Saturday, October 24, 2020

Postblogging Technology, July 1950, I: A Constructively Unexpected War

The Ah Ma Temple by Eleanora Fernandez, and not a villa in Macao, but we can dream



R_.C_.,
79 Av de Harmonia,
Macao

Dear Father:

I take the liberty of including your thank you note. It's one of these little pains that society has decided that newlyweds should suffer through. I shudder to think about how much the brides who are lucky enough to plan their weddings suffer through. As is, with just two weeks to put this together, I still have to write seventy more of these things, and mostly in my shaky calligraphy, at that. (Maybe the High Court of Inter-Cultural Affairs could rule that I don't have to? I didn't think so.) 

Again and again, thank you for being here, and thank you for arranging for my parents' flight. You were half right, by the way. Dad was the picture of charm at the reception afterwards. Mom, though, made it clear that her prodigal daughter is not yet forgiven by the old-fashioned trick of not talking to me. (Auntie Bess --or more likely Mary, writing for her-- says that Mom was very clear that she only cacme to be there for Dad, and she didn't care "who knew." That's me. "Who.")

The honeymoon is wonderful. Reggie is almost back to normal after a week away from the runaround in Formosa getting the field ready for his squadron. In a way, it's a good thing that the ceremony was so quick. If we'd waited until his brother officers were in the East, we'd have had to invite them and maybe even explain exactly where we're honeymooning. Hmm. No need to be mysterious. Just say Cam Ranh Bay and stick to it. It is a bay, it is on the South China Sea. Good enough. The real trick would have been explaining the guests. "Oh, yes, this is my real Dad, not the guy I pay to pretend to be him." Oh what a tangled web we weave, etc. 

I am,
Your Daughter,
Ronnie (Reminding herself again not to show off her clever college girl references in front of engineers)





Time, 3 July 1950

Letters

Two people really liked the article about Puerto Ricans in New York because of the way it battled prejudice. One person thinks that all the layabout Puerto Ricans in New York should be shipped off to Michigan to harvest sugar beet. Everyone thinks that Billy Rose stealing a story from Evelyn Waugh who stole it from Oscar Wilde who stole it from whoever is funny. Stafford Whitby of Akron thinks that C. E. M. Toad is an "irresponsible smart aleck." I have a feeling I agree with Mr. Whitby about only one thing at all. It seems like most of the people who read the article about Darry Zanuck know that the drawing of a soundtrack on the Time cover had too many sprocket holes. A traffic court judge writes in with his recommendations for best driving safety films. Our Publisher gloats at all the contemporaries that reacted to Time's article about the Harvard Mark III. For example, Steve Canyon and the Lteraturnaya Gazeta (Communism is terrible.) On the other hand, Time reads Communist literary magazines, which pretty much makes it communist, too. Wee! This is fun! 

National Affairs

"Challenge Accepted" I write this 41 days after the North Korean invasion, while Time is reporting so close to events that it can't even get Korea on to the cover, and it all seems so quaint. The President, so briefly delaying in Independence instead of rushing to Washington, then leaving one of his military aides on the tarmac. It was a scandal for a few minutes! The United Nations, swinging smoothly into action to condemn the attack. America guaranteeing air and sea aid to the South Koreans in hopes of stopping the retreat. Seventh Fleet committed to the Straits before ground troops arrive in Korea, because that's where the country's heart lies. More guns for the French in Indochina, for perfectly good reasons, and on the other hand the President calling the Gitmo and telling him to stop bombarding the Mainland. America, Time concludes, will go to war to keep the peace. America supports Korea, the President says, and Congress supports the President. Everyone supports everyone! (The question being whether Stalin supports North Korea.)

"Unwilling to be Counted" At last count (hee!) 47 people were up on contempt charges for refusing to tell Congress whether or not they were Communists. The Journal of the American Bar Association is now out to gently suggest that maybe this is taking things a bit too far. Communists are awful, for sure. But do you have to put people in prison for refusing to admit that they're Communists? But Congress is fine with it because, and stop me if you've heard this one, Communists are bad. 

"Big Time" Governor Warren and Governor Duff met in Sulphur Springs during the Governors' Conference and now everyone is saying that's the GOP Presidential ticket right there. By everyone, I mean "Time," and by "will be the GOP Presidential ticket in 1952," Time means that General Eisenhower is going to be kidnapped by leprechauns. Also, Dean Acheson turned out with all his friends to show that didn't actually have horns. "Several Midwestern Republican governors" still think he has horns. 


"From the Country and the City" The 1950 Census shows that American small towns like Shannon City are fading away. 
View from across the street?
Shannon City used to be where the farm labourers lived, but now there's no farm labourers. Even sadder is the shooting on the picket line at the American Enka rayon fibre plant in Lowland, Tennessee, where an AFL union is moving in on the old CIO local, and the strikers responded by firing a fusillade at the cars leaving at quitting time. 

"Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" "Big corporation lawyer" Willis Smith has won the North Carolina Senate seat against Frank Graham on the strength of "big conservative donors" in and out of the state, and also by running against the FEPC. "If you want your wife and daughters eating at the same table as a Negro, vote for Smith." Charming! But not as charming as South Carolina, where the candidates have to campaign together on a campaign caravan, okay, that is charming. What's not so charming is Otis Johnson trying to out-segregate Strom Thurmond. One the other hand, there's an actual Coloured candidate, Alfred J. Clement, running in the First District (Charleston) against Mendel Rivers.

And the Shriners are having a convention in Los Angeles. 

"A Flash Like Lightning" The Northwest 2501 accident is --currently-- America's worst air disaster, with 55 dead. That's because it was an air coach flight. With some DC-6s packing in over 70 passengers, America is bound for its own Llandow soon, but some things are worse. A harrowing New York street confrontation between Benjamin Krieger and Meyer Mittelman makes the national press. Krieger, who is a fismonger here and was a fishmonger in Nowogorod, lost his wife and four children to the crematoria along the way; and his brother, to an iron pot swung by Meyer Mitelman, in Dachau, says Krieger.  But there are no witnesses to support Krieger's accusation that Mitelman was a trustee, and the police release both men, while Jewish refugees argued in the streets for hours. 

Manners and Morals reports that Cincinnati is banning women's white bathing suits, because they are immodest, and the municipal auditor of Jersey City has found that the money that Boss Hague used to raise "for the Democratic Party" in the old "Raisin Pudding" days at City Hall might have been embezzled!

