Letters: Oct. 20, 1967

(3 of 4)

HELEN M. CULLY Coatesville, Pa.

Sir: I object to the comparison of George lit to Ho Chi Minh. Ho should rather be compared with George Washington as a person who incites normally law-abiding citizens to revolt against their legal government. Now perhaps the Americans realize just how the British and the loyal Americans felt about the subversive activities of that rebel George Washington!

PATRICK JEHU London

Ultimate Enlightenment

Sir: An excellent analytical Essay on Race and Ability [Sept. 29]. Still, I doubt such objective reports will quiet the racial chaos in the U.S. What seems to be needed is an individual emotional experience, of the sort readily attainable by those of us serving in Viet Nam. When you witness both black and white Americans shed their blood for a common American goal, all the old filtering prisms flow away with that blood, and the sounds of "Nigger," "Whitey," "Black Power," and "White Supremacy," which echo from the States seem absurdly meaningless. A black American, offering his life beside you on a battlefield, is an ultimate enlightenment which emotionally shatters the white American's sensitivity concerning integration and intermarriage. After all, inter-dying is a much more profound interaction.

(SP4) ROBERT A. CHAMBERS U.S.A. A.P.O. San Francisco

Sir: The statements on skull capacity are apt to be misinterpreted. Skull capacity (and hence brain size) is not to be correlated with intelligence, once the human (Homo sapiens) stage is reached. Anatole France, for example, had a quite small brain—approximately 1,200 cc., while the general average for the European male is given at about 1,450 cc. Moreover, your statement that Negro skull capacity runs about 50 cc. below that of whites ignores the fact that there is about 76% overlap in brain sizes of Negroes and whites.

DOROTHY L. KEUR McLeod, Mont.

Pierre, Not Dior

Sir: In your story on Iran [Oct. 6], you state that for the coronation ceremony, the Empress Farah will wear a gown "on which 22 couturiers from the house of Dior have been working for four months." The gown is being created by Iranians under the direction of Monsieur Pierre, who has lived in Iran for more than 20 years and is a citizen of the country.

PARVIZ RAEIN Teheran

And Now Here's Jack!

Sir: In your article on "Variety Shows" [Oct. 13], Ed Sullivan referred to me as a "thoroughly no good son of a bitch." Mr. Sullivan always had trouble with the truth and I have a birth certificate to prove him false again. Furthermore, I state as a sworn fact that Ed Sullivan's office has called my agent on at least four or five occasions in the past year to get me to do a television special in cooperation with his company; and are you ready for one of the subjects that he chose for me? The Vatican. I declined.

JACK PAAR Bronxville, N.Y. oilermakers' Boil