Bear in a Boat

Sir: The "cold war" now portends to become the "wet war." Your splendid article on the spectacular growth of Russian seapower [Feb. 23] should help in bringing our own national goals into proper perspective and bring us back down to earth from the heady atmosphere of the race in outer space. Unless there is a rebirth of national leadership in the maritime field, stemming from public awareness and concern, we may find ourselves aroused from our present apathy by what the noted naval historian, Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan called: "the rude awakening of those who have abandoned their share of the common birthright of all people--the sea."

As a matter of fact, I hope this article may cause you to re-evaluate the statement in your Essay, "How to Cut the U.S. Budget" [Dec. 8], that "ripe for reduction is the $600 million yearly subsidy to the aged, ailing merchant marine." This earlier statement fails to recognize that in its broadest sense, seapower is the ability of a nation to project into the world ocean in times of peace, its national sovereignty; in times of war, its military might.

Unfortunately, judging from the President's proposed budget for merchant shipping programs in fiscal year 1969, he must have read and heeded the counsel in your Essay. I only hope that the President now reads and heeds "Russia: Power Play on the Oceans."

WILLIAM S. MAILLIARD

Congressman

6th District, Calif.

Washington, D.C.

Sir: Indeed, "the West, and especially the U.S., has no choice but to accept the Soviet challenge on the seas." We need only think of what Hitler could have done with Gorshkov's fleet to see the reason. How the history of the world would have been changed. Seapower will ensure us of more than a posthumous footnote in future history.

DANIEL JOHN SOBIESKI

Chicago

Sir: In presenting Admiral Gorshkov as a real tough guy, you write: "While his aides looked on aghast in Agra last week, he seized a thick, six-foot-long python in his strong hands and draped it over his shoulders." I am afraid you were misled by the photographer. Maybe the admiral is not so tough. The snake in the picture is the same one put on my shoulder just the other day by the Indian fellow who supplies it for 130 or one rupee.

ERNEST A. GRAUPNER

Manhattan

Sir: I must rise to the defense of John Paul Jones. He did not equal Catherine the Great in lack of morals. In today's order of enthroned sex he would hardly be considered out of line. Catherine, on the other hand, was a real original. Jones gave the U.S. its first traditions of victory at sea when they were badly needed. The fact that he did not come from gentility, but instead rose the hard way through determination and an aggressive personality, earned him the jealousy of the Establishment. It was for this that Jones's detractors scorned him. As for the incident that led to Jones's putative disgrace in Russia, the facts suggest that 1) the girl was older than his detractors claimed; 2) she was not an amateur; 3) she enticed Jones; and 4) her mother was paid for her services by Jones's enemies.

EDWARD L. BEACH

Captain, U.S.N. (Ret.)

U.S. Naval War College

Newport, R.I.

The Way to a Man's Heart

Sir: Your Essay states that "the cult of physical fitness has developed into a national middle-aged obsession" [Feb. 23]. I am certain that you mean a national discussion. For the past three years, instead of eating lunch, I have exercised regularly at the central Y.M.C.A. located near my office. During this time, fewer than ten of my approximately 600 male co-workers walked across the street to exercise. In addition, I usually jog outdoors either on Saturday or Sunday, covering a distance of about two miles. Yet I have never seen anyone jogging and only a few walking. Since they are not in the gym or outdoors, could those tens of millions be exercising in front of their television sets? I doubt it.

DOMINIC SORRENTINO

Arlington, Va.

Sir: The human machine in middle age is not "rusty from disuse"; it is already poisoned by the process of aging. Until we learn more about the causes of aging itself, and find out how to prevent and treat it, exercise will only be a pathetic and fruitless attempt to recapture lost youth. Aging is a biological process just as devastating as cancer or heart disease, and just as amenable to scientific investigation and eventual control. If people want to stay young and live longer, the only way they can do it is by supporting this kind of research.

STEVEN LUNZER, M.D.

Duke Medical Center

Durham, N.C.

Sir: It's true! Jogging is the greatest form of exercise there is, and our group has tried them all. We have been jogging for almost a year, and have lost inches off of everywhere, increased the circulation of the blood, and even cleared the brain. By the way, jogging is good for hangovers, too, as one of our group found out by accident. But the greatest thing it has done is to bring back our husbands' attentions to us. We all look great, and they notice. Now our jogging extends to being chased around the house, which is a great way to spend an evening.

ROZ LINDSTROM

Park Ridge, Ill.