International

"Not Too Late?" I was still getting over the revelations from Jersey City when I learned that the South Korean army had folded up under the North Korean attack. Apparently everyone saw this coming but the South Koreans are feeling a bit disorganised. The thought is that, while the South Koreans might be the "best doggoned shooting army outside the United States," it might not have enough to shoot with, being down to a ten day supply of ammunition. The South Koreans say that they have sunk a Russian patrol boat in Korean waters; that some North Korean tanks are manned by Russians; and that all the North Korean planes have Russian observers aboard. Time thinks that's a bit much, but the Russians are for sure involved. On the second day, the South Koreans tried to counterattack north of Seoul, which lies very close to the border, and the South Korean government has already left for Taejon, but the latest is that talk of the fall of Seoul is just "war hysteria," and American aid is on the way.  The main article is followed by an explainer about the 38th Parallel border and the UN resolution supporting South Korea. 

"Our Friends Outside" Time's man in the Philippines has a long story about the Huks. Time is very upset about all the reformers trying to reform Asia with their "and reform," but the man on the ground seems to be suggesting that the Huks are an agrarian rebellion.Meanwhile, Time gleefully reports, the Komintang offensive against Shanghai's trade has succeeded. Shanghai is closed to all shipping, and those Hong Kong merchants (and the British, Norwegian and Greek-flagged ships that have been damaged by Nationalist mines and air attack) who thought that they could trade with the Reds have learned their lesson.

Which is that all America needs from its allies is --their votes in the Security Council? This doesn't seem like it is helping. 

"On a Spree" The Bidault government has fallen in France, much to the relief of Time, as the Schuman Plan had caused it to briefly doubt America's manifest destiny to rule the world, or something like that. But now the French are back to being emotional and volatile and all too Socialist, and all is right with the world. The Revere/Mast/Peyre affair has come to an end. The generals did nothing wrong, and in particular, nothing wrong in regards to showing secret reports on Indo-China to anyone not qualified to see them. That is, they did nothing wrong except associate with Roger Peyre, and so they must resign, because Pehre is a horrible moral leper, and they are infected. In other emotional Latin countries, the Duchess of Valencia has resigned as official fuss-maker for the Spanish monarchy in exile. Spanish politics is much more fun when you concentrate on red-headed beauties throwing tantrums in silk pyjamas (don't ask!) instead of blood-soaked Fascist dictators.

There's also a big story about the hairdresser championships in Paris that I'm not going to bore you with. (Hairdressers are homosexuals! I just learned this! ((I did not, actually, just learn this.))) 

"Home for Christmas" A Polish RAF veteran returned to Poland to visit his parents at Christmas in 1947 and spent two years there, because Communists are terrible. They put him in prison and when he got out he didn't try to escape until he punched A Communist for insulting the King of England, which miraculously gave him the super powers he needed to get through the border to eastern Germany, where no-one cares if you're a Polish RAF man trying to get back to England. Or something like that! Also, the East Germans have conceded the big chunk of German that the Poles took over, nd the Sudetenland, also officially recognised as going back to Czechoslovakia. 

East Berliners sunbathe, Communist Russians have bad manners and have turned against the Marr school of Marxian philology.  (It's actually the science of linguistics, not that Time cares.)

In this hemisphere, Latin America is tired of being seen as a backward land of revolutions, strong men and cloak and dagger affairs. "Y," writing in Foreign Affairs, says that it is actually progressing towards modern democracy, and will soon be as advanced as anyone if America can just keep to the "Good Neighbours" policy and keep its hands off. ("Y," it seems is one Louis Halle, so that's not a very good pseudonym!) And in Brazil, the Vargas and their followers turned out for Helena Fechou a Porta, a play that updates Lysistrata as a satire directed against Peron, but also Vargas. No-one is amused. 

Business

The stock market had its worst day since 21 May 1940 this week, even with industrial output on the rise and the consumer buying like mad, with weekly average earnings hitting $57.50, a record high. 

"Up From the Potato Fields" This week's cover story is William J. Levitt, of Levitt and Sons, and, more importantly four Levittowns back east that are the definition of the new subdivision, at least for New Yorkers. Or, wait, that's what I get for trying to summarise the story without reading it. It's actually a look at all the subdivisions, so we hear about Franklin White in Portland and the White Cliffs of Doelger and Paul Trousdale's coloured division in Richmond. All the cookie-cutter houses with their "mass production" styles may not bring prices down (Uncle George tried to explain why it wouldn't but it went a bit above my head), but it doesn't really matter with Government-guaranteed thirty-year mortgages. Some people say that Levittowns are the slums of the future, but William Levitt disagrees. City planners think they won't be slums because they are spacious and have playgrounds. I don't think that's what makes a slum a slum, but my degree is not in city planning, so what do I know. There seems to be a lot about houses that goes above my head! 

"Brave New Look" The fashion industry is looking back to 1948 and the shot in the arm it got from the New Look, and is hoping for a new New Look in 1950. 

Science, Medicine, Education

"The Clever Arachnids" John Crompton's new book about spiders, The Spider is a hit at Time, where I am sure the dirty old man contingent finds a lot to love in creepy little insects. 

Too many Americans don't go to the dentist often enough, while a shocking report from the Federal Security Agency says that 100,000 American children have congenital syphilis from birth. 


"Transplanted Kidney" A terrifying, hereditary disease of the kidneys was killing Mrs. Ruth Tucker, so Chicago's Little Company of Mary Hospital transplanted a "spare" kidney from a dying woman of her age, shape and blood type. The operation has been attempted on animals, not with complete success, but mrs. Tucker has lasted the week. And in a near-miraculous development in Tucson, twelve-year old Patricia Murphy is showing signs of coming out of the coma she has been in since a car accident on Mother's Day.

Time rounds up the notable retiring teachers of 1950: Wesleyan's Elizabeth Winslow, Tulane's Harry Miles Johnson, North Carolina's Dr. William de Berniere MacNider (Jeez!), Southern California's Owen Cochran Coy, Harvard's Arthur Stanley Pease, Washington University's Owen Roland Greene, the University of Washington's (that's not confusing at all!) Elizabeth Sterling Soule, and Princeton's Harold Herman Bender all make the grade. 

