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Sir: You state that Harold Wilson is the first British Prime Minister who is a " 'grammar-school boy'—meaning he did not attend one of the country's select privateschools[Oct.23]."The first part of this statement may be correct, though it should be explained what the British grammar school is. It is very broadly equivalent to an American high school, but entry is confined to pupils reaching a certain academic standard. Neither Lloyd George nor Ramsay MacDonald attended a "select private school." Going back farther into history, you will probably find that some Prime Ministers were educated by tutors and did not attend any school.
J. K. JACKSON
Istanbul
Not All Hatred
Sir: Your justifiably friendly review of Malaparte's Those Cursed Tuscans [Oct. 30] makes me recall how Kurt Erich Suckert explained to me in Rome in 1926 why he had chosen Curzio Malaparte as his pen name (and later as his own name). "Buonaparte," he said, "won at Austerlitz and lost at Waterloo. Malaparte loses at Austerlitz and wins at Waterloo." I knew him from 1925 until his death, and even wrote a "fictitious reminiscence" about him. I can assure you that the hatred and contempt were of his last writing period alone and never in his personal relations.
PERCY WINNER
Washington, D. C.
Another Buddhist Hoax?
: That so-called Highlanders' rebellion [Oct. 2]—is it only the word of the Viet Cong? Or are we witnessing another "Buddhist"-type hoax in which the Viet Cong agents are agitating while the policymakers of the State Department are encouraging them in an attempt to exploit the situation as a pretext for taking advantage of their position as "allies" to install some kind of military or political bases more strongly in the highlands, in default of being able to do so in the lowlands? At any rate, it would be a hoax equivalent to the "Buddhist" hoax—and one which can only help those who want to "divide and conquer" us,from wherever they come—if the world swallowed the line now being peddled by the American press to the effect that a "traditional hatred" exists between the Vietnamese of the highlands and those of the lowlands. Those who would "teach" us how to treat our "minorities" would do better to tend to their own.
MADAME NGO DINH NHU
Rome
A Burka for Snow