Postblogging Technology, May 1954, II: Four Minute Mile

R_. C._,
Shaughnessy,
Vancouver,
Canada




Dear Father:

We are finally caught up with the news from the Empire Games. Roger Bannister has run a four minute mile! Do you realise that he ran the last quarter, some 400 yards, in 56 seconds? 10 seconds is a good sprint time for 100 meters! It tires me out just thinking about it. And while British sportsmen do the country proud, John Foster Dulles keeps up the American side in Geneva by showing how to stick your head where the sun doesn't shine! I understand that he is trying to avoid having America take over from France in the role of "hapless colonial master getting beaten up by the Viet Minh," but I don't think that it is working. At least his efforts in the Middle East seem to be bearing fruit. At least so I think. But what do I know? Apart from that Capital Airlines is going to buy 60(!) Viscounts. I wish I got a commission instead of a paycheque!

Your Loving Daughter,

Ronnie

Newsweek, 17 May 1954

Letters

What does America think of Senator McCarthy? We print five letters: one still doesn't like McCarthy, one still likes him, one has changed his mind, and one has no real opinion. Looks like trouble for Senator McCarthy! Dale Nicholls of Biloxi, Mississippi, thinks that Ernest Hemingway is wrong to criticise Frank Lloyd Wright. Two letters about Executive Suite, because it is quite the movie. Lynn Meekins of the Malayan Tin Bureau writes to point out that Raymond Moley's column about the Tin Agreement is irresponsible and inaccurate. I don't know why anyone needs to point this out at this point, but maybe Newsweek sdmehow doesn't know how Moley works. For Your Information reminds us that Medicine Editor Marguerite Clark is visiting all the cancer research labs everywhere and tells us that Grace Kelly is very pretty. 

The Periscope has a new format, with separate sections for international and national news at the lead, and separate Periscopes for all the back page sections instead of just Business. Aww! Now how can I keep up with all the stories that Lana Turner's agent makes up?

So, we hear that  General Navarre is not going to take the fall for Dien Bien Phu. "Usually reliable sources" say that the Reds have an expeditionary air force of Czech and Russian pilots ready to go to Indo China and face off with Clare Chennault. The French are in a bit of a pickle due to all the Vietnamese troops they've been training deserting to the Viet Minh.  The mystery death of the Russian protocol chief at Geneva is mysterious. The Koumintang and Red navies are fighting, but it has been hushed up. The "top Red in Egypt" is a 21-year-old former girl typist at "a British trading concern" named Amal Abdel Nour. (WHAT??!?) Refugees arriving from Czechoslovakia say that armed resistance gangs there are attacking trains. The Red Chinese will purge Kao Kang right after the Geneva conference. The Norwegian Air Force has been given "potentially explosive" orders to shoot down unidentified aircraft overflying their north. Swiss firm Oerlikon's new antiaircraft missile is even better than the Nike, everyone is saying. Western military attaches say that the "Russians have developed jet engines of hitherto unsuspected power" because they think they saw some at the May Day overflight. Psychological warfare experts predict that it is only a matter of time before brainwashed Dien Bien Phu survivors start  making anti-Indo China war statements on Peking radio. A Cominform broadcast to Italy says that the latest Comet disaster was probably American sabotage because that's capitalism for you.

 

President Eisenhower is said to be depressed and irritable. Franklin Roosevelt Jr is said to be feuding with the DNC, which sees him as a threat to Stevenson in '56. Insiders say that the National Security Council is eclipsing the Cabinet. (Could it be that that's because the Cabinet is crammed with "businessmen" who turned out to be idiots?) Some people at the Pentagon think that America should be throwing its weight around more considering that it has all the H-bombs right now. The Army's new bulletproof vest worked well in Korea and now they're trying neckguards and shorts. General Ridgeway was not impressed during his recent tour of Army installations to check out how the "new look" is going. Defence Department psychologists say that soldiers aren't impressed by the Pentagon's habit of handing out medals to everyone. The Navy trial submarine reactor running at Ardco in Idaho is very impressive and that is why the Navy has upped its order to four atomic submarines next year. The next round of US nuclear tests in Nevada will include training for civil defence workers and army manoeuvres with tactical atomic weapons. Where Are They Now tracks down Glenn Cunningham in Cedar Point, Kansas, where he is a gentleman farmer. 

The Periscope Washington Trends reports that Washington is depressed and glum about Indo China and worried about a "meaningless truce" that will concede a great chunk of it to the Reds. The French don't want to fight on, and that is not helping Franco-American relations. The British don't want to start fighting, and that isn't helping, either. West German thinks that America is screwing up Geneva, because Dulles is an idiot. The Japanese think America is throwing its weight around too much, and wants to remind everyone that atomic wars are actually bad. The House passage of the St. Lawrence Seaway is also bad news, in the sense that the Democrats got it through and the message is that Eisenhower better cooperate with the Democrats and freeze out the wilder Republicans. They also expect to win the Senate in November. A US carrier group has put into the Philippines armed with atomic bombs, the rumour mill says. 

National Affairs

"The Crisis: After Black Friday" That would be the fall of Dien Bien Phu. "It might prove to be the cataclysmic event that could trigger a chain reaction culminating eventually in a third world war --this time an atomic war of unimaginable deadliness and destruction." The reaction to Nixon's comments makes it perfectly clear that no American boys are going to Indo China. The British aren't going. The French aren't staying. The Viet Minh have their besieging army available for new operations. (Ignoring the fact that the rainy season has ended campaigning.) The question, once the dominoes stop falling, is "how will America escape containment?" 

"No Break --Yet" Are the Democrats going to risk having a positive opinion on foreign policy? Of course not! Lyndon Johnson points out that the Administration was caught bluffing on sending American troops. Stevenson and Rayburn are content to say that the Administration's policy was a failure. Various Congressmen speaking at the Jackson Day Dinner point out that Republicans can't make foreign policy when they can't agree among themselves, but Truman calls for a bipartisan foreign policy and that's that. It's much more useful to take aim at McCarthy's"twenty years of treason" talk because it puts the onus on the Republicans to come to the Democrats if they want a bipartisan foreign policy, and it links the Administration to McCarthy. Meanwhile all the old America Firsters like Colonel McCormick and Hamilton Fish are out in Chicago forming a new party (or maybe the northern wing of the Dixiecrats) for all those Americans who worry that the party of a certain Senator who shall remain nameless because he's yesterday's news is too soft on communism, socialism, liberalism, and all that other stuff. (For what it's worth, Hamilton Fish says it will be a party for all "races, creeds, and kinds.") Newsweek runs off the primary results, of which maybe the most interesting after all that is Sparkman's easy win in Alabama, in spite of grumblings that serving as Stevenson's Vice-President tainted him with liberalism. It turns out that Coloured and labour support was more than enough to carry him through to the Democratic nomination. Meanwhile Charles Kersten's House  Committee on Communist Aggression (which is a real thing!) heard from Princess Ileana of Rumania, who had it from Ana Pauker (oh, the chats those two used to have!) that, on account of America's dependence on electricity, the Communists were infiltrating the electrical industries. One day, every switch will be flipped and the nation sternly told that the lights won't go on again until we all agree to recite the Communist Manifesto and wear a pork pie cap like Lenin used to do. Taking the sense of the room, Vladimir Sokolow explained how the Americans, back in the twenty-years-of-treason days, handed the Reds the MiG-15 when they refused asylum to its "real designer," Siegfried Gunther. Now that must be a made up name! We also get an update about how everyone betrayed brave Poland. The final "real" story before we turn to the hearings everyone has been waiting for is a roundup of what Congress did at the last minute, including passing the Seaway bill as mentioned in Periscope, and also as mentioned in Periscope but not by me, squelching Taft-Hartley reform, as the Democrats are afraid that any "fixes" will make it worse. 

The princess was an "It Girl," later 
became the abbess of her own convent.

Since you can get a discussion of the blow-by-blows of the Fort Monmouth secret letter, this week's scandal in the McCarthy hearings, anywhere, I'll keep my comment about that to the most important observation, which is that if this circus runs into November, the GOP will do even worse in the elections. 

Ticking It Off reports that, 83 cases of alleged prison-camp misconduct, including 36 germ warfare confessions have been cleared by the Air Force, while the Army handed down a sentence of ten years at hard labour to Corporal Edward Dickensen, the camp squealer. On the bright side, Congress has voted money to refurbish the Constitution, the age of sail warship that is even older than you and Uncle George. Donald Howard, who sparked the Trumbull Park riots by moving his family in, is moving out because of the ongoing the campaign of terror against them, which will probably continue against the other 10 Coloured families that followed him. And in California, the Governor won't reprieve Caryl Chessman, bestselling memoir (Cell 2455 Death Row) or not. Ernest K. Lindley explains why the Secretary of State's handling of the "dealing with foreigners" part of his portfolio hasn't been as disastrous as it looks. It is, in fact, mainly the President's fault that America talked tough and then folded. Gasp!

