The Big Mac

Sir / To write with grace and elegance about hamburgers is no small distinction [Sept. 17]. The description of a Big Mac as something "whose interstices are occupied by alternating dollops of onions, pickle chips," etc., represents rare artistry. One is reminded of the joke about the beef shortage getting so bad that McDonald's is down to its last pound of meat, so that, alas, it can serve only 1,000,000 more hamburgers! Founder Kroc's observation that "when you are in this business you are in show business" is right on target.

ALAN E. SAPIRO

San Rafael, Calif.

Sir / McDonald's is a Commie plot to get at us from within (our stomachs).

BOB BURMAN

Hollywood

Sir / After a six-month vacation on a Bahamas out-island, our first craving, once back on the mainland, was for McDonald's. We even had the taxi driver from the airport stop at one on our way home.

WAYNE MASTERMAN

Hull, Mass.

Sir / Gourmets should stick to gourmetism. And when my sister Bostonian, Julia Child, writes that McDonald's fare is "nothing but calories," she is wrong.

Hamburger is meat and averages 18% to 20% protein, plus many vitamins and minerals. The buns have 12% to 14% protein from wheat, plus minerals and vitamins. The cheese is an excellent source of calcium and a B vitamin called riboflavin. If a milkshake is consumed, there is additional calcium, riboflavin and protein. Potatoes are a nutritious food.

McDonald's is good fare nutritionally, but could be improved by tossing in some coleslaw and the fruit of the season.

FREDRICK J. STARE, M.D.

Chairman, Department of Nutrition

Harvard University

School of Public Health

Boston

Sir / McDonald's is the biggest source of containers and napkins discarded from cars. Within one to three miles of the local McDonald's is a trail of litter imposed upon the beauty and ecology of our countryside, another example of "free enterprise" at the expense of society.

CLEON E. HAMMOND

Schooleys Mountain, N.J.

Sir / Your article on McDonald's hamburgers was great, but I would appreciate your using this letter so that I may clarify a couple of points. Ray Kroc stated that he forced McDonald Bros, to remove the name McDonald's from the unit we retained in San Bernardino, Calif. The facts are that we took the name off the building and removed the arches immediately upon the closing of the sale of our company to Kroc and associates in December 1961.

Kroc must have been kidding when he told your reporter that we renamed our unit Mac's Place. The name we used was The Big M. Ray was also being facetious when he told your reporter that he drove us out of business. My brother and I had retired two years previous to the sale, and were living in Santa Barbara, Calif. We had turned the operation of the San Bernardino unit over to a couple of longtime employees of ours who operated the drive-in for seven years. Ray Kroc was always a great prankster and probably couldn't resist the temptation to needle me. I am sure that he knows that if there had not been any McDonald Bros., he would probably still be selling milkshake machines.

RICHARD J. MCDONALD

Bedford, N.H.

Disobeying No. 1 Sir / I would like to see the people who actually sold the wheat to the Russians [Sept. 17] chastised for incompetence, lack of respect for the subsidy given by the taxpayer, but most of all for disobeying the No. 1 rule for free enterprise--to make a profit.

HAROLD J. DOHERTY

Atlanta

Frodo Lives

Sir / I read with sadness that J.R.R. Tolkien had died [Sept. 17]. I was introduced to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings four years ago as a ninth-grader. Something about the trilogy tantalized me as did no other books I had read.

Perhaps it was escape literature, but I think not. Frodo's adventures evoked in me the feeling of love and righteousness for everything. They did not cause me to escape the "cruel world," but to fight harder for a better one.

Frodo lives forever!

JUDY SCHWARTZ

Oswego, N.Y.

Sir / Though your words were of course well intended, the lamented J.R.R. Tolkien would not have been pleased with being called a "creative mythologer." Barely a month before his death, he told me with emphasis how much he disliked the overused word creative, saying "There is only one Creator." When I remarked that for many years I had told students in my fiction-writing course that there was only one forbidden word in my classroom, to wit "creative," he left his station by the fireplace, darted to my chair, and wrung my hand in approval.

It is a memory to be cherished.

RICHARD L. GREENE

New Haven, Conn.

Counterattack

Sir / Having completed nine Polaris submarine patrols, I was surprised to read in your article "The Limits of Astronauts" [Sept. 17] that I was a sleepy paranoid, obsessed with "crotch novels" and leaking hulls.

I will be the first to admit that I have accumulated my share of "bunk time," read more than one disreputable book and looked for leaks, particularly during a test dive after an upkeep period. I might add that all available crew members perform this function as a matter of routine, while their boat is submerging.

