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Sir: You must have searched endlessly to find any possible justification for the Pat and Luci cover story [Aug. 5]. American soldiers are being killed in Viet Nam, many of our major cities are riot-torn, Britain's financial crisis is in its most crucial hour, and this country is faced with inflation and with crippling strikes. Although you may consider the marriage of Luci Johnson of paramount significance, I think I speak for the overwhelming majority of people who saw your story—who needs it?
W. HOLLIS PETERSEN
Bronxville, N.Y.
Sir: If Women's Wear Baily was barred from the reception merely for revealing the wedding-dress design, TIME'S people must have been maxima non grata after printing that 1956 snapshot. Even we Lyndonphobes thought it ungentlemanly to remind the swan there was a duckling.
J. P. POWERS
Boonton, N.J.
Sir: If Luci's Secret Service code name is Venus, Lynda's Velvet, and Lady Bird's Victoria, then what does that make L.B.J.? Vicissitudinous? Your cover story on Luci and Pat was enjoyable and the cover itself was beautiful.
CAROLYN HESTER New York City
Not Tales But Truth
Sir: Temple University's "Encore Club" applauds TIME'S cover story, "The Command Generation" [July 29]. We "coeds over 21" applaud Temple for permitting us to toil amidst flaming youth—some of them our own offspring.
Last June our cofounder, Mrs. Cora Myers, mother of three, graduated summa cum laude. She will continue her studies on a scholarship at Bryn Mawr Graduate School of Social Work. This month our president, Mrs. Mary Krassen, mother of two college students, is completing her undergraduate work in the record time of 2½. years. She will teach in Philadelphia.
Everybody join in rousing cheers for our wonderful husbands and families, who are making it possible for us to begin a new life at 40 or thereabouts.
ILSA R. KATZ
Philadelphia
Sir: Pertinent to your excellent article on middle age are those lines from Chesterton's great epic, The Ballad of the White Horse: "But the hour shall come after his youth,/ When a man shall know not tales but truth,/ And his heart fail thereat."
FREDERICK C. DYER, 48
Panajachel, Sololá, Guatemala
Harvest of Hope
Sir: As one who considers "The Struggle to End Hunger" [Aug. 12] as important a problem as any in our time, I am impressed by the balance and comprehensiveness of your fine Essay. I agree that only by combining expanded U.S. output with agricultural self-help in developing lands can we hope to avert world famine.
WALTER F. MONO ALE
U.S. Senator from Minnesota
Washington, D.C.
History Lesson
Sir: Harold Stassen's letter [Aug. 5] proposing a "Fourth Alternative" in Viet Nam is based on two inaccurate observations. He asserts that "historically, the North, known as Tongking, and the South, known as Annam, were separate," and that "the North and South each have a viable economic base."