Price of Power

To the Editors:

A better title for your article "What Price Power?" [Oct. 29] would have been: "What Price Weakness?" Our security is cheap at ten times the price.

Alan D. McLemore Beaumont, Texas

Only a fool (or a Communist) would be opposed to the regeneration of America's military might. Of course everyone would like to see broad social programs enacted in this country, but when we're looking down the barrel of the Soviet Union's atomic shotgun, there's not much choice as to priorities.

Jennifer Rice Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

You are correct in your assessment "that a nation's most fundamental social-welfare obligation to its citizens is to defend them against attack." But which attack is more real, a presupposed threat from without, or the threat of cities in decay, rampant inflation, a raging crime rate, etc.?

Carlos M. Magallanes Pasadena, Calif.

I have spent seven years in military service, trying to accomplish my mission with antiquated equipment and with personnel who can't even write their own names. The American people need to know what kind of Army they have defending their homes.

If they only knew the whole truth, American taxpayers would have nervous breakdowns.

(SP5) Joseph Rivas

U.S.A.

Fort Riley, Kans.

Senator Kennedy warns against additional defense spending that will cause a "disproportionate share" of the costs to be borne by "the poor, the black, the sick, the young [why did he forget the old?], the cities and the unemployed." By my crude calculations, this leaves about 6% of us who will be obliged to pay a ''proportionate share."

Gary P. Kutcher Potomac, Md.

With people starving throughout the world, I fail to understand how the U.S. can afford to sell huge quantities of wheat to the Soviet Union so that the Communists can continue to skimp on their agricultural infrastructure in favor of weapons production. Napoleon said it: "An army travels on its stomach." If the Soviets are hungry, let them eat guns.

Arthur M. Howard Daettlikon, Switzerland

You report General David C. Jones as arguing that SALT II is acceptable if the U.S. increases its arsenal to counter the growing Soviet threat. Does the corollary hold true, that without SALT II we would need no increase in arsenal?

It is mind boggling to think that an arms limitation treaty is only acceptable with an arms buildup.

Edward Q. Miller South Haven, Mich.

Fallaci vs. Kissinger

I have read in TIME the reference to me in Dr. Kissinger's book [Oct. 8]. I must re-establish the truth with the following observations:

1) Dr. Kissinger writes that he saw me out of vanity, in order to appear in my journalistic pantheon of world leaders, but that he had never bothered to read any of my other interviews. That is not what he said to me when he received me in his office. For one full hour he discussed my interviews with Golda Meir, Indira Gandhi, Ali Bhutto and Yasser Arafat, and explained that leaders don't have to be intelligent, only strong and determined.

2) Dr. Kissinger claims that I put in his mouth the "cowboy phrase." He knows very well that it was he who put the fatal words into my ears and my tape recorder. After the publication of the interview, Kissinger did not deny the cowboy reference. Nor has he ever denied it in the past seven years. What he has said is that doing the interview was the stupidest thing of his life.

3) Dr. Kissinger affirms that I have consistently refused to make the tape available to other journalists. Though I don't travel the world with his tape in my pocket as if it were my passport, some one has listened to it. When Mike Wallace came to interview me in Italy for 60 Minutes and asked me to hear Kissinger's voice telling his own cowboy epic, I played the tape in front of the whole CBS group. Wallace heard what he wanted and he got very excited, even amused.

4) Dr. Kissinger insinuates that I was "on to" something. True. I was "on to ' hoping to find a man less arrogant and more coherent than the one portrayed in those days by the American press. I failed, and my interview with him thus remains the worst I have ever done, the most boring, in every sense.

Oriana Fallaci Rome

Wallace doesn't remember it quite that way. He recalls hearing parts of a scratchy tape with the voice of Henry Kissinger saying something that was not as simple and dramatic as it appeared in the printed Fallaci interview.

Nobel Prizes

In your article "The Nobel Prizes" [Oct. 29], you state that "the social sciences are frequently not so intellectually taxing as scientific research." If the study of philosophy is simpler than physics, then why are we still perplexed by the same age-old queries in philosophy, while the results of scientific research have propelled man to the moon and provided us with "miracle drugs"?

Elizabeth A. Fries Madison, Wis.

Is it possible that "the ablest students ... are headed for law or medicine" because they realize that we are endangered today by yesterday's science? Maybe they are compelled by conscience to protect and heal the delicate creation that yesterday's scientists probed with freedom, and all the damage that entails. I hope so. Our future depends upon more than the "glory of science."

(The Rev.) R. Peter Flocken Utica, N. Y.

