Postblogging Technology, October 1954, II: The Miracle of Transistors

R_.C_.,
Shaughnessy,
Vancouver,
Canada




Dear Father:

We have had an exciting few weeks as various European diplomatic efforts and one American one have inserted themselves in our little Crisis. We got to show the French the Tuapse detainees, which drew some looks from one fellow, who seems to have been a China hand who  has talked to people who perhaps do not have the family's best interests at heart, but there is some urgency to the action, as the Europeans do not have a feel for American politics and find it hard to believe that a single mid-term election could end the McCarthy era at a stroke. WE can hardly argue the point without raising questions about just who we are, so hopefully someone else has. I wish I could coach them. While Lindley is a nepotism hire at Newsweek, he's perfectly right that any prediction based on historical that Eisenhower will lose in '56 if the Democrats take the Senate is stuff and nonsense. It is hard to see the way that the Democrats are falling in line behind Stevenson as anything as conceding in advance. The idea is that if Kefauver really wants to be President, he needs to be thinking about beating Nixon in '60. But what I want to ask is how likely it is that Ike will even run in '56 given his health. He really doesn't seem to be enjoying being President right now. Sherman Adams might be able to carry the load when the GOP holds Congress,but he is not going to enjoy tussling with the Democratic leadership in the back half of his term, so why try for another? 

Anyway, that's my thought. Hopefully this Crisis wraps up before Christmas.

Your Loving Daughter,

Ronnie

Letters

Henderson Wolfe of New Preston, Connecticut, has something to say about Frisia and the Frisian language. R. L. Gates is concerned that West Berlin police look too much like Nazis. Dr. E. A. Rudell has something to say about bird watching. For Your Information wants us to know that we can listen to some of our favourite Newsweek personalities on the Mutual Broadcasting System on Fridays starting 15 October, from 10:30PM to 11:00PM. Who in their right mind?!?

The Periscope

Senator McCarthy has turned his material on the CIA over to Mark Clark, who is leading the investigation. The biggest allegation is that a CIA agent gave a female Communist agent some money. Eyebrows raised! Ike is so impressed with Herbert Hoover, Junior that he is giving him some kind of job, while his dad is off to Germany to meet with Adenauer for unknown reasons. (Just kidding, he's turning over his letters from his Nazi friends because he's a snitch, too!) Senator John McClellan is hoping to be the new McCarthy. Senator Kefauver is going to run for President while he is running for President. The Weather Bureau thinks we're in for some heavy hurricane years. Construction of the experimental atomic aircraft engine will begin next year. Dulles is going to start getting mean to Syngman Rhee soon now! General Alfred Gruenther thnks that the Americans should get on with building bases in Germany as quickly as possible for when the French kick us out. Twenty of the Soviet Union's most modern submarines are off on a tour of China and Russian Pacific ports. West European shipyards will be building more ships for Russia soon. Mendes-France's father has been hospitalised after receiving several threatening letters directed at his son. The State Department has told Brazil that financing will be available for atomic power plants in remote Brazilian mining and industrial areas. It is certain that Britain will have the first operational commercial atomic power plant in the world, up to two years ahead of Shippingport. The French spy scandal is getting even dumber. "Improbable as it sounds," U.S. strategists in Tokyo are not discounting the possibility of a Crete-style Red parachute assault on Formosa with Russian planes. The Japanese are expected to stop complaining about about the $2777 in damages paid to the widow of the dead hydrogen-bomb victim after paying $1388 to each of the U.S. citizen victims of the recent ferry disaster. 

5'8" and 185lbs.

Where Are They Now reports that Willie Heston now lives in Florida and is still a football fan, although he doesn't like how much the game has changed since 1904. Rod Larocque is 56 and his wife, Vilma Banks is 51, and they have a modest home in Beverley Hills.

The Periscope Washington Trends reports that Western Europe will be pretty secure for the next few years, after all, unless the Reds propagandise Germany into neutrality. It is looking increasingly like the Democrats will take Congress. 

National Affairs

"Ike at 64: Confident" Ike says that he doesn't have to campaign harder because the results from his current campaigning just hasn't registered with the voters yet. (According to Gallup, the Democrats are 52, GOP, 48%.) Meanwhile, Adlai Stevenson is campaigning up a storm. Tom Dewey, Rosenberg trial judge Harold Medina, and John Foster Dulles have both been mentioned as replacements for Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson, who died of a heart attack unexpectedly last week. Homer Capehart wishes everyone would pay more attention to his investigation of the Federal Housing Administration. Robert Taft, Junior might be the next generation of the Taft family in Ohio politics.  

"More About Lattimore" Owen Lattimore's lawyers are tearing the Justice Department's case to shreds. "People: The Testy Season" rounds up Ohio farmers posting "No Trespassing by Any Federal Employees," a lady in New York City who bit a child so badly they had to go to hospital, a Navy seaman who went AWOL to get married, and, when arrested at the ceremony, got married in jail, Bernarr Mcfadden getting a black eye, and a thirteen-year-old from Minneapolis who sets fires. A housing development in Oklahoma has been evacuated because it was built over a plugged oil well that seems to have started leaking gas. 

Herbert Hoover's latest commission to cut government waste gets a two page spread.

"School Zone" Newsweek rounds up the desegregation news. The Washington student strike against desegregation is over after the School Superintendent and the Police Chief held a news conference threatening that truant students would be ineligible for cadet corp, student newspaper, and student leadership positions. (Which tells you who was going truant!) A Baltimore demonstration against desegregation was similarly quelled by police threats, Bryant Bowles of the National Association for the Advancement of White People was revealed to be a petty criminal, which seems to have taken some of the wind out of his sails, and while one parent is saying that his daughter would not attend school with Negroes as long as gunpowder would burn, another is calling the whole thing "the best piece of propaganda the Russians could ask for." 

