Ho Chi Minh

Sir: Hooray for Artzybasheff! Ho Chi Minh's beard, too, seems to be crawling with snakes [July 16].

BERT SIROTE Brooklyn

Sir: The United States doesn't even recognize his government, and you put him on the cover again.

WILLIAM JAY EISEN University Heights, Ohio

Sir: Ho Chi Minh did not go all the way to Versailles to badger the Allies. He went as a calm young patriot who wanted to point out to the Big Four the importance of understanding what was going on in Indo-China. They wouldn't even see him. He turned the other way only because they pushed him.

MRS. GEORGE ELLIS Orange, Conn.

Sir: It is not often that TIME overlooks a major point in the analysis of a touchy political situation, but in my opinion this has happened with regard to Viet Nam. Any meaningful discussion of the causes and solutions of Communist aggression in Southeast Asia must assign special significance to the population expansion. How can we win a war against a never diminishing enemy?

(MRS.) ANITA C. SULLIVAN Clemson, S.C.

Sir: Mao Tse-tung has said that Communism will conquer Asia because the U.S. has neither the stamina nor the patience to counteract his "wars of liberation." Now Ho Chi Minh says that the Viet Cong will win the struggle in Viet Nam because "Americans don't like long, inconclusive wars." These statements indicate what we are up against in Southeast Asia. The formula for victory is patience, an organized population, and a preponderance of men and materiel. The United States can prove Chairman Map and Uncle Ho irrevocably wrong. But it will take more strength in the face of adversity than we are displaying now. A persistent, never-say-die American effort in Southeast Asia can turn that battle into one that the Communists can never hope to win.

SANDY KING Wethersfield, Conn.

Sir: "The Jungle Marxist" is clever, TIME fashion, but it has an almost unbelievably naive and provincial point of view. If I were a Communist or a Vietnamese, I could not help believing that every opinion and every "fact" was supplied the author by an official Government agency.

ROBERT W. BUCK Boston

>TIME'S conclusions were based not only on information from Government officials, but also on extensive interviews with independent scholars, including Howard University's eminent Bernard Fall, author of The Two VietNams and Street Without Joy, and one of the few Westerners who in recent years have interviewed Ho face-to-face.

Criminal Justice

Sir: I admire your essay on criminal justice [July 16] as clear and to the point. Professor Vorenberg may find that he is moving us forward on a far broader front than the one of immediate concern to him. The administration of law, even at the level of the police function, calls for discretionary decisions by public officials. If we want to preserve inviolate the rights to privacy and protection afforded us by the Constitution, all actions by public servants must eventually reach the eyes of the public. Tape-delay technology offers us the means, and any public procedures that have traditionally gone unrecorded now can be kept inexpensively in audio archives; video archives will soon be available.

ERIC DREIKURS Los Angeles

Sir: Less than an hour after a military court-martial in which, as prosecutor, I had lost the decision in a clear-cut assault case, I read a perfect analysis of the key issue of the trial, that is: Does the initial failure of an investigating officer to warn the accused of his right to remain silent invalidate later voluntary admissions? In my case, the investigating officer had talked with the accused at the scene, realized that he was a prime suspect, then warned him of his rights. The accused's two separate voluntary statements, made later, clearly established his guilt but were inadmissible as evidence because he had talked, even though voluntarily, with the investigating officer before being warned of his rights. Had I been able to read TIME during the lunch hour (as is my custom), I might have had better grounds for arguing the point during the afternoon.

JOHN E. TENER Naval Weapons Laboratory Dahlgren, Va.

Jim Clark Challenged

Sir: For a more positive test of his imperturbability, I invite Jim Clark [July 9] to compete in the qualifying trials held daily on any of the San Francisco Bay area courses, notably the Bay shore Highway or the Nimitz Freeway. He will then be eligible to participate in the finals on the toughest course of all--the entire Los Angeles freeway system.

