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Sir: Back at Harvard Business School from London, I appreciate your article [Aug. 27] on the British economy. The problem is clearly defined as maintaining domestic growth without jeopardizing the pound internationally. The article correctly recognized that better utilization of existing labor and capital was the place to begin. Your latest article [Sept. 24] pinpoints an even greater difficulty: how to implement the plan. Preoccupying us in our not-so-insulated academic environment is this question of "how." Do you employ a Harvard professor to write these articles?
JAN THOMAS HYDE Cambridge, Mass.
> No.
Dutiful Dropouts
Sir: Is devotion to duty as exemplified by Schlesinger et al. [Sept. 24] their answer to the challenge, "Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country"? Was the New Frontier run by men bent on self-seeking ambition? A few "Frontiersmen" are building a poor monument to one of America's greatest idealists, J.F.K.
GEORGE V. STRONG Ithaca, N.Y.
Overvalued Stamps
Sir: Trading stamp distributors [Sept. 17] should know that people are disgusted at finding redemption-center items generally overpriced. Why should you pay $25 in stamps for something that discount stores and some large department stores carry at $12 to $15.
B. H. GARFIELD Haddonfield, N.J.
Front-Wheel Drive
Sir: TIME is quite correct [Oct. 1] in naming the front-wheel-drive Olds Toronado "Detroit's most impressive innovation," but it is not true that "small European cars such as Renault and Peugeot have long had front-wheel drive." Peugeot did not introduce its front-wheel drive until 1965; the Renault R-4 has been made since 1961 but not imported to the U.S. Longtime front-wheel-drive producers include Citroën, DKW and SAAB. The world's largest producer of front-wheel-drive vehicles is the British Motor Corp.
G. W. WHITEHEAD Executive Vice President British Motor Corp./Hambro Inc. Ridgefield, NJ.
Reverse Pavlov
Sir: Any first-year psychology student knows that you prompt excellence when the reward follows the desired behavior instead of preceding it. Inflated bonuses violate this principle. Huarte and Namath [Sept. 17] have unfortunately been robbed of their incentive and actually encouraged to feed on unearned paychecks rather than earned victories.
RONALD H. ROTTSCHAFER Oak Brook, Ill.