Postblogging Technology, January 1953, 1: Cold, Cold Heart

R_.C_.,
Shaughnessy,
Vancouver,
Canada

Dear Father:

I hope this finds you well, as I am not. I could say that it is because of my condition, but it is not. I could say that I am sick at the news (or rumours, anyway) out of the Soviet Union. But  while I am, that is not the cause. I could blame Aviation Week for missing delivery dates and reversing the order of my usual readings. (Don't ask why, it made sense to me when I did it.) I could stamp my girlish feet at the library for unaccountably continuing its Christmas break through an extra weekend without so much as a sign on the door, which seems like an outrageous thing that could never happen in 1953, and certainly not in the bright, shining future of years from now. 

But that is not it, either. The truth is that I was up late playing canasta and so finishing this letter has led to me putting off dinner, and I am famished! I am, accordingly, off to remedy the situation and maybe some jambalaya? And now I am depressed again, at the tragic death of a musician you've probably never even heard of.  

Your Loving Daughter, 

Ronnie

Letters

Richard Folsom of Pasadena says hat the gigantic California-style suburban shopping centre with its big parking lots will soon render the "great traffic jam" a thing of the past. N. Taylor Tomb seems to disagree, because he thinks that traffic jams might be caused by giant cars that take up too much room on the road, and not people headed downtown to shop. Anthony Elliver argues that it is not a problem of road capacity at all, but of "town and country planning," as they say in those great long, boring articles in The Economist. Professor Walter Friedlander is concerned about the problems Germany is having integrating its refugees into the general population. C. R. Vann of Newark, Ohio, points out that if patients who think they are hexed are not insane, and are not amenable to being convinced that they are not hexed, doctors might as well go ahead and unhex them. Out publisher has nothing to say this week. 

The Periscope reports that Churchill is considering having Britain enter ANZUS, even though both Australia and John Foster Dulles oppose it. Pravda's recent very militant editorial is a mixed signal after Stalin's peace proposal, but this bit comes with a controversy of its own, since the article pointing out the mixed signals appeared in The New York Times under James Reston's byline, even though he didn't write it, as it was ghosted by Arthur Krock. People are watching where Eisenhower appoints his good friend, General Alfred Gruenther. The current artillery ammunition shortage is due to wasteful use earlier in the Korean War, as the army had enough for a regular war by its own reckoning in 1950. Captured Red equipment from Korea is being sent to Yugoslavia. Military censorship in Korea is taking a new tack, with the services simply not talking about unpleasant details unless asked. The Air Force is going to go ahead with a "stripped-down" hotrod fighter on the basis of opinions from Korea. The Army will start assigning Nike missile batteries to strategic targets within the United States soon, beginning with atomic factories. The Navy is getting tired of firing off Vikings and is looking forward to something more exciting. The CIO is losing more contract votes than it wins, in contrast to the AFL. The travel ticket tax will soon be repealed, while British authorities deem British carrier aircraft inferior, and American jet engine manufacture is finally overtaking British. B-29s are starting to make low level  training flights over Malaya to impress the Malayans, and perhaps leading to B-29s being based at Singapore. Trygve Lie will probably succeed himself as Secretary General unless Dulles makes a push for his main rival, Carlos Romulo. Konstantin Zinchenko will resign as the Secretary General's Russian assistant after his assistant was exposed as participating in Soviet espionage in the United States. Hjalmar Schacht is hinting that Germany will repudiate its reparations pact with Israel when the occupation ends. Communists can't seem to manage to infiltrat

e West German unions. Life with Luigi on CBS has lost its main sponsor because Italian Americans hate it. CBS is negotiating with Irene Dunne for a television series, while Margaret Whiting will be in a series of TV movies. Errol Flynn is making a movie about William Tell, Coley Wallace will star in The Joe Louis Story, Barbara Payton and Soony Tufts will be in Run for the Hlils, a "spoof on the atomic age."

The Periscope Washington Trends reports that the outlook for 1953 is the return of orthodox finance, low spending, a real effort to work with labour, a "thorough housecleaning" at State as the last left-wingers are rooted out. Ike will be tougher on Russia, but also more defensive, and foreign aid will be all arms, none of that dollar stuff. Ike doesn't expect an overnight miracle in Korea, but rather  step up in fighting until the Chinese and Russians break over continuing the war. Eisenhower will not have to fight with Congress, where GOP leadership will remember that they are Republicans, and Eisenhower gave them their victory in 1952. 

New Administration/National Affairs

"Stalin Bid, Churchill Visit Launch Ike into New Year" Stalin peace, Churchill houseguest. Also Earl Warren appointed Arthur Kuchel to be the new senator from California instead of a Nixon man. That would be because Governor Warren loathes Nixon, but it is not good news for the President in terms of putting his bills through the Senate. On balance, Newsweek admits, it liked Truman. Then we get a long profile of the new Treasury Secretary, "sound money man" George Magoffin Humphrey. I'm giving the name a pass on the grounds that middle names can be weird. We'll see about "sound money." 

Ernest K. Lindley's Washington Tides is on about "The Role of Ex-Presidents" The nation needs to find Truman a pension and something to do, because he is not rich like previous ex-Presidents. A full page column on incoming Administration appointments follows. 

"Senator Ferguson: A New Pearl Harbor Probe" Now that the Republicans are in, it's time for another look at Pearl Harbor to prove that it was carried out by Jesuit Freemason pilots flying German planes at the orders of Franklin Roosevelt; and also Alger Hiss, Harry Dexter White, Yalta. Also, it is time for more anti-Communism, open diplomacy, and "pushing back." Everyone else in the world is upset that US Immigration is keeping foreign seamen aboard ship on suspicion of sharing Communist influence. For example, 271 of Liberte's 974 crew have been refused permission to come ashore. Meanwhile, McCarran is fighting with the State Department because he wants potentially sensitive information about possible Communist UN employees. The House Ways and Means Committee is still looking at the IRS and recommends that the new Congress continue its work. The Office of Defence Mobilisation has a new "M-Day" plan, but we really can't talk about it until the new Administration decides it likes it. Meanwhile the Office says that the country still needs more modern jets and more military production to ensure "continuing technological superiority." Newsweek gloats because now Reds are the anti-Semites.

