Man of the Year

Sir:

Grimly, unquestionably, the Man of the Year is the Soviet space scientist.

CHARLES BONSTED

New York City

Sir:

Somehow I have a deep, disquieting, indeed fearful premonition that TIME will select Governor Faubus.

WILLIAM B. LIPPHARD

Yonkers, N.Y.

Sir:

Just as the Hungarian Freedom Fighter received TIME'S Man of the Year award last year, so should the brave Negroes of Little Rock be selected for this year's title.

K. WILLIAM PATRICK

Beloit, Wis.

Sir:

Lew Burdette.

JOHN R. COAN

Minneapolis

Grandma Had It Better?

Sir:

With the arrival of TIME and the repairman article came a broken faucet in the bathroom and an odd noise in the transmission of the car. The TV set (last week's trouble: condenser) now needs a new picture tube. At times like this I wonder if Grandma's day wasn't better. At least the only thing that broke down then was Grandma.

Jo ANNE LEVY

San Francisco

Sir:

How clever is your cover; how true its contents.

EMMA S. MARCUS

Philadelphia

Sir:

What this country needs is a pushbutton to end all pushbuttons -to send the whole mess into one junk heap. The gadget-drunk public is the dupe of a gigantic industrial swindle geared to the plan of speeding the necessity of replacement. No more mechanical junk shall cross my threshold. I'm off for the hills, behind old Dobbin.

SARA WASHINGTON

Nashville

Sir:

Congratulations on your sensible article. Now perhaps more people will invest in the local laundry service and the nearest public library for their entertainment.

MRS. ELLIOTT ARENSMEYER

New York City

Moon Glow

Sir:

Let us congratulate Russia on finally getting a first.

M. L. VINCENT JR.

Lake Charles, La.

Sir:

Congratulations on your color spread of the mighty Atlas fizzle at three miles. The Russians also had a scoop at the same time - which beat us by 557 miles. When will the U.S. awaken -- or will high-level bickering and indifference, strikes at atomic weapon plants, and official stupidity prevail?

JOSEPH J. GABRY

Albuquerque

Sir:

While Engine Charlie quipped his way through his term as top man in U.S. defense, the Russians launched sputnik ; interservice rivalry flared worse than ever; recent cut backs in military spending have demoralized the armed forces. Now, heaven help us, we have a soapmaker in charge.

PAT JOHNSTON

New York City

Sir:

Perhaps this Administration will succeed in firing a golf ball or tranquilizer pill into a satellite orbit by the time the Russians occupy the moon.

MARY D. GRIMES

New York City

Sir:

The U.S. doesn't need an artificial satellite to circle the globe every couple of hours. We've got John Foster Dulles.

MAURICE MURPHY

Los Angeles

Sir:

Politicians are acting like old grads when the eleven loses two games in a row. By all means shoot Eisenhower, Engine Charlie, the Chiefs of Staff, the scientists, even Harry Truman and Eleanor Roosevelt. We can still deliver the ultimate weapon, too, by a missile of shorter range from a plane, from a submarine, or just in an old-fashioned suitcase smuggled across a border.

RALPH H. MORSE

Concord, N.H.

Sir:

I say thanks to Russia. May their little moon shock this country right off its arrogant pedestal.

EMILY E. SCHOFIELD

Gladstone, Mich.

Sir:

One of the oldest tricks of political self-preservation is shooting the (fire) works. With food prices skyhigh, unsanitary housing, insufficient transportation, Poles rioting, Hungarians grumbling, Chinese thinking, a guy has to do something to stay in business ; Nikita therefore had to shoot the sputnik to give them something to shout about. Their "moonitchko" is only the result of a desperate gamble to catch the imagination (of the Russians) and the headlines (of the West). To yell at our own scientists and planners because they are taking their time to produce a product for space research is merely harmonizing with Nikita's tune and falling for the decoy.

JOHN H. HAAS

Washington, D.C.

Sir:

The Reds have won the century's most valuable propaganda victory. Apologists for the late demigods are already at work, of course. But America's blind faith in its technocrats is at an end. We still know the difference between words and deeds - and now we want deeds.

JAMES RANSOM

Iowa City, la.

