Richard's Almanac
Sir:
The April 26 cover article on Richard Burton was marvelous! Finally someone has come around to putting "his" picture on the cover instead of "hers." Good show!
B. ELIZABETH HEARNE Atlanta
Sir:
You have prostituted the prestige of your cover.
(MRS.) BETTY SORENSEN Visalia, Calif.
Sir:
Having seen Mr. Burton several years ago in the notable movie Look Back in Anger, I sincerely hope that he will forsake his tempestuous temptress and again pursue the great acting feats of which he is so capable.
MRS. MARVIN N. NELSON Provo, Utah
Sir:
Thank you for the brilliant coverage of Richard Burton's canonization. When the dashboard statues are ready, I want one.
JACK RILEY WERE Radio Cleveland
Sir:
A wonderful article on Mr. Burton. Whenever was such a birthright sold for such a mess of pottage ?
(MRS.) MARY ROBBELOTH Washington, B.C.
Sir:
If I see one more picture of Richard Burton or Elizabeth Taylor or Joseph Mankiewicz on the cover of a national magazine, I'll scream.
BILL EVERDELL Princeton University Princeton, N.J.
Sir:
The story of mankind: incredible genius balanced exactly with incredible stupidity!
JOHN DE MAIO New Providence, N.J.
Sir:
I was especially pleased with the way in which you presented the choices open to Mr. Burton and with the decisive way in which you said what many of us feel had to be said about the Taylor-Burton affair.
(THE REV.) ARTHUR F. HAGY JR. The Methodist Church Granville, N.Y.
Sir:
In the 17th century, John Dryden summed it all up when he called his play about Antony and Cleopatra All for Love: or, the World Well Lost.
ROBERT D. FANER Professor of English Southern Illinois University Carbondale, 111.
Sir:
Move over, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Shakespeare, and make room for John McPhee. He well deserves a place among you, for in his penetrating study of Richard Burton, he has created a character in the heroic, tragic tradition of Prometheus, Oedipus, Orestes, and Hamlet.
(MRS.) JENNIE MORRIS Fresno, Calif.
Sir:
My Welsh mother always said that with problem boys up to the age of 50, you either wipe their noses or whack their backsides. Would suggest the latter, with a No. 6 shovel.
TOM CROSS
Kowloon, Hong Kong
New Man Next Door
Sir:
Congratulations on your clear and straightforward cover article on Canada's 14th Prime Minister, Lester B. Pearson [April 19]. Like most Canadians, I am extremely proud of our new P.M., and it was very gratifying to read your excellent article on his career. It was the first time I have read such flowing words of praise for a Canadian leader in an American publication. In past years, Canadians have felt like the country cousin in the North American continent. Now, under the capable and bold leadership of "Mike" Pearson, we may again be conisdered a hard-working and prosperous neighbor.
WENDY Lou GAMBLE
Toronto
Sir:
Mr. Diefenbaker is firstly a Canadian and secondly a politician. He doesn't tenaciously covet power. He fights to do what is best for Canada. Mr. Diefenbaker did not stir up anti-Americanism. He isn't anti-American. He is pro-Canadian, as every Prime Minister should be. He is concerned for the welfare of Canada and is unafraid to stand up and to defend the rights and freedom of Canada and Canadians.
Mr. Diefenbaker is not a northern Harry Truman. He is a Canadian John Diefenbaker.
MARHALL WM. CONLEY McMaster University Hamilton, Ont.
Sir:
In the Pearson story you wrote, "Politics is the art of the possible." I have been searching for the author of that quote. Can you help me ?
PETER B. SCULLY Queen's University Kingston, Ont. >> It is generally attributed to Bismarck.--ED.
The Oldest
Sir:
I read in your Letters column of April 5 that Charles A. Lindbergh Jr. was the youngest person to be on the cover of TIME. Could you please tell me who was the oldest person ever to appear on the cover ?
Chardon, Ohio JOAN KOVATS
>> Amos Alonzo Stagg, who was 96 when he appeared on Oct. 26, 1958. Runner-up: Grandma Moses, 94 (Dec. 28, 1953).--ED.
Thank You, Doctor
Sir:
We read with a great deal of interest your article on cancer in the April 19 Medicine section.
We were particularly glad about the news on Wilms's tumor. Our daughter had lung surgery at Children's Hospital, Boston, for this difficulty when she was 21. She is now nearly twelve, and we will always feel that she owes her life to the wonderful work of Dr. Farber and other dedicated men of research who have spent countless hours in the study of these problems.
I am sure there are thousands of parents --and children too--who feel as we do regarding Dr. Farber and his staff, and who pray for their continued progress in the fight against this disease.
MR. AND MRS. J. L. WOODWORTH Denver
Enough
Sir:
I sometimes think that your cinema reviewer (one can't call him a critic) is desperately afraid that his ineptness at his job may escape the reader. The fact that he hates The Ugly American [April 19] and I love it is not what prompts me to take pen in hand. His snide, destructive diatribes couldn't provoke me to write in the past, and it isn't that this last piece of his has struck a new low. He has delivered himself of this caliber of filth before. It's just that I've had enough.
