White's Biography Fulfilled

Sir: In the 1952 West Point yearbook, the biography on TIME Cover Subject [June 11] Edward H. White II, states: "He craves excitement and adventure and seldom passes up the chance to do something out of the ordinary."

LOWELL E. TORESON Captain, U.S.A. A.P.O. New York

Sir: Robert Vickrey did a terrific job on the cover. He depicts Ed White and Jim McDivitt as the great Americans they are.

(MRS.) PEGGY LINNARTZ Waldwick, N.J.

Dostoevskicm Simon

Sir: If Norton Simon [TIME, June 4] can call himself a Dostoevskian character, then we may as well identify Norman Vincent Peale with Samuel Beckett. In case anyone is interested, I'm a Nietzschean man. Let's all pick an author; it's "Dignify Yourself Month."

MICHAEL J. DAUGHERTY Berkeley, Calif.

Sir: I read both TIME and FORTUNE'S June 1964 article on Norton Simon.

A discrepancy caught my eye, so I went back and checked. The two magazines disagree by $50 million on Simon's personal worth. TIME says he is personally worth $100 million, and FORTUNE says $50 million. Who is right?

FREDERIC C. BARBER Lieutenant, U.S.M.C. New Orleans

> Both. TIME included his $50 million art collection in that figure, and FORTUNE mentioned it separately.

Shocking Pictures

Sir: Thank you for the two gruesome closeups [TIME, May 28]. The headless, body with the cavernous trachea is a masterpiece. Your well-balanced shot of the young marine bleeding all over the petrol tank is also appealing. Mind you, I've noticed that some of the more squeamish journals invoke the same feeling of revulsion with good prose. I would rather have my horror pictorially, so please don't go highbrow and use the English language. Keep at it with your candid" camera.

JAMES ROLAND Bombay, India

Sir: How can any sane human reasonably condone the furthering of any war after seeing that photograph?

BRIAN ISAACSON Ann Arbor, Mich.

Sir: It never fails to amaze me how people get the facts all twisted up. Instead of condemning the Viet Cong, they condemn TIME for printing the picture. It should show the naive pacifists what the South Vietnamese are up against.

ROBERT BACHMANN JR. Lieutenant, U.S.A.F. Syracuse

Sir: I turned back to that picture several times before I realized the ghastly position of anyone who gets in the Viet Cong's way. Those whose sensitivities and taste are offended should thank God that they aren't on the receiving end of such savagery.

CLARICE HALL Sterling, Va.

Preferential Punishment?

Sir: I recall how Clarence Earl Gideon (Gideon v. Wainwright) was convicted on circumstantial evidence of taking money from the cigarette machine and juke box in a poolroom. For this the judge imposed the maximum sentence of five years. Compare this with the monstrous swindle of Anthony De Angelis [TIME, June 4]. How can the law be so prejudiced, so unbalanced, that he could be put on probation?

JACK STIRES El Centre, Calif.

Legislated Beauty

Sir: For once, I'm in complete agreement with President Johnson, although I'm also highly embarrassed about all the White House noise being made to eliminate littering, junkyards, etc. [June 4]. One of these days I suppose we'll need legislation from the Federal Government to tell us affluent Americans to come in out of the rain.

NANCY STEVENSON ADAMS Athens, Ohio

Sir: So Drew Pearson donated ten tons of manure to Lady Bird's campaign. Why so philanthropic? Is he retiring?

DON WELDON Philadelphia

Sir: I am incredulous. Can it be true that the preservation of our natural beauty is a matter for legislation? If so, it is entirely conceivable that the next step will be to require all private citizens to plant one dozen red roses in their front yards in order to be eligible for social security benefits.

MRS. RALPH WOOD Reeds Ferry, N.H.

Invited After All

Sir: Your story on Robert Lowell's declining to read his poetry at the White House arts festival [June 11] because of his dismay over the President's recent adventures in foreign policy lists me as one of 20 uninvited signers of a statement supporting Lowell's stand. This was true at the time I signed but not by the following day, when the statement was released to the press. For that morning I received a telegram from the White House inviting me to attend. Crossed wires, so to speak. After some thought, I decided I could best serve my President and my country by accepting, which I did.

DWIGHT MACDONALD The New Yorker New York City

War and Baez

Sir: The reason the lyrics sung by Joan Baez [June 11] had nothing to do with Viet Nam is because the song is an anti-war song written before matters in Viet Nam had reached their present stage.

The song attacks jingoism and the "my country right or wrong" idea of so many of our wars. "You never ask questions when God's on your side" is the main absurdity of jingoism that Bob Dylan hits. He concludes: "If God's on our side, he'll stop the next war."

THOMAS MICHAEL DAVY Brookfield, Ill.

Strange Happenings

Sir: Le Croupe Panique, whose "happenings" TIME recounted [June 4], typifies the adolescent antics of a few publicity-conscious individuals active in Paris. Since the happenings took place on the premises of this center. I should like to make clear that such events are not representative of the artistic, esthetic or social attitudes of the college-approved, year-round art program which operates under our auspices.

ROGER BARR, DIRECTOR American Center for Students and Artists Paris

Sir: The account of France's Total Theater is priceless. Your handling of the story is classic. What a delicious editorial staff you have. Vive la TIME.

ROBERT WINDSOR Choreographer, Lyric Theater Oklahoma City, Okla.

Maestro's Due

Sir: I felt so rewarded at seeing your article on Sergiu Celibidache [TIME, June 4]. When I lived in Berlin after the war, hearing the Berlin Philharmonic on a Sunday afternoon was the highlight of the week. Then Maestro Celibidache wore his hair quite long; it was a veritable mane that swung to and fro with every movement of his spirited conducting. I thought he was terrific, hair and all. Ever since, I have wondered what happened to him. Thank you for clearing up the mystery.

GEN ROBBINS Piedmont, Calif.

Sir: Piatigorsky isn't the only musician who wonders why Celibidache's mastery is so poorly appreciated. He has never compromised with mediocre music and musicians nor with petty orchestra managers. Unfortunately, this has cost him many a great opportunity. Playing under him has always been an exhausting but unique experience.

CARLOS ZAVALA V. Cellist

National Symphony Mexico City

Braceros Wanted

Sir: Never have I been so disgusted by bureaucratic meddling in a state problem as I was with the bracero ban [June 4]. Congressmen sitting 3,000 miles away in Washington take it upon themselves to arbitrarily outlaw braceros. To state unemployment as an argument is absurd. How many of the 440,000 unemployed Californians would stoop to do farm work even at the union wage?

PETER F. FACKLER Niirnberg, Germany

Sir: I have just set out four dozen strawberry plants. If Secretary Wirtz won't send us braceros, I'll pick my own.

BARBARA F. WEINER Pacific Palisades, Calif.

Apology to Amherst

Sir: A quotation from me in TIME [June 4] makes what appears to be a slighting reference to Amherst. May I correct that? The question was whether the close contact of faculty and students in a small college could be reproduced at Harvard by a transfer to the existing faculty of some considerable part of the teaching now done by graduate assistants. The substance of my answer was that the best of the faculty would be driven out by this scheme. The resulting parody of such a college as Amherst would certainly not have the distinction of Amherst, or any distinction.

ROGERS ALBRITTON Chairman,

Department of Philosophy Harvard University Cambridge, Mass.

Underground Lightning

Sir: TIME missed the most important feature of our observations of the Icelandic volcano [June 11]. We found that the process responsible for the volcano lightning does not occur in the volcano cloud, as had previously been supposed, but instead takes place underground before the hot eruption gases escape into the atmosphere.

BERNARD VONNEGUT Cambridge, Mass.

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