Mabuhay!

Sir: This is one "Flip" who flipped over your cover story on the Philippines [Oct. 21]. It's all there--my country's "crazy kind of charm": from the potholed roads to careening Jeepneys to urchins peddling the sampaguita, our national flower, plus all the reasons why I am proud to be a Filipino and can hardly wait to go back home. TIME, you're d'best! Mabuhay!

LETICIA JIMENEZ-MAGSANOC Philadelphia

Breakaway Man

Sir: I am delighted that TIME saw fit to feature Walter Cronkite on its cover [Oct. 14]. I was vice president and general European manager of United Press International in London when Walter was brought over from Kansas City to cover the Eighth Air Force in World War II. Not only did he exhibit great courage in going on bombing raids, but he was one of the most industrious and responsible of all war correspondents. Many tough assignments were pitched to him, and he handled each superbly. I never had any doubt about sending him to Brussels and the Low Countries to handle U.P.I. coverage there, and then on to Moscow as bureau chief.

VIRGIL PINKLEY Indio, Calif.

Sir: The other network puts two-on-one coverage on Walter Cronkite, but he still breaks away for a score every night.

MICHAEL L. KAPLAN New York City

Sir: The warmth of your reporting was well bestowed on a man whose personal history we otherwise would not know, even though we have always sensed that there was something special about him.

HAYDN L. GILMORE Aurora, Colo.

Sir: I am very closely acquainted with Walter Cronkite, and TIME'S cover portrait infuriated me. Walter Cronkite does not have mud-brown eyes. He has the most beautiful, clear, bright blue eyes I have ever seen. Also the bluest blue eyes.

KATHY CRONKITE New York City

> Now the mud's in our eye.

Throwing the Book at 'Em

Sir: Instead of spending $27,567.17 to send one Cong to his Maker [Oct. 14], I suggest we hit the guy with a Sears, Roebuck catalogue dropped from a plane with a $200 credit coupon good for anything but firearms. The catch: he would have to come to Saigon to collect his refrigerator. Watching how my Vietnamese go to work on a catalogue, I know it will work.

LESTER L. TAGGS Banmethuot, Viet Nam

Suicide in the Schools

Sir: Might not the high suicide rate among students [Oct. 14] suggest that there are too many young people in college who would be better off in the working world finding out what life is about? The tendency to push people through graduate school is too often motivated by monetary rather than humanitarian reasons. We end up with Ph.D.s who are expected to be leaders of men when their only experience is that of children going through school.

MRS. JACK McCULLOUGH St. Louis

Between A & O

Sir: Your account of President Johnson's visit to Newark [Oct. 14] implies that his visit was poorly received, and says that "even Newark's Democratic Mayor Hugh Addonizio had left the scene before the presidential motorcade pulled away, L.B.J. had badly mispronounced his name." In fact, the President's reception amazed all except those of us proud to be among his staunchest supporters. Estimates of the crowd ranged from the G.O.P.'s 30,000 to the police's 50,000 and the Democrats' 70,000. At the end of his talk, Johnson was mobbed by well-wishers. It took his car 22 minutes, despite the best efforts of police and Secret Service, to move four blocks. How do I know? Because I was sitting happily with the President in his car. We had a fine ride to the airport and a good laugh at his mispronunciation of my name. He mispronounced it regularly when we were together in Congress, and he heads a long list of distinguished persons who have tripped between A and O.

HUGH J. ADDONIZIO Newark

The South Has Risen

Sir: Thank you for making the break from conformity. TIME has too long remained among those so busy upholding the myth of Big Ten football supremacy [Oct. 14] that they have overlooked the

Scoreboard evidence to the contrary. Big Ten superiority passed from the realm of fact to that of fancy long before the 1966 season. If you will use the same criterion by which Midwestern football came to be regarded as superior (national rankings, intersectional game victories), you will find that the Southeastern Conference has earned the distinction of being America's toughest league.

G. DANIEL McCALL Brevard, N.C.

Sir: So "little" Miami of Ohio defeated Indiana. We here in Oxford did not find that surprising; we expected it, for in recent years Miami has beaten Indiana twice, tied once and lost once by only five points. Also in recent years we have defeated Northwestern twice and Purdue once, and at present have the longest winning streak in the country. Miami now has 10,500 students on campus, so it is not exactly little.

