R_.C_.,
Arcadia,
San Jose,
California
Dear Father:
It was good to see you, thank you for everything, everyone was fine, and I would spend all day chatting with you if I did not have to be out the door to see and be seen at Bill and Dave's New Year's shindig half an hour ago. Happy New Year!
Your Loving Daughter,
Ronnie
Letters
Wheeler McMillan (which is a real name), is the editor-in-chief of Pathfinder, and like Sidney Steele, who manages the market research division of Atlas Powder, he really liked the Science article about chemurgy, especially the bit about sorbitol. "Chemurgy" is applied chemistry with organic raw materials, sorbitol, or sugar alcohol is a sweetener that appears naturally in some fruit and has a third of the calories of sugar, Pathfinder is Readers Digest for hicks, and these kinds of letters are a waste of everyone's time. The "lag in American arms" reminds Orlo Brown of the old days, back in the war. Lots of people enjoy making fun of a typo in a recent issue and also the article that says that Ambassador Vishinski is "toothless," when he actually has teeth. Brigadier General Joe Kelly objects to the sensational language in the article about the air battle over Sinunju two weeks ago when eight B-29s were not shot down, as the article implies, but rather only five. I actually kind of feel for the USAF here. Newsweek really is a terrible magazine. But the pictures are night! I am grateful for the pictures! Keep up with the pictures, Newsweek! For Your Information fills in the details of correspondent Sam Shaffer's air crash while covering Alaska; it was in Kotzebue, and he didn't die; and points out that the cover photo is from Eastfoto, a wire news photo service specialising the mysterious, but also Red, East, and that, judging from the photos, the Commies are doing a terrible job of looking after their POWs, while we are doing an excellent one of looking after ours. 
That's right. Newsweek is making cheeky comments about the content from some news service but printing it anyway. I'm appalled!
The Periscope reports that the Navy can't find any debris from "the lost plane" (still no identifying information) off Vladivostok. Well, the Russians do say that it was shot down over the harbour, so what do you expect? Everyone has always thought that some of the Mig-15 pilots in Korea were actually Russian volunteers flying in North Korean colours, but now we think it even more. I mean, what are we going to do? Drop an atom bomb on Moscow because a MiG-15 pilot is named Ivan? Military experts theorise that the reason the Reds have sent so much antiaircraft to Korea is because we keep blowing up their trucks. I hope my taxes aren't going to pay these experts! Roger Putnam has found that most of the Office of Price Stabilisation staff left the office along with Eric Johnston. I'm not sure how much he'll miss them. Style Bridges might be he next Senate Minority Leader. Pearl Mesta has a ghostwriter! The army is up to 3.6 million, SHAEF is going to be reorganised, Army chaplains report that the are converting Red POWs to Christianity right and left, even though "fanatic communist prisoners" are holding "Kangaroo courts" to sentence converts to death, and there have been murders and riots. (And a veteran Army chaplain in Europe is going to be allowed to resign to escape court-martial for black marketing.) At least, I guess that's how "eighteen were trampled to death."
Churchill wants to visit Stalin after Washington, Vishinsky hasn't replied to the Western counter-proposals on disarmament yet because he is waiting for instructions from Moscow, La Passionara is said to have been purged in Moscow, the US Mediterranean Fleet wants to make a goodwill visit to the Black Sea, whereas a Soviet squadron that entered the Mediterranean from the Black Sea "snuck through" the Straits and is suspected of landing Communist agents everywhere it goes. The rainy season in Indo-China is coming to an end, which means the next Viet Minh offensive, while Reds are said to be active in Burma, too. Some Germans want to dismantle Hitler's "Eagle's Nest" in case it becomes a shrine to the Fuehrer.
Stephen Vincent Benet's "The Sobbin' Woman" is going to be an MGM musical starring Lana Turner and Gene Kelly, although Graham Greene's The End of the Affair is the hot literary property of the moment. There are going to be new innovations in film making in new Stanley Kramer movies, while Rachel Carson, "the facile-penned government oceanographer" has a new book coming out about the seashore, the New York Post has an expose about Walter Winchell coming, and NBC is betting heavily on early morning television news and variety programming with a network show starring David Galloway getting a reported budget of a quarter mil a week.
Washington Trends reports that President Truman is going to have to present a defence budget soon, and it will be a very important defence budget because of politics. Also because of politics, the United States of Europe is a ways off. Betting is on as to who will replace Eisenhower at SHAEFF as between Generals Al Gruenther and Matt Ridgeway. Everyone is looking into how to actually get all that coal the Europeans will buy, over there. Who's Al Gruenther, you ask? Well, you've got to have two names on your short list, otherwise people will think that you're not even trying to hide that the fix is in. (The talk is he's some kind of egghead who would be good at organising stuff. Boring!)
National Affairs
Everyone is really tired of President Truman and hopes he goes away. Meanwhile, he is talking with the Chiefs and pretty much everyone else because there's still a country to run for at least another eleven months.
"What to do with a Dud?" Twelve-year-old Barbara Bair of Louisiana heard about the big New York civil defence drill and asked what people would do if the bomb turned out to be a dud, and no-one knew, and it got to be quite the fuss until it turned out that Professor Herbert Alyea of Princeton knows about a special atomic bomb squad that would take care of it.
Ernest K. Lindell's Washington Tides looks into "The Defence Dilemma," which concludes that the two original goals of a rapid mobilisation to meet a crisis in 1952 and to establish a mobilisation that could be sustained for years on end, were in conflict, and that's the dilemma.
International's lead story asks the question of the week: The United States of Europe, what's keeping it? 
I have a cartoon here from the London News Chronicle making fun of Averill Harriman, which is a bit rich when it is the British being accused of sabotaging the European Army and holding up the Schuman Plan, while meanwhile Newsweek has no editorial comment on Churchill's admission that "Bevan was right." Neither does Konrad Adenauer, who sensibly kept his trap shut while visiting Britain last week. Over at the UN, we are having trouble getting our candidates onto the Security Council because the Latin Americans won't back us because they are upset that America didn't back their candidates on some of the UN committees. Oops! Rumania is giving medals to women who have lots of children, which is almost as helpful as paid babysitting, and the Sheikh of Kuwait is going to be even richer under the new oil profit sharing agreement. Too bad that Anglo-Iranian couldn't have been as generous before "blood started to flow" in Egypt and Iran. Or, to be specific, in Egypt, but since it is British fighting with Middle Easterners, and who can tell one end of the Middle East from the other, it is basically the same story. Which I am sure is very reassuring to those killed by British gunfire in the Canal Zone or by Egyptian or Iranian rioters. (Technically, eight died in Teheran, but during the rioting, and not due to British gunfire.)
That's all a bit dire, so here is a funny story about the Abominable Snowman and some fashion shots from Paris before we launch into
a volcanic eruption in the Philippines that killed more than 700 people.
The Korean War
"Reds' Growth in Air Strength Upsets Our Far East Strategy" Red MiG-15s raided as far south as Seoul this week, shooting down a record six UN jets. Fifth Air Force is now worried about American bases in Japan, and UN GJQ now officially admits that Red cannons are better than American machine guns. Will this make a dent in the mind of the kind of American who likes his machine guns and pistols over-sized and has no truck with effeminate European machine cannons? It will not! ((I fearlessly predict.) There is also fear that switching the B-29s to night radar bombing won't work, either, because the Reds have a network of radar-assisted AA, and there is no reason to think that they won't soon have night fighters with radar. Also, it is just a matter of time before the ground-to-air missile shows up. My own sense is that if the ground-to-air antiaircraft missile shows up in Korea, it will be because we've been fighting there at least a year too long, but what do I know? Meanwhile, peace negotiations continue.
