Letters: Mar. 19, 1965

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Peru, Si!

Sir: As a Peruvian studying in New York City and having a hard time deciding whether to work here or at home, I'd like to thank you for your cover story about Peru [March 12]. Now I think I would be a fool not to try to include myself in our great future.

LUISA PORRAS New York City

Sir: Amid the current "genuine excitement in Peru," my wife and I worked for three years as Papal Volunteers for Latin America. We were pleased with TIME'S tremendous coverage of Peru's new conquest. Would that more of President Belaúnde's aristocratic countrymen were awakened to the adelante spirit his administration has created.

DAN B. MCCARTHY Tampa, Kans.

Señor: Muy agradecido por su importante articulo y por su destacada* presentatión en TIME. Cordiales saludos.

PRESIDENTE BELAÚNDE Lima

The Battle of Selma

Sir: Had a foreign power treated a group of Americans as the Alabama state police treated those Negroes in Selma, a state of war would no doubt exist.

W. A. ROWLAND Hollywood

Sir: We condemn attacks on our embassies in other countries, but attacks on humans here are entirely permissible—if "they're only a bunch of black folks."

WINSTON R. CHEAL Eaton Rapids Journal Eaton Rapids, Mich.

Sir: Are we going to make the same mistake with Martin Luther King that we did with Castro? Are we going to give King our blessing until he makes his final march into the White House? King today is more powerful politically than Lyndon Johnson, and will not need either the Democrats or the Republicans when he has his army registered. Then the white man will have to paint his face black to get recognition.

PRIMROSE HOLLAND Miami

Sins of the Fathers

Sir: The principle of retributive justice—the infliction of present pain in return for past wrongdoing—is bad enough, but in the case of German war crimes [March 5], it may appear more absurd, since the victims are likely to be quiet, older men whose 20-or-more-year-old crimes were not only legal but officially approved when they were committed.

A. PATTERSON HAZEN New York City

Sir: I was born in Germany in 1937 and I lived there till 1956, before moving to the U.S. However, a good many people I meet just won't let me forget my "past." Somehow they blame me for Auschwitz and World War II. To those who can't bury their old hate, my reply is not "Sieg Heil" but an expression I heard Mr. Truman use—"Go to hell!"

FRED L. BOGER De Kalb, Ill.

Beauty & The Beholder