Mailbag Monday, 1967-'69: Atom bombs and angry wives

Rebecca Shore | Oct 12, 2014

Marilyn Tindall in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Jay Maisel

LAST WEEK we published our first Mailbag Monday installment, in which we reviewed the proper method of spearing a spiny lobster and the functionality of a belt on a swimsuit. This week we move into the late 60s when tempers start to get explosive.

1967

MARILYN: YAY!

Sirs:
The cover picture of Marilyn Tindall remains etched in my mind like a magnificent sunset. Hundreds of eligible bachelors will undoubtedly ask for particulars concerning Miss Tindall. I, however, wish to be the first to ask for a Jule Campbell reject, which is to say, a girl unquestionably beautiful but merely human.
JOHN E. HAMMOND
Huntsville, Ala.

MARILYN: NAY!

Sirs:

The American sportsman wants to read about the sports events that are going on all the time. He does not want to see the latest fashions in clothes. Please transfer my subscription to my sister.

BARRY J. STELL
Greenville, N.C.

MARILYN: OH, HELL NO

Sirs:

The strength of a nation depends on the morals of its citizens. We teachers are molding the citizens of our great nation, and we do not want the magazines that come into our school libraries to be covered with nearly nude feminine bodies. The human body is a work of art because it was fashioned by a Supreme Being, but its beauty is best portrayed with clothing and not with strips of cloth.

My copy was burned immediately, and the subscription will cease. Perhaps you do not know it, but nudity is more destructive to our youth than an atom bomb.

SISTER MARY EPHREM
Loretto, Ky.

FOMO

Sirs:

How come my wife hid your January 16 issue from me?

LARRY R. WESTLEY
Rochester, Mich.

1968

Turia Mau in Bora Bora
John G. Zimmerman

TURIA: YEA! (WE THINK...)

Sirs:

Stop, stop, you heartless, impious fiends! Every year in the depth of winter and, invariably, during a cold snap when the mercury is approaching 50° below and the pines are splitting apart and the furnace oil is sludging in the fuel lines, you bring out an issue featuring the latest in swimwear, modeled on some lush Caribbean or South Pacific isle...

Besides your cruel reminder of better days and elsewhere, I must object on moral grounds to your full-page pictures of tropical cuties in swimming suits so small and/or transparent as to be difficult to see. After all, if God had wanted girls to run around nude, they'd have been born that way.

JOEL T. DEWEESE
Bemidji, Minn.

TURIA: NAY!

Sirs:

I strongly object to your sending covers like this into my home.

Mrs. F. R. FUNK
La Crosse, Wis.

Sirs:

WHAT ABOUT 45 MORE COVERS LIKE THAT?

My steady girl threatens to cancel my SI subscription if there are any more covers like that.

MIKE GRENIER
Lawrence, Mass.

1969

JAMEE: YEA!

Sirs:

As anyone who has read SI for a few years knows, sometime in January we can expect an issue similar to the Jan. 13 number (Surfers and Sybarites). You continually publish pictures of young women in skimpy, revealing swimsuits that leave little to the imagination. If this practice continues, I may be forced to take out another subscription.

RED WASSENICH
Fort Worth

JAMEE: NAY!

Sirs:

I am writing about the apparent decline in the visual impact and quality of your famous (or infamous) January "swimsuit" issues (1963 et seq.). I believe SI is mistaken in departing from the criteria set forth by Jule Campbell in the Jan. 16, 1967 issue: "The girl has to look healthy, has to be the kind men turn around to stare at, has to have visible spirit and should be athletic." With this latest issue SI seems to have abandoned this formula in favor of a style and format more suited to Vogue, and I believe I am not alone in asking you to return to the "fundamentalism" that made the first issues so appealing.

CARTER B. STACK
Los Angeles

Published Oct 12, 2014

REBECCA SHORE