Pride & Protest
Sir:
Your article about my country in the Feb. 28 edition made me even more proud and more cognizant of the fine job that Colonel Marcos Perez Jimenez is doing. As a Venezuelan, I would like to express my thanks for your article . . . It is a good way to better relations between the two countries.
OSCAR ANTONINI
Grinnell, Iowa
Sir:
I congratulate you for your article . . . Some people still think that Venezuela is an opera comique paradise, and that we live in a perpetual revolution followed by a perpetual siesta. Venezuela is an ultramodern democracy where everybody has to work or get out. (Much of the bad publicity has generally been made by those who have had to get out.) . . .
RENE BORGIA
New York City
Sir:
. . . Having spent the major portion of my life in South America, I am convinced that democracy as we know it will never work there . . . It is with such men as Perez Jimenez of Venezuela and Odria of Peru that Latin American countries will forge ahead . . .
JAMES I. MORTON
Berrien Springs, Mich.
Sir:
Your article was excellent, but you really should have emphasized the terror of this regime more than you did . . . In addition to the ice you mentioned, a favorite method of persuasion is the electric treatment . . . To drive a car here is as near to terror as can be. The traffic police can stop you for no reason whatsoever, accuse you of speeding (even if you are standing still), and haul you off to jail for a stay of ten days or a fine of anything up to $60.
The wealth that pours up out of the ground here is used to improve almost every state but Zulia (this one); a drive through the oilfields will leave you appalled by the dirt, squalor and misery that is the lot of anyone not lucky enough to be employed by the oil companies . . .
. . . If you love freedom, if you are used to American justice, free speech, free press and all the wonderful things that go with a democratic state, stay away from Maracaibo . . .
JOSE CONCHA
Maracaibo, Venezuela
Sir:
. . .When I left Caracas just four weeks ago, it was a bustling, lively city with a population rapidly approaching the million mark. Some miraculous shrinking must have taken place since (you report 87,000 population).
MAX LEHMANN
Portland, Ore.
P:No miracle; a printer lost one seven from the correct figure of 877,000.--ED.
The Ubiquitous Cadillac
Sir:
There must be millions of Americans to whom there is some ultimate goal in life other than owning a Cadillac, in spite of the manufacturer's seamy advertising appeals. But I wish TIME would not continue to dignify this nauseating notion . . .
Consider the issue of Feb. 28. You have Venezuela's President Perez Jimenez riding in his Cadillac limousine, Pennsylvania Bell Telephone President Gillen's picture over the caption "There is more to life than Cadillacs," the change in Huntington Beach, Calif. from shanty town to "Cadillac Lane," and the reference by the reviewer of John P. Marquand's new novel to the "middle-classic double play: Ford to Buick to Cadillac."
WILLIAM H. MORRIS
Rochester, N.Y.
P: TIME also regrets the traffic jam, but can accept responsibility only for the inventory of Novelist Marquand's garage.--ED.
Priests & Psychiatrists
Sir:
You stated that the priests and psychiatrists got along as though they were made for each other [Feb. 28]. A very personal experience has taught me that the two groups are made for each other. I believe that religion and psychiatry have a common goal--the realization of man's aspirations . . . Religion teaches us the way to spiritual happiness. Psychiatry teaches us the way to emotional happiness . . . Your fascinating forum coverage clearly shows the progress being made towards spiritual and mental peace.
TAN N. TRENITE
Takoma Park, Md.
Sir:
The psychiatric staff of Georgetown University Hospital is somewhat disturbed by the article . . . For well over five years this Roman Catholic hospital has been conducting a psychiatric outpatient clinic and treating over 200 patients per month . . .
ROBERT P. NENNO, M.D.
Georgetown University Hospital
Washington, D.C.
The Brothers
Sir:
TIME was probably not aware of it, but the two Egans pictured in its Feb. 28 edition (Father Willis Egan in Religion and Richard Egan under Cinema) are brothers. I knew both of them quite well both on and off the campus of the University of San Francisco and have not yet quite fully recovered from the experience!
