Iran and Carter

To the Editors:

Having gained power through violence, Ayatullah Khomeini [Feb. 26] must continue to use violence to stay in power, or become a victim of it.

Michael Ivanchak Jr.

Niles, Ohio

In your article "Surprise and Confusion" you state, "In ways not yet fully clear, the sight of Iran reduced to anarchy has brought into question Washington's ability and determination to support its allies and to assert what the nation stands for." And just what does this nation stand for? Is it self-determination by the majority of a people, or continued American economic and military hegemony over the "free" world?

Edward J. Wojtczak

Decatur, Ga.

To brand President Carter indecisive over the downfall of the Shah is absurd. Only by heaping brutality onto brutality could the Shah have been saved. The real problem is not Carter's supposed confusion, but the confusion of Americans over what type of President they want.

Richard Evans

Santa Monica, Calif.

Correspondent Strobe Talbott's analysis that "the basic trouble seems to be that Jimmy Carter ... is still unable to project a sense that he is in control of events" indicates that Mr. Talbott has accepted the essential error of the present Administration: image rather than reality is all important. The truth is that Mr. Carter is not in control of events.

Patrick J. Geary

Paris

Those Alienated Allies

The Soviets skirmish with the Chinese over boundaries, the Vietnamese annihilate a Communist regime in Cambodia, and now the Chinese attack the Vietnamese in retaliation for the Cambodian war [Feb. 26]. How can the various Communists expect the rest of us to believe that their type of government represents the apex of sociopolitical evolution when they can't tolerate each other?

David Deneau

Hamilton, Ont.

One should remember that China has only one formula for making friends: My enemy's enemy is my friend! China has joined hands with Pakistan only to corner India and has joined hands with the U.S. only to pin down the Soviet Union.

Rajib Basa

Calcutta

If the events of the current Sino-Vietnamese conflict follow historical precedent, we should expect the Chinese to punish the Vietnamese, the Russians to punish the Chinese, and the Americans to punish themselves.

E.E. Richey

Vancouver, B.C.

The invasion of Viet Nam by China reminds me of the things Vice Premier Teng said in his interview with Time Inc. Editor in Chief Hedley Donovan: "China is quite poor." Apparently, nations are never too poor to wage war and destroy. What a folly!

Franz Kottira

Buermoos, Austria

Our Crush on Oil

This nation's lust for oil [Feb. 26] is a national disgrace. In order to get our daily "fix" we are willing to coddle tyrants, insult friends and grovel before reactionary regimes. Once it was feared that mankind would be "crucified upon a cross of gold"; now it appears that it will be crushed by a barrel of oil.

James P. McGrath

Washington, D.C.

Raising the Drinking Age

As a 17-year-old, I applaud the recent trend to raise the drinking age [Feb. 26] in order to save my life. I only wonder if when the next war comes along, the legislators will still show the same concern and raise the draft age to 21.

Nick Thompson Pittsburgh

How many alcohol-related problems might be solved if the drinking age were raised to 65? It's a sobering thought.

Jim Hussey

St. Paul

A Girl's Best Friend?

Disgusting female writers are now trying to downgrade mothers [Feb. 26]. It won't work because the average girl sees her mother as her best friend. I loved my mother. What she taught me has helped make me a better woman. My daughter loves me; we are each other's best friend.

Marie Johnson

Niagara on the Lake, N. Y.

Wouldn't it be refreshing to read a book written by the mothers of these people who keep telling us how terrible she was? I'll bet the writers were brats as little girls and needed a good scolding once in a while from dear old Mom.

(Mrs.) Helene Cribbs

Canton, Ohio

As a psychotherapist and mother of three daughters, I see the mother-daughter relationship as "knotty," usually because mothers who have not achieved in their own right attempt to achieve through their daughters-in education, a career or a "successful" marriage. Identification works both ways.

Evelyn Merlin Rockwell

New York City

Sir James Is Amused

Your article concerning the editorship of France's leading newsmagazine L 'Express [Feb. 26] is most amusing. I have been accused of many sins, but never before of being obsequious to the left.

Yes, I did fire the editor Philippe Grumbach. But the reason was not his political stance. He just was not much good. He was replaced as editor in chief by Jean-Franc,ois Revel, and Raymond Aron became head of the editorial board. Anyone with any knowledge of France and of Europe would know exactly where they stand, and it is not among sympathizers of a Socialist-Communist union.

By the way, your article suggesting my sympathy for the left appeared on the same day as the French Communist press described me as a wicked capitalist. This followed an in-depth investigation published that week in L 'Express that finally destroys the fiction that the French Communist Party and the largest French trade union are independent from Moscow.

Sir James Goldsmith

London

Kosinski's Steps

That 27 publishers and agents failed to recognize and rejected Jerzy Kosinski's Steps several years after it received the National Book Award [Feb. 19] is no surprise. What is surprising is the trash they accept-and readers buy.

John Violette

Saco, Maine

Your story shows a misconception of how trade publishing works. Every season brings new examples of bestsellers that have been turned down at one or more houses. Indeed, it's this very individuality of decision that makes trade publishing the quirky, exciting business it is, and allows unknown, aspiring authors a shot at the big time.

To provide a service for the 3,000 or so hopeful authors who send us their manuscripts every year represents a considerable cost to us, in view of the fact that the results amount to perhaps two or three manuscripts a year that we deem publishable on our own list.

Austin G. Olney,

Editor in Chief

Trade Division,

Houghton Mifflin

Boston

High-Flying Gold

It is theoretically possible, by volume, to load 80,000 tons of gold into four C-5A Air Force transports, as you say in "Big Boom in a Barbarous Relic" [Feb. 26], if you want four collapsed aircraft. But if you are implying that "the thing will fly," the answer is no. Not unless you extend the wingspan to eight miles and add some 1,600 engines.

Helmut Mueller Palatine, III.

Bubba's Penalty

To confine a 14-year-old child like Robert Earl ("Bubba") May Jr. [Feb. 26] with 1,800 felons in a state penitentiary is in itself a crime. Had young Bubba May been white and belonged to the middle or upper-middle class, would he have received 48 years in a state penitentiary?

Enrique H. Peha

Judge, Juvenile Board

El Paso

So the defense counsel, Julie Ann Epps, thinks little Bubba "doesn't know what 48 years is." I doubt that the asinine judge who delivered the sentence does either.

Paul Du Bois

Charenton-le-Pont, France

Bubba may be "a terrified little boy," but he certainly knows that robbery, using guns and beating up women is not good and proper behavior. It would be gullibility to think of a teen-ager as being an innocent baby, though Bubba's sentence is indeed extremely harsh and should be appealed.

Catherine Barnes

New York City

The sick part of this case is that people like Defense Counsel Epps may succeed in convincing Bubba that he is the victim. Who cares about the injured saleswoman-perhaps she shouldn't have got in Bubba's way.

Gene L. Rickaby Mt. Prospect, Ill.

Laughing Over Life's Laws

We have laughed a lot over your Americana article on Paul Dickson's collection of useful and useless social axioms [Feb. 26], but here's one we think you missed: The sooner you fall behind, the more time you have to catch up.

Sam Ogden Amherst, Mass.

Coccia's Law maintains that regardless of where you sit, the wind will always blow the smoke from a barbecue in your face.

James R. Coccia

Glens Falls, N. Y.

Let me add a colleague's contribution to the most noble endeavors of Paul Dickson: If you have a bunch of clowns, you're going to have a circus.

R.J. Boettcher

Bridgewater, N.J.

Close's Clever Clue for Clashing Couples: If I can prove I'm right, I make things worse.

(The Rev.) Henry Close

Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

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