In Canada, the son of Montreal "Police Lieutenant John (Scarface) Boyzcum," a member of Montreal's anti-Red squad, turned Communist after reading pamphlets his dad brought home, joined the Party, and became a regular activist. But it was all a ruse, because he was a police informant all along! Now the Montreal police have raided the homes of several party members, seizing subversive literature and a party membership list in a mighty blow for decency! Also, the Hitler Youth general whose troops shot all those Canadian prisoners of war in Normandy has been secretly flown from his Canadian prison to a British-run one in Germany from which he has been furloughed on "compassionate leave," with final release pending. Some Canadians are upset about this, but he's just a Nazi war criminal! What did he ever do to land in the sights of the law?
Business
The Periscope's Business Trends reports that business is finding working capital harder to come by than it expected. Particularly noteworthy is investment in steel, originally reckoned to require $2 billion, now 35% ahead of where it was expected to go. Meanwhile, Union Carbide has raised $300 million with 100 year, 3 1/2% bonds issued by Met Life and Prudential rather than going with stock offerings or the banks, figuring to get protection from long term higher taxation and interest rates. Insurance companies have money to burn, which is good because everything else (but mainly fighter jets) are short. Suddenly nickel is short, although at least that titanium metal pilot plant is going ahead on schedule. So is steel, although it gets a story of its own rather than a bullet point in this section. TV makers are hoping for a big year next year, book sales are up 25% this Christmas season, a highlight, since so far holiday shopping returns have been disappointing. Air travel is having a noticeable impact on ocean liner bookings, the latest revamp of rationing is going to scrap the idea of scheduling raw materials by the "essential" nature of different consumer industries, and due to inflation and so on, diamond smugglers have stopped smuggling diamonds from Europe to America and started smuggling them from America to Europe. 
Notes: Week in Business Sunbeam is suing Macy's for selling Mixmasters for below cost, a week after bringing action against Payless Drugs for the same reason. Hudson Motors is going to bring out a lighter car in the summer. Du Pont and Glidden have been found not guilty of violating the Sherman Act by conspiring to fix paint prices. Prudential's agents are on strike.
"Lessons for Europeans" Two hundred of Europe's leading manufacturers are in America to learn the secrets of American productivity. Americans say it is free enterprise versus European cartels and socialism, while Europeans are fascinated by the way that American companies get together to talk trade. Something about the Sherman Act?
What's New reports that the Ty Not Company's pretied ties are just the thing for those who can't tie ties. Pioneer Scientific Company's sun glasses and ear muffs are winter sun and wind proof. Danae Creations has very versatile vinyl bags, ideal for holding things. Jen Product's collapsible flash gun is just the thing for taking pictures with a flash bulb when you don't have to carry a flash bulb that doesn't fold up.
"Self Service Repairs" Newsweek checks in with a new business opportunity in Cleveland, renting tools and facilities to would-be car home-repairers. 
Henry Hazlitt's Business Tides explains "Guns, Butter, and Disruption" Henry has determined that Senator Johnson's claim that rearmament is lagging because Americans want too much butter is wrong. It is not lack of austerity that is the problem. People just like to tell other people to wear a hair shirt. It is all that disruption of industry caused by the need to put production lines in place to produce lots of guns. Got it! Austerity not the solution! Irrational attachment to hair shirts! I look forward to seeing this insight wielded in other fields than apologising-for-industry!
Special Report: "How Does America Stand in Tank Production?"
Very well, we're told. We shut down the industry that built 56,000 medium tanks in WWII, and now we've started it up again. The M-41 Walker light tank is a great success, and the Patton, well, eh, the three we've got (M-46, which is suddenly a "last war tank" like the T-34; the M-47, and the not-yet-in--production M-48) aren't much, but the next one will be better. The Army has come round to the heavy tank, and is working on one now, a fifty-tonner with a 120mm gun (that's a really big gun!) to match the 122mm on the Soviet's Joseph Stalin tank. It might seem embarrassing that there are no M-48s yet, and meanwhile the Army has hardly accepted any M-47s because the turrets don't rotate properly, but it is all due to the government selling off its 900,000 machine tool reserve after WWII, forcing it to start all over again. In other words, it's Truman's fault. 
Science, Medicine, Education
"Quick-Change House" The University of Illinois' latest experimental house is on Armory Avenue, on the edge of the Champaign campus, and is designed to have "variable size and floor plan" to discover just how much space a typical family needs to live comfortably. The poor experimental family will live there experimentally, and every few weeks the university will come in and move walls around, add or remove fixtures or appliances, and do a survey to find out just how much life has improved, or the reverse.
Notes of the Week celebrates the twentieth anniversary of the tobacco mosaic virus; a new method of treating municipal water waste, devised by Clyde DeWitt of Minnesota State College, involving aerating the water to "bubble up" solid waste, and borrowed from pulp mills; R. Stafford Hadfield and L. G. C. Pugh of the Medical Research Laboratories in London have done a study to reconcile conflicting results about the relative insulating property of muscles and fat by doing the studies over again at various stages of decay. The common sense conclusion is that fat insulates better, and the study showed that fat lost its insulating properties more quickly than muscle, so the conclusion is that the old studies that showed that muscle was a better insulator, were failing to control for decomposition.
"Safer Transfusions" Dr. Wolfgang Huber of Electrolysed Chemicals, Incorporated, has announced a new way of sterilising frozen plasma for blood transfusions of the virus that transmits homologous sserum hepatitis. It uses high intensity electron bombardment and doesn't otherwise damage the plasma. At the same meeting of the New York Academy of Science, Jan Petri, of the American Optical Company, announced a new blood pump that can send a pint of blood into the arteries in under a minute with no risk of introducing air bubbles.
"Women with Nerves" Speaking to a meeting of the American Medical Association in San Francisco, Dr. Earl Smith explains how he deals with those women who show up in his waiting room with neurotic symptoms. He humours them.
"Cancer Omen" Drs. Martin Fisher of New York, and Lew Hochberg and Nathan Wilensky of Brooklyn this week reported a new way of diagnosing Buerger's Disease and some "more serious forms of thrombophlebitis" in sputum, which is relevant because this condition of the blood vessels is considered to be a sign of lung cancer, and is in the news because of George VI's recent operation, which followed on a diagnosis of thrombo-etc, and is assumed to have been for cancer.
America needs more, better social workers, Roger Pugh's "The Drinking Habits of the Harvard Man" is a scandal on the Harvard campus, a survey of parents by the Jacksonville, Illinois, school board has found that they are happy with the job that Jacksonville, Illinois teachers are doing, except that they wish the teachers were doing a better job of parenting their children. Emory University has doubled its endowment twice in fifteen years and aims to do it again by 1961 so that it will have the money to be the best and biggest and mightiest university in America, before which all other universities will bow down, except Harvard, which is passed out behind the sofa.
Radio-Television takes a trip down Mexico way to learn about how they do television in Mexico. And by "they" I mean it is a profile of Emilio Azcarraga, who does television like in America, only spicier!
"Cleavage Control" In a hilarious double (single?) entendre, Newsweek covers the recent edict on television decency from the Television Board of the National Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters. No more "farmer's daughter" jokes, no more indecent camera angles, no profanity. On the other hand, religious programming is to be encouraged.
"Modern-Art Prince" George Flanagan's How to Understand Modern Art is an instant classic about post-classic art! "one of the best popular volumes of its kind." He brilliantly explains some of the less obvious ways in which modern art escapes the sentimental story-telling and representational art that it was reacting against. A particularly interesting illustration is the way that Cezanne plays tricks with perspective in as apparently simple a study as Still Life with Fruit. Unfortunately, while there is plenty more to cover, and Flanagan does it, there is only room for one illustration, so if you want to appreciate modern art, buy the book!
"Ousters in the East" American journalists are in trouble all over the mysterious Orient from Iran to Egypt this week. Look, Newsweek said "East," not me! It isn't very dramatic trouble, if you were worried. They've just been kicked out of the country, and will probably be left back in.
