Shaughnessy,
Vancouver,
Canada
Washington Trends reports that official Washington is confident that UN forces in Korea can weather a Red offensive, although "the sky's the limit" for air force appropriations for new weapons. "Encouraging reports" about guided missile progress are behind the spate of reports about secret weapons last week. The British are lining up behind the French for concrete returns for their support for the Japanese peace treaty, but haven't asked for anything except some steel, yet. A hike in the first class letter postal rate to 4 cents is not set in stone, and Phil Murray may stay on as president of the CIO.
National Affairs
The lead story is about an election the United States appears to be having next year. I think it involves the President. Congress, and stop me if you've heard this one, appears to be open to spending an enormous amount of money on airpower, which is about all the national news this week, since almost the next story is about a reservist who might have got into trouble for complaining about Navy chow to the press, and the one after is about a woman experiencing strange sounds in her pregnancy that, the midwife says, are the baby crying in the womb. This is followed by one about an elderly cat lady giving out dollar bills to boys so they won't throw rocks at strays. Rain has led to more flooding on the lower Missouri.
Ernest K. Lindley's Washington Tides has "The Kremlin Dilemma," mostly a long and boring rehearsal of stuff we already know, but cuts through it with a basic point. For alleged masters of propaganda, Kremlin diplomacy has been pretty unsuccessful for the last few years, with the embarrassing failure in San Francisco the latest example. At this point they have the alternative of either offering more concessions or "more force." I would personally qualify this by saying that the talk of a Soviet masterstroke to derail the peace treaty came from the Western press, and the Russians were pretty successful in rallying the Asian powers against it. The fact that they don't matter doesn't really change the fact that the Russians have made progress with India, something Lindley indirectly admits by scolding Nehru for opposing the peace treaty.
Follows an entire Special Report on Radio Free Europe, an exhaustive report under International on "Red Defeat at San Francisco: Is It Too Good to be True?" and word that the Red Cross' latest blood drive has failed, and America should be embarrassed and ashamed. Japanese delegates were well-treated in San Francisco and enjoyed it, but found American diets to be rich, and American wastefulness to be wasteful.
General Eichelberger has been invited to contribute "Japan's Balancing Role," which explains that Japan can balance the strategic situation in Asia by being the well-armed ally of America and all its other allies, you know, the Europeans.
Foreign Affairs
Business
The Periscope's Business Trends section reports that no-one is sure how much civilian production will be curtailed or when the rearmament programme will hit full speed. We are sure that the structural steel shortage will continue into 1952 and will hit many durable goods, forcing the Defence Production Agency to distinguish what counts as a durable good for consumer production, and what doesn't. The government is shelving plants to stimulate artificial wool production now that prices have come down. The thaw in wage freezes is well on, the Federal Reserve is cracking down on credit violations, America is headed towards another huge positive trade balance, and Britain's emergency plea for 800,000 tons of steel has been temporarily rejected. It will have to come out of ECA aid.
A long story about the "great squeeze" as armaments production gets rolling turns out to be a round of Washington offices to find out if the dollar-a-year men think that that's what is going on. They do! On the other hand, it could be the commodity shortage, as the next story explains how the end of the copper squeeze gets some production rolling. The latest shortage? Small change, especially nickels, which is hard to explain. The aviation industry's latest manpower shortage is of aviation mechanics. The shortage will probably continue for the foreseeable future considering how quickly commercial aviation is growing. Macy's has a nice display of Italian imports, if you're up New York way, and a world traveller like you might be! The Air Force has placed the first contracts for the atomic plane with Convair and GE, stocks are up, ATT says that America has 44 million telephone sets out of a worldwide total of 76 million, with 175 million daily phone calls, six million of them long distance. Newsweek checks in with Sorge Printing, which specialises in boring Wall Street stuff.
What's New has a "colour meter" from GE, mainly for use with colour film, Alvin T. Smith's portable "Phil-Rite" gas pump for filling the tanks of power mowers and outboard motors. Twin Gabel's line of diabetic soups includes vegetable, chicken, pea, tomato and rice, and mushroom barley. J. L. Golding's "Hang Mor" is a closet stretcher.
