Shaughnessy,
Vancouver, Canada
Dear Father:
Here's your friendly letter from the frontlines of the war-to-come, the land of camphor and oolong tea! If Mao builds a navy, that is. Or needs one, because the Koumintang stops surrendering to the first Red soldier they see. You will be glad to know that we are doing our part. Reggie is pretending to atom bomb China, in hopes that the Reds . . . I don't know. What are we hoping? That the Reds bomb us first? Meanwhile, I'm a little ahead of the news again, so I've heard of Inchon, which definitely means that America has pulled it out and managed to defeat mighty North Korea. I feel so patriotic! 
Considering some of the things said about Koreans and "Orientals" in the press these last two weeks, I wonder about whether it is some kind of cosmic coincdence that The Black Rose is out, featuring the long ago English hero who brought compasses, gunpowder, and paper to the backwards West. What goes around comes around? Or is this an even more subtle way of belittling Asia? Ronnie has her doubts!
Oh, and you're wondering what I'm doing. Besides doubting, I mean! Learning to cook on a wok and getting to the point where I actually want to see my subscription to The Economist catch up with me. As for yours, I am glad to think that you are already looking ahead to the arrangements for me to resume law school next fall. I've had rumblings from Chicago that my Dad wants to pay for our nanny, and if he wants to be involved, he should be. If not, I will gladly take you up on your offer, although it is early days yet to make plans, tempting fate and all.
Your Loving Daughter,
Ronnie
Time, 9 September 1950
Letters
Arthur Tuckerman, of New York City, although he says he's a travelling man, agrees that Americans have come all over serious and high minded due to the Korean Police Action. For example, in one southern town, everyone was dour and discouraging when the pranksters of the American Legion carried out their long-scheduled Main Street pranking. (Mr. Tuckerman assumes that we know what these are. I don't. Not really something that happens around Palo Alto!) W. T. Dixon, of Lincoln, Nebraska, thinks that Congress better vote for total mobilisation soonest, before the Communists blow up Congress or invade America, or something like that. Many female correspondents are upset at Cora Carlyle's advice for getting a husband, which she thinks will just lead to a divorce, next.Correspondent Nan D. Speir and National Geogrqphic have dropped notes by the Map Department to the effect that the coastal railroad from Pohang to Yongdok does not, in fact, exist, being only planned at this point. Several Harvard men write in to point out that a statue that Time showed in a 1907 photograph has been moved since.
Major James Holland of the Korean Military Advisory Group writes to defend the South Korean Army. Harry Brund, of New York City, doesn't like cats. Our Publisher wrties to oint out that Time's domestic coverage is delivered by 38 full time correspondents at eleven bureaus, so that is very impressive. I think. Maybe Newsweek has 380 at 110 bureaus! I don't know!
National Affairs
The President is upset because it rained on him during his vacation up at Shangri-La, Congress is putting in restrictions to his war powers and making him loan money to Franco, the railways are coming out on strike, MacArthur is talking about Formosa and the Navy Secretary is talking about bombing Moscow. (No wonder there's talk in the Boston real estate business that all the rich people want country homes well away from the bombs!) I guess I don't have to tell you about MacArthur's letter to the VFW convention. I bet it even made the Vancouver papers! The question is what Time makes of it, because Time has such decided opinions about Communists and the Koumintang, and Time is Time. The answer is that it strains very hard to be impartial and above the fray. My feeling is that that's because MacArthur's behaviour is pretty hard to justify, and from the look of it, the whole thing was coordinated by the General's friends at US News and World Report and the McCormick and (and maybe the other conservative chains?). All the political sympathy in the world isn't going to get Time in bed with the Colonel, and US News is a festering sore on the face of the news magazine business.
Also, Communists, and specifically Lee Pressman and Ben Gold, late president of the International Fur and Leather Workers' Union, are terrible. So terrible that NBC is delaying the fall premier of the TV version of The Aldrich Family because actress Jean Muir was named as a "leftie" by a directory published by Counterattack, AFL longshoremen are refusing to unload Russian and Polish cargoes, the By-the-Sea Hotel in Wentworth, New Hampshire has cancelled a speech by Owen Lattimore because no-one wants to hear what some pinko has to say, and the LA County Board of Supervisors has given all Communists and Communist sympathisers until 1 September to register with the seriff's office or be hit by a $500 fine and six months in jail for every day's delay. Speaking of mady spinning things rupturing in mid-motion and flying off in all directions with deadly results, American Airline's red-eye Los Angeles-New York via Chicago flight suffered a prop failure somewhere near Denver last week. The blade cut an amazingly large hole in the fuselage, while the overspeeding engine tore itself right out of the engine mounting. One man died of a heart attack, everyone else lived.
"A Tremendous Victory" The railroad strike story gets its own story, which is only fair. Industry and unions deadlocked, the Government has taken over the national rails, and the unions expect an arbitration award in their favour.
"Bull by the Tail" A metallurgical engineer previously employed by the Manhattan Project is going to jail for keeping a tiny bit of plutonium as a souvenir. It is a crime, but everyone thinks it was just a bit of a lark and no harm done, but the law's the law. Sanford Lawrence Simons even showed it off to neighbours, which is strictly forbidnik in the Official NKVD Spy Manual!
"In and Out" The Ninth Circuit took one look at the order revoking Harry Bridges' bail because he might take the docks out on strike to stop loadings for Korea on account of b eing a Communist, and spanked the wrists of everyone involved. Manners and Morals reports that 355 billion cigarettes were sold and smoked in America last year, up 3 billion from the year before.
"Rescue in the Fog" Time's story about the wreck of the USS Benevolence. Again, I'm pretty sure that the Vancouver papers managed to cover the wreck of an 11,000 ton Navy hospital ship four miles off the Golden Gate. Time reports that both Benevolence and the Mary Luckenbach, the 13000 ton freighter that rammed it, were equipped with radar, but neither were using it. The Mary Luckenbach seems to have been making 15 knots in a pea-soup San Francisco fog, outbound in the inbound channel, and as of week's end the count of the dead stood at 18. 
(Fortunately, it was on a trials run after a refit and there were no patients aboard.)
