Letters

Dear Mr. Buckley: Regarding your column on the pilotless Lear, there is one more incident that must stand as the tallest of the skyscrapers of air terror.

The crash of Japan Air Lines Flight 123 occurred on August 12, 1985, at Mt. Osutaka, Japan. Five hundred twenty people died in the crash.

I have researched some of the details.

The aircraft was a Boeing 747-SR, scheduled to fly from Tokyo to Osaka with 524 people on board, including 15 crew.

Following a rupture of the aft pressure bulkhead, the plane floated down and around like a leaf (technically, a Dutch Roll) for nearly 35 minutes before crashing into Mt. Osutaka. Amazingly, there were four survivors. The cause of the crash was determined to have been faulty repair of the bulkhead.

In the wreckage, searchers found letters to children, parents, and spouses, last wills, and even poetry, all composed by passengers who were contemplating their ultimate fate while drifting around in the sky for those eternal minutes.

One can only imagine what that cabin must have been like and what those poor souls must have been thinking and feeling.Thanks to the discipline of engineering and the laws of probability, these thoughts will remain only in our imaginations.

Yours truly,

Paul Bent

Long Beach, Calif.

Dear Mr. Bent: Thanks for your graphic account of that awful business.

Cordially,

WFB

Dear Bill: Even before your famous statement on the subject, Fulton J. Sheen wrote the following (War and Guilt, 1941): "The masses are capable of far better judgments about world affairs than the intelligentsia. If I wanted a good moral judgment about the war, I should a thousand times prefer to get it from a garage man, a filling- station attendant, a WPA worker, a grocer's clerk, or a delivery boy, than from 23 Ph.D. professors I know about in just one American university. The reason is not difficult to find. The educated know how to rationalize evil; the masses do not. Evil to them is still evil; they have never learned to sugar-coat it with sophism. They never got enough smattering of Einstein to sophomorically pontificate: 'everything is relative.' If they do wrong, they still call it wrong. Their judgments are better because their moral sense is higher, for virtue does not increase in direct ratio with learning."

Best wishes,

Tom

[Thomas C. Reeves, Dept. of History, Univ. of Wisconsin]

Franksville, Wis.

Dear Tom: There are always pearls, on reading Fulton Sheen. How happy that you are working on his biography.

Cordially,

Bill

Dear Mr. Buckley: Alas, we are in the desert once again-

Hommage Y? 2Kuoque?

The Millennium coresigned with Buckley,

Whose Talents shone rightward, voluminously.

Except for the Weed

And Bach Phoenix-teased,

His Matter wed Form ineluctably.

Best wishes,

Pete Petrus

New York, N.Y.

Dear Mr. Buckley: A friend of mine, a public-school teacher, was trying to curb use of the F-word in her classroom. She offered "extra points" to any child who could find the word in a dictionary. The greatest offender took up the challenge and brought this definition to the class's attention: Fornication Under the Consent of the King. The class was so disillusioned with this definition that use of the word dramatically decreased. Not only did my friend achieve her goal, she actually got some of her kids to go to the library for the first time!

Sincerely yours,

Patty Sweeney

Staten Island, N.Y.

Dear Ms. Sweeney: That is very good news. I wonder what would be the traffic to the library if compliant young ladies were there waiting for the boys?

Cordially,-WFB

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