International leads off with "The Great Stand: Unforgettable Dienbienphu" It turns out that the fortress wasn't conquered. It was "submerged by the Red wave," as the troops executed Colonel de Castries' orders to "[D]ie at the positions assigned to them rather than retreat an inch." Also, since the troops' mission was to "kill as many Viets as possible," they had actually succeeded! Of the 15,000 men sent into the garrison, 3000 have been reported as killed, while the Viet Minh claims between 7000 and 8000 captured, including Colonel de Castries. The fate of the "Angel of Dienbienphu," "Lt. Viscountess Genevieve de Galard-Terraaube," as Newsweek styles her (because looking the style up in Burke's would involve getting up from your desk)is unknown at press time. Also of some importance is the fact that the 9 battalions lost in the siege were essentially the entire French Union strike force, the only men who could be "matched with Giap's fanatical best" in the field. France is devastated, while the Red delegation at Geneva is celebrating. Currently the Western negotiating stand is that the Viet Minh will only have to give up a little territory that they already hold, while the Viet Minh position is "all French out of Indo China now," so there's certainly room between the two for a fruitful compromise! Somewhat related because it is all part of the "twilight struggle,"  Colonel General Grechko, senior officer of the Soviet forces in Germany, made a courtesy call on his Western counterparts, which is big news. and a full story about the "giant jet bomber" seen in the May Day Parade has no more details, except that the four engines indicates that the Russians can build a seriously big turbine engine. (Which I think is said to be a turboprop, not a turbojet.) Oh, and some juvenile delinquents and Teddy Boys had  a rumble in Shoreditch, as they say in America and do in London, and everyone is up in arms over it. The Queen is back in England.

In this hemisphere, specifically in Paraguay, the old dictator (Federico Chaves) is out, and the new dictator (probably Alfredo Stroessner) is in. In Central America, Guatemala is restless, with talk of a popular anti-communist revolution, while a strike has hit United Fruit in Honduras, and Somoza in Nicaragua says that a gunrunning submarine has been spotted off their coast. 

Ticking It Off reports that the Soviet Union has reintroduced capital punishment for murder, that wo Soviet attaches have been expelled from Britain for espionage, that mysterious Soviet spy ships are carrying on at Naples, that Finland has a Swedish-speaking premier, which is a big deal there, I guess, and that the murdered body of Indonesian dancer, Sampih, who toured the US in 1953, has been found in a rice paddy in Bali.

Business

The Periscope Business Trends reports that the business recession that wasn't going to happen, and was going to end soon, and wasn't so bad, anyway, is almost over. Look for hotels and atoms to lead the recovery. 

"The British Pound: For World Traders, Good News" The pound looks pretty strong, so convertibility is just a matter of time. GE and steel have wage issues ongoing with their unions. Boeing is almost redy to roll its jet airliner out, although it has no orders yet. The AEC's big push to bring nuclear reactors to the power business is about to bear fruit for sure. Olin and Mathieson are merging. Products: What's New reports a pocket geiger counter from El-Tronics of Philadelphia, perfect for uranium prospectors, an adjustable shock absorber for driving variable spring roads, from Gabriel of Cleveland, and a high-priced but long-lasting nickel-cadmium battery from Sontone, to be marketed by Chrysler and available for installation in autos.

Notes: Week in Business reports that the price of copper is up and Kennicott has recalled its workers, some watch companies are fighting, Chun King Sales, the only unionised firm in the oriental food market, has settled with its union, and the GM plant at Livonia will be a Fisher body plant when it reopens.

Raymond Moley's Perspectives column moves into the inner pages so that Moley can ride his "Irrigation is too expensive and doesn't justify hydropower projects" horse around the Colorado Basin project. Right or wrong, it's Moley, so there's no point reading the story because he might be making something up. At least we're spared Hazlitt's latest. 

Science, Medicine, Education

"Mouse Moon" "Some of the nation's outstanding astronautics experts" want to launch some artificial satellites into orbit. Newsweek explains what that means to those who haven't been paying attention. However, they'll just be tiny 100lb contraptions like aerostats, not floating platforms packed with astronauts. 

"1984: Crowded" There are 2.5 billion people in the world today, and there will probably be 4 billion in 1984, and most of them will be poor people in Asia and Africa, so it's all quite "nightmarish." 

"Cancer: New Methods, and Drugs, Hold High Hopes" Newsweek's round-up of a year's progress quotes Dr. Ian MacDonald, president of the Los Angeles chapter of the American Cancer Society, as saying that 30 of every 100 cancer patients in America today is cured, while 40 others have "good control" of their condition. With early detection, there is a prospect of doubling the cure rate, and more drugs are constantly being found, which may be the solution, as opposed to surgery and x-rays. I'm not even going to try to list all the drugs. Selman Waksman is looking at 105 antibiotics alone! Viruses play a part in this story, and the University of California Virus Research Laboratory is "tearing them apart" with electron microscopes to learn more. It is also trying to understand the role of the mysterious molecule of heredity, DNA, "which probably holds the key to the wild, uncontrollable growth of cancer." And while big machines do big science, Dr. Vance Tartar of the University of Washington School of Medicine is assembling "man-made animals" out of protozoa with nothing more than a regular microscope and a glass needle, trying to understand animal cell regeneration and why it "goes berserk." 

There's not enough teachers or classrooms, says the latest story to say the same thing, only this time they're quoting Attorney-General Brownell's brother, which makes it news. Tulane University is in a tizzy over an editorial in the student newspaper calling for racial integration, and Mabel Whiteside of Randolph-Macon Woman's College somehow rates a story. 

Press, TV-Radio, Art, Newsmakers

Newsweek introduces itself to the journalists at Geneva. Ken Purdy is leaving True, and Fawcett, which is shuttering several magazines, to head the Argosy Publishing stable for a report $45,000/year. Argosy is getting rid of its pulp titles and replacing them with 10 more slicks in the Argosy style, and wants the Purdy team to oversee the changeover. Muhammed Abdul Fath, the owner/publisher of Cairo's Al Misri, has been told not to return to Egypt. The big story in TV is the hearings, of course, but Eric Sevareid appears to be a flop as a TV host, while NBC's Justice is pretty good thanks to the work of Oscar Homolka and Dane Clark.. The promised Periscoping of TV-Radio news reports that Margaret Truman will be touring this summer, that former child stars Roddy McDowall and Peggy-Ann Garner will have a sitcom in the fall, and that the roles of Fibber McGee and Molly will be recast for television. 

New location, same old Periscope, 0-3 this week. 

Art reviews Hellmut Lehmann-Haupt's Art Under a Dictatorship, which tells the story of the Nazi attempt to suppress "degenerate art." Absolutely no lessons will be learned! 

Aneurin Bevan has been convicted of dangerous driving in a magistrate's court. Dr. John Hunt, Eisenhower's mess sergeant, gets in the column for bringing his class to see the White House on the Administration's dime. New York department stores are selling earrings with live guppies in them, which is, I swear I'm not making this up, the latest thing. Albert Einstein, Spike Jones, Alfonso de Mello Franco, and Ivy Baker Priest are in the column for the usual reasons. Bing Crosby is in it for being caught out without his toupee. Iffat Nafir Shoab is married, Peggy Cripps Apiah has had a baby, Fleet Admiral Leahy has had a birthday, and Joseph Driscoll, R. C. Forbes, and Crown Princess Cecile of Prussia have died.

The New Films

(Movies has a long profile of Grace Kelly.) MGM's Prisoner of War is an example of Hollywood doing recent  history, but not very well. At least our cousin gets some work now that his stint as labour leader is over! 

Books profiles Ernest Hemingway at great length, then in way of apology to writers who haven't been pickled in history, reviews Louis Auchincloss' The Romantic Egoist. Thomas Perkins Abernethy illuminates "a dark corner of American history" with The Burr Conspiracy. Periscoping Books reports that Jacqueline Cochrane has a memoir coming out, Ludwig Benelmans has a biography of Lily Mendl, and Richard Wright is working on a book on the Gold Coast for Collins. 

2 out of 3. Much better. 