"Four Times 30" Four old time newspapermen, Harold Wallace Ross, Edward Leland James, and William Thomas (Doc) Skinner, died this week, all under 70, which probably has Newsweek thinking about the final deadline. And Harry Zelzer of Allied Artists in Chicago thinks that the new music critic at the Chicago Daily News is too full of himself, and has let him know by denying him tickets to future Zelzer concerts, which has blown up into quite a thing, making the Chicago Cubs so upset about all the free coverage that other forms of entertainment were getting that they started a fight with their bullpen.
Dennis Jones is married, and so is Erle Galbraith Jolson, Al Jolson's 27-year-old widow. Warden Clinton Duffy of San Quentin is retiring, Pao Pri, the St. Louis Zoo panda bear, is ailing, Joseph Boyd Poindexter, Shoeless Joe Jackson and J. Edward Bromberg have died.
New Films
Pandora and the Flying Dutchman is a very winsome title for an MGM Technicolor musical featuring Ava Gardner ignoring the National Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters all over the place.
Raymond Moley explains the four-state Incodel development of the Delaware in way of explaining how the big Federal river projects are bad and terrible wastes of government money, whereas Incodel is the right way to do it because it is only states involved. It's states rights for reservoirs, flood abatement and water treatment!
Aviation Week, 17 December 1951
Industry Observer reports that Allison is doing flight tests of its J-71 engine, although no orders for it are reported since it lost the B-47C. Pratt and Whitney is testing its T-34 on the Navy version of the Constellation. The Constellation operates the Wright R-3250hp compared with 5500hp for the T-34, but so far no complications. Westland is talking up a super-helicopter lifting 50t, using six Armstrong Siddelely Adders at the top of each rotor, with another variant having 3 200ft rotors and three Adders, giving a huge ground effect cushion, with a useful boost to lift up to 100ft off the ground. The USAF seems to have shelved a proposal for a 75,000t forging press in favour of several smaller ones. The USAF is very disappointed with Bristol's slow work rehabilitating Superfortress engines, and has summoned a team to Curtiss-Wright in America to see how it is done.
News Digest reports that Doman swears that it has a 4-6 seat helicopter from the Army. Delta is ordering 6 DC-6Bs, Chester Ricker, Aviation's former Detroit editor, has died. Howard Hughes has had an extension on the Spruce Goose. He now has until 1 June to get it flying. Fairchild has fired its sixth test ground-to-air missile, while the Vickers Viscount is through its African high elevation/temperature trials, while the French have ordered a third Comet I.
A. W. Jessup reports for McGraw-Hill World News that "Red Pilots Sharpen Skill in Korea," which is about how probably every East Bloc country puts its pilots through this "school" for aces. Even Mongolia! It is probably inexperience that explains why Americans shoot down 10 to 11 MiGs for every Sabre lost, since the MiG-15 is the better plane, except for lacking a computing gunsight. Also, no-one can figure out how they get their fuel, but if it comes over the Trans-Siberian and down through Manchuria by rail, that explains why they don't fly more. There's not enough gas, because the single track rails won't carry more. Red air bases are also pretty good, with better runways than ours. We've lost 583 aircraft to enemy action over Korea, 85% to ground fire, and the Reds have lost 170 MiG-15s, while we have lost 10 F-86s due to enemy action. Whatever their shortcomings in air-to-air combat with fighters, the Reds have our bombers' number. This is partly because MiGs making high speed, diving passes are impossible to intercept, and partly because their ground radar and AA have our number, too. Fortunately, we still haven't detected airborne radar. Wing tanks are being experimented with, and once again I read that cannons are better than machine guns, after all.
Aviation Week reports that there are now eleven carriers planning trans-Atlantic coach, or tourist classes. There is a lot of detail buried in the article. For example, proposed passenger sizes differ from airline to airline. CAB, which has a veto, is worried that some of the services will have "upgrade" features, which is a violation of the "tourist" classification for some reason. The European airlines explain that their fleets are small, the planes have to be convertible for first class service, and therefore have to have galleys, reducing seating, and it is just a happy coincidence that their tourist-class coachers will get hot meals. CAB is going to wait and see.
Aviation Week and Alexander McSurely proceed to bring us the top line numbers of the giant defence budget that is "out of control" per Mr. Hazlitt, the Collier Trophy honours, and the fact that Jerome Hunsaker has won this year's Wright Trophy. Sounds like quite the banquet! Then it has a nice pictorial from Douglas Aircraft's Rolled Sections department.
"Three New Ideas for Rocket Fuels" It turns out that there are a number of chemicals that you can shoot out of a rocket with much higher specific impulse than what we use now. The main problem with them tends to be that they're quite spicy, but if we are willing to fiddle with atomic engines, maybe we can try hydrogen and flourine, suggests one of those German mad scientists we got at the postwar liquidation sale. What a saving! Or we could just shoot light out our derrieres, because that's even more efficient, if you had a way to make that much light. Which we don't even vaguely. Electrons, though, there's a possibility, if we just had an "electron condensor" to store "electron gas." Or we could combine atomic engines with these crazy ideas to get something twice as crazy, and, by the square-cube law, four times as powerful.
The second volume of Air Materiel Command's book about steel is out. We get a solid review. Knowing your microstructures is key to economical machining! For some reason Section Five deals with titanium, which is not, as far as I know, steel. Technically. Look for it at your better book store, or, for better luck, write Curtiss-Wright, which is the bookseller, for some reason.
Avionics reports that "Ground-Borne Missions Ready Pilots for Combat" Avery brief review of some electronic flight simulators used by the Air Force and Navy. Hart Manufacturing has a relay that stands up to 40G acceleration, and that's a lot. Radio Corporation's weather chamber tests electronics to see how they do when it is cold out.
Aviation Week makes George L. Christian scoot up to Minneapolis in December to check out the "three-phase expansion" at Mid-Continent Airlines. Who, you ask? George knows. Or, maybe he knows what he did to get this assignment. They're buying the Convair 340 and are getting ready to maintain it, but right now they mainly do DC-3 conversions. They have an especially good cabin heater!
Do you feel like it's been a while since you read the same article about how either New York or Los Angeles will have a helicopter passenger service any day now? F. Lee Moore has you covered! CAB says that New York Airways can go right ahead as soon as it has the financing. In completely unrelated news, the Los Angeles Airways helicopter crash was caused by one of those helicopter things where one of the million vital moving parts breaks. It was probably fatigue, but we don't know for sure because the fatigue life of the piece that failed has never been measured.
What's New has the CAB's Civil Air Regulations and Reference Guide for Pilots, 1951 edition, a perfect stocking stuffer along with Parker Kalon Assembly Handbook, Booklet 480 and Supplement A-300. Kay and Ess have Modern Masking Material and Methods for Fabrication and Spray, while Landis Tool tops that with Better Grinding.
Robert H. Wood's Editorial is "Fighting Unfair Headlines," which is about how newspapers make too much of air accidents, and also air shows make too many air accidents, and they are two sides of the same coin of sensationalism.