The Korean War

"Red Germ-War Accusations: Investigations from Afar, Bad Grammar" The results of the International Scientific Committee's investigation into Red allegations of UN bacteriological warfare in Korea are embarrassing to all concerned, and especially Cambridge biochemist and amateur Sinologist Joseph (not "James") Needham. 

International has even more about the Stalin peace plan, which it links with the fall of the Pinay government and Sonstelle's trial balloon of a Gaullist government, which promptly deflated, but might be more serious the next time it is advanced, and will lead to the end of European unity and the fall of the West, or something like that. Also, Germany is having a good New Years, a pact with Teheran might be in sight, and everyone agrees that Andrei Gromyko's jeremiad about the fatal shooting of 84 Red prisoners during a failed breakout at Pongam Island prisoner of war camp was just "midnight ravings." 

The new Western Air Headquarters is very swank, with an American cafeteria and everything. (Food at the British one is disgusting.) Over in Britain, Tory MPs are very tired of having to work hard due to their slight majority and wish that Labour would just give up. 

"Bolivia Has Tin and Troubles After Nationalising the Mines" Bolivia is poor and has bad internal communications due to the mountains and they should have figure that this would happen when they nationalised the mines in the first place. 

Business

Periscope Business Trends reports that we're all tired of reports that the economy is about to peak and taper. It isn't going to taper due to more guns, more plants, more steel, more business confidence, record personal income, recovering retail trade, more interest income, and a higher stock  market. Everything is up! Nothing can ever come down! Over at Hazlitt's corner, it is asked, "Is a Depression Coming?" And the answer seems to be yes, but only because it is necessary to get inflation under control. 

"Research in Powder Metallurgy Gets Big Push From Method X" Firth Sterling, working with an invention by E. E. Tuebner, has come up with the best way yet to make solid products out of titanium carbide powder, using some kind of electrodeposit method. An advertorial in a weekly newsmagazine? This is low, Newsweek. 

Newsweek predicts that chemicals, electronics, light metals and air conditioning will do well this year. A small atomic plant may be producing commercial atomic power within five years. 

Science, Medicine, Education

"Mann-Sized Shoes" Charles W. Mann, a forty-year-old chemist and mathematician working on leather research for the National Bureau of Standards, believes that with proper design the 90 shoe sizes the Army currently stocks can be reduced to 45 or 50. Research reports that the majority of British take fewer than two baths a week, and Scots take fewer than one a week; the reason is probably that it is so cold indoors in Britain. Newsweek checks in with the Navy's "visibility" research, which has been taken over from the Scripps Institute by the naval base at San Diego because it is now recognised as being hush hush, in spite of which we hear about the man who does it all for the Navy, Dr. Seibert Quimby Duntley (which is a real  name). Oliver Payne Pearson of the University of California studies hummingbirds. He has cracked hummingbird hibernation, but thinks we have much to learn about them. 

"The Mentally Upset Child" Dr. John W. Campbell of Atlanta, Georgia, is a psychologist treating a number of troubled children whom he has labelled as "manic depressives" because of their tendency to switch from "high elation and incessant activity to abnormal passivity and dangerous depression." The diagnosis actually originates with Dr. Emil Kraepelin, and is the second most common diagnosis after schizophrenia in mental illness. Heredity is blamed for the majority of cases, about 70% of which are women. The point is that while the profession believes that psychosis in all forms is almost unknown under the age of 14, Campbell's patients are as young as 6. They were clearly distinct from schizophrenics, and even at this young age were developing "defence mechanisms" (I believe is the technical term) to ward off allegations of insanity. Dr. Campbell prescribes rest, relaxation, vitamins and electroshock in that order, and therapy in order to recognise and compensate for the condition. Dr. Ernest Seliger of the National Committee on Alcohol Hygiene, Incorporated, recommends "automatic permanent loss of driving license upon conviction of a traffic offence involving the use of alcohol," because this is serious, damn it! 

"'Like to Stammer?'" The Emery Institute of Winter Park, Florida, treats stammering, including with a correspondence course. The key to the course is that the students have to not want to stammer. So if they fail, it's their fault! 

Radio and Television, Press, Newsmakers 

"Self-Examination" After getting a jolt from Adlai Stevenson's comments about the "one party press" in the United States, the newspapers have been asking themselves, "Are we too Republican?" The answer is, maybe a little bit, but not too much. Newsweek checks in with the Audit Board of Circulation, which exists, and the Associated Press' annual survey of censorship off there in foreign lands where such things happen. For example, the Miami Herald was held up in Venezuela for reporting that the opposition was winning the election. 

"The Big Stories" The US election, the coronation, the Korean War, the H-bomb, Kurt Carlsen and The Flying Enterprise. 

Alistair is that guy with the English accent on the radio all the time. Scott Radio Laboratories has some "turn that smile upside down" variety thoughts about television. Worried that television is leading to unruly children? Punish them by taking their tv viewing privileges away! (TEMPORARILY!) 

The President, Roland Harriman are famous. The entire cast of the last election starting with Adlai Stevenson and also Winston Churchill are officially Great Men. Governor May of Kentucky and Representative Parnall Thomas have received Presidential pardons. The "Grandma" bandit in Los Angeles turns out be 62-year-old Smith graduate Ethel Arata. 

Tweetsie, the tourist-trap narrow gauge Tennessee train, is running again, in Kentucky. Radio DJ Jerry Leeds of California is famous, while Remo, the pasta-eating elephant of the Rome Zoo, is dead, of acute indigestion. Nell McGraw deserves to be famous. Mike Connolly is also famous, while Herman Perlman is a glass carver. Dan Dailey is marrying Betty Wynn after she gets a Mexican divorce. A Barrymore is eloping. Anne Baxter is divorcing. Queen Mother Alexandrine of Denmark, Lewis Hill Reed and Edward Eugene Cox have died. 

New Films

Universal brings over The Importance of Being Earnest, which apparently requires a plot summary, before Newsweek allows that it liked it. Face to Face is a two-story anthology from RKO adapting tales by Stephen Crane and Joseph Conrad. We liked the Crane story, which is a regular Western. Eight Iron Men is a good, authentic war movie from Columbia, while April in Paris is a bit of Technicolor "froufrou" with Doris Day and Ray Bolger. Newsweek doesn't appear to approve? 

