Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR CUBAN EXILES In his penetrating and lucid account of the sad affair between the current Administration and the Cuban exile leaders, "Cuba: What Now?" (NL, May 13), Antonio de la...
...Army in September 62] could only imply imminent invasion...
...Boroff has more than proved the possibility of avoiding both those extremes...
...now find no purchasers for the mass-produced imitations of their own earlier works, although they hopefully continue to churn them out...
...These unfortunate people at least know where they stand...
...that they could insure economic growth, and prosperity, and full employment, and an equitable distribution of income, if only Congress and business and labor and the American people did not get constantly in their way...
...Mount Vernon, N.Y...
...the old man's dying wisdom brings new life to the blind girl...
...Would it not be better to The New Leader welcomes comment and criticism on any of its features, but letters should not exceed 300 words...
...I have tried to justify the enormous appeal of such programs...
...Lynne Horowitz When David Boroff first began to write television criticism for The New Leader, I was very skeptical...
...His dark suffering wins both sympathy and sponsor...
...cut spending where it should be cut, on merits...
...the father will never play football again but his son will become a physicist, etc., etc...
...have the management of the economic system at their fingertips...
...Irving Kristol writes: "One gets the impression that Heller, Gordon, Samuelson, Surrey and Co...
...Two contrasting loves are enacted which, after the first commercial break, become interwoven: ultimately (after the second commercial) one will suffer or die so that the other may live...
...Little wonder the appeal...
...In every case (and I must have seen every case) new life is won by suffering and conferred by the all-powerful resident in the clerical collar...
...His main point, "just how far does the TV cult of understanding go...
...It is just this kind of glib broadside at abstract art from people who are knowledgeable that confuses the public and invites the dismissal of all abstract art, great as well as mediocre...
...All of the other television critics that I have read are either pushing the programs for the networks or else so righteous and scornful of their subject that they are boring...
...Kristol suggests the desirability of a "token cut" in the budget...
...The final commercial ends the spell and it's time for an aspirin and bed...
...each day brought a new date for an invasion...
...Miami, Florida Oscar R. Herbert BOROFF I greatly enjoy David BorofT's television pieces in The New Leader, and I thought his latest, "The Call-Girl Sermon" (NL, April 15), was a knockout...
...His last column, "The Call-Girl Sermon," was an excellent demonstration of his critical powers...
...is there to determine man's fate...
...On the other hand, maybe they are wrong...
...and cease the nonsense to which Kristol defers as to some kind of folk wisdom...
...New York City Phyllis Mark...
...He then goes on to make the point that "In the television universe, the hospital is not where people are sick but where they get better...
...Dallas, Texas Helen Parker Ames STYLISH FRUSTRATION' In his article, "The Politics of 'Stylish Frustration"' (NL, April 1...
...has withdrawn its support from the Cuban Revolutionary Council, a note of realism has been introduced...
...Actually, in the television hospital some people do not get better, but even here their suffering is an equally important fact...
...New York City Leo Rosten As a secret addict of the TV hospital drama...
...Actually, I should go back to reading...
...I have been waiting a long time to encounter a serious, yet unpretentious, television critic...
...The really awful thing about exile, I suppose, is that one never accepts it as a permanent condition...
...Maybe they are right...
...The setting for these shows, the hospital, is quite literally the crossroads between life and death, and God in a white suit (Ben Casey, Dr...
...gets to the root of television's basic schizophrenia, even when it is at its best...
...spend where it is needed...
...In his television column in the April 15 issue, David Boroff announces that in the forthcoming months still more hospital shows will appear on TV...
...It is an age-old formula: The viewer can suffer, atone, die and be reborn through sacrifice—all in one hour...
...I would rather apply Kristol's term, "presumptous arrogance" to his own inchoate criticism than to the "superb-self-confidence" of those who do not share his apprehension that, maybe, the way we keep our budget books might be more important than the way we spend our money...
...Living, as I do, in Miami, I have had several opportunities to see the pathos of the Cuban exiles...
...and the Cuban exiles, their country only 90 or so miles away, are hardly an exception...
...Until recently, one heard 10 or 15 new rumors each day among the Cubans in Miami...
...Thank you for providing one...
...Certainly there are fashionable painters fetching high prices, but they are not to be confused with the abstract masters who do paint from inner necessity and commitment, and deserve respect...
...His analysis goes beyond the plot to the greater dilemma of television's timidity in the handling of real problems, like that of the "classy whore" (as he puts it...
...and each day brought stories of a new method of attack...
...Does Roditi really mean "abstact masters...
...Their present hope, I believe, has been articulated by Carrera: support for the antiCastro underground inside Cuba...
...Since Kristol suggests that these economists may be wrong, he ought to have been able to tell us what he thinks they are wrong about...
...Masters," after all, is a term of respect applied to painters who could not paint "imitations" nor "churn out" works and still be considered masters...
...Let us hope that it is given serious consideration by our policymakers...
...Furthermore, almost all hospital shows have a double plot which proves to be more than a time killer...
...A high-flown explantation, I find, proves a fine face-saving device when I'm caught watching them...
...Washington, D. C. SIDNEY Koretz ABSTRACT MASTERS In his "Letter From Paris" (NL, April 29), Edouard Roditi states: "Some of the bestknown abstract masters here, for whose works waiting lists . . . had been compiled since about 1955...
...Kildare, et al...
...I must admit...
...The patient as suffering man is shown in great gruesome detail passing through trial...
...NL, May 13), Antonio de la Carrera writes: "While no one ever said so, to people accustomed to fabricating the most elaborate dreams out of the thinnest rumors, the move [recruitment of Cubans into the U.S...
...Now that the U.S...
...This is the soundest and the most feasible policy suggestion made thus far...
...The young writer is crippled so that life will once again have meaning for the old nurse...
Vol. 46 • May 1963 • No. 11