Aviation Week, 17 May 1954

News Digest rep

orts that the Moby Dick, a high altitude research balloon, has set a new 6250mi distance record, that Chance-Vought is laying off 1500 workers due to delays in delivering Westinghouse J46s for the F7U-3 Cutlass assembly line, which the Navy doesn't want anymore, anyway. Doman Helicopters is in bankruptcy court. Industry Observer reports that Russian and American jet engines are catching up with British, which are "fading fast." It's not fair that the British are selling more Viscounts than Douglas is DC-7s, and it is because of dollar restrictions. This will be the make-or-break year for turboprops. Convair has started to deliver its 340 executive transports to the navy, equipped with Maxim silencers on its stacks. The Navy has designated them the R4Y. Sikorski will start delivering its turbine-powered S-59 soon, Piasecki's H-16 is proceeding through its development programme, Republic has delivered its first F-84Js, and National Airlines is experimenting with a muffler for the S-55s running passenger service between Palm Beach and Miami. Washington Roundup reports that the Air Force ir reorganising guided missile management again, and looking at improving security. There are talks about establishing an American national air show like Farnborough, while the US might buy Gloster Javelins for the Europeans, after all. No more significant  legislation will get through Congress this session, including McCarran's omnibus bill on airports and any implementation of that recent civil aviation policy report. SAC is sending more bombers to the Far East.

Charles O. Wise reports for Aviation Week that "High Costs Imperil Army Copter Programme" which is actually an omnibus story covering the Army Aircraft Symposium, and looks New York Airway's latest scheme, worries in the Army that ambitious plans for  helicopters overlooked their high maintenance requirements, and NYA promises that their magic maintenance schedule improvements will solve the Army's problems. Canadair is said to be possibly building F-100s for the RCAF, while the latest J57 gives 14,500lb with afterburner. Chance-Vought is splitting off from United Aircraft, Lufthansa expects to have at least two trans-Atlantic routes when it starts flying, the ANDB is getting operational requirements for TACAN and VOR/DME systems from the Air Coordinating Committee, SAS is going to try a Norway-Tokyo  route, William Stout has conned some marks in California into investing in a revival of the Ford Trimotor, Northwest's salary filings for its board members to the SEC are reported because, well, it's Northwest. BOAC is rounding up some Constellations to replace its Comets. 
  

Charles Froesch of Eastern Air Lines reminds everyone that jet airliners are really loud and that something has to be done about it, that to be practical they need to carry 80-100 passengers, like the largest current airliners, that baggage handling has to improve alongside service speeds, that pod-mounted bypass are best, and that designers need to keep landing speeds in mind.

Air Materiel Command is reorganising supply maintenance again, the ODM is planning a titanium stockpile as it wrestles with shortages, which will ensure supplies by giving producers more confidence so that they will increase capacity. 

Napier and Son, Ltd, writes for Aviation Week, "Compound Diesel Engine Design Analysed" Here is everything you need to know about the Napier Nomad that Flight and The Engineer haven't already told you! Aviation Week adds that no-one has bought the Nomad, and likely no-one will, which is a shame, because it is a very nice bit of engineering. 

Sperry reports for Avionics about "How 3-D Pinpoints Blips on Radar Screen" In a paper recently given to an Institution of Radio Engineers congress, Sperry engineers described how stereo presentation of radar data on scopes might allow the display of range and azimuth data without a cumbersome dual scope display. At least if  you can see stereo 3D images, which some people can't, extending to most people as they get tired and their focus suffers, and the cost of the additional circuitry can be afforded. What about making the radar 3D, Ronnie asks in completely innocent curiosity, because she hasn't heard anything from anyone. Filter Centre reports that Sylvana has a new method of making transformer coils and chokes that involves slicing wound sheets of copper or aluminum foil and dielectric. J. B. Rea of Santa Monica promises a digital autopilot that replaces existing analog ones, giving better performance, more reliability and reduced weight. Speaking of which, a lightweight (20lb) version of DECCA is reportedly under development in Britain for fighters and helicopters, while the ETT-1000, built at the Stevens Institute of Technology, is the largest computer yet, with 100 integrators, expandable to 200. 

Martin is looking at a "Mach 1.8 fighter bomber," while Bernie Lang reports for Production from the Meletron factory in Los Angeles, back in production after only 3 months after it was gutted by fire, and George L. Christian reports for Equipment on the Edison "sphagetti" fire detector now in production for various testbeds. It is a thermocouple wire wrapped around the engine using a semi-conducting thermistor in a coaxial cable rather than straight voltage differential, which allows it to pinpoint the location of the fire. It is also quite heat resistant.New Aviation Products reports a manual loop antenna for lightplanes from Sanders Aviation, a drill guide from Roy Silver, the elimination of piping from the hydraulic circuit of the new Elmes 450t drawing and forming press, and a manual hoist unit from Europe, licensed by Princeton Griphoist.

The McGraw-Hill linewide editorial says that "Our Colleges and Universities Face Grave Financial Problems," especially the independent, privately-endowed institutions. (Enrollment up, inocme down.) It calls for American business to help and promises a discussion of ways to do that in the next editorial. This week's CAB report covers the mid-air collision between a United Convair 340 and an American Convair 240, both flying regularly scheduled services. No-one was killed, so it's not a big accident, but the crews sh ould have been able to see the other airliner coming, which justifies a very long report, since it could have been so much worse. CAB recommends brighter collision lights and, I don't know, eyeglasses or carrot juice or something.

Captain Robson's Cockpit Viewpoint has "CAA Dream Vs Reality," which explains why moving the Cincinnati Airways Traffic Control Centre to Indianapolis is a bad idea  without really making a lot of sense. Maybe Captain Robson's friends don't want to move out of Cincinnati? Makes sense, at least if the alternative is Indianapolis. Letters is mostly praise for Aviation Week, but Quentin Wald thinks there is too much jargon and acronyms, Larry Fauci thinks that flight engineers are being ignored by the other flight crew professional unions, and Robert Bunby thinks that companies will have an easier time holding onto their engineers if they are unionised, 

Letters

The sense of letter writers is that America isn't going "neutralist" just because Americans don't want to send ground troops to Indo China. John Larkin of Lexington, Kentucky, points out that Newsweek is a terrible newspaper. Marga Schubert of Chicago and Robert Perrin of Brussels write to suggest that travel writer John Sutton is exaggerating the difficulties of travelling with children. For Your Information is on about "religion in the news. SNORE!!!

The Periscope reports that Eisenhower has told the NSC that America will not intervene in Vietnam except at the request of a free and independent Vietnamese government. The President has given up on extending the reciprocal trade bill so as not to split the GOP ahead of the elections. Senator Karl Mundt is very close to McCarthy. Local ordnances prohibiting planes from flying less than 1000ft overhead will shut down the nation's airports unless something is done. Defence Secretary Wilson refused to allow General Mark Clark to fly to Italy for a commemoration on the government's dollar. Army officers involved in EXERCISE FLASHLIGHT say that the Pentagon is kidding itself if it thinks that America is ready for fully airborne warfare. The Air Force just doesn't have the planes. The Pentagon is also worried about Communist propaganda making too much of the upcoming EXERCISE GREEN HILLS, which will simulate bacteriological and radiological warfare.  Sources close to Assistant Defence Secretary Robert B. Anderson say that Assistant Defence Secretary Robert B. Anderson is the best thing since sliced bread. Intelligence reports out of Korea say that the Reds can now launch squadron-strength MiG-15 sorties, and that Red troops and supplies are stealthily building up near the border with South Korea.

There are rumours that Molotov is going to put a new world "collective security" proposal forward in Geneva. The Viet Minh may make a move against the Laotian capital of Luang Prabanb as well as Hanoi with the troops released from besieging Dien Bien Phu. The Peron government is ready to make a hundred-million-dollar deal to develop Argentinian oil fields with some Texan oilmen. The Albanians are pleading with the Russians to withdraw some of their diplomatic representatives, who are heavily involved in the black market. Secretary Dulles visited Rome so he could be hectored about Trieste while hectoring the Italians about Reds in defence plants. West Germany wants Yugoslavia in the EDC, the Russians are sending police and troops to Obseschlemma and Schneeberg in East Germany to suppress mine strikes. The Russian "arms cache" found in the Nicaraguan jungle is nothing of the sort, say US intelligence experts. The strikes in Honduras are actually an attempted Red coup. (Honduras is an hour's jet flight from the Panama Canal!) Where Are They Now finds Jimmie Mattern living in California, a businessman, but definitely living on old glories. Rudy York, who is now working as a firefighter for the Georgia State Forestry Commission, definitely isn't, having failed to save his earnings as a big league baseball player. 

