Session in Self-Criticism

Sir: As a Navy officer who has just completed three years on active duty (17 months in Viet Nam) I read your cover story on the draft [June 3] with distaste. Like it or not, we are deeply committed in Viet Nam, and the armed forces need men --especially leadership potential--to fulfill this commitment. If Mr. Wilson and others like him would spend less time endeavoring to support their selfish motives, and more time reflecting on their obligations to the country that provided their education, perhaps the enemy would be less encouraged in their continuing aggression. Perhaps if Mr. Wilson et al. would face up to these obligations, they might discover that the training gained in the service would make them more hireable and give them the intangible reward of having served.

A. J. NAGLE Columbia University New York City

Sir: What is wrong with these young people? If young men their age weren't dying in Asia, these college boys' children and grandchildren might end up spending their time conducting self-criticism sessions in a commune rather than dreaming up ways to beat the draft. I had a privileged education--Choate '53 and Yale '57, but the greatest privilege I've had was 3 1/2 years as an infantry officer in the U.S. Army. I'll serve again if need be.

JAY C. KUHN San Francisco

Sir: I read with interest of the futility expressed by today's draft-age youth. In 1953, a high school junior, I received my "Greetings." It obviously did not matter to anyone that I had just entered this country, could hardly speak English, had already spent five years surviving a war, and, above all, after ten years could finally attend a decent school. No, on reading "The President of the U.S. etc. ..." I did not become furious, nor did I rocket my Volkswagen around the block. The affluent society had not yet given me a chance to own a car.

ILMARS BIRZNIEKS Instructor

University of North Carolina Greensboro, N.C.

Sir: In this country, there is a large group of stateless men who would welcome an opportunity to fight for their country. I refer to convicts--men who have lost their freedom by their own misdeeds. You will recall that Field Marshal Rommel put his criminal elements together in a motorcycle battalion and subsequently awarded them several unit citations. Many of us at Kentucky State Penitentiary are youthful offenders; some, like me, have had military training. We beg for a chance to prove ourselves on the Viet Nam battlefront.

JAMES E. JACKSON Committee for Viet Nam Action Kentucky State Penitentiary Eddyville, Ky.

Dee Mak!

Sir: As a former resident of Thailand, I commend TIME'S candid, comprehensive and wholly truthful cover story on Siam [June 3]. Dee Mak!

Sir: That Thailand is a nation of stability and strength is obvious: states under strict military dictatorship usually are. That this same country is a "land of the free" is highly unbelievable.

(MRS.) LOUISE VIDAS Champaign, Ill.

Sir: Thank you for your effort to present a true picture of Thailand. While it is true that we have survived a few catastrophes by "shrewdly" siding with the stronger, I do not think you need worry that we might side with the Communists should the U.S. pull out of Saigon. We are a genuinely anti-Communist country, and shall always be, no matter what.

Y. R. THIENGTHAM Bangkok

Piece of Cake

Sir: It was gratifying to see my husband's report on federalism cited in your "Marble-Cake Government" Essay [May 27]. But he would have argued with your subhead: "Washington's New Partnership with the States." As he made clear, the partnership is as old as the states. There has always been an intermingling of functions, though it is more accelerated and visible now.

(MRS.) RUTH M. GRODZINS Chicago

With Crimson in Triumph Flashing

Sir: I am perplexed by the American Council on Education's assessment of graduate schools [May 27]. I am confused by the conclusion that Berkeley is "best balanced" when Harvard appears to lead Berkeley in four of five fields. Harvard is in first place nine times to Berkeley's seven, in first or second place 16 times to Berkeley's nine. Not until we consider third position does Berkeley pull ahead by one department. Is it logical to assign as much weight to third place as to first? I am further confused by a classification that assigns three out of five main groupings to the pure or applied sciences and none to the arts, medicine, law, business or theology. I fail to see why it is more logical to divide engineering four ways than to break up, say, history or philosophy. I fail to see why Spanish, geography or entomology are analyzed at the expense of Slavic languages, public health or education. Since "the report is certain to be taken as a guide," its limitations are worthy of exposure.