Books

Samuel Chamberlain's Bouquet de France is handsome and welcome any time, especially by those who appreciate French food. (Ooh la la!) Edward Grierson's latest novel, Reputation for a Song, gets a good review, as does Mikhail Soloviev's When the Gods are Silent and Kinnan Rawling's The Sojourner. 

Raymond Moley is on about how governments owning businesses is wrong and terrible. You might think that he would start with an easy case like rubber, but, no, it's all about electrical power generation. I just cannot imagine how a private business could run the TVA or the Hoover Dam! 

Aviation Week, 5 January 1953

News Digest reports that the Navy doesn't need the new Westinghouse plant in Columbus any more because it isn't buying Westinghouse engines any more. The Convair YB-60 is flying. So is the Douglas XA3D-1.

Industry Observer reports that President Eisenhower is going to get a personal Super-Constellation to replace Truman's DC-6. There are rumours that the Air Force is going to cancel most B-52 production because it doesn't offer enough of an improvement over the B-47. Non-inflammable hydraulic fluid has saved the Air Force $15 million already. There is also talk that the 75,000 and 25,000lb forging presses might be cancelled, although industry is keen on them. Monsanto's nonflammable hydraulic fluid is the best yet. Dr. N. A. Bruyne, the man who wrote the book on Redux, is coming to North America on a 10-week lecture tour. 

Aviation Week has "Airlines Set Safety Record" (0.38 fatalities per 100 million passenger miles); "Plane Production Tops 1000 Monthly (total industry employment hits 750,000); "New SAS Service" (to South Africa); "Explosive Seats" (B-47 gets ejection seats, Air Force denies that earl B-47s were death traps); "AF Chief Says Reds Ahead in Air Buildup;" "Nonsked Probe" (CAB officials have three more firms they want to decertify; but the industry doesn't like CAB, either); "Locked Controls Blamed in Crash" (the Douglas C-124 crash at Larson AFB that killed 84 was caused by the gust locks not being taken off by the flight engineer before takeoff); Piper is producing more planes and an artist's impression of a new Italian amphibian graces the page. At least it is less outlandish than the "Glider-Copter-Bike-Plane Planned" out of Italy. 

Irving Stone reports for Aircraft Production that "Experts Analyse Heavy Press Problems" The Air Force Heavy Forge programme is unprecedented, and is running into problems. However, Lockheed engineers are confident that they will be overcome with experience, and the various advantages of forging are compelling. It's quite a long article, so expect more details ranging from the specific advantages, including smoothness of finish, and difficulties, such as in making the dies, if you go to the source. 

"Fokker's Play for the DC-3 Market" Fokker is the latest to try to unseat the king, with a tidy little twin-turboprop. 

Summaries of papers given at the American Rocket Society's annual convention in New York include one on using rockets to launch satellites into orbit,  pressure-time graphs for rocket engines, telemetry for rocket instruments, analog methods for rockets, and the effect of chemical reactions on rocket engines. 

Beckman and Whitley have a "smear" camera for flash and spark studies. (It's one of those really fast picture takers that rotates a mirror at 50,000rpm for repeated exposures. 

Philip Klass reports for Avionics on "2-in-1 Unit for Yaw, Attack Angles," which is about a servo-driven, balanced pressure transducer device for measuring a rocket's yaw and angle of attack, although the inventor, Douglas Young, points out that it works across a high speed range and is suitable for helicopters, too. Considering that it is a free-hunting device, it seems like it would wear out quite quickly, Klass asks Young, who explains that this is actually an advantage, for some reason. Which is about as critical as these articles get, so congratulations to Klass for being the investigative journalist we all need before we get into a dangerous plane. GE's new radar tube is very rugged. The National Bureau of Standards is very pleased with its fast-acting clutch for servos. Filter Centre reports that Cornell has a manual on heat transfer technology for avionics, that airlines have begun testing the DME equipment, that the HUP-2 will use a Minneapolis-Honeywell autopilot. 

No-one likes George L. Christian, so he has been sent to report on another airport helicopter airmail scam in Chicago, where Helicopter Air Service is flying 6 Bell H47Ds. If you haven't heard of them, it is because they fly a tiny, safe helicopter, and so have a great service record, but carry practically no mail at all. Solar Aircraft is putting turbine power sets into C-124s, while Western Airlines is upgrading the R-2800s in its Convairliner fleet to a new standard. American's DC-6As are getting galleys. GM's servos are the tiniest and cutest yet. Mission Electrics' electric motors are the tiniest and cutest yet. The Norton 60 is a great lapping machine. Webber Appliance has a hot/cold testing unit. Allen Aircraft's drain valve is excellent. North American Philip's X-Ray spectograph employs tungsten radiation. Markal Corporation has a line of chemical coatings for metals.

Aviation Safety has the CAB report on the Northeast Airlines Convair 240 landing at Flushing where the plane set down in shallow water off the beach on the approach to the runway. The investigation finds that it was pilot error, but the aircrew won't admit to it. 

Letters has Glidden S. Doman explaining that Doman Helicopters is actually a very financially sound company. J. Murray has doubts about the effectiveness of American fighters against the MiG-15 at altitude. Three British writers like Aviation Week for its dispassionate perspective on the British industry. 

Robert L. Wood's Editorial is worried about the increased risk of collision as traffic increases, and thinks everyone should lighten up on helicopters (OUCH!)

Letters

Sydney Small of the Norfolk and Western writes to point out that some railway shops (his, specifically) are still making steam locomotives, so the art isn't dead in the United States yet. John G. McDonald wonders if it is really "Queen Elizabeth II of Canada." I see his point, even if it is stupid and wrong from a lawyer's point of view! Everyone liked the article about magazine illustrators. For Your Information is back to tell us that Lewis Douglas and Hoyt Ammidon have joined the board of Newsweek. 

