Letters: Oct. 31, 1969

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Sir: You state that we are without leadership as we are now bereft of the towering presence of John F. Kennedy and instead have that bland Richard Nixon thrust upon us.

I, for one, am sick and tired of having that little kid who couldn't think his way put of a paper bag held up as a leader. President Nixon is now busy cleaning up the war left by the Democrats, as President Eisenhower, early in his first term, was busy cleaning up a war left by the Democrats.

NATALIE GREER Des Plaines, Ill.

Fueling the Argument

Sir: Re "Air Pollution—Toward a Cleaner Car" [Oct. 17]: natural gas is certainly a clean-burning fuel. However, for automotive use it must be stored as a cryogenic (supercold) liquid in a large, well-insulated tank. Unfortunately, if you do not drive a large number of miles in a relatively short time, the liquefied natural gas boils off. If your car sits in the driveway for a few weeks while you're on vacation, you may return to find your fuel has evaporated. Not only is this bothersome and expensive, but I suspect this evaporated hydrocarbon fuel may pollute the atmosphere with unburned hydrocarbons similar to those from evaporating gasoline.

H. E. SEIFF Arlington, Va.

Equality in All Things

Sir: Why are we lesbians always given second billing? We do not even rate equality with the male homosexual when it comes to discrimination [Oct. 24].

Many of us, lesbians and homosexuals alike, cannot help being vastly amused by the phrase, "the prevalent sense of hopelessness and inevitability." For we know the people who suffer from this syndrome: the frustrated psychiatrists and psychotherapists who so valiantly attempt to "cure" those of us who are young enough and hurt enough by society's prejudice to seek out their well-meant help.

And may I add that I hope that stringent laws against heterosexuals who "commit forcible rape, seduce children or commit sex acts in public" will remain on the books?

RITA LAPORTE National President Daughters of Bilitis, Inc. San Francisco

Ignorance I and II

Sir: Alcoholics and other present-day villains account for a small percentage of any given area. How is it that 18-year-old Stephen D. Pogue [Oct. 17] came in contact only with those who "forced" their repulsive culture down his throat?

Considering that the age of 18 is closely aligned with omnipotence, it's difficult to understand how any such forced feeding could come about. Nor is it possible to understand how any mentally alert person can believe that the substitution of one intoxicant for another is cause for respect.

Can anyone honestly seek respect for a new culture that replaces hypocrisy with copout, infidelity with phallic worship, uninvolvement with license, apathy with conscientious destructive dissent, permissiveness with rebellion, physical violence with emotional violence, money with adulterated beggary, a dead God with astrology, an empty home with a teeming commune, jealousy with conformism, decadent old ideology with decadent new ideology, and Ignorance I with Ignorance II?

Perhaps the only hope is in future children who, by the grace of God if not their elders, will mature enough to reject both evils.

A. J. VENGLARCIK Struthers, Ohio

Haunting Lines