The Mayflower,
Washington, D.C.
Dear Father:
You find your darling Ronnie quite recovered from both her flu and her "traditional herbal medicine" tea that turns out to have been just about 100% ephedra. It was a good time, and a surprisingly long time, but not something I care to repeat. I'm honestly not sure whether I hallucinated the rumour that General de Lattre de Tassigny will be taking over in Hanoi, or whether I heard it from one of my host's other guests. I have to say that if I dreamed it up on my own, I need to have a long and stern talk with my subconscious!
I am not sure what to tell you about the reaction around here to the Red action at Pukchin. I have a feeling that Time is downplaying it because Time welcomes a full-blown war with the Reds, but that's my opinion. I really do hope that you can reach Bradley through your friends at the CIA, but I honestly don't see that happening. American policy is just going to get more feverish as we count down the last week to the election, and I hope that Peking understands that, too!
So until WWIII crashes in our tropical paradise, I remain,
Your Loving Daughter,
Ronnie
Time, 16 October 1950
Letters
Everyone is very happy that Time let General MacArthur help it to take Inchon. Charles Clemenson of California thanks Time for demolishing "Scully's flying saucers." Robert Pike, also of the Golden State, is sad that Time was so mean to him. Magnetic waves could so exist! Anna Staub of Pennsylvania is pretty sure they do exist, just because saucers fly so well, and promises official states of officials when her book on flying saucers is published at the end of the year. Hugh Morrison of jolly old London town makes a hilarious joke about how nationalisation is monotonous, or possibly bad, but he needs "monotonous" to mean "bad" to make the joke work. Stuart Whitehouse of Seattle recalls how, when he wrote for the Star back in '31, he wrote a fake letter accusing beer drinkers of being murderers and signed it "Mrs. Denmanson," and all the irate letters from beer drinkers kept circulation up until a brewer complained. James Guerin thinks that Communist professors are bad. Our publisher wants us to know that as soon as Time is done defending Korea, it will defend Formosa next.
National Affairs
"Nation in Uniform" Theoretically, there are 8.3 million 18-to-26-year-olds to fill 3 million slots in the defence establishment, but between a "tenderhearted Congress, a solicitous Administration" and local draft boards, General Lewis Hershey, the Director of Selective Service, can't hardly get them. The problem is that once the armed forces hit 3 million men, they will need 750,000 men a year to keep it up to strength, and of the 1.1 million men who turn 18 every year, some 30% are predictably unfit, leaving 800,000 from which to raise 750,000. This is such a small group that it is "a brutal squeeze" to find those who deserve to continue their studies under deferment. Hershey's experts have decided that the only fair way to do it is to defer the 50,000 smartest boys so that the can study the bomb-making sciences, and possibly also some of that longhair stuff like the humanities, which probably matter too. (In Korea, the poor, dumb boys are currently facing a cumulative casualty rate of 2,954 dead, 13,659 wounded, and 4,143 missing.)
"After Korea"
The President says 3 million men by June. The Armed Forces were at 1.4 million last June, and 400,000 draftees, reservists and Guardsmen have been called up since. General Bradley says that we are likely to miss the 3 million man target by 10%, others say 20. This will allow the Army to field twelve regular divisions, up from 11, puls 6 regimental combat teams and 4 full strength National Guard divisions, 
aim. That seems a little low for the manpower, but it is because new formations are still being raised, and the Army will hit 18 divisions by the middle of 1952. Men can be raised and trained about fifty percent faster than they can be provided with "modern tanks, self-propelled artillery and radar fire directors." A division will be released to Germany from Korea, soon. The Navy will hit 500,000 men and 900 ships by June, including 10 large carriers, two battleships, 15 cruisers, 200 destroyers and 75 submarines. The Air Force, at 48 groups and 411,000 men in June, will rise to 568,000 men in 60 groups, aiming for 95, while the Marines have already increased from 74,000 to 166,000 men, with two full strength divisions, one brigade and 18 air squadrons.
aim. That seems a little low for the manpower, but it is because new formations are still being raised, and the Army will hit 18 divisions by the middle of 1952. Men can be raised and trained about fifty percent faster than they can be provided with "modern tanks, self-propelled artillery and radar fire directors." A division will be released to Germany from Korea, soon. The Navy will hit 500,000 men and 900 ships by June, including 10 large carriers, two battleships, 15 cruisers, 200 destroyers and 75 submarines. The Air Force, at 48 groups and 411,000 men in June, will rise to 568,000 men in 60 groups, aiming for 95, while the Marines have already increased from 74,000 to 166,000 men, with two full strength divisions, one brigade and 18 air squadrons.
The President said a very mean thing about John L. Lewis, just like he said a mean thing about the Marines. It's a scandal. George Allen's memoirs are out. Everyone who knows George Allen is someone (Time knows George Allen), and really liked this book. Alan Valentine, President of Rochester University, will be the new Economic Stabilisation Agency chief. Time explains what makes him qualified: First, he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth; second, he played rugby at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar; third, he has spent his entire career in academia, mostly administration, and gives lots of Commencement Day speeches. Fourth, in 1940, he headed Democrats for Willkie, thereby showing the kind of total lack of political instincts that we like to see in a bureau chief. Fifth, he is a very, very pretty boy. Well, I'm sold! Also, General Eisenhower might be on his way back to Europe as Supreme Commander of western forces. Oh, and now that the Mayflower has raised rentals, Senator Bricker thinks that rent controls are a good idea after all. 
"Don't Look Now" The current income tax increase will raise $2.6 billion this year, while the scheduled 17% increase in October will raise $3 billion. An excess profits tax might raise $4 billion, leaving a $6 billion hole to be filled by either another income tax increase, higher excise taxes, or a Federal sales tax. Or Congress will baulk and let the national debt rise.
"Barely Time to Duck" Stuart Symington greeted the "civilian defence directors of many states, majors representing some 60 million Americans, somem women's groups," and briefed them on the state of civil defence in America. It's awful. The Soviets can deliver an atom bomb anywhere in America, the country is completely unprepared, and that means that it will lose WWIII because the country won't be able to "get up and fight back." All the mayors and civilian officials and I suppose the concerned women wanted to know how much money and equipment the Federal government would give them. Symington didn't know. Toledo's mayor suggested that the best civil defence for Toledo was neon signs pointing the way to Cleveland and Chicago. No-one laughed. The Air Force, for its part, said that there wouldn't be a blackout, because of radar, or a "blue" warning, because jet bombers are so fast, what's the point of anything but a red alert?
"The Other Direction" Time went to a speech by Owen Lattimore, who now says that we shouldn't recognise Communist China, and that the President's foreign policy was in "disgraceful chaos," and controlled by a "weird crew of ex-isolationists, ex-Communists, pro-Nazi fanatics, and cranks . . . "
Everyone hates "stateless person" Gary Davis. And the only place more important than New York (where Time has its offices) is Connecticut (where Time lives),so it's time to check in with Bill Benton's senatorial campaign. It's quite something. Social Security has gone up, and GE voluntarily increased its pension payments from $24/mo to $49. The first Ku Klux Klansman to ever be convicted in Alabama, was sent to jail this week. Shouldn't have tried to flog a white man! John Service is still in the State Department and Aaron Ward, formerly consul at Mukden, thinks being consul general in Nairobi is an insulting demotion. Hmm. Maybe I should have put that story after the Alabama one. New Mexico is up in arms over an abstract statue of a reclining female nude by William Longley. Some think it's sinful, some don't, while a third group thinks that the first group are censors, which is bad.