Henry Hazlitt's Business Tides has reached "Inflation for Beginners, III" Considering how patronising Hazlitt is at the best of times, I don't think this one is going to be very . . And in the first line he claims that "the most stubborn fallacy about inflation is that it is caused, not by an increase in money, but by a 'shortage of goods.'" Yes, sure, he concedes that a rise in prices can be caused by a shortage of goods, but that is not the pure and perfect inflation that stalks (is supposed to stalk) our nightmares, bringing down Weimar and plunging the world into war. You see, it can't possibly be caused by a shortage of goods, because we make more goods than ever. Nor is a budget deficit the cause of inflation, as a "fully funded" deficit paid for by "bonds out of real savings" cannot be inflationary. I have no economics training at all. Everything I know is based on throwing brickbats at The Economist, but I can still see the problems here, which involve (deliberately?) confusing money stock, and money flow. How can someone who knows so little about his subject get such a nice job? Is it the suits? Because I could wear a suit! If Jean Harlow can do it, I can do it! Or maybe not. Girl in Stanford Law, don't want them talking! Curses. Hazlitt's job is safe.
Science, Medicine, Education
"Mexico's University City" The National Autonomous University of Mexico has such a big campus that it is a university city.
Press, Radio and Television, People
The San Francisco talks were so boring that all the press almost died until someone crashed a truck on Bay Shore and gave them something to report. Colonel McCormick figures that the brand new presses at the Washington Times-Herald will win the newspaper war in Our Nation's Capital.
"Hellbox" I am not sure what that's a good title for a collection of short new stories about news, but I can't skip over a bit about a story in the Chicago Tribune about how the sulphur shortage is leading to a shortage of Canadian newsprint that, if it goes on long enough and is equally distributed, will result in a 28% shrinkage of newspaper sizes across the country. A paper in California is using less vibrant colours, which is the lead blurb and might explain the title. The United Nations Press Association has had to lock up the refrigerator in their lunchroom because, Inez Robb of International News says, they think delegates are stealing sandwiches.
New Films
The Medium is based on a somewhat experimental play that "bogs down" as a movie. Angels in the Outfield doesn't sound very experimental at all. Let's see, it's got corn, jokes, baseball and Janet Leigh, "missing not one trick of surefire box office." The People Against O'Hara is a crime melodrama with so many twists that Spencer Tracy gets lost and so do we.
Books
I go out of the country for one single year and the bookstores have a "crisis!" (It says here.) Seventy of the nation's 2800 bookstores have closed, and another 350 are in trouble even though the business is booming, so Doubleday is picking up some transportation costs. Now, I am sure that in the seven years we've been doing this, someone has mentioned Ford Madox Ford to you. Now I am doing it again, and it is not because you just can't stop saying "Ford." There's an edition out. It's very exciting.
Frank Gilbreth, amongst the dozen of Cheaper by the Dozen, is now a grown man who would like some funny-stories-about-big-families money, thank you very much, so he has a memoir of his life so far out, even though he is only up to one daughter. Karl Schriftgiesser's The Lobbyists is hokum about how lobbyists are bad, when in fact many of them are just explaining the facts of economic life, and anyway it is better than in the old days when people beat up legislators and killed them in framed-up duels. Because that's the alternative! In conclusion, because "leftward" writers get published, there's no (real) problem! Marguerite Kennedy is also looking for that "funny family story" money with her My Home on the Range.
Raymond Moley's Perspectives has "Pattern of Pacific Peace" a whole column that makes it clear that he had to file before the truck crash, because if he'd waited, he would have had something to talk about.
Aviation Week, 17 September 1951
News Digest reports that Gerald Dobbin, legislative editor of American Aviation, has died at the age of 49. Various strikes are ongoing, Boeing is suing Northwestern for libel for saying that the Stratocruiser was delivered late. Philippine Air Lines is ordering 3 Convair 340s, C. Lorenz is building eight VOR omniranges for Germany.