(Fortunately, it was on a trials run after a refit and there were no patients aboard.)
Background for War
"The Man on the First Plane" Time visits Strategic Air Command and its commander, General Curtis LeMay. Time reports that a B-36 costs $4.7 million "before it even gets off the ground," takes two-and-a-half tanker cars to fill up, now has those wingtip jet engines that allow it to keep ahead of fighters, is commanded by a captain or major with 3000 hours of flying experience (your son says that "3000 hours used to be a big deal"), carries 100lbs of food for a thirty hour flight. The number of B-36s in service is secret, "but the US now has more atom bombs than B-36s." Only 3 of SAC's 14 groups have B-36s, the rest flying B-29s and B-50s. The rest of the article is about LeMay, who is so serious about his job that he makes his officers wear sidearms and has his bases "protected against paratrooper surprises."
That sounds just a bit nuts, if you ask me.
War in Asia
"Next?" The war in Korea is very serious and grown-up but unfortunately it is also boring. General Walker hasn't been relieved, so there's no drama in high offices. There are more than five divisions of American troops besides the South Koreans in the Pusan Perimeter, which sounds like a lot to fight a country of 10 million North Koreans. UN troops and Marines are on the way. Walker's army will switch over to a counterattack soon, which no-one expects the North to hold, and MacArthur's staff isi predicting that the war will be over by Thanksgiving, with North Koreans surrendering, up to and including an artillery colonel. So the thought is that Moscow better turn the page and start some trouble somewhere else soon. We've been in Korea so long, we even know a North Korean genera's name. (Kim Mu Chong. It's Kim Mu Chong.) Time went to visit the 27th Infantry and heard about repeated Red tank attacks down the road against their position.
"From MacDonald to MacArthur" The British contingent for Korea is embarking from Hong Kong. It includes the Argyll and Sutherlands, a battalion of a Highland regiment, so there were bagpipes and, since the British Commissioner for Southeast Asia is a MacDonald, one Malcolm, Time marvels at how Scottish it all is.
"Mao's Troubles" Time eagerly reports on talk of resistance and dissent in mainland China.
"Hairline Decision" Tibet is recalling the ambassador it sent to London, because Peking is upset about it. However, he apparently can't return until he has grown out his hair, is the excuse for delaying. Meanwhile, Time is upset at Nehru for trying to mediate the Korean war and for rejecting the UN partition plan for Kashmir. Also in India, an earthquake in remote Assam province was heralded by fleeing refugees and a vast wave of debris and bodies, as they do not have phones or radios or telegraphs up there, is the drift of the article. How do they run their railroads? And don't tell me they don't have railroads after a century of British rule! And the UN --surprise, surprise-- is fighting over Korea. Time is upset at Joseph Malik for holding it up, but Time thinks that a UN plan for a unified Korea, set up under UN supervision, will come out of the General Assembly.
"
Thoughts and Actions" With the Western Union's first air manoeuvres behind it, the foreign and defence ministers met in Paris to talk about the Western Union army and what was keeping it. Time reports that the Europeans want more American money, and is very upset at all of its bureaucracy. And takes up a page and more to say this! Time goes on to report that the Russians are mining uranium in Eastern Germany, which is bad because they are Communist mines, and also because the Russians are mistreating their German workers in various ways.
Thoughts and Actions" With the Western Union's first air manoeuvres behind it, the foreign and defence ministers met in Paris to talk about the Western Union army and what was keeping it. Time reports that the Europeans want more American money, and is very upset at all of its bureaucracy. And takes up a page and more to say this! Time goes on to report that the Russians are mining uranium in Eastern Germany, which is bad because they are Communist mines, and also because the Russians are mistreating their German workers in various ways.
The Greeks are a very excitable people. Populists and Monarchists are feuding in Crete, with two private armies besieging Mount Ida, where star-cross lovers (he a Monarchist, she of a Populist family) are hiding in the cave where Zeus was born. And in Athens, an engineered cabinet collapse has brought Sophokis Venizelos to the premier's office.
Business
State of Business reports that the boom goes on, with more hiring and a bigger manpower squeeze.
"First Pinch" Rubber is the first strategic material to go on allocation under mobilisation. Louis Johnson told Congress last week that copper, aluminum and steel might follow, aluminum first. Then Time pops over to Detroit to cover the UAW's deal with Chrysler, which is quite nice. Then it is to the Mobilisation Board, where everything is going smoothly but disaster is confidently predicted by Hanson Baldwin due to the lack of Congressionally authorised regulating and coordinating power.
"Stab in the Back" On the fiscal side, all of this spending will spark inflation. So what is the Federal Reserve Board going to do about it? The FRB wants higher interest rates and less credit, but Treasury calls that a "stab in the back," because it needs easy money and low rates to keep the national debt down.
"The Price of Support" The Commodity Credit Corporation is keeping the price supports so high that it can't unload its surpluses on the armed services, which are buying on the open market instead. Also, the broomcorn crop is down 31% this year, leading to a likely shortage of brooms, as the Pentagon needs lots of brooms. Australia has received a $100 million World Bank loan to spend on American macinery for its five-year economic development plan. A further $150 million loan is likely. 
Science, Medicine, Education
"March of Progress" Time reports on a potpourri of progress. Dayton has come up with a parachute that thinks for itself (it deploys on a timer if the airman doesn't deploy it first.) The National Bureau of Standards (oh God oh God oh God), has a new electronic calculator that "in a mere four hours can solve 150 simultaneous algebraic equations involving 4,000,000 arithmetic operations. It can also perform a million additdions a minute and even make a stab at translating foreign languages. (Present vocabulary 200 words.) It if had been around in WWII, Time tells us, this Standards Western Automatic Computer (SWAC) would have replaced hundreds of "women calculating machine operators" and saved a year in compiling rocket tables because it needs no sleep and "has no love problems." Poor, poor little SWAC! Also, I notice what you did there, Time. Don't think I didn't! The Argonne National Lab has a new radiation detector that is really, really small. Smaller than a cigarette lighter small. The mad scientists at Barr Harbour's Roscoe B. Jackson Memorial Laboratory have bred a pair of Siamese cats with orange points, straw bodies and blue eyes. 