RICHARD MIDDAUGH Oxford, Ohio

Lesson from the Text

Sir: As a graduate of the London School of Economics now in the doctoral program at Harvard Business School, I deplore the absurdity of Susan Cooper's attack on American education [Oct. 14]. She might have better served the truth were she familiar with the curriculum of an English university: the textbooks I used at L.S.E. were nearly all American.

ANNE JARDIM Brookline, Mass.

Arguments Over the Law

Sir: Your entirely unfounded allegation [Oct. 14] that I "recently got around the traditional Orthodox opposition to birth control by ruling that . . . women are free to use contraceptive devices" must appear strangely inconsistent with your statement only seven weeks ago [Aug. 26] in announcing my nomination as Chief Rabbi of the British Commonwealth: "An expert on medical ethics, he frowns on contraception, points to the low birth rale among Jews, and fears that Judaism may some day vanish entirely." Both statements are wide of the mark and grossly misleading, written without consulting me or carefully reading my writings on the subject. In fact, Jewish law sanctions recourse to contraceptive devices only for grave medical reasons in individual cases, and I have never ruled differently.

(RABBI) IMMANUEL JAKOBOVITS Fifth Avenue Synagogue New York City

Sir: You write that "the Conservatives can drive on the Sabbath." The Conservative movement does not give a blanket endorsement to riding on the Sabbath. Doing so is permitted only when attendance at services would otherwise be unreasonably difficult or impossible. It is believed that the positive value of participation in public prayer outweighs the negative value of not riding. For other purposes, riding on the Sabbath destroys the serenity and sanctity appropriate to that day.

(RABBI) ALVIN KASS Editor

United Synagogue Review New York City

Sir: The way to distinguish adherents of all three branches of Judaism, according to Jewish humorists, is to ask a Jew whether he fasts on Yom Kippur. If he says yes, he's Orthodox; if he says no, he's Conservative; if he asks "What's Yom Kippur?" he's Reform.

MAURICE H. SCHY Chicago

Mixing It Up

Sir: TIME'S discourse on the growing popularity of vodka [Oct. 14] reminds me of the Air Force general who admonished his Martini-drinking Pentagon staff to lay off the stuff. "Drink whisky at lunchtime," he told them. "I'd rather have people know you're drunk than think you're stupid."

Here in Los Angeles vodka has been run over by a contraption known as a Mexican Edsel--half tequila, half V8. (Wow! It sure doesn't taste like tomato juice.)

JACK BAILEY Los Angeles

Sir: I'm glad to see the businessman's switch to lighter drinks at lunch; it may lead to a return of business in the afternoon, and who knows what this may do to the economy.

It may be "un Kir" in Paris, but dry white wine with creme de cassis is an old Burgundian pick-me-up known as rinse cochon, pig rinse. As Mayor of Dijon the good Canon Kir must know the drink's real name. I wonder if he finds it flattering?

HENRI FLUCHERE Irvington, N.Y.

Sir: In Montreal recently, two fellow drinkers and I invented the Rose Between Two Thorns: vodka (one thorn). Dubonnet (the rose) and gin (the other thorn) on the rocks with a twist of lemon.

ALBERT A. LEWIS New York City

Sir: A favorite in my home is the cranberry: two ounces of rum, the juice of one quarter of a large lime, and cranberry juice and ice to fill the glass.

GEORGE T. F. RAHILLY, M.D. Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Sir: You forgot the best of the lot. Do ye nay ken the Scottish Mule? Scotch, ginger beer and a twist of lime make a very canty quaff.

KEITH A. DOBBINS Bristol, Conn.

Hung Over

Sir: Reading about Manhattan's Whitney Museum of American Art [Oct. 7], I wondered why all downtown buildings cannot be constructed with the second story extending to the curb--no rain or hot sun on pedestrians, no ice or slush underfoot. The third floor could even be extended to the middle of the street!

MARJORIE L. GRAHAM Huntington, Ind.

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