Second Thoughts About Man

Sir / The "Rediscovery of Human Nature" [April 2] is without doubt one of your best post-Luce efforts. A better treatment of a conservative philosophy of human nature will be hard to find. Congratulations!

DWAYNE S. ROGERS Buenos Aires

Sir / Camelot is now replaced by a wintry landscape where man's social ills are resolved by the simple application of euphemisms (e.g., "benign neglect"). Could it then be that the political climate not only reflects but also generates the aspirations of a given era?

At least the best and the brightest gave rise to optimism!

DANIEL J. WELTE Esopus, N.Y.

Sir / Nowhere in Behaviorist B.F. Skinner's voluminous writings does he give evidence of an inability to effectively discriminate between man and rat. However, Skinner and his distinguished students have amassed data that strongly suggest that many of the same principles that parsimoniously explain and govern the behavior of certain animal species, under carefully specified conditions, are also true of human behavior. And for devoting himself to such demanding, yet valuable objectives, he should be scorned? For shame.

KENNETH N. ANCHOR, PH.D. Assistant Professor of Psychology George Peabody College for Teachers Nashville, Tenn.

Sir / As a psychologist I have confronted the fact that even with all the support and warmth I offered my patients, when they came face to face with moments of crisis in which they questioned the meaning of their existence and their significance in this world, they were all too often left with despair, loneliness and fear. However, it was when I developed a system of spiritual therapeutic techniques that I began to see real progress in my patients, for it is only when man can see himself as one and at peace with the universe that he can overcome his feelings of despair about life and his terror of death.

MIRIAM ADAHAN Berkeley, Calif.

Sir / Modernity suffers from amnesia. It has been torn from its ontological roots by the "debunking sciences": sociology, psychology, and the behavioral sciences, and cannot remember its origins. Rollo May's "third force," an attempt at remembrance, is, in reality, a reflection of the first force of Western civilization, love and the pursuit of wisdom.

"Modern" man, if he is to make sense about himself and the world he lives in, should look not only forward to the possibilities of 1984 but must look back and remember what A.D. 1 represents.

JOHN D. MEEHAN Professor of Philosophy Westwood Academy Manchester, N.H.

Ambush at Hollywood Gulch

Sir / The Great Spirit, Godfather to all the red men, has spoken. In a well-planned ambush at Hollywood Gulch he tomahawked Oscar, but it was accomplished in a most un-Indian-like maneuver. While Great Chief Brando [April 9] skulked in the surrounding mesquite, he dispatched a young squaw to the paleface council, carrying the war lance. Tonto would have been more courageous than that. Ugh.

JACK SHINSKE Chicago

Sir / Marlon Brando deserves praise for placing more importance on the plight of the Indian than on the much sought after Oscar.

DAVID HOWARD Hudson Falls, N.Y.

Sir / As a second-generation Italian American, I would suggest that Marlon Brando return the money he received from acting in The Godfather because of the great injustice it did to the American Wop.

RICHARD P. MASSONY Covington, La.

Sir / It is funny that Marlon Brando can get so incensed about the movie industry's portrayal of the American Indian, and yet he himself does not balk at contributing to the degradation of women in movies.

WINIFRED O'DONNELL Pennsauken, N.J.

A New Dependence

Sir / Your Arabian oil story seems to imply that 200 years after gaining independence from King George III of England we now will become dependent on the King of Saudi Arabia [April 2].

I think our energy needs are too important to be left to the whims of Libya's Dictator Gaddafi and to the greed of the oil companies. We need a sound Government policy regulating energy supply and demand in such a way as not to ruin our economy and not to lose our national independence to Arabian desert kings.

MAX WEISSENBERG Fairfax, Calif.

Sir / If the Arab leaders can find no greater purpose in life for their 100 million people and $10 billion oil income than the destruction of the tiny nation of Israel, they are to be pitied.

ANDREJS BAIDINS Wilmington, Del.