"Early Peak" This year's polio epidemic won't set a record, as it peaked early, and cases will come in under last year's 42,375.
"Just Helping Out" Scandalous reports of doctors making over a thousand dollars a day doing x-rays for the Army turn out to be quite reasonable when all is put in perspective. The army doesn't have enough machines for draft intake, so it had to turn to doctors, who rented machines, technicians, so total operating costs quite reasonably hit four figures. Time visits with a country doctor up in the hills and hollows of the Ozarks, where he practices without fancy laboratories and book learning, and is teaching an apprentice to do the same.
"Dentocillin" "No one knows for sure what causes tooth decay," Time starts out, before conceding that, in fact, we absolutely do know what causes tooth decay, and it is acid-secreting bacteria that live in dental plaque, so it is reasonable that antibiotics would be good for tooth decay, so the Andrew Jenkins Company is offering dentists a prescription dental penicillin tooth powder. Dr. Helmut A. Zander of the Tufts College Dental School was persuaded to do a study, using some schoolchildren as guinea pigs and has concluded that penicillin is just the thing for mouth bacteria. Other doctors and dentists think this is completely stupid, and recommend toothpaste, or just plain toothbrushes and water.
Just to show how cancer is, a Navy commander who was able to return to sea duty after four years cancer-free is a story at the bottom of the page. I, uhm, he's got a Jewish name. (Commander Edwin M. Rosenberg.)
"Who Cares About Teachers?" With the first week of school rushing at us, Time visits the other side of the story. We work so hard to make school a welcoming place for children that we forget about teachers, and especially new teachers, who might be feeling overwhelmed this week. And since there are a lot of them, and the school districts don't want them quitting in the first week, which absolutely does happen, Time takes a short trip around the nation to report best practices by various districts to make the new teacher feel welcome.
Press, Radio and Television, Art, People
"Ordeal by Fire" Frank Emery of the International News Service and Randolph Churchill of The Daily Telegraph were hanging together in Pusan because no-one can stand the younger Churchill, so who knows about Emery, and they set out to change that by going out on a night patrol that caught a mortar round. Abandoning the most seriously wounded member of the patrol, a badly wounded and emotional Emery, and a stoic Churchill reached friendly lines and now have a cracking good story. That brings us to eight correspondents killed, six wounded, two missing, one captured. The insurance rate on war correspondents in Korea has been boosted from 5 to 10%.
The Paris Herald Tribune is in financial trouble, and Time drops almost a full page on The New Statesman for no discernable reason except that it is upset with its position on the Korean War. (That it is bad, and also no reason for a global atomic war.)
"The Old Scotchman" Gordon McLendon's Liberty Broadcasting System is shaking up the radio network game. He calls himself the "Old Scotchman" even though he is only 29. Time also likes NBC's Masterpiece Playhouse, and notices some more TV studios opening up in Manhattan.
"It's In You" Renfield, Ltd. the liquor importing firm, is sponsoring a travelling showing of "twelve oils of the late, lusty, American-scene Painter George Luks." By which Time means that Luks painted scenes like drunks getting kicked out of bars. Seems like something a liquor-importing company might want to keep on the down low, as they say, but they do thinks differently in Manhattan I guess.
"Paris in Boston" French painter Raoul Dufy is visiting America and saying offensive things very loudly. Much more tolerable is carver, Ben Enwonwu, who, unlike assorted great artists who are inspired by Africa, is from Africa, specifically Nigeria. 
General Marshal, Admiral Mountbatten, Prince Philip, Frank Sinatra, Princess Margaret and King Farouk are all on the page in an extended free-association. Phew, thirsty work, time for a column break, followed by another freely associated ramble that takes us from Humphrey Bogart to John Roosevelt to Sir Laurence Olivier toAmbassador Lewis Douglas. After a third column break, I finally actually learn something (admittedly, the first two columns would have been enlightening if I didn't already know that Frank Sinatra was a jerk and that Bogart has a giant stuffed panda that he takes to nightclubs), which is that Shirley May Franco blames her slave-driving father for her campaigns against the English Channel. Joe McCarthy failed to pay his income tax for the fourth year in a row, Palmiro Tagliatti had a car accident, Michael Fitzmorris got a speeding ticket, Dizzie Gillespie says that "bop is done for," Clara Bow will write her memoirs if she thinks of anything good to say, and then it is off on a free ramble from Vera Atlee to Doris Duke to Ruth Chatterton to Tallulah Bankhead. (In defence of Time, Duke getting county permission to build a pig barn on her farm is kind of news.)
Leopold Stokowski has had his fourth child at the modest age of 68, ably assisted by Glora Vanderbilt Stokowski. Myrna Loy has divorced. Griffith Baily Coale, Giuseppe De Luca, Frank Phillips, Arturo Alessandri Palma, Harbourt Alexander Morgan and Ransom Eli Olds have died. Coale is the only one younger than three-score-and-ten, dying at 60 of a heart attack, of course.
The New Pictures
Fancy Pants is a "slapdash Technicolor farce" starring Bob Hope and not much else. Stella is the movie of the novel of a family's efforts to swindle an insurance company out of twenty grand in death benefits. David Wayne and Claude Binyon both enjoy the chance to do a comedy, which is otherwise passable. Beaver Valley is a nature documentary by Walt Disney. What did you think it was? Dirty old man. Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye is about James Cagney helping people kiss their tomorrows goodbye and generally keep the pot boiling merrily along.
Books
The fiction bestseller lists have been "in a slump" all summer, which is Times' fancy way of saying that there haven't been any books with "it" for a while now. I'd say "good," except the book to shake them up is Floodtide, Frank Yerby's latest feast of sex and violence. Owen Glen is Ben Ames Williams' attempt to take the wind out of Yerby's sails (and sales) with something a bit more wholesome, complete with a kid wandering around, seeing things. Joseph Cronin's The Spanish Gardener sounds a bit odd. Malcolm Ross' The Man Who Lived Backward is a pinko book, and that makes it bad. I wonder if Whittaker Chambers is back at work? Helen Bevington has a collection of poems out. Stanley Moss' Ill Met by Moonlight has received the death sentence of coming in after the poetry anthology, but it is such a rouser that it will do okay. It is the story of the kidnapping of German General Karl [sic] Kreipe from his headquarters in Crete and his delivery in Cairo almost three weeks later.
