Shaughnessy,
Vancouver,
Canada
Dear Father:
All I can say is that Washington is a very strange town which has very strange people in it. Today, Reggie and I met no less a person than Senator McCarthy, in company with B. and a surprisingly circumspect Koumintang general, and I have to say, the company the Senator keeps! (Not even including B.!) I think the general quickly regretted it, as with friends like that, as it is said. B. has rather grandly flounced out of the CIA and into a journalism job, where he is saving the world at Mencken's old paper, although how long that is likely to last is anyone's guess.
And not a word about your son, your daughter, your grandson. All I can say is that, whatever his faults, B. is a lot more interesting than I could ever be! And you will be seeing us in August, although the last word is that, in spite of the shutdown, Reggie will be working, as the Navy wants him to fly some sub-hunting gadgets.
Your Loving Daughter,
Ronnie
Letters
Reaction to the Correspondent's Poll is divided between one letter that thinks that Newsweek hates Kefauver, and one that thinks it hates Taft. Joseph Guerrera, of Auburn, New York, helpfully reminds us that communism is awful in Czechoslovakia. Dr. Mahmmoud Hoballah of the Islamic Cultural Centre in Washington, is at pains to remind us that Muslims don't like images of the Prophet. Unlike Newsweek, everyone loves Kefauver. Lyle F. Watts, chief of the US Forestry Service, thinks that the recent Newsweek article about the Forest Service was great. Newsweek points out that Smoky the Bear is also great. A. I. Garret of the Helena Independent Record and Michael Dougherty of New York City expand on this by pointing out that forest fires are bad and cost the nation a great deal of valuable timber, and that tourists should be reminded of this and shamed about their fire-starting habits. For Your Information discovers that while only half of all families in the United States take vacations, 85% of Newsweek readers do, and that they also take longer vacations, with over half taking nineteen day vacations in the summer. Forty-five percent of Newsweek vacationers surveyed intend to vacation out of the country next year, destinationd divided evenly between Canada and Europe. 
The Periscope reports that the Eisenhower campaign is looking to do some things differently, that Taft and Eisenhower are both looking at Senator Knowland as a vice-presidential candidate, that the President is reconciling with Howard McGrath, that Hawaii's chances for statehood resolutions at the conventions is improving, that Vandenberg is out as Chief of the Air Force, with Nathan Twining and not LeMay replacing him. Hopes for a Korean armistice now rest on the shoulders of Indian mediators who are working on a POW compromise, that the US Mediterranean Fleet is vulnerable to a "Pearl Harbour" style attack and needs more aircraft carriers, as does the Atlantic Fleet, that the Army is keen to recruit more WACs, that anti-Western propaganda from Moscow is building up worryingly, that the Russians have installed so many electronic jamming devices along the Berlin air transportation corridors that it might be impossible to supply it in a new Airlift, that General Karol Janousek has died in Prague, while Eva Peron, who is not recovering from cancer surgery well, might soon be made Vice-President of Argentina. In movie news or rumours, Hedy Lamarr is set to have a new TV show, Great Loves, Sterling Hayden will play the lead in a series based on the Kerry Drake comic strip, and that Robert Cummings and Geraldine Brooks both have comedy series in the works. CBS is appealing an FCC ruling requiring it to air ads for an obscure GOP Presidential candidate, William Schneider. The networks are looking for editors to cut shots of "revealing dresses and other objectionable material" from before Hollywood straightened up its act.
Periscope is one-for-four on show business rumours this week.
Washington Trends reports that Everyone agrees that the Supreme Court ruling on the steel seizure was the right call, and that everything is fine. The next session might not be fine, because the Court will finally run out of room to dodge school segregation. It will probably also re-open the question of whether film censorship is a violation of free speech. And there's an election on. News is on net good for Eisenhower and Kefauver.