Newsweek, 24 December 1951
Letters
For Your Information has Christmas off, but The Periscope is still with us or else Lana Turner's agent will stop taking our calls. Washington furriers can't give minks away because of the whole "5%" thing. The Periscope has the scoop on Churchiill's briefing on Truman, which amounts to Truman not being much. Meanwhile, the White House and State Department are going to take a "tough" negotiating stance with Churchill to the effect that Britain better get on the United States of Europe caboose toot de sweet. Dean Acheson might be fired after all, after a recent confidential White House briefing on Communism, Korea and the usual, leaked to a columnist almost word for word. The Navy is building small, wooden minesweepers that can be carried in divots and lowered in mine-infested water. The Navy is also working on two "flagship" submarines for coordinating wolf-packs[?], which will carry electronics instead of weapons, and will likely get two new, giant aircraft carriers in the next budget. Senator Tom Connolly is losing his grip and might face a challenge next year. The Marine Corps has weaseled out of its agreement to take more low-scoring draftees, but enlisting them and then discharging them early, while the Pentagon is muttering about taking Selective Service entrants at 19 instead of 21 next year because of a shortage of men, while there's kind of a shortage on the WAC side, a shortage of GLAMOUR!!! Helen Rubinstein promises to fix that by designing them new uniforms. (We live in a very serious world. A very serious world, yes, indeed!) It has been suggested that one reason that there are so few POWs is that so many of the prisoners have died of disease and malnutrition, not through deliberate maltreatment, but because life is cheap in the Orient. Good thing it doesn't have anything to do with us bombing their supply lines! "Reliable people" say that the Soviet Union will be taking over Poland soon. People are wondering why Stalin hasn't impounded everyone's radios, the way he did in the last war. Conclusion: There is no war and why get everyone upset? Talk is that he is sick and that Malenkov, Molotov and Beria are jockeying to be his successor. The Russians are running powerful radio jammers that make it hard for aircraft flying the Tokyo route to pick up navigational signals. The situation in Guatemala is going to blow up soon, what with the United Fruit Company against the "Communist headquarters in the Western hemisphere." That's right, Guatemala, the Russia of the West! The latest coup in Thailand was by officers fighting over shares of the drug tradde, while Russian-made rifles seized in Burma indicate that one side is getting guns from China, and General de Lattre de Tassigny wants all out war in Indo-China or negotiations this dry season.
On the culture side, The Periscope hears that Eric Ambler is adapting Nicholas Monserrat's The Cruel Sea, into a J. Arthur Rank movie, Orson Welles is going to film The Marriage of Figaro in Paris this spring, Robert Lawson's Ben and Me is going to be the best child's biography of Ben Franklin told through the narration of a friendly mouse, that Bob Hope and Corinne Colbert are going to star in a remake of Madame Sans Gene, that Dagmar's new radio programme will be called "The Adventures of a Modern Casanova, while CBS-TV's Columbia Workshop is doing a dramatisation of Don Quixote starring Boris Karloff and John Hersey's Into the Valley, about a Marine engagement on a Pacific Island, while Jo Stafford is getting a fifteen-minute, five-day a week spot on CBS radio.
Washington Trends The Administration is worried that peace in Korea will spell trouble for the rearmament programme. No, really!? Nevertheless, the President is going to ask for more money for guns, bases and foreign aid in the State of the Union address, though it might cut back on cherished domestic programmes like the new defence housing effort. Trends disagrees with Periscope about the upcoming manpower shortage or lack thereof. The Administration is expected to back down and give the Steelworkers a big, fat raise.
National Affairs
Christmas means a smile on every face, a lift in every heart, and Washington wine dealers not being able to move a bottle because everyone is so uptight about "gifts." And no wonder, with J. Edgar Hoover being called in to lead an anti-corruption task force, rumours of tax kickback scandals everywhere, and the Teitelbaum testimony wrapping up with ugly allegations against five Washington insiders who might or might not have tried to extort half-a-million from Abraham Teitelbaum and associates (who are Chicago gangland figures and "soft touches" at the same time!) with a promise of favourable tax treatment. Someone is getting coal in their stocking, and it won't be Winston Churchill!
"Planning for Fiscal '52" The big news out of the President's Armaments Conference is that we're even more all-in on air power than we were before, so the President's proposed $60 billion is going to get the Air Force up to 143 groups a year early, in 1953. Also, materials control, priorities, civilian production will absolutely suffer, for sure this time!
Then it is off to Hollywood to hear about the Wanger, Lang and Bennet scandal. Hah! Wanger! Also, Lili St. Cyr (nee Marie Van Schaak), is not going to jail. Tallulah Bankhead isn't going to jail, either, but her maid might. Wow! All of this in the Christmas Eve issue!
International
In Paris, who could find peace on Earth better than the UN, you ask? Hopefully, someone, as Greece and Byelorussia continue to deadlock over the last Security Council appointment and the South Africans walk out of the Trusteeship Committee after it invites some Herrero tribesmen to testify on South African administration of the former German Southwest Africa. There is talk of progress in the secret Big Four atomic disarmament talks, though.
"Personal Credit Cut" Tory disinflation bites as the banks are told to raise the interest rate on overdrafts to 5% and refuse "frivolous" extensions, such as for buying Christmas presents. Overdrafts on British banks are estimated to be $5.6 billion, of which $1.2 billion are on personal and professional accounts. Overdrafts have been growing lately because the typical 3.5% interest rate is good, but obviously they are more of The Economist's "more claims for goods than there are goods," and so, inflationary. Britain has also elected to pay the $173 million loan from the US and Canada on time rather than reschedule it, and as a result the spot price of the pound has gone above the $2.80 peg for the first time, to $2.82, still well short of the $3 where the Bank of England has pledged to step in, but still something in a week when London faces its worst fog yet.
The Middle East is said to be "Growing Redder" because the Egyptians have recalled their ambassador to London after the British demolished a village to protect the water intakes for Port Ismaili. This doesn't sound very Communist, so Newsweek adds that, at the same time, the Russians are increasing the size of their embassy in Cairo by 65 people, which might not be the best time when the Egyptian Cabinet has just authorised people to carry weapons in daily life subject to permission from the Interior Ministry, the better to anti-British riot with. In Iran, there's also rioting, and election rallies, and talk that Iran would like to see the World Bank take over as interim managers of its nationalised oil industry.
King Farouk's latest wife is said to be pregnant, hopefully with that male heir, at last, and the Governor of Tanganyika, Edward Twining, is upset that the colony's cotton exports are down from 20,000 to 3500 bales, because "the cotton growers are always drunk," and he has threatened to introduce prohibition if they don't sober up.
"What the New Sovereign Japan Will Be Like; And How It Will Get Along With the U.S." Newsweek has no idea. It thinks that the "National Police Force" will turn into a new Japanese army as soon as the occupation ends, even though Japanese politicians have no time for bringing back the old military caste. Japanese self-rule will, of course, mean the end of Tokyo's anti-Japanese Little-Jim-Crow, and some think that the Japanese will put the boot in a bit, and ban US officers from golf courses and such. Also, some Japanese women are sick and tired of boorish Japanese men, and probably all those labour and educational reforms will go.
"Uruguay: The Switzerland of Latin America" Newsweek really likes Montivideo because it is rich and quiet and boring and the only real democracy in Latin America, so stick that in your pipe and smoke it, Guatemala and Costa Rica! I would personally be skeptical about a true democracy which has been governed by a single party since 1865, but it turns out that all the leftist agitators are actually secret Peronist activists who have infiltrated from Argentina, so that's alright, then.
Business
Periscope Business Trends reports that US companies are still short of working capital, and will solve the problem by borrowing more money. I am not sure how this is news? The copper shortage is easing, because Canada is shipping 10,000 tons of copper at twice the US price, and because there is more copper scrap. There might also be a domestic source of manganese soon from reclaimed scrap. CAB is going to crack down on nonskeds even more, tv production is down to a third of last years, carpetmakers are using less wool, and there's going to be a shakeup at the Munitions Board.
"More Aluminum in Sight But It Still Won't Be Enough" Our giant super future air force needs so much aluminum that all of the existing production increases that were supposed to end th shortage by the end of next year aren't, and we will be just as short of aluminum next Christmas as we are now. That's why they're finally letting Uncle Henry into the business even more, and Anaconda Copper is getting involved. I'm honestly not sure why Uncle Henry had to be "welcomed" into the aluminum business, but that's what it says, here.
Steel has two stories, one under Labour, about the deadlocked contract negotiations with the Steelworkers of the CIO, the other about the US making a hundred million tons of steel in a single year for the first time ever, aiming to hit an annual rate of 118 million tons by the end of next year, although actual steelmen don't think that will happen.
Notes: Week In Business reports that Kaiser-Frazier has applied for a price increase from the Office of Price Stabilisation, that Canada has ended all exchange controls, that Lockheed will gross $325 million in sales this year while the Amy has somehow ended up with an excessively large stockpile of Jeep spare parts, say House investigators.
