Forum, Sep. 23, 1974

(5 of 5)

Having grown up in an age in which my own heroes were brutally assassinated, I was fascinated by one who did triumph and endure: Charles Lindbergh. This worshipful interest has recently been deepened by Anne Morrow Lindbergh's published diaries and letters. I chafe at your casual supposition that my generation cannot "fully appreciate" Lindbergh. Perhaps, having no heroes of our own time, we value more dearly those of another.

Linda L. Pittman

Cincinnati I can never quite consider as a "hero" any man who accepted a German decoration from Hermann Göring, Hitler's ruthless crony. The true heroes were the boys who died fighting the Nazi beasts and never received publicity or parades. To me Charles Lindbergh will never typify a hero.

Barbara Nilva

St. Louis Park, Minn.

Sympathetic Vibrations

Your review of Carrying the Fire by Mike Collins refers to his vision of a spacecraft with a crew of women with bobbing breasts. I have beaten Astronaut-Author Collins to the NASA SUTRA. The opening of chapter 11 of my Rendezvous with Rama reads:

"Some women, Commander Norton had decided long ago, should not be allowed aboard ship; weightlessness did things to their breasts that were too damn distracting. It was bad enough when they were motionless; but when they started to move, and sympathetic vibrations set in, it was more than any warm-blooded male should be asked to take. He was quite sure that at least one serious space accident had been caused by acute crew distraction, after the transit of an unholstered lady officer through the control cabin."

Arthur C. Clarke

Colombo, Sri Lanka