 

I don't know if you've heard, but Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio are divorcing. Newsweek optimistically assumes that it won't be the only story in the news by next week, so we can go back to talking about football and the elections. (You see? I'm not going to speak out against football, but this is WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS COUNTRY!!!) Speaking of which, Bourke Hickenlooper has suspended hearings on the Dixon-Yates contract because, Kefauver says, "It is too hot to handle." Also, the highly secretive National Security Agency has charged one of its employees, Joseph H. Petersen, with spying for a foreign power. "Unofficially, it was reported that Petersen had been involved in the Paris spy case," although officials have refused to identify the country involved. Which it seems like it wasn't the Reds, or we would have heard about it, but what do I know? Anyway, wouldn't it be funny if Peterson turned out to have been spying for Denmark or Sweden? 

Francis P. Carr in 1954

Ticking If Off reports that the Nevada Supreme Court has ordered a special election for the Nevada Senate seat vacated by the death of Pat McCarran, reversing the district court decision allowing the Governor to appoint a Republican replacement. The chairman of the Big Spring, Texas draft board has resigned to protest the life sentence given to Claude Batchelor for collaboration with the Reds, saying that you just can't draft boys like Batchelor when they face so much scrutiny. Francis P. Carr has resigned from McCarthy's subcommittee and will "help direct security and personnel for a national trucking firm." A German stowaway found on a ship in New York harbour is going back to Germany.

Ernest K. Lindley uses Washington Tides to note just how much further American diplomacy has been getting since Democratic Senator Mike Mansfield has been accompanying Secretary Dulles on his overseas trips, and celebrates "Bipartisan Progress." That's one way to see it!

They were so naive in those days.

International leads off with a long story about French reactions to German rearmament, with a feature story later that interviews all five Frenchmen who support the EDC. Between them there is a continuing article about how the British  have smoothed it all over, running into praise for "Sure-Handed Eden," no longer an effete dilettante, but suddenly reborn as a man of "superb assurance" who "exercised authority with assurance." This is  followed by a briefing by Newsweek diplomatic correspondent Edward Weintal on "highly secret information" from Moscow about the Soviet opinion on a Red invasion of Formosa, which seems to be that Soviet officials have explicitly told  neutral diplomats that Khrushchev has not committed the Soviet Union to support an invasion. 

"The Big Bombers Go" The fighters and fighter bombers formerly stationed in Korea are moving to Okinawa and the B-29 wings are coming home to not be bombers any more. I guess they'd be demobilised, but then the Administration would be in trouble for cutting the air force. SAC is going to rotate its "more modern bombers" through the Pacific instead, starting with Guam, but they will go to the Philippines, Japan, and, yes, Okinawa on rotations at future dates. Trieste is still over. Mrs. Mavis Wheeler's council argues in court that she didn't try to murder Lord Vivian. He just sort of ended up with .45 rounds in his abdomen and wrist after they drank a bottle of wine, "seven or eight sherries," "several liqueurs," and "three or four stouts." Lord Vivian doesn't remember any of it, but he's pretty sure that's true, because Mrs. Wheeler is a great gal, the kind of mistress who never tries to break up a marriage. Mr. Mortimer Wheeler could not be reached for comment.

"The Enemy Had the Code" Testifying in the trial that is acting out France's current shambolic espionage scandal, "pretty blonde ex-code clerk" (Objection, your Honour, it would be funnier if it read "ex-blonde coder clerk!") Mme. Mitivier-Lasseron told the court that she tried to warn her superiors that the Viet Minh had "the French War Ministry's secret code." Since that's pretty much all there is to the story, Newsweek spends three paragraphs on the dropped egg carton that is this scandal. Did the French lose the Battle of Dienbienphu in spite of the fact that they are White and the enemy was not because of Red spies? Could be, or it could be that dropping three understrength brigades of paratroopers into the middle of the main Viet Minh line of communications and trying to resupply them with DC-3s was actually a mistake. But who would trust pretty  heads with making such judgements when you can turn to a columnist at L'Aurore, instead? Also, what kind of modern line of communications between a war ministry and a combat command goes through a single code in this day and age? (Yes, I know, cypher machines are a secret that must not be divulged to the great unwashed, but still!)  Also, Lord Beaverbrook is so disgusted with Anthony Eden that he is off to the West Indies and Canada, leaving only an editorial that is against dissolving the Empire, the British Army of the Rhine, the end of mass emigration schemes, Eisenhower, and Mendes-France. Also, manly French soldiers wept bitter tears when a lone bugler played taps at Frances Garnier's monument in Hanoi before the French pulled out and rapturous crowds greeted the arriving Viet Minh. "My heart is heavy when I think of the great heritage we are abandoning." 

In this hemisphere, apart from getting ready to welcome the Beaver home, Brazilians are wondering whether they should vote for the party backing Vargas' chosen successor or a rival who might be more like Vargas. Newsweek likes the former, as it describes the UDN, and expects it to win. Because who doesn[t like a party that's for austerity, low wages, and foreign investors?

Business

The Periscope Business Trends reports that the recession that wasn't going to happen and wasn't nearly as bad as was expected and which is almost over already, still has a ways to go. Which is a strange change in tone, but probably means that good times are here again. Besides, plastics are booming!