The Periscope reports that GOP senators are tired of letters from mothers of draft-age youngsters, while the Pentagon is mobilising against the President's plan to give Defence Secretary Wilson authority over "high-level atomic promotions." French President Auriol opposes a Big Three Meeting until France has a premier who can attend. Supreme Court Justice Tom Clark is going to be "invited" to appear before a House subcommittee to answer for his actions at Justice during 1945--9. Senator Irving Ives might be drafted to succeed Dewey as GOP candidate for governor of New York. George Murphy might succeed Eric Johnston as "czar of the movie industry." The Marine Corps, it is discovered, passed Senator McCarthy over for promotion last summer. General Clark's psychological warfare staff includes a Chinese "songstress" named something like "Lhassa." Premier Yoshida will visit Washington as soon as he can to complain about pressure to rearm. It turns out that you don't really need to reciprocate when someone gives you a gift if they are Communists. Maurice Thorez might be dead. Peron might bring in a Russian or German air mission to replace the Americans he sent packing last year. Stalin's office is working on a gigantic mausoleum for the dictator in Red Square. Thousands of anti-Red leaflets found scattered in western Hungary might have been dropped from Soviet-Hungarian airliners. US film stars hired for Italian films are having their paycheques bounced. Steve Allen might get a show to follow up David Garroway's Today on NBC, to be called Tonight. Twentieth Century Fox is working on The Form Divine with Marilyn Monroe, Esther William's next will be Easy to Love, and will costar Tony Martin. Lloyd Douglas' The Robe isn't even in production yet, but Fox is working on a sequel, The Story of Demetrios. 

?

The Periscope Washington Trends reports on the Eisenhower's Congressional agenda, which includes amending Taft-Hartley, clean-up of Internal Revenue, amendment of the McCarran immigration law, an end to rent control, with wage controls going on "stand by," a Reorganisation Bill, the end of the Excess Profits Tax, a replacement for the Reciprocal Trade Act, statehood for Hawaii and Alaska, cabinet status for the Federal Security Agency, "lowering the boom" on American communists at the UN. 

New Administration/National Affairs

"GOP-Southern Democrats Rule as 83rd Congress Starts Work" And that's how the Administration expects to get around its minimal Senate majority. So much for Civil Rights! The Rules Committee of the 82nd Congress finished out its term by submitting an extensive report on the doings of one Joseph McCarthy, who turns out to be a rather bad little boy. I know, I'm shocked, too! Ernest K. Lindley has discovered the perfect way to turn out a worthy column and not generate any tedious mail, and he is sticking with it, as he does another bit on reforming Congressional procedures to make it more [SNORE!] But as the only sincere columnist at Newsweek, Ernest has to stop and take a poke at the Speaker for making a bill to reduce taxes the official "H.R. No. 1." The Inaugural and parade will be something; we hear about more Administration appointees, and this week's featured interview is with George Meany of the AFL, who hopes for a good working relationship with the Administration and cannot possibly comment on the possibility of an AFL-CIO merger, or the investigations into the New York Longshoreman's Union. 

"Acheson on UN Communists: Now It's the GOP's Problem" Pretty much! At the bottom of a long article on the fuss in Congress and due to the New York grand jury investigation, Newsweek mentions that the Rosenbergs have been denied clemency and will die in the electric chair unless an outgoing Truman or President Eisenhower  stays the execution. Puerto Rico's internal autonomy begins this month. Serge Rubenstein is still fighting extradition to Russia, the Chicago police apprehended the survivors of a jewelry heist gang after a gunfight in the streets, and the Air Force is wondering just what it is about November-December that leads to all these disasters like the Moses Lake crash. It seems to be mostly pilot error, Moses Lake counting in the sense that the pilot didn't check  his controls before takeoff, or he would have caught the fact that the gust locks had not been removed. 

"Lynch-Free Year" This was the first year in 70 that no lynchings were recorded in the United States, although the Tuskegee Institute points out that there is still plenty of brutality directed at Negroes, and in particular that bombings are increasing. 

International

"Cortege for a Dead Policeman Points Up Problems in Berlin" The funeral cortege for a Berlin policeman shot while interrupting an attempt by three Soviet Soldiers to kidnap a German across the zone boundary is one thing. The some 20,000 "Berlin refugees" in 68 improvised camps is another thing. Weather is preventing the Allies from flying them out, and more are coming all the time. Bonn has promised to absorb 96 percent of "legitimate" refugees, but that leaves the ones who can't get through the interviews, which is all the 20,000 rejected refugees now hanging around in Berlin.

The Maldive Islands are now an independent republic, although Britain is still looking after their defence and foreign affairs. Walter Midgeley sneezed his artificial mustache off while performing at the Metopolitan Opera, negotiations over an Iran deal continue, with Mossadegh reportedly being quite reasonable. The breach between the main leaders of the Indonesian Republic is good news for the Communists! 

"Peril in the Air" A troubled Chinese man has stolen a Philippine Air Lines DC-3 in the air, complete with passengers, and attempted to divert it home to Fukien Province. Landing instead on Quemoy, he was arrested by Koumintang troops, the tone of the article suggesting that something horrible would have happened had they landed in Red territory. Francois Mauriac's front plage editorial in Le Figaro expresses his disgust at the instability of the Fourth Republic. Why couldn't we have that column instead of the two page article on the Duke of Norfolk's preparations for crowning the Queen that follows?

Korean War 

"The US Navy's Korean War: Dull, Dirty, and they Die, Too"  A gigantic American flotilla (with some foreigners attached) is off the coast of Korea blockading, escorting, and sometimes shooting. The Navy is convinced that the Air Force interdiction campaign was a pointless waste of time, and is instead conducting "Cherokee strikes" against likely munition dumps in the Red rear. The Communists, the Navy figures, are finding this an easy war in which they only need to commit some oxcarts to keep the much more mechanised UN bogged down.

An explosion in Valparaiso kills 53, Argentina has had a bumper crop and will sell 26,000t of chilled meat to Britain this year, up 5000t, and has completed its five year plan. Everything is coming up roses!

Business

The Periscope Business Trends reports that profits will be up this year, especially in railroads, steel, television, autos, aircraft. The prospect for tax cuts is "chilly," but the capital gains tax will need to be modified to reduce the amount of "locked up" investment money. Depreciation allowances might have to be increased, and tax deductions on salaries. The Eisenhower Administration is expected to be fairer on anti-trust action, and the FTC is expected to be nicer, too. 

"New Cars, New Faces, Strikes Launch U.S. Business Year" NBC has a new chairman, GM's 53 lineup is now out. It is "tough" and "competitive."  The Buick Roadmaster has the highest compression ratio yet at 8.5:1, and the Cadillac regains the horsepower lead at 210, with optional air conditioner, power steering and wire wheels.
G. F. Goodrich's new process makes "cold" artificial rubber fifty times faster, and uses stainless steel pipes instead of pressure vessels, slashing plant and equipment costs "at least in half." There's trouble on the New York docks, and retirement has begun to be a real problem in business. There are too many executives retiring under mandatory rules, but they can always be rehired, it is pointed out by Professor Harold Hall of the Harvard School of Business. 