Aviation Week, 11 September 1950
News Digest reports that the Convair XP5Y-1 has set an endurance record for turboprops, just over 8hours. Robert B. Farquharson of Pratt and Whitney has died of polio at 40, which is the only bit of personal, financial and route news that seems worth reporting.
Industry Observer reports exclusively from Dayton that the recent crash of a Sikorsky H-5 was due to a tow rope getting tangled in the rotor. This was part of Dayton's routine experiments in towing planes with helicopters that maybe shouldn't be so routine! Industry will not need to open mothballed factories to meet the projected air expansion programme. Dayton is continuing to experiment with new materials, with Northrop trying a cast magnesium wing against a more conventional built-up aluminum alloy structure. (So is Lockheed, with an experimental F-80 that is actually flying.)
"Buying Plans: 7785 Planes, $6.4 Billion" That's the headline and the summary. Uncle George will want to know that the total USAF/USN research and development appropriation is $315 million. Meanwhile, at the AFA conclave, Secretary of the Air Force Thomas Finletter, reiterated that the future lay with jet power, Korea-based criticisms about range and poor ground attack performance notwithstanding.
"Mustered Out" The airlines will start getting their Pacific airlift liners returned this month. They did a good job, but they're just not needed. Speaking of not needed, the Navy is ordering some Constellation cargo conversions, because who cares about MATS, the Navy needs its own air freighters. Aircraft shipments are at 16 million lbs for the first six months of the year, 85% for defence. It is more interesting to hear civilian deliveries listed as 377 planes at a value of $7.8 million, but aviation is still a largely armed forces driven business. that anyone but Curtiss-Wright can thrive in. That's my way of introducing the news that the company is giving up on airplanes. There's a joke here . . .
Aeronautical Engineering has "High Density Conversions Prove Worth," which is an engineering article about cramming more seats into "coach" airliners. Boring! Not at all boring? Panagra testing RATO takeoff in Quito. Now that's a way to add spice to flying down to Rio! (Or Quito!)
"Solar Testing jet Egine Designs" It makes sense that a company that does components, and in particular pumps, should want to get into its own jet engines. The question is whether there'll be a market.
"Chip Detectors Prove Their Value" These are the little magnets that detect metal chips in engine oil and give advanced warning of excess wear. Swedish ABA is convinced of their value, believing that they have saved several engines with no false alarms.
David A. Anderton, "Preview of Fighters: McDonnell XF-88" Anderton checks in with the air force's interceptor-escort competition for Aviation Week. The XF-88 is currently at 27,000lbs gross, and has been under development since 1946. It has afterburners in an ugly and "bumped out" installation, has air brakes for interception, huge fuselage fuel tanks. Antenna are flush. McDonnell is not fussing with boundary layer control, but has managed to sweep the tail, unlike some other early swept wing types. Aviation Week has no idea where the guns are, which is of a piece with a lot of this article, which spends a lot of time speculating on how the engines are mounted and how the services are led through the fuselage.
Avionics has "New Pressure Cell Cuts Error" which is unsigned editorial about Sierra Electronics "pickup cells for feeding electronic circuits designed to produce oscillograph traces." Which is al in aid of measuring pressure in tubing for airflow research on aircraft. Sierra is very taken with the way that it deals with error signals.
"F9F Trainer Fits in Truck" If you remember those wartime articles about synthetic trainers the air force carted around in trucks, this one is for jet training, otherwise same.
"BG Plug Licking Fouling Problem" I can see a very dirty joke being made here, but BG Corporation (Who? I know!) wants us to know about how they're working on longer lasting sparkplugs, which is much bigger news for car owners than airplanes, if you ask me.
New Aviation Products is excited about Ex-Cell-O's new jet turbine blade grinding machine. It's simpler! Master, of 4444 Brooklyn Avenue, LA, has "Fog-Gone," which is a silicon-gel windshield treatment that is better than all the other ones. Carhoff, of Cleveland, disagrees. It has the best one! Also the best is Airborne Accessories new linear actuator. It has a 1.6hp dc motor, a magnetic brake and clutch, more clutches, reduction gears, a screw jack, a non-turn device and overload stops.
Letters has Cecil B. Pine, Engineer Section Head for Flight Tests at Sperry Gyroscope, writing in to explain some things in recent articles about the Sperry Zero Reader that might have misled all the two readers who understood anything in those articles. It turns out that Aviation Week made some mistakes in summarising Sperry's much longer press release, and the result garbled the article. F. E. Moskovics, a consultant at A. O. Smith, writes to explain something about automotive engines. F. M. Sayers of Lodge Plugs of Britain writes to say that the company will have an American sales representative soon, and blah blah railroads blah. 
Editorial reminds us that air shows and races are still too dangerous, with yet another death to report, says a fond farewell to the X-1, and is pleased that there are ever more airline passengers and ever fewer rail passengers.
Time, 11 September 1950
Letters
ow
Ned Morris is happy that Time called Jacob Malik a liar. This is the first letter of the week, Time? Alexander Kerensky writes in to blither about Stalin. Did you know that he's a Communist? It's true! June Starr went to Yma Sumac's concert and really enjoyed it, so she is very upset about the vulgar picture of Sumac wearing a "television gown" in Time. H. O. Folansbee and Randy Bigalow are more approving, because they are dirty old men. Peter Woll agrees with John Osborne that we should really "talk to the people" if we want to fight global communism. C. S. Anderson writes to agree also, before launching into a screed that manages to be both horribly racist and anti-American. Did you know that many Koreans have never seen a shovel or a wheelbarrow? Tolbert Ingram writes in with a story about the old days, before the war, featuring Tolbert Ingram. Our Publisher explains what makes this week's special report on Formosa (that's us! We're here!) so special, and promises more articles on the "instruments of modern warfare."
