Clout in Chicago

Sir: Congratulations on your fine cover story and pictures re Chicago [March 15].

You hit us where we have it coming, and also give us our bouquets.

Thank you for the fair treatment.

ED J. WOLF Chicago

Sir:

I demand specific retraction of TIME'S ir responsible assertion regarding Catholic motivation in the cover story on Mayor Richard J. Daley. Your line, "Daley's own Roman Catholic Church mounted campaigns against many of his projects," is substantiated only by the Hyde Park controversy.

Your explicit attribution of racial-exclusion motives to the church's fictional opposition to urban renewal is a gross and inexcusable calumny upon the Catholic Church and upon the person of Albert Cardinal Meyer.

The attitude of the Catholic Church in Chicago is clear from the record. In your flippant assessment of motivation, your re searchers failed in both the courtesy and the obligation to consult church officials who were involved in the Hyde Park controversy.

Your researchers likewise failed lo consult Peter Rossi's study of the Hyde Park controversy, Politics of Urban Renewal. Publication of unresearched, undocumented and unfounded libel upon the Catholic Church in a magazine of national circulation is a serious breach of press responsibility and, unless effectively correcled, stands as a reflection upon the integrity of TIME.

MSGR. JOHN J. EGAN Director of the Archdiocesan Conservation Council Chicago

> TIME, realizing the heat of the controversy, neither intended nor perpetrated calumny or libel. It respects Msgr. Elan's position, regrets his anger, and stands by its story. -- ED.

Sir:

While local parishes may take conflicting positions, as they are reported to have clone, in the difficult but imperative situation that surrounded the University of Chicago, Cardinal Meyer and his staff have been leaders in seeking equal rights for the Negro, including the difficult problem of housing. In fact, this was the subject of the cardinal's first major public pronouncement after coming to Chicago five years ago, when he said in part: "We must have community organization to ensure that Negroes do gain access to our communities . . ."

GEORGE F. SISLER President The Council of Protestant Churches Chicago Sir:

I moved from Chicago three years ago and never realized, until your cover article on the city, how much I'd missed it.

Thank you for showing its personality and individuality, and not once calling it the 'Windy City."

TOBY R. SIMON East Orange, N.J.

Sir:

TIME, March 15, states : Most beautiful waterfront of any U.S. city belongs to Chicago." Have you heard of Honolulu's?

WILLIAM H. EWING Editor Honolulu Star Bulletin Honolulu, Hawaii

Acumen in the Womb

Sir:

As the only Marwari student at Michigan State University, I was pleasantlv surprised by your article "The New Crorepathis" [March 1].

The accuracy of your quote "A Marwari gets business acumen in his mother's womb,'' can be proved in my own case. After pursuing an engineering curriculum for more than three years, I am now studying business administration as a fulltime student. In my spare time, I run a rooming house for students and sell magazines.

Despite the obvious shortcomings of Marwaris, I am proud to be one of them.

SHRI KUMAR PODDAR East Lansing, Mich.

Voyage to Venus

Sir:

Thank you, thank you for the clear, sharp reporting in your ''Voyage to the Morning Star" | March 8|.

For one who lives far outside the charmed circle of space scientists, it was like a peek into a room full of unimagined wonders; the most wonderful of all is that man has become so smart.

If any one effort can be said to be doing the most toward bridging the gap in our civilization between science and the humani ties (so deplored by Mr. C. P. Snow), it sure ly must be the writing of TIME'S science articles.

MARIE B. CHASE Chula Vista, Calif.

Sir:

I was particularly pleased to read your article on Dr. William Pickering. He is a modest and dedicated man and certainly one of our outstanding scientists.

The excellence of the piece, however, was badly marred by the observation, "He hur ried to Washington and hollered at Army generals, urging them to demand permission to launch the satellite. He waved his finger and banged on desks," etc. In the first place, Dr. Pickering's quiet modesty and intelligence are such that he never has had to resort to banging on desks and hollering, and in the second place your reporting is far from factual.

Dr. Pickering reported to me in the Pen tagon, and I can assure you that we were literally turning heaven and earth to get approval for the launching of a satellite. I was finally given a written order by the Secretary of Defense over a year before Sputnik went up forbidding me to launch a satellite. I still have the order in my possession. I think that the record is quite clear that those to whom you refer in the article were well aware of the importance of a satellite launching.

JAMES M. GAVIN Cambridge, Mass.

> Pickering may not have pounded within earshot of General Gavin, but pound he did. -- ED.

Sir:

Considering all the recent news interest in another Renaissance Italian lady, Mme. Gioconda, the Mona Lisa, I must congratulate you on your choice of Mme. Simonetta Vespucci's features to portray Venus. The expression of her eyes has always struck me far more than the former's smirk.

BURTON WRIGHT St. Joseph, Mo.

Sir:

A few months ago, Venusian scientists launched a compact bundle of sophisticated space instruments called Earth Explorer II into an orbit that approached Earth within 21,000 miles.

Following the report of the Jupiter-Pluto is Laboratories, known as JPL, which was the Government agency responsible for the exploration:

"Earth appears to be a dead and decaying planet, quite incapable of supporting any kind of life.