Sir / How sad that the world is just waking up to that new "problem." For centuries the Arabs have been "ignored and abused." They are portrayed in the West as backward, nay primitive.

Let us hope that their newly uncovered wealth will bring the Arabs to an era of greatness and that they will give the West yet another lesson in tolerance and respect for alien cultures. But should the thirst for revenge blind them to their glorious past, we know who takes the blame for it.

ANIS RACY, M.D. Neurology Dept. Strong Memorial Hospital Rochester

Nowhere to Turn

Sir / Mr. Nixon and all his little aides scurry about the White House corridors fearing that the truth about Watergate will out. And Congress delights in its opportunity to regain strength from the Executive Branch. But meanwhile, what about the poor American people? Numbed by the scandals, worn rhetoric, and unfulfilled promises of relief, the American people have nowhere left to turn but against each other, as the women take to the streets to boycott the farmers.

LESTER M. HADDAD, M.D. Arlington, Va.

Sir / The Nixon Administration should think twice before continuing its efforts to dismantle the insanity defense. Before the Watergate scandal is over, they may need it.

MARTIN BLINDER, M.D. San Anselmo, Calif.

Sir / The stiff sentences meted out to the Watergate interlopers should not be too surprising. If the defendants had worn long hair and bombed the place, they might have drawn only three-to five-year terms. With a few feathers in their hair, they might even have received fare to leave town.

JAMES HALL Racine, Wis.

The Give-It-a-Go Prime Minister

Sir / To my mind, your reporting on Australia [March 26] was pretty accurate, but I cannot accept your patronizing comment that Australia used to be just a biddable child. Australians are pretty easygoing, but we do have the intelligence, when we think affairs have gone far enough, to elect ourselves a "give-it-a-go" Prime Minister without Watergate, I. T. T. or Frank Sinatra.

(MRS.) HAMER E. WALLIS Darwin, Australia

The Rape of Antiquities

Sir / As archaeologists currently engaged in research in the Near East, we were extremely gratified by your strong condemnation of the illicit antiquities trade [March 26]. You neglected, however, to single out perhaps the most flagrant offenders -people in diplomatic positions with access to "unsearchable" means of shipment. Here on Cyprus, for example, greater damage to the island's heritage is caused by the rapacity of both foreign diplomatic staff and United Nations forces in a single week than by an entire year's tourist trade.

ALFRED AND SUSAN KROMHOLZ Kyrenia, Cyprus

Sir / Your article on the antiquities racket ignores one of the major causes of it: the governments who make it illegal to export antiquities.

As with Prohibition, the laws don't lessen the demand, but they do limit suppliers to those willing to violate the law. Antiquities should be regarded as natural resources, to be exported to those that value them highly. Give the discoverer a percentage for finding the antiquities, set up some minimal requirements for the sake of archaeology and make exporting routine.

DAVID CARL ARGALL La Puente, Calif.

Sir / I was astonished to read that Napoleon had ransacked the antiquities of Egypt for the Louvre. It would have been difficult for him to do so. As everyone knows, he slipped out of the country in a small frigate with just a few followers, carefully concealing his departure from the rest of the expeditionary force. The latter would not have been in a better position to bring back any loot, as they made the trip on British ships after capitulation. What they might have gathered -including the famous Rosetta Stone -eventually found its way to the British Museum.

G. DE BERTIER Professor of History Institut Catholique Paris

Non-Support

Sir / In your story on the P.O.W.s [March 19] you said that as a newly returned prisoner of war, Colonel Robinson Risner had even talked all of his children into supporting President Nixon, although they all had supported Senator McGovern in the presidential campaign. I am Colonel Risner's oldest son, and I do not now support, nor have I ever supported President Nixon.

When Senator McGovern campaigned in Oklahoma City last summer, I explained in his presence that I believed President Nixon had failed at any attempt to end the war and free the prisoners; and that I believed Senator McGovern was sincere in his efforts to end the war and bring the prisoners home.

ROB RISNER Huntsville, Texas

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