The older, "Father Will," is hands-down the best-looking Jesuit in America and probably one of the brainiest. After some brilliant broken-field running through the Jesuit training program . . . he is back to his old stamping ground doing the thing he loves best: stirring up the 'happy vegetables' who populate the athletic teams . . . Younger brother "Rich" (by five or six years) has trained himself for his acting profession no less than Father Will . . . After walking off with every public-speaking and debating medal in the West, he returned after a tour to the South Pacific [as an artillery officer] to teach speech at U.S.F. and to work on a master's degree at Stanford . . . Hollywood called him after a scout caught his Othello in a Stanford Players production, and he has been slowly climbing the Hollywood heights ever since. He brings to his profession all the Christian virtues, asceticism, and hard work that his priestly brother brings to his . . .
KEN ALLEN
University of Vienna
Vienna, Austria
P:For a look at Father Will and Brother Rich together, --ED.
Breathing Under Water
Sir:
In your Feb. 28 review of the movie Underwater!, your reviewer mentions Jane Russell not being at her best "at ten fathoms with a tank of oxygen on her back and her teeth clamped on an Aqua-Lung." It is not likely that she would be. Compressed air, not oxygen, is used with an Aqua-Lung, and oxygen breathed at depths of more than about 35 ft. becomes highly toxic to the human body, resulting in convulsions, blackout, and eventully death . . .
FREDERICK & BARBARA CARRIER
New York City
The Offended Bulldog (Contd.)
Sir:
TIME'S sophisticated disdain of dogdom's antics at the Garden [Feb. 28] is unquestionably justified. Dog owners are a queer lot, and there is a serious question who is master, the owner or his dog.
But please let's get the record straight. A bulldog is not unsociable; it's love and affection with wrinkles on its face. It's not disobedient; it's will power and courage with a tail wag. It's not a brooder; it's patience and tenacity with the snuffles in its nose. And maybe, like all bulldogs, Jock "doesn't give a damn until he wants to give a damn," but those of us who are owned by bulldogs find they give a damn about the right things-like loving our kids and protecting our homes.
GEORGE A. EDWARDS
New York City
Sir:
. . . I am quoted as saying: "Bulldogs sit and brood--he never plays . . . Jock is the most disobedient dog--he just doesn't give a damn . . ." Perhaps I may have said all those things in an hour's time. However, I am most sure that I also said a great deal more about this lovable old breed. A bulldog is the most sociable, most lovable thing in the world. They love to play. They are mule stubborn, but not disobedient .
JOHN A. SAYLOR, M.D.
Long Beach, Calif.
Stormy Weather
Sir:
I don't believe Mr. Hagen of the Weather Bureau [Feb. 28] . . . will appreciate changing his name to Hogan, although he probably admires Ben very much . . .
JOHN A. CUMMINGS
Weather Bureau Office
Charleston, S.C.
Sir:
"Weather" or not [the bureau uses names of cities], TIME, Xenia is a city in Ohio! Tell Hagen & helpers!
PHIL GREENBAUM
Los Angeles
P:Not to mention a town in Illinois. The U.S. is also dotted with Alices (3) Floras (6), Hildas (2), Iones (7) Marthas (3), and Stellas (6), plus Edith, Texas, Gladys, Va., Peggy, Texas, Rosa, La., Ursa, Ill., Wilma, Fla. and Zelda, Ky.--ED.
Ambassador's Housewarming
SIR:
IN REPORTING AMBASSADOR ALDRICH's LONDON HOUSEWARMING PARTY, AT WHICH THE QUEEN WAS PRESENT, TIME, MARCH 7 ERRED IN SAYING THAT "LONDON'S PRESS NEXT DAY UPBRAIDED ALDRICH FOR HIS NEWS BLACKOUT AND THE BALLROOM MANNERS OF THE CRUDE AMERICANS . . ." NO PAPER CRITICIZED ALDRICH AND ONLY THE "EVENING STANDARD" COMMENTED ON THE MANNERS OF SOME AMERICANS PRESENT AT THIS SENSATIONALLY SUCCESSFUL SOCIAL FUNCTION.
ANDRE LAGUERRE
TIME INC.
LONDON
Very Welcome
Sir:
Many copies of the article you have published in TIME [Feb. 14] about myself have been sent to me from friends here and In America. Your reporter has made a good job of it, and I want to express my gratitude for the successful representation.
C. G. JUNG
Kuesnacht, Switzerland
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