Nuclear Tests
Sir: Your cover for the Sept. 8 issue hit me quite hard. One could almost hear the Soviet leader saying, "Your grandchildren will live under Communism ... or else !"
MARVIN EVERETT COBLE III
Winston-Salem, N.C.
Sir: The Soviet Union's resumption of nuclear testing has revealed, all too clearly, the following fact. A gangster (the Soviet Union) does not cease his bloody activities because society frowns upon his activities — the extension and preservation of Communism through deceit, treachery, and barbarity when necessary. Since society employs armed policemen to protect itself from gangsters, by the same token a nation should use minimal adequate force to protect itself from international gangsters.
MICHAEL DRIVER
San Francisco
Sir: The American resumption of nuclear testing, while wholly justifiable, can scarcely be expected to help resolve any of the outstanding issues of the cold war. On the contrary, it adds to the nuclear momentum that impels us to war. In the past, balances of power have collapsed through accident or design. Alternatives to the balance of terror should now be considered in order.
CHARLES K. KRANTZ
Brooklyn
Sir: Well, it's about time! Mr. K. has finally resumed his nuclear arms testing. So now, perhaps, we too can once again get down to business without the amount of scorn we would have encountered before Khrushchev's announced intention of resuming nuclear weapons testing. Anyone who actually believed that he ever stopped nuclear testing, and I say this to all who did, is an idiot !
JAMES P. THOMAS
Oceanside, Calif.
Sir: I never saw a more inappropriate cover on TIME. People the world over know who has dropped such a bomb over a city. I do not take the position that it is always wrong to use the bomb. But it is wrong to support the image in the mind of a U.S. citizen that Khrushchev is the more inhuman.
Khrushchev actually reminds me of one of my grandparents, and I would like to remember him that way.
ELMER TREPTOW Baltimore Hard Facts
Sir: After reading the article "Underground Fortresses" [Aug. 25], I am again forced to realize that Russia need not spend thousands of dollars and take the risks of sending spies to find the defense secrets of the U.S. For a few dollars a year, the Russians can subscribe to magazines such as TIME and learn all the information they need.
ARLENE DIXON
Pensacola, Fla.
Sir: I am sure the heads of the Soviet Intelligence Agency are deeply grateful to you for publishing detail photos of secret defense installations.
When, indeed, will the American press wake up to the hard facts of life that freedom of the press should not permit them to publish what the American public — out of patriotism — would not want to see published, but what our opponents can use only too well?
FRANCIS G. A. DE MONTEREY
Woodbury Heights, N.J.
>Time's story on missile installations was cleared for publication by the Defense Department. — ED.