National Affairs
"Command Decision" Dean Acheson is going to present a plan for the defence of Western Europe to Bevin and Schuman at the Big Three meeting in New York. Europe is the "main battleground," not Asia, and the Russians could overrun it any time they wanted with their massive army. (Shh! Don't be giving them ideas!) To prevent this, America will increase its German garrison from two to five divisions. The Western Defence Union will become a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. The West Germans will be rearmed as members of this organisation. An American will be commander in chief. Currently standing against the idea is Louis Johnson, and, it seems, Omar Bradley. As the wags say, even Leon Keyserling is in favour of more divisions, while Bradley is asking how much more the economy can stand. I don't know. The fight over the war powers bill, which finally got out of Congress, has made for the weirdest alliances and enemies already, and a lot of Republican senators from the Midwest are justifying opposition to mobilisation and Presidential control with references to the economic burden. Of course, they're also worried about Presidential powers and having to hire too many bureaucrats and on and on. Taft and Tobey are supposed to be in trouble in November over Korea, but those are pretty big names to unseat, and now we're winning!
"The Wooing of Mao" Everyone has got into the game of reassuring Mao that China has nothing to fear from a UN victory in Korea. Time accuses Truman of offering Formosa to the Reds as their price for staying out of Korea. That is, the Seventh Fleet (and us!) will come home the moment the war ends, leaving Reds and Koumintang to sort it out amongst themselves. "But it was left to Ambassador Warren Austin to bow most deeply to Peking," by offering indemnities for an American attack on a Manchurian airfield. Time is mad at the President, and really sets to work in the next article, about the President's "three million men" speech, which was (GASP!) badly delivered. Also, he disavowed Secretary Matthews. The States are officially not trying to start a war. Boo! Even worse, the Pentagon seems fit to discipline General Orvil Anderson for doing nothing more than calling for a pre-emptive atomic attack on Russia's "five atom bomb nests" in lectures at the Air War College.
Louis Johnson and Dean Acheson are both "poison" out on the campaign trail. Acheson because he's, well, Acheson; Johnson because he's to blame for cutting the defence budget ahead of the war that America is currently winning handily. And a family court judge in St. Louis gets in Time for calling women who are cancelling divorce actions against draft-age husbands, "Allotment Annies."
On the labour side, the CIO has kicked out eight more Communist-line unions, including Harry Bridge's Longshoremen. Ford has rewritten its contract to give its employees wage increases in line with the Chrysler deal. Time is worried about a new wage and price spiral. John Lewis says that the UMW won't sign a no-strike pact.
In New York, Time can't stop kicking O'Dwyer on the way out the door, mainly over the retirement packages various of his friends are getting. It then turns to the mayoral race, about which no-one but New Yorkers care, and sudden talk that Dewey will run for a third term as governor of New York, which is news. Dewey for President forever! The Klan accidentally shot a policeman while raiding a casino in Myrtle Beach, and now South Carolina promises to run it out of the state, cross its heart, hope to die.
Manners and Morals takes stock of last week's Jean Muir scandal by visiting "the little group [that] organised themselves as a special committee to keep the air waves pure." Among them, Time finds Rabbi Benjamin Schulz, "an old hand," Mrs. Hester McCullough, previously encountered trying to keep a pinko(!!!) dancer and a harmonica player (more debatable) out of community theatre in Connecticut, and managing editor of Counterattack Theodore Kirkpatrick. Counterattack, just to be extra confusing, published its 151 name blacklist in a book, Red Channels. Wait, no, correction. Kirkpatrick says it is not a blacklist. This is a smart thing to say, as Kirkpatrick has already been hauled up by a judge and made to apologise publicly for calling Fredric Marsh and Florence Eldridge "communists." Better, you might think, if the Marsh and Eldridge had been allowed to dip into the Counterattack rainy day fund. Anyway, Kirkpatrick goes on, if people want to treat the list published in Red Channels by Counterattack as a blacklist, that's fine with Kirkpatrick. Big sigh of relief down at the bullpen as Counterattack gets 100% off the blacklist hook! You would think I was being sarcastic, but Kirkpatrick puts a bow on it. He doesn't think he is going to have to apologise to Muir, "because times have changed." Suspect individuals should clear themselves by testifying before HUAC, making "a complete break with all suspect groups" such as the Communist Party, Trotskyite Communist Party, Somewhat Communist Party, AFL, CIO, Episcopalian Church, Democratic Party and the Boy Scouts. 
Okay, I made that list up. Some thoughts, here. First, I notice that Counteratack is apparently led by a Rabbi. Other papers mention names like "McNamara," "Keenan," "Hartnett" and "Bierly." Second, I notice that Mrs. McCullough's marriage to a Time editor has slipped out of the paper again. Third, Time's very slightly snide tone that I have exaggerated a million percent is a little at odds with Time's anti-communism. Fourth, Ted Kilpatrick is a very easy on the eyes for a guy who has ended up running a mimeograph newsletter for the He-Man-Communist-Hater Club. Dollars will get you donuts that Uncle George will say that he's a "closet case" who has devoted his life to ferreting out everyone else's secrets. Now, that's because Uncle George has closet cases on the brain, but when I see a handsome lunk like that staring back at me instead of getting a good job at an ad agency or a bank, I start thinking he has a point. Sometimes.
"Brick Foxholes" Latest word in the move-to-the-country-to-avoid-the-A-bombs-we're-practically-daring-the-Reds-to-drop comes from Washington. If it's good enough for rich people, why shouldn't the Government move out of the city? President Truman has asked Congress for $140 million to pay for four government buildings for 40,000 employees, complete with bomb shelters, way out in the wilds of Maryland and Virginia. Missouri's Clarence Cannon is leading the counterattack (heh!) in Congress, pointing out that, first, there is absolutely no actual danger of attack; and, second, if you want to move out of harm's way, maybe you should try Houston, Denver or Chicago, and not "no less than twelve miles and not more than fifty, from the White House." Since that seemed sensible, and too much sensibleness on one side of the aisle is like to make the House sink into the swamp, Maryland's Edward T. Miller counter-proposed firing all 40,000 employees and using the savings to build a radar fence around America. At which point Congress tabled the whole thing till next year.
