Space for Thought
Sir:
Your Science article "Life on a Billion Planets" [March 3], is plain horse sense. Who the hell are we (on this planet) to believe we are the only humans in all the cosmic world? Astronomer Struve says: "It is perfectly conceivable that some intelligent race meddled once too often with nuclear laws and blew themselves to bits." This is just about what may hit us--if we keep monkeying around with nuclear fission.
VINCENT V. DANIELS Rutland Heights, Mass.
Sir:
Our earth is at least 2 billion years old; records have been preserved from only a few thousand years. It is therefore theoretically possible that inhabitants of other planets did visit our earth.
K. KAUFFMANN-GRINSTEAD Hot Springs National Park, Ark.
Sir:
As to the question of interplanetary communication, isn't it possible that if the universe, as we know it, developed its galaxies simultaneously, the intelligence of other planetary beings would parallel our own?
R. REAGAN SOULE Berkeley, Calif.
The Washington Fellers
Sir:
Surely most Americans prefer a Republican peace "recession" to a Democratic war "prosperity." Or have we forgotten that every major war in this century occurred under Democratic "leadership"?
CARROLL WILLIS Wichita, Kans.
Sir:
Your recent snide remarks about Ike's "vacations" are in poor taste. As Uncle Lem over in Vermont said: "When I go to Florida, I don't take the cows with me, and I can forget all about the chores. That feller in Washington can't seem to ever be able to do likewise."
R. H. MORSE Concord, N.H.
Sir:
Why all the "persecution" of the President ? Can't a great man relax without being jabbed at? Put away the whips, boys, and have no more of these demoralizing articles.
IRENE S. WINGER Bayside, N.Y.
Sir:
Regarding the FCC and Richie Mack story [March 10]: One might think that Truman was still in the White House.
HAROLD S. BRANCHE Watertown, N.Y.
Sex & Enjoyment
Sir:
Your March 10 criticism of the Reader's Digest articles on sex is annoyingly typical of the adolescent leer with which your editors approach the subject.
E. C. MULLINS Chicago
Sir:
TIME'S delightful rendition of Dr. Marion Hilliard's rarefied prose concerning the complexities of the intimate life reminded me of the story about a rural child-well-informed on such matters-who one day in early spring announced, "Our cat just had kittens, the cows are coming in fresh and Mommy is going to have a baby, but the pussy willows ain't done a thing yet."
ELIZABETH R. HILDRETH Philadelphia
Sir:
European women might cooperate a little more than our American women, however, most of the writers like Marion Hilliard and Dr. David Mace are bestseller-conscious and do not necessarily spend their lives researching in the field of mental health and sexology. I have spent 30 years of my life in this field of research and I wouldn't dare say I could teach humans how to enjoy their sex life.
ARTHUR GUY MATHEWS Little Neck, N.Y.
Marriage & Punishment
Sir:
I read, with repugnance, the March 10 account of the Italian couple who were declared "public sinners" and, in effect, were deprived of their economic livelihood by their Catholic bishop because they contracted a civil marriage. I do not believe the founder of Christianity established any church for this purpose (slander and coercion).
WM. ROTHEBY Devon, Pa.
Sir:
The case of Bellandi v. Bishop Fiordelli exposes the age-old intolerance of the Catholic Church. How much longer will people realize that there is no more freedom for dissenters behind the scarlet curtain (Italy, Spain, Colombia, etc.) than there is behind the Iron Curtain?
H. R. HILLS Pana, Ill.
Sir:
I would like to see what would happen in this country if such a case occurred. While millions of Roman Catholics in the U.S. have no choice but to go along with the Pope's indignation, it is a good argument against an R.C. for President.
CLYDE BURROUGHS San Diego
Unitarians, Unite!
Sir:
As a Unitarian minister, my gratitude to TIME, March 10, for "Unitarians, Come Out!" The article may serve to awaken some of our denominational leadership to the great tragedy which is taking place within Unitarianism at the present time. There still are many of us who do not consider ourselves above Christianity.