"Progress" The Los Angeles Police Department is tired of not being able to catch hot-rodders, so it has bought a hot rod to chase them down.
Manners and Morals reports on Manhattan's Hayden Planetarium, which is offering interplanetary travel, pointing out that trips to the moon are no longer comic book fantasies, but quite possible, perhaps before the century is out. Everyone enjoyed the trip to the moon and had various reactions.
War in Asia
"Across the Parallel" American aircraft have spotted large convoys moving south from China, carrying supplies to allow the North to built up its final defence line. The Air Force is bombing them, X Corps has disappeared and is probably going to make another amphibious assault on the west coast of Korea soon, and on the east coast the South Koreans have reached Wonsan. Three US warships have now hit mines off Korea. The minesweeper Magpie, formerly the trawler City of San Pedro, is the first to be sunk, with 21 of 33 crew. Apparently, as unmoored mines, they are illegal under laws of war that Russia (and I assume North Korea) never signed. A USN helicopter has been shot down trying to rescue a downed pilot. It was a slow sort of shoot down, as the copter went down in the Han River while trying to make it back to the carrier, but it still counts. North Korean war crimes are being revealed as UN forces advance, and Syngman Rhee is the cover story for this week, because he is the Washington of Korea. Also, there are many Russian troops and advisors in China, which is bad.
Foreign Relations
"Through the Iron Curtain" Congressman Thurmond Chatham of North Carolina is a very convivial person, and a Russian buddy took him on a joy ride through East Germany the other day to see some new swept-wing jet fighters and "20 new turretless, heavily armoured Russian tanks which appear to stand no more than three feet of the ground." Then he took his buddy by the PX to load up on cigarettes, chocolate and coffee to settle up. Bluff? Who knows? Also, Harold Stassen sent a letter to Joe Stalin. He talked tough, which will definitely show Uncle Joe. If you've lost Stassen, you've lost the Midwest! Or not.
(Again this week there is Foreign Relations and Foreign News)
In Britain, the Labour Party had an annual convention. It is very well-mannered and well-groomed and middle-aged, so not quite as scary. Plus, lawyers are nationalised now in Britain. Or more seriously, there's a scheme for subsidised legal counsel. An (ex-)War Bride seeking a divorce from Wilbert Roy Benner (which is a real name) of Texas is the first person to benefit.
In what seems to be an unadvertised feature, the weekly bulletin from the Channel Islands is entertaining. Or a lot more entertaining than the other colourful news from an island somewhere, which is about the Indonesian military police on Bali assassinating former Dutch collaborators.
"Too Damn Cautious" Italy's postwar government has been very austere to hold down inflation. Now the ECA says that it has been too austere, and needs to spend more money so that Italian industry can do its share for defence. Meanwhile, Yugoslavia has had a harvest failure and is tightening the belt, literally, with a 10% ration cut and an application for American aid, while Hungarian telephone operators are answering the phone with "Hurrah for Stalin."
And in this hemisphere, Vargas has been elected in Brazil, and Argentina is fighting inflation by fining shopkeepers while Canada may send its half-trained Korea Brigade to garrison Europe, as it is not wanted in Korea and there are no winter quarters in Canada big enough to take an entire brigade. The State Department has decided to refuse visas to totalitarians, and is now having difficulty finding totalitarians in Latin America.
Business
Business earnings are good, and American Tobacco Company has had to deny that it refused to pay a "stranger" who approached them with "four words worth $10,000 to you," which turned out to be the slogan, "Be Happy --Go Lucky," asserting that it is just a legend.
"Bucket Brigaded" The Federal Reserve Board is firing its first salvo against inflation by carrying through with restricting consumer credit. So far, not much has happened, mainly because John Snyder is sabotaging them at Treasury to keep interest payments on the national debt down. So just in case you were wondering what has happened to this story since the last time it was reported, it is still the same story. Also, George Bernard Shaw is still just about to get out of the hospital.
"Cold Proposition" Clarence Birdseye hasn't been in the paper since the heady days of the refrigerator explosion just after the war, so here he is again. The new product that justifies the new story? Frozen California lemon juice. California orange growers can't compete with Florida production costs, but lemons don't grow well in Florida, so by moving into flash-freezing plant for California lemons, Birdseye has won some room for growth. Or, even faster growth than the rest of the refrigerated-foods industry, which is a lot. 
"A Real Sentimental Loss" Quaker State Oil has closed down the last of the refineries in Titusville, Pennsylvania, an antiquated rig build in the 1880s and employing 70 people to refine 2500 barrels a day.
"Turnabout" It wasn't so long ago that Washington cut cotton acreage by 20%. This week, facing a cotton shortage, it reversed course, which pleases Time because of how much it hates Charles Brannan and farm price fixing in general. It turns out, however, that besides bugs, bad weather and restricted acreage, cotton is short for lack of pickers, who have been streaming north to Chicago and Detroit ot find jobs that don't involve picking cotton. Since farmers haven't exactly jumped back into cotton, the USFA has had to restrict cotton exports to everyone except Canada, and especially to the Iron Curtain.
"Kipper Caper" The British are clearly drunk on their recent export success, because now Britain's Herring Industry Board (a thing that exists) wants to push kippered herrings onto the American market.
The Business pages close out with a Cleveland realtor.
Science, Medicine, Education
"Jet Wind" The "Jet Wind" is a high velocity stratospheric wind that "weaves crazily" across the North American sky at various latitudes at elevations in excess of 35,000ft and speeds of up to 200mph. A fairly recent discovery in the Northern Hemisphere, Southern Hemisphere meteorologists are happy to discover one down there because the thought is that it can be exploited for faster jet travel. Perhaps future jets will fly westbound in the northern hemisphere and then return eastbound in the southern? Good news for South American airports!
"Water Over the Dam" Time checks in with Dr. Eugene Lindsay Bishop, who is Director of Health and Safety at the TVA, which puts him in charge of fighting malaria at TVA work camps. He did a good job, so he gets an award, along with Dr. George Papanicolaou, whom you may recall as the son of the inventor of the Pap test, Dr. George Beadle, of California Tech, for something boring about genetic control of metabolic processes, and George Strode, who does International Health for the Rockefeller Foundation.
"Peak Deferred" The Public Health Service thinks that the current polio epidemic may have peaked at the highest total in 18 years, 1884 new cases in one week, 8% down from last week, and likely "only" 30,000 cases this year against last year's 42,173, unless the epidemic goes later than March.
"The Bones of History" It's hard to trace the history of diseases since it is hard to tell how old bones are, but the Smithsonian's vast collection of bones is a temptation, and orthopedist William J. Tobin believes that he can confirm the presence of syphilis and tuberculosis in the Americas before Columbus using tree ring evidence from the pueblo the bones were found in. (He also established prostate cancer in another specimen.)