"Investors' Vision: Atomic Enterprise" You can tell that atomics are the coming thing, because Eric Johnston is suddenly involved, volunteering to spend other peoples' money on a "technical staff" that would come up with atomic ideas for them to "bat around." He already has a New York real estate man on his team, so it's practically a sure thing. Robert LeBron, the man picked as the new group's scientific advisor, gets a separate profile, leading into a very brief discussion of Allis-Chalmers' experimental power pile at Argonne, Illinois, expected to be completed in 1956. Uncle Henry makes the paper by talking to some reporters about how he is tired of investing in America and will invest in Argentina for a change. Florida Power and Lights' switchboard arranges for handling calls about Hurricane Hazel get a story, while Sir Eric Bowater does an interview, and the Administration is still short $10 billion in funding for its $100 billion highway plan. 

Notes: Week in Business reports that Western Electric has a $164 million contract to install Nike missile batteries around Washington and fourteen other critical defence areas, that Armstrong Cork is going into soft rugs, and J. P. Morgan is weighing an increase in its capitalisation, and then takes over from Products: What's New to report the first two new product stories before we get to the actual feature. that A-Peeling Paint Company's has a special adhesive to underlie temporary painting on glass surfaces, while Zonealarm of Cleveland has a roadside siren that will automatically sound when a high speed auto enters a low speed zone, and that Celanese's new Arnell is a cellulose yarn as washable as nylon. 

Henry Hazlitt pops up with a Business Tides, continuing his apology from last week for completely misunderstanding the role of money in the modern economy, leading directly to the Eisenhower recession. Oh, wait, this is what I get for missing the previous installment. Actually, he is explaining why Britain needs to embrace currency convertibility now, because he knows better than the consensus of British financial thinkers.

Science, Medicine

"Our Angry Scientists" Enrico Fermi, who has until now kept silent about atomic politics, invited journalists to his office at the University of Chicago this week to blast the attack made on Los Alamos in James Shepley and Clay Blair's The Hydrogen Bomb, which concludes that everyone was delaying and procrastinating and dragging their feet on the hydrogen bomb except Edward Teller and Lewis Strauss. Fermi's main point is that the book was mostly ghost written by Strauss, but he also has some things to say about the decision to create Livermore National Laboratory. General Groves and Gordon Dean have made public statements to the effect that the book will just damage morale amongst atomic scientists, who are upset that their scientific opinions will be dragged out and used to attack them politically. 

Dr. David Bodian tells the annual meeting of the American Academy of Pediatrics that while children in the slums, who are widely exposed to the three major strains of polio, often contract an "intestinal infection" (I think that means mild case of polio?) that immunises them, children brought up in more affluent areas are often not exposed, and catch polio in adulthood, when it is an even more serious condition. Dr. John Lawrence of Berkeley has been experimenting with firing beams of protons directly into brain cancers, while the Brookhaven lab has been trying out neutron beams. No results have been reported so far. University of Cincinnati doctors, surveying 40 coal miners who were too sick to work, find that in about a third of the cases, the symptoms were all in the miners' head, which, because a coal miner's life is so tough, goes to show what emotions can do to you, and not that the doctors were being paid by the insurance men. Education is mighty pleased with the American National Library at the Free University of Berlin.

  Press, TV-Radio, Newsmakers 

"What's On the Voter's Minds?" Most political seers are being very cautious this time around because of the way they were criticised in 1948, but Samuel Lubell, the "scholar-reporter" who predicted Eisenhower's victory in '52 by his advanced polling technique of "asking voters what was on their mind." He thinks that the Democrats will take the House, but the Republicans have a chance to hold the Senate. Attendees at the National Conference of Editorial Writers think that they have to be even smarter to appeal to the modern reader today, and Periscoping the Press reports that a Southern newspaper chain is trying to buy the five paper Garnett chain in Maine, while our man B. is moving on from God and Man at Yale to start "a national weekly with a conservative view," because Heaven knows we need one of them!  

Less embarrassing than being Betty or Mario right now. 

"Call From the President" Ike called the star of the latest episode of This Is Your Life because he was sitting around in Denver with nothing much to do. Everyone thinks George Gobel is the funniest guy around. 

Peter Townsend is in the paper for falling off his horse upon which see further below. Walter Hampden, Herbert Hoover, Johnny Saxton, and Ingrid Bergman are in the paper for the usual reasons. Betsy Von Furstenberg and Mario Lanza are in it because they have come to be aware that people don't  like them, and have decided to do something about it. Mrs. Roosevelt has had a birthday, Pier Angeli is engaged, Josh Devore, Ozaki Yukio, Sir Roderick Hill, Oliver Locker-Lampson, and Grady Norton have died. 

 

. The New Films

The Steel Cage is a "crude little album pasted together" from Warden Clifton Duffy's St. Quentin Story. The segment with Walter Slezak is pretty good (UA). Woman's World is Fox's "poor man's Executive Suite," that veers between "limp drama and low comedy." Passion (RKO) is about Old California and has Yvonne de Carlo and Cornel Wilde and an "unbelievably fatuous" ending. 

Life and Leisure explains that they eat well in France. 

Books

Paul Horgan's The Great River: The Rio Grande in American History is one of those books that inspires a review that tells the story before it gets to the book. (Which it likes.) Moses Finley's The World of Odysseus teases out a picture of 10th and 9th Century (BC) Greece that is so subtly Marxist that the reviewer doesn't even notice. Or perhaps is careful not to say! I notice that the author credit is "M. I. Finley," upon which I hardly need to comment. Evelyn Waugh's latest book is even worse than all his other recent books, because he identifies with the upper class too much. 

I take it back about B. If cracks are showing at Newsweek, maybe it is time for some fresher not-at-all-fascist journalism! 