Foreign News
This marks the first week since the Korean War started that the world beyond our shores that's not full of attacking Red hordes has slipped ahead of the war coverage. (Foreign News is usually for foreign stuff that's actually about the good old US, and sometimes there'll International later.) Let's see what is so special about the second week of September! Hmm. Konrad Adenaur is sliding a little further in the direction of a West German army and has a concrete suggestion for 15 Allied divisions in Germany, ten of them armoured. East Germany is fixing to purge Gerhard Eisler, Paul Merker, Lex Ende, Willy Kriekemeyer and Bruno Goldhammer. This counts as America-related because apparently they were all organised anti-communistically by the mysterious Noel Havilan Field, an American relief worked who "disappeared mysteriously in Central Europe a year ago." Time congratulates itself for mentioning it at the time, but I sure don't remember it. (Although on review I do find that he was outed as a spy by Whittaker Chambers, and this is why the Russians probably arrested him.) Also, most of them went into exile in the Western Hemisphere during the Hitlerite days, and that makes them bad people somehow. Robert Schuman is in New York to meet with the Big Three even though France is the "Big If," which translates as, even though they've saved the country's economy (take that, The Economist!), they haven't crushed the French Communist Party, and don't have a big enough army. Since the one they do have is in Indo-China trying to crush Asian Communists, I don't know what Time is complaining about. Cardinal Mindszenty is still in jail and Hungarian Communism is still awful. A TWA Constellation has crashed shortly after takeoff from Cairo, which counts as Egyptian news because Camelia (Lilliane Cohen), "the Lana Turner of the East," was aboard. Also, 54 others, amongst whom Reggie is mourning Institute Dean Everett Moore Baker. Oh, and a German national party has won 80% of the illegal vote in German Southwest Africa and now holds the balance of power in Johannesburg, which I have a feelling is going to end with the UN being able to say "I told you so" to the Nationalists. The Germans may be as racist as the Boers, but I have a feeling they won't agree with the Big Smoke on anything else!
So, in other words, Communism is bad, plus the election results from South Africa. Big deal.
Background for War visits Formosa, as promised. Two-thirds the size of Maryland! Thanks, Time, that is a super-useful analogy. It is "two-thirds covered with tropical forest" and has most of the world's camphor trees. In the body of the article we learn the more interesting fact that it produces most of the world's oolong tea. What is this, a Social Studies paper? It has mountains and fertile soil. And Anti-Communists. Lots and lots of anti-communists. And some ridiculously over-the-top racism to go with it. In practice I guess I'm going with the current when I point out that, when given a chance to show their goods, Koumintang armies have proven anything but anti-Communist.
War in Asia The fighting in Korea continues to be gruelling but also boring this week. Writing ahead of the Inchon landings, Time is on about the North's final-effort push under the command of Marshal Ch'oe Yong Gun, so now we know the names of two North Korean generals! The Reds used a proper artillery barrage to support their attack for the first time, attacking at three points along a 40 mile front with some 40,000 men, which Reggie figures is short hand for a one Red-style army push, because the Red Army organises itself into 4 and 5 division armies and cuts out the "corps" level of organisation. But, he admits, he has no idea if that's how the North Korean Army organises itself, and he's not going to learn that in Time! It was all pretty intense and dire while the push was on, with platoon positions being cut off here and there, but the UN has the air, so on the second day of the offensive the Americans counterattacked and relieved many of the isolated positions, although the Northerners shifted the "centre of gravity" of their attack (army talk!) to the south and tried to overrun the South Koreans, instead. Also, the British are here and are still so Scottish that you just have to talk and talk about it. Time also had a man in the air in a Skyraider flying from a carrier on Korea's west coast, also known as the Yellow Sea. I don't have to tell you how Chinese are going to react to that! The carrier boys sound a bit disgruntled about being asked to blow up warehouses and tanks, and want to be down Formosa way blowing up a Chinese invasion fleet, in the interest of which Time devotes the cover story to Arthur Radford, CinC, Pacific.
"Tough" Time tagged along with an intelligence patrol rifling the bodies of dead North Koreans. Everyone agrees that they are badly equipped but very tough troops with good commanders. "[T]he Kremlin . . . [knows] . . . how to train Asians into first-rate fighting men."
I'm not going to say very much about the cover story, which as usual is an in depth look at how Admiral Radford got to Honolulu, but I can't help but mention that the article offers cover for some more Time monkey business, as it pushes the outrageous notion that Formosa is the "key to the Pacific," complete with a map that tries to make the point by colouring the island in red against a grey-scale map. Okay, I lied. I do care about the story of Admiral Radford as told by Time, which barely manages to mention how he was kicked upstairs and out of Washington over the United States and completely misses his his butting heads with the Marines over Tarawa. That just leaves enough column space for a visit to the UN, where all the with-it kids love America and South Korea and hate Communism and Jakob Malik.
Business
American employment is up over 62 million, highest in history. Chrysler stock isn't at a record, but its surprise dividend on top of its cost-of-living wage rise is good news for the NYSE. .
"Dangerous Interference" The Committee for Economic Development, the Mutual Life Insurance and the Guaranty Trust have opinions about the Defence Production bill. That opinion, if you hadn't guessed, is that it is dangerous interference in the free market and that the right thing to do right now is cut federal spending, tighten credit and raise interest rates.
"We Must Be on Our Own" "By Cadillac, Pullman and Jim Crow coach last week, 134 Negro businessmen journeyed from 27 states to Alabama's Tuskegee Insitute" to have a National Negro Business League convention. They all agreed that Coloured business is good, and that while they should be Coloured businesses, White money spends same as Coloured money.
In Germany, the Allied Control is still trying to break up I. G. Farben, while in America consumer debt has doubled in a decade to $20 billion. but we are invited not to worry.
Two New York banks are merging (news!), autos account for about 20% of US retail trade, which is supposed to be "startling" news. General Chennault's Tiger airline is making money and having exciting adventures in exotic places. No price ceilings on metals yet. A waterproof matchbook is the biggest thing since sliced bread. The Australian wool crop is down, which means that wool prices will be up, so the Army is thinking about stockpiling uniforms while prices are good.