Industry Observer reports that the "long-simmering" Navy deal to have Grumman F9Fs built in Texas by GM is on again. There is "considerable speculation . . . circulating in Washington aviation circles" that Japan will be the first nation to "carry all air mail by helicopter." Douglas' 70,000lb A3D is the "ultimate" in carrier-capable bomber design. Naval air strength will hit 10,000 aircraft this year. The Air Force is planning a turboprop cargo plane even bigger than the Convair R3Y. The Air Force is also going to buy not only the Chase C-123, but a military version of the "Super DC3," the C-47F, which will be modernised by Douglas.
"Senate Pushes for Build-up for Air Power" Aviation Week has the details on that $5 billion emergency appropriation.
David A. Anderton, "New Developments Seen at SBAC Display" Aviation Week sprang to send Anderton to Britain. I have no idea how he beat out the rest of the bullpen. Round-robin death matches? First off, the P. 1067, which, the announcer said, was trying to informally beat the world speed record when it flashed by the announcer's podium. The Avro 707B showed off its rate of roll, the Supermarine 508 made an appearance, and so did the experimental Sapphire-Canberra.. The Vickers Valiant made only a sedate, slow, low altitude pass, while the Nomad-Lincoln was also disappointing, not able to shut down its Merlins and fly on Nomad power alone. The Supermarine Swift, which was supposed to appear alongside the P. 1067, was damaged in a belly landing a few days ago and was only shown in a static exhibit. The Fairey delta-wing also failed to show, as did the twin rotor Bristol 173, while the Westland Wyvern failed to get in the air, as did the Mamba Marathon. All were only necessarily absent for press day, and the hope is that they will show up in the course of the exhibition, or in some cases make a more impressive outing.
"Swiss Show Anti-Aircraft Guided Missile System" Oerlikon is trying to muscle into the business with a complete antiaircraft missile system, "probably the first such showing anywhere."" It is a beam-riding system with a range of about twelve miles and a mobile beam transmitter with a dish antenna and "another, smaller, different antenna," made by Brown-Boveri. The missile probably has a booster rocket, although none was shown in the demonstration.
"French Gas Turbines To Be Built Here" Continental Motors has bought the license to build Societe Turbomeca's small turbines, which give 200--1100hp, and include a ducted fan style engine.
NACA Reports has Bruno Boley leading the team in "A Numerical Approach to the Instability Problem of Monocoque Cylinders," and Morton Cooper and Robert Webster investigating "The Use of an Uncalibrated Cone for Determination of Flow Angles and Mach Numbers at Supersonic Speeds."
Avionics checks in with Convair's San Diego division, which tests antennas on a "tail skeleton" mounted on the roof. The Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics wants a uniform testing procedure for airborne radio equipment, while the Shallcross Manufacturing Company has just the cutest miniature, hermetically sealed resistors designed to meet requirement JAN-R-93, characteristic A, style RB11.
Production has "Powder metal Boosts Jet Output: Thompson Says 250,000-a-month Rate Raised to 50 Million: Rolls-Royce Engineers Study Process" Maybe this is the fast compressor stator blade manufacturing process that The Economist eluded to? It's an application of powder metallurgy, and Rolls-Royce is considering licensing it. Thompson Products has been making blades for Allison since 1948. Powder metal blades require much smaller drop hammers, and dies last 30 to 50 times longer than regular drop forging dies. The various steps of turning powder metal into a solid final product are described, and Thompson reports that its blades may be used in the J-47 and Wright's version of the Sapphire.
Equipment has George L. Christian, "Sandwich Metal Stands up to Heat," which is a report on Rosslyn Metal's copper-steel sandwich material that combines good heat conductance with steel's strength, followed by "Muffler Quiets DC-3 Engine Noise," which is welcome news from Aero Sonic of Brooklyn. It is the first such application but it won't be the last, says Rob Morrow of Meteor Air Transport, which contracted with Aero Sonic. And for the worrywarts, the problem of backfiring has been completely solved by an ingenious, small vent.
New Aviation Products has a snap action switch from Cherry-Chalmer, and an avionic varnish from Jack and Heintz,
In business news, aviation companies are exploring stock options as a way of compensating key men, Wiggins Airlines is applying to run a helicopter service in the Northeast, Central California Airlines is replacing its DC3 and DC4 fleet with Martin 2-0-2s bought from Northwestern, and the Navy is still pushing for four-engined turboprop conversions of existing planes.
