Fruit Salad for All?

Sir:

Bravo for your Feb. 19 slap at the back-scratching brass of the armed forces whose foremost ambitions seem to center on the accumulation of a colorful array of "fruit salad" for their dress uniforms.

It's about time the Army, Navy and Air Force got together on the subject of "What price heroism," and lowered the boom on the deskbound members of the armed forces medals and awards sections . . .

L. E. FIERO JR.

Hot Springs, Ark.

Sir:

My hat goes off to you for bringing to the public eye a condition that exists in the armed forces. It seems to me that they are making a great farce out of something serious.

This business of "You-decorate-me-and-I'11-decorate-you" is the most repulsive thing I've heard of ...

WILLIAM C. NOLTE exMarine, 3rd Marine Division Floral Park, N.Y.

Sir:

... As a holder of both the Silver Star and Bronze Star Medal (for combat, that is), I regret to say that I honor my British Military Cross more than either of the U.S. decorations. At least our high brass is rationed in passing out Britain's combat awards . . .

R. T. BLAND JR.

West Point, Va.

Sir:

. . . Reminds me of the losing battle I fought with the adjutant general's office during and after the last war. It was on behalf of a fellow infantry squad leader who hauled a wounded MP out of the line of fire while the MP's commanding officer, a major, stood by and watched. For his eyewitnessed act of heroism the major got the award. No foolin' . . .

ROBERT W. COOPER Leola, Pa.

Sir:

Don't get yourself all worked up over medals. Everyone knows that a D.S.C. on a general is about the same as a Good Conduct ribbon on a G.I.

B. T. GORDON

Dallas

Lo&Lo

SIR:

A SERIOUS MISUNDERSTANDING HAS ARISEN OUT OF MY RECENT REPORT ON CONDITIONS IN HONG KONG [TIME, FEB. 12]. BECAUSE A MENTION OF THE HIGHLY RESPECTED FIRM OF LO & LO, SOLICITORS, DIRECTLY FOLLOWED A SENTENCE DEALING WITH PASSPORT SELLING, MESSRS. LO & LO AND PERHAPS SOME OTHERS OUT HERE FEEL THAT I MEANT TO STATE THAT LO & LO WERE ENGAGED IN THAT NEFARIOUS BUSINESS. SUCH IS NOT THE CASE, AND I APOLOGIZE FOR MAKING SUCH AN INTERPRETATION POSSIBLE. EACH SENTENCE IN THE PARAGRAPH REFERRED TO WAS INTENDED AS A SEPARATE VIGNETTE, AND THE REFERENCE TO LO & LO WAS MERELY TO ILLUSTRATE THAT THEY AND OTHERS IN THEIR PROFESSION WERE DOING A THRIVING BUSINESS AS SOLICITORS IN THIS BELEAGUERED CITY.

DWIGHT MARTIN HONG KONG

P:TIME, too, regrets its part in making such an interpretation possible.--ED.

Bad Case

Sir:

I am certainly no economist. But when 405 economists . . . unanimously agree that the Federal Reserve Board is right--and the Treasury wrong about supporting Government bond prices [TIME, Feb. 19]--isn't it time for the Congress to investigate the situation? . . .

Little wonder that this country has such a bad case of "Delirium Trumans"!

CARROLL WILLIS Wichita, Kans.

Up a Tree

Sir:

Let's hope TIME'S forest has more and better trees than the one shading Charlie Wilson's head on your Feb. 19 cover. The fruit, so abundantly sprouting from this tree's limbs, has surely proved deficient in the kind of vitamins the world (including the U.S.) needs most. If Artist Artzybasheff could graft on some Spiritual plums, some apples of Reason and a few pears of Understanding it would seem a lot healthier . . .

C. E. HAMMOND

Cranbury, N.J.

Sir:

Those were bitter acorns on Charlie Wilson'ss oak, which last season bore washing machines, toasters and television sets.

ARTHUR J. MORGAN New Rochelle, N.Y.

Sir:

I submit that Thomas Jefferson and some of the former inhabitants of Boston (circa 1776) . . . would literally gyrate right out of their caskets if it were suggested that the bellicose monstrosity on your cover represented their beloved liberty tree full grown. Obviously, with some radical pruning, the awful thing could be made to look presentable at the top, but surgery will hardly stop the totalitarian termites beginning to multiply within its roots . . .

WILLIAM M. ARMSTRONG Stanford, Calif.

To Create New Wealth

Sir:

Please accept my sincere thanks for the clear, informative and interesting Jan. 22 article on the Point Four ("Technical Assistance") Program, as exemplified by the work of Horace Holmes in India . . . You lived up to TIME'S reputation for packing a lot into a few words, for you caught both the method and the underlying spirit of the program.

You did much more than that, for you conveyed . . . the sense of what this basically simple method of showing others how to help themselves can mean, in creating food for the hungry and hope for the hopeless. This is done not by taking away anything we have, but by helping people create new wealth from the resources they already have. We know this can be done, because we have done it in India, in Liberia, in Latin America and elsewhere.

Arms are necessary to defend the free world, but arms alone are not enough. Hunger and hopelessness cannot be beaten with bullets and bombs; knowledge and skill, applied with understanding and compassion, are weapons we must use without stint if we are to win through . . .

HENRY G. BENNETT Technical Cooperation Administration Department of State Washington

By Order of the Board (Cent.)

SIR:

IN YOUR FEB. 26 ARTICLE ON "THE MIRACLE" YOU STATE THAT OF THE TEN REGENTS WHO JUDGED THE FILM, SIX ARE JEWS. THIS IS NOT SO ... OF THE 13 REGENTS NOW IN OFFICE, NINE ARE PROTESTANTS, TWO ARE CATHOLICS AND TWO ARE JEWS.

LEWIS W. OLIFFE

MEMBER NEW YORK STATE ASSEMBLY NEW YORK CITY

P:TIME'S thanks to Assemblyman Oliffe for correcting a proofreader's glaring transposition. Of the ten regents who voted to withhold the license of The Miracle, two were Catholics, six were Protestants, and two were Jews.--ED.

Anti-Freeze

Sir:

Re your Feb. 19 story of the Chicago woman who survived a body temperature of below 64DEG F., after being frozen to death (almost) while in a drunken stupor:

Thousands of dollars are being spent for research in the medical profession, and after this new unbelievable discovery, some of that money will doubtless go to solve the mystery of a body surviving a temperature that low.

I put anti-freeze in the radiator of my car, and some people use plain alcohol . . . RICHARD A. HELLER New York City

Political Zoology

Sir:

With all that has been written about Stalin, why hasn't someone pointed out that he is, undoubtedly, the world's greatest geneticist? He certainly made a monkey of Roosevelt, asses of plenty of "world statesmen," socalled, and already has Truman looking like a fish out of water.

MAYO TOLMAN Picayune, Miss.

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