(THE REV.) EDWIN C. BROOME The Flatbush Unitarian Church Brooklyn
Sir:
The Rev. Ralph Stutzman, clothed in clerical robe and ego, wants to "come out" of Christianity, presents to earth and heaven the ludicrous spectacle of a man, facing the rock of ages, destruction-bent with peashooter in hand.
MARGUERITE BALLOU San Bernardino, Calif.
Sir:
While Protestantism and particularly Catholicism are for the weak and ignorant, Unitarianism offers genuine intellectual freedom for those strong enough to bear it.
RITCHIE D. MIKESELL Champaign, Ill.
In a Pig's Eye
Sir:
According to my dictionary, the first meaning of the word "sow" is the "full-grown female of the swine." Therefore, I question the type of "priestly inauguration" held in Jerusalem between 73 and 63 B.C. that served "oysters" (no scales or fins) and "mussels" (no scales or fins) and "sow's udder" (Thou shalt not eat the flesh of any animal that doth not chew the cud nor have a cloven hoof). Will you please explain what type of "priest" was inaugurated at the "sumptuous repast" referred to by Author O'Brien in The Bible Cookbook [March 10] ?
JAMES STERN Atlanta
P:TIME had the right menu but the wrong restaurant. The binge was a Roman feast probably served, says Author O'Brien, for Caesar.--ED.
The Major & the Slicky Boy
Sir:
I, a former military police officer returned from Korea, would like to voice a loud "hurrah," not only for Major Thomas James, but for your tactful story on a Korean "Slicky Boy" [March 10]. If anything, your article understated the plague which confronts our armed forces in Korea and the almost complete lack of anything but token cooperation from Korean civil and military authorities.
W. A. SMITH Ann Arbor, Mich.
Sir:
You state that "South Korea's poor steal from the U.S. Army." I wonder if you have ever given any thought as to how many American soldiers collaborate in the act of stealing, or just how many steal their own goods and sell them to the Korean merchants? Let us remember that the "slicky boy" is not only a victim of the cold war, but also a byproduct of the unsettled Korean question.
YOUNGNOK KOO Nashville
Sukarno at Home
Sir:
Thank you again for the complete and interesting March 10 story about Indonesia and its nationalist leader Sukarno who has the nerve to compare himself with a George Washington. The colonels in Sumatra are fighting for a good cause in opposing a government led by Sukarno.
PETER J. HOMBURG Los Angeles
Sir:
I hope the members of our Congress may start to question their wisdom when, gullibly, they provided the red-carpet treatment for the globetrotting Sukarno.
L.F.V.P. VANDERHORST Topeka, Kans.
Sir:
Having spent several days last year with President Sukarno in Djakarta. I can greatly appreciate your story. Being familiar with Indonesian politics, I recently discovered in East Berlin how far the Chinese personal flattery of Sukarno had gone. At a bookshop on Stalin Alice there is for sale a really fantastic two-volume edition containing a complete collection in full color of Sukarno's private collection of paintings, with text in Chinese, Russian and Indonesian. The printing of the two volumes must have cost a small fortune, and looking at them, it was obvious that the edition had been made for personal flattery purposes only. Amusingly enough, the collection includes full-color pictures of paintings by all the artists who have been booted out of Bali during the last two months.
SAM WAAGENAAR Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Now Is the Time
Sir:
Re your letters [March 10] on Missileman von Braun and the late Anne Frank articles: they seem to have started quite a flow of ever free-falling American tears. America thought the German people were destroyed, but time has showed the indomitable German to, in the end, protect the American people from destruction. Americans had best be thankful they have someone like Von Braun to keep the Bolshevik wolves in Russia.
WYN COATES Dayton, Ohio
Sir:
I am glad that the vast majority of the American people do not think as Mr. K. Sternberg does, but give young German people like myself the opportunity to study in this country for the sake of deep mutual understanding and in order to prove that we have no "Nazi killer instinct."
KLAUS FLECK University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia
Sir:
I'm thankful that Hitler is dead, that Von Braun is here, and that Explorer is up there.
JANET MASSARO Austin, Texas
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