Letters, Jan. 15, 1996

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MAN OF THE YEAR

"Not everyone will agree with Newt Gingrich's positions, but he is the most influential individual in American politics since F.D.R." KENNETH HOLLOWAY St. Louis, Missouri

I APPLAUD YOUR CHOICE FOR MAN OF THE Year [Dec. 25-Jan. 1]. Like him or hate him (and I don't always like him), Newt Gingrich puts his money where his mouth is. It has been very refreshing to watch someone in such a high position concern himself with doing his job rather than spending time trying to beef up his approval rating. JOHN HALPIN Colorado Springs, Colorado Via E-mail

YOU HAVE GOT TO BE OUT OF YOUR minds! If that power-mad, petulant brat is Man of the Year, then I am Queen of the Universe! LESLIE HOLMAN-ANDERSON Seattle

GINGRICH DISPLAYS AN INCREASINGLY rare commodity in our nation's capital: he speaks his beliefs from his heart. The last man in Washington to do so was President Ronald Reagan. BRIAN DAILEY Novato, California Via E-mail

ON RECEIVING MY ISSUE OF TIME, I CAREfully removed the cover, ripped it in half, put it in the trash compactor and turned the switch. What bliss! RICHARD S. KOCHAN Washington

WHEN I FIRST SAW YOUR COVER PHOTO OF Gingrich, I thought, "Hey, this is ugly!" Then I realized that I was looking at a working guy too busy doing his job to look pretty. I like that. And I like Newt. Thanks, TIME. STEWART MITCHELL Dallas

BY NAMING GINGRICH MAN OF THE YEAR, you are contributing to the attitude that we can set aside the aspirations and needs of children, the elderly and the disadvantaged while allowing the wealthy to pay lower taxes. This will further divide the country along class and economic lines. Gingrich's accomplishments are not "revolutionary"; they are a step back into an America of less compassion and fewer opportunities. GARY K. DOI Honolulu Via E-mail

IN A YEAR WHEN YASSER ARAFAT, SHIMON Peres and Yitzhak Rabin worked toward peace--and one of them gave his life--when Slobodan Milosevic, Franjo Tudjman and Alija Izetbegovic negotiated the end of Bosnia's lengthy and bloody war, when statesmen who represented the fall of the Iron Curtain are losing their power to a communist comeback, when Helmut Kohl is winning an economic bet in the east of Germany, and President Clinton and his Secretary of State Warren Christopher are defining a new world order, your choice of House Speaker Gingrich as Man of the Year shows how provincial TIME is in concentrating on internal American affairs. BOAZ SACHS Milan

THE BIBLE: FACT OR FICTION?

AS A RABBI, I FIND RELIGIOUSLY IRRELEvant the question of whether events described in the Bible represent historical fact [COVER STORIES, Dec. 18]. If it could be proved that every event portrayed in the Bible is absolutely and unequivocally historically false, my faith would remain unaltered because the Bible represents eternal spiritual and moral truth. The Jewish Bible represents a spiritual communication between the Jewish people and God and is not subject to historical analysis. I want to learn about historical facts, which may or may not corroborate the stories in the Bible. But that endeavor is of no consequence to my faith in the divine-human relationship as it is made manifest in the Bible. RABBI JEFFREY KURTZ-LENDNER New Orleans