, they might want to wage war on each other a little bit less.

MELVIN M. JOHNSON III Atlanta

Segregated St. Augustine

Sir: I do hope that someone in St. Augustine had the imagination to scrawl on the jail wall where Mrs. Peabody [April 10] would be sure to see it: "Yankee, Go Home!"

YONNE DELL Tuscaloosa, Ala.

Sir: Such spunk--more selfless vision than the Wright brothers and more bravery than Davy Crockett--is seldom found these days! Many will be bothered into silent admiration or public belittlement of Mrs. Malcolm Peabody, but to me she is the embodiment of a modern pioneer American, willing to stand with courage for her convictions. This grandmother, seasoned by education, culture and experience, dared to raise her torch of wisdom.

IRENE H. WEBB Redlands, Calif.

Hard-Boiled Eggheads

Sir: The Orwellian-Weiner approach in "Man and Machine" [April 3] to how men shall "relate to machines rather than one another" comes off as a determinist document.

What begins as an exaltation of hard-boiled embryo eggheads graduating from today's business schools, in the emerging age of the computer, concludes like a poached sell for 1984.

MATTHEW A. LEVINE Jamaica, N.Y.

Sir: If in order for our society to have refined oil,dog food and SAGE we must "hard-boil" executive-scientists who relate to machines more than to men, these gifts are dearly purchased.

If bright young men are crammed with a course of study that apparently asks all the right scientifically programmed questions but ignores the vulgar, mocking "Why?," the school has certainly sold out to the sterile "progress-apostles."

PHILIP H. JACKMAN Assistant Professor Kearney State College Kearney, Neb.

Atrocity Story

Sir: May I applaud, congratulate, and simultaneously breathe a sigh of relief. Of all the public media, including newspapers and TV as well as professional journals, your publication was the only one to date to carry a competent account of the atrocity story of our day: the Richardson-Merrell drug MER/29 [April 3], which was licensed for human use because information that it caused blindness in animals was withheld by the company.

CORNELIUS BEUKENKAMP JR., M.D. New York City

1,000,000 Holes

Sir: I feel that I should point out that our "Corfam" [April 3] poromeric shoe material attains its distinctive breathability through about one million pores per square inch, not per square foot as stated. Granted, that's splitting hairs over holes, but our ability to create porosity by chemical means in such microscopic proportions was one of the most important technological accomplishments made during the research that led to "Corfam."

WILLIAM D. LAWSON Manager Poromeric Products Division Du Pont Wilmington, Del.

That Warm Feeling

Sir: In reference to Thiebaud's philosophy of noninvolvement in art [April 3]: if the artist cannot get involved with his art, how does he expect us observers to get involved? Frankly, the new realism leaves me cold. Give me a nice warm, involving De Kooning any time.

(MRS.) NANCY JAVIER Los Angeles

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.