"Sound Cursive" Did you know that English schools have competitions to see who can write the best cursive? did you know taht a contest between Eton and Harrow will make Time? "He copied all the letters in such a handsome free--" yes, I know, English operetta isn't your cup of tea. I'll show myself out, as the comedians say. I guess it's a more important story than the next one, about some pretty new buildings on various university campuses. (The big deal is that they're glass-and-steel moderns, and not more Gothic classics.)


Radio and Television, Art, Press, People

A spokesman for GE predicted that by 1954 there will be 500 television stations, up from 105 now, broadcasting to 34 million televisions, up from 6 million now. George Gallup says that more than 6 in 10 Americans have now seen a tv show, and ATT's coast-to-coast coaxial cable and microwave relay link has been approved by the FCC and will be completed in 1952. Time thinks that WNEWS' new advertising campaign that makes fun of "sob" and "horror" stories is the best. The latest doctor's advise about TV is that you shouldn't make too much of it either way. And Arthur Treacher has a radio show! 

 Grandma Moses is getting a European tour, where all those fancy-pants European art critics are a-sayin' that she was influenced by Picasso and whatnot, whereas she's just an authentic American primitive of the kind that gets translated into silly Chinese novels, thank you for the that, Woo-Kwang Kien! You may be a hack, but anyone who boils Last of the Mohicans down to 112 pages is doing something right! Also, Fiat is fighting with the man it hired to paint the Fiat 1400 for their golden anniversary because he drew it wrong because of Cubism. So don't hire Giorgio de Chirico to paint your cars! The MoMa has given in to its critics and is doing a showing of 20th Century American painters. 
Wikipedia says that the Cod Wars killed them



The Nation is so tired of all those mimeographed weekly politica newsletters from Washington that it makes fun of them! The Washington Post is in trouble  for trying to be readable, The New York Post is silly, and Earl Selby's story on the way that the Philadelphia city jail treats panhandlers is shocking, which is why Selby gets a short profile. 

Princess Margaret is not marrying the Earl of Dalkeith. Neither William Douglas nor Louis Johnson are running for President in 1952. Mrs. Dionne is not expecting triplets. Eleanor Roosevelt is junketing in Europe, where she went to see the Roosevelt's ancestral home in Oud-Vossemeer, met the Queen and her consort, dropped in on the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg, laid a wreath on the grave of General Patton, and running across Josh ("Pinewood Tom") White, who has been laying love over yonder Europe way. Tom Dewey isn't getting a pension, as he retired too early. George Simeon, prolific Belgian author, has married hs secretary one day after divorcing his wife of 27 years. Hmmph. Lena Horne was married way back in 1947, but has been keeping it secret. Peyton Bowell, editor of Art Digest, has died of a heart attack at 47. Jane Cowl, Charles Lanier Lawrence, Max Radin, Samuel Simeon Fels and Ellia Florence Underwood died at riper ages, but heart attacks and cancer took the ones who went at less than 70. (Underwood, last surviving member of the Oneida Community, made it to 100!) And that's it!
The movie industry is in such bad shape that the Blondie movie series has been cancelled. Oh no! What will the no-one who goes to them do?

The New Pictures  

Night and the City is a 20th Century Fox British import about a terrible person who does terrible things in the London "lower depths." With wrestling. The Lawless is as "unexpected" a good movie as a "slum documentary by Cecil B. deMille." Somehow, William Pine and William C. Thomas, the infamous "Dollar Bills" of Captain Blood fame, have made an "honest, unpretentious picture about racial prejudice and mob violence." Macdonald Carey and Gail Russell seem to really feel the material, and young Lalo Rios does a good job. Another British import, Kind Hearts and Coronets, also does a good job. 

Books

Shelby Foote almost earns a "Real Name" from me. Couldn't he rustle up a pretentious middle name> anyway, he has a novel. Tragic slice of Americana, etc, etc. Nara Wydenbruck's life of Rilke is somehow the first American-published biography of the Austrian poet. Considering the sensational life, and the fact that he was a poet, this would seem to more than check off Time's middlebrow requirements, so we can go on to Richard M. Dorson's edited collection of bizarre stories from early American history, America Begins. But, no, there's an edition of the letters of Thomas Carlyle's wife to consider. Jane Carlyle. This could easily have been equal and opposite to the Rilke biography, but isn't. Ahem. What I'm saying is that it was a notoriously celibate marriage, and perhaps this was in part because Jane didn't fancy men, in that way, which might be why she got on well with men in other ways. About Thomas I have no idea. 




Aviation Week, 3 July 1950



News Digest reports that the XH-17 has been banged up in an accident when it tore free from ground moorings during a test of its 135ft(!) rotor blades. Northwest 2501 might have been downed by lightning. Boeing can't sue its machinist union for striking illegally because Boeing rescinded their contract on the first day of the strike. Charles Lawrance, designer of the Wright Whirlwind, has died. The second North American AJ-1 to explode in the air, has exploded. British lightplane designer W. H. Moss has been killed by flying his plane into a pylon during the King's Cup Race.

Industry Observer reports that  Capital Airlines is upgrading its DC-3s with a new model of engine, and so much for the DC-3 going away any time soon. Avro Canada is entering the world advertising  market by advertising the Jetliner. As opposed to joining the world airliner market. Brazil is flying SAAB, a shocking development. The Ethiopians are buying some ConvairLiners from the second-hand plane business that Floyd Odlum has established to flog them off. Australia will have an all-jet air force by 1953. (American is ordering a low-tension ignition system for its DC-6s, so modern planes get upgrades, too.) 

"Congress Straddles Issue on 70-Group AF" Aviation Week hasn't caught up with the war, and I am not bothering with last week's coverage.  

"Aid Plan May Triple Jet Output" Just in case you were wondering what th epoint of Mutual Defence Aid is. It's to sell more planes. And stop Communism. Too. 

Shorter bits note that the National Air Races have been put off until 1951, that the Northrop X-4 is ready to fly at transsonic speeds, and that the Secretary of Defence is rearranging the way guided missiles are being developed, again. This time, each of the three missile development centres is going to go under a separate service. But what about the Marines and the Coast Guard? (The Munitions Board has been reorganised, too.)

Rudolf Modley, "Minimum Wage: Industry Lessons" The lesson is that government might set minimum wages, and then the industry would have to pay people more. 

Aeronautical Engineering has C. E. Pappas, "Aero Progress Challenges the Engineer." Pappas is the chief of aerodynamics at Republic. He must have been invited to a dinner somewhere, because this is an after-dinner speech.  The kind that's not actually delivered, because the banqueters throw buns. Then the script is handed over to Aviation Week, and we have to suffer, because we don't have buns. I want buns!