Notes: Week in Business reports that two New England investment banking firms are merging, the Defence Production Agency will allot a record 1.7 million tons of structural steel for military and civilian construction in the second quarter of 1953, that Republic Steel is going to be fabricating complete steel kitchens and is setting up a national marketing organisation to sell them. A Federal grand jury has indicted the Baltimore and Ohio for falsifying financial information in its 1943 bankruptcy proceedings in order to get an FRC loan. 

Products: What's New reports that Sonotone of New York has a matchbox-sized hearing aid that weighs only 3 oz, thanks to replacing the vacuum tube with a transistor. Lasker's Snow Dozer has little runners, allowing it to skim rough surfaces to pick up snow, leaves, gravel, or loose dirt. Diebold has a portable microfilm reader weighing only 19lbs, occupying only a square foot of desk space but with a viewing screen the same size. Davison Chemical's storage container has a glass window that changes its tint if moisture gets inside. Henry Hazlitt's column is "Fallacy in the Forecasts," in which he explains that cuts in defence spending won't lead to a depression in 1953 because it is just a crazy fallacy that defence spending produces prosperity. Why, cutting taxes would have exactly the same effect! 

"Special Report: How Hollywood Hopes to Hit the Comeback Trail" Falling box office revenues, closing cinemas and firings at the studios can be fixed, perhaps by the three-dimensional effect of Cinerama, perhaps by turning to making tele-films, perhaps by closed-circuit screenings of fights and games in cinemas. 

Science, Education 

The cocelanth, the fabulous fossil fish that shocked the scientific community when a live one washed up on a South African beach in 1938, has now been caught on the line. Leonard Carmichael is the new secretary of the Smithsonian. The Annual meeting of the AAS was a bit too colossal to cram into a single column, but Newsweek was especially struck by Professor Maurice Visccher's denunciation of rampant anti-intellectualism in American public life, and Dr. Jane Loevinger (Weissman), a psychologist at Washington University, who accused her profession of having a "mother-blaming complex." Parents have rights, too! 

"Global Blood Pressure" High blood pressure is only a problem in America and Europe. In the United States, it afflicts between 20 and 40% of the population and took the lives of 83,000 people in 1949. Is this differential because of race? No, for example, Africans have much lower blood pressure than Americans of African descent. In fact, they have higher blood pressure than white Americans. The actual cause is down to "killer calories" and "disposition and temperament and the way of life." Americans work too hard. They are also being poisoned by some of the more powerful drugs out now, like Chloromycetin, which should be  used with caution. 

Medical Notes reports that the University of Illinois has given Dr. Andrew Ivey a six-month leave of absence to investigate the efficacy of kreboizen, during which he will draw no salary from the university. Captain Forrest Pitts and Colonel Carl Tempel of the Army Medical Corps say that the combination of isoniazid and streptomycin are the most effective anti-tuberculosis treatments yet. 

Education gives Dr. Grayson Kirk a fawning profile on the occasion of his becoming the official and not just acting President of Columbia. 

Art, Radio and Television, Newsmakers

Polar aviator Bernt Balchen is having a show at the Grand Central Galleries in New York. 

Charles Laughton and Betty Furness are on television! And so is Ernie Kovacs. 

"Firing Fracas" George S. Kaufman has been a panelist on CBS-TV's This Is Show Business for three years. Last week, he was fired with just three shows left in the season for quipping, "Let's make this one show that no-one sings "Silent Night," which was deemed antireligious. Everyone agrees that it wasn't antireligious, and that he has a point, and that he should be rehired.  

"McCormick's Harvest" Colonel McCormick's year-end review celebrates The Chicago Tribune's victory over the New Deal, tyranny, and over-regulation. With some help. Even Newsweek thinks this is a bit much, and also biting the hand that feeds in a year when the newspaper also had record advertising sales. There is a Communist newspaper in Czechoslovakia, it says here.

"In the Old Tradition" Larry Allen of the AP is back in America from a stint in Indo China, and gave a talk that Newsweek attended. Allen was plastered in sweat and terrified by fanatical Viet Minh Communists attacking in waves with screaming and blowing bugles. He was also irritated by French censorship, and fears that a French defeat in Indo China would lead to the collapse of all Southeast Asia. The NAM is ending its magazine because everyone it asked said that it would never be profitable because it was too staid and boring. 

Two toddlers in Detroit got into some trouble, one shooting a grocer in the foot after he left his gun on the counter, the other getting into his Dad's car and driving away as far as the bottom of the drive. President Truman says that he won't need his Secret Service detail after he leaves the White House. High Noon was the best film of '52, say the New York Film Critics. The Aga Khan is pleased that his son has moved on from Rita Hayworth with Gene Tierney. Joe McCarthy has a chestful of medals from the Marines after requesting all his service decorations, DFC, and Air Medal. The East Boston Ferry, the country's last penny ride, has been cancelled. Garry Davis is still getting into trouble, now for driving without a license. Various royals and Texas football teams are in the news.

Henri Matisse is 83. Nancy Oakes and George Balanchine are married. Johnnie Raye is divorced. Laurance Armour, Luke McNamee, Fletcher Henderson and Hank Williams have died. Oh no! He was only 29!  

   New Films

Columbia's The Member at the Wedding is a dramatisation of a stage play and still very stagey, although the cast is very good, particularly Ethel Waters and Julie Harris. Ruby Gentry is Twentieth Century giving Jennifer Jones a chance to wear tight blue jeans and a sweater, and not much else, as the whole thing is just too much. Against All Flags is a Universal-International vehicle for Errol Flynn daring-do, this time as a secret agent against Malaysian pirates, including Maureen O'Hara somehow. A Time for Flowers is a "lithe, intelligent comedy" about the "dark game of Soviet intelligence and intimidation behind the Iron Curtain." 

Books

Herbert Van Thal's Victoria's Subjects Travelled is selections of no-less than 43 of same, plus illustrations. Edgar Johnson's new biography of Dickens is exhaustive. Carl Sandburg's autobiography is out on the occasion of his 75th, while Lawrence Earl, author of The Yangtse Incident, has  The Battle of Baltinglass, the story of an Irish village that caused the fall of an Irish government by resisting attempts to cut the phone lines of an Irish postmistress for reasons that can be explained. Mrs. Robert Henry calls The Autobiography of a Little French Girl her autobiography, but it is really not, more the story of her parents and her village. 

