Peking, Taipei and the U.N.

Sir: Now that the U.N. has voted on the China issue to the sorrow of all freedom-loving peoples, our nation should at once cut all its U.N. financial contributions by 75%. This would give the newcomers from Peking the opportunity to take over not only the contributions previously made by free China but also an amount commensurate with their own teeming population and the expectations of their duped friends.

EUGENE N. SELTZ

Hopkins, Minn.

Sir: President Nixon wants to be remembered as the great proponent of peace, but now that Nationalist China has been eliminated from the U.N., many will see him as being like Brutus and Hitler. Nixon, the greatest of all the backstabbers, has given Nationalist China the coup de grace. He is going to learn just what Neville Chamberlain learned--that there will never be "peace in our time." President Nixon has lost face; he will lose even more face when he goes to China begging for peace in Viet Nam.

EDGAR HAHN JR.

Albany, Ore.

Sir: It was a memorable day. For the first time in history, all nations are under one roof.

HENRY DE VRIES

San Francisco

Sir: If Russia can have three seats in the U.N. General Assembly, why can't China, with four times Russia's population, have two seats? In any event, the U.S must be content with one seat.

M. LEONARD BAUER

Asheville, N.C.

J.C. Superstar

Sir: Something more than God died in Broadway's Daliesque pastiche. Jesus Christ Superstar [Oct. 25]. With the last days of Christ acted with flashy vulgarity onstage, and the last days of Sodom and Gomorrah lived with frightening reality at the opening-night party. JC$ writes the R.I.P. on the tombstone of Western civilization. Like Superstar's hero, civilization has given up the ghost without any assurance of a resurrection on the third day.

DOUGLAS SCHOENHERR

New Haven, Conn.

Sir: The theater having sunk into the depths of filth and obscenity both in sound and sight, is the church to do likewise? Is there no Christianity left, no morals, no standards, no faith? Now are we back to the heathens and barbarians again? We certainly have crucified Our Lord a second time.

DAME GLADYS COOPER, D.B.E.

Henley-on-Thames, England

Sir: It seems sad that Jesus Christ Superstar has become garbed in controversy. The question of whether Christ was God is nothing new. Rice and Webber's version emphasizes the humanity rather than the divinity. In fact, the very "putting aside" of the idea of God for a while enabled me, for the first time, to really see and understand Jesus as man. He had doubts and fears, but did make the ultimate sacrifice. Through this production I came to know him more as man, and this experience enabled me to love him more as God.

KATHLEEN V. SHARKEY

Houston

Sir: Now that Jesus has been discovered as a moneymaker, everybody will be getting on the bandwagon with all kinds of spiritual and religious plays. Praise the Lord and pass the remuneration.

MORRIS B. RUSACK

Philadelphia

Sir: Jesus Christ Superstar will go down in history as the second crucifixion of Christ in 2.000 years. Unfortunately, America will stand by and let it happen again.

ARPAD DE KOVACSY

Durham, N.C.

Sir: To those of us who know Jesus is God because we experience him as God, the reaction to Jesus Christ Superstar can only be: thank God for such a beautiful way of letting us try to feel some of the things Jesus suffered for us.

MARY RING

Buffalo

Sir: A black Judas! I think I am beginning to learn now that it's really a hell to be black.

YUSUF YAKUB

Mombasa, Kenya

Sir: You would have it seem as if the Broadway production were done solely for the entertainment of fag New Yorkers and the conceit and pocketbook of Tom O'Horgan. Whether they intended to do so, Rice and Webber have composed a work that speaks to modern Christians. Despite the silver shorts and $20,000 robe.

MRS. JIM RUSSELL Cedartown, Ga.

From Corn Flakes to Pressed Beef

Sir: Despite all the current hullabaloo over J. Edgar Hoover [Oct. 25], it is evident that the bureau goes right along with its job, impressively directed. There's a growing cancer of distrust in society, from corn flakes to cars, Pentagon papers to pressed beef, police to press, all are being subject to self-styled revelators. Much of this merely gives aid and comfort to the enemy--crime.

