Three Great Men
Sir:
I have been a faithful reader of TIME for many years . . . but I was sadly disappointed lately . . . and so I feel were many of your readers. The month of April 1955 was marked by three momentous events: Churchill's retirement, Dr. Salk's achievement and Einstein's death. These events were conveniently spaced in weekly intervals and tens of thousands of your readers must have been looking forward to seeing these great men pictured on the cover. To be greeted instead by the true likeness of nuns and fashion designers was surely an anticlimax . . .
H. ROMANN, M.D.
Nairobi, Kenya
¶TIME has not neglected Reader Romann's three great men. Polio Fighter Salk has already appeared on the cover once (in 1954), Einstein three times (1929,1938,1946), and Churchill eight times (between 1923 and 1951).—ED.
The Purists
Sir:
Thanks for your excellent article on Caltech and President Lee DuBridge [May 16] . . . The water-filled meteorological balloon did indeed hold a lot of water but did not reach from "floor to ceiling." As an observer to this incident, I can report that it stood about 4 ft. high, and had a mushroomlike shape and a jellylike motion. The most fun came when ex-House President Tom Stix tried to maneuver it through his 30-in. door. With success almost in sight, the skin of the tightly squeezed object suddenly vanished, leaving the mountain of water standing for an instant in his doorway . . .
MARSHALL KLARFELD (class of '51)
Berkeley, Calif.
SIR:
MY SON ROLANDO JORDAN, AGED 17, WROTE ME A LETTER QUITE CONCERNED WITH HIS D AND C MARKS. YOUR ARTICLE CAME IN HANDY. SUBSEQUENTLY CABLED HIM ADVISING HIM READ SAME.
RAUL JORDAN
s.s. VAMOS (AT SEA)
Sir:
. . . There are many parents in Pasadena who would like to see the high scholastic standards of Caltech seep through its walls to our schools . . .
DOROTHY P. FLOWER
Pasadena, Calif.
Sir:
Caltech may have dropped meteorology, but I won't give up my memories of Long Range Forecasting Unit A, the Air Force weather unit that invaded the basement of Culbertson Hall for six months in 1943. Under Weatherman Dr. Irving P. Krick (then Major Krick), enlisted men plotted worldwide weather maps, and Krick and his forecasters endeavored to predict weather as far ahead as 30 days . . . One day, badgered (via Teletype) by Washington HQ for an overdue forecast, Krick could not get them to understand that the delay was caused by missing or unavailable data. Finally he blew up and roared, "What the hell do they think I use, tea leaves?"
JIM GALLAGHER
New York City
Sir:
Even back in 1892-93 when I attended what was then called the Throop Polytechnic Institute at Pasadena, Calif., the laboratories and manual-training shops outnumbered the classrooms about five to one. I had one grievance: after the professor had given me high marks on my lab notes, they passed under the sharp eyes of the English teacher, and she would sentence me to an hour every afternoon for two weeks among the short-pants boys in the prep department to learn how to spell. I wonder if they still do that . . .
Pittsburgh
GILBERT S. WALKER
¶Caltech's students are no longer stood in the corner—ED.