On behalf of myself and the 650 million people of India, I wish to express my joy that the Nobel Peace Prize for 1979 has been awarded to Mother Teresa. No other person deserves it more.

Alta Ahmad Chappaqua, N. Y.

1 was surprised and very disappointed that President Carter wasn't given the Nobel Peace Prize. He earned it.

June Lund Florissant, Mo.

I read with interest your fine article on the Nobel Prizes for 1979. However, I was disappointed by one serious omission. Nowhere in your article did you mention the institutions that encouraged the research, or the granting agencies that provided the necessary financial support for the awardees. Purdue University has been my home for more than 32 years and has provided an ideal environment for the research that my students and I have carried out. Financial support for various aspects of my research has been provided by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Army Research Office and Albany International. All are major contributors and they, along with my highly productive students, should share in the recognition provided by the Nobel award.

Herbert C. Brown West Lafayette, Ind.

The writer shared this year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Insidious Fashions

The French and their insidious "fashions" [Oct. 29]! First I hear the miniskirt is making a comeback. "Well," I console myself, "you'll just have to live in pants until the phase passes." Then I see your story on the new baggy pants...

Mary L. Kozma Trenton, N.J.

Back in the '40s in Los Angeles, we males who wore baggy pants called them zoot suits or, in the case of the trousers alone, drapes. Well, maybe on the modern woman they are saggy or baggy. On us they looked good, or did we really look that ridiculous?

Glenn Snodgrass Chatsworth, Calif.

The cycle of styling jeans will have run the gamut when they are worn with one leg cut off at the crotch and the other ankle length.

Alice Deus Hammond, Ind.

Connally's Appeasement

You discuss John Connally's looking beyond the so-called Jewish vote to the larger issue [Oct. 22]. Big John is quite prepared to play the appeasement game in return for Saudi oil. Since his way of dealing with the larger issues would turn over a huge portion of the Middle East to the Soviet-backed P.L.O., one wonders how large an army he is prepared to commit to the area in order to ensure our oil supply.

Clara P. Trefethen Tonawanda, N. Y.

While Connally's proposal for a comprehensive Arab-Israeli settlement based on U.S. military presence seems attractive, it is dangerously myopic. A foreign military presence would be actively opposed by Arab nationalists, not to mention the Soviets, thereby creating Dangerous confrontation and jeopardizing U.S. access to stable oil flow.

Mahdy Y. Khaiyat Goleta, Calif.

Setting the Record Straight

I must take issue with the article titled "Blasting a G-Man Myth" about the capture of Charles ("Pretty Boy") Floyd [Sept. 24]. You reported that Chester Smith, a former member of the East Liverpool, Ohio, police department, said that he decided it was proper to set the record straight now because of the several men involved, only he remains alive.

I was one of the four special agents of the FBI (known at the time as the Division of Investigation) who apprehended Floyd on a farm several miles from East Liverpool on Oct. 22, 1934, and I am very much alive.

To begin with. Mr. Smith did not capture Floyd. The truth is he was shot by two of the four FBI agents present when Floyd aimed his gun at them. After he was shot, two or three members of the East Liverpool police department who were in the immediate area at the time came up to us and offered assistance in directing us to the morgue in East Liverpool. Floyd was then transported to the morgue in my Government-owned car.

According to your article, Smith said that "Purvis ran up and ordered: 'Back away from that man, I want to talk to him.' Pretty Boy glared and cursed, at which point, said Smith, Purvis turned to G-Man Herman Hollis and said: 'Fire into him.' Hollis obeyed, said Smith, killing Floyd with a burst from a tommy gun."

For your information. Agent Hollis, whom I knew personally, was not even present when Floyd was apprehended. The allegation that Purvis ordered an agent to "fire into Floyd" as described above is absolutely false. The truth is that when the several members of the East Liverpool police department came up to where Floyd was lying on the ground, he had already been mortally wounded.

Winfred E. Hopton Franklin, Tenn.

A Native Complaint

How would Contributor John Skow know about New Hampshire and its politics [Oct. 29], gazing at us natives from his lofty perch in snooty New London? Skow can poke fun at us. However, when the chips are down, name me one President in the past five decades who made it without first doing damn well in the New Hampshire primary.

And listen, Skow, ya ain't a local fella till ya lived here fawty years.

Bernard A. Streeter Jr. Nashua, N.H.

Since 1952, the first year New Hampshire had a presidential preference primary, nobody has won the presidency who did not win the New Hampshire primary.

Ayuh. You get some dark horse politician here this winter who'll not only stomp through our snow but also spend a week in one of our cold houses, and he won't be dark any more; he'll be blue. M. Cyrene Wells Epsom, N.H.

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