PAUL K. MURPHY Princeton, N.J.

Sir: I suggest that a weighting system be applied in summarizing the data, and that a comprehensive study should include either all major types of graduate professional schools (law, medicine, business, engineering, etc.) or none. The council's study included only engineering. Harvard has no engineering school, but it does have outstanding graduate professional schools in many areas, in most of which it far outshines Berkeley. Returning to weighting, and omitting professional schools, I allowed three points for a "first," two for a "second," one for a "third." The results were Harvard 42, Berkeley 31! Yale received 16 points to Stanford's eight; yet you report Cartter as ranking Stanford third.

KENNETH H. MYERS Visiting Professor University of Southern California Los Angeles

Hair Shirt

Sir: I take off my nonexistent hat from my conforming haircut to Alan Miller [May 27]. His parents also I salute for not allowing their son to be railroaded into the stifling world of conformity. Our society is desperate for educated people who have retained a grain of individuality after the typically narrowing experience of a public school education. I know not the length of Superintendent Smith's hair, but he apparently wears it thick and long, perpetually covering both eyes and both ears. The barber is being called for the wrong person.

WALTER G. LEVINE Eastchester, N.Y.

Poetic License

Sir: As his geologist partner and the discoverer and developer of his mines, I'm mortified that my good friend and former grubstaker, American Joe Hirshhorn, should be quoted [May 20] as saying of his truly Horatio Algeric career: "The things I did in my life can only be done here." Joe, one of America's greatest unrecognized poets, was simply employing the usual license.

Joe quit New York during the depression for Toronto, where for 20 years he worked hard, shrewdly and courageously, "collecting moola for those bums I love --the prospectors."

Even when he struck the jackpot with his half-dozen world-famous uranium mines, two copper mines and an iron mine, he found it impossible to raise production capital in the States; the bulk of it came from Europe.

However, Joe owes one debt to his country that cannot be lightly dismissed.

The American taxpayers, through their ever-generous agent, the American Government, purchased from Joe's operations three-quarters of a billion dollars worth of uranium at $10 per lb., when the offered price in Canada was between $2.75 and $5. Joe should, and I suspect does, sing God Bless America at least twice each morning as he is being shaved.

FRANC. R. JOUBIN New Delhi

Time Bomb

Sir: Referring to your inaccurate article "How They Found the Bomb" [May 13], this should set the record straight. With due credit to Sandia for its highly professional efforts and to the Spanish witnesses ashore, had we adhered to their imprecise estimates, the location of the bomb would have been delayed at least a month and more likely several months. The hundreds of bits of information and suggestions received from people in the U.S. and Europe were appreciated and evaluated carefully. But the plaudits for this highly successful operation properly belong to the patriotic civilian and military personnel of TF-65, who so diligently and systematically employed their knowledge of the sea and effectively utilized the accurate contact information generated by TF-65 ships and equipment in accomplishing this unprecedented feat.

WILLIAM S. GUEST Rear Admiral, U.S.N. Commander, Task Force 65 Naples

Slick Chick

Sir: If Cambridge University Research Psychologist Margaret Vince had had the opportunity of knowing my grandmother, it would have saved her a great deal of time and expensive equipment in solving the problem of why all quail and poultry eggs hatch out on the same day, nay, the same hour as their siblings [May 27]. It is all very wonderful to know the embryo can "click" prior to hatching, but I am skeptical of the click's effectiveness in communicating the time of emergence. The latter is based entirely on the period of incubation, which is never begun by a smart hen of any of the gallinaceous birds until the entire clutch is laid. Grandmother kept fertile eggs gathered from the poultry yard in a cupboard until she had enough for a "setting," which may have required several days. Then a "broody" hen was allowed to "set" on the clutch. After 21 days, all the eggs hatched within a half-hour of each other. Clicks or no clicks, lots of chicks!

PAUL W. COLBURN Biology Teacher, Retired Laguna Hills, Calif.

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