Secrets of the Stone Age

"After comparing the graffiti of the French caverns with those of today, I think the cavemen obviously had the more advanced civilization."

James F. Missroon Jonesboro, Georgia

The cave pictures were breath-taking, and your article was so beautifully written that I felt the paintings were right before me [SCIENCE, Feb. 13]. I always feel humbled by evidence of early man. How brave he must have been, creating anew from his heart the world in which survival was surely an extraordinary struggle. He reminds me again that we have not come far enough.

Gail White Houston

In evolutionary history, 20,000 years is a short time. The major difference between a human living today and one living a few thousand years ago is the knowledge amassed and handed down to us from earlier generations. People in prehistoric times laughed, loved, mourned, thought and created. Do not underestimate them, for they were not too different from us. Those who were alive at the time of the rock paintings in Chauvet were probably as clever as many of us living today. Their lives, although on the average shorter and much harder than ours, must have been rich with emotions and experiences.

Mikael Hoffmann Linkoping, Sweden

The history of art must be rewritten to acknowledge the brilliant artists who elegantly transformed the appearance of creatures into an abstraction of red spots in the Chauvet cave.

Barry Stevens Arlington, Texas

Your article gives the impression that the cave paintings will ``greatly enrich our picture of Cro-Magnon life and culture.'' They will not. As you noted, there are numerous problems in interpreting art. While the Chauvet images may be great art, they reveal very little about ancient societies. Rather, our knowledge of these cultures has been generated by a century of painstaking excavation and research. From these efforts, we have constructed a relatively sophisticated picture of the behavior of pre- and early-modern human societies. Cave art provides little more than an impressive visual supplement to this. I wonder whether we really are better off having discovered it. Eventually, this cave will be virtually closed up in order to preserve it. There will be a large, glossy tome in book shops, but we will still be in the dark about what it all means. The cave will retain its secrets.

Paul Pettitt Cambridge, England

When I gazed at the horses in the cave paintings, I thought, ``What's Marc Chagall doing in the Stone Age?''

Rodney M. Soenksen Los Angeles

I find the newly discovered cave paintings artistically far below those of Lascaux and much less vivid. Something is wrong. In my opinion they are false.

Leendert van Ryswyk Rotterdam, the Netherlands

N.A.A.C.P. at the Crossroads

No one should countenance Jack E. White's fanciful suggestion [DIVIDING LINE, Feb. 13] that the venerable and valuable National Association for the Advancement of Colored People be discarded because charges of mishandling finances plague its board chairman. No one denies that the organization faces a crisis, but the N.A.A.C.P. is alive and well at the grass-roots level, and a competent staff at the Baltimore, Maryland, headquarters is doing its best to carry on. Local branches and volunteers continue registering voters, investigating discrimination complaints, fighting drugs, counseling teenagers to stay in school and conducting a wide range of activities that ease the present-day burden of racism and the legacy of white supremacy that still plagues black Americans. The N.A.A.C.P.'s critics and supporters have a common responsibility: to join in the fight to salvage an important civil rights organization, not destroy it. Americans of every race, gender and ethnicity need a strong, viable N.A.A.C.P.; we would be a poorer nation without it.

Julian Bond Washington

White is right. It is time to scrap the N.A.A.C.P. That group is not only an embarrassment to African Americans; it has become a lightning rod for racist attacks. Whenever some bigot wants to make charges against blacks, he need only cite N.A.A.C.P. chairman William Gibson and his merry band and the way they've looted the group's coffers. Break up the whole damned outfit, I say.

James Henry Jackson, Wyoming

Clinton's Mexican Bailout

Like the little Dutch boy who plugged the dike with his finger, Bill Clinton and his Administration have plugged the peso dike by rescuing Mexico's fragile economy from disaster [MEXICO, Feb. 13]. It is, however, no testament to U.S. democracy that Clinton took the initiative and bailed out Mexico's President while our ``new and improved'' Congress looked the other way. The measures are palliative and temporary. There's no such thing as a free lunch. The question is, Who will ultimately pay, Mexico or the U.S.?

Amy R. Steppe Johnson City, Tennessee

What is Clinton trying to do, Set up a Marshall Plan for Latin America? He's forgotten that there hasn't been a war here, just graft, corruption and political murders. Mexico is not in a position to pay back any loans. The sentiment of the American people and Congress is not with Clinton on this decision, and he will be made to pay for this transgression at the polls in November 1996.

Joseph K. Farley Lomas Verdes, Mexico

I'm not so sure that the Mexican people should thank President Clinton for those billions. The loans may be useful for the next few years, but President Ernesto Zedillo must not forget that the U.S. government never gives a helping hand to any country without sooner or later asking for something back, and not necessarily money. In Spain we are still paying for America's aid after World War II by having U.S. military bases on our soil.

Fernando Diaz Merida, Spain

The real surprise about the Mexican crisis is that it did not happen sooner. The question now is why Clinton and his advisers did not take any corrective measures earlier, before having to put almost $30 billion of international money at risk, plus $20 billion in U.S. loans and guarantees. Surely they owe the public a full explanation.

