"We Must Fight to Win"
Sir:
TIME, July 31: "Said Dwight D. Eisenhower, who thought the [atom] bomb might be considered for materiel targets in Korea, but not against human beings: 'We're trying to stand before the world as decent, just, fair people, not as judges to exterminate those who oppose us.' ''
No ordinary stay-at-home citizen knows whether the use of the atomic bomb against the enemy is good military strategy now. But if the strategists decide that a telling blow with the bomb might be struck, we would be foolish indeed to hamstring ourselves for fear of being considered indecent.
Is it more-indecent to kill many human beings at once with one bomb than to kill the same number over a period of months of bombing, as we did in Europe during World War II? War is indecent, but we are involved in war, and we must fight to win.
It is considered by many moralists more immoral to kill women and children than to kill able-bodied men ... In Russia, as much as anywhere in the world, women have been striving to achieve equality. Let us be prepared to meet the price of equality . . .
ELEANOR N. HENRY
Long Island City, N.Y.
TIME & the War
Sir:
Three years ago I subscribed to TIME. For the past several weeks, I have been receiving a warlike, manifesto-styled communication replete with war maps and pictures of warriors on the cover. I would not mind receiving this new publication if I could continue to receive my regular copy of TIME as well. But if this new publication is intended as a permanent substitute for the old TIME, it seems only fair that subscribers should have been informed . . .
LEE ROSEN
The Bronx, N.Y.
P: Let Reader Rosen complain to Stalin & Co.--ED.
Sir:
Please, please, please stop Armageddoning the hell out of us.
JOHN F. NIHEN
Squantum, Mass.
Sir:
Please add my compliments to others received on the War in Asia section . . . One need not agree with every sentence to realize that it reflects high standards of journalistic enterprise and performance . .
CLAYTON LANE
Executive Secretary
American Institute of Pacific Relations, Inc.
New York City
Missing in Action
Sir:
I heard via Armed Forces Radio that [TIME Correspondent] Wilson Fielder was missing in action at Taejon. He had been with us for a week, and in that short time we had all grown to know him and like him well . . .
I am enclosing some pictures (see cut) taken of him the day we transferred him to a destroyer at sea for transportation in to Pusan . . .
W. B. PORTER
Commander, U.S.N.
U.S.S. Juneau
Off Korea
Out of the Red
Sir:
On the day that the July 31 issue of TIME hit the newsstands in Nebraska, the Census Bureau officially acknowledged that an error had been made in the population figure for Nebraska. We are no longer one of the states that lost citizenry . . .
ED WEISENREDER
Lincoln, Neb.
Sir:
... A typographical error uncovered 9,000 of us. Please take us out of the red!
I wonder what percentage of Nebraska's 1950 population has called this to TIME'S attention ?
(MRS.) SHIRLEY BOGUE
Fremont, Neb.
P: So far, exactly .000008%.--ED.
Rewrite Job
Sir:
TIME'S Press section, Aug. 7, reporting on the tall story told by Corporal Albert Vieira, who broke his ankle playing ball in Japan and passed himself off as war wounded when he arrived in California in a hospital plane, correctly says that Vieira's phony story was spread across Page One of the San Francisco News, San Francisco Call-Bulletin and the Oakland Tribune.
It adds: "In the rush for deadlines, only one reporter, LIFE'S Milton Orshefsky, checked Vieira's medical and service records . . ." and found the correct version of the story of Vieira's injury.
In fairness to the able San Francisco and Oakland reporters who covered the story, TIME'S report should have read:
"In the rush for deadlines, only LIFE'S Milton Orshefsky was not on hand when Vieira arrived with the wounded from Korea. Only Orshefsky was not present at the Air-Force-conducted press conference. And only Orshefsky, arriving well after the newspapermen had left, was so late that the Air Force had had time to check Vieira's record and inform him that Vieira had strayed slightly from the facts."
ROBERT W. LEE City Editor
The San Francisco News
San Francisco, Calif.
P: TIME'S thanks to City Editor Lee for a snappy but somewhat inaccurate rewrite job: it was late-arriving Reporter Orshefsky who discovered the hoax and told the Air Force about it.--ED.
War Rider
Sir:
Re "The War Clause, Again" [TIME, July 31]: This war risk clause has been instituted by a good many of the 600 American life insurance companies. Connecticut General was among the earlier ones to ... add a war rider or some other restriction to new insurance policies for men likely to be called for military service . . .
It would be helpful if you would explain to the large number of the nation's 80 million life insurance policyholders who read TIME that we did it for them. Insurance generally is written and priced to protect the ordinary person from the usual hazards. If we were suddenly to accept a large number of new policyholders with a special potential hazard, it might be at some jeopardy to the protection of the 80 million. Our view is that all the people . . . should underwrite the war hazard, just as all the people pay the other costs of war.
F. B. WILDE
President
Connecticut General Life Insurance Co.
Hartford, Conn.
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