"Balsa Dust Shows Rotor Flow Geometry" NACA has been sprinkling balsa dust over test rotors and taking pictures of the patterns, getting  a good, cheap image of flow dynamics. 

"Britain's Freighter Queen Makes Debut" Good thing there's no real news this eek, so that there's plenty of splace to cover a plane from five years ago. It can carry cars! Oh, and Aviation Week reminds us that it is much smaller than the XC-99. America is number one! Bristol's point is that it might not be big, but it is economica and easy to load, and has a very short takeoff run. 

"Landing Gear Fires Studied by CAA" I did not know that landing gear fires were a serious issue. But they are, and on DC-3s, too, which means that they are problems in lots of cheap flights and have been for a long time. As usual, the news hits once we can do something about it. The details of the tests are not that interesting, but it is interesting to have a list of recommendations for rpilots. The recommendation is to slow down as much as possible so that draft won't feed the fire, and you can worry about just stalling, instead. 

"Simplified Crash Fire Switch: US Market Now Being Offered New Design of Device Long Used in Britain to Actuate Fire Prevention Systems" Ahem. It is by Simmonds, and has been held out of the American market by fears that the switch would operate spontaneously and turn off the engine in mid air. A simpler arrangement (also from a British Graviner patent) has been marketed in the United States for years by Kidde and Company, which, if I recall correctly, was also involved in restraint of trade-like activity with the  methyl tetrabromide fire extinguisher.  Which, the article says, is still fighting to get into the American market! 

New Products Digest notes the dew point indicators marketed by Cook Research Laboratories and may they have more success than their aquatic lamprey fryers. Touch and Grip fingertip wrenches are distributed by Skyproducts for use in tight place and out-of-sight locations. Mission Electric of Pasadena wants us to know that its 1/30th hp electric motor is very, very small and efficient. 

In Transport news that seems relevant, Capital is going to buy Super DC-3s, which makes 3 sales for Douglas, and BOAC is confident about the future with  its new lean operations and the Stratoliner making all its scheduled flights last month. Vacation flying earned the aviation industry $164 million in the year ending May 1949. Alaska Airlines pilot James Farris has been cleared of negligence in the DC-4 crash at Seattle-Tacoma that killed nine persons in November of 1947. Farris says his brakes were faulty. CAB says they weren't. 

Letters has a very long response from Leonard David Callahan, the Director of PR for Gilfillian Brothers, refuting Captain R. C. Robson's article of 12 June that claims that ILS is dangerously unreliable. Gilfillian's system, in which GCA works with ILS,  is not vulnerable to all of the dangerous limitations Captain Robson detects in unassisted ILS. 

What's New joins the rush to review Destination Moon. What do the experts think? It's pretty good, especially the special effects. 

Editorial wants more publicity for contracts so that more people can bid; is pleased by the cancellation of the National Air Races and hopes that they never come back in the 1949 form; and thinks that it is disgraceful that the Air Force has to settle for 48 groups when farms get a 2 billion dollar subsidy. 

Time, 10 June 1950

Letters

A lot of letters about the June 19th look into farming and price supports. Farmers think it's not true that the price support system is too generous because they're not all rich. (Migrant workers certainly aren't rich.) A "Technocrat" writes in with some blither-blather, and the Reverend D. F. Gonzalo of Stockton, California, thinks that migrant worers need to be covered by social security. He also has some ideas about how farmers on price supports should have to intercrop and farm all year round. Better farming as the price of price supports seems like a good idea, but wouldn't that just make the problem of surplus crops that much worse? Also, is it really only seven years since Uncle George could make cynical jokes about how the business press always ran articles about this year's for-sure, guaranteed-to-happen-this-time famine? H. G. Nicholas of Exeter College (which is part of Oxford University, confusing, I know) writes to explain that the reason why Randolph Churchill lost the 1933 "pacifist" debate and the recent "America is horrible" debate isn't that Oxford students are pacifists or hate America. It's because Randolph Churchill is horrible. The "College Crisis" letter attracts one supporting letter, one letter that thinks that parents need to be educated into accepting higher tuitions, and a third complaining that university presidents aren't doing enough to fight inflation by getting into politics. Mrs. S. A. Divine is upset about recent articles slandering her, and Father Divine, and points out that they are just like totalitarianism. Our Publisher writes to explain why National Affairs has been pushed to the middle of the magazine to make room for 11 pages of War in Asia. I'm so glad he explained!
He's 26.

It also updates us about Frank Gibney, Time's lead Korea correspondent, though not, I think, for long, with Carl Mydans and Wilson Fielder hustling out to grab the limelight. No wonder. Gibney looks like he's about seventeen. He wrote that article about Korea from before the war that would have been so helpful if anyone bothered to read it, and he was wounded in action four days into the fighting, and now he's out of hospital and back on the front lines. Finally, our publisher apologises to the one-fifth of Americans who didn't get the revamped issue with the war in it.  

War in Asia

"In the Cause of Peace" Time explains "the way the cold war ended." The President says that America isn't in a war; it's in a "police action" against some bandits. Does that mean that WWIII is on? "Could the push-button war of the physicists start among the grass roofs of a land where men had hardly caught up with Galileo? Was this the place and was this the way in which Marx and Jefferson came to final grips?"

I don't even know what to say. Anyway, Time is pleased as punch that MacArthur is in charge, because he hates Communism, unlike . . . I don't know. Maybe seven Americans who are keeping awfully quiet about it? Also, it's happy with the Seventh Fleet deploying to the Straits, and it's still nursing sour grapes over us giving up on the Koumintang. Oh. And we have the first American casualty list of the Korean War, 15 officers and men killed in a transport crash on the way to Korea. 