This retort can only be feeble, compared with what I feel. I wish I had the talent to adequately convey how revolted I am by this kind of hooliganism. Consider this letter a panicky gasp, on my part, for some clean air.
Is it me? Aren't others, as well, alarmed at his public debauch, at his joyous wallowing in the insensitive, at his brazen certainty that we all will join him, slapping our thighs as we screamingly laugh at his vulgar barbs? And for this poison to be lent an aura of legitimacy simply by its appearance in your pages!
I'm not writing out of personal pique. I've had no connection with the film in question, and this is not the occasion for me to discuss the many virtues of the picture or the unique talent and towering stature of Brando as an artist. Besides, it would be a thankless task to attempt a discussion on this level with an unfeeling, culturally murderous fool. I repeat: I've had enough of him.
LEE J. COBB Woodland Hills, Calif.
Judy
Sir:
Thank you for the excellent review of Judy's latest film [April 19]. Being one of the ingroup, I could appreciate this review so much more, as I also appreciated the picture so much more.
DIANA ERENGIS Los Angeles
Keep in Touch
Sir:
Over a year ago, I pleaded with you for an article in TIME on North Borneo, to be known as Sabah under Malaysia. You kindly sent me a reply saying that we would be in the news when we were "hot news."
A few months later, I upbraided you for lack of interest in an up-and-coming land--a land of peace, of full employment, and of harmony unmatched among multilingual races.
And now, my warm congratulations for the cover story on Malaysia [April 12] that does you full credit.
I thank you warmly for putting our remote land--of the orangutan, the long house, the blowpipe, and the highest mountain in Southeast Asia--on the map.
JENNIFER BRITTO St. Francis' Convent Jesselton, North Borneo
Pressure v. Passiveness
Sir:
I agree that Dr. King's protest in Birmingham [April 19] was "poorly timed"--it was shamefully late. I, as a Negro, realize that pressuring a segregationist only further alienates him, but I also realize that pressure has done more in a decade than passiveness has accomplished in a century. Maturing school integration, as a result of pressure, will be the real solution to the American "race problem" because of the increased contact between white and Negro youth.
WILLIAM L. MOORE
University of Missouri Columbia, Mo.
TVA
Sir:
You are to be commended for the excellent article [April 26] on the Tennessee Valley Authority's contribution to social and economic progress in the Tennessee Valley during TVA's first 30 years. TVA has been one of the most dramatic and successful achievements of the U.S. during this century. It should be a source of satisfaction to all Americans that this federal agency's effective multipurpose resource development program is recognized and copied in many parts of the free world.
ALEX RADIN
General Manager
American Public Power Associates Washington, D.C.
End of the Rainbow?
Sir:
The Department of the Interior, its engineers and geologists to the contrary [April 26], Colorado River water backed up by the Glen Canyon Dam will endanger Rainbow Natural Bridge. The bridge and its foundations are sandstone, and sandstone absorbs water irrespective of planned diversion dams and tunnels. As a member of the discovery party, Aug. 14, 1909, I am loath to see that masterpiece destroyed, whatever the excuse.
NEIL M. JUDD Silver Spring, Md.
From a Rural Route
Sir:
In the name of all that is reasonable, what makes the Secretary of Agriculture believe that, if controls are lifted from wheat, farmers will promptly plant so much wheat that the country will be swimming under a wave of shifting tides of golden grain?
Do they really believe a farmer is so lacking in intelligence, that he would continue to produce a crop for which he had no market ? Actually, he would switch to some crop that he could sell, and those farmers who are growing wheat merely for the Government payments would stop. There just wouldn't be any profit for them.
A bona fide farmer of today has to be an exceptional businessman. He doesn't want or expect the taxpayers of the nation to support him; yet that is what Mr. Freeman, Mr. Cochrane and Mr. Kennedy seem to think he should and shall want. Their tactics to convince farmers and all citizens of this are open to question, and should be questioned by all those whose monies are being used to assure the U.S.D.A. a favorable vote in the wheat referendum.
Thank heaven there are some responsible organizations who are fighting this referendum. They will bring it to defeat on May 21.
I was glad to see TIME print Mr. Freeman's definition of government-regulated freedom [April 19] in black and white. Perhaps it would have been better in red.
(MRS.) ELLEN HAWLEY
Rural Route 3 Batavia, N.Y.
Knotty Word
Sir:
Your April 12 article "Back from Limbo" mentions that Chester Bowles was regarded by some liberals "as presidential timber."
Were they thinking of balsa or mahogany --or did you mean "timbre"?
PRESTON I. CARNES
Fairfield, Conn.
>>Let Reader Carnes mind his language. As Francis Bacon said: "Such dispositions are the very errors of human nature; and yet they are the fittest timber to make politics of." --ED.
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