C. R. Robson's Cockpit Viewpoint has "A New Cockpit Philosophy" that lays out a new approach to dividing up the flying work in modern, complicated cockpits. What's New reports that the latest edition of G. Geoffrey Smith's Gas Turbines and Jet Propulsion is the best yet. Rohmm and Hass'
Plexiglas Handbook for Aircraft Engineers is a spiral-bound, 66 page work detailing best design practices for the proper application of pleixglas. I mean, what else could it be about?Letters has a letter from Sabena about Sabena's contribution to the Pacific airlift, a correction for a recent article about Youngstown Airport from Kenneth Granger, the manager. Leo Dorney of Aero Transports wishes that Aviation Week covered Mexico better. G. E. Gischel of Heli-Corp congratulates Aviation Week on its move from New York to Danbury, Connecticut. Robert Sibley of the Aero Club of New England thinks that the Air Force is covering up flying saucer experiments, while William Key of Fairchild, doesn't. C. F. Graf of IBM really liked the article about counter equipment at airlines that allow "mechanised control," but Rhode Island thinks that it has been slighted by the article that moved Providence to Massachusetts. T. E. Mulford, the publicity director of Link, liked George L. Christian's article about Link flight simulators.
Newsweek, 24 September 1941
Letters
For Your Information thanks all the Newsweek readers who sent in contributions for the Clark familiy that was the victim of the riot in Cicero. Newsweek points out that it doesn't usually do this, preferring to be a news magazine rather than a charitable fund, but it made an exception in this case and forwarded the money. It is also pleased with its story about sporting "it girl," Maureen Connolly, and apologises for its boring, Time-style cover portrait of the new Secretary of Defence, Robert A. Lovett. It was taken while he was testifying in the Senate, so it counts as news!
"Why Truman Backs Acheson and Why He'll Push Jessup" I think Periscope has pretty much covered the story. Also, Tom Dewey was in town to report to the President on his fact-finding trip to the Pacific, and, more importantly, meet with fellow Eisenhower backers who are worried about the recent Taft push. Also, his limousine went up the wrong driveway to the White House, which he Washington press corps thought was almost as funny as implying that he is going to try to run again in '52, after all. Newsweek checks in with the air show disaster in Colorado, the resignation of Ambassador Grady for the sin of pushing back against the British in Iran on the argument that they were just promoting anti-Western sentiment, then follows the President around before giving up a bit of puffery on the new Secretary of Defence. The Senate investigating committee has turned up shocking news of insider dealing at the Federal Refinancing Corporation!
"Push-Button Bomber" The "First Pilotless Bomber (Light: Squadron has been formed to fly the new Martin B-61 missile.
"How Douglas Cracked" A painfully detailed account of Senator Paul Douglas's hysterical fit on the Senate floor last week. The sudden fad for Southern flags will probably fade away like Little Audrey jokes and pyramid clubs.
Ernest K. Lindley's Washington Tides is pointless blithering about Korea, where the Communists might attack, but probably won't. They're obviously not going to make headway on the ground, so this is more about the idea of that huge "Manchurian air force" attacking the UN, which will lead to UN retaliation, but which will first require consultation with France and Britain, and I'm bored just writing this down.
"Addition to Defence: Europe's Biggest Refinery" One of the less appreciated issues in the Anglo-Iranian nationalisation controversy is the fate of the Abidjan refinery, which produces so much of the world's aviation gasoline. So the opening of the $105 million Esso refinery at Fawley is not only an important step in Europe's billion-dollar push ($450 million of that British) to "refinery self-sufficiency" but a message to the government of Iran. Four months ahead of schedule, its opening replaces 25% of Abidjan's capacity and will save Britain a hundred million dollars a year, a third of the dollar loss from the Abidjan shutdown. Once all the planned refineries are open, Europe will save $450 million a year on the dollar trade balance by importing cheap crude oil instead of expensive refined products. This is, I guess, the final answer to The Economist's wafflings about how it is more efficient to refine oil at the source and ship refined products.