Raymond Moley is back on the subject  of taking "the power business of the Pacific Northwest completely out of the hands of the Federal government." His ideas, such as they are, come from the work of Paul Raver, who is some kind of apostate from the New Deal and so has credibility on the subject, at least in Raymond Moley's mind. Considering that his ideas consist mainly of cancelling all new hydroelectric development in favour of oil and coal, perhaps carried by transmission lines from as far away as the Missouri, that mainly tells you about Moley. 

Aviation Week, 12 January 1953

News Digest reports that Strategic Air Command has had its safest year yet, with a 40% decrease in accidents. The US has lost 1685 aircraft in Korea through 1 December 1952. Convair 340 deliveries have been accelerated to 8 per month.  

"North American Fury Tries its Sea Wings" The FJ-4 is the latest thing in swept-wing naval aviation. 

Industry Observer reports that Pratt and Whitney expects to end up producing about half of its scheduled engines in 1953 as gas turbines.  The first B-47s of the Douglas second-source contract have flown. They are being used to test the swiveling undercarriage for crosswind landings. Piasecki says that its H-21 is coming along, and "convertiplane enthusiasts are over the Moon about the new Pitcairn machine. 

Robert Hotz reports for Aviation Week that "Two-Year Aircraft Sales Boom Predicted," mainly because the industry has increased its capacity by a factor of four since the war began, and is ready to start delivering the planes it is contracted for. 

"USAF Crashes" Congress has asked the Air Force to explain all the crashes. They're exceptions, the USAF says. Everything is fine! And anyway it's an all-weather force now. The important thing is that there is no vidence of sabotage.

Nat McKitterick reports for McGraw-Hill World News that "British Set Sights on Subsonic Bomber Force," which is a good story to introduce the compound-wing Handley Page Victor bomber, previously known as the "HP80" prototype-thing. The bombers will cruise at 600mph, just below the speed of sound, although full performance is waiting on the "Mark 2" models, which will have still-further improved 10,000lb thrust engines. The Avro Vulcan will get the Bristol Olympus, the Vickers Valiant an improved version of its Avon, while the engine that will replace the Victor's existing Sapphire goes unnamed. In describing his new design, R. S. Stafford of Handley Page says that they could have put a straight wing on the plane, but it would have "looked like a Christmas tree with engines and fuel tanks hangig from the wing . . . [and] would be impossibly heavy and out of the running as a long range bomber." Take that, Boeing! The crescent wing also allows an unobstructed bomb bay, so that's nice, and the Victor has the highest pressurisation yet for very high altitude flight. So there, some more! 

Aeronautical Engineering jas "NACA Learning How to Break the Ice," which is an evidently NACA-authored article on de-icing techniques being tested in the wind tunnels. They involve diverting hot gas from the engines over the wings.

"Fuel Systems Get Lab 'Flight' Check" This gnomic article is about the fuel system of the F-89D Scorpion, so I assume it is from Northrop's reading and writing lab, which needs to hire some experts. It is interesting because they are working out how to supply fuel at 80,000ft, where there is basically no atmospheric pressure at all. 

"Navy Super Connie Passes Strength Test" The Navy wants you to know that it crushed its new R7V1 under jacks simulating a 1500lb load at various points where that is a lot of load, and it didn't break. 

Scott H. Reniger reports "Ramjets or Rockets for Missiles?" Despite the author byline, this is more from Marquardt on the value of their ramjet engines, which offer a longer range than rockets, it says here. 

Aviation Week rounds out summaries of the papers given at the American Rocket Society's annual convention in New York with a look at papers on fuels and ignition of fuels. The new French jet transport from Hurel-Dubons is ready for trials. I've never heard of this? H. T. Jessop's paper on "The Scope and Limitations of the Photoelastic Method of Stress Analysis," given to the College of Aeronautics, is on the method that uses photoelastic coats and fires  beams of light at the coated piece while it is under stress to measure its magnitude and direction. I guess like the title says, it has its strengths and weaknesses? The Air Force is surveying starting problems in the Arctic.

"Sheet Magnesium Problem Licked: Low-Temperature Forming is Made Possible by Use of a Fiberglas Mold and Neoprene Blanket at Low Temperature" The usual article-by-a-company (Chance-Vought) explaining why something never before described as a problem is just now completely licked by Chance-Vought. Kearney and Treckey wants us to know that it will have more machine capacity soon, while Young Testing Machine's universal testing machine tests large parts universally thanks to a Thymotrol engine. Dzus Fasteners' new gas casing sealer is the tightest seal yet.  Calrenn's vinyl polychloride shock padding is ideal for shipping aircraft parts. Money Machinery has imported some useful German bores.

New Aviation Products has a spin-test stand from Warren Brothers, a helicopter light from Westinghouse,  a contour machine from Ex-Cell-O, a high power dc source "designed especially for the exacting requirements of digital and analog computers" from Inet, of Los Angeles (it is very reliable and delivers a controlled power current),  and a 20mm cannon mount from Lockheed.

Letters has a long one from M. Sharp, the PR man at De Havilland, explaining why the Comet ought to pass American certification. Another long one, from J. D. Smith, a pilot at Capital Airlines, explains why missed approaches are so dangerous and demanding that traffic control systems be properly staffed and weather reporting systems improved. Otherwise, new approach coupling equipment will not be useful. 

Speaking of safety, the CAB report on the Idlewild crash by the Air Force C-46 leased to US Airlines, Inc,,, finds that he cause was sudden engine failure due to a deteriorated fuel feed diaphragm. It is concluded that the contracted maintenance firm did not replace the filter when it was supposed to. 

I notice that JAL has announced that it will soon begin flying into San Francisco, while in Editorial, Robert H. Wood is still dogging the heels of the CAA. 

The Engineer, 2 January 1953 and 9 January 1953

I've been reporting issues of The Engineer together for a while now because it has lots of very gnomic and tedious sections that note all sorts of things that might or might turn out to be  very worthwhile investments. I'm not the best judge of where the family wants to put its money, and I sure bet that I and The Engineer are overestimating your patience with all the boredom! BUT, this month almost all the features are reviews of developments in 1952, so they're all To-be-continued, so it actually makes sense to review them together, and I am not just shirking my tasks because they're boring!