"Wasting Muscles" Muscular Dystrophy is hard to say, and impossible to explain, but it is common and heartbreaking and so the newly formed Muscular Dystrophy Association is raising money to research and fight the disease.
"Too Large a Price" Neurologist Foster Kennedy and two co-authors report in the current Surgery, Gynecology and Obstetrics that far too many doctors are prescribing spinal anesthesia too easily, causing unnecessary harm, mainly paralysis below the waist.
Time took in the Yale inauguration, was vastly moved, especially by the new president, 43-year-old Alfred Whitney Griswold, who sets new standards in insularity by doing his baccalaureate, doctorate, and teaching at Yale before being selected to replace Charles Seymour at the wisdom-ripened age of 39. Anxious not to appear too parochial, Time also correspondents to North Carolina and State College, Pennsylvania (a town, not a school, although it is where Pennsylvania's state college is). Turns out that even lesser schools have bright gowns, organs, and inaugural addresses. Poor lesser schools.
"The Worst Education of All" Teacher's College! Teacher's College has the worst education of all! Says an anonymous writer in Life magazine who can't be named because the entire article is based on a conversation he had at a party with a Midwestern English teacher, who might be embarrassed to be singled out for not reading various magazines and in general acting so incurious about the conversation that you might almost think she was trying to give him the brushoff, which is clearly impossible, so that the only other possible explanation is that this teacher's college English instructor is a terrible teacher who won't go out with "John William Sperry."
Press, Radio and Television, Art, People
Time, not a magazine to call the kettle black, makes fun of an exclusive in the Post about how Pearl Meseta is the life of the party on the liner that is returning her to America from Luxembourg, postage due. Harper's has published an enormously self-indulgent look back at its hundred years of covering assorted long-forgotten historical oddities. Time quite enjoyed tidbits like the interview with Wild Bill Hitchcock, killer of twenty men and an ad pointing out that the Czar of Russia rode a Dayton bicycle.
"The New Freeman" The old Freeman was the "radical organ of the left," while the new Freeman will be the organ of the "non-totalitarian right" under the editorship of Suzanne LaFollette, John Chamberlain, and Henry Hazlitt, reminding me of one thing I don't miss about my still-Shanghaied Newsweek subscription. Do you know that I'm going to have to renew it soon? I hope that that moldy public health office in Palo Alto is enjoying its Hazlitt exclusives on the subject of "Everyone is Doing Economics Wrong But Me." If you're wondering how these three flakes can afford to publish a magazine, wonder no more, as Alfred Kohlberg is picking up the tab. Tokyo Asahi is in trouble for publishing a hoax interview with Japan's fugitive Communist leaders that the author made up.
The Dallas Museum of Fine Art is giving an exhibition of the eleven cattle-punching paintings of Texas' Tom Lea, while the National Gallery in Washington is exhibiting the collection of Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian. A bizarre story about how William Goetz has had his contested Van Gogh painting, Study by Candlelight, authenticated by the Treasury Department, essentially importing it from Europe and claiming tax exemption on an "original work of art," challenging the Treasury Department to prove that it is a reproduction and so excisable. They couldn't, so now he gets to sniff at art critics and also the tax man.
Artur Robinson, Robert E. Sherwood, David Lloyd George, Jean Hersholt, John Dos Passos, Henry Wallace, Sam Goldwyn and Gordan Evans Dean make the first paragraph. Igor Troubetzkoy, Barbara Hutton, the Fon of Bikom, Grandma Moses, Earl Warren, Nehru and George Bernard Shaw (oh for God's sake die already!) are stuck in the second. The Duchess of Windsor gets the third to herself!, but shouldn't be too quick to preen, as her new "tutored urchin" look shares the one-paragraph honour with William O'Dwyer, and fair enough, but then Prince Bernard gets his own, and, speaking of lingering, Bertrand Russell. Winston Churchill has to share a paragraph with an assortment of Danish royals, and General Wainwright is paired with Joyce Kilmer. Finally it is time for a long tour through Ernest Hemingway, James Thurber, Arnold Toynbee, Thomas Costain and Henry Green, where it is more fun to write your own copy than to report Time's. William J. McCell shares a paragraph with Australia's new orchid export industry and Bess Truman, poor dear, and Ezzard Charles gets his own paragraph because he voluntarily returned to Cincinnati, and you have to reward him somehow. Clifton Woodrum, Dudley Field Malone, Mrs. Frederick Ambrose Clark, Willis Haviland Carrier, Curtis Boyd Johnson, Edward Childs Carpenter, Harry Low Crosby, and John Francis Fitzgerald have died.
The New Pictures
All About Eve is a "needle-sharp study of bitchery in the Broadway theatre." I didn't know you could say that word in Time! Everyone is talking about this movie, so I won't.
Books
Eric Hodgins' Blandings' Way is the sequel to Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House. It is a Book of the Month Club pick and has as many situations for Cary Grant and Myrna Loy as the first book, but isn't quite as timely and probably won't sell the same way. Joyce Cary's A Fearful Joy isn't some kind of terribly meaningful novel like your Graham Greene or Elizabeth Bowen novel, but it is "juicy," and more and more Cary is getting the appreciation he deserves. (Time wishes.) And by "juicy" it means that it is a novel about a terrible woman ruining young author's lives. That's us girls, for you! Brendan Gill's The Trouble of One House is a fine novel about, stop me if you've heard this one, "love and death." Antoine St. Exupery is another author who isn't going to let a little thing like being dead stop him from following up his one famous book. The latest culling of from a dead author's trashbin is The Wisdom of the Sands and sounds vaguely worthwhile if you like the French-author-meditates-on-the-vastness-of-the-world-while-travelling-vast-distances sort of thing. Charles Wertenbaker's The Barons is a family saga about a family named Baron who sound just like the Du Ponts. Coincidence!
Aviation Week, 16 October 1950
News Digest reports that a B-45 has flown from California to Langley Field in Virginia, that the USAF's Airways and Air Communications Service still can't fill its shortage of civilian electronics and communications engineers, and that's it other than financial news and the premature death of General Nagle of heart disease at 53.
Industry Observer reports from Farnborough that the Avro 707 is off to Boscome Down, that the third De Havilland Comet will fly by year's end, the Vickers-Armstrong 535 hit Mach .86 at Farnborough, that the Blackburn and General Universal Freighter is comparable to the Fairchild Packet series, that the Fairey 17 ASW aircraft has very low ground clearance, that the Avro Shackleton is very loud inside, contributing to pilot and osbserver fatigue, and Coastal Command is demanding changes. The Viscount has very large, elliptical windows, sure to be a crowd pleaser, while the Airspeed Ambassador has the Decca Flight Log, a graphic navigational system that represents a flight path with a moving stylus on an area map on a revolving drum. The Westland Wyvern was shown carrying a torpedo with an "unusual additional tail assembly," presumably for high altitude drops.
"Sapphire Strengthens Wright's Jet Bid" The first US military orders for aircraft equipped with the Wright license-built Sapphire are expected soon, says Wright, otherwise scooped by Time. Pratt and Whitney might still respond by licensing a Rolls Royce engine. The Avon? The Wright J65 is likely to be able to replace the Allison J-35 on existing planes, and will probably be used on new ones. Aviation Week goes on to speculate about where the Mamba and Double Mamba might fit into American schemes, as with turboprops the competition seems closer.
