Cuban Outrage
Sir: As a former resident of Cuba for more than 13 years, I found your cover story on that country [Oct. 8] most interesting. How tragic to see a once beautiful tropical island crumble in the hands of an egomaniac like Fidel Castro.
MRS. JOAN SEYMOUR
Arlington, Va.
Sir: The Cuban economy is in tatters, but certainly not "back where it started as a one-crop sugar producer." Cuba's economy before Castro was buoyant and quite diversified, although the sugar industry was the basic business, just as steel is in this country. Contrary to what you say, Castro is a very real threat. Nevertheless, your portrayal of Brother Raul as the archetype of the bastard is quite accurate. NESTOR E. CRUZ GAVALDA Villanova University, Pa.
Sir: The brilliant Mexican poet, essayist, playwright and diplomat Octavio Paz has shown how his country's revolution and governmental intervention in economic life led to eventual diversified development. And as British Economist Dudley Seers et al, have put it in Cuba: The Economic and Social Revolution: "Almost any degree of disorganization would have been preferable to the complete failure in Cuba in earlier years to mobilize the factors of production."
CHRISTOPHER BIRD
Georgetown, D.C.
Bene, Bene!
Sir: The Essay on opera [Oct. 8] was truly written "con amore." Bravo! How about an encore?
GONZALO RUIZ
Baltimore
Sir: This "madman" can only say--bene, bene!
LARRY BAUER
Cleveland
Sir: Bravo for Mme. Callas and Hiss Boom Bah for TIME for omitting her.
WILLIAM L. BIRD Prospect, Ky.
The Right to 89$ Meat
Sir: Thank you for your cogent definition of poverty as it exists in America today [Oct. 1]. As a member of our local Community Action Program, I have heard critics of the poverty program claim that they were once "poor" but had improved their lot "with no help from anyone." Your definition will go a long way toward clarifying the concept underlying the key word in this essential effort.
MRS. HENRY CUTLER
Waterloo, Iowa
Sir: have heard of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but from where do the poor get the right to a TV set, a car and 89-c- meat? If we use as a model socialist Scandinavia or Communist Russia, the poor will have luxuries at the expense of the liberty of taxpayers who have earned these luxuries.
(MRS.) BARBARA CROWLEY Toms River, N.J.
Sir: You fail to mention the greatest cause of poverty: the fact that two poverty-stricken people are encouraged to multiply the problem by producing new poverty cases. Politicians might consider an annual cash bonus for nonproduction, the amount to double for the second year, triple for the third, etc. This might eventually get parents off relief and reduce the future relief load.
G. C. ORTON
Alameda, Calif.
Water Wisdom
Sir: Your continued coverage of natural resources [Sept. 17, Oct. 1] is appreciated by people concerned with conservation. That conservation has finally become news is a step toward the day when Americans will realize the wisdom of Henry Beston's words: "Do no dishonour to the earth, lest you dishonour the spirit of man."
ROD COCHRAN
Assistant Professor State University College of Forestry Syracuse, N.Y.
Sir: You pointed out in graphic terms what the people in this country need to know: that water is no longer a commodity; it is a luxury we can't afford to squander. Well done.
DANIEL COIT
Andover, Mass.
Sir: It is untrue that desalted water at a cost of under 35-c- per 1,000 gal. is "far off." Westinghouse can build a plant producing 150,000,000 gal. of fresh water daily for less than 35-c- per 1,000 gallons. All we need is a customer. It is also untrue that disposing of "mountains of coarse, unusable salt" poses a problem. The residue of a large desalting plant is only 7% salt and can be discharged into the ocean.
JOHN W. SIMPSON Group Vice President Westinghouse Electric Corp. Pittsburgh
Sir: Your story is topnotch. But we disagree with your statement that Westinghouse is "the U.S.'s largest producer of multistage flash-distillation systems. Aqua-Chem has installed 50 units at 17 locations around the world, operating on sea water, with a capacity of 6,200,000 gal. a day. Production by Westinghouse consists of 14 units, seven locations and 5,500,000 gal. a day.