The Periscope Washington Trends reports that the Army-McCarthy Hearings will come back hot from their one week recess. Sources close to Senator McClellan of Alabama say that Senator McClellan of Alabama is going to play a big role in Democratic inner councils in the next session. McCarthy is expected to hate the new America First movement as much as it hates him. Sources close to Senator Johnson of Texas say that Senator Johnson of Texas is looking more and more like a future vice-Presidential or Presidential pick. Truman and Ike really are feuding. 

National Affairs 

"Segregation and Silence" On the one hand, the momentous ruling in Brown vs Board of Education has read segregation out of the law of the land. On the other, the President is denying Senate requests for some information so that's a separation of powers issue and that's important too, and needs to be in the same story in that no-one is talking about what will happen with either. Also, it's the summer news doldrums, it being May and all, so let's notice that the President isn't doing very much, and that seems important, no-one likes McCarthy suddenly, and in the middle of it there's a foreign policy crisis in which the Administration can't get anywhere without the Democrats, who seem mad about that "twenty years of treason" thing. Hmm. That didn't get us to the end of the section. How about even more hearings coverage? Here's the full story of the President not releasing the details of his conversations with Secretary Stevens. That means we've pushed coverage of the "historic decision" to the fifth page of the section, so let's get to it! In conclusion, it is going to be pretty tough going in the various parts of the South. Now it's off to cover something you can get your teeth into, the Oklahoma senate race. And Caryl Chessman's execution has been delayed. 

"More GIs, More Arms? Yes, Unless the Tide Turns" The Pentagon is thinking VERY DEEPLY aboput this world crisis we're having. There is a PLAN. Does it involve more money for the Air Force? Yes, no, maybe. Does it involve atom bombs for everyone? Yes, no, maybe. Does it involve getting rid of the "new look" and raising  more troops? Yes, no, maybe. How would we do that? Well, how about bringing back the universal military training we rejected last time around because absolutely nobody wanted it? Sure, let's do that! Ernest K. Lindell uses Washington Tides to explain more about the Administration-Senate impasse over records, and Ticking It Off reports that Congressman Caroll's House committee looking into those socialistic tax-exempt foundations has found that there are also right wing foundations, so they're not going to do anything, while Governor Talmadge is still awful, the Feds are fighting with the Powatomi Indians over land, and Marshall Islanders are upset about being H-bombed by bombs that are accidentally twice as big as planned.    

Also in Crime, even more juvenile delinquency!

International

"In Paris and at Geneva: A Government Dangles" Laniel's government has survived two non-confidence votes in the Assembly, the most recent by just two votes. You may remember my certainty of last month that Mendes-France will come out of this as premier and negotiate a settlement with the Viet Minh getting France out of Indo China. I am sticking by that, but as Newsweek explains, a really strong vote of non-confidence is likely to lead to new elections, which is the last thing France needs right now. Laniel is still calling for reinforcements for Indo China, but Dulles, as usual, as put his foot in his mouth, implying that Indo China is a lost cause. The French are talking about sending regulars from North Africa and France and extending conscription and recalling reservists to plug the  holes. Sice Navarre has called for 50 battalions, that would be a lot of holes! Understandably the French want American troops, and have even put their Vietnamese army on the table. How can you defend the rest of Southeast Asia without the 250,000 French Union Vietnamese troops, they ask? Which seems as silly as it is desperate! Meanwhile in Indo China the Viet Minh have turned over the wounded of the Dien Bien Phu garrison to the Red Cross, more than 2000 in all, but the negotiators are having trouble securing the means of evacuation. It is next to impossible to repair the airstrip, and helicopters can take out only a few at a time. And in the delta, French forts as close as 7 miles to Hanoi are reported falling. 

The Emperor Haile Selassie is touring the United States, while Maria Isabella Patino, the heiress who recently married James Goldsmith, the son of the British hotel director, has died of a cerebral hemorrhage in childbirth. Joseph Malik is in Britain touting disarmament, the Queen is still back, and Ticking It Off reports that Communist China has been admitted to the 1952 Melbourne Olympics, President Magsaysay is making progress against the Huk insurgency, the socialist govenrment in Belgium has fulfilled its election promise by reducing the conscription period from 21 to the NATO 18 month standard, which, it promises, will not affect its 3 division commitment to NATO. 

"On-the-Spot:Time is Running Out for Israel" Harry Kern reports from the Middle East that Israel is outnumbered in some vague way that doesn't involve counting troops on the ground, and it is infuriated with the UN Truce Supervision Organisation for saying things like that the Khirbit Illin raid was a raid. US officer Commander Elmo Hutchinson of the Organisation is said to travel with bodyguards while in Israel for fear of being assassinated The Israelis are being told to curb their expansionist dreams in favour of trade with the Moslem world, while the Arab nations are being told to moderate and search for peace. 

Canadians are only impressed with the St. Lawrence Seaway Bill in the sense that the McCarthy hearings show how much worse it can be. And in Alberta, the hurired construction of an air base and training range at Cold Lake, Alberta, shows that Canada is very big and very cold and that there is a Cold War on. That's lots of "Colds"! 

Business

The Periscope Business Trends reports that the production downswing that wasn't going to happen and wasn't as bad as it seemed and is going to end soon, is going to end soon! Unless car sales start to decline, consumer credit goes soft, or there is a defence buildup over Southeast Asia. TV production this year will be 6.25 million, more than the industry was fearing, but colour tv production will be only 50,000. The CIO and Treasury Secretary Humphry are arguing about just how Keynesian we should be coming out of the downturn, and now that we don't worry about monopolies any more, it turns out that "corporate cooperation" is good! There are various developments on the railroads, and Canada's "Dollar-Sterling Trade Council" is trying to shift 7% of Canada's current business with the US to Britain, and it is a response to American trade restrictions, a constant annoyance for Canada especially considering the country's persistent trade deficit with the US. 

Products: What's New reports a combination padlock with a built-in sound effect called a "Thief fooler," marketed by Master Lock of Milwaukee, a no-smudge carbon paper from Mittag and Volger, and the best cold-weather oil (for clocks) yet, from Elgin National Watch. Moving on, the Suez Company gets a long, adulatory profile. It avoids government involvement, it says here! Notes: Weekl in Business notes that the recent cut in the Bank of England interest rate from 3.5% to 3% means that all British business will pay less interest, and  is otherwise interested in takeovers and dividends. 

Science, Medicine, Education

"Facts for Business" The Stanford Research Institute gets a profile in Science. If you want to know if your business will succeed, ask a long hair! And a New York engineer named Charles B. Spencer has come up with a fix for the Leaning Tower of Pisa that involves digging out the high side to settle it back. 

"Lou Gehrig's Disease" New York first baseman Lou Gehrig was killed at 37 by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a mysterious disease about which Americans know little (hence the rumour that Gehrig died of polio). Studies in Guam, where it is especially prevalent, show that the disease is, to some extent, hereditary. 

"Wife Killers" Why do men kill their wives? Dr. Albert Kurland, of the Spring Grove State Hospital in Catonsville, Md., has done a study of 52 psychotic wife killers incarcerated at his hospital  found that they were all pretty awful and goes on to offer an explanation: They are "unconscious homosexuals," while their wives control them with guilt in a "sado-masochistic relationship" that needs treating on both sides. The Periscope tells us to watch for a cigarette made of paper to fight lung cancer[?], an oral alternative to insulin, and a "new drug that relieves several forms of mental disease."

"For B.A.s and B.S.'s: Jobs A Trifle Scarcer But Pay's Better" 343,000 graduates, including 281,00 with undergraduate degrees,  will compete for fewer jobs than last year, but not that many less (not that there are any statistics on offer) and will earn more to a pretty underwhelming degree according to a Columbia study. (PhDs can expect up to $550 a month!) A box story points out that you need to stay out of New York, which will eat you alive. 

Jacques Lipchitz, "Mother and Child" (I, as there appear to be two of the same title, the second being 1941, the date of the first not being obvious to me on the Internet. "Bather," below, is 1917. 

Art, Press, TV-Radio, Newsmakers

Sculptor Jacques Lipschitz gets a show at the MoMA this week, and therefore a story in Art. 

Quentin Reynolds' lawsuit against Westbrook Pegler has reached trial, and Norman Cousins, publisher of the Saturday Review, is in the middle of an extraordinary fight with his own advertising side over something that seems a bit exhausting to explain. The Periscope reports that Leroy Gore, the Saulk, Wisconsin editor who launched the "Joe Must Go" campaign, has an anti-McCarthy quickie out, while the "Ike needs to start swinging" editorial in the Scripps-Howard chain was written by Walker Stone, he of the "Ike is running like a dry creek" blast of 1952.