"Navigation Aids Hit by CAA Budget Cut" and "More Money Asked As Dollar Shrinks" Because even $30 billion isn't enough when commodity prices are up. I don't see any cancellations of new navigation equipment designs, but the number bought is down.
Some political and financial news follows. I'll catch you up on the Delta/NEA merger when it happens, if it happens.
Alexander McSurely, "Tomorrow's props: Very Thin and Fast" Dayton is still pushing ahead with supersonic propeller blades which will allow rotations in the order of 4000rpm. It seems like asking for trouble, but if it works, Aeroproducts has the market sewn up.
"Avionics Package for Lightplanes" New VHF radios, basically.
"Turbojet Controls Analysed by NACA" NACA has a paper out intended to help design controls for a turbojet engine with an afterburner, which introduces engine speed and temperature complications that have to be managed for engine life and safety. This sort of work may be familiar from Flight of years past, and involves working out the thermodynamic heat transfer curves and the problem of control loops, where adjusting the controls changes the afterburner conditions requiring new changes, etc.
David A. Anderton, "Meteor PV Armed for Infantry Support" Gloster has brought out a version of the Meteor with fittings for RATO takeoff from short fields and an impressive carrying capacity in rockets (up to 16 95lb rockets, Gloster says), bombs (4x 1000lbs) and auxiliary fuel tanks. We'll see if anyone buys it.
Letters
Don Benton of Northwest Airlines writes in with a very extensive discussion of NWA's evaluation of automatic pilots, which was quite extensive and went on for several years and did not end with NWA buying an automatic pilot. There is also a letter on club insurance, praise from World Almanac for Aviation Week's coverage of the Pentagon air budgets, and from Don Behncke of the Airline Pilots Association supporting pilots' unions. And from Slick Airways about how Slick Airways is "booming." Hey, other airlines have to pay for their advertising, you know!
Speaking of, New Aviation Products likes safer seat belts from Associated Suppliers Corporation, vinyl-coated wire from GE, "Hard N' Tuf, a case hardening compound for steel and cast iron developed by Doughty Laboratories to be applied during heat treatments, a fibreglas "electrical conduit" from National Electric Products of Pittsburgh, and Rez-N-Kleen Lucite and Plexiglas cleaner from Schwartz Chemical. I'm in a hurry, so Also on the Market companies will have to pay for their own advetising, especially when one of them is GE!
"New Hydraulic Pump Has High Output" Vickers shows how to pay for advertorial content! The new Vickers Pumps hit up to 2500rpm and 0.95 cubic inch displacement per revolution. That is some seriously high pressure!"Gas Turbine Powers GroundHeater" is what is says. GroundHeater is a brand of ground heater. Financial News reports that Trans-Australian is out of the red.
Editorial is upset about the way that the CAB is treating the non-skeds, and points out that the MATS is very happy with the way that non-scheduled air services handled the early stages of the Pacific Air Lift.
Time, 23 October 1950
Letters
National Affairs
"The General Rose at Dawn" Time's take on the Wake meeting is that the President arrived in a terrible mood about being dragged halfway across the Pacific to meet MacArthur. Time recalls the way that FDR "lured" him to Hawaii in 1944, also just before an election and generally takes the tack that the President was interrupting the general in the middle of a war and that everyone was being disrespectful to the general, who was graciousness itself. One may recall that it is possible to see things another way! And the Budget Director has been able to find $580 million in savings in the $30 billion defence budget including $30 million that will be ploughed right back into agency spending.
"Revenge at Ellis Island" Under the new anti-Communist bill, some 347 Italian and German business and other travellers were removed from ships and planes and taken to Ellis Island to be investigated on general suspicion of foreign communism, or, to be fair, Nazism or Fascism. The German and Italian governments predictably hit the roof considering who these travellers were. President Truman sent a letter to Congress to say "I told you so," The GOP answered that the President was just trying to sabotage the bill by enforcing it, when he could have just let all these fellows (or at least the former Nazis) in. What good Austrian mezzo-soprano wasn't a Nazi?
Wages and prices are going up in spite of voluntary restraints, the Pentagon is still short of doctors, dentists and veterinarians(?) in spite of . . . doing nothing about it because everyone knows they'll eventually just draft some, and no-one wants to be the one to say it. Alan Valentine is in trouble at the Economic Stabilisation Bureau already. It turns out that the former head of "Democrats for Willkie" has a history of making politically insensitive comments.
"How It Looks" Did you know that there's going to be Congressional elections in November? That must be why Alben Barkley is campaigning for Helen Gahagan Douglas in California. Sadly, I think she's doomed, although Lucas seems to have pulled it out in Illinois.
Americana reports that Texas is going to have a two-day Thanksgiving holiday because Texas is too big for a single day, and that a new Tacoma Narrows Bridge opened this week, eighteen years after "Galloping Gertie" opened up. Two Hopi villages have written a letter to Washington pointing out that they've never actually agreed to join the United States and would like to talk to someone about it, which Time decides was probably composed by a Communist on the basis of something an old trapper told them once.
"If I Had To Do It Over" General Mark Clark's memoirs are out, and he doesn't apologise for a thing. The article is illustrated by a picture of New Zealander General Freyberg, who apparently demanded the bombing of Monte Cassino, and so the excuses go.
"Un-Global" Major General O. A. Anderson, recently kicked out of the War College for advocating preventive war with Russia, has been reassigned to the Air Technical Training Wing at Wichita Falls, Texas, which "has nothing to do with global strategy."
"The Tough Ones" The Army is so impressed by the small, fast-moving troops who "wiggled through US lines in Korea" that is is going to train its own wigglers --tough, company-sized commando units of paratroopers who will be trained in "amphibious assault, sabotage and guerilla warfare." Every infantry division will have one company with this training, and they will wear Ranger badges.
War in Asia
"Larger Battlefields" Time illustrates a big map showing the "push for Pyongyuang" with an article about the debacle on Colonial Route 4. And, yes, thank you very much, I have recovered from taking too much ephedrine for my cold, thank you very much. Although I still think that the rumour that General de Lattre de Tassigny is coming out to Hanoi is just premature, and not wrong. Time hopefully calls for a "quick victory over Communism in Indo-China," as otherwise there is no hope that Europe can be made defensible by 1952. The battle gets a fuller treatment after Time is done with Korea.
General Almond is this week's cover story. He's wonderful.
International
"Bend or Break" The US is now in favour of getting rid of the Security Council veto due to the Russians abusing it by actually using it, for example by vetoing another term for Trygve Lie this week, while in Lucknow, the latest meeting of the Institute of Pacific Relations saw all the Asian members making "anti-American postwar squawks." Time is pleased to report that Robert North of Stanford gave all those Asiatics a talking-to. Also it turns out that Tito's Yugoslavs are the good kind of communists who actually abide by ration restrictions.
Time thinks that the Conservative party conference was dangerously populist, especially when it acceded to demands from the floor for a platform of 300,000 houses a year, where Labour only promised 200,000. What good is it to win an election if you just have to do what the electorate wants you to do? Meanwhile, the East Germans showed how it was done, by turning out to vote "Ja" on the Party programme, as they were told. Only when Communists do it, it's bad.
