Winter in Russia

Sir:

Your Article on Marshal Rokossovsky, who has taken over the Polish Army "as a Pole" [TiME, Nov. 21], reminds me of the story about the Polish peasant woman whose son has just rushed home with the good news that their farm is no longer in Poland but is now a part of Russia. "Thank Heaven," said the old lady, "I don't think I could have lived through another Polish winter" . . .

HARRY BLUM

New York City

Postcard from Poland

Sir:

Reader F. B. Sherman has inquired whether Siberian exiles under Stalin are permitted to receive food parcels and letters from families back home [TIME, Nov. 7] ... The post accepted all the food and clothing parcels that my aunt, in Russian-occupied Poland, could send me, but out of 20-odd parcels, numerous letters and communications (asI learned later) I received a single postcard during my 1 1/2year stay at the hard labor camps [in Siberia] . . .

R. LAKS

Falun, Sweden

As You Like It

Artist Austin Cooper, who, to keep his art "automatic," reads the Psalms while his hands do as they please [TIME, Nov. 14], seems to have a great deal in common with the woman who opens her mouth and lets it say "what it likes."

S. PATRICELLI North Granby, Conn.

Sir:

When Artist Cooper says pictures such as his Shon-Ka may be hung in any of four ways, he overlooks a fifth and preferable way: facing the wall.

EMMETT FITZPATRICK San Francisco, Calif.

Sir:

. . . After puzzling for two hours over Cooper's Shon-Ka, I turned TIME upside down. In a matter of seconds, the fruits of his serendipity flooded into my consciousness like a revelation. Suggested subtitle: "Cooper's union suit after a hard day at the laundry" . . .

HARRY LEMIEUX

Waukegan, Ill.

Meeting in Connecticut

Sir:

Your story on Cartoonist Helen Hokinson [TiME, Nov. 14] brought vividly to mind our meeting in Connecticut several summers ago. My husband and I were vacationing in the East, and on the strength of having sold her four cartoon suggestions (one: "Now, please bear in mind that I am not Ingrid Bergman"--see cut), we asked her to meet us for cocktails . . . We found her to be shy, modest, thoroughly affable, and reminiscent of her women . . . When we asked her what she'd like to drink, she said: "A glass of iced tea. Hard liquor makes me hot."

MARY MCDERMOTT Honolulu, Hawaii

First Ballerina

Sir:

Congratulations on the splendid cover and story on Margot Fonteyn [TiME, Nov. 14]. Just for the record, I would like to know if she is the first ballerina thus treated by TIME.

C. R. ROUGHGARDEN JR. Bellerose, N.Y. P: Yes.--ED.

Bombs in Context

Sir:

TIME'S [Nov. 21] review ot my book, Modem Arms and Free Men, is perspicacious and generous. One sentence quoted out of context, however, gives an erroneous impression.

Thus TIME says, "Somewhat underestimating Russian science, Bush writes: 'It is a far cry indeed from the time when the enemy has a bomb.' Even as Bush's book was going to press, President Truman announced that the Russians had it."

But the sentence which TIME quotes was not concerned with when the Russians or anyone else would have a bomb. Instead, it was concerned with "... the time when we shall have to face the issue of two groups frowning at each other over adequate atomic-bomb stocks, and all that goes with them." This, I said, "may be very far off as time is reckoned in present international relations. It is a far cry indeed from the time when the enemy has a bomb."

VANNEVAR BUSH Washington, D.C.

Man of the Year?

Sir:

Man of the Year? Carlos P. Romulo, president of U.N. General Assembly . . .

ALLEN KAUFMAN New Haven, Conn.

Sir: . . . John Dewey ...

C. C. HARVEY

Chinook, Mont.

Sir: . . . Ezio Pinza ...

IVAN BUNNY

Chicago,Ill.

Sir:

A young man of the year--Thomas Merton. His books [The Seven Storey Mountain, Seeds of Contemplation] have given comfort and inspiration to countless thousands.

CHARLES W. KORTH JR. Brooklyn, N.Y.

Sir:

... Vice President Alben W. Barkley ... At a time when ... all people are seeking a guiding principle by which to live and not die, our Veep reaffirms his conviction in that which has survived the ages--romance.

MORRIS W. GRAFF Roanoke, Va.

Sir:

. . . India's Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru . . .

ISABELLE G. LICHTENSTEIN Chicago,Ill.

Sir:

... He who has had no evil thought or spoken an unkind word--Bonnie Prince Charlie of England!

DOROTHY ROSENAUER Dorchester, Mass.

Autocrat & Anatomist

Sir:

The important part played by Ignaz Sem-melweis in the control of puerperal fever in Europe and the merciless persecutions he suffered at the hands of the conservative medical profession seem to have been adequately recognized in The Cry and the Covenant [TIME Nov. 14] ...

In order to complete the story, I wish to call your attention to another and perhaps earlier discoverer of the etiology of puerperal fever, Doctor Oliver Wendell Holmes. He was a lecturer on anatomy at Dartmouth College, and was professor of anatomy and physiology at Harvard Medical School from 1847 to 1882. In 1843 he published his essay, The Contagiousness of Puerperal Fever, which brought on him much personal abuse, a similar reward to that given Semmelweis. Later his discovery was recognized and he was honored as the discoverer of a beneficent truth . . .

RUSSELL McGiLL

China Lake, Calif.

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