Death of a Statesman

Sir:

No article written by the uninspired hand of a man could be more faithful to fact and truth than your Aug. 1 review of Cordell Hull's life. When I was a lad, the Hull family were neighbors. I knew them well. Your picture of Billy Hull is true to life . . . Likewise, the word picture of the career of Cordell Hull does not depart from fact and truth. It reveals the heart and mind of him --America's most respected statesman of modern times.

M. O. GOODPASTURE

Memphis, Texas

The Secret Service

Sir:

Your Aug. 1 issue quotes a nameless Swiss girl who allegedly said that the U.S. Secret Service agents assigned to the protection of the President at Geneva were "like gangsters" . . . that "Swiss civilians who happened to have their hands in their pockets when the President passed were startled to have husky U.S. Secret Service men grab them and pull their hands clear." This statement is absolutely untrue. I was in Geneva, and there were no such incidents. Agents of this service had no need to approach any spectator, and did not touch anyone.

In performing their prescribed duties, the agents acted just as they would in this country whenever the President visits a city outside of Washington, and the same precautions were taken in Switzerland as we would take in the U.S. There was no reflection on the Swiss people any more than there would be on the citizenry of any place the President might visit in America. The Swiss police were most cooperative, and were as anxious as we were to see that the President arrived and departed safely ....

U. E. BAUGHMAN

Chief, U.S. Secret Service

Washington, B.C.

P: TIME correspondents, who eyewitnessed one of the incidents to which Secret Service Chief Baughman takes exception, and heard from other reliable newsmen of the second, are as mindful as any U.S. citizens of the need for the service's efficient protection of the President. Unfortunately, many Genevans, who may not remember that three U.S. Presidents have been assassinated while in office (with unsuccessful attempts made on four others), were surprised at the vigilance that passes as necessary routine in the U.S.--ED.

At the Summit (Contd.)

Sir:

I must compliment you on your Aug. 1 cover. At close inspection the faces of these four famous individuals tell a story not only of themselves but of the countries they represent . . .

STEPHEN J. PALMER

Zanesville, Ohio

Sir:

What a hell of a picture of Ike! . . .

LAWRENCE FEYE

St. Elmo, Ill.

Sir:

. . . Thanks to Boris Chaliapin for the delightful July 25 cover of Bulganin.

MARY M. DISQUE

Pittsburgh

The Woman in the House

Sir:

I have just finished your Aug. 8 article on the "Male at Bay" and wish to go on record as agreeing 100% with John Fischer. As a WAVE during the Korean crisis, as well as when serving on active duty during World War II, I have seen the effects on American manhood of these thoroughly selfish American women--both wives and career women, who consider themselves far too intelligent and attractive to lower themselves by becoming wives and mothers . . .

MRS. A. J. PINDER

Boston

Sir:

Immature U.S. males come to marriage demanding Monroe-built mammas who will pamper and flatter, raise children, keep house while holding down an outside job, make do with last year's girdle, and still stay stacked enough to rank with movie queens.

MARGARET LANE

Berkeley, Calif.

Sir:

Only a pampered husband, swathed in editorial cotton wool, could possibly have written the "acid ode" on U.S. wives . . . I'm afraid Editor Fischer wanted a lot of free publicity for himself and his magazine, but hit on a poor means of getting it. Why doesn't he cut himself loose from his wife's apron strings and find out firsthand what American men and women are really like, and then write his piece . . .?

MARGARET MATSON

New York City

Goya & Ethics

Sir:

Your masterly Aug. 1 article on Goya is another timely blow in your Art department's strategic defense of the traditional values of humanistic art against the idiocies of anti-moralistic modernism. Especially in two phrases do you capture the crisis of ethics in modern art today in all mediums. First, when you speak of Goya's Disasters of War as handling "only villains and victims," for this is what modern editors precisely wish modern fiction and modern drama to delineate. Secondly and more important, when you add, "Goya was a moralist," for there you strike at the root of the trouble in the modern arts. Editors, museum directors, theater producers do not wish a modern creative artist to be a moralist--they fear to alienate the paying public by "preaching" at them . . .

FITZROY DAVIS

Highland Park, NJ.