KABC Los Angeles has a presenter for its Saturday night horror movie feature who dresses up like a very glamorous (ooh-la-la) vampire, born Maila Nurmi, now going by Mrs. Dean Reisner. Adventure, the CBS-TV/American Museum of Natural History co-production, is very interesting television with Perry Wolf. All the TV comics are making fun of McCarthy now. The Periscope says that CBS is going to do an air war equivalent to NBC's Victory at Sea, while the Kay Kyser show is being revived. TVs will be cheaper next year thanks to the introduction of stamped, printed circuits in place of h and wiring, and bigger thanks to a 21", 90 degree deflection tube which will produce a 270 square inch image, up from 250. 
 

Mrs. Truman, Mrs. Roosevelt, and Mrs. Wilson threw a party in the White House and you're not invited. Thomas Dewey is in the column for fighting with the Brazilian ambassador over coffee. A ballet tour by a troupe of Russian dancers has been cancelled in France because of Dien Bien Phu. Arthur Godfrey launched into a fifteen minute tirade against the press at the end of one of his radio shows last week, and is showing up in public in crutches for unexplained reason. Who put the Benzedrine in Glorious Godfrey's ovaltine? Speaking of aging men with questionable mental health and injuries, Ernest Hemingway says that he was so badly hurt in his recent African safari that doctors feared for his life. All the famous authors got silver medals from the Limited Editions Club of New York, which definitely deserves the free publicity. Alfred Hitchcock is somehow down to 187lbs, "wh put the etc," etc. Gary Crosby will be Bing Crosby' summer replacement, because he is the boss's son! The average life expectancy of Americans is up to 68.8, or 65.9 for men, 71.8 for women. Roger Bannister (because the four minute mile was weeks ago) and the heirs of Horace Dodge are in the column for the usual reason. Lotte Adenauer and Geraldine Page are married, while Heinz Guderian, William March Campbell, Patrick J. McDonald, and Senator Clyde Hoey have died. 

The New Films 

(Movies has a feature about that unlikely movie star, Jean Paul Sartre)

Columbia's The Miami Story is the usual thrilling crime stories, although Newsweek tries to draw a very questionable moral about how communities should use criminals to bring down other criminals, and gives away the game with a shot of Adele Jergens in shorts and a halter. 
.

Books

Clement Attlee's autobiography gets a solid review. and Edward Streeter's latest, Mr. Hobbs' Vacation, is as funny as ever. V. S. Pritchett's book about Spain gets another review, Marianne Moore's the Fables of La Fontaine sounds like fun, and Erich Maria Remarque's A Time to Love,and a Time to Die is less than compelling as a treatment of the bombed out Germany of the last years of the war (wasn't he in exile at the time?), but a good love story, so I forgive him.  

Aviation Week, 24 May 1954

News Digest reports that Lt. General Samuel Anderson is the first Air Force officer to head the Defence Department's Weapon Evaluation Group, Charles E. Kindelberger is dead at 54, Texas Instruments is apparently the first company experimenting with silicon transistors to make them work, the bankruptcy petition against Doman Helicopters has been dismissed, and Gillfilllan's low-cost surveillance, precision approach, height-finder, and runway taxi "Quadradar" for small airports  is very neat. The Republic F-105 continues to advance towards production. Industry Observer reports that Chrysler is going to work on the Redstone missile, that the first Fairchild-built C-123 will roll out in June, that the McDonnell XV-1convertiplane is beginning wind tunnel tests, that the new blade design for the Sikorski S-55 will have a longer fatigue life, that military electronic countermeasures development is said to be "lagging considerably," but with recent "astounding progress," that the Air Force is reviving its airborne early warning division, that jet fuel is still cheaper than aviation fuel, that Navy helicopters rust, that the Corsair F7U-3 has a "Mighty Mouse-"style rocket pack armament option. 

Robert Hotz reports for Aviation Week that "AF Speeds B-58 Development Programme" The B-58 presents huge challenges and will need a supporting tanker fleet, which is why Curtis LeMay used to oppose it, but the Air Force has decided that it has to push it through now that the Soviets have their own jet bomber.  A separate story summarises Secretary Talbot and General Twining's reaction to the Russian "May Day" bomber. Speaking of enemy aircraft coming over to endanger our American way of life, Capital Airlines may test the Viscount on American domestic routes, while De Havilland has rolled out its Comet 3 prototype for engine trials.  I will also mention the Army's new 1000h overhaul target for helicopters, reported by Charles Witze, and a McGraw-Hill World News reported story about BOAC getting the USAF contract for engine overhaul of all C-47s in Europe, worth $2.25 million, and a story about how the Air Force is still struggling to spend an unobligated $7.3 billion. CAB has released two more investigations into fatal airliner accidents in 1953. No-one knows what happened to the Transocean DC-6 that crashed off Guam except that it hit the sea with great force, and that it was flying for Transocean at the time. The Resort Airlines C-47 that broke up in a thunderstorm experienced a series of mechanical failures in its right aileron. Also, it was flying for Resort Airlines, and was a C-47. 

"Boeing 707 Rolls Out: First Flight Near" The first "Stratotanker" has a wing clearly inspired by the B-52, but with outboard ailerons, and appears to have a "flying" tail. 

NACA Research Engineers write for Aeronautical Engineering that "Heat [is the] Key to A-Powered Aircraft." Because atom plants produce heat, you see. You can't send a plane up with a steam plant and a dynamo and electric motors in the wing, you silly! You need to blow air across the atom reactor like you were cooling soup, and then blast the air out the back. And keep it up, mind you, so the reactor doesn't melt. Because that would be bad! I'm sorry. I find this all a bit dubious. They are using one of those molten salt reactors, if that helps. The article suggests that the researchers are mainly having fun figuring out how these work, and the fact that someone is paying them to get an atom plane flying is just a bonus. Also, the Swedes have a new centrifuge at their naval hospital for experiments with whirling people around really fast, leading to a better understanding of how much we can abuse them on planes. No! I didn't mean the wine list! 

An SAE panel asks for Production, "What To Do About Engineering Changes?" It is a very long article consisting of short discussions of crucial questions like, "what is the priority," and "how long do you think tooling will take?" I think it might be filler. Also, the AF has come up with an idea for what to do will all the machine tools it keeps asking industry to buy and build and then decides that they have too many of and shouldn't sell, becauses then what about the industry. That plan is to put them down in an abandoned limestone mine in Western Pennsylvania, which, unlike other abandoned mines, won't be a damp and dripping hole in the ground for some reason.

Boeing (United Control Corporation) reports for Equipment that "Skin Sensors Control B-47 Icing"  Electric sensors in the leading edge measure icing by temperature and activate the hot air ducts. Capital Airlines is using infrared lamps to find defects, while the latest mark of Westinghouse J40 has a built-in alternator, Kodak has a contour projector with a 30" screen, and various other industrial breakthroughs (electronic liquid measurer, more asbestos fabrics for firewalls, an "internal shaver" for finishing helical and spur gears. What's New is all industrial publications in the main section, although a "Publications Received" section mentions a German-English technical dictionary. Germany is back! 

Letters has Thomas Griffin of Nantucket writing to point out that there is nothing wrong with letting Aeroflot operate in the airline  market, an enormously long letter from A. T. Griffiths, the aviation supervisor of Kimberly-Clark, about how to design a business plane that business people will like, another long one from Arden Wootton of "Council no. 16, Air Carriers Communication Operations Association," about how CAB should communicate about overseas accidents, and a letter from A. S. Brown of the Stanford Research Institute about how much he likes Aviation
. 

News Sidelights reports that Convair is demonstrating its XFY-1 convertiplane on a leash because it is hopelessly badly behaved, that they are building a 15,000ft concrete runway at Edwards for future impossibly-badly-behaved planes, that those crazy Russians are hopelessly security-minded. 

This is what a contour projector looks like. 

Some Senators are going after CAB, Qantas is taking over BCPA services in the Pacific, and in the latest news on the financial side, it looks like air coach is here to stay! It must be true, it says it right here in this filler-filled, pointless issue of Aviation.  Robert H. Wood's Editorial congratulates Boeing on its achievement with the 707, pointing out that it has delivered the plane and a profit to its shareholders, and all it took was a sweetheart deal to build a million B-47s. He then quotes The London Express's hit job comparing the number of employees and number of planes at BOAC to Pan-American and concludes that the corporation is hopelessly featherbedded. He points out that small companies like Stanley Aviation are pretty good, and ends with a hopeless joke about pilots being a pretty cheap form of servomechanism. 