Milo Vesel Geneva

Cultural Corruption

Kudos to Charles Krauthammer for ``History Hijacked'' [ESSAY, Feb. 13]. For the first time since the Smithsonian's Enola Gay exhibit became widely discussed, the affair has been put in perspective. The U.S. had to win World War II and minimize both Allied and enemy casualties. No matter how many times we try to revise history, the fact remains that the U.S. accomplished its objective. No civilization has a spotless record. When we condemn the sins committed during the U.S. westward expansion, we must also condemn the Viking invasions of the British Isles, the Roman conquests and other historical excesses. The history of the U.S. does not contain all the sins of mankind. In spite of current immigration issues, we in this country can generally be proud of our open door and our concern for human rights.

Edward P. Evert Geneva, Illinois Via America Online

Krauthammer suggests that the 1991 National Museum of Art exhibit on America's westward expansion was, like the proposed Enola Gay exhibit, a ``disgrace'' since it ``mined every artifact for evidence of white racism and rapacity.'' If Krauthammer can demonstrate that that wave of slaughter, thievery and displacement that occurred was anything less than a disgrace, I would certainly find it interesting reading.

(The Rev.) Edward Frost Atlanta AOL: Edward1066

The Enola Gay controversy not only highlights the corruption of the institutions of national culture; it demonstrates clearly how the broader national values are being systematically undermined by special interests dedicated to an ideology of political correctness. Who will support their country if they think that it stands for nothing more than unrestrained despotism, racism and aggression? I am worried what effect this kind of ideological revisionism in our cultural and educational institutions will, if unchecked, have on future generations even further removed from these events. How can the young form objective opinions if all they learn is negative and derogatory? How they perceive our past will directly impact how they shape the future.

Drew Arnold Burlington, Ontario

It makes no sense to justify the bombing of Hiroshima by referring to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. It is true that Admiral Yamamoto's aircraft destroyed the American Pacific Fleet, but please remember that in the course of that action Japanese airmen killed very few American civilians: 68 noncombatants. Compare that number with an estimated 200,000 civilians killed intentionally in Hiroshima. I don't like the narrow-mindedness of the Japanese militarists of the 1940s, but the pilots who attacked Pearl Harbor at least concentrated on military targets.

Sukehiro Hirakawa Tokyo

Bravo to Krauthammer! As usual, a well-reasoned, well-written and trenchant analysis. Revisionism is tempting for many political and social reasons, but that doesn't make it any less intellectually dishonest. To judge--not analyze, but judge--the actions of the past by the criteria of the present is meaningless.

Nigel D. Findley Vancouver, Canada AOL: NigelDF

Krauthammer does the cause of peace no service by saying attempts to see things from the Japanese perspective are anti-American. We shall never learn anything from history if we refuse to accept that other people may have a point of view as valid as our own.

Kay Schlapp Ashford, England

I don't pretend to know if dropping the Bomb on Hiroshima was right or wrong, but for Krauthammer to call the Smithsonian corrupt for trying to educate people so that such an act never happens again is pure idiocy.

Michael Jarboe Dusseldorf, Germany

Death and Destruction in Grozny

Before everyone gets too uptight over Chechnya and the fighting in Grozny [RUSSIA, Feb. 13], it would be well to recall what the row is all about: states' rights. There was a similar fracas some 130 years ago in the U.S. Then there was Lincoln; now there is Yeltsin. In place of Atlanta, we have Grozny. I do not think that General William Tecumseh Sherman was any better than modern Russian generals. As in the English civil war, the clash between Jacobites and Hanoverians, and the War Between the States and now in Chechnya, the losers are wrong but romantic while the winners are right but repulsive.

John Ramsay Ardrossan, Scotland

Because of Russia's continued savagery in the Chechen Republic, Washington should have imposed economic sanctions and ordered American investors to pull out of Russia, just as it did in South Africa. If Russia has enough money to mount this barbaric war, then it doesn't need any economic aid from us.

Chris Hill Richland, Washington

Chan Keeps on Kicking

Bravo! You did a great piece on film star Jackie Chan [CINEMA, Feb. 13]. He has been a personal hero of mine since childhood. He knows how to make a real action movie--with blood, sweat and no tears, just make-or-break stunts with a cool and collected attitude. And unlike his American counterparts, Jackie does not have to rely on multimillion-dollar computer effects for his success.

Chris Leach Stamford, Connecticut

It's about time that such a versatile and popular actor as Jackie Chan is recognized for his achievements in a magazine other than Black Belt or Inside Kung-Fu. I became a fan of Chan's after seeing the action film The Big Brawl. As you report, there is a comedic streak in his movies not usually found in films of this genre. Chan's flicks are fun, and you can tell that the actor enjoys his work.

Jim Elliot Carlsbad, California

No E-asy Task

Yoicks! Paul Gray's criticism of A Void is scrupulously sound [BOOKS, 2/6]. Scanning it, I fix upon a quirk: by adopting that intrinsic idiosyncrasy, Gray has built a conundrum coinciding with A Void. What fun! (What insanity!) In writing this small dispatch, I found how significant omissions will wax if I must do without. Thank God for synonyms.

Sara Rast Birmingham, Alabama

Award Gray an A-plus for his daring aplomb in avoiding, throughout, an author's most put-upon unit. By not invoking it, Gray shows a capability to wax vivaciously, but no doubt longs to say, ``Vanna, I want to buy an . . .''

Tim Jamiolkowski Mapleton, Illinois