National Airlines has bought Colonial, while James M. Symes is the "heir apparent" at the Pennsylvania Railroad.
Products: What's New is excited by Damar Distributing's "Blenda-Mixer," an attachment that turns electric mixers into food chopper/blenders, Norton Laboratories "painter's helper," a plastic lid that fits over paint cans to keep the rim clean and reduce spills, US Rubber's plastic rolling skate wheel that will last 25" longer than fibre wheels, and Ace Rubber and Hose's anti-fatigue plastic mat for workers who have to stand in place for long periods.
We close with a "story" consisting of pictures of all the swank presents you can buy at the very classy shops in the twenty-four square blocks around Newsweek's offices. Because it's Christmas this week! Thanks, Newsweek, I almost forgot!
Well, close except for Henry Hazlitt's Business Tides, this week devoted to the insight that the budget is too high, and the helpful suggestion that the solution is some kind of constitutional amendment or something so that Congressmen can only ever propose budget cuts, and not increases or new expenditures. Although Henry does business, not law, so he thinks that that would just be a "procedural change" to place the power to table spending bills (appropriations, as he says) exclusively in the President's hands. I don't understand. How does this man still have a job?
Science, Medicine
Silviculturalists, which sounds divinely Arcadian, ("Errol Flynn in a tree" Arcadian, not "home for the holidays" Arcadian), in the midst of a last ditch battle to save our elm trees, have turned to a chemical named, long breath here, 2-methylcarboxymerecaptobenzolethiazole, which saves 95% of trees when sprayed on them. Halsey, Oregon (which does seem to be related to the admiral, but hopefully not as dumb) is 100% rat free due to having an anti-rat Iron Curtain. Well, I smell a --I'm so sorry. Was going to make a snide political crack, but maybe not this month. Vannevar Bush gave a morre-in-sorrow-than-in-anger address to the Carnegie Institute about all that government and industrial money for scientific research in universities has all sorts of bad consequences as well as good ones, so there!
"Big Brains at Work" Newsweek rounds up the news on computers. First, astronomers have been having trouble keeping track of the outer planets of late because G. W. Hill's calculations of the gravitational relations between the five outer planets, which took a solid eight years to work through back in the 1880s, just aren't accurate enough. So the United States Naval Observatory decided to rework them with a brand new IBM computer, Meanwhile, MIT is not going to let the other three-letter-acronym have all the computing glory, and has announced its Whirlwind computer, which is the coming thing in computing circles because it can do several calculations at once, and not just one, and gives advance warnings when a tube or other circuit element (but, let's be honest, it's the tube; it's always the tube) is about to fail. Whirlwind is meant to work out missile trajectories, and would be right for any business that needs to do lightning calculation involving millions of sums. Which, and please forgive me for interrupting again, is actually a lot of businesses because doing sums is how computers get around a lot of calculations that humans can do using more complicated algorithms with other operators. Or so Bill and Dave, who are the unsigned coauthors of the last paragraph, say. I'm sure glad I didn't have to find a character to translate "algorithm!"
"Cold War Strategy" Up to thirty million Americans will have, or have had, a common cold by January. They cause up to a third of all lost working days (sure they do), and are really, genuinely, honestly more than just a nuisance and an excuse to stay in bed one winter's day. Six years ago, three groups of researchers, under C. F. Andrews of the University of Salisbury in Britain, one at Johns Hopkins under Thomas G. Ward, and a third at the National Institute of Health set out to identify the virus that causes the common cold, thereby discrediting the "tremendous move" towards the "antihistamine theory," according to which colds are just allergic reactions. Which seems nuts to me, because you catch colds! On the other hand, after six years of work looking at people's used hankies, the NIH hasn't decided that that is disgusting and also it won't work, so instead of looking at used mucus they're going to go out in to the community to find out what's what, and this time maybe find the cold virus, says Dr. Victor Haas of the NIH.
Art, Radio and Television, Press, People (actually Newsmakers)
Art checks out Paul Hollister's Beauport: The Most Fascinating House in America, which is an entire book about a mansion that belonged to Hollister's friend, Henry Sleeper, because it was very nice and Sleeper was a great interior decorator and interior decorators all over America worship his name.
J. Akuhead Popule is the biggest disc jockey in Honolulu, Hawaii, while Music and Moondog is a big show in New York. You heard it here first!
Press still finds the President's campaign against leaks as funny as ever, considering that he has, gasp, Communist reporters at his press conferences. It also reports on an SEC win at the Supreme Court against one of those Midwest papers-that-owns-a-radio-station, a New England newspaper that has won a case forcing town council to reveal tax records, a campaign to get the IRS to publish its Monthly Activity Report, notices the Saturday Review for some reason, and also the Toronto Star, for campaigning for the provincial Liberal Party.
Will Rogers, Junior, Macy's, an assortment of British royals,, Charles Wilson, the Junior Chamber of Commerce of Temple City, California, President Truman, Roy C. Albin, Albin Barkeley, Generals Ridgeway and Van Fleet, Archbishop Francis McIntyre of Los Angeles, Eleanor Roosevelt, "Teen-agers in Phoenix, Arizona," Margueritte Higgins, Sir Lawrence Olivier, Roger Fuze, and Santa Claus made it into the column for mostly no good reason. The exceptions are Macy's which did right by a shopper who went into premature labour on the floor, and Archbishop McIntyre, who tried to get Mrs. Roosevelt kicked off the UN Human Rights committee on the grounds that she is a suspected agnostic.
New Film
Bob Hope's My Favorite Spy is a "ludicrous . . . satire of North African sex and espionage pictures." Newsweek thinks Hope was funny for a change and has a giant crush on Hedy Lamarr. That's all the movies, so we get some padding in the form of a visit to a puppet studio in New York.
Alexandra Orme's By the Waters of the Danube is a sequel to her personal story of the Soviet liberation of Hungary, and isn't as good as the last one. Marianne Moore's latest collection of poems is only seventy poems long, so might be shorter than this review. Roger Frison-Roche's latest mountain climbing novel, The Grand Crevasse, is a tragic doomed romance, at least, if the review actually reveals the ending of the novel, which would be in very bad taste.
I know I promised to ignore Raymond Moley (who is going off on the UN Covenant on Human Rights this week), except he quotes George Santayana in the column. One Nazi to another!
Aviation Week, 24 December 1951
News Digest reports that the National Air Council is "suspending operations," Qantas is buying two Super Connies, and the dispute between TCA and the Canadian Air Line Pilots Association over passengers being seated on the flight deck is being negotiated.
Industry Observer reports that the Douglas F3D is going to be remodelled with a more powerful engine and some sweepback. The switch in engines is to the J46, the same Westinghouse engine that is holding up the F7U-3. There have been some hiccups with the new precision forging processes, as up to 50% of the material on the 342 small precision forgings used in the Northrop F-89 are found to be machined away. The USAF is not going to order production Convair XF-92As, and the cancellation of the planned 75,000t Wyman-Gordon forging press is not the death knell of large presses, with a West Coast 150,000t press being seriously discussed.
Katherine Johnsen's Washington Roundup is back to report that the Administration wants guns and butter, that the Navy League is planning a new publicity push for a "global air navy," that W. D. Palwey is the latest production bottleneck troubleshooter, that the B-36 is probably outmoded, that the Army is set to comem roaring back with atomic artillery, that still no-one can agree on how the government should help the industry build a jet airliner.
Kaman wants you to know that its K-225 turbine-powered helicopter is the latest thing and the Navy is sure to order it in the thousands. The Aero-Medical Laboratory is not moving away from Wright-Patterson Airfield. It's new address is only on paper.
A. W. Jessup reports for McGraw-Hill World News that there is a "New MiG Threat," which is acombination of external wing tanks and winter winds, which give them tailwind out of Manchuria. The Senate Preparedness Committee has postponed its Wright-Patterson hearings until the new year, and the Australian armed forces want to buy some transport airplanes,and hopefully not British junk. Our man at the Wright/Collier Awards banquet wasn't too drunk to take some notes on teh dumb things Jerome Hunsaker and Igor Sikorsky said. Seaboard and Western has bought five Connies while the Navy, or Lockheed, or maybe Wright says that the Navy's Super Connie will have the T-34 Turbowasp for sure.
