Japan's Allure

Sir: Why does the American consumer buy Japanese products [May 10]? Why does the American consumer buy products other than American? Simple. Quality, price, customer relations. Too often the American dealer is great until he has your money and then to hell with you. I have bought foreign products not out of disloyalty to my country or big business, but because I am sick and tired of getting junk for my money and nothing for my patronage.

ORVEL K. JANS Major, U.S.A.F. APO New York

Sir: Break out the crying towels and sour-grape wine for U.S. business. For years, while we were squeezing the life out of foreign nations, no one complained. Now the U.S. is learning of its own tactics from Japan--and the tears start.

RICHARD TOURANGEAU Boston

Sir: What the Japanese military forces could not accomplish in 1941-45 with bullets and bombs--a successful invasion of the United States--the Japanese business community is actually doing today with consumer goods.

This action may, as a matter of fact, establish a precedent for the world at large and particularly our Communist antagonists--that advancement through force is now anachronistic.

SAMUEL S. SHERWIN Los Angeles

Sir: We won the war, but the Japanese must now be enjoying a good laugh at our expense.

In exchange for our precious natural resources, which we obtain by stripping our national forests and ravishing our Appalachian Mountains for coal, we are sent a bunch of consumer junk, and we still end up with a billion-dollar-per-year deficit in the balance of payments.

R.J. BRUEHLMAN Wilmington, Del.

Sir: The solution to "How to Cope with Japan's Business Invasion" is simple. It's one I've been practicing on my own ever since I returned from the Pacific theater toward the end of World War II. Whenever I must buy any article, I first examine it to see where it was made. If the inscription "Made in Japan" appears on it, I toss it back onto the store counter and either make do with what I have or do without. I am not going to make Japan's economy any stronger. Wake up, America. Buy American.

ROBERT J. MILLER Philadelphia

Protest Debate

Sir: Nobody has told the unvarnished truth about these protest marches in Washington [May 10], and that is that we are conducting a kind of civil war against our own young people.

What do we have--Nixon prancing round the country while kids in the capital city are being teargassed. What do we have--19th century Agnew pontificating somewhere while long-haired youths are being herded into compounds.

I'm in my 60s and I'm ashamed of my peers. These young ones are sometimes a little messy, but they are trying to change things. They are trying to make us realize that war is an outmoded horror.

HALE WILLIS Fullerton, Calif.

Sir: If Rennie Davis & Co. don't know what is in the heads of the people who go to work every day, maybe someone should try whispering the message quietly in their ears: "You are demonstrating in the wrong city, you idiots. Try Hanoi." Maybe our semisacred fourth estate should lend an ear to that message a little more often too.

GORDON ELLIOTT Agana, Guam

Why Did the Chicken?

Sir: I have never read an article that I agreed with more than your "The Age of Touchiness" [May 10]. The sensitivity of the '70s has hampered the sense of humor of many. It appears that laughter is limited to "Why did the chicken"-type jokes, and we can no longer laugh at ourselves. Perhaps we will soon have to concentrate on the ludicrous only in inanimate objects. I hope I haven't offended anyone--or anything.

R.C. GALLOWAY Los Angeles

Sir: I am a first-generation American born of a Sicilian father and a mother from Abruzzi. I have always been proud of Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Verdi, Rossini, Dante and Renata Tebaldi. I was not proud to learn that the very clever "spicy meataball" Alka-Seltzer commercial had been removed from television. I was at first amused, then appalled, finally embarrassed.

ARTHUR MATERA New York City

Sir: I'm an American of Italian and Hungarian heritage. I am sick of the "oppressing minority." I don't believe you cure a cancer within by denying it exists. There is a Mafia and/or Cosa Nostra.

Should I yell "Let's hear it for the Huns"?