Korean War
"Are the Reds Ready to Move? The UN Command Thinks So" Specifically, it has identified three armoured divisions and observed roads being widened and bridges bulwarked to take T-34 tanks. From Pyongyang south, the roads have been flanked by antiaircraft batteries "manned by Caucasians," and Russian-made Katyusha rockets have been used in the central mountains. So far, this pressure hasn't amounted to much, and Newsweek takes this opportunity to be Turkey's agent, allowing as how the Turkish Brigade is inflicting casualties 20 to 1 in localised fighting. Nice of the Reds to report the score for us! General Van Fleet promises that "they will want peace by the time we're through with them" in the ongoing Battle of the Hills. The two sides are also exchanging unpleasantries over the suspension of the Kaesong talks.
The UN has made a concession by admitting that it carried out those alleged strafing attacks on Kaesong negotiating parties, but that is not enough for the Reds. The weather is still mild, but Eighth Army is rolling out its winter clothes issue, starting with leather-wool gloves on 15 September, followed by hood, flannel shirt and high neck sweater on 1 October, then sleeping bag, overcoat, field jacket liner, woollen muffler, mittens and arctic boots or shoepacs on 1 November. The QMC is also sending experimental rubber-insulation-rubber layer boots, bloomer-style underwear, inflatable mattresses, and parkas; as well as "lightly armoured clothing" weighing from 9 to 15lbs including a rigid cotton jacket studded with glass-fibre and plastic panels; an armoured vest consisting of several layers of nylon pressed together, a laminated nylon helmet, and eye protection consisting of thin steel sheet goggles pierced by horizontal and vertical slits. The Army chief of staff has also promised that everyone who serves through this winter will be rotated home before the next one.
I don't know if it is significant or anything, but that reference to "Katyusha" rocket launchers is the first time the American press has noticed one of the dramatic Eastern Front weapons before they showed up in combat in Korea. Makes you wonder if a JS-3 tank is next!
Business
The Business Periscope reports that the rubber supply situation has improved, with the price of synthetic rubber dropping. The US government will re-enter the natural rubber market when the price drops a bit further. The hosiery industry has an inventory problem, while Japanese sewing machines are serious competition for American. Made with expired American patents, the Japanese can undersell American manufacturers thanks to labour costs 80% below American. The latest on production priorities is a proposed "multi-band" scheme. Hollywood will go "all out" for colour next year. The price of copper has stabilised and there is a new bottleneck in issuing subcontracting contracts.
"Britain's Plight" Newsweek explains Britain's problem, which is that it imports lots of stuff and has to pay for it with exports, but exports are lagging, leaving a trade gap of $2.3 billion so far this year compared with $756 million last year. Rearmament has a lot to do with this, but so does the high price of raw materials, worldwide, which the British would like controlled. America is open to this. Meanwhile, the IMF continues to campaign for the removal of all exchange and capital controls, allowing exchange rates to fluctuate in an orderly way. The Senate is likely to approve higher taxes, and the War Mobilisation Board is talking tough about scrap. while stocks are up and it is looking like this year's harvest will be the second highest in history, in spite of the Midwest floods.
Notes has Week in Business, which reports that Warren Lee Pierson of TWA sees $300 New York-London coach rates next year, with Zenith's 1952 "Electronex" television line saves several pounds of critical materials and has "Fringe Lock" to extend the range of good reception. Lockheed has signed an agreement with Canada for Canadair to produce its T-33 trainer. B. F. Goodrich is entering a joint enterprise to produce plastics in Brazil, while US corporate dividends hit $4.141 billion this year, up 13% from 1950.
What's New has Reiss Brothers of New York's imported kit, made in Germany, that allows a hobbyist to assemble a four cylinder engine. American Metal Specialties has a twelve-piece dishwashing set for "indoctrinating young girls into the 'joys' of keeping house." The set includes a drain basket, sink strainer, dish mop, and plastic apron. Folding Products of Long Island has "Rainbelle," a paper umbrella that really works! Really!
Henry Hazlitt is on about inflation in the fourth part of "Inflation for Beginners," which explains that price controls don't work because there are too many prices and who can control them all?