F. A. LOEBEL President Aqua-Chem, Inc. Waukesha, Wis.
The Promised Land
Sir: Your excellent story on immigration [Oct. 1] brought back memories of my arrival on your shores 43 years ago, when I landed on Ellis Island to find in this promised land the most precious thing I have ever owned--the dignity of man. GEORGE M. MARDIKIAN President
Cultural Heritage Committee San Francisco
Sir: You ignore the question of immigrants' motivations. Before World War II, our image was one of rugged independence, of unlimited opportunity for the diligent. We therefore attracted people with these characteristics. Today we are known as the most excellent of lands to be incapacitated or poor in. The concept ot America as a land of bottomless public treasuries spewing money into the pockets of all who can muster enough energy to jet over attracts only those who wish to exploit our misguided generosity.
MARY JANE PLOTUICK
Freeport, N.Y.
The Colosseum
Sir: I am outraged at the prostitution of justice we have just witnessed in Lowndes County, Ala. [Oct. 8]. If there is any sure sign of decay in the fiber of this country, it is in allowing this legal fakery to go on. Alabama has become a modern Colosseum where good men, Negro and white, are fed to the animals.
(THE REV.) JOHN E. POUX
Erie, Pa.
Sir: The Federal Government must take over the anarchic governments of Mississippi and Alabama and give the Klan killers fair trials. Double jeopardy would not apply because the killers never were in first jeopardy at their mock trials. ALFRED T. KING
Chicago
Sir: For Man of the Year: Alabama's Attorney General Richmond Flowers for his steadfast refusal to compromise high principles.
SARA G. PRINCE
Maxwell A.F.B., Ala.
No Yes-Man Dirksen
Sir: Hats off to Senator Dirksen and his stand on repeal of Section 14(b) [Oct. 1]. My disgust with the 89th Congress and its faceless mass of yes men has been somewhat alleviated by Dirksen's refusal to knuckle under to the autocracy of the Johnson Administration. Compulsory unionism is akin to compulsory Communism, and no American should stand for it.
DEREK T. HAFF
Las Vegas, Nev.
Well, Almost Any Time
Sir: Who owns that car parked in front of H.H.H.'s house [Oct. 1]? You know--the one in front of the sign marked "No Parking Any Time."
RICHARD S. GLANTZ
Cambridge, Mass.
>> Mrs. Humphrey's secretary; the Vice President's car was blocking the drive to the parking area.
Master of the Star
Sir: About your piece on the Star's 85th anniversary celebration [Oct. 1]: The quotation on my funeral was a wee bit garbled. What I said was that I would have the biggest funeral anybody ever had in Kansas City because, after all the political battles I had been through, folks would show up to be sure the old bastard was dead. Your story said "their old master." I have never been a master of anybody, including myself sometimes, I think.
ROY A. ROBERTS
The Kansas City Star Kansas City, Mo.
Unhappy Hunting
Sir: You people at TIME will have fun taking two mallards along the Central and Mississippi fly ways [Oct. 1], at least until a warden tells you that one a day is the limit. Happy hunting!
WILLIAM E. KRETSCHMAR
Venturia, N. Dak.
Invitation to a Bath
Sir: So the water goes down the drain clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere, counterclockwise in the Northern [Sept. 24]. We are on the Equator. If anyone wants to prove there is no vortex here, I invite him to visit our bathroom.
LUIS W. LEVY Quito, Ecuador
Odd Child Out
Sir: How does Mr. Otis mark his pictures tests [Oct. 1]? Should my daughter say that the lamp is odd-man-out in the group of dog kennel, lamp, beehive and birds nest? Or does he think the bird's nest stands apart because it is not manmade? A few more groups like that and my daughter might come out a moron.
STANLEY FROUD
New York City
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