BARBARA J. MANALIO New York City

Sir: After reading your Essay, I reviewed my background and present status and decided I would found or join these groups:

Catholic Anti-Defamation League, Children with Protestant Fathers, Sons of Catholic Mothers, Grandsons of Canadian Immigrants to the U.S. and Great-Grandsons of English Immigrants to Canada, Americans Who Have Red Hair, Americans for Mexican Food.

While compiling my list, I decided that my time would be wasted--I would forever be finding a new group to join. I think I will just be a typical, abnormal person i.e., American. Oops, here come the Sons Against Red, White and Blue!

RALPH J. FEAR San Diego

Even If Uninteresting

Sir: Reader George C. Gould's letter [May 10] telling us that he who has "a clear conscience" should not be bothered by wiretapping, is a sad and frightening sign of acquiescence. Even if conversations are "uninteresting," we should insist on the right to talk in private, regardless of subject matter. It is just such "simple folk" who, unwittingly perhaps, further the creeping Big-Brotherism that threatens to be part of our future.

WOLFGANG K. HERRMANN New York City

Aid to Thailand

Sir: Your article "A Quieter China in a Calmer Asia" [April 19] states that Thailand has received $1.5 billion in American assistance. That figure is an exaggeration and must presumably include the cost of construction of airbase facilities in Thailand, which were designed to be used entirely by the U.S. Air Force for the prosecution of the Viet Nam War. As to your statement that declining U.S. aid has persuaded the Thais that the times are changing, one only has to take a quick glance at the recent reports on Ping Pong diplomacy to see that even the U.S. is not immune to change.

ANAND PANYARACHUN, Ambassador Acting Permanent Representative of Thailand to the United Nations

P: According to State Department figures, Thailand since 1946 has received $1.43 billion in direct U.S. military and economic aid. Other types of U.S. assistance during the same period raise the total to more than $2.5 billion. Of that, only $855 million went for construction projects, including the seven airbases. Thailand has retained ownership of the bases and will eventually have full use of them.

Theory from Keynes

Sir: Although your article "Make-Work on the Nile" [May 10] was interesting, it was not that new. Thirty-six years ago,

Lord Keynes recognized that the Pharaohs had a great deal to teach 20th century political economists. In his General Theory Keynes wrote: "Ancient Egypt was doubly fortunate ... in that it possessed two activities, namely, pyramid building as well as the search for precious metals . . . We have no such easy escape from the sufferings of unemployment." How about an Egyptologist on the Council of Economic Advisers?

ROBERT E. SVENSK Boston

Not Just a Gorilla

Sir: In your obituary of our beloved Mayor Emeritus William B. Hartsfield [March 8] you stated, "After he retired in 1962, Atlanta named only two things after him (a gorilla and an incinerator)." During his lifetime, Mayor Emeritus Hartsfield consistently refused to allow the city to honor him in some substantive way. Now, however, the nation's fourth busiest airport is called the William B. Hartsfield Atlanta Airport.

SAM MASSELL, Mayor Atlanta

Big Brother Is Watching

Sir: In your article on Haiti [May 3] you mention the late Francois Duvalier's secret police, the Tontons Macoutes, and define this term as Creole for "bogeyman." This would be better interpreted as a Creole corruption of tontons m'ecoutent, which is colloquial French for "The uncles are listening" and is basically equivalent to the Orwellian phrase "Big Brother is watching you."

MAUREEN CHENEY CURNOW Missoula, Mont.

Catching the Devil

Sir: Legend has it that in his lifetime St. Yves of Brittany, the patron saint of lawyers [May 3], was obsessed with the legal profession's lack of a counterpart for the physicians' Luke and the soldiers' George. He journeyed to Rome and put the matter before the Pope. His Holiness directed Yves to go around the Church of St. John Lateran blindfolded and, after saying certain specific prayers, grasp a saintly figure, which would become the lawyers' patron. Yves, catching hold of an image, cried: "This is our saint!" Removing his blindfold, he was horrified to find that he had laid hold of the figure of the devil under the feet of St. Michael.

RONALD C. STEVENSON Fredericton, Canada

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