Well, not if Raymond Moley has anything to say about it. Or maybe if he does, as he embarrasses himself again trying to explain pork barrel politics. It turns out that it happens because people like pork! Who would have guessed?

Leaders

"A New Peril" Everyone has been wondering when the Hunter and Swift will be obsolete against the Russian menace. Well, now the U.S. Secretary of the Navy says that the Russians have an atom bomb and a supersonic plane to deliver it, and since it is CRAZY to think they  have a supersonic bomber, they must have a supersonic fighter or fighter bomber, and they can probably make a thousand miles overloaded, and then there's FI-CON experiments, and in conclusion it's terrible Britain doesn't have a supersonic fighter.

"Turboproptimism" Everything is coming up roses for turboprop aircraft and helicopters, and the best engines and planes are British. 

Nah.

From All Quarters

J. E. L. Edwards is giving a paper on "The Development of Re-heat" that describes work on turbojet boosts at De Havilland, which is good because there is so little information about British reheat work. Flight covers Secretary of the Air Force Hugh Talbot's announcement that the B-58 and F-104 have been ordered and that B-52 deliveries are being sped up, and a J65 has been delivered for testing. Guided missile deliveries have been sped up. British Titanium has proven that titanium can be produced by sodium reduction on a commercial basis and competitive quality. Selwyn Lloyd is succeeding Duncan Sandys at the Ministry of Supply, Air Chief Marshal Medhurst has died, a finding of wingtip in the area where KLM DC7 Willem Bontekoe went down leaves the airline hoping that its plane ran into a fighter that wasn't looking where it was going, as opposed to being their fault. N. E. Rowe is the new president of the R. Ae.S.

"Naval Early-Warners: No. 849 Squadron" Flight explains that radars see further when they're further up, and the Americans decided to put radar on some Grumman Avengers to give the fleet early warning, and then the British bought the Avengers, and then they bought Skyraiders. Flight can't tell us anything about the radars, but it enjoys the chance to describe the typically American electrohydraulic canopy and hydraulically-boosted flaps, the power-adjusted chairs. Americans like power conveniences, you see. Then we get about a page of history of 849 Squadron, and we're done. 

Here and There reports that the Fairey Delta 2 is having more tests, the death of R. H. Coverley, a possible Dutch helicopter, and a silly English translation of a Japanese technical report: "The crankshaft was troubled." Oh, those amusing Japanese! 

"Gas Dynamics Laboratory" De Havilland has one for testing its jet engines. From the pictures Flight took during its visit, any mad scientist worth his salt would be happy to have. GEC has an £86,000 contract to light BOAC's workshops and offices at London Airport. The workshop is huge and so are the lights and their giant Delaron lampshades. (Which is a kind of plastic.) There's a new Aldis lamp out there. Ivor Bowen has retired from the Ministry of Supply to go to work for Sperry. 

"Electronics at Edinburgh" Ferranti has a new lab at Edinburgh. The pieces on display are their DME, which has an error of one part in 4000 over a range from 950 to 1050 mHz with omnidirectional antenna and the gyroscopic gunsight, which has really good optics.

"Aerodynamics in 1804: The Pioneer Work of Sir George Cayley" History!  "Underwater Canopy-Jettison" describes the rear-hinged canopy-jettison gear developed by M.L. Aviation to make it possible to jettison from aircraft once they've fallen off an aircraft carrier, as often happens. Water is heavy, and you might be wondering how deep this is possible, and the article says "more than 10ft," so in conclusion don't actually expect to be able to eject underwater, because 10ft is not a lot of sinking. 

Lt. Colonel P. A. Tobin, "Mobility in Readiness: Some New Thoughts on the Creation of an Air Transport Reserve," is an article about how the RAF needs a simple, rugged transport that it can buy in large numbers and put away for Sunday aviators. 

Aircraft Intelligence reports that a modified version of the Il-12 for VIP transport is joining the Soviet air fleet, while in the USA, there are now several variants of the F-100 including a fighter and fighter-bomber. The McDonnell F-101 is the longest range fighter in the world today. France is working on the Sipa 300 trainer and the M.S. 760 Paris four-seat jet liaison aircraft. WHAT EVEN IS THAT???

"Wet Work: Duties of the RAF Marine Craft Training School" The RAF has power boat squadrons so I guess it needs a training school, whose duties, I am going to guess, mostly involve training. 

"Cockpit Air Conditioning: The Operation of Modern Systems for Interiors and Suit-Cooling" This isn't really so much an article about cockpit or flight suit cooling, about which there isn't much to say, as about what Sir George Godfrey and Partners, Ltd  has on offer in the field. 

"Gas Turbines for Helicopters: Precis of 'Applications of Gas Turbines to Helicopter Propulsion,' a Paper Given to the Helicopter Association by John Brown" Brown briefly describes free turbines, fixed shaft turbines, and ducted air turbines. 

"Comet Furnishings" An unsigned article about the furniture on the Comet. 

Correspondence

Bernard Sparrow thinks that the RAF should buy a bunch of Gnats and give them to the RAFVR. See? THIS. This is why I make fun of letters about the RAFVR, etc., as letters about funny hats. These guys are just not living in the real world. A. L. Eggleton shares his memories of years ago, before the war, and J. W. Taylor and Mel McGee have some interesting observations about the multiple owners of the Constellations in the news. 

The Industry is on about the Thorn Piasteck instrument panel illumination system, which is a coloured plastic sheet with etched instrument displays which stand out in white during the day and are backlit in red at night. Leytonstone and Tool Company is very impressed with their Leytool precision divider. Flight has received literature about maintaining aircraft engines from the Ministry of Labour and Plessey's new H.F. fixed frequency receivers. Civil Aviation reports that BOAC is interested in putting turboprops on some DC7s, according to American Aviation Daily. TAA has received its first Viscount, leading into a brief article about the improved performance of the new Viscount 800, and another explaining the reasons for BEA's financial loss this year, which are mainly the difficulty of making money on short domestic flights, which it hopes the introduction of the 80 seat Viscount 802 will fix. The issue ends with a short article about Dar-es-Salaam Airport. 