And the Red Army of Occupation has gone into winter quarters, so Germany can exhale. The Burmese are being terrible to Dr. Gordon Seagrave, who is a true Christian martyr, or will be as soon as the court finds him guilty. Over in France, a sordid affair embroils the Comtesse de Rochefoucald, who spied for the British and went to a concentration camp, making her the heroine, the Comtesse de Marliave, who had no money and so received stolen Rochefoucauld goods from Louis-Robert Sarlin, who is bad. If you're still keeping track, the Comte De Marliave continues to be good.
In Hungary, the Communist Party is upset at Hungarian zoot suiters. Considering that Time isn't keen on zoot suiters, either, you have to wonder what is going on its head, because somehow Time manages to not tell us. Most unlike a regular Beyond-the-Iron-Curtain story.
In this hemisphere, it comes out that your boring old prime minister had a secret life as a devotee of psychics and mediums and took advice on affairs from his dead mother. At least Canada's eccentric head of government is dead and gone (unless he is advising the new Prime Minister from beyond the veil). Brazil's eccentric old President is now its eccentric new President. Everyone is interested to see how that turns out. In his 1930--45 dictatorship, Vargas flirted with Fascism under his Estado Novo programme, and when the army forced him out in 1945, it was to bring in a new era of western democracy. So now Vargas is back as a western democrat. Will he stay that way? In Mexico, a flight-besot boy climbed on to the tail of a DC-3 and held on through takeoff and a circle back around to land. They grow them strong but scrawny in Mexico, is all I can say. In Haiti, Colonel Magloire wins the election with approximately all the votes, and in Argentina, Dr. Kurt Tank's all-Argentinian fighter jet takes its first flight.
Business
The State of Business reports that it is hard to measure just how much boom there is in the boom, but it's a lot. The current rules on steel allocation may be too tough, and the latest word from the credit crunch front is that the National Security Resources Board has succeeded where the FRB failed, with William Levitt crying foul, saying that the country will be lucky to see a half million units built in the coming year under the new restrictions raising down payments, and increasing monthly payments.
Science, Medicine, Education
"Journey Into Wonder" Time really liked Norman Berrill's account of Columbus' first voyage in Natural History Magazine and spends a page and a bit on it, which at least is more worthwhile than the next article, about falcons.
"Vital Fractions" Remember last week's speculation about moving blood plasma around? This week we have one approach to the problem, a GE trailer that serves as a mobile blood donation clinic, a "blood factory on wheels." It is all thanks to Harvard's Edwin Cohn, a whiz at getting blood intact from the donor's veins to the recipient's arteries in the form of plasma. Because I think the actual point of the article is that the GE mobile blood factory is the plasma equivalent of the Red Cross' Bloodmobile for whole blood.
"Shocking and Choking" The University of Illinois' Dr. Ladislas Joseph Meduna thinks that psychiatrists' silly idea that psychoneuroses are best treated by "mental means" is all wrong, and that they are probably caused by a problem in the physical working of the brain's nerve cells that can be cured by physical means, for which he specifically prescribes Carbon Dioxide Therapy in the book of the same name. "Choking" a person on carbon dioxide is the perfect treatment for "anxiety, inferiority complexes and homosexuality, or such psychosomatic complaints as spastic colon, frigidity, impotence and stuttering." Dr. Meduna first began with shock treatments using Metrazol in his native Budapest. That didn't work at all, but he's sure that torturing patients is the key to success, and he just needs to find the right way to do it. He swears that it isn't actually shock, that he's just adjusting the electric potential in the nervous cells and it looks like he's choking people half to death.
"Without Armour" Percy Emerson Brown, who set up in the X-ray Department of Boston's Children's Hospital and x-rayed himself so frequently that he had to quit in 1929 or so because he was getting so many skin tumours, has died (of a heart ailment) after "twenty years of suffering." He is the author of American Martyrs to Science Through the Roentgen Rays.
"Separate but Equal" Federal Judge Johnson Hayes has broken with recent precedent by ruling that the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill can turn away Coloured law students because the North Carolina College for Negroes is "essentially just as good," meeting the separate-but-equal requirement.
"Knowledge v. Pet Ideas" Time turns it over to the "arch-Tory London Recorder for a six-column headline, "Wild Men Lose Control of London School of Economics," the substance of the story being that LSE has appointed Michael Oakeshott to replace the late Harold Laski. Time thinks that that's a bit overblown, considering that LSE has hired non-socialists before, up to, and including, Arnold Toynbee and Friedrich Hayek. And for some reason, Ohio University's president gets an ending profile.
Press, Radio and Television, Art, People
"Colour Climax" The FCC has finally handed down its ruling on colour television, ruling out RCA and Colour Televisions' competing systems in favour of the CBS system. CBS will start colour broadcasting next month. Current black and white sets require an adapter to receive colour broadcasts, still in black and white, and an even more expensive adapter to receive it in colour. New colour television sets will have the colour wheel built in, so no problem. The manufacturers are all fit to be tied over the prospect of paying CBS a license to install the CBS system.
(You may have missed the remake, but the original Cisco Kid was filmed in colour in anticipation that they'd sort colour tv out eventually.)
Los Angeles' public beautification project is quite nice. Time also liked Harry Abrams' picture book of El Greco paintings, and the Bergamo show of recent modern art canvasses was very confusing, because who understands modern art, what with Picasso and Rouault and Matisse being all abstract.
Pope Pius XII, Harry Truman and Joseph Stalin all make it into the first paragraph in prominent bold type, which is odd, because it is actually about a Turinese tailor, Antoni Santomauro, who dressed all three. I guess it is because he's not famous? Except he's in the first sentence of a Time People section, so he is famous? Ronnie is so confused! Gertrude Moran is modelling panties, because she used to be famous. T. S. Elliot should be modelling panties, but is doing lectures instead. John Garfield, James A. Farley, George Bernard Shaw (Die! Die! Die!), Eddie Ford, Marlene Dietrich, David Lilienthal, Maurice Thorez, Ann Sheridan, Helen Traubel, Eugene Davis, Errol Flynn, Millicent Carey McIntosh, Colonel Robert McCormick, Vincent Auriol, the Sultan of Morocco, Prince Takamatsu, Irene Dunne, Joe Dimaggio, Sigmund Rosenberg, Toscanini, Sigmund Romberg, the Shah of Iran, Princess Fawzia and King Leopold don't have to model panties. Except for Errol Flynn and Joe DiMaggio, who need to get into their leopard prints right now. Colonel McCormick is the Illinois Society of Sons of the American Revolution's Patriot of the Year, and the bit about King Leopold seems to be news in disguise of gossip, as he has arrived in a motor caravan in an Italian alpine resort and appears to be planning to stay there, which might even bring some peace to Belgium.
Margaret Whiting has had a baby. Ernest Haycox, Pauline Lord, Pierre Roy, John Jakob Raskob, Michael Williams and the Reverend Samuel Atkins Eliot have died.