Science, Medicine, Education
"Get Together" This week saw the International Congress of Mathematicians meet at Harvard, the American Chemical Society in Chicago, and the British Association for the Advancement of Science at Birmingham. At the latter, Time was there to hear geologists debate Wegener's theory of continental drift. Aldous Huxley's latest worries over overpopulation, malnutrition, endemic disease, rising inequality, depletion of resources, and "the human problem of improving the way of life of many of the earth's millions." At the first, mathematicians talked about whatever they talk about with a side order of Communism being awful, and no-one cares about chemists or Chicago. Also, the Bell X-1 is an obsolete museum piece three years after it broke the sound barrier. 
"How High is High" This week marks the first time I can think of that Milestones (if you're confused, I report it under People) didn't have a distinguished man dying at 60 or less to heart disease. So it is very much timely to have Drs. Arthur H. Master of Manhattan's Mount Sinai Hospital and Louis Dublin of the Metropolitan Life Insurance take a look at high blood pressure. It's not itself a disease and has never killed anyone, Time confidently reports. It just damages the kidneys, blood vessels, and heart until they kill you! So what is high blood pressure? The doctors think that medicine has gone wrong by using the figures from autopsies, and wants to use figures from "demonstrably healthy people," instead, which leads to a higher range of "acceptable" blood pressure. This would lead to people worrying less, which is a good thing.
"The Couch Cult" Is psychoanalysis any good? You can bet your money where Time falls on the question! Well, here's a round table in the Nation where some laymen and psychologists hash it out once and for all.
"Wife Material" Why is there a shortage of nurses? Guess! No, seriously. An investigating committee of the California legislature has concluded that it is because nurses make such gosh darned good wives, and so tend to be "snapped up by sensible young men."
"Interest on the Loan" It's official. Congress is going to go out and round up all the doctors and dentists who trained on the Government dime in WWII and bloody well send them to Korea if they don't figure out what's best for them pretty darn quick.
"Record" The latest estimate of American primary and secondary enrollment is an alltime record of 29,828,000, up almost 3% over last year.
"Big Baby" Just two years ago, New York didn't have a state university, although it did have 29 assorted colleges and technical institutes. So when it decided that it did need a State U or it would never have good football, the course to the State University of New York was smooth sailing. Two years later it has two medical schools, an enrollment of 34,000, and the usual grab bag of distance learning efforts. By 1960 it is expected to have an enrollment of 100,000 in associated community colleges alone, no word about football. Meanwhile, New York City schools are thinking about a further expansion of its expansion scheme at a modest cost of $50 million.
Art, Press, Radio and Television, People
A black and white of a Van Gogh, owned anonymously in New York but graciously released to the press so just anyone can enjoy a photograph of a painting of a cart, is in the Sunday New York Herald Tribune. So that's a story! The MoMA is having one of those things where it shows all of its modern art so that critics like Time can complain about modern art like Mondrian's White on White. Brancusi's Bird in Space and Giacometti's The City Square.
The Scripps-Howard strike is still over. Ohio's Lorain Journal's statement of defence against the Department of Justice antitrust suit was that, sure, it cancelled contracts with advertisers who patronised a competing radio station, but it was okay because they think they're allowed to do that sort of thing because of freedom of the press. Last week they were given the business by federal judge Emerich B. Freed. Herbert Gunn is out at The Evening Standard for his Korean War "Peasants Outclass the Mighty USA," which, unlike buying parliamentary secrets from a backbencher or slandering a minister of the crown, is a firing offence. Speaking of being terrible, Time is pleased to report that the Chicago Tribune must think that the American press is overplaying the Korean War, on grounds of all the headlines in the paper that aren't about Korea. I'm shocked, you're shocked, we're all shocked. I'm sure this will be the breaking point for Chicagoland Tribune readers. Something about Look going for the lady reader with all the Hollywood news, and reaction from Oakland to the Hearst Press closing the Post-Inquirer on a single day's notice. (Two week's pay plus severance in lieu of notice.)
"Colour Enigma" The FCC's final decision on colour television is in and no-one knows what it means. The Feds like the CBS electromechanical system better than the all-electronic competition from RCA and Color Television of California, but have given them three more months to make their technical case, which doesn't sound like a final decision at all! Manufacturers, who can't make enough black and white sets to meet the market, have been told that they'd better get on with making colour television compatible sets --as soon as they know what that means! CBS-compatible sets are very different from the all-electronic versions, of course. CBS compatibility can be achieved with adapters, however. The upshot is that manufacturers will convert to building colour-capable sets in 1953 and not before.
"The Chicago School" Time enjoyed the Garroway at Large variety show on NBC the other night. It's "Chicago-style" broadcasting, which means freshness and informality, not Tommy gun massacres. Everyone involved is under 35, and writer Charlie Andrews is an "ex-hobo." Radio people say that this will go the way of the Chicago moment in radio, when the city went from producing 400 radio shows in the mid-Thirties to just a few a few years later, because everyone moved to the coast. There you go, a little bit of entertainment history wrapped up in a review of a tv show.
A nice couple won fifty large on a radio quiz show. News!
Duke Poao Kahanamoku, Princess Wilhelmina, Queen Juliana, Prince Bernhard, Warren Austin, General Wainwright and Perle Wainwright get in the first paragraph, Rodolf Graziani, Duke Ellington, Bernard Baruch, Justice Douglas, Clinton Duffy, Elmer Davis and Robert McCormick get in the second. Although to be fair to the Colonel, it is in a fantasia by Elmer Davis, who conjures up the Colonel's death to radiation poisoning after World War IX in 1960, when the Russian bomb aimed at the steel plants of Gary hit the Tribune tower instead, and the Colonel refuses to stay in his fallout shelter because European radiation was too effete to hurt him. Hilarious stuff, and I bet you wish I'd report the context of all the other names, too! The third graph is for the ladies. Hedy Lamarr has a publicity photo to flog, Princess Anne has a name, a ration book, an identity card, and bottles of orange juice and cod liver oil, standard issue for British babies. King Farouk, oh, I can't be bothered.
The Earl Jellicoe, who is at the Washington embassy, had a baby with Countess Jellicoe. Tony Martin also had a baby, Margaret Sullavan got married, Alfred Lee Bulwinkle (which is a real name, Sheik Mohamed Mamoun El Shinawi, Edward H. Moore and Frank Leslie Smith have died.
