Words from the Temple

Sir: What a glorious honor and thrill it is to be selected to join TIME'S brilliantly illustrious cover coterie [June 6]! Nancy and I are overjoyed--just as will be the rest of our tightly knit reportorial "family" abroad.

Gentle corrections: 1) between 150,000 and 200,000 words of totally new or revised material appear in each edition of our Travel Guide, embracing every single land between its covers; 2) our very recent survey disclosed that a whopping 83% of its users are repeat readers; 3) when the President of Italy so generously bestowed upon me the Ordina al Merita della Repubblica, it wasn't the Grand Cross, which normally is reserved for chiefs of state and ambassadorial-level diplomats. Since we are naught but toilers in the travel-writing vineyards, the grade is Cross of Commander (Comendador)--which the British and various other governments classify as "Knight Commander."

TEMPLE FIELDING Manhattan

Sir: Some worship at Temple Beth El, others at Temple Fielding. In either case, we feel the power of his guidance!

BOB HALFF Beverly Hills, Calif.

Judgment on the Judge

Sir: Congratulations on a well-rounded appraisal of Judge Warren E. Burger [May 30]. The opinions that stand out underscore his integrity, professional idealism, and open-mindedness as a judge. But you could not be more wrong in characterizing him as "nonimaginative" and "noninnovative." We who have watched his work can testify to the imaginativeness and innovativeness in his approach to criminal justice and to his concern for the individual. This is clear enough from his opinions, but is striking in the work he has done to help reform the standards of criminal justice through a major A.B.A. committee.

PROFESSOR SAMUEL DASH Georgetown University Law Center Washington, D.C.

A Plea of Not Guilty

Sir: In the article "The Beatles Besieged" [May 30], TIME erred in stating that I was indicted for income tax evasion--a felony. In February 1966, I pleaded not guilty to the misdemeanor charge of failure to file federal payroll tax returns with respect to income and social security taxes withheld from employees. All the monies withheld, approximately $8,000, were paid to the federal authorities prior to February 1966.

ALLEN KLEIN Riverdale, N.Y.

Hamburger Hill: Round 2

Sir: All this nonsense by Ted Kennedy about Hamburger Hill [May 30] makes me furious. I cannot see how he can make such a statement after what has been happening in the A Shau Valley during the preceding weeks. In early May, the 1/501st Infantry, 101st Airborne Division found one of the largest enemy caches in the history of the war about seven miles from Hamburger Hill. Two weeks later, the 3/187th Infantry, 101st Airborne Division found another cache almost as large three miles from Hamburger Hill. The A Shau Valley is the logistical center that keeps the rockets and mortars coming into Hue and our firebases. Shortly before Hamburger Hill, Firebase Airborne was attacked. Twenty-five men were killed and 60 were wounded by enemy sappers. The firebase was about six miles from Hamburger Hill. Last August, the artillery pieces that wiped out 40% of my platoon and plagued every step of our movement fired from that hill region.

My only regret is that I cannot put Mr. Kennedy, with all his armchair strategy, in the middle of the A Shau Valley and watch him stew as the enemy artillery rounds are landing around his head. CHARLES W. NEWHALL III 1st Lieutenant, U.S.A. A.P.O. San Francisco

Mike Who?

Sir: To this Micronesian, your article "Remembering an Adopted Cousin" [May 23] is one of the best things that has happened to Micronesia since 1947, when the United Nations handed Micronesia over to the U.S. under a trusteeship arrangement. The U.S.'s negligence towards the "adopted cousin" is portrayed in Willard Price's America's Paradise Lost (1966):

"Congressman X was flagged down by a newsman on the steps of the Capitol.

" 'What are you going to do about Micronesia?' inquired the reporter.

" 'Mike who?' said Mr. X."

DERSON RAMON Agana, Guam

Sir: You are mistaken when you say that Peter T. Coleman, the newly appointed deputy high commissioner of the

Trust Territory, is the first native to have achieved this status. Alas, Mr. Coleman is a Polynesian, not a Micronesian, being from Samoa, which is about as far from Saipan as New York is from Paris. RISAN BUDA

Saipan, Mariana Islands

The Chaplains' Dilemma

Sir: Apropos your interesting story on the conflict-of-loyalty problem of military chaplains [May 30], may I point out that a year ago (May 18, 1968), the American Jewish Congress urged that military chaplains be replaced with civilian religious counselors receiving no pay from the Government and possessing no military rank. The resolution adopted by the organization's convention, the first national organization to do so, stated that "religion must always remain the guardian of the nation's conscience and the moral judge of its actions. It cannot fulfill that sacred responsibility if it is at the same time the handmaiden of Government." It also noted that "many chaplains believe that they cannot in conscience support the war their Government is engaged in and at the same time cannot in conscience deny to the soldiers access to the religious guidance and help they so desperately need." LEO PFEFFER Special Counsel American Jewish Congress Manhattan

The Last Straw

Sir: Re your report that I had announced I was leaving the Episcopal Church "partially because it is a 'dying institution' and partially because Bishop Myers refused to officiate" at my marriage [May 23]: as to the first, I had said that "the declining of the church as such has no bearing . . . on whether a sincere, thoughtful person should remain in it or not"; but that it was the reasons for the decline which persuaded me. As to the second, I had stated: "Bishop Myers . . . granted me a favorable judgment as to my marital status in the eyes of the church, which, under an explicit provision of canon law, left me free to be married by any minister of the church."

It was Bishop Myers' action--three days after our Episcopal marriage--publicly calling for a boycott of my functioning as a clergyman--a cruel and uncanonical step unremedied after four months of approaches to him by various responsible clergy and laymen, singly and in groups--which was the straw that broke the camel's back.

Diane and I would not want to be thought of as leaving the church simoly because it is declining at an accelerating rate, or on a petty, personal ground--Bishop Myers' changing his mind about officiating (after telling us to invite the clergy who would assist him), when a fine priest, and a dear friend, was perfectly happy to marry us, acting under Bishop Myers' written judgment as to my canonical marriageability. We had sound reasons for leaving the church, but they are not the two you noted; nor would we want others to leave on such grounds.

JAMES A. PIKE Center for the Study of Democratic

Institutions Santa Barbara, Calif.

Willie the Wise

Sir: Cheers for Willie, who realizes how much he is giving up by having to spend his college years in a coeducational dormitory [May 30].

You are a smart guy, Willie. If you are an average young man, you lived the first 18 years of your life in a house dominated by your mother. Probably fairly soon after graduation, you will start living for 30 to 50 years in a house dominated by your wife--and that's fine too, in due course.

But you know that a coeducational dorm will likewise be dominated by the girls and be managed to suit their aims and convenience, not yours; and you know that now may be your only chance to experience the independence and tranquillity of living stag and associating with women in your leisure time only when and if you want to.

So you vote against any further erosion of your privacy, to preserve those privileges and that refuge from the inevitable percentage of huntresses.

DOUGLAS CAMPBELL Cos Cob, Conn.

Snoopy's Mother

Sir: Although the Apollo 10 crew has been criticized for profane language [May 30], the fact is that Eugene Cernan merely called the attention of the universe to his ill-behaving craft. What better thought could he have had than to remind "Snoopy" of his dog-mother in order to straighten out his puppylike behavior?

OTTO T. TROTT, M.D. Seattle

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