Letters: Oct. 20, 1967

(2 of 4)

Sir: TIME deserves an Emmy. Television is part Show Business, but it is also part Press, Business, Science, Education, Sport. Art—and much more. By creating a separate Television section [Oct. 13], TIME recognizes television's compelling impact and encourages the medium to ever higher standards of service to the public.

NEWTON N. MINOW Chicago, 111.

Cop Out or Dig In?

Sir: Your cover story on Con Thien [Oct. 6] charts all too explicitly the erosion of this nation's will to withstand Communist depredations in Southeast Asia—or anywhere else. By all means, let's cop out on all those ungrateful Vietnamese. Especially, let's cop out on all our splendid young who went right on dying and getting mutiiated while we sat here savoring the drawn-out luxury of changing our minds. Then we can all get back to our color TVs and walnut-paneled cabin cruisers or, if we're the artistic type, our pornographic literature and our underground movies.

CATHLEEN BURNS ELMER Boston

Sir: It would appear that the Communist strategy in Viet Nam that was outlined in your magazine more than two years ago is about to win the war for them. You quoted a spokesman who said that all that had to be done would be to continue fighting until the American public grew tired of the war and forced a pullout.

HAROLD G. TUCKER Bayonne, NJ.

Sir: My association strongly feels that any reduction in effort is an insult to 10,000 dead. Korea showed that any stalemate or bombing lull will result in a rapid Communist buildup. This nation has never walked away from world responsibility, and to do so now because of the political aims of a few would be a catastrophe unparalleled in our history.

WALKER M. MAHURIN President

American Fighter Pilots Association Los Angeles

Sir: I cannot help feeling overwhelmed by the tremendous part your country is playing in protecting the free world. But

1 am embarrassed by this fact and fail to see why every Western country, some enjoying privileges obtained indirectly by the deaths of young Americans, should not be involved in the Viet Nam war on an equal stand with the United States.

PETER JOHNSON

Auckland, New Zealand

Long Division

Sir: The Essay "Divided We Stand" [Oct. 6] attempts to prove that opposition to Viet Nam is in a long and venerable American tradition and should not prevent us from pursuing our stated purpose. But, as opposition to our last four wars has been minimal, we have a 60-year tradition of being able to morally and politically support our wars. This may account, in part, for why we are so troubled by the extent of our national dissent on Viet Nam.

PATRICIA H. PAINTON Paris

Sir: You seem to assume that all our wars, including Viet Nam, may be regarded in the same context. Have you forgotten the Bomb? We are now flirting with global nuclear war. We are placing ourselves and the rest of the world in great jeopardy. We do this by not facing the facts, however unpleasant: China is the great power in Asia and she cannot be contained by us; Communism and nationalism are inseparably fused in Viet Nam, and the fusion will not disappear short of genocide. We feel ourselves called upon to destroy the Communist philosophy by war. This is impossible, so we kill people, but not ideas.