Mabuhay!
Sir: This is one "Flip" who flipped over your cover story on the Philippines [Oct. 21]. It's all there—my country's "crazy kind of charm": from the potholed roads to careening Jeepneys to urchins peddling the sampaguita, our national flower, plus all the reasons why I am proud to be a Filipino and can hardly wait to go back home. TIME, you're d'best! Mabuhay!
LETICIA JIMENEZ-MAGSANOC Philadelphia
Breakaway Man
Sir: I am delighted that TIME saw fit to feature Walter Cronkite on its cover [Oct. 14]. I was vice president and general European manager of United Press International in London when Walter was brought over from Kansas City to cover the Eighth Air Force in World War II. Not only did he exhibit great courage in going on bombing raids, but he was one of the most industrious and responsible of all war correspondents. Many tough assignments were pitched to him, and he handled each superbly. I never had any doubt about sending him to Brussels and the Low Countries to handle U.P.I. coverage there, and then on to Moscow as bureau chief.
VIRGIL PINKLEY Indio, Calif.
Sir: The other network puts two-on-one coverage on Walter Cronkite, but he still breaks away for a score every night.
MICHAEL L. KAPLAN New York City
Sir: The warmth of your reporting was well bestowed on a man whose personal history we otherwise would not know, even though we have always sensed that there was something special about him.
HAYDN L. GILMORE Aurora, Colo.
Sir: I am very closely acquainted with Walter Cronkite, and TIME'S cover portrait infuriated me. Walter Cronkite does not have mud-brown eyes. He has the most beautiful, clear, bright blue eyes I have ever seen. Also the bluest blue eyes.
KATHY CRONKITE New York City
> Now the mud's in our eye.
Throwing the Book at 'Em
Sir: Instead of spending $27,567.17 to send one Cong to his Maker [Oct. 14], I suggest we hit the guy with a Sears, Roebuck catalogue dropped from a plane with a $200 credit coupon good for anything but firearms. The catch: he would have to come to Saigon to collect his refrigerator. Watching how my Vietnamese go to work on a catalogue, I know it will work.
LESTER L. TAGGS Banmethuot, Viet Nam
Suiċide in the Schools
Sir: Might not the high suicide rate among students [Oct. 14] suggest that there are too many young people in college who would be better off in the working world finding out what life is about? The tendency to push people through graduate school is too often motivated by monetary rather than humanitarian reasons. We end up with Ph.D.s who are expected to be leaders of men when their only experience is that of children going through school.
MRS. JACK McCULLOUGH St. Louis
Between A & O