The New Pictures
Tea for Two is "good hot weather entertainment." The Black Rose is Tyrone Power's latest historic drama. In this one he brings the secret of gunpowder, the compass and papermaking from China all the way to 13th century England in a movie adaptation of Thomas Costain's "lush" novel. It has 5600 extras, 500 horses, 1000 camels, Asian deserts, English countryside, Orson Welles as the Khan of Tartary. and Cecile Aubry as a slave girl refugee from Little Women. Are we missing anything? Oh, right. A story. Summer Stock is a chance for Judy Garland to make good with the studio after missing filming with illness and such since last year's In the Good Old Summertime. Time thinks that she, and Gene Kelly, do a pretty good job.
Books
Ernest Hemingway has a book, and if you had any doubts about who is the big man of American literature, all you have to do is look at the amount of copy he gets. Will people actually care about Across the River in fifty years enough for me to spend more time on it? I have decided not, and not just because it is long past time for Ronnie to be doing something about dinner. Time, by the way, is underwhelmed. Arthur Godwin's Reprisal is about lynchings and murderings and reporters. For some more Southern fried writing we have John Dyer's The Gallant Hood, which is a crticical look at one of your typically larger than life Southern generals that inhabit Civil War history.
Aviation Week, 11 September 1950
Industry Observer reports that the Lockheed P2V is the most expensive plane the navy is buying right now, coming in at $1.25 million in the long-distance radar-equipped version. Wichita's aircraft companies are going to shift from small planes to B-47s as the programme gets under way, which is good news for the small plane market. Everyone is putting F-51s back in service, while Canada is also bringing back some Lancaster general reconnaissance types and buying F-86s and Sea Furies. Besides Constellations, the Navy is also buying DC-6s. Vought will continue to produce Corsairs for at least another year. The Viscount 700 is still news, and the Fairchild Packet is in service in Korea. News Digest reports that the B-45 is just fine, that the CAA has gone after yet another Alaskan non-sked for running scheduled services, that Aero Digest has been sold to its long-time publisher, Fred Hamlin, that American Aviation is going from biweekly to weekly publication starting 11 September, that Robinson Airlines has crashed a DC-3 in Oneida, New York.
Alexander McSurely, "Pratt and Whitney Reveals Most Powerful Turboprop" The trend for American engine makers to make up for lost time with respect to the British by jumping in the pool at the deep end continues with the new 5700hp T-34. This isn't actually new. McSurely is rewriting a company release for us. Pratt and Whitney is pleased with its range of super powerful engines, and wants us to know that it has solved all the big problems that you might think were holding turboprops back, although the "article" is scant on details. Also in the company news dump must have been a story about the latest iteration of the turbosupercharger on the R-4360, which you may recall counted as a "compound" engine because the exhaust was fed through a turbo that drove the crankshaft through an extension shaft and reduction gearing. If that all sounded a bit complicated, the latest iteration is back to compressing inlet air. And by "back," I mean that it is progress, moving ever forward and upward and giving vast improvements in takeoff power, fuel consumption and cruise power.
"XC-123 Seen in Lead in Evaluation" That is, in the competition for the "assault transport." It is the Chase plane, continuing the American air forces's habit of bringing in new manufacturers as old ones exit the business. Page over, we hear about the "pack variant" of th eFairchild C-82 that carriers a cargo pod. Again. And then it's an article about "XC-120: Tomorrow's Cargo Plane?" This is getting as nuts as all the private planes of the future of circa 1946. And I haven't even mentioned the ugly-as-sin Blackburn Freighter, in part because I am pretty sure we have talked about it before, back when it was a Miles design.
Aeronautical Engineering has Christopher Dykes, "Getting the Best from Turbine Transports" Dykes is the chief engineer, development, at BOAC. Turbine engines are more efficient, the faster they fly. The maximum speed being more-or-lest set by operating altitude, much of the focus needs to be on the climb and descent at the end of the flight, and people are getting a big crazy with talk of zero thrust and air brakes, although the main concern is takeoff temperature's effect on power. There's a fairly detailed calculation of the point where a transport should convert from climb power to "climbing cruise," the implication being that a turboliner is a superb special-purpose machine designed for carefully calculated routes, and not to be adopted willy-nilly. Or, I guess, the implication is, built willy-nilly. Reggie has been banging on for years, it seems, about the futility of at least the current generation of piston-to-turboprop conversion because of their inability to reach efficient speeds, and on reading this, I really wonder how the people who take that sort of thing seriously can possibly be ready to run a jet or turboprop airline.
"Advertorials" about a pamphlet(!) on the effect of compressor inlet bleeds on engine operation and a Lear rotary actuator follow.
Equipment has "British, US., Cabin Blowers Evaluated" TCA has looked at what is on offer and ordered the British-built Godfrey cabin air supercharger for its fleet of North Star transports, while Canadair is putting the American-made Stratos into some nearly identical planes ordered by the RCAF. (Those famous Canadair DC-6s that are going back to the Pratt and Whitney from the Merlin.) And by evaluation I mean Aviation Week looks at the respective company claims. It turns out that both blowers are better than the other!
Much better to look at just a single company's release and find out that Elastic Stop Nut's new Rollpin fastener is the best ever, although only rollpins because you wouldn't want to compare it to American Paulin's new Vernier barometer, which is also the best ever.
New Aviation Products (I know! I know!) has Simmonds Aerocessories new Push-Pull Controls, pull-me-push-me'd all the way from Jolly Old England.
"Findings Issued in AA Dallas Crash" The DC-6 crash at Dallas' Love Field last 29 November was caused by the crew failing to take sufficient precautions when trying to land with the No. 1 engine out.
Letters has Fred Hauser, business editor of the Milwaukee Sentinel, who is impressed by Aviation Week's suggestion that the service missile programmes are oversold, and Earl Hinz complaining that Aviation Week is wrong, and that the programme is undersold. And so it continues with letters from rocket pioneers who think we're not spending enough and bystanders who think that inefficiencies asre inevitable in such a complicated undertaking. Finally, the publicity guy at SBAC writes to say t hat it is possible to have safe air shows.
Editorial has had it up to here with the non-skeds' safety record and the railroads, too.
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