Letters, Oct. 20, 1952

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Sir:

TIME, Sept. 15 issue, reports: "Foot soldiers took a hard look at Congress' decision (to provide additional pay of $45 a month for combat duty) and groaned." The report states that the Pentagon estimate of the cost of the paper work involved in making payments retroactive to the start of the Korean war alone would be more than $250,000,000.

As a matter of fact, the paper work involved in making these back payments is estimated at approximately $300,000. The figure of $250,000,000 is the approximate total estimated cost of combat pay for all services from the beginning of the Korean war to July 1, 1953.

Concerning your statement that foot soldiers groaned at the prospect of $45 a month combat pay, I put it to you honestly—when in the name of history has a soldier in any army groaned, or complained, at what amounts to a well-deserved raise in pay? . . .

FRANK DORN

Brigadier General, GS Washington, B.C.

Man of the Year

Sir:

Let me be the first to offer Senator Richard Nixon as "The Man of the Year" . . .

L. L. GARY

Columbia, Mo.

Campaign Issue

Sir:

The China fiasco is now history. But, have Acheson, Truman, and now Stevenson considered the difference in distance between Siberia and Alaska, compared to the distance between Europe and the U.S.A.? . . .

Would Russia fight the ground armies of Europe, then endeavor to attack the U.S.A. across the Atlantic? With her incomplete . navy? Or would she, allied with 400 million Chinese, with a tremendous ground force, and with the world's largest and perhaps most effective submarine fleet, attack across the narrows of Bering Strait?

It appears that the present Administration has Mess-merized us into believing that a great giant is waiting to spring upon us from across Europe and the Atlantic. We may soon awaken to find this same giant breathing down the back we have turned on Asia . . .

This is the Presidential Campaign Issue! Do we want more of the same planning by Adlai, "The Democrats' Christopher Columbus," Stevenson, who has just discovered India!

ROBERT L. BROWN Van Nuys, Calif.

450 or 1

Sir:

It is difficult for me to conceive how an article could have been less objectively written than the one, "Missionaries in Rome" [Sept. 29] ... Does TIME favor religious freedom? Does it make any difference to TIME whether 450 people or 450,000 people are involved? How would TIME describe an effort to suppress a Roman Catholic mission in some Protestant stronghold in America?

J. HAROLD THOMAS Bangor, Me.

SIR: HAVE BEEN AN AVID READER OF TIME FOR

MANY YEARS. AM SHOCKED AS I'M SURE ARE MANY OF YOUR READERS AT THE STRONG PRO-CATHOLIC BIAS OF YOUR ARTICLE ON THE OUTRAGEOUS TREATMENT ACCORDED THE CHURCH OF CHRIST MISSIONARIES IN ITALY. THE FACTS ARE TWISTED AND DISTORTED. FOR EXAMPLE YOU STATE THEY HAVE MADE ONLY 45O CONVERTS. THE WORD "ONLY" BETRAYS THE STRONG

SLANTING OF THE ARTICLE EVEN IF THE FIGURE 450 WERE CORRECT WHICH IT IS NOT. THE ACTUAL NUMBER OF CONVERTS IS BETWEEN 1,000 AND 1,100 INCLUDING MORE THAN A DOZEN MONKS AND PRIESTS AND ONE ARCHBISHOP . . .

G. D. COGDELL CINCINNATI