The American DC-7 and Pratt and Whitney atomic engine stories are next. Scooped by Newsweek or or last week! The Air Force's airliner mobilisation plan is deemed to be a win for the airlines, and Irving Stone is punished for what he did by being made to write an article about the cargo version of the Super Connie. At least he didn't have to go to Minneapolis! Ryan Aeronautical is jealous, so it dashes off a story about the new, giant expanding mandrel it built for stretching stainless steel cones, designed by Ryan engineer C. C. Hasty. Ohmart Company is very exciting by its atomic batteries, which generate electricity from radiation being measured by a sensor, which is then used to run the sensor. Clever! I'm not sure how radiation generates electricity, though. Some kind of thermocouple?
The Air Force is absolutely going ahead with its Piasecki XH-16 turbine helicopter, which is guaranteed to be a 44 passenger success thanks to using two Allison T-38 turbine engines, which are sure to be out of the woods any day now. Baldwin-Lima Hamilton Corporation has designed two laboratory recorders, one for its lever-type creep machine, and the other for its 4000lb creep-relaxation machine. The article tells us all about how a microformer drives a stylus, is completely uninterested in explaining w hat creep and creep-relaxation machines do.
Thrust and Drag reports that GE is putting some windows into its test rockets so engineers can see what is going on. GE says that it has been working on its J-53 for a long time, and that's why it is a top contender, and is also used in a missile. The British, we are told, are dar behind the United Staes in guided missile work, but are finally ready to do some test shots in Woomera. The Air Force and the Bureau of Standards are working on flasks for holding cold fluids like liquid oxygen and nitrogen. (On the other hand, we graciously concede that British flight simulators are just as good as ours these days.)
Production Engineering reports on North American's new automatic riveter, which can do 22 rivets a minute. It also reports that "No End in Sight for Parts Shortage," that the AIA has joined the long list of interested parties studying the Air Force press forge programme, that the US might finally place some orders in Canada soon, and helpfully gives the short list of Canadian aviation contractors. Pipe Machinery, of Cleveland, wants us to know that the titanium carbide gages it makes are very durable.
Scott Reiniger is sent to a specialised conference for aircraft hydraulic specialists, run by Vickers. Everyone is pleased that there is finally a conference where there are only interesting papers on subjects like "electrically-latched-on-centre variable displacement pumps" and no useless wastes of time. There are several pages of short summaries, including several articles on Skydrol.
Jack and Heintz also have a jet engine starter. Part. They have a part that goes in a jet engine starter. Turco has a non-etching cleaner, and Andres-Alderfer has a gas relief valve, no jokes please.
The McGraw Hill Line Editorial gets into the "space filler" business by explaining that "Our Defence Programme Faces a Crisis" Specifically, if we keep spending all that money, we're going to need new taxes, and that's not on, so we probably need to save on "unnecessary spending." Where, oh where, have I heard that before? Oh, right, in the 1946 budget exercise that ended up slashing defence spending, leading to us being where we are now.
I usually ignore Financial and Air Transport, but I can't help quoting "Crash, Competition Hit Nonskeds" Because, you see,m the real story of the Miami Airlines crash at Elizabeth is that it makes the nonskeds look bad. Oh, and an article on "Tools for the Pilot," calling for automatic approach and better runway lighting is buried down in here, in a report on a talk given by Sperry Gyroscope's chief test pilot, Robert B. Roe (which is a real name) at a luncheon in New York last week. BOAC has received permission to fly its round-the-world jet service through the United States, when its Avon-powered Comets become available in 1953.
What's New enjoyed Plastic Deformation of Crystalline Solids, from the Office of Technical Services of the Department of Commerce, How to Operate a National Welding or Cutting Outfit (National Welding), Getting Down to Cases on Metal Cutting (E. F. Houghton), and the Ryerson Aircraft Steels booklet.
Letters has a long letter from "Name Withheld, 1st Lt, USAF," who is upset about the way that the Army is making the Air Force out to be anti close-air-support. Harm White (which is a real name), of White Advertising, has thoughts about the press and security, John Van Arsdale of Cape Cod Flying Service, has thoughts about air taxi, and lots of readers will really like Aviation Week.
Letters
A Museum that was in a recent Art article really liked it. Walter Reuther did not like the way Newsweek presented the UAW's position on rearmament. The article on sailing also gets some praise. Richard Pilant writes from London, of all places, to remind Newsweek that George Washington Carver's house in Missouri is now a national monument, and this might have been mentioned in a recent article that noticed his involvement in chemurgy. For Your Information is back for a year's end review of some big stories, including that one about chemurgy, another about how the life insurance industry is getting into investing, one on housing, and another investigation into the textiles industry. Why do I feel like this might be from the desk of the sales manager?
Washington Trends reports that the White House thinks that Taft will win the Republican nomination, and, if he does, Truman will run again, because he can beat Taft, unlike Eisenhower. They also think that all those Truman scandals will be old news by '52. The Administration is worried that it will have to fight Congress over financial aid in the spring and lose, and that it will be in tough for negotiations with the coal miners as soon as it has settled with steel. (There's a huge story about how Taft is far out in front in the swing states way down under crime and even Tallulah Bankhead.)
An Undistinguished '51 Fades, U.S. Hopes for Decisive '52
Oh, America, you've hurt 1951's feelings! Or, to put it another way, this is where "the year in review" is supposed to go, but the junior copy boy they left in charge over the holiday break is on his way to a New Year's dance and can't be bothered.
"Joy for 3,196 Families" After all the arguing about who treats POWs better, Communism or Capitalism, after the President was told he couldn't blow a rhubarb over the Press leaking the list without saying it was "preliminary," after all the talk about what it being preliminary meant, the names are finally out, and 3,196 families can celebrate, leading off with Mrs. Christian Hansen of Brooklyn, because our photographer could get a taxi without going over the $20 that the editor left in way of the Christmas office budget before flying off to Oshkosh, and Patricia Hedlund in California, because she is photogenic, than following up with Cadet Bill Dean of West Point, because his dad is a general, and because it was funny to call him at school and embarrass West Point over its silly phone call rules.
"Mr. Murphy's Chowder" Judge Thomas Murphy is a Truman crony and up to his eyebrows in the IRS scandal. Probably. We think. Also, the Ways and Means Committee hasn't given up on the Teitelbaum story and is still tracking down Chicago gangland figures who might have something to say, and the "mink," or "5%" scandal is still going on.
"We Got the Works" Baby, it's cold outside. Three hundred dead in the cold snap back east, including two brides, one of whom passed out on her doorstep on the way home from celebrating the season, and another who died in a lean-to shelter when she and her husband got lost looking for a Christmas tree.
The latest victim of the Loyalty Review Board under its new, expanded mandate, is John Carter Vincent, another State Department official suspected of being disloyal to the Koumintang, or America, if there's a difference. It's not fair to compare some dumb old mine explosion to real tragedies like one side losing a civil war, but 119 miners were killed in the New Orient coal mines in West Frankfurt, Illinois this week, and Newsweek even puts in a picture of a (photogenic) young widow. On the other hand, 34 orphans were killed in a fire and stampede in Tijuana, so it doesn't just happen in America. You know what does just happen in Tijuana? Marijuana smoking! Which is probably why the Marine Corps has a black eye over all the recruits from Camp Pendleton who keep getting caught at the border with that old skunky smell. Also, yet more on the Tallulah Bankhead scandal, speaking of illegal drugs.