The New Pictures
The Miniver Story is a sequel to Mrs. Miniver. It has the original cast, but not the original magic. Two Flags West is another "different" Western, this one set in the Old West, and even more different because no-one kisses Linda Darnell. The Toast of New Orleans gives Mario Lanzo another chance to sing in a movie and apparently leaves Time unsure why he deserves it. Pretty Baby is silly.
Books
T. S. ELLIOTT!!!! Angela Thirkel has a novel (County Chronicle) that is pretty much past it. Evelyn Waugh heard that T. S. Elliott would be in this issue, so he wrote a novel about some old time Catholic saintly saint who wasn't a saint or something. But she was the mother of an Emperor! Life's Picture History of World War II is 368 pages of good pictures if Time doesn't say so. Napoleon's Memoirs appear in English, edited by Somerset de Chait, which I first read as "de Chair," which sounds like more fun. Napoleon was very logical, but disorganised, but St. Chait provides the organisation. Charles Addams' Monster Rally is a collection of Charles Addams' unique New Yorker cartoons, coming out in the same month as a book by John Kobler, Afternoon in the Attic, illustrated by Addams. If you haven/t seen an Addams cartoon, you should definitely pick up Monster Rally. I'm not so sure about the Kobler book.
Aviation Week, 23 October 1950
News Digest reports that another Northwest 2-0-2 has crashed during a routine check flight, so not with any passengers aboard, and characterises General Anderson's comments as "allegedly" favouring preventive war.
Industry Observer reports that Fairchild is going to licence C-119 production in Britain and France, which seems unlikely to me, that the next generation of military props or continuing production of existing types (B-50, B-36, F8F, F4U) will have reversible props, that air navigation circles think that the CAA dropping all 7 precision radars from its 1951 programme is evidence that CAA is returning to its old prejudice against radar, that the Orenda now has more than 20 flights, that the Fokker Promoter will soon be cleared to fly again as they've figured out what was going wrong with the props, that the ducted fan is the next step beyond the propeller.
"Assault Transport Order Goes to Chase" The Chase YC-122 and YC-123 will be ordered for the Air Force assault transport specification and built at the former Bechtel-McCone-Parsons B-24 modification plant in Birmingham, Alabama.
"Bristol Proteus Will be Built in U.S." "An authoritative Defence Department spokesman says that Wright is on the verge of signing a deal to build the Bristol turboprop in America, perhaps as part of a package deal with the Armstrong-Siddeley engines already optioned. (It turns out that it is actually the Olympus.)
"Lockheed Shows First Super-Constellation" This is the big one that will eventually take the Wright R-3350 Compound and maybe a turboprop. It will carry up to 76 passengers in Atlantic flying. I can only imagine how many they'll cram in for coach.
Alexander McSurely, "Design for a Supersonic Flying Boat?" Pull the other one! The Navy is supposed to be working on a supersonic flying boat with Consolidated-Vultee.
IATA will hold its first meeting in America next year.
Financial news includes word of a new round of defence loans for aircraft builders and a McDonnell 2-for-1 stock split which explains how it got the puff piece in Time.
Aeronautical Engineering has an article on the design evolution of the A2D "Skyshark" turboprop, and an article about the latest hopeless Siebel entrant in the "light helicopter market" that doesn't exist.
Ivan H. Diggs, "Why We Still Need the Propeller" Diggs uses several pages of maths to show that propeller planes are actually quite competitive with jet planes. All the people who disagree are just too dumb for maths.
McGraw-Hill World News has a bulletin about new details of the Sapphire from Farnborough. The details are that everything is secret except for the annular combustion chamber and the fact that it gives at least 7200lbs.
Avionics has a puff piece about Airborne Instruments Laboratory of Mineola, NY, an MIT/Harvard spinoff from September of 1945 that started out with airborne submarine detection and which would like to get into all weather flying, but which is currently marketing submerged antenna and a plastic tower tester. (It is a plastic tower for testing purposes.)
"Disconnect Makes Flight Safer" Pan Am is putting in Stratos disconnect switches that will allow pilots to take a failing accessory out of service and improve overseas flight safety.
"AIEE Meeting" Aviation Week went to an AIEEE meeting in Philadelphia and heard an interesting paper on aluminum conductors.
Letters has James M. Gulick complaining about how Wright Field stalls contract offers, Martin Sharp of de Havilland explains that British production is as efficient as American no matter what visitors say, John Gatt complains that no-one takes rail casualties into account when talking about air safety, John Harper of NACA explains how to print Navy contract designations, Victory Engineering explains its cargo lock, and we get a letter from someone talking about pilot contracts.
Air Transport has "Fling a 'Bug' Instead of a Beam," which is F. Lee Moore trying to invent the Decca Air Pilot now that he has read about it in Flight. Apparently the Pictorial Computer is so far advanced that his company is just waiting for orders to start production.
New Aviation Products has lightweight, high-performance gear boxes for acccessories from Link, RuGlyde rubber lubricant from American Grease Stick Company, Swagelok instrument tubing fittings from Crawford Fitting, Corp, and a midget refuelling truck for light planes from Harman Equipment of Los Angeles, while G. H. Tennant offers a concrete landing strip joint cleaning machine. Cornelius Co. of Minneapolis has a cabin heating/air conditioning truck equipment for servicing airliners on layover, Ford Instrument (Sperry) has a pure iron rotor in a new low inertia servo motor with the highest torque to inertia ratio in the business, while Industrial Electronics and Transformer Company's new dimpler is better than other equipments that apply dimpling to dies.
Editorial points out that the Air Force can't expect industry to do security clearance checks until it explains what it wants from them, and that air freight is making steady progress on the railroads, which are a bunch of losers who lie in their pamphlets.
Letters
Everyone loved the Robert Frost profile, but Alfred Benton writes to correct the notion that people behind the Iron Curtain hate Communism. They don't. It's like a religion to them. Grady McMurtry of San Francisco writes to point out that the plot of Devil's Doorway is basically what happened to all the Indians. James Guerin thinks that the anti-racists of Chicago are the real racists. Our publisher shares a letter from a "Danish woman journalist who is married to an Armenian and lives in Greece." She likes Time, and America, at great length.
National Affairs
"Arms and Doubts" Time catches up on the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and what it is costing us. ($42 billion.) Casualties in Korea are creeping up. The President gave a press conference in San Francisco about his conference with MacArthur on Wake. Everything was nice until the press asked him if he was going to shut up and do what the General says, which offended the President of the United States for some reason.
Did you know there's an election in November? (THREE. PAGES. ABOUT. THE. OHIO. SENATE. RACE.) Also, the Hanley affair continues to bruise Tom Dewey, and Scott Lucas is making up ground in Illinois, which is notable because McCarthy is campaigning for Dirksen, not that Time can bear to mention that.
The deadline for all American Communists to register with local authorities has passed, and no-one has. The State Department aims to arrest up to 86 Communist aliens and deport them. Henry Stimson has died.
"Old Glory and Something Blue" Is it okay to display the UN flag with Old Glory? Opinions differ. And by that I mean, "Get red hot and run rampant over common sense." the Daughters of the American Revolution, Veterans of Foreign Wars, a Marine veteran, the Chicago Tribune and Groton, Connecticut, are all concerned. In the South, however, they'll just fly the UN flag on a separate flag pole, like the Confederate flag.
