The Vietniks

Sir: TIME'S Essay [Oct. 29] was excellent and scrupulously fair to most of us Vietniks.

(PROF.) EDGAR F. KIEFER University of Hawaii Honolulu

Sir: There are more Americans against the legalized murder in Viet Nam than you think. What shall it profit us if we win the war but lose the people?

ROY EDWARD WOLFE San Francisco

Sir: I am appalled at the short memory of those who forget the price of appeasing totalitarian regimes. I congratulate you on your thoughtful Essay, in which you distinguish between those who sincerely seek the right to dissent from Government policies and those lawless zealots who, by their "monopoly on humanitarianism," arbitrarily define God-given morality and seek to attain their ends by Machiavellian civil disobedience.

R. MARCUS OTTERSTAD St. Paul

Burning Big Daddy

Sir: In the Essay on "What Big Daddy, Alias Uncle Sam, Will Do for YOU" [Nov. 5], you ask, "Can anyone recall seeing a protester burn up his social security card?" The answer is yes. A photograph in The Providence Journal showed a psychology student at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque burning his social security card in protest against having to work for a living.

JOEL M. GORDON Providence, R.I.

The Viet Nam Turning Point

Sir: Your cover story on the war [Oct. 22] was a masterpiece of clear, concise writing and readability and pointed out many facets of this struggle that heretofore have been somewhat obscure. The map was especially noteworthy, as were the excellent photographs.

ANNE STAFFORD Bloomfield, Conn.

Sir: You sound exactly like a 45-year-old fat man bragging about how brave, powerful and marvelous it is that he can lick and kick the hell out of a three-year-old child. The whole U.S. Viet Nam operation is madly sickening.

LIANG-SHEN LEE Pittsburg, Calif.

LBJ's Young Man

Sir: A thousand thanks for the insightful, inspiring story on Bill Don Moyers, "The Young Man Next to the President" [Oct. 29]. He is a symbol of a rising and brilliant generation of young people. In my long years of lecturing and teaching, I have urged parents to save their "best boys" for political vocations. Moyers will not only elicit the admiration and confidence of young people but also attract them to responsible political posts in the Government.

H. H. BARNETTE

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Louisville

Sir: Now I know the reason for Bill Moyers' fantastic power and success: the man on your cover isn't Moyers at all; it's Clark Kent.

MARTIN FRACK Johannesburg, South Africa > Also known as Superman (see cut).

The 89th Congress

Sir: Most of the accomplishments of the 89th Congress [Oct. 29] were warmed-over versions of bills that earlier and less acquiescent sessions had seriously considered and soberly rejected. The 89th Congress did not ask whether a bill were necessary, desirable, constitutional, or even rational, but only whether President Johnson wanted it. Were we to follow the practice of ancient England and apply descriptive names to our legislative sessions, the 89th would go down as "the obsequious Congress."

ARLIE M. SKOV Oklahoma City

How the Soviets See It

Sir: In your assessment of economic changes in the Soviet Union [Oct. 8], you write that "the Kremlin is admitting that Russia's economic engine is painfully sputtering." In confirmation, you advance the groundless argument about the Soviet Union's having lost its superiority over the U.S. in economic growth rates. There are indeed shortcomings in the Soviet economy. But that economy is developing more rapidly than envisaged by the Seven-Year Plan (1959-1965). The volume of industrial production increased 84% instead of 80% as planned. The average annual rate of industrial growth was 9.1%, more than double that of the U.S. The Soviet Union holds first place in the world for production of granulated sugar, butter, woolen fabrics, metal-cutting machines, iron ore, coke, cement, reinforced concrete and timber. Obviously, the present changes were not caused by the painful sputter of the Soviet economic engine. Nor have the Communists seen advantages in capitalist methods. The reform means the transition to policy that conforms to the Soviet Union's present possibilities. By abolishing the economic councils and setting up ministries for separate industries, the Soviet Union envisages not the "tightening of the planning bureaucracy" but a scientific approach to planned management, more correct use of the money and commodity mechanism natural to socialism at the very outset.

IVAN ROMANOV Economist Moscow

Christian Atheism

Sir: The God-is-Dead theologians [Oct. 22] are spinning the rope with which to hang themselves. If, as they claim, man's intelligence was used to create a God who does not exist, it could then be argued that man's intelligence is now being used to murder a God who does. Saying God is dead is about as intelligent as saying that a city's electrical power is dead when your own reading light doesn't work.

RAY F. PURDY JR. Buenos Aires, Argentina

Sir: We students of Emory University who deeply admire and respect Dr. Thomas Altizer are appalled at the righteous indignation provoked by your article. Throughout the South, churches have preached against this theology and have condemned this man as a heretic. Those of us who really know Dr. Altizer consider him a sincere Christian. The statement "God is dead" is not altogether atheistic. It implies that God once lived, and if he is no longer available to man, it is because man long ago chose to forsake God. This departure from God is evident in the widespread lack of morality. Those who denounce Dr. Altizer the loudest are generally those for whom God has long been dead. As a Christian, I praise your fair and impartial article on Dr. Altizer's theology.

RICHARD B. FIFE Atlanta

Paul Tillich

Sir: As one of the students at Union Theological Seminary who listened in "respectful mystification" to Paul Tillich, I offer a footnote to your excellent article [Oct. 29]. While Niebuhr may well have been the sparkplug in the action leading to Tillich's coming to Union, it could have been only the president of the seminary, the late Henry Sloane Coffin, who offered him the post. Much more interesting is how it was financed. The seminary's income in those days was low, and "Uncle Henry," as we called Dr. Coffin, could not suddenly provide a new faculty salary. The first-year salary came in large part from contributions from other professors, while the seminary provided an apartment for the Tillichs. So, by a splendid joint Christian action, the great contribution of Paul Tillich to the U.S., and his continued contribution to the world, were made possible.

(THE REV.) J. THOBURN LEGO Santiago Union Church Santiago de Chile

The Last of the Morrisseys

Sir: A knowledge of history oft strips the veneer from the upstart. Anent Teddy Kennedy's tear-jerking plea [Oct. 29] that the family of Judicial Nominee Frank Morrissey were so poor that their shoes were "held together with wooden pegs," he discloses his complete and puerile ignorance of skilled custom cobbling. For a long time, handcrafted shoes and boots had soles and heels secured by hardwood pegs. This produced a beautiful, unsewn appearance, and the pegs wore down commensurately with the leather, avoiding the damage to elegant floors and the skidding on sidewalks caused by nails that wear more slowly than leather, and thus protrude.

WALTER R. MILLER, M.D. McLean, Va.

Crosby Electrified

Sir: You quote Classical Guitarist Andres Segovia [Oct. 29] as asking: "Who ever has heard of an electric violin? Or an electric singer?" There are at least nine patents on electric violins. Moreover, there are patents on electric musical instruments wherein the voice of a singer, say Crosby, is recorded note by note through his full range, so that any tune can be played on these instruments, with the Crosby voice emanating for all notes and chords fingered.

KENNETH W. BECKMAN President Invention, Inc. Washington, D.C.

Sensuous Porsche

Sir: You say the Porsche has a "mystical appeal" [Nov. 5]. If you equate mysticism with pure unadulterated pleasure and appreciation of driving the finest of its kind, you are right. Until you sit in the cockpit of this little giant killer and push the tach up to 5,500 r.p.m. in second or third gear, not to mention fourth, you will never know how delightfully sensuous driving a car can be.

MAURICE ADAMS York, Pa.

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