I do not dispute any facts in your article; in fact, I could add a few episodes of my own. But I resent your leaving the reader with the impression that the Navy is manning its submarines with crews of psychopaths.

(HMC) JAMES R. MCDANIEL (SS)

U.S.N. Nuclear Power Unit

Fort Belvoir, Va.

Sir / After having spent five and a half years on nuclear submarines, I find that it is not the isolation that undermines the sub sailor's psychological stamina. It is the having to contend with the petty, semi-intelligent, dogmatically implemented military rules and "official decisions" for 24 hours a day and up to three months at a stretch that, understandably, erodes one's patience and grates on one's nerves.

WALTER PADBURY

Pocatello, Idaho

Nothing Sacred Sir / So science has now invaded one of the oldest professions--prostitution--in the name of sexology [Sept. 10]. Is there nothing that is sacred?

Next thing you know, every hooker and pimp in the business will have to get a Ph.D. in plant genetics or lose self-respect.

JEAN LIEBENTHAL

Idaho Falls, Idaho

Sir / Sexologist Martin Cole seems to have taken to heart a venerable admonition: "No greater love hath any man than to lay down his wife for his friend."

THOMAS W. ALLEN

Glencoe, Mo.

Worthy Candidate

Sir / I support and applaud the nomination of Academician Andrei Sakharov for the Nobel Prize for Peace, as proposed by my friend Alexander Solzhenitsyn [Sept. 24].

Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov are the conscience of that part of mankind that is in slavery. They ceaselessly call upon the Soviet government to end its persecutions, and to democratize the regime. Each in his own way addresses himself to the world, and their words resound with concern for the future of humanity. Thus, they are attempting to halt the infernal cycle of mutual hatred and military adventures. Sakharov, who is leading this heroic battle, is supremely worthy of the Nobel Prize.

DIMITRI PANIN

Sevres, France

-- The author of this letter is "Dimitri Sologdin," one of the heroes of The First Circle by Solzhenitsyn, who served in the same Soviet camps and prisons with him from 1947 to 1952.

A Hymn to Denver

Sir / I was happy to see your story on John Denver [Sept. 17]. What Van Gogh has painted ana Thoreau has written, Denver has sung. His songs keep me contented until the day I, too, see the Rockies.

PAMELA J. FORD

Gainesville, Fla.

Sir / John Denver appears to me to be the proponent of a nonthinking, do-nothing, just-have-a-good-time society.

We cannot afford to make heroes out of men who simply ski, golf, watch eagles and sing trite songs.

LILLIAN E. LIVELY

Aspen, Colo.

On the Graying of America

Sir / Your Essay on the "graying" of America [Sept. 17] implies that the nation has matured and that the generations are living together peacefully. I respectfully reject this conclusion and fervently hope that it is untrue.

As a protester of the '60s, I feel that the plethora of Watergate evils disclosed so far and the admission of secret bombing in Cambodia have only confirmed that the youthful skeptics were accurate. With so much fuel for the fire, why have the protests ended? The answer is easy. You can bang your head against the wall only so long before it begins to hurt. I hope the pain will end soon, so that we can start putting our young and old heads together and bang anew.

ROBERT JOHN FREEMAN

New York City

Sir / Since most of us over-the-hill folks did not have the decency to stop breathing, or at least stay out of sight, when those arrogant, embryonic egomaniacs were tearing up the place, it is reassuring to know we may now be allowed to clutter up their world again.

HELEN L. SMITH

Carson City, Nev.

Most Perfect Form

Sir / I share the uneasiness of scientists Crick and Orgel over current explanations about how life arose spontaneously on earth [Sept. 10]. However, in setting forth their theory of "directed panspermia," these learned gentlemen are reaching just as far out in their attempts to explain the origin of life. Since they have viewed the mysteries of life at closer range than most of us, I wonder how they can continue to overlook that most perfect form of directed panspermia--divine creation.

D.A. SCHELP

Bellevue, Washington

Lauren Mutton's Funny Face

Sir / Veruschka was regal and stately, Jean Shrimpton has a face that could launch a thousand ships, and you have devoted an article "Making Magic with a Funny Face" to Lauren Hutton [Sept. 17]!

She is certainly less than average, with that big nose and gap between her two front teeth.

What has happened to Richard Avedon's taste?

Reading about Model Hutton has just reminded me to cancel my subscription to Vogue.

MARJORIE COHN

Miami

Sir / I wonder how many suicides were the result of women's looking in their mirrors after having read your article elaborating the many flaws of Lauren Hutton's "funny face."

KHALIEL JOHNSON

Salt Lake City

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