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Sir: Congratulations on your Essay. Neither artistic blandishments nor attribution of "subcultural" status to homosexuality should distract us from the fact that such behavior remains basically a serious disorder.
SHAKE L. ZENIAN
Clinical Psychologist
State Hospital No. 1
Fulton, Mo.
Sir: Your solidly researched Essay notes the strong position taken by my husband, the late Edmund Bergler, M.D. Please be sure that he was equally strong on the issue of curability. He taught his method to several psychoanalysts, and these doctors now report curing seven out of ten patients.
MARIANNE BERGLER
New York City
Sir: I agree that a homosexual is a sick person, but something needs to be said about the sickness of a society in which homosexual relationships are so widespread.
DAVID JONES
San Francisco
Bing's Girls
Sir: In your "People" section [Dec. 21], you made reference to Kathryn's recent appearance in the musical version of Peter Pan in San Francisco. You said Jeanne Miller of the San Francisco Examiner panned Mrs. Crosby's performance and described the performance of our little daughter Mary Frances as stodgy.
The only thing that could possibly cause umbrage about Mrs. Crosby's performance was that Miss Miller said she was too girlish and too pretty to be "Peter Pan"—which is sort of a mixed criticism, I'm sure you'll agree.
The reference to Mary Frances as being stodgy was made about another performer in the cast. If Mary Frances is stodgy, then Sammy Davis is taciturn, moribund and laconic. For weeks at a time we have to keep her in a strait jacket.
BING CROSBY
Hollywood
Lambasting the Long Lines
Sir: The Japanese long line fishermen [Jan. 28] not only seriously jeopardize game fishing but also threaten the food supply for future generations in overpopulated areas of the world. We are widely disseminating your article among sportsmen and conservationists.
LUIS ZALAMENA
ED LOUYS
ALVARO CRUZ
Board Members, Caribbean Gamefishing Assn.
Bogota, Colombia
Credit Due
Sir: A collection of letters can be a grab bag—or a distinguished book. Sometimes the grab-bag approach results in your flaying the editor. Why not, then, celebrate the impeccable, imaginative editing that has produced Bernard Shaw: Collected Letters [Jan. 21]? Here the art of editing included the locating, sorting, choosing from and annotating the extant correspondence of history's most prolific letter writer, and creating a brilliant epistolary biography. Dan Laurence deserved more than merely having his name printed (in reduced type) with the descriptive matter at the head of your review.
RODELLE WEINTRAUB
Assistant Editor
The Shaw Review
University Park, Pa.
And Appreciated
Sir: Your Press section for Jan. 28 gives credit to Associated Press for excellent reporting at a time when it is most appreciated. For too long the wire services have been the whipping boys over the managed news being fed to newspaper readers today.
JOHN J. McGANN
Production Manager
The Ogden Group of Newspapers
Wheeling, W. Va.