Letters: Sep. 30, 1966

Bing in the Bullseye

Sir: As one who would rather experience a Callas Toscu than an LSD trip. I applaud TIME for daring to like Rudolf Bing and the beautiful new Met [Sept. 23|. It is the latest chic to find the Met somehow appalling or worse, mundane. It is gaudy (so are diamonds). It panders to popular taste—Chagall, really! It is gimmick-run, unexciting, blah, blah, blah. One wonders what could possibly have pleased its critics. But then, who cares?

If Antony and Cleopatra was a disappointment, the new house, this exceptional season, and your delightfully written cover story are not. You have successfully retired the cliche that Bing is a stuffy, humorless, inept Austrian tyrant and given us a wi. ty. dedicated, and exceptionally talented human being.

JOHN R. BELDEN New York City

Sir: I was delighted with the lively profile of Rudolf Bing. With the exception of one or two semantic twisters, I think it is a first-rate job—definitely ept, ane and ert. Sending Mr. Bing a bottle of Moselle as a preliminary shipboard softener-upper was a touch of genius. Champagne would have been all right for some people, but for Bing a bit gauche and outre. In the words of Talleyrand (almost): He is intolerable, but that is his only fault.

STEPHEN J. SPINGARN Washington, D.C.

Sir: The article on Bing was great, but it didn't make me (or any other contemporary composer) love him any better. He is as much a museum piece as the Establishment he represents. His choice of American composers (Barber, for example) certainly doesn't place him too far out on the limb.

IRWIN BAZELON New York City Sir: A delightful story about an amazing man. But in an apparent burst of Gesamtkunstwerk the cover artist not only turned Mr. Sing's parchment-over-steel face into pastry lumped over oboe; he brocaded him into the background. Holy Schlock!

ARTHUR STONE New York City

Describing the Puzzle

Sir: Your Bobby Kennedy cover [Sept. 16] did a good job of describing one of our nation's most complicated and puz zling figures. Because of his family name, his position in society, his brief but interesting Senate investigations and his unpolished charm, whether we like it or not, Robert Kennedy is undoubtedly the man of the future. Let us hope that he uses his talents and stamina for the good of the country and not just for the sake of adding another Kennedy name to the list of U.S. Presidents.

ROLAND BENEDETTI Long Island City, N.Y.

Sir: Your article shows just how lousy our Senator is. How people could throw away Kenneth Keating is an enigma to me.

LAGAYETTE D. THOMPSON Buffalo

Wind on Win

Sir: I was in Burma for eight years, and would not hesitate to state that 90% of the people are totally against Ne Win and his government [Sept. 16]. He has antagonized every single sector of the nation. He has been absolutely ruthless, despotic and stupid in bringing chaos to the economy of a wonderful land and a wonderful people.

A State Department official whom I spoke to could not name one single way in which Ne Win had shown neutrality to balance all of the favors that he has shown to the Russians and the Chinese, save that he was coming to visit us. The Burmese themselves know that Ne Win is not neutral. Why should we accept it?