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Sir: Mme. Nhu represents all that our holy Catholic Church is fighting—pride, lust for power, intolerance, racial and religious hatred, and St. Paul's favorite subject for attack—a lack of charity not only for her former faith and her own people but also her very family.
(MRS.) SONJA NABIESZKO
North Bay, Ont.
Sir: Jesus "outlived" Pontius Pilate and the Roman Empire; Socrates outlasted the Athenian State, which executed him; Judaism thrives after Hitler's defeat; Gandhi will be remembered long after Nehru is forgotten; and Buddhism will outlast Mme. Nhu, the Diem regime, the state of Viet Nam, and it will point the way toward a full life long after all narrowness, be it Roman Catholic, Protestant, or any other, has vanished.
(THE REV.) DAVID C. OAKS
San Francisco
Sir: It is very convenient and very fashionable to blame every damn thing on Communism. But we Buddhists have never been known to favor Communists. Our long religious history of 2,506 years has been devoid of bloodshed. The demonstrations of those poor Vietnamese Buddhists just showed that they are still human beings and not yet Buddhist saints. They simply wanted to worship the god of their choice in peace. Maybe Diem thought in his meager brain that since the American President is a Catholic, he would look the other way and let him practice religious discrimination with equanimity.
CHANAI RUANGSIRI, M.D.
Betong, Thailand
Sir: You quote me as saying the war in Viet Nam will be over in December. Although I am extremely pleased with the progress made by the armed forces of the Republic of Viet Nam in the past 18 months, my optimism has not prompted me to make a prediction so specific. In January this year, Admiral Felt, Commander in Chief Pacific, ventured an opinion that the rebel Viet Cong could be defeated in three years. That target date is indeed realistic. However, if the current momentum and rate of progress are maintained, it is my considered opinion that victory over the Viet Cong could be achieved sooner. Since your article pins down only the month and not the year, perhaps it does not matter.
GENERAL PAUL D. HARKINS Commander
Military Assistance Command
Viet Nam
Death & Life
Sir: It was one of those impossible-to-explain days, known only to mothers as "lost." The temperature was 100 plus, our five kids scrapped, spilled milk, and scrapped some more. No. 6 was raising merry hell with my digestion, and my self-pity was growing with every domestic crisis. Then the news of Patrick Kennedy's loss [Aug. 16] hit me right where it hurt—in the side of my pride. I. suddenly "found" I loved all those little folks and that I was an exceptionally fortunate woman to be able to conceive and produce my sibs with a minimum of difficulty.
(MRS.) PRISCILLA H. WINGER
Lawton, Okla.
Next Question
Sir: According to TIME [Aug. 9], a newsman prompted President Kennedy to a nonsyntactical filibuster on antimiscegenation laws. I am prompted to the following syntactical nonfilibuster: Is it common practice to refer to the redoubtable May Craig, who asked the question, as a "newsman"?
(MRS.) MARGUERITE L. SAECKER Oak Park, 111.