"The Consequences" The President promised air and sea support to the Koreans, but 24 hours later he had MacArthur's call for American ground support before him. The standing NSC plan for responding to North Korean aggression already called for air and sea support, ammunition amd a Security Council resolution, but the National Security Council had never been able to make up its mind about ground support. General Bradley said that Korea wasn't worth it from a strategic standpoint, but the State Department, "backed by the Navy," said that American prestige was at stake. The President decided for MacArthur/State/Navy, and the ground troops are on their way. Congress agreed, and gave the President the power to draft next year's class of 19-26 year olds, and the power to call up the National Guard. Also, the Mutual Defence Assistance bill went through, with $1.2 billion for Europe and "at least"(!!!!) $16 million for Korea and the Philippines. With the old isolationists gone, it was time for the new isolationists, including James Kenn, Kenneth Wherry, George Mason, and, stepping forward to take the lead, Robert Taft, who thinks that the President doesn't have the legal authority to fight a police action. They're for the war, but still against Dean Acheson, who they say, ought to resign for not giving Korea more aid before the war. "If only the Secretary of State had fought me harder and prevented me from having my way, this war could have been avoided," Senator Taft only as much as said. No worry, though, Time is here to remind us!


"The Time in Korea" Now that the nation is in police action over Korea, it is time to ask Dallas citizens where Korea is? The answer is that they don't know, but once they were reminded that it was a police action, they at once answered that Korea was in the back seat of America's prowl car being driven the long way round to the courthouse. 

"Little Man and Friends" Everyone agrees that the Koreans can't really defend themselves unless Americans do it for them, because South Koreans are little men only just up from their sickbed. No-one can stop the North Korean tanks, which evidently don't need KMAG advisors to be their "battalion and regimental commanders," and when "American F-82s and jets" intervene, Communist Yaks retaliated with a "destructive sneak attack" on Suwon airfield. That is, until the North Korean tanks captured Suwon. At this point KMAG is on the retreat to Taejon, hoping to hold out on the Kum River, if they can only find some Korean troops to lead. 


Failing that, 24th Infantry Division is on its way by sea, with a spearhead battalion arriving by air to hold the Kum River line.  The commander of 24th Division, General William Dean, has been put in charge of US forces in Korea. That I guess leaves out the Koreans, and also the British and Australian navies, which have shown up to show willing by shooting at some shore targets. 
If you're wondering how F-82s come to be shooting down Yaks, this is a Yak-11

 

"Help Seemed Far Away" Frank Gibney's report from the front line, describes how he flew in from Tokyo with three other correspondents, including Marguerite Higgins of the Herald Tribune, on the third day of the war. He arrived to find Korean troops "quietly confident," and American officers burning documents. Once done that, Lieutenant Colonel Edward Scott drove them to KMAG headquarters in Seoul, where the acting commander of KMAG, chief-of-staff Lieutenant Colonel Sterling Wright, was confident, Japanese-trained Korean Colonel Kim Pak Il, less so. At midnight, the correspondents were turned around and sent back to Suwon, as Seoul was about to fall. (So much for "war hysteria"!

By this time, an anonymous major seemed to be in charge at KMAG. The Korean soldiers retreating down the ring road to the Han river bridge were relaxed and singing, but the civilians headed south were definitely not. The correspondents were  mined off the Han river bridge by the South Koreans, demolishing the bridge before it could fall into North Korean hands. Gibney suffered his scalp wound in the explosion, although all the Korean troops on the truck in front of the correspondents were killed. At three in the morning, the correspondents reached a KMAG house in a suburb of Seoul, and from there they left at dawn for the ferry point across the Han, where they joined more retreating Korean troops, including a major of MPs, and a "stubbled infantryman with a cluster of grenades dangling from his belt," who explained that "Morale is fine.

We have the best morale in the world . . . but what can moral do against planes and tanks?" Fortunately, by the time they arrived in Suwon, B-26s were landing, and all the Koreans were cheering for America. 

"Over the Mountains: Mountains" General MacArthur is the subject of this week's revised cover story. I've skimmed this article in a bit more detail than I usually give cover stories, mainly to find actual information, always hard to come by from MacArthur's "sphinx-like" headquarters. I'm pleased to say that my efforts were rewarded, as I learn that Colin Kelly's Far East Air Force has "400-odd fighters, 60-odd bombers and one troop carier group . . . scattered across the Pacific." In practice, that means B-29s, B-26s, F-80s and F-82s over Korea. USS Juneau is on station off the coast of Korea, while the core of 7th Fleet, Valley Forge, a heavy cruiser, six destroyers and four submarines, are being sent to the Straits. Philippine Sea, two heavy cruisers and eight destroyers are on their way from the West Coast, and Britain's Far Eastern Fleet has offered three cruisers and seven destroyers to the naval blockade of Korea. As for what might happen in the future, Koreans say, "Over the mountains, more mountains." 

"For Small Fires" After a long story about the Security Council resolution calling for "police action" in Korea, Time turns to politics at home. Styles Bridges asked Admiral Hillenkoeter over to the Senate to explain why no-one predicted the Korean War. The admiral pointed out that Central Intelligence did predict the Korean War, just not with certainty, since there could have been an outbreak in about five other places, too. Decisions to attack or not to attack could be "made in a matter of hours," so "surprise was inevitable." The American armed forces were up to the challenge of Korea, but probably not a global war, unless that could be won by atom-bombing Moscow. But it is safe to conclude that Secretary Johnson's economy drive was "absurd," that America needed to call up reserve ordnance technicians amongst others,and two more divisions. The Air Force needs to call up 200,000 reservists and bring two groups of B-29s out of mothballs on their way to the long-promised 70 group air force. The navy wants to start reconditioning escort carriers and anti-submarine destroyers, and wants to call up 200,000 reservists of its own. Not bad against an enemy with no ships! 

"Blueprints for War" America has plans for total war, and it is time to dust them off under the Emergency Powers Act, which will allow the President to control lots of industry, issue giant contracts, and maybe eventually have a "labour draft."  

National Affairs

"Valley Forge: 1950" Forty-six thousand Boy Scouts turned out for the 1950 jamboree, which was in Valley Forge, which is very symbolic because it is where the Continental Army went into winter quarters in the Revolutionary War. (Either the winter of 1776/7, or a year later, I can't be bothered to look it up, and refuse to be the person who explains what "winter quarters" are to my father-in-law, who surely knows!) The Scouts had lots of fun, and President Truman gave a speech in which he pointed out that the Boy Scouts are completely different from the Hitler Youth and the Red Pioneers in some way that Time doesn't bother to explain, although I'm sure the President did. 

