A Plan for Saving Detroit
Paul Ingrassia deserves applause for "Who Will Survive?" [June], which just arrived in my mailbox here in the antipodes. He correctly highlights the increasing importance of non-U.S. sales for the Detroit Three.

Furthermore, there is no reason that they shouldn’t look to their overseas divisions to provide the U.S. market with new products as well. This is the lesson that U.S. automakers need to learn, yet seem to fail to do so.

G.M. has begun to use Opel and Holden to supply Saturn and Pontiac, and Ford and Chrysler should follow suit. Bob Lutz of G.M. is beginning to integrate the company’s plants wisely.

Ford, which Ingrassia gives a better grade than the others, worries me more from a corporate-culture standpoint. While I defer to Ingrassia’s knowledge of the internal workings of Dearborn, Michigan, all that an observer from outside the U.S. sees at Ford is a company that’s totally frightened of non-American designs. The planned U.S. release of the European redesigned Fiesta in 2010 is a sign that things are changing.

There may be some life in Chrys­ler yet: The 300 model has enormous goodwill in overseas markets, and it’s closely identified with the brand.

—Jack Yan, Wellington, New Zealand

And Who Can Save It?
While most of Jeffrey Rothfeder's "The Doomsday Scenario" [June] is accurate, I was surprised that he writes that Detroit doesn’t have a major college. Did he forget about the University of Michigan? Sure, it’s 30 miles from the actual city of Detroit, but Ford and Chrysler aren’t in Detroit either. And what about Wayne State University, with 33,000 students, which is ­located right downtown?

Kevin Donley, Pleasant Ridge, Michigan

The Geithner Effect
In speculating about the reasons Tim Geithner was hired to run the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Gary Weiss should have emphasized Geithner’s personal and Treasury experience with international financial institutions ["The Man Who Saved (or Got Suckered by) Wall Street; June]. The New York Fed is unique among the 12 Federal Reserve banks in that it examines the U.S. operations of foreign banks and provides services to foreign central banks.

Additionally, Geithner’s incredible and penetrating sense of humor must have helped persuade some that being able to see the humor in both the most banal and the most incredible situations may be a plus for such a job. I remember his routine at the Treasury Department’s going-away party for Robert Rubin: His dry and wry wit had the crowd in stitches.

—Fredric Cooper, Silver Spring, Maryland

The Race to Fix Your Brain
What is completely ignored in David Ewing Duncan’s article on the pharmaceutical industry’s “$2 trillion race to fix your brain” [The Ultimate Cure; June] is the tremendous toll this research takes on animals. In the addiction field alone, monkeys and dogs are hooked on nicotine, heroin, cocaine, and other drugs, and then killed and examined for the effects.

—Wayne Johnson, Brooklyn, New York

Who’s a Mormon?
The Mormon church ended any affiliation with plural marriage well over 100 years ago, yet the misconception that the polygamist group in Texas—much discussed in the news and in Claire Hoffman’s article Satan's Accountant [June]—is condoned or supported by the church continues. The sad situation that played out in Texas deserves greater understanding.

—Brent Scott, Eden, Utah