Hue & Cries
Sirs:
A specter is haunting the editors of TIME, Inc. A "Red Terror" has cast its shadow over . . . TIME scribes and blotted from their beings the simple elements of truth and reason. . . .
(CPL.) MARTY SOLOW Tyler, Tex.
Sirs:
... Of all the Bolshevik weekly mags and monthly rags that I have ever come in contact with, yours is certainly the reddest. I can see why you have that vermilion border around it! . . .
G. ALEXANDER LEGMAN New York City
War Dogs
Sirs:
. . . The story, "The K-gs Come Home" [TIME, Dec. 3], contains three . . . inaccuracies. . . .
1) The dog Rex, reported as having attacked a 65-year-old woman of Japanese extraction in Albany, Calif., was not fresh from "a year and a half as a combat dog in the South Pacific." Rex never completed his Army training, was never issued to active duty and spent his entire career in the Army at the War Dog Reception and Training Center, Fort Robinson, Neb. . . .
2) The only dogs that the Army could not retrain for return to civilian life were all dogs which were found unsuitable for military training. . . .
3) The Army has never trained dogs to be "killers." Several so-called attack dogs were trained early in the war purely for exhibition purposes but the only dogs serving on active duty were scout dogs, messenger dogs and sledge dogs. . . .
ALENE ERLANGER Special Consultant to the Quartermaster General Washington
Jnproved Charge
Sirs:
I was surprised to find TIME lending its talents to give added currency to unproved charges, without so identifying them in the paragraph on cemented tungsten carbide, in the Nov. 19 issue. That paragraph said:
"When the U.S. General Electric Co. and the German Krupp interests made an agreement on the sale of cemented tungsten carbide (for machine tools), Canadian importers could buy it only from G.E., which raised the price from $50 a pound to $453. After the U.S. Government indicted G.E. in 1940 (antitrust law violation), the price skidded to $32 a pound."
Even though the statement was made by a Canadian Government official, its present status is a charge in a lawsuit which has not been tried, a charge which General Electric denies. . . .
R. S. PEARE Vice President General Electric Company Schenectady, N.Y.
Right. The charges are still untried.--ED.
Black Beauties
Sirs:
. . . If there is any one word in the English language which expresses just the opposite of Black Hills mountain country conditions it is the word "bleak. . . ." The name Black Hills came from the rich, deep green of the giant ponderosa pine forests covering them; trees more than 200 years old, lifting their tops 150 feet or more into the blue. Through these forests roam herds of deer, elk, antelope, bighorn sheep, buffalo, and all the really rugged, vital game animals of the temperate zone. Throughout this area are numerous crystal-clear mountain streams and sylvan lakes, thronged with an ever-increasing supply of the gamiest mountain trout found anywhere. The entire area is vibrant and teeming with a variety and abundance of life. . . .
You are cordially invited to come here as guests of our state and see that the statements herein made are really a conservative description. . . .
M. Q. SHARPE Governor of South Dakota Pierre, S. Dak.
Sirs:
You call the Black Hills bleak. . . . Lucky for you Wild Bill and Calamity Jane are not around to avenge the honor of the Hills!
BYRON BAGGALEY Mayor Bothell, Wash.
War Crimes Trials
Sirs:
Let a) "professional soldiers . . . not converted to the new morality," b) the editors of TIME ("Justice Jackson's remarkable definition of the military defendants' status was enough to make all professional soldiers lie awake nights" -- TIME, Dec. 10), cease worrying.
The 64th Article of The Articles of War which "shall at all times and in all places govern the Armies of the United States" forbids willful disobedience to a lawful command of a superior officer.
The order or command must be lawful for obedience to be required. No person in the Armies of the U.S. can be convicted of disobedience to an illegal order. Of course the burden of proof that a given order was illegal lies on the person who disobeys it. He had better be very certain that it is illegal before he dare disobey--particularly in war. Corollary is the responsibility of the person giving the order for its legality.
FOLLETT BRADLEY Major General, U.S.A., Retired Garden City, N.Y.
Sirs:
. . . General [Anton] Dostler was sentenced to death [TIME, Oct. 22] because he had ordered 15 O.S.S. men shot who were caught when trying to blow up a tunnel between Genoa and La Spezia. Surely every American found the verdict satisfactory.
Now I wish to recall to your memory an identical case:
Some time during the war four Germans had been set ashore on Long Island evidently in order to blow up some war-important installations. They were, however, caught, tried and sentenced to death on charge of intended sabotage. Of course, every American was convinced that justice had been done in accordance with international war laws. I leave it to you and your readers whether those responsible for the sentence should now be court-martialed and "shot to death by musketry. . . ."
ALBERTO GOMES Sao Paulo, Brazil
The Nazi saboteurs were not in uniform: Dostler was found guilty of breaking international law by shooting without trial prisoners who were.--ED.
Hart on Hart
Sirs:
I have received a clipping [TIME, Aug. 27] wherein you say that I "forecast a 'very tame' war and believed in the Maginot Line."
If you would refer to my prewar writings, you will find that what I actually suggested was that the war might start in a restrained way--with the aggressor only attacking small states, while the big powers on either side refrained from striking direct at each other. That forecast was borne out in September, 1939, and for the nine months following.
But I also suggested that this self-imposed limitation would eventually break down. . . . As regards the Maginot Line--you will find that I took pains to correct the popular belief that it was "an impregnable barrier. . . ."
Any careful examination of what I wrote in 1939 will show that I believed: 1) that Poland had little chance of withstanding a German attack; 2) that the defeat of France and Britain could be prevented if these countries developed a modern type of defense; 3) that the French might bring disaster on themselves if they advanced out of their defenses; 4) that Russia was capable of withstanding Germany if she did not attempt a premature offensive; 5) that France and Britain were not a strong enough combination to make a successful offensive possible in the West; 6) that even the addition of Russia would hardly suffice to beat Germany; 7) that only the addition of America's weight could bring about the definite defeat of Germany; 8) that in any case the war would be a very long one; 9) that oil supplies would eventually prove to be Germany's fatal weakness; 10) that the most probable result . . . would be the "establishment of Russia's supremacy in Europe."
B. H. LIDDELL HART London
Captain Hart shows again his belief in the superiority of the defensive.--ED.
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