Let Mr. Hoover alone, for it is the FBI alone that in many respects stands between us and trouble.

LESLIE MARSHALL

St. Petersburg, Fla.

Sir: If Germany. Russia or Cuba had an FBI directed by J. Edgar Hoover, the chances are that such names as Hitler, Stalin and Castro would never have made headlines, and that this world would be a better place to live in.

JUAN J. GALLEGOS

Coral Gables, Fla.

Sir: How demoralizing it must be to work as an FBI agent, fighting for freedom under a dictator--Hoover.

LESLIE HAMLIN HUBBARD

Winston-Salem, N.C.

No Irish Mist

Sir: As I write this letter in Belfast, bombs are exploding in different parts of the city, and ordinary people are suffering. I have not had an easy day, visiting homes that are heartbroken with grief, and this afternoon seeing one of my church 17-year-olds, a leg amputee, the victim of I.R.A. gunshot wounds. It is against this background that I listened with shock at the statement of Senator Kennedy [Nov. 1].

I am not a follower of the Rev. Ian Paisley; I am one of the hundreds of clergy in this province striving for objectivity in a situation that is as explosive as it is strewn with adjectives to describe it.

It is easy for the Senator to pontificate and even rationalize for doing so, but this is not the dream of a dewy Irish mist on an American St. Patrick's Day that he is talking about.

There are many things in Northern Ireland politics and policies that must and will change, but the removal of the border tomorrow would unleash a force that would engage the United Nations for the next 20 years. It might surprise the Senator to know that in Northern Ireland the majority, the big two-thirds majority, are Irish, but proud to be British.

I would like to say that people of all churches here thank God for the presence of 15,000 of our soldiers, for we know only too well what the alternatives would be for both Catholic and Protestant.

(THE REV.) JOHN STEWART

Woodvale Methodist Church

Belfast

Ben-Gurion

Sir: Despite the fact that your report on David Ben-Gurion's 85th birthday [Oct. 18] presents him as wise, philosophical and keen to establish peace with the surrounding Arab states, it would be a pity to forget that as one of the early Zionist leaders, he played an important role in the establishment of the state of Israel. This state was created at the expense of the human and national rights of the Palestinian non-Jews.

If a man who condemns a nation of people to the refugee camps is to be praised, whom do you condemn?

Aziz YAFI

London

Without Split and Spray

Sir: I disagree with your story [Oct. 25] that says the Afro hair style requires long, painful grooming; that conditioners, special combs and sprays are needed; that the Afro causes the hair to break off and split. Before I started wearing an Afro, I lost more hair from straighteners than I have in two years of wearing an Afro (which I do myself).

Therefore, I do not intend to return to the white look.

CAROL HAYWOOD

Milwaukee

Shah's Show

Sir: The ostentatious pageantry at Persepolis [Oct. 25] appears quite ludicrous in a poverty-ridden nation like Iran. On this 2,500th anniversary of the "Persian Empire," let us not forget that it was the Oriental despots, Darius and Xerxes, who attempted to crush Europe and Western civilization; fortunately the Athenians stopped them at Marathon and Salamis. This year also commemorated the 2,301st anniversary of the defeat of Persia, in 330 B.C., by Alexander the Great, who toppled the Persian army of Darius with his Greek phalanx.

THOMAS SPELIOS

Fort Lee, N.J.

Sir: I regret that you have missed the fundamental significance of the Iranian festivities and cheapened the occasion by calling it a "shindig" and a "bash." The occasion was not designed as a royal party only. The most important purpose was to increase the prestige of Iran in the international community and elevate national pride.

How can one set a monetary value on such a purpose? As an Iranian resident of Portugal, I traveled 4,000 miles to my country to join the festivities and returned a prouder Persian.

P.A. PARVIZ

Lisbon

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