Man of the Year

Sir:

The Austrian who, without requiring applause, shares his food, his home and his freedom with the Hungarian refugees.

JOSEPH C. O'CONNELL

New York City

Sir:

The following must come into the reckoning: Nasser, Eden, Khrushchev, Eisenhower, Hammarskjold, Pope Pius XII and the Hungarian people.

FINBARR M. SLATTERY

Asdee, Ireland

Sir:

I nominate B. & K. Nasser is a good runner-up, but he forms only a chapter in the greater B. & K. volume.

FRANC I. OBIKA

Agbor, Nigeria, West Africa

Sir:

The most outstanding figures are:

Heroes: Nasser, Ike, Dag.

Villains: Eden, Mollet, Ben-Gurion.

S. MAQSOOD RAZA

Karachi, Pakistan

Sir:

Israel's Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, for proving that a leader can still be both right and forceful.

GERALD N. WINN

Chicago

Sir:

Dag Hammarskjold. We may bow to him for preventing a major war in the Middle East. LAURENS BOGERS

Willemstad, Curac,ao

Netherlands West Indies

Sir:

President Eisenhower--a great war leader, a great statesman, the acknowledged leader of the free world and the hope of countless millions of the enslaved behind the Iron Curtain.

WILLIAM COOKE

Rye, Sussex, England

Sir:

Richard M. Nixon, our next President.

BILL BAYER

Miami

Sir:

The discriminating and superbly informed American voter.

JACQUES A. SIDI

Casper, Wyo.

Sir:

John Foster Dulles--a man of great moral courage who has brought strength into the State Department and, even more, has shed a new light on the whole concept of statesmanship.

.BETTY HANKWITZ

Philadelphia

Sir:

Harry S. Truman, the man who predicted that the Democrats could not win with Adlai Stevenson.

LOUIS PAUL

Corpus Christi, Texas

Sir: Elvis.

JOYCE RICHARD

Scottsbluff, Neb.

Sir:

The white-collar clerk who earns $75 per week, has a wife and three kids, and stays honest.

JACOB G. MOSES

Baltimore

Revolt in Hungary

Sir:

The kidnaping of Imre Nagy again highlights the history of treachery and moral depravity of the Soviet leaders. The Hungarian massacre has shown that the use of moral persuasion against those who have no moral standards is useless. If the U.N. cannot act, and "we can only act like men," let us act with heart and arms lest history describe us as asses who fought for liberty with nothing more than our jawbones.

LAWRENCE M. JOSEPH

1st Lieutenant, U.S.A.F.

c/o Postmaster

San Francisco

Sir:

I wonder if we are not missing an important point. The Hungarians were fighting, apparently, for Hungarian Communism as advocated by Mr. Nagy, as opposed to Russian-dominated Communism under Mr. Kadar. But both governments are Communist.

ROBERT P. MOLTEN

Lancaster County, Pa.

Sir:

Many letters written you regarding the Hungarian uprising have accused America of "big talk" but little action. Although America may seem to be showing cowardice, the incident in Hungary is, among other things, bait for the Western powers. If we fall' for this bait by acting without considering the effect of our actions on the national security, we shall be "crushed," as Khrushchev so wildly declaimed. Who, then, would the Hungarians and other oppressed turn to for refuge?

MARY ALICE BUCHHOLZ

Seattle

Turmoil in the Middle East

Sir:

The words spoken by a British paratroop colonel citing the Anglo-French invasion of Egypt as "a bloody good exercise" and expressing his part in it as "a lot of fun and very interesting" might well have been spoken by a Russian colonel citing the crushing of Hungary and expressing his part in the slaughter of the Hungarian people.

SP/2 PAUL S. FORD

U.S. Army

c/o Postmaster

San Francisco

Sir:

It ill behooves TIME to criticize Sir Anthony Eden. Regardless of what Ottawa says, the majority of Canadian citizens were heartily in agreement with the British and French stand. The U.S.A., as usual, won't wake up until it is almost too late.

G. RAE

Vancouver, B.C.