Science, Medicine, Education
"The Jeep Boils" Norway and Denmark (and GE, the AEC and Carbon and Carbide Chemicals) have gone in on the first atomic pile in Europe, the "Jeep" reactor in Kjeller, Norway, which is the cheapest pile ever built, using natural uranium with a heavy water moderator. I think that AEC smiled on Norwegian efforts because Norway has most of the world's heavy water, although as I vaguely remember the war days, you probably know more about that than I.
"Never Too Old" From 1880 until today, the average American life expectancy has risen from 34 to 68.2, which, this being how statistics work, is because there are more old people. What does that mean? Newsweek has its hands on a psychological profile of a 106 year-old-man, from a paper given by Dr. D. B. Schuster of the Rochester School of Medicine to the second International Gerontological Conference in St. Louis, this week. He is apparently very lively for a 106-year-old, which seems like it would make it hard to generalise from the study! Also old is Walter Reed Hospital (also reverse talking like Time is your correspondent), so it gets a puff piece, too.
"Mallott of Cornell" Newsweek welcomes Cornell's new president, Deane Waldo Mallott. He has a charming laugh, an easy manner, doesn't wear hats, does wear bow ties. The perfect president!"Scandal at W and M" That's William and Mary University to the lay. In the wake of the West Point athletic cheating scandals and the Yale cribbing scandal comes another athletics scandal, at William and Mary, which is America's second oldest university even though you probably haven't heard of it. It turns out that two coaches were somehow altering the grades on applications from some students before they reached the admissions desk, and it seemed as though this was only the tip of the iceberg, and now President John Pomfret has resigned and that's that. Nothing to see here! Move along, move along!
Press, Radio and Television, Art, People
Newsweek celebrates The New York Times' centenary with a nice puff piece, then checks in with Topaze of Santiago, which is funny, unlike the Times. At least, intentionally. Apparently the funniest thing Topaze has going for it is two fictional readers who comment on the news from their particular perspective. I have no idea how that could be funny.
The School of Architecture, Polish University College, founded in London for Polish Army officers who didn't want to go home to communism, has produced an exhibition presenting a utopian vision of a less-cluttered London to guide the ongoing reconstruction of the city. Glass buildings with helicopter pads on top replace Georgian homes, twenty-story skyscrapers bloom, underground roads and aboveground pedestrian walkways festoon the familiar streetscape of streets and circuses. It seems unrealistic, but a good starting point! Newsweek then pops over to see "A Century of Portrait Photography" in Brooklyn. Art, who doesn't get let out of the office much, goes wild over photos, taking up two solid columns to talk about everything from writers who were amateur photographers to the movies. I feel like once you admit that there's something called photographic art in the movies, it immediately becomes such a huge thing that making it one part of a show in Brooklyn is just embarrassing.
Ida Lupino and Clark Gable are getting divorced. William Neal Reynolds, Arthur Szyk, Fritz Busch, William Klem and Alvanley Johnston have died.
New Films
Books
Raymond Moley's Perspectives column has "A Matter of Economy," which manfully defends Paul Douglas against the charges that his hysterical breakdown on the floor of the Senate was evidence of a certain unsteadiness of character that had already been on frequent show in his ludicrous "economising." (His last public tiff with his colleagues was an attempt to shut down the free shoe-shine/barber shop in the Capitol building.) He is but the first of many voices who will condemn overspending, extravagance and "low moral standing" next year and sweep this Administration out of office! Which doesn't seem like the job of a Democratic senator, but I'm not nearly as smart as Raymond "Four Part Series on the Incoming Dewey Cabinet" Moley.
Aviation Week, 24 September 1951
This is the special issue on production, many times thicker than a regular issue and full of mostly summaries of previous articles mixed in with summaries of stuff I haven't read. It is completely different from a regular issue, with departments pushed to the end and different section headlines, most of which I haven't repeated.
"The Pattern of US Defence Expansion" The above, repeated, mostly.
Follows a bit of a puff piece about Air Materiel Command.
the British wartime experiment with automated production of five-tube radio sets at Sargrove Electronics, where conductors, resistors and capacitors were fabricated directly onto a base panel as the latter passed through a machine
ReplyDelete*Record scratch*...https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invention_of_the_integrated_circuit
Look, if you keep on complicating the story, at some point people are going to have to know how electricity works before writing about the subject!
ReplyDelete