So there. 

Not the Seven-Day Journal reports that the 1953 global copper allocation has been decided, that the super-priority has been extended to the Comet, Viscount and Britannia, in order to "demonstrate the Government's determination to help the British aircraft industry expedite deliveries and thus exploit "the remarkable technological lead which it possesses at the moment over all other countries." The scheme has also been extended to the Avro Vulcan and the Handley Page HP80, which first flew last week. The Ministry of Labour's recent survey of firm size shows that 75% have less than 100 employees, 15% have 100 to 250, 619 (of 56,638 total) have between 1000 and 2000, 290 have up to 5000, and 71 have more than 5000. There are 8563 classified as "engineering," which are helpfully reported in completely different brackets. (The highest, "2000 or more," includes 120 firms.) The Blea Moor derailment was caused by a mechanical failure. A Birmingham college with a name that will barely fit into a novel has a course for foremen. 

"British-Built Locomotives of 1952" British firms have built many gigantic steam locomotives for assorted foreign countries, and also some boring diesel and electric locomotives.

"The Royal Navy, 1952" Our Naval Correspondent is writing ahead of "Naval Construction in 1952," and would definitely be stepping on Raymond Blackman's toes if he cared about engineering, but he doesn't, he is one of those "the Royal Navy needs all the ships" sorts who is disappointed that the gigantic rearmament programme isn't gigantic enough, in spite of the fact that there are not the shipyard workers or steel to build any more ships than are being launched right now. Also, it's honestly a giant fleet. He defends keeping the King George V-class battleships in mothballs (at some expense, is the point) because the Russians might pop up with battleships at any time. There are only 11 large aircraft carriers (if you  have been keeping up, the cumulative effect of the upgrades on what I think might technically be the Centaur-class formerly light carriers have improved them to "light fleet" carriers, plus there are the four wartime fleet carriers still to be upgraded after Formidable was scrapped and Victorious taken in hand). And there are only twenty-four cruisers, and what if the Russians sortie a flotilla of disguised merchant raiders, what then? And there are not enough anti-submarine frigates (only 24!) and minesweepers, and to add to all of that a new hospital ship has been cancelled. Cancelled! No doubt a new wartime class of merchant aircraft carriers will be needed, although in a minor concession to reality the writer acknowledges that they might not require extensive flight arrangements if they carry helicopters. It is supposed that the Russians have 300 modern submarines, on what strength of evidence I cannot even begin

to guess, as meanwhile observers in the Baltic warn of battleships and aircraft carriers. Honestly, if Britain can't afford this armada, how can Russia? I ask, but no answer is forthcoming as we launch into the need for modern snorkel-equipped submarines, nuclear-powered submarines, anti-submarine rocket launchers, homing torpedoes, "electronic brains" which can deal with "noise decoys, and new fire control for the three Defence-class cruisers still in shipyard hands. And speaking of which, what about the naval dockyards?

"Labour in 1952" was commissioned from the noted economist and social activist, Gertrude Williams, so I feel like I am letting all sorts of sides down when I treat her briefly. Controversies over the inflation-induced need to adjust taxes, benefits and social insurance payments, over the dock labour scheme and the the closed shop consumed the reformers' attentions in 1952 while the labour force seemed more invested in wage claims. And unless there is some call to go into the whole bundle of "social insurance" benefits as they existed in this year under Heaven of 1952, when in twenty years a "family allowance" will be unrecognisable and one will ask where the "robot subsidy" is, well, I have nothing to say and not even a very clear idea of how to leave this sentence. So I'll just stop and move on to "Atomic Energy in 1952," which is about one big explosion, intimations of atomic power generation, and the rapid expansion of isotope production for medical and other use. Did you know that Britain is now the world's biggest exporter? I didn't! This in spite of almost 3% of the American construction force being used on atomic projects in 1952, according to the AEC. In the United States the talk is of gradual improvement lightening atomic bombs and in reactor design at the Oak Ridge and now the new Idaho laboratory; in Britain wild and irresponsible talk (maybe?) of a "new alloy" allowing effective radiation shielding on a scale needed for an aircraft reactor[?]. I am sure that it is possible. One thing the AEC is keen to point out is that there is much experimental work to be done on the nature of the unknown forces that bind the atomic nucleus together. It's not all long-haired theory! I am going to similarly dismiss "Civil Engineering in 1952," as mostly an exercise in digging deeper holes for bigger buildings, even if they are very spectacular holes and buildings, as at London Airport, with the concrete hangars and underpasses. 

With some exceptions!  The Acton Lane B power station might be just a new coal-fired power station in London (just what it needs!), but the precast concrete  columns of its frame, being erected by MacAlpine Engineering, are the largest ever, and show that in the future colossally looming concrete buildings will loom even more colossally. At least until they are reduce to trunkless columns set in a barren desert . . . sorry, tritest of trite literary references, which I will happily abandon in mid-stream. 

"Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering in 1952" reports that a lot of ships were built or contracted in Britain in 1952, reflecting the soaring freight rates of 1951 due to the Korean War. Oil tankers continued to predominate, and Britain took 35% of world production, although German yards have 500,000t, and Japan 600,000t under construction, so there is no room for complacency, and employers urge further reduction of demarcation and the end of "restrictive practices." That is, if the shipyards fall back into the desperate state of the Thirties, it will be the unions' fault. As far as research and development is concerned, the author points out developments in machine surface finishes, in the lubrication and design of gears, in propeller design, and at the Parsons and Research Marine Engineering Turbine Research and Development Association (PAMETRADA), which delivered the "Daring III" machinery this year, and is working on the still-further improved Y100 machinery for future destroyers. The lab, working with BSRA, has demonstrated machinery capable of working at 1200 degrees, and which seems important nowadays, very quietly. The problem of combining efficient high speed and cruising speed with these plants seems to involve some kind of automatic transmission, and the fashion now is for double-reduction gearing. Naval architects have been refining ship designs and getting their oars in the propeller design waters, while progress in diesel engines focusses on improved lubrication as far as I read it. 