"Calling a Halt" The Senate committee in charge of being McCarthy's circus has called a halt to centre ring activities until it has come up with a report that lays out what it's actually found out about Communists at the State Department, which would appear to be nothing. Senator McCarthy took time out to denounce the report, which will be a disgrace to the Senate once it actually exists. Also, Herman Talmadge is Governor of Georgia again and Hayword Patterson's Scotsboro Boy, which is about the Scottsboro case and Patterson's life in Alabama prisons, and is "calculated to scrape old wounds and inflame Southern readers," which is probably the reason why the FBI just arrested Patterson in Michigan at Alabama's request, although for violating federal rules against felons crossing state lines "to avoid imprisonment." 

"Ring and the Proletariat" Ring Lardner is a "late, great American humourist," who had four sons, who all became writers, one of whom, Jim, died fighting in Spain for the International Brigades. David also died while serving as a war correspondent, leaving John to provide grandchildren as a sportswriter, and Ring, Junior, to go to jail for being a Communist and saying Communist things. For example, he has joined the "Communist-aligned Civil Rights Congress" in condemning America for keeping political prisoners. The nerve!

"Pike and Pique" The AEC is upset that Bourke Hickenlooper is now threatening to hold up the nomination of its new chairman, a New England Republican named Sumner Pike.  Princeton physicist, Henry D. Smyth, turned out to explain to the Committee that unless the AEC has some actual members, it is going to be hard for it to run an H-bomb project. Hickenlooper explained his opposition by saying that while Pike is intelligent and a fountain of integrity, he is a "square peg in a round hole." (He was also anti H-bomb at one point. Perhaps more importantly, he is anti-political patronage. Oops!) The AEC is left hoping that the Senate will reverse the committee's recommendation. 

Manners and Morals reports on the case of two housewives in Connecticut who are fighting each other even though they are neighbours and (former) friends. One kicked the other, then the other sued the other, and then when the settlement was $2/week for 600 weeks,sent the other to jail under the Eighteenth Century "Body Execution Law," leading the other to get out of jail under the Seventeenth Century "Poor Debtor's Oath." Really, ladies. And the Reverend Patten is headed for jail.

"The Case of the $12 Sheep" "As workers of Idaho's rich Camas Prairie soil, four strapping young bucks from the Indian reservation had the time, the money and the inclination to go on a hard-drinking tear now and again although federal law prohibits sale of liquor to Indians." Last October, they stole a sheep, probably as a prank, went before a country judge who promised them leniency if they confessed, then locked them up for fourteen years when they did. Their lawyers appealed on the grounds they'd been denied counsel, and now they're getting another trial. Oddly, the prosecutor who told them to plead guilty is named --J. Morey O'Donnell-- but not the judge who thought that substituting fourteen years for a theoretical death sentence for grand larceny was a good idea. Also a story involving Indians is a cloud-seeder who got ten grand out of the Navajo nation for some rain making. Indians,

you see, believe in that stuff, but, even more funny, ten of the twelve members of the Navajo council are college-educated, and actually understand how scientific rainmaking works. Seems like some college, considering no-one else does. 

Foreign News

Quieuelle is the new premier of France. The latest thing in reconstructing old-time ships has a tragic ending, as Sten Schroeder's Viking longship replica, the Lusty Snake, is lost with all hands in a North Sea storm. Two bodies have been recovered. 

"Next Target" Could the menace of international communism have selected Iran as its next target? Could be!  

While in this hemisphere, the OAS is backing the fight against international communism, small wonder, while a $5 million bond issue to fund a hydroelectric dam on the Rio Lempo in El Salvador has sold out in spite of being targeted at the El Salvadorean middle class, the existence of which was assumed by the bond issuers on the grounds that El Salvador has some $23 million in gold coins and large bills in hoards, and the Twenty Families only hoard US dollars. (The money of the Twenty Families was not wanted in the bond issue because "it was better used in private investment.") 

Canada gets back in the news because Maurice Duplessis is very colourful. He should be. He's a Latin! Altough the actual story is that Quebec Catholics are united in opposing a story in Maclean's magazine that says that Quebec Catholics are disunited and fighting. I cannot roll my eyes hard enough. Oh, wait, no, there's as story about Queen Mary's sampler being sold to the Imperial Order of Daughters of the Empire for $100,000.

Business

Remember how Louis Johnson's economy drive was the most absurd thing ever? Well, the US deficit is down $2 billion from the originally forecast $5.5 billion. So much for that!

"The Bears of War" Communists say that Wall Street provokes war because it is good for business. Wall Street says that the Commies are wrong, that war is bad for Wall Street, and bad for business. Sure enough, the war has led to a big sell-off. On the other hand, Time has to admit that it's a pretty normal adjustment, and that stocks are poised to grow, so maybe the Communists are right! No, Time is not going to think about that. 

State of Business reports that business is jittery over word that manufacturers are switching to war production. So far, rumours have hit International Harvester, which was supposed to be getting out of tractors and into tanks. Actually, it just has a contract for some trucks. Then it was Detroit going all in for tanks. It's not. The NSRB issued $900 million in phantom orders months ago. They're get the Detroit Arsenal ready for tank production if necessary, and once the NSRB orders it. Commodity men have been told that the strategic reserve is not going to pick up buying. It is not clear just how much procurement the Government can do in an uncontrolled economy before inflation kicks in. Steel has been running at over 100% of theoretical capacity without denting demand, while employment has hit 61 million, a postwar high, and is still rising. The economy does have much more capacity than in WWII, after an $80 billion investment boom, and the thought was that spare capacity would emerge by the end of the year, so maybe there won't be inflation. 

"Counterattack" The Federal Reserve Board's antitrust suit against Transamerica is in trouble. Transamerica owns 46 banks, but has now sold 22 of them to Bank of America, which it controls with 11.1% of stock. The FRB wants to block the sale, but it was approved by the Comptroller of the Currency. 
The sewing machines are all over Google; clothes not so much


"Muzak Has Charms" Harry Houghton's empire of "piped" music made $5 million last year off music over telephone wires. It is now talking about its own (tape) recording facility so that it can extend its reach beyond phones, into planes and other places without connections. I'm a little conflicted, as I don't  like elevator  music, but I am 100% in favour of even more expansion of the music-taping business, what with the family interest. 


Speaking of business I'm in, Henry Rosenfeld and Jacques Fath just went in on a deal to pay Aldo Borletti a cool fifty grand plus 10 percent for copying rights on their Italian design lines, figuring that they stood to sell a clear two million of 500 models a year. Can't say they're wrong, either. 


And Congress can't decide on tax increases to balance the tax cuts it wants to make. Which seems pointless with a war on, but I guess we're just asking for inflation. 