Sir:

The great majority of the British people are fundamentally decent, law-abiding and peace-loving people, whose greatest faith and hope lie in an effective U.N. and an enduring Anglo-American alliance. Do not lose faith in these people because of the criminal actions of the Eden government.

F.E. LAMOND

London

The U.N. Role

Sir:

Perhaps now that the U.N. has shown how ineffectual it really is in a crisis, people will stop thinking of it in terms of a Congress or a Parliament on a grander scale. As a means of exchanging ideas and ideals, it is a fine organization, but it would be far better if it were physically located in the Soviet Union, where a free exchange of this type would be a novel experience for the population. As an arbiter in maintaining law and order, the U.N. is a howling bust. Moral indignation has saved few people from a firing squad.

JOHN A. TIMOUR

Washington, B.C.

Sir:

So far, the U.N. has been able to fulfill basic world needs, and by its very survival and growth has proven itself vital. What more proof of this do we need than the formation of a flesh-and-blood U.N. police force in reaction to this very invasion of Egypt?

JOHN SIMONS JR.

Los Angeles

Sir:

Let Hammarskjold do something positive in Hungary, where the U.S.A., hiding behind the U.N., is too scared to interfere.

M. MULLER

Basel, Switzerland

The U.S. Role

Sir:

If, in the last four years, the President had made a series of "crisp, rippling decisions" about anything but the color of his ties, or had "moved surefootedly" to anywhere but the nearest golf course, the U.S. would not now be forced to "patch and clean up the Western Alliance."

MRS. SUSAN ROSENBERG

Orleans, France

Sir:

Why don't you birds wise up that U.S. State Department policy on Red Egypt now is just about as cockeyed as Britain's policy on Red China used to be?

WERNER FUCHS

Cologne, Germany

The Lady Goes Home

Sir:

Re your story on the resignation of Clare Boothe Luce as ambassador to Italy [Dec. 3], the monarchist (but emphatically not fascist) press has indeed commented upon her departure. The monarchist magazine Candido, edited by Giovanni Guareschi (creator of The Little World of Don Camillo), said:

"Now that Mrs. Luce is about to leave us, we shall miss the grace, sweetness and firmness with which she fitted into the Italian scene . . . She is a lady of whom many Italians have become very fond . . . Everyone will be sorry to see her go, especially those irreconcilable supporters of the stronger sex who were not pleased with the idea of seeing an ambassador in skirts in our capital city. Mrs. Luce has shown herself to have the stature of her post. Only a few people, and even fewer diplomats, have understood the reality and the spirit of the Italian woman like this woman has, probably because she approached our country in the first instance with her heart. For her clarity and her honesty, we are grateful . . ."

WALTER GUZZARDI

Rome

P:TIME gladly reports the Candido opinion as evidence of the basic pro-American sentiments of Italian monarchists.--ED.

Tender Elvis

Sir:

Your Nov. 26 account of Elvis Presley and his new picture Love Me Tender is terrible. The things said about Elvis were very cruel.

KAY HARMON

Toulon, Ill.

Sir:

About your criticism of Love Me Tender. We Elvis fans would like to see your movie reviewer stuffed with ground glass.

MRS. MILDRED H. NETTS

Springfield, Ohio

Sir:

I am a ninth-grade student. I also am a fan of Presley's, but the way you described him in your review is really a kick. Every time I read it I go into fits of riotous laughter.

RON SPENCER

Compton, Calif.

Hot Dogs

Sir:

In "pre-Spanish times" where did the Mexican Indians get the bananas which, along with corn, they used to stuff their Xolo dogs and bring them to hoglike fatness [TIME, Nov. 26] ?

LOUIS O. WILLIAMS

Tegucigalpa, Honduras

Sir:

It is very doubtful that the Xolos were stuffed with bananas in pre-Spanish times. The best authorities believe that the banana was introduced to this hemisphere after 1492. Yes, we had no bananas before Columbus discovered us.

ADALBERTO GORBITZ

Lima, Peru

P: Yes. ED

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