 

Letters

Several people write in to explain that Swift's "Modest Proposal" was satire. "It was just a joke, so lay off," Newsweek replies. Arthur Charkoff writes in to explain how he, and the nation, benefitted from the GI Bill. John Powell is upset that Newsweek did not report his post-appearance press conference after taking the Fifth before Senator Jenner, saying that he did answer "the sixty-four thousand dollar question," and that his decision to take the Fifth was just a protest. He goes on to explain why the Koumintang is never coming back, and why America has to learn to live with  it. Harold Gintel of New York wonders  if "Rufus Learsi," name of the author of The Jew in America, might be a pseudonym. It is. Numerous correspondents write to praise the picture of "native dancer" Maria Tallchief. For Your Information celebrates the fortieth anniversary of the American Bureau of Circulation. 

 The Periscope reports that Senator McCarthy expects to be censured, that the Joseph S. Petersen case is "bizarre" and not damaging to American intelligence (I knew it! He was spying for Denmark!) and that John Sherman Cooper is in line for a plum job if he is beaten in the election by Alben Barkley, perhaps Supreme Court justice or ambassador to the UN, if Henry Cabot Lodge leaves to become a "White House assistant." There is a "behind the scenes" effort to get Labour Secretary Mitchell and Commerce Secretary Weeks to kiss and make up. US atomic energy chiefs admit that they have a problem with disposing of atomic waste. Harvard Russian Research Centre translators find the Soviet press to be hilariously mistaken about American politics. The President will issue an executive order making 300,000 temporary employees permanent. An important new development in aviation safety is a system for turning on the lights at unattended emergency airfields from aircraft. "All the pilot has to do is say 'Light," into his microphone," and the lights go on. I am sure that not even an expert radio engineer can see a way that this could possibly go wrong. Experts think we'll be talking about the "thermal barrier" soon, with engineers at Douglas Aircraft working on stainless steel structures to resist the 300 degree temperatures planes encounter at a million Machs. The Air Research and Development Board is looking into a new radar that uses light rays and which cannot be traced back to its source. Hmm. HMM. 

"You will soon be reading" that an official at the US embassy will be coming home soon due to involvement in the French spy scandal, while British intelligence sources report that a new Russian psychological test can pick out POW candidates for brainwashing with 80% accuracy. Italian communists have been caught off guard by the Trieste agreement. The "flagrantly pro-Communist activity" of Japanese labour unions is the talk of "insiders" in Japan. The Aly Khan will be succeeded by one of his grandsons, not his son, who is useless. "Startling new calculations by Norwegian historians" make it likely that Leif Ericson sailed all the way to the Chesapeake Bay on his voyage to "Vinland." China is trying to negotiate a mutual security pact with India, while Yugoslavia might join the "Brussels Treaty Organisation" if it is confined to European activities. Where They Are Now finds that Louis Johnson is running a law firm in Washington, while Judith Coplon is now a housewife in Brooklyn, married to her former defence attorney, Albert H. Socolov, and has a two-year-old daughter. 

The Periscope Washington Trends reports the McCarthy censure news again, notes that the election is now seen as pretty much a Democratic lock, and reports that Republicans are getting ready to fight over political ideology again, with conservative Republicans blaming the President for the election defeat. The Administration's ambitious manpower plans are bowing to the reality of declining class sizes, but the column points out that a massive reserve programme will be possible in 1954--63 thanks to the "bumper crop of 'war babies.'"

National Affairs

What people are talking about is the crazy October weather, includingn Los Angeles smog, Chicago floods, New York heat waves, and Hurricane Hazel. What politicians are talking about is the Democratic landslide victory in Alaska, because it is a good sign for November. Republicans assure us that they see signs of recovery in the polls in swing states.

"The Hero's Confession" Congressman Douglas Stringfellow of Utah is in trouble for making up war stories. Secretary Wilson is still in trouble for criticising the unemployed in Detroit last week. Follows a profile of "Kissing Jim" Folsom and singing cowboy Glen Taylor's very weird Senate campaigns in Alabama and Idaho. Speaking of eccentric politicians and their 1954 campaigns, here is a profile of this fellow named Ike Eisenhower, maybe you've heard of him? Harry Truman seems set to campaign harder in '54 than Ike, not that that's hard. Representative Clifford Case, the GOP candidate for the Senate in New Jersey, might do better in the race because Senator McCarthy and the Taft Republicans don't like him for being supported by the ADA and being too far left generally. So the recent attempt to "Red bait" him, which has blown up hopelessly, might help even more.  

"Tragic Autumn" The various weather disasters mentioned at the top get a bit more detail. The floods, heat wave, and smog blanket are mostly just annoyances, but Hurricane Hazel was the biggest of the century, all the way up to Ontario, and might have done a billion dollars in damages. The AFL and CIO might merge, after all.

Ticking It Off reports that Corliss Lamont has been indicted for contempt for refusing to answer a question from the McCarthy subcommittee. The thirteen members of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party previously sentenced to  life for the assassination attempt on President Truman, have been convicted of seditious conspiracy. The case against Owen Lattimore has hit another snag. War hero George S. Walsh has been killed in the explosion of an F-100 Super Sabre in a test flight. Travis Wisenberg, the twelve-year-old who held off fifteen policemen in a 90 minute gun battle, has been committed to a state mental hospital to see if there is anything that can be done with him. 