International
"Five Years After" Time continues to warm to the UN on account of that very nice Korean War we're having. John Foster Dulles, the new US ambassador to the UN is just the best. Meanwhile, Communism continues to be bad, with Molotov's terms for a German peace treaty being objectionable, and Pravda's reply to the President's San Francisco speech very "rough." In Paris, the Americans and the French have hashed out a deal in which the US would give France between 30% and 40% of the MDAP's $6 billion, with the understanding that it can be spent in Indo-China, and the French in return offering to equip 10 divisions for Europe, getting the European alliance well along to its goal of 60 divisions, including 5 American.
"A Balance for Peace" Ferdinand Eberstadt of the War Production Board recently gave a speech in Seattle that is definitely worth a page. Time thinks. I can't see anything worth comment, except who would have thought just five years ago that we would be talking in 1950 about Japan and Germany getting permanent seats on the Security Council?
War in Asia
"Damn Good Job" Another effusion of words on Korea. We catch up with Almond's landing at Wonsan, much like the South Koreans. Fortunately, it turns out that since Wonsan's harbour was chocked with mines, it was probably a good thing that the Marines didn't have to carry out their amphibious assault. The Russians have good mines, and the USN needs to put more effort into minesweeping, says Admiral Allan Smith, commander of the UN Blockade and Escort Force. Now X Corps will be in charge of northeast Korea, chasing the North Koreans across the Russian border while the rest of the UN forces close up with the Yalu River frontier. Shorter stories visit the provisional US administration(?) of Pyongyang, and the South Korean forces, which are learning everything worth learning from US advisors, and maybe things like paperwork that aren't. Also, with the war almost over, General MacArthur is toting up the cost of putting Korea back together after war and bombing, perhaps a billion dollars or more. Some US allies would also like Korea-wide elections, although the US sees that as throwing the Rhee government overboard. In the meantime, that is what is behind the Americans setting up an administration in North Korea, and not Rhee's government, although MacArthur is thought by some to be sabotaging it in support of Rhee.
"Death Train" US troops entered Pyongyang too late to catch a train loaded with 250 to 300 US prisoners, although some were found hiding in Pyongyang. The train was caught just north of the city, although between sickness, exhaustion and starvation there were only five survivors and it seems as though at least one additional train is on the loose, unless the unaccounted-for prisoners have been shot.
"Hanoi Beach-head" In Indo-China, Juin and the Minister, Lean Letourneau, have arrived in Hanoi to "study the martial setback, which, as of this writing has reached the Red River delta and stabilised, although Time doesn't know that yet. (As it apparently doesn't know that there are Chinese troops in Korea as of the date.) As Langson falls to the Viet Minh, it is worth noting that it was the fall of the same fort to the Ch'ing 65 years ago that led to the fall of the Ferry government. The Pleven government did not fall because . . . I don't know. The French say that the Americans want them to keep Indo-China, and the Americans say that the French want to hold it.
Business
Used car dealers are up in arms over the credit cuts, and Uncle Henry is using it as an excuse for not increasing Henry J. production. House prices are down, home sales are down, lumber sales have fallen, so have televisions, radios, washers and other big appliances. There's also a bunch of new orders from the NPA ordaining cuts in rubber use, "columbium stainless steel" and there are tougher orders in the works for the construction industry. (Columbium is what everyone else calls nickel.)
In shorter news, steel people think the price of steel is too low, the shift to automatic transmissions is everywhere, the stock market is up, and Hoffman Radio has bought the Don Lee network. Who? What? It's a big deal, apparently. Congress is still investigating the Isbrandsten Steamship Company's contraband business with China, which it apparently can't do anything about on account of it not actually being contraband that Isbrandsten is shipping. And whose fault is it that there's no American law against exporting TNT to China? Well, Congress, probably. PROBABLY.
"Comet Ahead" BOAC will start receiving Comets in three months, and is already lengthening fields on the Australia route, where the Comet will cut times from 68 to 33 hours. "No matter what the US does, we're 18 months ahead of the rest of the world," says Sir Miles Thomas.
Science, Medicine, Education
"Time Change" Recent measurements of the speed of light have changed the value slightly.
"High Lights" Harlow Sharpley of the Harvard Observatory says that the ten highlights of astronomy this year are the calculation of Eros' orbit, the tripling of the number of known radio stars, Gerard Kuiper's close up of Pluto with the 200" Palomar telescope, and the observation of a flare from Proxima Centauri, the closest star to us.
"The Poisoned Air" I can't remember where we are with biological warfare. I know that some people poo-poo it, but when I read that Victor Haas of the Government's Microbiological Institute is warning about it again, is he protecting his job, or reflecting an advance in the state of art of giving people plague so they die? Well, he moves right on from the threat to the need for a massive civil defence effort to field giant filter machines to detect disease-causing organisms being broadcast by the enemy. Perhaps by stealthy saboteurs rather than Communist bombers!
"Hold That Penicillin" In last week's US Armed Forces Medical Journal, Captain Robert L. Gillman points out that penicillin can be a serious allergic hazard, with some patients even being treated for allergic reactions to penicillin with penicillin.
"Cleft Opinion" One baby in every 800 is born with cleft palette. Surgery is indicated, but when? The traditional answer is before the baby starts talking, at eight months, but Chicago dentist, Touro M. Graber argues in the current Journal of Pediatrics that early surgery often does more harm than good because the top and bottom of the jaw often grow at different rates, and the surgeries can have bad results, so he suggests waiting until the child is five and using a prosthetic to plug the cleft in the meantime. Everyone else disagrees.
The University of Glasgow has a new rector, which is clearly news, and General Eisenhower has a plan for a giant new annual convention at Columbia to be called "the American Assembly." The University of Wisconsin is tired of students necking out at the Lake and on Observatory Hill and wants to build a "Romance Road," which students seem to think is a bit artificial, and Sheldon Glueck and Eleanor Tournoff don't need a lover's lane, because they have criminology.
Press, Radio and Television, Art, People
"Storm Over Wake" Everyone is upset at the United Press' Merriman Smith (which is as real name). The President is angry at him for pressing questions about alleged disagreements between himself and General MacArthur, and the rest of the press pool is upset at him for breaking the embargo on a separate first communique. Time finishes up with an elaborate he-said-she-said story featuring The Daily Worker, The New York Times, and the latter's Moscow correspondent, Harrison Salisbury. Salisbury filed stories from Moscow saying that there was no sign of the Russians going on war mobilisation, which the Times held up because his stories have to pass censor review and so aren't really reflective of his opinions. The Daily Worker got hold of them and printed them, asking why the Times was suppressing them. Everyone, Time concludes, can at least agree that Communism is awful, even if there are plenty of samovars and cars available in Russia.
"Traffic Accident" when American paratroopers jumped into Pyongyang, the first American combat jump of the conflict, no less than eight correspondents jumped with them. It was a bit of a mess, as is the Denver Post's ambitious expansion plans.
Some sporting authorities are banning television broadcasts, others welcome them. Burns and Allen are on television now. RCA is seeking an injunction against the FCC's decision for the CBS colour television system. Some manufacturers are backing a national publicity campaign against the CBS system, while Belmont, Webster, Muntz and Television Equipment Corporation have broken with the Radio-Television Manufacturers Association and are promising to make CBS-system colour televisions.