Sir:

I think it is only natural for Russians to be first on the moon. After all, they have more reasons to seek refuge from this planet.

JOSEPH R. WECHSLER

Chicago

Sir:

When the sput goes out of sputnik, what will the Russians have left? Nicks or nix?

ANNE E. LOFTIN

Detroit

Accidents Will Happen

Sir:

Your Oct. 14 item, on the Interstate Commerce Commission's statement that Riss & Co.'s vehicles from 1951 through 1953 were involved in 1,200 accidents resulting in 51 deaths and 501 injuries, is accurate. How ever, statistics can be deceiving, and in this case they are just that. During those years our vehicles traveled 173,579,176 miles and our accident frequency for each 100,000 miles of driving was 1.24. Included are accidents involving dented fenders, and those in which our vehicles were legally parked and struck by another vehicle. It is not my purpose to have a statistical debate with the ICC, but I do not feel that our record is shocking when viewed in a true light. The area in which we operate includes about two-thirds of our nation's population.

RICHARD R. Riss

Kansas City, Mo.

Tilt at the Kilt

Sir:

Re Major Claud MacBeth Moir's quote concerning the Black Watch show: ''Possibly some old regimental officers might turn in their graves [at the jazzed-up regimental routine], but I hope not. I think they would be proud." Well here's an ex-regimental officer who's neither old (33) nor dead nor proud ! When a single battalion can field 100 entertainers, it's time for the "Auld Forty Twa" to turn in its kilts and be issued leotards. Aside from the war of the American Revolution and Suez, this is the most asinine campaign British troops have ever participated in.

JEROME E. KELLEY

Troy, N.Y.

Remembered

Sir:

To say that I am very pleased with the review of the Casals film would be putting it mildly. I suddenly realize that the "source" of this film-river was TIME, Jan. 30, 1950, which carried not only a glowing review of The Titan under CINEMA, but also a brilliant account in the Music section called "The Exile of Prades." This piece ended with a quote from Casals, ". . .someone must remember," and I was made to remember. I quickly wrote a treatment for a documentary feature film on Casals, but it never came off. In the course of promoting it, I was brought into contact with Gerald Warburg. Four years later, Mr. Warburg "remembered," and said that if we weren't able to have a feature film of Casals we should at least have a modest record of his performance for posterity. I agreed, of course, and he prevailed with the Eda K. Loeb Fund, through the Mannes College of Music, to commission me to make the little film. I fondly wish there were some way that Warburg and the Loeb Fund could get proper credit - and TIME, too.

ROBERT SNYDER

Los Angeles

P:How's this? - ED.

Sir:

Your interpretation of A Visit with Pablo Casals was as close to genius as Casals' music is, I am not much given to tears in today's world, but your Oct. 7 review moved me much as the film and the music must have moved your reviewer.

R. M. GRINDLE

Kenduskeag, Me.

God & Man at Princeton

Sir:

After reading about the Roman Catholic chaplain's attack on the faculty and the policies of Protestant Princeton, I would like to know how the Protestant chaplain at Notre Dame feels about that university's policies and faculty.

JAMES HOOD

San Diego, Calif.

P:There is no Protestant chaplain at Notre Dame. - ED.

Sir:

"It's sickening to watch these totalitarian papists pretending, for the time being, to be democratic Americans.

E. S. BAUER

San Francisco

Sir:

When the learned faculty succeeds in so disorienting young Catholic minds as to turn them against their priest, it can be truly said that Princeton is a center of ''moral and political subversion."

FRANK A. SENESI

Jamaica Plain, Mass.

Schools & Skin

Sir:

I am glad the U.S. has not yet penetrated outer space. The American spacemen would want to start a "democracy" on the moon. I am sure the moon people would not like to send their children to separate schools just because their skin is green.

DOROTHY TYLER

Houston

Sir:

I am ashamed of my white face.

SANDRA ZAROODNY

Havre de Grace, Md.

Sir:

I wonder if the segregationists' Christmas cards will say "Peace on earth, good will toward men"?

D. OLIVER

Chicago

Sir:

As a student of Little Rock Central High School, I would like to commend you very highly on your fair reporting.

BETTY GATES

Little Rock, Ark.

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