Man of the Year

Sir: . . . May I propose . . . Albert Schweitzer? WALTER B. SMALLEY Washington, D.C.

Sir: . . . Nehru, of course. A great statesman . . . G. A. ADVANI Syracuse, N.Y.

Sir: The American Taxpayer . . . Who else could--or would--hand it out? Billions to half the world [and] take the sneers and jeers and ingratitude for so long. JOHN YOST Philadelphia

Sir: ... I nominate Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York ... He is the most able man in public life today. C. DON SUTTON Des Moines

Sir: . . . General Mark W. Clark . . . EBERHARD P. DEUTSCH New Orleans

Sir: Thanks to Citizen H. S. Truman you can chalk up ... Joe McCarthy. LEWIS T. APPLE Clayton, Mo.

Sir: . . . Harry S. Truman who . . . still had the courage to stand up to his accusers. To go before the American people as he did, and explain the reasons why he did the things he was accused of, took undeniable courage, whether right or wrong. MARK A. LAZAR, D.D.S. Newark

Sir: No doubt about the Man of the Year--it's Casey Stengel. IRVING M. RACHLIS Roxbury, Mass.

Pragmatic Preferences

Sir: Re Arthur E. Bestor and his Educational Wastelands [TIME, Nov. 16]: Historian Bestor would have us make intellectuals of all children . . . Despite the fact that differentials in ability in public schools have increased downward since Bestor's school days, we are now turning out of the public schools more children who are actually better trained in subject matter . . . We must not return to the past when the special function of education was to cater to the needs of the few . . . WILBERT J. MUELLER Lawrence, Kans.

Sir: ... I feel I must tell you about the man I hired for a bookstore . . . This seemingly made-to-order book clerk was a teacher of English in a junior college in one of the finest public school systems in the U.S. After three days, his shortcomings became evident to the rest of the force (he had "never heard of John Steinbeck," for instance); on the fifth day, when he pleasantly told me that he meant to "take a book home and read it some night because he hadn't read a book in five years," I fired him . . . The whole incident was only a temporary setback, however, because he is still in the school system and has recently been appointed to a $9,000-a-year post. There are no rewards in the U.S. save for mediocrity, and it must be of an inferior grade. FRANCIS LYNCH Los Angeles

Sir: . . . My education teacher . . . has the lowest contempt for any one who dares speak against her educational doctrines as set down by Dewey and other education philosophers --"the curriculum doctors" ... I agree with Mr. Bestor. The stress [in modern education] is too much on how and not why. Before I even took an education course'. . . I was all prepared to enjoy myself teaching the young boys and girls ... to ... raise them to an esthetic level in life, but now I am actually terrified to open a schoolroom window until I have been told in a textbook . . . how high it should be raised, for fear of giving some pupil a complex of some sort . . . JAMES MONAHAN La Salle, Ill.

Sir: Bravo to Dr. Bestor, and bravo to TIME for publishing his views on education. If we do not heed Dr. Bestor's warning . . . our civilization will follow the same pattern Toynbee has traced in 23 earlier ones: it will decay from within, then fall to the barbarian from without. DOROTHY OGBURN New York City

Good Yarns

Sir: Re The Man Who Wouldn't Talk [TIME, Nov. 23]: Mark Twain said it nearly a century ago--"a perfectly wonderful story spoiled by one nasty, dirty fact." Personally, I swallowed George DuPre's book hook, line and sinker, though I had a hazy question why such outstanding bravery had not long ago been recognized by a Victoria Cross. After all, there is some element of truth in the story. Different people in the underground did take risks, winning, losing, and suffering horrors like the incidents portrayed. Anyhow, it is a good yarn. ALFRED L. ADAMS Omaha

Sir: Quentin Reynolds said he'd been "duped" by the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated." No, not "the greatest" . . . Far greater, because it was not exposed till many years later, was Louis de Rougemont, whose fantastic accounts were the foundation of Wide World Magazine ... Sir George Newnes, publisher of Strand Magazine, and millions of Britishers were duped. The title "Truth is stranger than fiction" later became "Truth is a stranger to fiction." FREDERICA A. LANGLEY Pinehurst, N.C.

P: In 1898, Wide World Magazine serialized Louis de Rougemont's harrowing account of "30 years with cannibals in Australia," which was accepted by British scientific bodies until the author spread his local color too thick (sample: he spoke of the "clouds of flying wombats"*).--ED.

A Woman's Place

Sir: Re your "Privilege of the Podium" [Nov. 30] concerning Mrs. Margaret Harpstrite and Judge Georgia Bullock: all I can say is, this is a fine example of how women let personal feelings interfere with business at hand. No wonder women will never be able to take their place alongside men in the business world. ANNE CECILIA BRENNAN Detroit

Far from Home

Sir: Your Nov. 16 article on Mr. Igor Sikorsky is inspiring to displaced Russians still in search of a homeland. G. V. KATKOFF

Manila, P.I.

The White Case (Cont'd)

Sir: Your article, "One Man's Greed" [Nov. 23], was excellent. My layman's concept of common law is that a person who knows that a crime is to be committed by another is an accessory before the fact; if he knows that a crime has been committed, he is an accessory after the fact. Truman was told in no uncertain terms by the FBI that Harry Dexter White had been turning secret data over to a spy ring and would presumably continue to do so, yet Truman kept White in the Government . . . PAUL A. H. DE MACARTE Tolland, Conn.