Letters

S. G. Thigpen writes from Picayune, Mississippi with some badly needed theatre criticism of the Army-McCarthy hearings. (He likes McCarthy.) Bob Wright of Detroit likes Newsweek's coverage because it is unbiased. Seymour Wilson of Chicago is not impressed with Juan Peron. Leslie Gorell of Pennsylvania really likes Ike. Robert Yellowtail of Lodge Grass, Montana, and Gordon Bess, of Canon City, Idaho, liked Raymond Moley's investigation of irrigation and dams in the West because they don't like dams. The President of New York Airways writes to point out that actually, theyand not Sabena were the first to take large amounts of subsidy money and pretend to run a helicopter airline. For Your Information reports on Newsweek's campaign to preserve Quasset School, "America's oldest little red schoolhouse in continuous use," since 1748 in Woodstock, Connecticut. In honour of the Supreme Court striking down segregation, Herman Talmadge is the cover story. 

The Periscope reports that the White House is reaching out to the Democrats on bipartisanship, Nixon is going to France this summer (big deal, everyone is going to France this summer!), McCarthy is still on about how if the Army doesn't release all the secret details, he wins, the Administration is talking about putting up a third-party, pro-Eisenhower campaign in the South in '56, Democratic Congressmen are keeping quiet about the segregation ruling because they can't afford to alienate Coloured voters,  Ike is freezing out the GOP Congressmen who don't like him, Genevieve de Galard-Terraube will make an American tour as soon as she is flown out of Dien Bien Phu, the army is disgruntled with its T-43 heavy tank now that it is all about mobility. The Defence Department's "White Book" on Russia's role in the Korean and Indo-China wars could have been much longer and more detailed, but the Administration didn't want to whip up war hysteria. The Navy is building a laboratory for defence against atomic, biological, and chemical attack, which will be air-conditioned and air-locked, with emergency personnel shelters and power. The NSC says that if its spring 1953 plan for continuing the Korean war until a "Southeast Asian alliance could be formed," there would have been no Dien Bien Phu. How does that work? Top insiders want to reach out to Southern Democrats, while Senator Lennon of Georgia may get the Bricker Amendment back on the floor.

Hunnicutt, Firepower

From Germany come reports that the Russians are upgrading to a faster jet than the MiG-15 and turning the 14000 MiG-15s already built to the satellite countries. The Communists are planning to build a "uranium city" in the Aue uranium region of eastern Germany. Army generals and de Gaulle are pushing the French to get out of Indo-China before  civil war breaks out in Morocco. NATO is using closed circuit television conferences, while Major General Arthur Trudeau, the US Army intelligence chief, is touring the Middle East, where he finds that Arabs greatly resent British and American support for Israel, but hate communism more. General Naguib is still out. French officer losses at Dien Bien Phu are reported as 350 majors and below, fifteen colonels, one general, out of a total of 600 lost this year, 2200 since the war began. Where Are They Now reports that Christopher Robin Milne has a book shop in Dartmouth, while Rudolf Hess, imprisoned at Spandau, is having rational episodes and even recognised a visitor. 

Washington Trends reports that McCarthy is not aiming for a breach with Ike, at least before November. Ike is also moving away from Senator Dirksen and is mulling over what he will do about desegregation. Democrats meanwhile still feel that they are caught on the fence over segregation. There's talk that the Coloured vote saved four Southern states for Stevenson in '52, while Senator Russell's attack on the decision cost him any chance of a presidential run in '56. Adlai Stevenson will definitely run, though. 

National Affairs 

McCarthy argle-bargle! 

By Fritzflohrreynolds - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://
commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=95963387

Unbelievably, the Army-McCarthy hearings isn't the only circus performing on Capitol Hill these days. The Senate Internal Security Sub-committee had Nikolai Khoklov, the self-described ex-MVD assassin in to testify about how he killed Russian emigres with poisoned bullets back in the day, while in a parliamentary manoeuvre, Southern Democrats blocked a constitutional amendment allowing 18-year-olds to vote, just to blow off steam, while on the other hand a move to include the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance gained steam. (The President seems to like it, which segues into a pointless bit evaluating the Presidency so far. He is worried about Communist arms shipments to Guatemala, thinks Americans should drink more milk, is happy his public  housing bill passed, congratulated Gordon Clapp of the TVA on his retirement, and accepted a one-year extension of the Reciprocal Trade Agreement as the best he could get.) 

Southern mountain men like ramp, Newsweek says. It isn't wild garlic, it says. As if Americans would eat wild garlic! Also wild and ornery, the Atomic Energy Commission, where all the other members have  had just about enough of Lewis Strauss and his "giveaway" of atomic power to private industry. 

Ernest K. Lindley uses Washington Tides tro review Secretary Dulles' heroic efforts to get everyone except Americans to defend Southeast Asia against Communism. Ticking It Off reports that  the policemen who arrested the Greenlease killers have now been convicted of trying to steal the ransom money. Minot Jelkie's conviction has been overturned, this year's gypsy moth infestation is pretty bad, and the USAF has evacuated its Arctic ice island base, T-3, after two years of operation. A long profile of Governor Talmadge, the self-appointed leader of the segregationist movement, tells us all we need to know about what happens when you only let white folk vote. 

International 

"Anglo-American Rift: Smoke Without Fire" The Conservatives lost 250 seats in local council elections earlier this month, so they know exactly how far they can go in Southeast Asia, and it isn't very far. Eden is said to be upset at  having to basically be the only Western diplomat actually negotiating with the Reds, and he hasn't got very far, either. The French only have 200,000 men in the delta, which is "the size of Connecticut," with 6400 villages. Due to guerilla activity, actual French control is increasingly restricted to the port of Haiphong, where 30,000t of American supplies are unloaded each month, Hanoi, and the sixty-mile road and railway between them. And Hanoi can probably not hold out much longer, because the road can't be secured. Germany is moving towards establishing diplomatic relations with the communist world, Mau Mau raiders entered Tanganyika this week, D. Y. Leonov denounced the Kinsey report in the Soviet magazine Problems in Philosophy this week, and the South Africans marked the Supreme Court desegregation ruling by extending apartheid segregation and striking Coloured voters from the rolls, as Malan's National government has tried to do several times before, being stopped by the Supreme Court until it used parliamentary legislation to get past them, resulting in a parliamentary crisis and oh look, I've reviewed two years of all the stories from South Africa worth printing. Chiang Kai Shek just started another six year term as President of the Republic of China while the pirate war in the South China Sea continues, as the Communists move to expel the Koumintang from the Tachens. Vladimir Petrov is said to have confirmed from Australia that missing British diplomats Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean are in Moscow. More May Day pictures are out, all of celebrating civilians rather than parading troops. 

"Whose Guns for What?" The Swedish freighter, Alfhelm, under a British charter, arrived in Guatemala this week with a load of 2000t of Czech munitions, mostly small arms and ammunition, but supposedly some light field guns, too. The State Department is upset, although it admits that there is no formal embargo, while the Guatemalan government is curious as to why the US is so set on depriving Guatemala of the means to defend itself. US arms are being shipped to Nicaragua and Honduras in response, and Newsweek points out that with a 6000 man army, an air force of a few dozen officers, and a national budget of $74 million, 2000t of arms is quite a bit, and it is all probably a communist plot, especially the strikes in Honduras.  

Business

The Periscope Business Trends reports that if the President does authorise a $6 billion increase in defence spending, te business downturn that wasn't going to happen and wasn't so bad and is almost over, will definitely be over. 

Pabst Brewing is going into cola, while chicory farmers are profiting from the coffee shortage. The New York Central fight is over, the United Steelworkers are asking for substantial wage increases in he new contract, the textiles sector is improving, and a steady increase in highway building, to be funded by tolls, is sure to boost the national economy. (Newsweek runs down a series of state highway budget increases and notes that, the billion in  spending, the Federal highways bill includes $700 million in matching funds for state spending as well as $175 million for the interstates directly. 