FELISA CAPILLO Hayward, Calif.

That's What's Happening

Sir: Murray the K [July 9] is also Murray the KL#151;leader, that is. He put on a show that was fab gear and laid some good words on us in a way that was only a bit of all right. He's what's happening, baby, and you're not. Don't bug my leader, TIME. Keep outta his face.

MARKE EVANS Wichita, Kans.

Sir: Thank God, that's not what's happening to me, baby.

KATHY LEEB Cleveland

Sir: That noisy display was unfit for television. I think teen-agers were even embarrassed at the zoolike display of Murray the K and some of those other spacelike beings. I doubt if this is going to create any economic opportunity for teenagers. It seems unbelievable that the Johnson Administration permitted itself to be associated with this catastrophe.

WILLIAM HART JR. San Francisco

Sir: Three cheers for Murray the K. Compared to the very round presentation of "It's What's Happening, Baby," my tastes are quite square. However, I work with young people, and I forced myself to watch the program. The next morning I checked with the young people, and their response was unanimous. The program was a swinger and the message got through. Congratulations to "the K" and Sargent Shriver for trying to communicate in a language youth understands. Perhaps our outraged and nauseated legislators could learn a few lessons about trying to communicate with people where they live.

(THE REV.) ROBERT F. HARDINA Union Congregational Church East Bridgewater, Mass.

How to Succeed

Sir: I was flattered that you included me in your story "How to Become a Millionaire" [July 9]. However, I feel that perhaps the most important rule for succeeding in business was overlooked by everyone you mentioned. Simply put, it amounts to: "Surround yourself with people smarter than you."

DON OVER President-Publisher International Construction Reporter Honolulu

Proud Andrews

Sir: More power to the little town of Hennepin, Ill., and to Jones & Laughlin for locating their new plant there [July 9]. Andrews, N.C., is also a little town. It is one of the most economically stagnant areas of Appalachia. Poor they may be, but Andrews residents are proud too. Under the leadership of Mayor Percy B. Ferebee, a development corporation was formed, and $200,000 was raised. With this as bait, Andrews in two years signed a furniture company. Today, construction is under way on a factory that will employ 900--about three times as many men as there now are in town. Yes, Government agencies helped, but what really did it was the willingness of the people to invest in their community, and their unwillingness to sit slackly by and wait for the Government to do something for them.

TED SMILEY Smoky Mountain Times Bryson City, N.C.

Man for the Ages

Sir: That article about Dante [July 9] glowed with a brightness of its own.

V. NAIR London

Sir: Shame! How can you list "the superior translations of La Commedia" and omit the verse rendering by John Ciardi?

(MRS.) GLORIA GARCIA PAJAK Perth Amboy, N.J.

Sir: TIME'S otherwise brilliant and stimulating article on Dante perpetuates some 19th century misunderstanding of the poet. The most debatable point is that Dante used the Inferno for personal vindictiveness, to damn his political enemies, while demonstrating extreme lenience toward old friends like Brunetto Latini. Dante's work is primarily an inward journey into the soul of everyman and an exposure of the possibilities of evil therein. The figures that Dante encounters, therefore, symbolize evils that the poet condemns in himself as well as in others.

The most demonic sins, for Dante, are the sins of the spirit. Hence Brunetto Latini, since he embodies a sensual sin, does not merit punishment so severe as that meted out to the spiritually corrupt.

Finally, Dante depicts Satan as stupid and ludicrous because that is ultimately Dante's vision of the nature of evil.

RICHARD BREWER Assistant Professor of English Monmouth College West Long Branch, N.J.

Pommies

Sir: Your footnote on Pommies [July 9] is a new one on us. The term is a corruption of P.O.M.E., Prisoner Of Mother England, which was the official status of many of the original immigrants to Australia.

C. O. SHEBBEARE J. PARKES Melbourne, Australia

> Another theory: the term came from pompons on the tam-o'-shanters of British regiments.

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