Ernest K. Lindley uses Washington Tides to tell us that "In Politics, Nothing is Sure" explains that a Democratic victory in 1954 doesn't mean that a win in 1956 is certain. 

International

"The Far East: Where the Danger Lies"

It says here that "behind the scenes, the U.S. was employing every artifice to reduce the tension between the Chiang Kai-Shek regime and Communist China." Yes, it is. Now that it looks  like Knowland won't be the Senate Majority Leader after November! I don't think we'd be in this fix if the President was able to take control of his Cabinet, but he isn't, and that's where we are. Specifically, Assistant Secretary of State Walter S. Robertson's "mysterious visit" was intended to discourage Koumintang belligerence. Which it was! But if he can't even persuade them to let Tuapse go, how can you expect the Russians to take it seriously? The Russians have pulled out of Port Arthur as a sweetener to persuade Peking not to make any aggressive moves, and have appealed for French mediation in the Tuapse case. Altogether a great deal more productive than American diplomacy. 

"Reds with Two Faces" The Communists are having a honeymoon in Hanoi while the south seems ready to explode in violence. The French were trying to promote a military coup against President Diem, who is firmly supported by the U.S. Ambassador Heath persuaded General Hinh to call off his coup, helped by Le Van Vien, who double-crossed Hinh in return for the Ministry of Police. In Britain, worries about Eden's health have disappeared, and rumours say that he will become Prime Minister when Churchill resigns. Really??! I hadn't heard that! The French are going along with German rearmament, the United States of Europe, and so on, but they are very petulant about it, so probably something will go wrong soon. The new German armed forces will be the "Streitkräfte," because "Wehrmacht" has negative associations. Daniel Malan is finally retiring, and might be replaced by a moderate, and not that wild man, J. G. Strijdom. People hope. 

"Egypt: Now The Big Push" Egypt hopes that finalising the Suez agreement will allow it to turn its energies inwards, and deal with widespread and increasing malnutrition and falling living standards by industrialising quickly. The largest part of the plan is the proposed high dam at Aswan that will allow further electrification after the low dam is connected to a national grid, as it will be by 1959. Egypt is also hoping for the expansion of industries ranging from fertiliser to textiles to steel, and the reclamation of 600,000 acres in the Western Desert. Jordan has had an election that did not go well, and former members of Mossadegh's cabinet continue to meet ugly fates at the hands of the Iranian courts. An interview with the Prime Minister of Pakistan establishes that there is a "Bleak Outlook for a Settlement with India." 

In the Latin lands, the elections in Honduras seem to have been pretty fair, but not the ones in Guatemala. Newsweek sure hopes that Castillo can resist the resurgent Communists and the reactionaries who want to roll back all the reforms!

Business

The Periscope Business Trends reports that the recession that wasn't going to happen and wasn't as bad as expected and would end soon and wasn't going to end soon is going to end soon. Higher wages means more buying, but not of appliances, textiles and glass are strong, and people should stop looking at unemployment and frowning, and look at employment and smiling! 

"Steel: The Sun Breaks Through" Steel output reached 72.4% of capacity this month, up 17% since August. Orders are strong enough to maintain production through the first quarter of 1955, and major customers like Fisher Body have worked through their inventory. The auto industry is also looking up, the Air Force has ordered the Convair B-58 Hustler, and the Lockheed F-104, while there are reports that BOAC is going to order a fleet of DC-7s. 

"5-Cent Coffee Break" Tom Bresler and Robert Frey of Chicago have ridden the growing trend to office coffee breaks by brewing coffee in 100-gallon pots and delivering it directly to businesses where employers buy it at $1/gallon and sell it to employees at 5 cents a cup. Bresler and Frey cleared $22,000 in 1948, their first year of operation, and expect to gross $300,000 this year. 

Notes: Week in Business reports that the AEC is going to build a uranium concentration plant in St. Louis, that American wool is getting a new subsidy, copper is short, and the takeover battle at Montgomery Ward is ongoing. Products: What's New reports a rearview mirror from Libby-Owens-Ford Glass that can be adjusted (by hand) to light conditions. (You tilt it to reduce the amount of reflected light.) Kelvinator is introducing electric ovens with disposable liners to reduce cleaning. Industrial Development Engineering Associates of Indianapolis have a 3"x5"x1.25" pocket radio that weighs less than 12 oz thanks to the miracle of transistors. Someone should tell the editor that the A-Peeling Glass note appears again this week. 

Henry Hazlitt's Business Tides explains "Why America is First." It's because America has freedom! And don't believe Henry. He's quoting a Swiss economist who wrote a book about it. A book! That's hundreds of pages of original thought strung together, and he agrees with Henry, so he must be smart and logical! Henry wishes he could do that. 

Science, Medicine, Education

"The Doctor's Fears" Dr. Alan F. Guttmacher, chief of obstetrics and gynecology at Mount Sinai in New York, writes on the contentious issue of therapeutic abortions in the current issue of the hospital's official journal. The United States has no federal abortion law, but in almost every state, the rate of therapeutic abortion has been declining. At the University of Virginia Hospital, the rate of abortions has fallen from 1 per 85 live births in 1941 to 1 in 337 in 1954. Guttmacher explains that this is because medical advances have removed the need for many therapeutic abortions. Tuberculosis was the main reason for abortion in 1941, for example. Concern about "questionable cases" leads Guttmacher to recommend hospital therapeutic abortion committees. In a recent 17 month period, Mount Sinai delivered 3,999 women, while the committee approved 31 abortions, fifteen for psychiatric reasons, which have to be genuine and serious. Saying that a pregnant woman who wants an abortion is depressed, cuts no ice with the Doctor, since obviously they will be. People say that refusing women abortions sends them to unsafe abortionists, but, Dr. Guttmacher concludes, Mount Sinai's hands are clean! 