Long Clear View

Sir: I wish to reply to Mrs. Cunnison's letter on Viet Nam in which the question is asked: "What earthly purpose do you serve by showing our wounded or dead in such heartbreaking pictures?" [Feb. 16]. The purpose, hopefully accomplished, is that we be made painfully and everlastingly aware of the agonies and heartbreak endured by our soldiers, and all soldiers, commissioned to join in this deadly game called war. When you wonder "if some of the news media are trying to color the public's view about this war," may I suggest that we, the public, take a long and clear view of this war, based not on statistical reports, but on the bitter realities of death and carnage. When you say "bad taste," may I submit that war is always in very "bad taste." It reeks of violence, gore, bloodshed and atrocities, which we, as mothers, would go to any length to protect our children from viewing. Yet we, as mothers, must send our sons to participate in this carnage. Can we do less than share with them, if only vicariously, the agonies we ask them to endure daily? Cowards come in many forms--the most significant number not being those retreating from the heat of battle but those too cowardly to face the reality of what that battle entails in terms of human lives. Those pictures, madam, are statistics, in graphic form, and if they do not, indeed, "color the public's view of this war," then American morality cannot be salvaged.

MARGARET E. MURTON

Grady, Ark.

Sir: Look at it one way : all war is wrong. The idea of sending men to shoot other men is unthinkable. It follows that we were wrong to fight the American Revolution. Britain has now freed most of its former colonies. We could have had dominion status long ago without bloodshed. Or was it right and glorious to fight for our own freedom, but now unjust and immoral to fight for the freedom of others?

(MRS.) DOROTHY G. TINKHAM

Middleboro, Mass.

Sir: I'm just a university freshman who can't understand President Johnson's reasoning. What kind of joke is this war? A war where you don't bomb the enemy's capital but they take over our embassy in downtown Saigon? A war where you don't bomb the enemy's only supply harbor is idiotic.

Do I want to go to Viet Nam now? Hell no! We're not fighting a war there: we are trying to please the rest of the world, trying to show them what good sports we are by fighting on the enemy's terms. I want to help stop Communism. If President Johnson starts acting like he wants to win this war I promise I'll quit college and enlist, just like my father did in 1941. But I'll be damned if I'll support Johnson with everything I have, including my life, if he won't support me with everything he has, including nuclear weapons.

RAYMOND L. HELZER

Provo, Utah

Sir: I, for one, am fed up with hawks and doves. I want to be a cougar. A cougar is a creature that never strays far from home, but defends its lair with unparalleled ferocity.

S. ERIC HOWSE

Glendale, Calif.

Chill from the Draft

Sir: I think the Russians and Chinese must be laughing up their sleeves at us these days. Until now, they have been able to get only a propaganda advantage from our presence in Viet Nam. Under the new draft system [Feb. 23] they gain a material advantage as we send our scientists and engineers to the front to be shot.

WILLIAM I. WHITE

Ithaca, N.Y.

Sir: Since I am not a female and I do plan to attend graduate school in September, I must, according to Harvard President Pusey, be numbered among "the lame, the halt and the blind." I--as well as my many contemporaries in similar situations--am none of these, but rather a college graduate who deferred his formal education for another variety of education: a tour of active military service including a year in Viet Nam.

FRANK N. SCHUBERT

Captain, U.S.A.

Fort G. G. Meade, Md.

Sir: While spending six years in association with graduate students, it became disappointingly clear to me how many young men enroll in graduate school as a way of avoiding the draft. I then questioned the future quality of the various professions that will be entered by these men who were trying so earnestly to avoid responsibility. This Draconian step looks like a great way for the weeds to be pulled from the garden of graduate education.

CATHERINE W. MAYO

Phoenix, Ariz.

Sir: Your story on the draft and how it will affect most males in the Class of '68 summarizes the facts and fears well. I would like to ask if there have been any plans on the part of the Federal Government to enlarge federal prison facilities to handle the increase of men who will resist the draft. In prison, one can accomplish more work toward a graduate degree than he can in the military.

COLEMAN BAKER, '68

Cornell College

Mount Vernon, Iowa

Nothing Nude

Sir: As a practicing psychoanalyst, I feel that one should be very skeptical of therapist Paul Bindrim's nude marathon "experiment" [Feb. 23]. The idea that taking off one's clothing should in any way cause change in the psychic defensive system is extremely naive--even disrespectful of the incredible organization of man's mind. Disrobing a neurotic produces a nude neurotic--no more and no less.

SUMNER L. SHAPIRO, M.D.

Encino, Calif.

Pretty Cheeky

Sir: In an otherwise disappointing review of my recently published novel, The Experiment [Feb. 23], there was one tribute that gratified me. You said that as a writer, I was "not hopelessly bad," and I fully appreciate that the line between mere badness and hopeless badness is one that must be constantly under the anxious surveillance of your committee of anonymous reviewers. I was, of course, less pleased by your nomination of "Camilla's cheeks prettily pinkened" as "the silliest line of the year (so far)." Without citing any lines of your own for this ephemeral honor, I would like to point out that all sorts of language, even girlish language, may be used deliberately and properly when it fits the subject being described. My sentence describes not the sun setting over the Rockies but a young virgin blushing. Is that charming minor phenomenon one that it has never been your reviewer's privilege to observe?

PATRICK SKENE CATLING

Westhampton Beach, N.Y.

> Sobered by Reader Catling's challenge, TIME'S reviewer conducted an informal poll of young virgins. Result: some ravishingly reddened, others cutely crimsoned, while still others indeed prettily pinkened.

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