Sir: . . . What about J. Edgar Hoover, Governor Byrnes and T. Lamar Caudle? Their oath was not to support the President but to support the Constitution and laws of the United States. If they believed that White was a spy and the President refused to act, they should have reported to the country, even though it cost them their jobs . . . J. E. JOHNSON Conroe, Texas

Sir: . . . FBI Chief Hoover says, "This whole network has been under intensive investigation since November 1945 . . ." Thereafter in 1948 you state that the New York grand jury did not indict him, nor have they done anything to all his pals, still living and pursuing various vocations. I am astounded to think Mr. Hoover had White and his cohorts under surveillance for three years, believing them to be spies, and still could not get enough competent evidence on them to get a grand jury to say he or they were probably guilty. Mr. Jenner should certainly investigate Mr. Hoover . . . NAT ALLEN Ryegate, Mont.

Sir: ... If "nobody would accuse Truman of disloyalty," then just what did Brownell do besides shove his department's police arm, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, into outhouse politics? JAMES STREET Chapel Hill, N.C.

Sir: As the head of the U.S. Civil Service Commission during the Roosevelt Administration and most of the Truman Administration, I probably was in closer touch with the President in consideration of disloyalty within the Government service than any other person ... I am astounded that anyone would have the temerity to assert that President Truman was in the slightest degree sympathetic with Communism . . . . . . One must keep in mind that up to 1939 the Civil Service Commission could not even ask an applicant whether or not he was a Communist. In 1939, Congress removed that prohibition by an amendment to the Hatch Act, which provided that no person who favored the destruction of the U.S. Government by force could be employed in the Government. After the war closed, and there was a clearer understanding of the Russian policies by the American people, the danger of Communists in the Government service was more fully realized. Late in 1946 . . . President Truman set up a temporary commission to study the problem [and later] issued an executive order creating a Loyalty Review Board within the Civil Service Commission ... A majority of members were Republicans, and most of them were lawyers. . . . Every agency was required to submit the names of all employees ... to the commission . . . They were transmitted to the FBI . . . The employees so checked numbered 1,734,249. In addition to these employees, applicants for positions were checked to the number of about 1,500,000. The FBI found up to April 28, 1951, which was about the time I resigned . . . that 15,569 employees ought to be investigated for loyalty. Further FBI investigation cleared about 11,000 of these. Of the remainder, 1,744 left the Government service prior to or during investigation. Another 1,405 left the service following investigation but prior to adjudication of their cases ... To say that a man who ordered all this done has any sympathy with Communism is just too absurd and not worthy of consideration . . . HARRY B. MITCHELL Great Falls, Mont.

Sir: Congratulations for your excellent article . . . Attorney Brownell's brilliantly documented facts followed by FBI Hoover's blasting of the fantastic "decoy" story was most satisfying to lovers of truth everywhere. Your accompanying pictures were also most revealing. What will happen to Harry's "red herrings?" JESSIE KEMP HAWKINS Berkeley, Calif.

Sir: My thanks and admiration for your objective discussion of the White Case. Your brief evaluation in a historical light had the breadth and soundness of political science, very unlike ordinary political argument . . . When hooting crowds shame the Republicans for Teapot and denounce the Democrats for Hiss and White, the true significance of all the sound and fury is that America is simply changing its mind and its attitude and finding scapegoats in the process in the usual manner of democracies . . . JOHN WISE

Baltimore Decline & Fall

Sir: Please explain those hunks of femininity bundled in white sheets shown in the picture, "Dinner at the Roman Room," in your [Nov. 30] Cinema section. What are they? Odalisques caught off guard by the photographer? Do they think the public is going to spend money to see them in B pictures if they are going to spend our substance on $6.50 meals (and up) and if they are going to live on the fat of "suckling pig dressed with lemon in mouth, maraschino cherries in eyes," etc ... By the way, Robert Cummings looks more like B. Lillie . . . ED E. HERBST Philadelphia

The U.S. & Britain

Sir: . . . Our complaint against the U.S. is not so much--as your Nov. 16 article suggests--that your policy is inspired by principles [as] the fact that there is more "obvious self-interest" about it than the rest of the world can stomach . . . British Socialists and Tories alike regret the American failure to base its policy on a moral purpose which "needs to be wider and last longer than an alliance based upon direct, obvious self-interest in a transitory local situation." Immediately after the war, the Americans were far more determined than we were to destroy Germany; they were ready far more quickly than we were to rearm Germany. After the war, the Americans took the initiative in claiming that Japan should never again be allowed to have an army, and, far quicker than ourselves, they are demanding that Japan should rearm. What has this to do with the long-term "moral purpose" upon which you declare your policy to be based? You rightly demand "a clear and effective United States policy," even at the cost of losing British cooperation. But how can we cooperate with so opportunist a policy as this? Then this queer idea that the British want merely to achieve a balance of power in Europe ! Surely it is because we have interests in every part of the world that we oppose the strong local action so often advocated in the U.S. You wish that our stake in Pacific Asia were heavier because "that might bring British policy down out of the Nehrunian clouds." It is just because our interests in Asia are great that we realize that only Asians who have been brought up in a democratic tradition will be able to check the Asian masses attracted by the specious promises of Communism ... There are, of course, some British Socialists who resent the success of American capitalism, and there are some British diehards who resent the transfer of power from London to Washington, but what we resent far more is the American failure to provide an adequate leadership. Your article mentions the names of Milton and Hampden. Those, as you rightly claim, are names which still mean something to us ... We don't see how people who support McCarthy can have the nerve to lecture us upon our alleged failure to remember Hampden . . . VERNON BARTLETT News Chronicle London

* A burrowing marsupial.

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