Dr. William Kaufman of Bridgeport, Connecticut, explained this week to the first annual meeting of the American Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine that it is good for the patient for the doctor to be nice to them and explain what they are going to do.  Western Reserve University doctors have come up with a small oxygen inhaler while working on a way to revive victims of acute alcoholism. It basically consists of a rubber inhaler mask and a small tank of gas and can be used anywhere that you want to administer local anaesthetic or oxygen.  

The American Nuclear Society is a professional association for nuclear technicians. It is thought that the mounted mastodon skeleton at the Darmstadt Museum is the same one exhibited by Charles Willson Peake back in the day. 

"Rain from the Sun" Somehow meteorologist E. D. Farthing of TWA gets yet another hearing for his crazy idea that the Sun's weather causes the Earth's weather. 

"The Ladies" A brief profile of Virginia Gildersleeve and Barnard College introduces a brief explanation of what New Hall at Cambridge is all about. The tone is largely, "Look at us, we're educating women now!" 

Life and Leisure profiles William Willis, the man who sailed a balsa raft across the Pacific from Peru to Pago Pago this summer, not to prove a scientific point, but because it is fun. 

 TV-Radio, Art, Press, Newsmakers

Celeste Holm sure is something, and so is Fred Allen! Periscoping TV-Radio reports that Imogene Coca and Sid Caesar are going to do a special for Your Show of Shows, Franchot Tone and Richard Greene are going to be in a TV show based on Lives of a Bengal Lancer, the same cast and crew that did the recent Long John Silver are working on a TV series of the same name with Richard Newton leading the cast. 

Commonweal and The New Leader are both thirty years old and good examples of 'liberal" little magazines. Periscoping the Press reports that the Detroit Free Press might be about to lose its number one spot in the Detroit market, that Pocket Books is going to launch a pocket-book style quarterly magazine with original articles by name writers, and that he REno Chamber of Commerce has hired a New York public relations firm to get rid of its "divorce city" reputation in favour of, I don't know, skiing or something. That David Couper Thomson sure was something, wasn't he?

The Arts profiles Charles Sheeler on the occasion of a retrospective showing at L.A.'s Downtown Gallery. He's one of those artists who likes to paint factories because they are authentic American culture. 

General Whitcomb is in the column for dressing up like a Korean. Anna Magnani is magnificently "disheveled." Joseph Breen, Jr., various royals, Charlie Chaplin, Ava Gardner, Betty Hutton and Marlene Dietrich are in the column for the usual reason. Lt. Hoyt S. Vandenberg is in it for  crashing his Sabrejet in Germany. Lillian Gish and Lord Nuffield have had birthdays. Antonio Pisani, Augustus K. Oliver, and Edward Crump have died. 

 
New Films

Fox/s Carmen Jones is a musical adapting Carmen, and directed by Otto Preminger, starring Harry Belafonte, Dorothy Dandridge and Joe Adams, although the more operatic pieces are dubbed by Marilyn Horne and Le Vern Hutchinson. It's pretty good! Beau Brummel (MGM) is a costume drama, of course! It's pretty long. RKO's This is My Love is a crime drama ruined by "trite dialogue and overblown sentimentality." I think Newsweek has a new movie critic who is not afraid of taking names!  

Books

"The Writing World and Writers" opens with a long precis and review of Malcolm Cowley, The Literary Situation, a review of the writing world these days, like the subtitle says. Hamilton Basso's The View From Pompey's Head is a legal mystery plumped out with some Southern Gothic, which isn't enough for the reviewer, who for some reason drags Shinto (yes, the Japanese folk religion). Angela Thirkell's What Did It Mean is another of her continuation of Trollope's Barsetshire chronicles, and her fans will love it. Marcia Davenport's My Brother's Keeper is a 'grisly" novel based on the real life case of the Collyer brothers. Periscoping Books reports upcoming autobiographies by Mme Pandit, Ethel Barrymore and Ethyl Kitt, a handbook for public speakers by Norman Thomas, and a biography of a Texas oilman who has undertaken to donate 50,000 copies to schools to get it on the bestseller list. 

Leaders

"Knowledge of the Comet" The Comet was obviously a far too ambitious step, far too lightly taken, but you can't say that without seeming to criticise someone, so let's just dance around the findings published in the first week of the inquiry and leave people to pick it up for themselves. 

From All Quarters reports that Javelins are being tested for in-flight refuelling, the Dutch are buying 56 F-86Ks, the USN sent a squadron of Martin Marlins to the Mediterranean this summer, Burma is buying Hunting Percival Provosts that they might  use for ground attack, Northolt reverts to the RAF this week after being loaned to the Ministry of Civil Aviation for the last eight years, and Belgium is evaluating the Javelin. 

"The Emperor at Duxford: The RAF Gives of its Best for Haile Selassie;" and "The Lords Discuss Helicopters" are similar articles in that they're both about feudalism and aviation. The difference is that Haile Selassie wandering around a field looking at planes seems like a better use of everyone's times. The peers of the realm can't get over the fact that Americans make more helicopters than the British, and hope that the Fairey Rotodyne will fix that. It's going to be a sad day when someone responsible finally puts their foot down and tells the industry that tip-jet rotors are just too loud.
 

"The Comet Inquiry" The Comets crashed after their pressure cabins decompressed explosively due to fatigue failure. We shall now proceed to pretend that no-one knew about fatigue before mid-1953 and that it took wet tank testing to discover that the Comets were flimsy.  