Science, Medicine, Education

"Freedom is Necessary" Dr. Henry Smyth took time out from fighting with Bourke Hickenlooper to tell Scientific American that freedom and science go together like a horse and carriage, which is why those Nazis and Soviet Reds are so bad at science, and why all these espionage laws and loyalty oaths are a bad idea. Also, it turns out that those mysterious bangs heard around Dayton were Air Force jet fighters diving at above the speed of sound, producing an explosive shock wave. 

"Crystal Memory" Computing machines, as we know, are getting brainier and brainier. The latest, the Standards Eastern Automatic Computer (SEAC), built by the National Bureau of Standards, has no moving parts at all. The bain cells consist of 12,800 germanium diodes instead of the vacuum tubes used in other computers. Modern descendants of the old crystals in crystal-controlled radios, they are "small, trouble-free and quick," allowing electric pulses to circulate at the rate of around a million a second. It uses the mercury-delay line method of storing interim results, that is, as "memory," and in Williams Memory Tubes, which are cathode ray tubes that store information as "electrified dots on the tube's faces," which "can be recalled in twelve millionths of a second, compared to 168 for the mercury delay lines.
BEhind the scenes at SEAC

 

"Hot Fence" I don't know if you remember how the Atlantic lamprey has been conquering the Great Lakes since they arrived with the opening of the Welland Canal, but Time does, and reminds us that it covered the story in '47. Well, good news, engineers at the Cook Electrical Company (hee!) have come up with a possible solution. They've found that lamprey separate from their prey when it is time to swim up tributary rivers to spawn, which is a good time to hit them with an electric zap with a hot fence in the water. I certainly can't see any practical problems with that, but Cook does. Specifically, the lamprey migrate to spawn at the same time as other fish, so now Cook is trying to find a way to "irritate" the other fish so that they separate from the lamprey, who can then be electrocuted at ease. 


Fishing seems to make some men crazy. Not the only thing, for sure, but Scotch and women don't make men dangle live electric wires in running water. Most men. 

Herman Sander's has had his medical license restored and is back in practice. A funny little story about how pediatrician Herbert Glick tried to induce measles in a sixteen-month-old patient who had come down with nephrosis, a mysterious kidney ailment that sometimes responds positively to measles for unknown reasons. He tried and he tried to no avail, but then her four-year-old cousin came by for a visit, and a few days later they were both down with the disease. Happy ending! 

The University of Missouri has been opened up to Coloured students following the Supreme Court ruling about separate and equal being separate and equal. The NEA says that on account of all the new students, US educational systems should build more schools. Peter Viereck of Harvard has discovered that George Babbitt's son, Gaylord, is a middlebrow. Which I know reads like Greek to you, but I'm not going to explain it, just take it away and nurse it. Because if Viereck is making fun of middlebrows, maybe I should stop. And some women's colleges are trying to enroll boys, because they can't get enough girls. Specifically, famous and prestigious Frances Shimer College of Mount Carroll, Illinois. 


"Doctors at War" The annual meeting of the AMA saw 10,000 US doctors turn out to be bored out of their skulls by the spectacle of a Fishbein-less conference. Everyone agreed to pay seventeen grand for a national radio address against socialised medicine, which will lead to socialism in the model of the "socially and economically bankrupt nations of Europe, which we, the American people, are seeking to rescue from poverty and oppression." The AMA is also promising $1.1 million to fight socialised medicine in the congressional elections. Then, maybe just getting a little tired of politics, the AMA gave Dr. Evarts Graham an award for being a really good surgeon. 

Radio and Television, Press, Art, People

WNBC New York has commissioned some poets and novelists to write fancy signoffs, while Ford Movie Night on WOR-TV sees itself as being in direct competition with the movies. 

"Drawing the Line" Time is pleased as punch that the US press has lined up behind the President over Korea. Except for The Daily Worker. And the McCormick Press, which is very upset at the President for trying to run a war, and the Russians for invading Korea. No surprise that the press is for the war, as circulation is through the roof. 

Shorter news news includes the Sunday Express' Nat Gubbins being hilariously rude to people, the New York Times censoring the word "corset," and the Newspaper Guild raising money for "Project X," which would seem to be a paper owned by the Guild to employ unemployed journalists, of which there are more every month. And Paul Scott of the Atlantic has opinions about something or other buried in the middle of a very long column I'm not going to read. Just like The Atlantic! (I'm more a New Yorker gal.)

Joan Miro gets a show at Paris' Maeght Gallery and a super-long article. A trove of Renaissance paintings has been found in the tax archives of Siena, originally commissioned as cover portraits of tax commission reports, they escalated into vibrant miniatures in the Renaissance style done by some of Siena's leading painters. Wow! I wonder what else is in there? And just to show that art is everywhere, a closing feature on designer Charles Eames' office chairs. 





Robert Penn Warren has (boo, hiss!) written a book. Syngman Rhee's doctoral dissertation has been hauled out of the vaults at Princeton for a look-see. Helen Hayes, Robert Flaherty, Harold Ross, Erskine Caldwell, Jane Wyman, Gloria Swanson, Eleanor Roosevelt and, for some reason, Juan Peron are bolded in a long column about how they are promoting the things they are promoting right now. Louis Armstrong has had a birthday. Tallulah Bankhead was involved. Ernie Bevin is in bed suffering from hemorrhoids. Princess Illeana of Romania is in Boston being treated for arthritis and selling some of the family jewels. Hamilton Fish is running for the Republican senatorial nomination in New York because Fascism is back. Dixon Wecter is the latest famous name to be taken by heart disease at far too young an age (44!) Eliel Saarinen, Metropolitan Theophilus and Albert Aston BErg all made it into their seventies.

The New Pictures

Destination Moon "proves that in Hollywood, the sky's no longer the limit." Time seems to like it, mainly because of the "wizardry of the movie camera" and the lack of romance. Although it sternly disapproves of including a low-brow from Brooklyn as comic relief. I guess Time thinks real Moon missions won't take any comic relief along at all? It is not impressed with The Next Voice You Hear, which is theatrical and patronising and sticky and grotesque and manipulative and even more words I'm not going to bother repeating, although Nancy Davis is pretty and her pregnancy is handled frankly.