The City Art Museum of St. Louis has bought a Rembrandt collection at a cost to the museum of $130,000 that sounds like it was a bit controversial. Marcel Gromaire, who is alive, and Alexander Cozens, who is definitely not, get profiles on occasion of recent shows. Then there is a huge feature on the Carnegie prizes with pages of pictures. Although most of them are a bit traditional, if you like modern art you should check out this issue of Time.
The New Pictures
Trio is three Somerset Maugham short stories turned into short films in an anthology with introductions by Somerset Maugham. Oh, well, pass, pass and pass, then. Time is less critical. To Please a Lady has Clark Gable as a race car driver and a romantic lead. He's better at the first than the second. Now there's a man who needs some carbon dioxide. Just kidding, Uncle George! Walk Softly Stranger is about "two cripples, one physical, one moral." Joseph Cotten is a criminal who falls for a girl in a wheelchair and then melodrama occurs. Right Cross features Ricardo Montalban as a Mexican boxer with a chip on his shoulder about racism that Time doesn't like because it isn't fond of the way Hollywood handles racism, which frankly usually says more about Time than Hollywood.
Books
Aviation Week, 30 October 1950
News Digest reports that the Air Force has ordered DC-6s and Super Constellations, that GE is moving its turbine division from Massachusetts to the Ohio plant building the J-47.
"Martin Prototype 4-0-4 Takes the Air" No comment on the latest 2-0-2 crash.
"Army Copter Groups Get H-19 Transports" A helicopter transport company will consist of 21 machines, and there will be one to a division, so this is a 400 copter order for the 18 division army.
Alexander McSurely, "Industry DOs?" Washington is thinking about priority orders (defence orders) for transport planes.
The Flight Safety Foundation issues annual awards to the pilots of that American plane that landed after the prop ripped open its fuselage, the captain of the BEA Viking that landed successfully after the bomb went off, the Pennsylvania Aeronautics Commission for wading into private flying --and Curtiss Wright for the reversible prop, which has to make you wonder, as the pilot gossip has it that the latest 2-0-2 crash was due to a prop reversing in flight. Is Wright buying awards? Talk from Congress is of a $45 billion defence budget, including a 12 carrier navy that will need 300 more planes and a new aircraft carrier that's less egregious than the old new carrier, and an 18 squadron Marine Corps. DC-6 orders have hit $100 million. 
Irving Stone, "New Props for Turbine Power" Curtiss-Wright's prop division has all sorts of cool new propellers. 
C-W is getting back to hollow steel blades, as only that construction method can resist the stresses involved. Tip blades will be rectangular, and the high and transonic speed blades will have conventional thickness, while the supersonic blades will be shorter and thinner. They continue to be convinced that the blades will have the same efficiency as jet engines even in the supersonic range, and seem satisfied with the pitch change mechanisms and controls, which is kind of important with all the blades flying and reversing.
C-W is getting back to hollow steel blades, as only that construction method can resist the stresses involved. Tip blades will be rectangular, and the high and transonic speed blades will have conventional thickness, while the supersonic blades will be shorter and thinner. They continue to be convinced that the blades will have the same efficiency as jet engines even in the supersonic range, and seem satisfied with the pitch change mechanisms and controls, which is kind of important with all the blades flying and reversing.
I have to wonder what is going on at Curtiss-Wright when, on the one hand, it goes out on a buying spree for new British jet engines while on the other it is pushing the slightly quixotic idea of supersonic prop planes on every second page of this magazine.
"NACA Reports on Sweptback Wings" Wind tunnel results for the wings, and in particular flap performance, is now out, although it will have to be checked empirically. Right now it looks as though flap deflections will have to be increased due to the reduced efficiency of flaps on sweptback wings, especially at high speeds.
"Canberra 2 by English Electric" I was just getting used to the Canberra 1! No need to wrap my mind around it, though, because the article is just a pictorial of the plane in production.
"Thing Airfoil Section Tested at Low Speed" Well, I for one am glad that NACA is testing this, since my impression was that planes have to go slow before they can stop, and they really should stop before you get out. In all seriousness, the test series is checking stall conditions in various flap settings.
New Aviation Products has a Goodrich pouch that "zips up" plane flaps for safe and easy weather sealing, an obstruction light from David Rumph for upright masts, and small actuators from Airborne Accessories. Page over and Barber-Colman has paid full freight for an advertorial with a George L. Christian byline advertising the improved cabin heat control of the 4-0-4. Barber-Colman is particularly pleased with the "micropositioners" that amplify the signal from the temperature-sensitive wires that act as the thermistors in the air return plenum, which is a fancy way of saying that they're in a big chamber that can't get plugged with dust or nicotine residue. Direct-current magnetic amplifiers rather than the vacuum tubes commonly used in competitors' installations, the micropositioners are more reliable and robust. The actuators also have radio noise filters, Barber-Colman reminds potential customers that it has long experience in the textile industry and entered aviation via its expertise with actuators and micropositioners. It is confident that it is uniquely capable of handling the high pressures and temperatures associated with future jet transports.
"U.S. Market Brightens for British" Sure, for the Viscount and the Comet, but the article is illustrated with the de Havilland Dove and Percival Prince. This makes sense, since those types have CAA certification, which isn't possible for the Viscount and Comet yet, but that just means that American executives and airlines can buy them. Will they? The British say that these types will be more economical than the DC-3 on some routes, a phrase that has come back to haunt design after design. Besides, the CAA fought this tooth and nail, and I have a feeling that it will find excuses to keep on fighting it. It is already digging in its heels over the turbine types, disappointing the British, who thought they were covered by last year's reciprocity agreement on air safety standards. A horribly cynical person might even say that if the British want to meet American safety standards, they should probably try half-sawing through a wingspar or such.
The National Defence Transport Association heard that the armed forces would require 6000 DC-6s in the event of all out war at its San Francisco meeting two weeks ago, curled up into a ball, cried itself to sleep. National Airlines' G. T. Bakers says that he is sold on jets and is keen to buy an Avro Jetliner. BEA has crashed a DC-3, killing 28 passengers of 29 on board. It was trying to make its way through fog into a London suburb while down an engine.
Letters
Air racer Arthur S. Beckington has a long letter complaining that Aviation Week didn't cover his latest race. Our Editor patiently explains, again, that the only purpose air races serve is to kill spectators,a nd that is, it turns out after careful study, a bad thing to do. Frank Cavenaugh of Western Machinery and Steel World is very appreciative of the excellent arguments that Aviation Week makes in favour of the nonskeds, but is sick and tired of being delayed at Oakland Airport for hours at a time.
What's New liked Harry Haase's The Analytical Development of Curves and Streamline Bodies, and points out that math is much better than guessing.
Editorial has Our Editor dressing up in his shining armour and riding his snow-white destrier into battle against the forces of reaction that "sneer at air freight," slaying straw men left, right and centre with his mighty sword. Take that, sneerers!
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/lost-indigenous-fort-repel-russia-rediscovered-alaska-n1255537 > turns out Alaska is secretly New Zealand, or something
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