Here and There reports that the US Army might order the De Havilland Otter, that Kurt Tank says that it will take at least three years to rebuild the Luftwaffe, that a Javelin has crashed, and that Ethiopia is ordering Saab 91 trainers. 

"Reheat for Turbojets: Precis of a Talk Given to the R. Ae. S. by J. L. Edwards" Edwards is the chief combustion research engineer at De Havilland, and summarises years of research as showing that it's a lot harder to design good reheat than people imagine when it is described. You don't want to create a bubble of turbulence that deflects thrust, after all! Somewhat related, Pratt and Whitney is the latest contractor to build an atomic aircraft engine laboratory in association with the Air Force.

Pilot and passenger, a nurse, arrive in (near) a Siberian village. 

"Helicopter Gas Turbines: Views on Mr. John Brown's Association Lecture" is a precis of discussion after the lecture. Some of it was pretty silly (aerodynamic cleanliness and fuel economy will affect range!), but N. E. Rowe of Blackburn came equipped with some impressive data about the improvement in fuel consumption with rotor tip speed. Higher tip speeds seem like a terrible idea for commercial use, but there would be no problem with them in the Navy, apart from veterans who can't hear and submarines being warned off by the sheer noise. Also, de Havilland is cooperating with local authorities in an experiment to improve runway quality with soil stabilisation at Christchurch Airfield, Hants. Another dispatch from the Soviet airways continues to establish that air service in the depths of Mother Russia is very eccentric in a charming way.

Aircraft Intelligence reports that Avions Fairey will build Rolls Royce Avons for the Hunters ordered from that company for Belgium and Holland. France is testing the Hurel-Dubois H. 31 and H. 32 for service in Africa. The Nord N.C. 856 is being tested as an air observation post, launched by the Schneider Flux mobile catapult.  The Breguet Deux Ponts can parachute drop very heavy things, such as field artillery. The Martin Seamaster is great, and will fly next year. The RB-52 has a big pressurised capsule containing cameras, ECM equipment, and even operators, and fits into the bomb bay. Write Flight to order reproductions of Air Intelligence three-plan drawings. 

Javelins are great, the Cessna Model 38 submission for the USAF 1952 jet trainer is a really neat plane and there might be a French order for it, cross our fingers, here's a picture. War in the Air is the new BBC TV series about the RAF's war. The first episode will air on 8 November and will be great. Cross our fingers. 

"Cooling an Electronic Brain" In the 15 October number we heard about the TRIDAC computer, and, briefly, about the smaller but similar AGWAC (Australian Guided Weapons Analogue Computer) being prepared for use at the Long-Range Weapons Installation at Salisbury, South Australia. Although it uses only 25kW compared with the 650kW of TRIDAC, it still needs lots of cooling. A brief schematic diagram of the two-stage water and forced air cooling system is provided. 

"The Comet Accidents: History of Events: Sir Lionel Head's Introductory Summary at Inquiry" De Havilland testing established that stress loads on the hull would not exceed 40-50% of ultimate failure and that therefore the planes would have a very long fatigue life. This testing missed much higher stress loads around cut-outs such as windows and hatches, which is where the failures happened. The Air Registration Board failed to pick this up. Sir Lionel would say more, but it would be "controversial." Short bits note that Lord Brabazon gave a talk about the history of technology and progress, the Morgan Morgan Foundation Lecture to the Association of Patentees, and the Institute of Navigation heard four interesting talks on navigation training for Sea Cadets and Sea Scouts. Lord Brabazon points out that there has been hardly any progress in automobile design in the last forty years compared with aircraft. I don't think that's true!

Correspondence

 R. V. Essen of the Royal Swedish Air Force has a letter about the article on "Aircraft in the Antarctic" that is nearly as long as the very long article, because people find Antarctica fascinating. I find Antarctica fascinating! I don't suppose we'll find lost lands and hidden civilisations there, because it is so cold, but we're running out of other places to find them! J. M. Bruce uses a letter about an airscrew found in a Bulgarian monastery to launch into an extended story about a time years ago, before the war. 

The Industry reports that Export Packing, Ltd is conducting extensive research into packing material, that Lodge Plugs is celebrating its golden jubilee, that Flexible Drives (Gillman), Ltd has a wide range of power tools including a tungsten carbide bur, that Davis, Wynn, and Andrews, Ltd, of Cheltenham, has a hand-held stroboscope that's quite good. 

Civil Aviation reports that the World Helicopter Association is going to have a meeting where they're going to vote to abolish noise, that BEA is going to test out cabin loudspeakers, since Viscounts are so quiet you can actually hear them, that the Britannia is going to get extensive fatigue tests, that the ARB Guide to Airworthiness is out in a revised edition, that Hong Kong Airlines has ordered a Viscount, that work is going on at Malton Airport, and that a Viscount has collapsed its undercarriage in a precautionary landing in Rome.

"'The Gatwick Scheme:' 'Overflow' for London Airport: Government's Plans Announced" Gatwick is the best site for a second civil airport serving London, says a White Paper, and the Government has decided that development will begin forthwith. The White Paper says that "comparatively few people" will be disturbed by noise from the airport, and that they can be ignored, although the Government will do its best to mitigate the nuisance out of the goodness of its heart. Gatwick will have a train station, and by the time Stage 1 is open, the British Transport Commission will have arranged for four trains out of London an hour, two fast and two "semi-fast." Stage 1 will be a 7000ft runway, while Stage 2 will be a 6000ft runway with taxiways and possibly a 4000ft subsidiary runway.