Artur's Round Table

Sir: Thank you for a fascinating and perceptive story on Artur Rubinstein [Feb. 25], surely one of our most enduring--and endearing--musical geniuses. In a world in which so many distrust or dislike their lives, it's a pleasure to read about someone who loves and cares about his own enough to transmit his joy to others.

(MRS.) ELIDA D. LAWSON

New York City

Sir: Your enthusiasm overreaches itself when you call his playing of Mozart "impeccable." Though fine indeed, it is still marred by that same romanticism that is the Rubinstein trademark. What is interesting in this regard is not the pianist's limitation but the certainty that he will improve, that in time his Mozart will have the clarity and refinement it needs. On the basis of his spirit and energy alone, Rubinstein deserves his superb life.

DONALD WJLSON

New York City

Sir: Rubinstein's unique blending of "romantic" and "modern" piano styles deserves the highest praise of the civilized world. But to state categorically that he is "the world's greatest pianist," to put him on a pedestal above Horowitz, Richter, Serkin, etc., is irresponsible reporting of a type to which I think Rubinstein himself would take exception.

MILTON SETZER

New York City

Sir:

The Rubinstein story is a gem.

WILLIAM M. AVERY JR.

Elmhurst, Ill.

War With Words

Sir: As a Vietnamese, I find your cover story on Premier Ky [Feb. 18] excellent. At last people will understand that the government is doing its best to defend and help the people.

DOAN TAN

Hoi Nashville, Tenn.

Sir:

TIME'S Viet Nam coverage has been nothing less than outstanding, the story on Dean Rusk [Feb. 4] nothing less than just. Now, after a week of Fulbright's foreign relations circus, I think we can all agree with Truman's view of the man as "that overeducated Oxford s.o.b."

NORMAND W. DUFRESNE

Lowell, Mass.

Sir:

What we need is more "overeducated Oxford s.o.b.s" [Feb. 18] in Congress and fewer "shocking exposes" that are shocking only in their intent to malign.

(MRS.) MARIE G. ALI

Mt. Rainier, Md.

Sir:

To accuse Senator Fulbright of a "blind spot" in not accepting the myth of a monolithic-belligerent Communist bloc is to reveal your own. That Communist doctrine is neither monolithic nor necessarily nor always belligerent is no longer an opinion. It's a fact! I know of no reputable scholar who would argue otherwise.

HERBERT W. WERLIN

Instructor in Political Science

State University of New York

Stony Brook, N.Y.

Sir:

My greatest fear is that the Ful-brights, Morses and Kennans will prevail.

These men don't want to negotiate; they want to capitulate.

L. G. HAMILTON

Geneva, Ill.

Third Force

Sir:

True, Lockheed is a great company, and much of the credit belongs to Chairman Gross and his dynamic executives [Feb. 11]. You say the chairman is a banker turned supersalesman and that the president and vice president were accountants who became brilliant administrators. But it takes more than salesmen and administrators to produce technological triumphs. Oh yes, you did say: "Engineers and scientists constitute a third of Lockheed's work force."

CHRISTOS T. CHRISTY

President

Engineers-Scientists Guild

Lockheed Section

Burbank, Calif.

Sir: About your story on Courtland Gross, I raised half of that $40,000 to buy the company out of receivership in 1932, at the bottom of the depression, and served as a director during the formative years. As a close personal friend of Bob Gross from childhood, may I add that only a genius could play second fiddle to his inspiring brother all those years--and in the end rise to greater heights.

MAJOR GENERAL LAWRENCE C. AMES

U.S.A.F. (Ret.)

Oakland, Calif.

Stress & Distress

Sir:

TIME'S discussion of clerical celibacy [Feb. 18] has done a great service by bringing into the open a festering sore in the structure of the church. Celibacy as a sine qua non for the priesthood of the Latin Rite is a product neither of the demands of faith nor of the conclusions of sound theology. The stress on celibacy in Western Catholicism at times borders on the irrational. The Oriental Church has realized the error of identifying a vocation to the priesthood with a vocation to the celibate life.

(THE REV.) ROGER J. MOAG

Catholic Student Center

U.S.L. Campus

Lafayette, La.

Sir:

As a married Roman Catholic layman, I have always felt that I should much prefer to receive marital guidance from a married priest. I firmly believe that clerical celibacy should be a matter of choice, not a requirement for ordination. Matrimony is considered a sacrament by Roman Catholics. Why deprive our priests of its many graces?

DONALD E. COLOGNE

Smith town, N.Y.

Sir: Your treatment of celibacy is misleading, superficial and one-sided. You cite exceptional cases to show that the celibate priesthood is falling apart. You should realize that the church's situation in South America is anything but favorable. What you attribute to some priests there may be one of many symptoms of a more widespread disease infecting South America's Christianity. Perhaps in South America many priests "who found celibacy no problem were either emotionally immature or latent homosexuals." But don't imply that this is so everywhere.

JOHN J. BUCKLEY JR.

Archdiocesan Seminary Cardinal

Glennon College

St.Louis

Sir: A priest who seeks solution of his problems in marriage betrays an immature appreciation of what marriage is about. Marriage is not a solution; it is a vocation, wherein persons give themselves totally to form a new creation. The celibate is capable of the greatest fulfillment because the possibility of devoting himself to many rather than to one is uniquely his.