Leaders for the 2 January Issue

In 1952, the King died, the (British) bomb went off, too much money (I think!) was spent on obsolete defence products instead of consumer goods, everyone worried about productivity some more, the coal, and thus electrical supply situation turned around, although no doubt it will be back to gloom and doom soon! There are not enough scientists, and something is holding back investment, probably high taxes. The new queen will probably reign long enough to see a high-speed rocket thrown "fully clear of the Earth," and artificial satellites. Letters are concerned with the progress of the Engineers' Guild and the strain hardening of steel. Barnstaple Station will be broadcasting soon, if it isn't already. 

After all the focus of the last year, you probably don't want to hear yet more about Aeronautics in 1952," although there's the first picture I can recall of the Handley-Page atomic bomber, officially the "Victor." "Electrical Engineering in 1952" looks into the four new National Grid generating stations that came into service this year, more than enough when the growth in electrical consumption, which ran at 9.8% in 1951, fell due to the imports-reduction crisis of 1952 to only 2.5%. They all show interesting new technical features, multi-stage working, more efficient water cooling, high steam conditions in the boilers (900 degrees!) , automatic coal handling. Thermal efficiency is improving, but episodes of "cascade tripping" show that the whole grid needs adequate transmission capacity to handle surges in current. Work on the 275kV  transmission system which is being superimposed on the existing 132kV one, continued. That being said, abnormal conditions can easily defeat even this increased capacity, so there needs to be more work on control, and auto-transformers are an interesting development. Work on coordinating the British and French national grids continues. Sweden's national grid will be 380kV, an interesting development. "The British Iron and Steel Industry" features its own set of remarkable colossal and gigantic developments, mainly involving handing of coal, but there's a new slabbing mill at Consett Works which has the experts agog. British steel production is expected to rise to 17.5 million tons next year, and half a million tons will be imported. 

"Naval Construction in 1952" Eagle is the big story of the year, the largest aircraft carrier in the fleet and a very big ship at 40,000t full load, with two acres of flight deck, a complement of 1227 exclusive of embarked naval flight personnel, an armament of 16 4.5" dual purpose guns and over 50 Bofors, 11,500kW of electrical generation, a 500 line automatic telephone exchange, betweenn 150,000 and 157,000shp from 8 boilers, capacity for 80 aircraft in two hangars served by an automatic lift, and powerful steam catapults and improved arrestors and flight deck lighting, centralised messing, , and chairs and tables for all. Ark Royal will probably be better when it completes because they keep stopping work to rearrange the furniture to modern conditions. I've already referred to the PAMETRADA power plants for the Darings dismissively as not being the exciting new Y100s, but they are plenty exciting nonetheless. The Darings are light cruisers disguised as destroyers, which makes them "experimental" to the cautious naval engineer, although the Australians have gone all in and ordered four. The new frigates are a mix of expensive and "utility" types, with the three aircraft-direction types delayed. There are a lot of new minesweeperrs on the way, and some experimental torpedo boats, some with gas engines, some with gas turbines. A new survey ship has been built, but the hospital ship was cancelled. Victorious is being modernised, and so is the light carrier Warrior, fresh from loan to the Canadians, which might show how some more life and usefulness can be wrung out of the earliest and most austere of the War Emergency carriers. Speaking of which, conversion of wartime destroyers into antisubmarine frigates continues, the Admiralty is still fiddling with existing submarines while it figures out what it wants, and Grey Goose is still the only gas turbine experimental vessel in actual service. 

R. A. Fell and P. Inder Muhl, "Modern Methods of Watch Production" I was actually more interested in the historical section, well above the usual "years ago, before the war" quality, explaining the development of the balance spring in the Seventeenth Century, bimetallic components in 1800 for temperature correction, and improvements in the escarpments as increasing the reliability and precision of clockworks and leading to the modern wristwatch, a veritable miracle of mechanical engineering made by an array of complicated machine tools which are very boring to hear about in detail. In two parts, too! (A pillar plate is worked in 62 steps! 62! 

Industrial and Labour Notes for 2 January reports that imports are down, exports up in November; that the Board of Trade is very upset about monopolies and restrictive practices, that the Ministry of Materials will no longer do bulk aluminum buying for British industry, but will still issue licenses, that coal output is at an annual rate of 225,00,000 tons, up 2.7 million tons over last year.

Not the Seven Day Journal for 9 January 1953 reports new regulations for preventing collisions at sea, Edward Appleton's installation as the new president of the British Association, a summer school on welding from the British Welding Research Association, and the New Year's Honours List, for those who care about such things. 

"G2 Naval Gas Turbine" The Vickers Gastric gas turbine for seagoing installation, is described at length. 

Leaders for 9 January 1053

The Engineer is disgusted at the "ill-placed road safety propaganda" in the Ministry of Transport's "Road Accidents, 1951" report. The Engineer is convinced that all the hectoring in the world will do no good. Drivers will be drivers. Safety will be improved by better roads. It is also upset at people who want to preserve all the old buildings. Something has to come down to make way for the new, even if it does seem like "vandalism." (The specific example is Paddington Station.) 

"Oil Refineries of 1952" When the current construction is finished, Britain will have a refining capacity of 24 million tons of petroleum a year, quite a change from prewar days when most refining was done in the oilfields! The Anglo-Iranian refinery in the Isle of Grains takes up 600 acres of a 2000 acre reclamation, so they are a large investment of resources on a small island, and they use a lot of steel. The desulphurisation and catalytic cracking units are particularly impressive. Grangemouth, on the Firth of Forth, is being refitted and is getting a "Girbotol" plant to separate out the sulphurised from nonsulphrised streams produced by the catalytic cracker, sending the latter to be turned into automobile gas and the raw material for detergents. An adjacent plant will treat British shale oil and produce industrial alcohol. 

Sir Richard Redmayne looks at "Coal in 1952," reporting that in Europe it i s all about the United States of Europe, which is not being kept where coal is concerned (except for Poland, which is communist). America has enough coal, and so does Britain, thanks to increased mechanisation, which has even allowed the miners to have a pay raise without putting the Coal Board in a (larger) deficit. The financial position is "still not a cheerful one." 

Industrial and Labour Notes for 9 January 1953 has yet another report on productivity in North America compare to here, a report showing that the index of industrial production is 118 for 1952, taking 1948 as 100, and the Coal Board's report, which among other things notes that the industry will only need 11,000 new workers next year to cover wastage in certain locations. There's more in the realm of gathering gloom, mainly to do with rising costs, but how much of that can you take?