Letters: Jan. 6, 1961

The Kennedy Cabinet

Sir:

I think John Kennedy's appointment of his brother to the Cabinet has lowered the office of President to the level of ward politics.

GEORGE JORGENSEN Chicago

Sir:

Your main article under "The Nation" in the Dec. 19 issue has left me quite appalled. You note random thoughts of the President-elect in regard to the mistakes made by his predecessors. I feel that I as the daughter of Mr. William H. Woodin must go to bat for a great American who gave his life for his country and now cannot speak for himself. The events and history of the late 1920s and of the early 1930s prove, I am sure, the worthiness of the former Secretary of the Treasury William H. Woodin. Furthermore, Mr. Roosevelt had known my father for many years and had great confidence in his reports and criticisms of financial and banking conditions both here and abroad. Mr. Roosevelt appreciated the services of his first Secretary of the Treasury very much, and he often proved it.

MARY WOODIN MINER New York City

The New Germany

Sir:

I find your story on West Germany's Franz Josef Strauss most interesting. The rapid German recovery from World War II does not come as any great surprise to me.

During that war, at the ripe old age of 19, I had, as did many other young American G.I.s, the expense-paid tour of Britain, France and Germany. The one thing that has always stuck in my memory is the way the industrious Germans began to rebuild their homes and factories while the dust of their destruction was not yet settled. Let's give the Germans and Minister Strauss the nuclear warheads and the choice of when to use them. The Russians would not be so foolish as to provoke a conflict with a strong military and economic alliance of the U.S. and Germany.

EMMETT BAILEY Durham, N.C.

Sir:

Shades of Hermann Göring! Give Herr Strauss nuclear weapons and a brass band, and the tune would be: "Here we go again!" As an ex-prisoner of war, I say raus mil uns!

JOHN R. BURROUGHS

Steamboat Springs, Colo.

Exodus

Sir: As an ex-prisoner of famed Acre prison and as an ex-member of Haganah, and altogether one of the boys your critic might call "terrorists," I wish to compliment you on the fair report about this film.

Permit me, however, to protest vehemently against your last remark about "blind hatred that excuses the Jewish terror," which your reviewer claims to be not different from the extermination activities of the Nazis! To us Israelis who have fought for our freedom as an ill-armed minority against a well-equipped army (and for a just cause), a comparison to mass slaughter—by an organized military power—of innocent defenseless people, is just shocking.

GEORGE P. TAUSSIG

Kfar Shmarjahu, Israel

Sir:

Congratulations on your review of the new movie Exodus. It is high time that the shabby portrayal of history implicit in the book was called to task, and it is unfortunate that this historical fallacy was re-created in the film.