Letters, may 30, 1955

The Red Dragoon

Sir:

The May 9 article on Marshal Zhukov was most interesting and informative . . . Zhukov's path is thoroughly paved with the maimed and dying soldiers he found so expendable . . . and I believe we would do well to weigh any friendship that holds life and moral obligation so cheaply.

The repetition of the vow Alexander Nevsky made 800 years ago may have been made by Zhukov to save Moscow, but Nevsky meant it for all of Russia and the lands he took. The master plan of the Soviet Union dictators calls for the domination of the entire world, and it is a wise leader in the free countries who never loses sight of that plan. And time is on Russia's side.

K. R. PETRE Santa Ana, Calif.

Sir:

TIME said: "... A strange figure among the close-shaven, monocled Prussians, but Zhukov could outfence any of them." Good old Zhukov! I served, 1905-18, as a cavalry officer in the Prussian army. We did not shave our heads, leaving this to Tartars and Mongols. As to monocles, they were the exception . . . Fencing was neither part of an officer's drill nor his pastime. However, it really does not matter whether Zhukov fenced those Prussian officers in or out .. . Shaven-headed, monocles, swashbuckling, heel-clicking, the familiar good old clichés . . . the Erich von Stroheim type created by those smart gentlemen in Hollywood . . .

OSTHEIM (Count von Ostheim) Palm Beach, Fla.

Brass, Beer & Ivy

Sir:

Concerning your May 9 report of student reaction to tighter campus regulations at William and Mary, my school, Marquette University, has no beer on campus, has chaperons for every fraternity party and has close administrative control of student publications. I heartily recommend Marquette to prospective students, and I offer my congratulations to President Alvin Chandler and a question to his school's "students": What is college for?

CARL SCHRANK

Milwaukee

Memorable Meetings

Sir:

Manet's Lunch on the Grass [May 9] and his arrangement of the three figures is even more classical than he probably ever suspected. Raimondi's or Raphael's Judgment of Paris is lifted directly from a Roman late 2nd century A.D. sarcophagus or coffin relief of similar subject, which since the late 16th century has been walled up in a prominent place on the garden facade of the Villa Medici in Rome. This sarcophagus relief influenced the work of other artists who saw it before or after its arrival in that garden still much frequented by painters. For example, Rubens used it as the basis for his celebrated painting The Horrors of War, now in the Palazzo Pitti in Florence.

CORNELIUS C. VERMEULE Department of Fine Arts University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Mich. For a detail from the Roman sarcophagus, see cut.—ED.

What to Call the Citizens

Sir:

Reading TIME, I get smarter and smarter. From your May 9 issue, for instance, I learn that people who live in Glasgow are Glaswegians and the residents of Liverpool are Liverpudlians. You New Yukrians have research sources that are strange and wonderful. Selah!

BASIL MARTIN Duncan, S.C.

Sir: