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Your Aug. 29 article on the I.R.A. shocked me . . . "In 1939, taking advantage of Britain's preoccupation with the coming World War II, the I.R.A. sought to revive the issue of partition by launching hundreds of terrorist bombings in Manchester and London." If I were of southern Irish lineage, and/or a sympathizer of the I.R.A., I would blush with shame. It's comparable to a naughty little boy kicking his mother in the rear as she stooped over to pick up the laundry. How juvenile can you be?
DOREEN TUXBURY Manchester, N.H.
Sir:
When striving to gain independence from England, the founders of the U.S. were also considered by their European progenitors to be an "outlawed, audacious nationalistic group" . . . Irish nationalism, confined as it is to a desire for the unification of Ireland, is preferable to the odiousness of English colonialism.
JOHN C. HENNESSY Glendale, Calif.
Kinship in Bronze
Sir:
I have with pleasure read your Aug. 15 article about "Metal Sculpture: Machine-Age Art." When I saw the picture of Reg
Butler's bronze Machine, I found that the construction and lines are very much like the old Danish idol sculpture Solvognen (Sun Wagon), dated 1500-1000 B.C. . . .
POUL BREHMER Kastrup, Denmark.
¶For British Sculptor Butler's kinship with a Danish Bronze Age craftsman, see cuts. — ED.
The Blood Story
Sir:
The Aug. 22 medical section of your magazine carries a brief report of my research on the preservation of whole blood by freezing . . . The story is ... misleading. We do not spray liquid nitrogen on the blood but vice versa. The transfusion was not a complete success since over 6% of the cells were destroyed in the processing and another 6% left the circulation in the first six hours after transfusion. Storage is only theoretically indefinite at temperatures too low to be practical. Storage at higher temperatures is being studied, but results are not yet available. My associate, Mr. [Emanuel] Kafig shared equally in the research and also took a transfusion . . .
HAROLD T. MERYMAN, M.D. Sloane Physics Laboratory Yale University New Haven, Conn.
M.R.A.'s Message (Contd.)
Sir:
Re Moral Re-Armament: I have just read your July 18 article and subsequent letters to the Editor with regard to the 'junket" that 192 of the faithful have been making to the Far East and Africa. I had the greatest sympathy with the American taxpayer when I saw three U.S.A.F. transports at Nairobi ... I think it is disgraceful that Moral Re-Armament's The Vanishing Island should have been allowed to be put on at the National Theatre of Nairobi—whose charter clearly states that nothing of a political flavour can be shown in it. The play is anti-British, anti-democratic and anticolonial. At a time like this, when we are having the greatest difficulties in stabilizing colonial administration, it is a great pity that this sort of thing has been allowed to be shown in a theatre backed by the colonial administration . . .
J. W. WILKINSON
Nairobi, Kenya
Sir: