Letters: Sep. 12, 1969

(3 of 4)

I know of no case in which a factory grants its dealers rebates in excess of $200 per car during the fall cleanup sales campaign. In my make, Chevrolet, we are to receive $50 per car only after we have achieved 25% of our sales objective for the cleanup. To receive the maximum rebate of $150, we would have to attain 75% of our sales objective. Nor are the rebates retroactive. It should also be noted that traditionally the rebate is passed on to the customer via a price reduction on the car.

Nor, in all my life, have I ever heard of a 5¢ rebate from the manufacturer for every mile registered on the odometer of a dealer's demonstration car.

Many automobile owners have had a go at selling their used cars. And usually one experience has been sufficient: they realized it wasn't worth the time involved, the effort or the expense. No other industry preserves and protects the price of its used product anywhere near so well as the automobile industry.

LYMAN W. SLACK Washington, B.C.

> TIME did not intend to indict auto dealers in general, and regrets having given the impression that the industry grants such large rebates.

Lighting the Mite

Sir: It's a shame that you told us that half the population is afflicted with hair follicle parasites [Aug. 29]. Just imagine what this will do to the Madison Avenue ad alley boys. Already, I'll bet they are lying awake nights, fondling their infected eyelashes and trying to create a nice catchy name for a new frailty to be exploited whenever a giant advertiser comes up with an alleged remedy. Oh, well—halitosis, b.o., iron-poor blood, nagging backache and some others were becoming a bit shopworn anyway.

HAROLD LEE Ocean City, NJ.

Sir: I'm not going to have little mites running all over my face. I'm going to sleep with the light on.

CECY WILSON St. Louis

One More Time

Sir: In your amusing description [Aug. 22] of William F. Buckley's feud with me, you give the impression that Esquire simply opened its pages to us so that we might continue our Chicago act. This is not the case. Mr. Buckley went to Esquire with a 54-page attack on me and asked them if they would publish it. They said they would, but only if I replied. Mr. Buckley agreed, slyly stipulating that the two pieces not be in the same issue. Reluctantly, I answered him. Not happy with my piece, he then brought suit against me, then Esquire, for having continued a tiresome exchange which he—not I, not Esquire—had reopened. Personally, I am grieved by the whole affair, having always regarded Bill not only as a wonderful human being but as a great American.

GORE VIDAL Klosters, Switzerland