Ernest K. Lindley's Washington Tides is off to Korea to check in with how the armistice is fairing where it really matters, in Washington. We were going to guarantee the truce by threatening to blow everything up if the Communists tried anything funny, but then someone asked if that was what a real diplomat would do, and the answer was, "Oh, fuck, we don't know, all the real diplomats are too busy hiding from Senator Joe," so now Ernst K. Lindley says out loud on page that we're basically going to ask the British to draft our statement for us. Pardon my French.
The Korean War
"Pentagon Confident of Truce at Tedious Panmunjom Talks" "Dear Communist Asia: America is very tired of this war. Please end it at our earliest convenience." That's what a real diplomat would say, right? I'd ask one, but I'd probably catch communism from him, so best not. In one major concession, we are now going to allow North Korea to rebuild its "facilities," up to, and including, air fields. But only civilian ones, mind! The official list of Red prisoners includes, as well as the Americans, 919 Britons, 234 Turks, 40 Filipinos, 10 French, 6 Australians, 4 South Africans, 3 Japanese, 1 Canadian, 1 Greek, 1 Dutch. Only 7,142 South Koreans of 88,000 listed as missing in action, were on the list. American authorities suspect that 1000 US POWs might have been omitted, while the Chinese think that 44,000 of theirs, might be. In a follow up story, a press interview with General Dean is summarised.
International
"West's First Question for '52: Outcome of Churchill Visit" The Prime Minister's visit isn't likely to accomplish very much, because the Prime Minister is gaga, but if it does, here are the outstanding issues between America and Britain that might be resolved. Follows all the stories that might have gone in "Year of Review" if anyone were around to write it. The Prime Minister is also going to visit Paris, where he will still be gaga, but also now cold, because Europe has no coal. In fact, it was so cold that everyone agreed to everything at the UN and went home to pile on the blankets and put the electric kettle on for rum toddies. There's rolling blackouts in Paris, but at least Greece is on the Security Council!
Also in Britain, where "zebra crossings" (white stripe markings on the road pavement) have replaced orange safety cones to make places where pedestrians are to cross busy roads, pedestrians are being mowed down left and right, and the House of Lords is abuzz over it, with Leslie Hore-Belisha harrumphing about how never in his day. Clearly it's not just a matter of getting used to it, but rather a national crisis, say the Lords, even if the Lords aren't exactly clear on what a zebra is. Somewhere on that favoured isle, there is hot buttered rum toddy.
Radio Moscow reports on a Russian scandal in which $9000 was spent on designing and building a prototype egg boiler that no-one wants, and is caught red-handed making things up about America, specifically a craze called the "coffin game," in which Americans compete to hold their breath the longest, and some even die. American's aren't that crazy, Newsweek objects unconvincingly. Also, Hungary has convicted the American Dakota crew that was caught flying over the country. Hungary says they confessed to spying as opposed to being just lost. Then it fined them, and expelled them from the country, scandal officially over, move on, nothing to see here. American authorities are encouraging fraternisation between American troops and Germans over Christmas, and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation is in trouble for telling children on air that Santa isn't real, in a misguided attempt to settle confusion over all the department store Santas.
On this continent, "Canada's Behind, Too," as Parliament is upset to hear that the $5 billion it intended to spend on arms over the next three years was not getting spent for lack of things to buy. (More claims on goods than goods! Inflation! See, I'm learning!) For example, it wants 3000 planes, but only 150 F-86s have been built so far, one CF-100, and a single Orenda. Supposedly, a big chunk of it, some $750 million, it is down to disagreements on standardisation of ammunition between NATO countries, which has forced the suspension of ammunition production, and more down to the big American contracts which haven't gone through, which would have allowed volume production of this and that. (Latin American coverage this week consists of a pictorial of pretty colour pictures of public squares and buildings in Mexico City, with a headline roughly consisting of "Not just desert, cactusses, and mud huts!")
Business
The Periscope reports that orders for home furnishings and childrens' clothing are both up dramatically, because no-one is delivering "soft goods," and everyone wants them. Meanwhile, cost peaks in houses and televisions(!) are past and people are looking for economies. Inventories of large appliances are still backed up, as they failed to clear in 1950 and 1951. Retailers aren't worried, though, because with purchasing power up, and demand there, they're going to move. Cotton good pieces are set to move up thanks to a short cotton crop, so that's the latest on whether or not textiles will move up on textile shortages. Car and appliance production will finally take a mobilisation hit next year, the New England textile industrty will probably have all moved South by 1960, the Administration might not sell the Federal rubber plants for a few more years, after all, and Canada and the United Kingdom are set to increase whiskey exports to the United States by 7% next year because America is a lush.
"The Economy of 1951: Review of 1951 and Omens of 1952 Uncertainty" Someone didnt' get out of the office without having to slave over a hot typewriter to produce a year's end review! Which ended up probably taking about one round to bang out, because it is a two and a half columns of business up, defnce spending up, employment up, taxes up, hold the helicopter while I grab my hat! There's exactly three numbers: Gross National Product ($280 billion), farm incomes ($37 billion) and employment (63 million), unless you count "100 million tons of steel," which I don't, making it four.
Steel Labour Boula Boula! Did I mention that the author of the "Boula Boula" song died this week? Maybe. I can't remember. I don't care, this is as good a summary as you need! Clay is Charles Wilson's new assistant, the special expediter of production.
Notes: Week in Business reports that Pratt and Whitney has been chosen to build the Air Force's atomic aircraft engine, while Chrysler has unveiled the T-43, the first American heavy tank since WWII, GM, Studebaker and Kaiser-Frasier have applied for price increases, but not Hudson, as reported last week. The Bureau of Labour Statistics reports that the price of living is up to a record 188.6 this month, so that various work forces with cost of lliving adjustments will get up to 4 cents an hour.
The New Haven is trying to win customers with "specials" that run ski trips and take passengers into new York on Friday night for the shows.
What's New is over the moon for the George S. Thompson Company's Salad Shelf, which is a tabletop salad service, gets into Aviation Week's business by reviewing a business catalogue (Jants, Johnson and Shipman's for metal fixings), likes Wen product's "Quik Hot" fast-setting solder for hobbyists, and United Novelty's terrycloth cleaning mitten.
Henry Hazlitt's Business Tides takes, I hate to say it, a well-deserved victory lap over Canada's elimination of exchange controls. Whether it is a good idea for European countries as yet, the fact remains that he is probably right that it is the right policy in the abstract and will be as good for Canada in the long run as it has been in the short. Then, being Henry Hazlitt, he ruins the good first impression by pretending that he always realised that the problem with the American-European exchange balance was that controlled exchange rates was that they set European-dollar exchange rates too high, and he mentions the one time he got it right before explaining that this is the real reason he opposed the Marshall Plan. Nice try, Henry. You opposed it because we would be subsidising "socialism." then, because it can't always be shooting hostages from the past, he gives the future another hostage by calling for thge abolition of the IMF, which is just one of those bureaucracies that exists to do bad things, plus also Keynes is the devil.
Special Report
"Why Electronic Equipment is Behind" Because it is expensive, complicated, and we need more of it. For example, the Sperry Gyrosyn is about as big as a football but it is a lot heavier because it is stuffed full of gizmos that are expensive to make and sometimes you even have to use your hands! But also, as subcontractor Burroughs Adding Machines has found, precision die casts, which has the company out looking for seven special machine tools, and good luck with that in this market. You're welcome. I'd like to say I'll be here all week, but I'm going to see a show, back next Thursday.
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Science Medicine, Education
Science covers butterflies and prospectors, which is not what we're here for. (If it helps, the United States Geological Survey says that we need more prospectors, because the United States is running out of mineral deposits and needs to find more.)
"Psychiatric Doubletalk" The American Journal of Psychiatry is worried that psychiatrists are using too much fancy talk to convince people they know what they're talking about, which has the opposite effect.
"Hormonic Ulcers" "The relationship of severe emotional stress and alarm to stomach ulcers is a well-known medical fact," but what about hormone treatment with ACTH, which stimulates the adrenal cortex? A report in this month's Journal of the AMA by Harvard professor, Dr. Samuel Grey, says that long term ACTH treatment is bad for ulcers, too.
