Letters: Aug. 30, 1963

The Madame's Power

Sir: I have argued with you, disagreed with you, and threatened to cancel my subscription (which I might yet do), but I have always read you.

As of now I am extremely proud of you.

You seem to have been the first in the entire country to have recognized the awful power of Mme. Nhu.

RICHARD J. WETHERN

Palo Alto, Calif.

Sir: Mme. Nhu in your cover story of Aug. 9 is mistakenly termed a "queen bee." A far more appropriate term would be a black widow.

In my opinion she makes the Diem government seemingly and literally weak and indecisive. An impulsive, violent and radical person should not have the authority to shape the destiny of a country over which she has no legal powers.

Mme. Nhu was the ramrod in the ban on jazz and dancing in Saigon some time ago. A person this prudent on the one hand while on the other clapping at the thought of Buddhist nuns burning themselves to death seems highly unstable. If the U.S. is going to pump millions of dollars and hundreds of men into South 'Viet Nam it would be better not to have such a paradox in a governing position.

GRANT KEENE

Alto, Ga.

Sir: I was very surprised to be casually mentioned as "Mme. Nhu's father, who violently disapproves of her—: and only partly because the government expropriated his vast property seven years ago."

Indeed an inaccurate allegation has been made which may impugn my motives. The truth is that the Ngo Dinh Diem government did not expropriate any property of mine by application of its land reform of 1956. By that time most of the land I had in excess of the allowed 247 acres had been abandoned by me and even by the peasants because of insecurity in that area of the province of Rach-Gia during the long Indo-Chinese war of 1946-54. This can be checked at the Department of Land Reform in Saigon and will give an idea of the fables that were told your reporter for eight hours.* To my knowledge the land is still abandoned.

The Ho Chi Minh government did requisition my house and my law office in Hanoi in September 1945, immediately after the Viet Minh revolution in North Viet Nam, but that was only an effect, not the cause of my disapproval of Communism.

TRAN VAN CHUONG Former Ambassador

Embassy of Viet Nam Washington. D.C.

— The length of time Hong Kong Bureau Chief Charles Mohr talked to Chuong's daughter.

Russian Rules

Sir: I don't see how Nikita could have beaten Dean at badminton [Aug. 16] with the horrible form displayed in the picture —unless, of course, playing without a net allowed him to improvise rules as the game progressed.

WADLEIGH W. WOODS

Portsmouth, N.H.

The Bard's Petard

Sir: It seems to me that instead of using a "curious choice of words," Senator Morton [Aug. 16] was making an apt allusion to a well-known Shakespearean quotation from Hamlet:

For 'tis sport to have the engineer

Hoist with his own petar; and 't shall go hard,

But I will delve one yard below their mines

And blow them at the moon!

I think the Senator sees us and the world at large dependent upon our own explosive, hard-to-control invention.

WILLIS G. WALDO

West Palm Beach, Fla.