Books

Anthony Trollope's Orley Farm gets a new edition because Knopf thinks a Trollope revival is due, and that Orley Farm deserves to be the first book in it, and not some second rate snoozefest like Vanity Fair. (That's sarcasm!) And then oh Sweet Jesus Christ it is a review of a collection of poems by a dead poet from so long ago that he wears old-timey clothes in the cut, edited by a modern editor. George Babbit, save me! Timothy Angus Jones has a novel, The Small Hours of the Night, which sounds perfectly fine, while Albert Johannsen's The House of Beadle and Adams and Its Dime and Nickel Novels seems like a trend. This house was American, so it was patriotic  trash, and the author of the "Deadwood Dick" series had only never been over the Appalachians, instead of the Atlantic, which might be an improvement. Or not. Anyway, Nineteenth Century dime novels are having their moment in the sun, take it from me. 



Aviation Week, 10 July 1950


Last week's Aviation Week had a "normal" ad for maybe the first time since the end of the war, a lady typing on an IBM Selectric. Way back in '43, you could see the point of the ad, since the companies were pretty much being run by women due to all the men being at the war. I'm sure that's not true, at least, not yet, this time around, but it is still eye-opening how fast IBM got back into the technical magazine market. That's all preliminary to pointing out that this week's number has a Jack and Heintz ad. Remember when they were the single worst contract padders called out by the Truman Committee? It's hard to believe they're even still in business, but here they are. 

No big pictorial of assorted new planes to share with you this week. Instead there's a big feature of the Bristol Brabazon, which seems cavernous but nice, but surely won't ever fly in commercial service. 

News Digest reports that  the army has placed a contract for 400 Cessna 305s as liaison planes. War, what is it good for? Money! Elmer Minton has resigned as sales manager for Curtiss Propeller because there's got to be a better employer out there. Convair has an ad out for 3000 additional hands to upgrade the B-36 with those wing-pod turbojets. The Avro Jetliner is far too busy to possibly fly the Atlantic this summer. 

Industry Observer reports that the new model of the Constellation, with an 18ft longer cabin, will do test flights this fall. It can carry 108 passengers, and will be upgraded with turboprops very soon now. Boeing will have the XB-52 ready for test flying in '52. Douglas is the latest company to promise turboprops in a new plane, the DC-6. Air France is selling off its PBY-5As now that the airports on Guadelope and Martinique have opened. The Double Mamba-powered Fairy 17 has completed deck landing trials, while the Westland TF.2. (torpedo) fighter has just begun them. "Assault freighter" tests at Elgin have been delayed while another major aircraft builder is given time to see if it can strip its plane down to match the Fairchild C-125


"New Airway Radio Problem: FM and TV" The CAA and FCC are studying interference between commercial broadcasting and omniranges. Aircrew have been worrying about this for months, leading to speculation and rumours. For a while it was thought to be broadcasting stations, but it looks as though it is actually due to radiation from home receivers, which is where regulations will have to fall. Or, more likely, receiving equipment on aircraft will be made less susceptible, or perhaps both. The FCC has the power to regulate, but it doesn't actually know just how strong the reradiated signals from American equipment is. (I throw the national qualifier in because I think this is regulated in Europe.) It is also likely that the problem will, in part, go away on its own as wartime equipment is retired, as it was more sensitive. 

"Millions Asked for Radar Warning Net" The President has asked for $30 million for he radar warning net and $6 million for the Banana River (which is a real name), Florida missile testing ground. Banana River is the one testing missiles with a 5000 mile range. Also, Congress has voted $130 million for wind tunnels. 

A short bit features Yugoslavia's attempt to build up an aviation industry so that its air force won't have to depend on Russian aircraft the Russians won't sell, anyway. 

"British Unveil New Night Fighter" This has been in the works for a long time now. A Meteor night fighter version of the Meteor 7 dual trainer with an extended nose for radar and a big belly tank, which can't be good for performance, although I guess the new Derwent 8 engine has some "go.". It's all quite boring and the story is illustrated with pictures of the very, very pretty Hawker P. 1081. 


"USAF Buying New Fire Detector: $10 Million to be Spent in Equipping all Aircraft with "Fireye," Claimed to be Fool-Proof Alarm" It is actually a heat detector, a photoelectric eye plus an amplifier to light the warning on the dash. The big deal is that it is tested out as failproof, so I guess therefore "foolproof."

New Aviation Products reports Rhodes Lewis Corporation's lilnear actuator for opening and closing cockpit canopies, with a clutch and brake that allows the pilot to close the canopy to the exact amount desired. Eutetectic Welding Alloys Corporation has EutecRod 1807 silver joining alloy with an 1800 degree remelting temperarture and twice the conductivity of other welding metals. The Packard Division of GM has a low tension single-conductor 1000v cable for aircraft electrical systems. Connecticut Hard Rubber's Teflon moldings are actually moldings for Teflon, which will allow more uses for the product, which can be harder and have lower porosity in new applications. Arrow-Hart and Hegeman Electric of Connecticut has a highly versatile "PPS" type push-pull selector switch. 

Aeronautical Engineering has yet more giant airplane bumpf from England, with a "Six-Jet Flying Boat" proposal from Saunders-Roe. Saunders-Roe says that there is a "definite market" for its Duchess.

(Which is newer and bigger than its Princess, which, you might be surprised to learn, is how it works with noble titles on the Continent. It's also pure moonshine. I mean, how do they manage to make themselves believe this at Saro?) 

And since there's still no word from Korea, a long article about industry scholarships for university aeronautical engineering degrees follows. 

Avionics has "Gage Detects Coating Thickness" Oh, for gosh sake, it's a capacitance meter. You put a 500kHz signal into the coating and when the capacitor fires, you have your thickness. I'm sure it is super accurate and all that, because it is from the National Bureau of Standards, but if you ask me, Standards is abusing its privileges getting this "article" into Aviation Week. It's a government agency, it shouldn't be advertising something private business can already supply.  

If you aren't already sick of hearing about Capital Airlines, the two Capital DC-3 crashes last year were caused by pilot error. That's the one where the pilot overshot Washington National and landed in the Potomac, and the one in California, strictly California Arrow, which is only associated with Capital, that flew into a mountain. It was flying too low. 

What's New thrills with the latest Book of ATSM Standards

Letters is mostly about money and subsidies, although Donald Sprague of Turco writes in to congratulate George Christian for his excellent article about fuel tank stripping the Turco way. You might remember about how it is much harder than you'd t hink to get that crashproofing/bulletproofing layer of rubber out of the inside of a fuel tank before you put in a new coating. 









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