"Our telemetry equipment reported back to us that Earth is surrounded by a hostile atmosphere which is stabilized to a remarkable degree. Even in the upper atmosphere, winds do not attain a speed greater than about 200 m.p.h., while at the surface the winds appear to move at from 5 to 10 or 20 m.p.h. Thus any creatures living on this cold planet would remain more or less rooted to one spot, instead of flying through the atmosphere at our constant and comfortable speed of 800 m.p.h.

"A spectroscope aboard Earth Explorer II tells us that Earth's atmosphere is composed of a deadly compound made up of oxygen and carbon dioxide. In addition, the majority of the surface of Earth bears a peculiar liquid, chemically H2O, which is a deadly poison.

"Another startling fact revealed to us by closeup radio telescope pictures is that the light rays from the sun actually penetrate to the surface of Earth, bathing it in sunlight. I don't have to tell you how dangerous this is to life.

"Now we come to the most difficult hurdle to life of all -- the rotation of the planet. Any creatures living on Earth must be in a constant state of dizziness. The planet whirls around at a rate 265 times faster than our own planet !

"One final point before we lay to rest forever the myth of life on Earth. Our telemetry equipment noted a very faint residue of radiation in the upper atmosphere, which might point to a series of explosions, thought to be thermonuclear in origin. These explosions were of the type that were developed by our forebears about 200,000 years ago and abandoned as being too dangerous to our continued existence. The explosions noted were, however, far punier and feebler than our own.

"Some of the younger men of the JPL staff wondered whether this didn't evidence a kind of intelligent life on Earth. But JPL's considered judgment is that any creatures intelligent enough to have developed even so feeble an explosive force would be intelligent enough to see its potential dangers."

ERNEST TRICOMI

Haddonfield, NJ.

The New Leader

Sir:

TIME'S necessary effort to condense a complicated argument sometimes results in a vulgarization or caricature of a statement. I did not, in the New Leader (as reported in PRESS, March 1), accuse the International Ladies Garment Workers Union of "anti-Negro bias." I do not believe this to be the case at all.

What I did say was that in the I.L.G.W.U., as in many similar institutions, an aging leadership no longer reflected the composition of the membership; and the unwillingness of that leadership to retire--an understandable unwillingness since the leadership had built the institution--resulted in disparities in the union.

Actually, the I.L.G.W.U. has sought to recruit a leadership from its Negro members, but in many instances such individuals have found that their new skills have allowed them to go to higher-paying and higher-status jobs in Government and in other unions.

DANIEL BELL

Columbia University New York City

O, Where Are the Crackpots?

Sir:

TIME is taking all the fun out of life. First you tell me that the American Communist Party is 19% FBI men. Then you announce that the second funniest organization in the U.S., the Society for Indecency to Naked Animals, is a hoax [March 15]. Are there no serious, dedicated crackpots left ?

DOUG HOYLMAN Cambridge, Mass.

Auto Armor

Sir:

Your article concerning seat belts [March 8] has interesting possibilities. You inform us that beltmakers are urging two to six belts per car, then adding harnesses for children and shoulder straps for adults. Why not head straps and strait jackets? The belt-makers could even engineer a contrivance whereby the driver is actually welded to his seat. The ultimate is ominously, appallingly and relentlessly apparent: a revival of the medieval iron maiden.

EDWIN PETERSON Rockford, 111.

Sir:

Your picture of the young lady in the overturned car brought back a rather vivid memory for me. In April 1956 I found myself in an identical position, without a seat belt and with my car all but submerged in the icy American River. If I had had a seat belt on, I would undoubtedly have drowned, as I was unconscious. After somehow floating up through seat, steering wheel, etc., I came to, got out of the car, and made my way to the road without suffering so much as a scratch.

You would not have caught me dead in a seat belt until early this year, when it was my misfortune to witness a head-on collision at 80 m.p.h. Five people were critically injured ; none were wearing belts. Now I would not drive to the corner grocery without my belt on.

ROBERTA WEISS

San Francisco

Corbu at Harvard Sir:

Le Corbusier (March 8) has created a harmony between Harvard University and its surroundings. Harvard Yard is now a junkyard, in conformity with the sleazy slum of Cambridge, Mass., in which it is located.

L. B. DUMONT Los Angeles

Sir:

As an amateur photographer and as a student who attends lectures (on history of American architecture) twice weekly in the celebrated Corbu Visual Arts Center, I must commend J. Alex Langley on the excellence of his photographs of this sadly cramped building.

Thanks to his masterful pictures, we can finally view the center from its fairest angles and see the beauty we all hoped was there !

ANDREA S. MILLER Radcliffe College Cambridge, Mass.

Sir:

I read your issue of March 8, 1963, which includes an article in your own style on the Harvard Visual Arts Center.

I am asking you now to be good enough to send me the photographs that you reproduced, and any others of the same building which were not printed. I think that you will do me this service, and I thank you in advance.

Please accept, sir, my sincerest greetings.

LE CORBUSIER

> They're on the way. -- ED.

Grandfather's Gaffe

Sir:

Just to make me feel worse after reading the Eastman Kodak success story [March 8], can you give me any idea of what the $9,000 my grandfather was considering investing in Eastman Kodak in 1890 (he decided on Kansas City real estate instead, and the city moved in the opposite direction) would be worth today?

ALBERT M. LEACH New York City

> More than $15 million. -- ED.

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