(THE REV.) STEPHEN F. DUFFY

St. Augustine's Rectory

Union City, N.J.

'Taint Necessarily So

Sir: Three cheers for the Ford Foundation! It is time someone began teaching Americans their native tongue [Feb. 18]. But why stop with the American Negro? Slurred and mispronounced speech is one of the characteristics most frequently noted by foreign visitors among Americans. Classes like those you describe should be available to all students with poor speech.

JOHN M. BRENNAN

Port Jefferson, N.Y.

Sir:

We wondered, as we drove South last December, when we would notice dialectolalia. It happened in Tennessee, when the gas-station attendant responded to my "Fill 'er up" by saying, "Hahtaste?" In a Florida state park the ranger said, "Ahmtored. Hadahordnot."

GEORGE JOHNSON

Wausau, Wisconsin

Sir:

It is too late for the Ford Foundation to save the U.S. from so-called Amos 'n' Andy accents. Dig the President! Dig

Gershwin! Dig all the rock 'n' roll beat groups! Pick up on all the bestselling novels! Because I am one of them millions of "can-not-be/shall-not-be/integrated or (Uncle Ralph Bunche) assimilated," I figure it's best to talk, walk, sing and swing like a true nigger! It is like my music, jazz. It's personal, and the sounds often change from nigger to Negro and from colored to Afro. That's our sound. It's our contribution to the world, it's pure Afro-American. It's beautiful. 'Taint necessarily so that our sounds have to go.

TED JOANS

jazz poet en route to Dakar

College of the Air

Sir:

Your story on radio's vitality [Feb. 18] fails to mention college radio. While most college operations are limited to the campus, many are expanding. My own station, the country's oldest college station, has turned dream into reality: we have expanded to a 20,000-watt stereo FM station to serve Southern New England with public affairs and music programs. College radio is on the move--I believe that many of tomorrow's radio executives are getting their start at college stations rather than in broadcasting schools.

FRED BRACK

Program Director WBRU

Brown University

Providence

Prof's Pride

Sir:

I appreciated your excellent piece on the Berkeley, Calif., Police Department [Feb. 18]. Every word of it is correct. I have special pride in the department because I am the sole remaining member of the University of California group that helped Chief Vollmer establish a modern department. Soon after Vollmer (a former mail carrier) became chief, he consulted Professors Jessica Peixotto, A. M. Kidd and me. Dr. Peixotto was a member of the State Board of Charities and Corrections and taught criminology; Professor Kidd taught criminal law; I, formerly at Stanford, had also taught criminology and been chairman of the probation committee of the Juvenile Court of Santa Clara County. We drafted plans for the department and gave lectures on criminology to Vollmer's staff.

IRA B. CROSS

Retired Flood Professor of Economics

Berkeley, Calif.

Acting It Out

Sir:

In your review of John McGahern's The Dark [Feb. 18], you quote Samuel Johnson: "The Irish are a fair people. They never speak well of one another." They don't act well to one another either. The Dark has been banned from Ireland, and McGahern has lost his teaching post at a Dublin school. He has, it seems, committed two unforgivable sins: not only has he written a "dirty" book; he has also (God protect us from all harm) married outside the church.

MAURICE C. KINO

Dublin

I Remember Ezra

Sir:

You say of the Soviet decision to let Novelist Valery Tarsis go to England [Feb. 18]: "The official rationale was that since Tarsis' most recent underground novel, Ward 7, concerns his experience as a political prisoner in an insane asylum, he is a certified lunatic, hence not legally liable for his ravings." America, remember Ezra Pound!

LAWRENCE RUSSELL

Torremolinos, Spain

Pooh Who?

Sir:

Mr. Disney's Pooh presumption [Feb. 18] isn't worth a tiddley-pum.

PRESTON K. COVEY JR.

Pittsburgh

Sir:

A great salute to Mr. Disney, who has again brought to life one of the wonderful characters of all time.

(MRS.) CORA S. KILEY

Seal Beach, Calif.

Sir:

You better watch out, Mr. Disney. That is not Pooh.

JULIE CLARK

Melbourne, Australia

Good Gout

Sir:

Thank you for a story that did much to improve the gout sufferer's image [Feb. 18]. My husband's gout attack was met by others with a "ho, ho, ho" attitude and the usual remark, "That's the disease of the boozers and the high living." Now he ought to command a little respect with that painful big toe.

MRS. EWALD F. FISCHER

Hastings, Minn.

Degenerate Blintz

Sir:

I wonder if Letter Writer George W. Cooley, commenting on Barbra Streisand [Feb. 18], realizes that a crepe suzette is nothing more than a degenerate blintz.

MRS. J. ROTH

Cleveland

All Their Buttons

Sir:

Before noticing the presence of the pocket handkerchief and the absence of stripes on the sleeves, I would have sworn your example of avant-garde fashion [Feb. 25] was photographed in a Navy exchange. The Double-B look is certainly nothing new to us.

S. A. MOHSBERG III

Midshipman 2/c, U.S.N.

Annapolis, Md.

Sir:

Horrors! Is TIME trying to start a new look in fashion by leaving the last button on its double-breasted blazer unbuttoned? I heartily applaud the resurgence of the Double-B style, but I feel obliged to point out that no Double-B man who is worth his brass would leave a button unbuttoned.

ROBERTO C. BISSONE

New York City

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