The Widening Frontier

Sir:

I enjoyed your Aug. 1 article on "King Davy and Friends," although I would be happy if I never heard of Davy again. With three boys between six and twelve, we have had more than our share of the Ballad . . .

ELIZABETH G. STEVENS

Pittsburgh

Sir:

We viewed with interest the versions of the so-called Ballad of Davy Crockett. There are undoubtedly few people who realize that this is a typical bourgeois, capitalistic, warmongering act in which the authors have--as usual--taken credit for an invention by the great Russian people. We present our original translation of this great Soviet folk song --Ballad of Joey Stalin:

Born proletarian down Georgia way

Purging the party boys was his play,

Reared underground so he knew every score

Killed him a kulak when he was only four.

Joey, Joey Stalin, king of the party line.

The peasants were happily plowing their

land

The grain they grew wasn't Socialist brand

Someone told Joey, he raised the alarm,

Now they all starve on a collective farm.

PEGGY FRASER JANICE ARLETH

Washington, D.C.

Sir:

How could you exclude this deserving version:

Born in a mansion in Beverly Hills,

Raised on gin and vitamin pills.

Kilt his sister when he was only three,

And spent ten years in the penitentiary . . .

JEFF KINGSTON

Erie, Pa.

Sir:

On top of old Smokey,

All covered with snow,

I saw Davy Crockett

Kiss Marilyn Monroe.

I suppose it was inevitable.

MRS. JOHN C. FERGUSON

Oakland, Calif.

Businessmen in Government

Sir:

I note in the Aug. 1 issue of TIME some tears shed for the plight of Harold Talbott, and the plaint is made that Talbott's troubles are "high-octane fuel" for the Democratic campaign. The very reasonable point is also made that this case will further complicate the problem of getting able businessmen to serve in Government . . . This is not the first time that excesses in political campaigns have come home to plague the Republicans that made them. The G.O.P. made such an issue of mink coats and corruption under Truman that it has become extremely vulnerable to charges of corruption itself . . .

Why not, in view of the temptation to capable men to remain in private business, pay a job like Talbott's in accordance with the talent demanded for it? Surely the nation could have afforded to pay Talbott enough of a salary so that he would feel no reluctance to take the job, even though he did have to forgo his private income . . . General Motors can, Ford can--all of them with annual budgets smaller than the U.S. Government . . .

ALFRED B. MASON

Camp Lejeune, N.C.

Sir:

You are to be commended for the spirit of forbearance in which you discuss "l'affaire Talbott." I cannot help wondering how you would have dealt with a similar situation if it had occurred in the Truman Administration ... Is your indifference to the grave moral issue involved only one more symptom of the corroding cynicism which is the curse of our Western civilization?

DAVID FICHMAN

New Orleans

Broker's Report

Sir:

We were quite disturbed about "The Raiders," an article which appeared in the July 25 issue of TIME. At the bottom of the second column, Harris, Upham's name is mentioned in a manner that is contrary to the facts.

As a firm, we never take a position. We simply act as brokers. This article implies that we bought for our own account, which is not true ... It also implies, by using the word "secretly," that we were doing something out of the ordinary. As you well know, every order we handle is on a confidential basis, and we treat our clients' business the same as does a lawyer or a doctor and do not publish to the high winds what our customers are doing . . .

HENRY U. HARRIS

Harris, Upham & Co.

New York City

P: TIME should have said that Manhattan's Pennroad Corp. bought stock through Harris, Upham, which served as a broker in the deal, not as a partner. Result of the operation, as TIME stated: the streamlining and expansion of several companies to the ultimate benefit of the stockholders.--ED.

The Umbrageous Umbrella

Sir:

. . . Are our statesmen now to go umbrellaless? In the Aug. 1 issue, you informed me that Vice President Richard Nixon banned umbrellas at the homecoming of President Eisenhower from the Summit.

Although I am not defending ... it, the umbrella is a most ingenious and useful object, and I do think that it is a shame that the Vice President has made it difficult for our statesmen to pick up their umbrellas without thinking first of Chamberlain . . .

JACK L. RAY

Seal Beach, Calif.

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