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Sir: Wasn't isometric exercise [Jan. 31] the basic principle of Charles ("I was once a 97-pound weakling") Atlas' course of body building called Dynamic Tension? According to his reasoning, caged zoo animals pitted one muscle against another to maintain muscle tone. Incidentally, what ever became of Mr. Atlas?
JACK A. TWEEDLE Bloomfield, N.J.
> Now 71, Charles Atlas still takes his own body-building course of Dynamic Tension, works out daily in a New York gym, actively runs his worldwide body-beautiful empire. Isometric contraction, he says, is only one-half of dynamic tension. It exercises one set of muscles by pushing against an object, but the Atlas method involves pushing and pulling, therefore exercises two sets. Isometric experts, however, claim that the two methods are practically identical.—ED.
Sir: Your report on isometrics was a little gem. However, as manufacturers of isometric equipment, we wish to clarify just one statement, namely, that "ordinary laymen need no equipment."
Upon reading that, our isometrics director (an extremely ordinary layman) took umbrage and aspirin and locked himself in his office. So to set things straight: It's true that anyone may practice isometrics, with or without equipment. However, in order to make certain that the proper muscles (rather than gross muscle groups) are being strengthened, and progress accurately recorded, certain basic equipment and a reliable method of measurement are essential.
W. D. VOIT Chairman of the Board W. J. Voit Rubber Corp. Santa Ana, Calif.
Cooperative Team
Sir: TIME draws an unwarranted conclusion by using the quotation "It's a tragic mistake" as a Cassandra warning against the association of Minoru Yamasaki and Emery Roth & Son, who are collaborating on the twin-towered World Trade Center in New York [Jan. 24]. Yamasaki's "usual no-detail-is-too-small control over the project's construction" will in all probability be well protected by his association with Roth & Son. During my own collaboration with Richard Roth for the Pan Am Building, he has patiently supported and understandingly taken part in the search for a consistent detailing of the building. I don't see that any good purpose is being served by casting doubts on the Yamasaki-Roth team when its work has hardly even started.
WALTER GROPIUS Cambridge, Mass.
Sex & Morals
Sir: There are so many times that your magazine is helpful and constructive that I hesitate to condemn. But I found your feature, "Sex in the U.S.: Mores and Morality," together with your cover [Jan. 24], disgusting and demoralizing. There was little revealed that we did not already know, and it is doubtful that anything in the article strengthened either men or nations. It was a story depicting the "Flower of Evil." You have provided a national Cinerama on which to display dirty linen.
After wading through the paragraphs of corrosive and malodorous statistics, the words of historian Will Durant came as a refreshing breeze.
JOHN WESLEY LORD Bishop, the Washington Area Methodist Church Washington, D.C.