Notes: Week in Business reports that the lawsuit against the government by United States Lines to cover the cost of the United States has been settled out of court, that the machine tool show in Atlanta is the first one in the South, that the tax exemption for Puerto Rican publishers is mainly benefitting Mexican firms, and that the average value of appliances in an American home is projected to rise to $5000 in 1964 compared with $1300 today, an "appliance boom." Much of this will be due to new appliances like colour televisions and air conditioners. Fairbanks Morse is building a new plant in Kansas City, and the steel mill export kit that the US seized after the Czech coup will be sold to Argentina, instead. Products: What's New reports that Bart Laboratories has come up with a simpler way of plating aluminum with nickel, that Texas Instrument's silicon transistor may be a good replacement for germanium transistors because it is more resistant to heating. Bassos Industry's polyester-treated glass fibre blocks make print-making simpler and easier. 

Science, Medicine, Education

"

Beryllium, Cheap" Dr. Charles Sheer's Light Metal Manufacturing is set to make aluminum and beryllium by essentially getting beryl ore really, really hot. There are fascinating details of the electric lamp process that quickly bog down into laborious discussions of the route to refined metal, but if he can really deliver this excellent atomic material and copper hardening agent at $20/lb instead of $100, it will be something!

Walter Reed is using an electronic thermometer manufactured by Burlington Instruments for fast and accurate readings. The National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Blindness has some promising new drugs for treating drug-resistent epilepsy cases, glutamine and asparagine. 

"The Stubborn Plague" In 1904, tuberculosis took the lives of 188 out of 100,000 in the United States every year. This year, it is 16 per 100,000. Unfortunately, the tuberculosis rate hasn't fallen anywhere near so quickly. There are 400,000 active cases in the country right now, with 110,000 new cases a year. Fifty years ago, the largest group of victims were young women; today, it is men over 40. Up to a quarter of the population has been exposed. New developments include a blood serum test for the disease, a vaccine, and a double drug treatment that might eradicate the disease and not just suppress it (isoniazid plus pyrazinamide), and new treatments that combine heavier and quicker drug courses to reduce the wearing amount of bed rest recommended for tuberculosis treatments. 

Columbia University gets a profile on the occasion of its 200th year, although it turns into a profile of President Grayson Kirk, mostly. 

TV-Radio, Press, Newsmakers

Genevieve de Galard-Terraube is in the news, which makes Elizabeth Friang jealous, so here is a profile of the thrill-seeking Gaullist journalist. Ecclesia is the only non-censored newspaper in Spain, and Periscope reports rumours that the Los Angeles Daily News is for sale, that five of the newsmen that Senator McCarthy has threatened to subpoena on charges that they "advised" the Army, will refuse to appear, and horror comics are hitting back at Dr. Frederick Wertham, who explained to a Senate hearing that they cause juvenile delinquency. No, they say, in fact Dr. Wertham causes communism! A fine pickle, I must say! 

"A Trickle of Culture" We look at the long and painful process of establishing all those educational TV stations for which the FCC reserved channels. Five that are actually up and broadcasting provide good models for people trying to follow in their footsteps. At NBC, they are worried that "people are turning off their sets," which is why NBC's fall season will be "spectacular."  

Billy Graham, Gone With the Wind, the Marquess of Milford-Haven, Charles Lindbergh, Herbert Hoover, Ray Jenkins, and Irene Castle Enzinger are in the column for the usual reasons. Bertrand Russell and Lady Astor are celebrating birthdays, Betty Hutton is divorced, Louis Stark, Fred Waller, Andrew McNally, Gideon Seymour, and Chief Bender have died. 
  
New Films

The French Line (RKO) is a Technicolor/3D project whose basic point seems to be that Jane Russell has a nice figure. It has been subject to controversy, but "is more to be pitied than censored." three Coins in a Fountain is a love letter from Fox to the city of Rome. So it has three girls (Maggie McNamara, Jean Peters, and Dorothy McGuire) and Rome on top of it, so beat that, Jane Russell! Man with a Million sees Arthur Rank send Gregory Peck to London with a million dollar bank draft. Say, I wondered how these movies got made! It's in Technicolor and is supposed to be funny, but they got the wrong director for it, but Jane Griffiths has a fetching debut. 

Books

This is a special number devoted to historical novels: "proud bosoms and panoramas." Just like the movies! Anyway, Herbert Best's Diane is fine, and "Bryher's" Roman Wall is actually quite good. And now we're tired of the conceit and review J. B. Priestley's The Magicians and William L. Shirer's second novel, Stranger Come Home. The Priestley book is pretty good for a "novel of ideas." The Shirer novel is a thinly-disguised account of the actual events in his life several exhausting anti-communist episodes ago, and not nearly as much fun, although certainly angry.

 

 Aviation Week, 31 May 1954

News Digest reports that the F-102 and Grumman F9F-8 Cougar are closer to service and that the latest Navy Viking test hit a new altitude record. Brigadier General Milton Arnold (USAF, ret) has dropped his alienation-of-affection suit against George M. Bunker, president of Glenn L. Martin, over his adopted son, Charles E. Ford, and has announced his marriage to Dorothy D. Michael. That's bizarre. Industry Observer reports that the Army thinks that atomic artillery has replaced atomic short range missiles, that the variable air inlet of the Republic F-103 removes the need for a separate ramjet, tht the RCN has received its 3 Piasecki helicopters, that GE will produce B-52 defensive fire controls to backstop Arma, that average USAF aircraft maintenance cost was just under $20,000/year in 1954, that the Defence Department has ordered the Air Force and Navy to adopt a standardised aircraft number designation already, that a B-52 needs between 50,000 and 90,000 spare parts in store, that the DC-7 can hold up to 20,000lbs in cargo. 

Robert Botz reports for Aviation Week that "Red Surprise: 15,000lb Thrust Jets" The Russians are well behind SAC in terms of deploying jet bombers, and are following stupid old British airframe design approaches rather than smart new American ones, but you've got to hand it to the biggest  new jet engine around, which was heavily influenced by German axial engine design.

Claude O. Witze reports that "Missiles Get Top USAF Priority" Production deferred, programmes rationalised, modifications delay, money flows like water, etc. etc.  The intercontinental missile is coming any day now! Meanwhile McDonnell says that aircraft are getting harder to build and Senators say that the problem with buying planes from foreign factories to  help their domestic industries is that it helps their domestic industries, and their factories are pretty good, even the ones where Communits work. Bell is proposing a new helicopter with stubby little wings with rotors that might carry 20--50 passengers and have a 250 mile inter-city range. CAB hearings on the 8 hour flight rule limit have adjourned, the Commerce Department is delaying its planned titanium stockpile, the Navy's Skyhook balloon has set a new 117,000ft record, and the Comet's bath, i.e. underwater cabin pressure test at Farnborough, is announced. The Senate has restored NACA budget cuts, Commerce Department hs lifted its moratorium on airport aid.

William J. Coughlin reports for Aeronautical Engineering about "How Convair Idea Men Map the Future"  Idea men are everywhere these days! Specifically, Convair's assistant to the President for planning, Thomas Lanphier, has a ten man office (plus a stenographer), and they sit around talking about the future all day when they're not flying off to hang around Curtis LeMay's office, talking about the future. What kind of ideas do they have? Good ones. The best ones. Also see David A. Anderton's "They Sell Analytical Engineering," which is about the forty men at Arde Associates, who have invented the brand new concept that no-one ever thought of before of consulting on engineering problems under contract.  

The Lanphiers were very pretty men, although neither of them are in this clip. I'm sure that doesn't mean anything. They weren't involved in shooting down Admiral Yamamoto, either! 

Engineering Forum gives Hillis Peterson of Wantagh, N. Y. an entire page to describe the exciting new amphibian he wants to build with a floating wing that anyone can fly. Thrust and Drag likes Rensselaer Polytechnic's new "English for Engineers" programme. RONNIE MUST BITE TONGUE NOW! BITING!! 

"Wright Reveals Production Activities" I bet you were wondering what Curtis Wright was up to now that no-one wants to buy their planes or engines. Lots of stuff! The foundry is still going, the electronics division builds simulators, and the Marquette division has pump contracts.Speaking of silly corporate plumping pieces, Philip Klass is off to Balco to report for Avionics on the "New Capacitor [that] Shows Long Life at 200C" It is a hermetically sealed glass tube with a metal coil in it, but the details are top secret, although much of the rest of the quite long article are devoted to the extraordinary performance numbers it generates. R. B. Shulters of the Wire-Wrap Division of Keller Tool writes to contest Philip Klass' recent article, in which Klass intimated that the new Wire Wrap connection isn't the best thing since sliced bread. He's wrong! He misunderstands solid-state stress diffusion! Airtron has new waveguide components, various companies have power supplies, mag-amplifiers, and (according to Filter Centre) silicon transistors, more capacitors, radio remote control for Regulus missiles, better radar, and better vacuum tubes on the market. 