"Counting College Noses" An annual survey of incoming college students finds that the drop over last year was only 7.8%, much less than feared, although it would be 11.4% if part-time students (up 4/6%) weren't included. The worst fall, overall, is in young men entering education faculties, which will worsen the teacher shortage. New York University is still the largest overall, ahead of he University of California. Newsweek saw a nice documentary about "Passion for Teaching," and wants to tell us all about it, because it explains all about progressive teaching methods that Americans could stand to learn about.
Art, Press, People, or Actually Newsmakers
The Century Association is some kind of New York art appreciators' society, and it is doing a show for Eugene Speicher, who paints ladies in low-cut dresses, but very tastefully.
The President is still mad at the press for being so darn irresponsible. Newsweek follows up with quite a good story in Press, covering the way that the press covered the release of the POW list, from the arrival of the physical list in San Francisco through the way that local papers followed up with local families.
The Oliviers, Billy Rose, Joyce Matthews, Eleanor Holm Rose, Margaret Truman, Jean Pierre Aumont, Ted Alexander, Bob Starr, the mayor of New York, the Governor General of Canada, Robert Davenport, Anne Baxter, William Holden, John Derek, Beatrice Lilly, Gloria Swanson, Diane Cassidy, Francis Cardinal Spellman, Elizabeth Bean, Clark Gable, Ginevera Linsley and Master Sergeant Lyle Winney are in the news, mostly for no reason. Except Elizabeth Bean became the first nine year old to fly a plane around the world, and Miss Linsley and Sergeant Winney had their courthouse marriage witnessed by Clark Gable after he dropped in to pay a ticket.
Moira Shearer is expecting, Deborah Kerr has had a baby, Elaine Field is married, Connie Mack and Crown Prince Akihito of Japan (yes, Japan, not Liechtenstein) have had birthdays, Judge Medina is sick. Arthur Clapper, Allan Hirsch[!] and Dr. Henry Bennett have died. As a regular reader of Aviation Week, I won't mention that Bennett and family died in the 22 December SNCASE crash at Teheran.
New Films
Decision Before Dawn is a Twentieth-Century Fox movie about a German solider who volunteers to spy against Nazi Germany in WWII, and has adventures. Death of a Salesman is an adaptation of Arthur Miller's play that Newweek likes as well as the play. Elopement is a very silly movie.
Books
Robert Payne has a life of General Marshall out, and it continues the trend of WWII nonfiction at the head of the section. John Hawke's Beetle Legs is a "surreal Western," and there is a new edition of Edward Harris' Up the Missouri with Henry Audobon, which looks true to the subject in having some good illustrations.
On the back page, Raymond Moley explains why political machines are awful unless he agrees with them, in which case they are "political rule."
News Digest reports that one of the Canberras that Martin was testing has crashed, with one crew member killed. The SNCASE crash in Teheran was a foreign airline in a foreign place, so it is okay to mention it as news.
Katherine Johnsen's Washington Roundup reports that aircraft production won't hit an annualised 50,000 aircraft until the middle of 1953, and that the 143 wing air force won't be hit until mid-1954. President Truman was too optimistic to say that we would increase aircraft production five-fold this year. It has gone up from 250 planes a month in December of 1951 to 450 this month. We go over the big defence spending numbers, which are unlikely to be hit for lack of anything to buy, but will be a lot of money spent regardless, and note that the Navy is feeling left out, which is why it is talking up a second big aircraft carrier to be laid down in the middle of the year. Uncle Henry has told the press that he is well ahead on production and contracting.
Industry Observer reports that the first CF-100 has been returned to sender because its wing flexes, that the Navy has held a conference on the Allison T-40 turboprop engine to discuss the "latest design changes and installation problems." US airlines think they might chip in to buy a Comet just to evaluate it. The Westland Sikorsky S-55 is flying trials at full weight, and the first production Vickers Viscount fuselages are nearing completion. Saunders-Roe is building the wings, and deliveries are expected shortly, so that the first production lane can fly by early summer, with service delivery in October. Firestone will build combustion chambers for the GE J-79, while the CAA is looking into bubble canopies for airliners.
"NATO to Get Little Air Help from Britain"
Nat Mckitterick reports from London for McGraw-Hill World News that Britain's rearmament programme cannot be completed in three years, as reported everywhere, and that one of the most alarming aspects is the slow progress in supplying late model planes. The article goes through the prspects of deliveries of new types and finds everything except the Fairey Gannet delayed. On the bright side, machine tool deliveries are ahead of schedule. American noses are out of joint because they offered 500 Sabres if the British would put up Avon engines for them, but the lack of Avons scotched the deal, mainly because there were no Lucas combustion chambers for them, and now there are combustion chambers for the plan to build Nenes in Canada. We speculate that maybe Churchill will allow labour direction to get the air industry on track.
Ben S. Lee reports that "Air Armament Trend Is to Cannon," which is the same old story about cannons being better than machine guns, as the RAF decided way back in WWII.
A brief look at aircraft production shows that 91% of 1951 effort was on mlitary aircraft, and that firm profits are down. Then it is off to be scooped by Newsweek on the Clay's new job.
Production Engineering has David Anderton reporting on "Two Cargo Aircraft RAF Wants to Buy: Bristol Freighter and Blackburn and General GAL 60" They have the front-and-back loading arrangements the RAF prefers, and have the backing of Air Commodore de Vere Harvey, who is a man of influence in the new government and swears that Labour hated these planes, so that makes it practically a patriotic duty to order some. They're ugly planes, but have great short-field performance and use Bristol piston engines, wh ich have been going begging a bit in the market due to their sleeve valves.
Westinghouse and Thompson are both set on expansion.
NACA Reports has graciously published Jacob Lichtenstein's searing memoir of an alienated childhood and the effect of horizontal-tail location on low speed static longitudinal stability and damping in highly sweptback planforms. It is the long awaited sequel of Effect on Horizontal-Tail Size and Tail Length on Low-Speed Stable Longitudinal Stability and Damping in Pitch on a Model Having 45-Degree Sweptback Wing and Tail Surfaces, which carried the details of the author's life up the moment of his conception. In contrast, Robert D. Ingebo's comedy of manners is graciously title, Vaporisation Rates and Heat-Transfer Coefficients for Pure Liquid Drops.
Remington wants us to know about the mobile air conditioner used to keep B-47s cool on the tarmac, which is basically like all the other air conditioners that airliners have been using for years. (They also built one for Link, which needed it for some reason.)
George L. Christian heads out to Kansas City to find out "How TWA Beat Disaster at Overhaul Base" They evacuated when they were told, set up shop somewhere else temporarily, and came back in galoshes when the all-cleat was given, and cleaned up. As I talk about science and technology only around here, you can be sure they're getting the Nobel Prize in elbow grease for this.
Scott Reiniger isn't done with the Vickers Detroit hydraulics conference, as he reports on "New Methods Double Pump Life" It was mainly about tubing? Reckman and Whitley want us to know about their Flight Research Tool, while Gries Reproducer has zinc alloy rivets which are ideal for low stress, high corrosion applications. A US Circuit Court has stayed the CAB order putting Air Transport Associates out of business. IATA has approved American VOR omnirange navigation over the Decca system. Capital Airlines is replacing the cross-wind landing gear on its Super DC-3s because it isn't worth the trouble, just like people have been saying. On the other hand, the Hytrol nonskid brakes that Northwestern are testing, are fine.
What's New has a regular thriller this week, Jane's All the World's Aircraft, 1951--1952. To calm down, peruse Development of a Fuel Flow Transmitter Testing Indicator, published by the Library of Congress Photoduplication Service, at least, it says here. The 1950 Supplement to Screw-thread Standards for Federal Services is by the good, old, National Bureau of standards.
Robert Wood's editorial proposes that a letter from someone who wants to defend the railroads could only have been written by a disingenuous, moral monster of a Luddite.
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