Esna reports for Equipment that "Redesign Slashes Locknut Weight" Elastic Stop Nut's new line of locknuts are much lighter and still as strong. What's New notices many brochures, manuals, data sheets and so on; and the American Management Institue's Manual of Excellent Management. New Aviation Products notices a safety solderer, rotary actuators, an aircraft polisher, new, lighter seats for the DC-7, a one-hand disconnect for  hydraulic lines, and a "precise dividing head" for engraving, drilling, light million, profiling and layout work. 

Richard Balentine reports for Air Transport that "Turboprop Transport Battle Heightens," by which is meant that while Capital Airlines is buying the excellent Viscount, some study says that the Convair 340 Turboliner would be cheaper, if it existed. (Convair will start selling conversion kits next summer.) 

Letters

Marcel Grobtuch of the McGraw-Hill World News Service writes from Sydney to defend the RAAF's honour against the accusation that it flies obsolete aircraft. P. A. Sanderson writes to correct an error. The production Douglas Globemaster use a hydraulic constant-speed drive on its auxiliary power alternator, not pneumatic. John Mazur of Doman explains why only Doman helicopters are poised to defeat the helicopter vibration problem. Louis Kaplan of the USC flight training programme writes to tell us a bit more about the programme, previously described in Aviation Week. M. A. Salo writes to correct Stuart Symington. There were not, in fact, "thousands" of Zeroes in service before WWII. It was a new plane, just coming into production. Three correspondents loved Aviation Week articles about their companies. 

The Engineer for 21 and 28 May, 1954

For the 21st, (Not the Seven Day-) Journal reports on parties at the Inst. Elec. Eng. (they have 20,000 members now, but it's still not enough!), Institution of Engineers-in-Charge, and Newcomen Society. A report on hydraulic research in 1953 is out, and a conference on Large Electric Systems is on in Paris, and there's still time to fly over and take in the final session. For the 28th the RAe.S hears its Wright Memorial Lecture, with A. E. Russell telling the assembled that the turbofan was the future. The Locomotive Manufacturers of Great Britain have a party, the Inst. Mech. Eng another one (there's a lof of them and they need parties!), the Scottish Industries Fair opens so that there is finally something to do in Scotland, and the Road Research Laboratory issues its annual report. Sir Harold Hartley's talk on "Production in the Year 2000" has some gross numbers about raw materials used that seem like they're  a bit optimistic in assuming that we know what materials will be used, and confidently predicts no energy shortage, but problems with water. 

"Some Recent Swiss Hydro-Electric Schemes" runs on the 21st and 28th, while Edward Livesay is still kicking around France riding locomotives and filling pages. Isn't there anyone in Victoria who misses him?  

"Gauge and Tool Exhibit" runs on the 21st. The Ministry of Supply has assembled some absolutely thrilling new industrial measuring things. 

"Plutonium Factory at Sellafield, Cumberland" Now that it has been running half a decade, you can go and tour the factory, under Ministry supervision, and as long as you wear one of those full-body protection suits. This is an old-fashioned production plant where the fission heat is just thrown into the ocean, and the uranium cylinders are treated as the raw feedstock in an extraction process that separates the uranium, plutonium, and other fission products by first dissolving them in good old nitric acid and then separating them in a fractionating column. Sellafield ends up having to dispose of the "highly radioactive" fission byproducts, but given how little plutonium is produced, there can't be a great amount of them. The separated uranium is reprocessed into feedstock while the plutonium is sent on to its final destination. There is also low-level effluent produced in the cooling water, which has to be retained in pools for a year or two.   

There was also a visit to a "Discharge Lamp Factory" on the 21st, the Coryton Oil Refinery, and the German Industries Fair (continued). The lamp factory is a  BTH plant in Leicestershire that makes high-power sodium discharge lamps, for streetlights, maybe? The writeup of the Coryton plant goes into the work of refining crude oil into various kinds of car-ready gasoline in some detail. It also explains how much electricity is used. (It's a lot!) This week's choice of exhibits to visit in Hamburg is big diesel engine makers like MAN. The Engineer is particularly interested in all the supercharging they do now. On the 28th we go out for some sun or its north German facsimile and look at big cranes, locomotives, and open-pit mining equipment before ducking inside for some machine tools and a log band saw.  On the 28th we begin a visit to the International Railway Congress, 1954, with a discussion of the prospectus and a look at some new locomotives.  

Leaders

"The Happy Scholar" The Engineer pays tribute to the late H. W. Dickinson of the Newcomen Society, who was also the subject of the Newcomen party described in the Journal for the 21st. It seems he invented the history of technology? (Speaking of, the Science Museum has a new display on the history of the gasmaking and distributing industry!) "The Essential Problem of the Hydrogen Bomb" highlights the recent "official leak" of a study confirming Sir George Thomson's hypothesis that a hydrogen bomb with the right, carefully chosen metal in its external casing could be a threat to all life on Earth, since some metals, when they absorb an errant neutron or two, become very dangerously radioactive for a very long time. Anyway, the unnamed culprit turns out to be cobalt, and The Engineer asks why we don't just ban the things. Leaders for the 28th look at how road improvements need to be done, but also carefully planned, to improve the speed of London traffic, and then at coal. Another coal crisis is just a matter of time! I know we've been saying that for six years, but it's true! 
 

Letters for the 21st has a missive from A. B. Buckley, who is very cross with the British Standards Institute for changing the long-established size of bib-taps and stop-taps for water from 0.888" to 0.947" (+/-0.0038). On the 28th we get quite a long and technical letter from J. F. Cooke responding to and acknowledging criticism of his paper on "Regime Flow in a Silt-Carrying Channel," which apparently gilded the lily a bit with math. H. G. Conway and Geoffrey King continue the conversation on unified standards of screw threads. 

On the 21st, we summarise discussion of a paper on "Rapid Starting Technique for Power Stations" given by J. S. Hall to a recent session of the Inst. Mech. Eng. The conclusion is that "steam dumping" is not required in modern plants with good steam temperature control, and if you get rid of it, starting is much smoother. This is pretty important for the transition from low-load to high-load periods. The discussants seem skeptical. There is also a precis if the introductory remarks by W. H. Glanville of the Road Research Laboratory to the "Symposium on Concrete Quality and Mix Design."

Our American Correspondent launches a multipart look at the "American Mariner Class Cargo Ships" on the 21st. The 35 ships of the class are being built now and are steamships.

On the 28th, H. Goldenberg, "Calculation of Transient Heating in Single-Core Cable Dielectric" is a featured article, showing a mathematical technique for calculating same, while Professor W. A. Tuplin contributes one of his occasional "How to do engineering" articles, "Sifting A Report." He shows how to turn masses of reported data into something meaningful, essentially by graphing it. 

Also on the 28th, the monthly Metallurgical Topics summarises papers on the seizing of metals, the hydrogen embrittlement of austenitic steels, and internal stresses due to flame hardening (with welding torches.) 

"Improved Television Camera" This unsigned article comes from Marconi, but is an unusual advertorial because of its length and the practical importance of better TV cameras in this exciting modern age of television. They are lighter, easier to transport and operate, and have better image, especially colour. Speaking of advertorials, the usual assortment of heavy machine tools and glorified nuts and bolts. ("Torque limiter.") 

"Gantry-Mounted Linear Accelerator for X-Ray Therapy" Self-explanatory, I think.

"Automatic System for Mass Production of Electronic Devices" is a visit to Project Tinkertoy.

 

An unsigned article from GEC describes "High Density Tungsten Alloy." It's sintered for easier working. More advertorials look at "High-Speed Automatic Gear Hobbing Machinery" from David brown and Chesterfield Tubes' work on extruding stainless steel sections. The eight shorter ones need to pay for more page space before I will seriously describe a fork lift or an air filter! 

The Ministry of Transport/Motor Industry Research Association's new auto research lab is open

Industrial and Labour Notes shows the general upswing in British business continuing, Labour having some fun with the idea of Britain importing coal (800,000t last year) now that they are in opposition, some coverage of strikes, and more worries about effluent in water. On the 28th, the same again, with clouds on the horizon as the fall in import raw material prices may be coming to an end. Shell is drilling for underwater oil in the South China Sea, the Gas Council for natural gas in Britain. Launches and Trial Trips has seven ships, four motor, one steam turbine, two compound steam; two tankers, two cargo ships, one cablelaying vessel, one cargo and passenger, one cargo and ore. Three are being built in France. Only one on the 28th, a French steam passenger ship, the Laos.