National Affairs
Well, first off in election news, and also in Ernest Lindley's column, Eisenhower is opposed to the Federal equal pay act, but otherwise seems more moderate than Taft even though he is just as conservative, which is very confusing until you realise that what people are really saying is that he is more personable. (And smarter, but there's some kind of rule in American politics that you can't say that Taft is dumb.) Kefauver's win in California is alarming Democratic party brass, who would prefer Stevenson or even Harriman if he weren't such a New Dealer. Everyone is looking to the South Dakota primary as a test of the strengths of the Taft and Eisenhower campaigns. There might be a steel settlement, and the President gave a speech in Independence about how much the Korean War arms buildup has built up the American armed forces, especially the air force, which is important because apparently air power is going to be a big issue in the campaign. Newsweek allows that the recent US bombing campaign against the Yalu indicates that he might have a point, even if it is disgraceful that the Russians are building so many more planes than we are. (General Spaatz's occasional column shows up to endorse Eisenhower's views on air power. Which is interesting given Taft's "America needs nothing but gigantic bombers to blow up the rest of the world if they bother us" foreign policy position.) A judge has allowed Harry Greenspun's suit against Pat McCarran to go forward. Greenspun, publisher of the Las Vegas Sun, is alleging that McCarrran orchestrated an advertising boycott against The Sun.
The Korean War
""To End the South Korean Crisis" President Rhee's term in office is almost up, and the Assembly says that he can't have another term. Which is why he has arrested a bunch of them, and is threatening to dissolve the Assembly and change the rules so he can run in a presidential election. Trygve Lie says that he has to straighten up and fly right, and we're nervously standing behind Lie and hoping that all this goes away before some Communists get wind of it. Earl Alexander's visit to Washington is thought to have been the British suggesting that America sort out the POW issue as soon.
International
"War or Peace in '52?" A boxed story has Newsweek Senior International Editor Harry Kern's impressions of a whirlwind trip through Europe. No-one expects war in Europe because intelligence says that the Russians are nowhere near ready for war. It is permissible to point out that their radar defence network is incomplete and that they have no night fighters. Meanwhile, European rearmament progress has been impressive, although now we have to take time out to worry about Germany and France. We are also now worried that Eisenhower might actually not win, so no-one is going to do anything until after the election. Just like America! In France, the Reds are embarrassed by the way that their riots fizzled, the new German border barriers are quite something, Georgi Zarubin, who might have been involved in the 1947 Ottawa atom spy scandal, is the new Soviet Ambassador to the United States, Secretary Acheson pressed Rene Pleven for a programme of reforms in Tunisia, and the Jordanians are worried by the fact that their new King is an insane axe murderer. Either Prince Hussain will take over when he graduates from high school, or, in a new development, Jordan and Iraq will merge under Iraq's boy king. Lots of boy kings going around!
"Combatting Reds: LeRoy Makes Indo-Chinese Happy" A "half-breed" named Jeon Leon LeRoy is the governor of Bantre Province, which he is making into a model province with reforms that might be implemented throughout Viet Nam. He is implementing land reforms, lower taxes and road building, and fighting with absentee landlords, which may or may not be the end of him, but meanwhile he has raised two battalions of militia to support the French.
In Canada, potato smuggling is the newest thing, since Canadian potatoes are cheaper than price-supported American potatoes, and they make a handy cargo for cigarette smugglers going the other way. Inflation is going down in Canada, and Canada is having the same problems with mobilisation as America. C. D. Howe says that Canada is over the hump and that planes and munitions will soon be flowing, but this week a new alarm as the Air Force can't find enough Canadian recruits who want to be pilots, which is undermining the Canadian programme for training European pilots, somehow.
Business
Periscope Business Trends reports that a Newsweek survey on the impact of inflation shows that incomes are up 21% since 1939, which means that the average foreman is holding his own, while middle-bracket businessmen have lost 26% of their purchasing power, and that rich businessmen have lost 45%. Families that earned $5000 in 1939 need $10,400; while $10,000 families need $22,500 and $20,000 need $75,000. Which isn't really a survey so much as playing with compound sums and tax brackets. It is something to hear that you need a 24% cumulative raise since 1948 to hold even with inflation. I hope you're sitting down for the next bit, which is the news that arms production is still lagging! It's true! It must be, it says so here! Various things might happen, like an even firmer "freeze" on modifications, as hard as that will be to do when, for example, the Air Force hasn't decided what the B-47's armament is going to be. Newsweek is hopeful that Lewis Strauss, formerly of the AEC (Thank Heavens!) will fix things when his report comes in. Unless you consider "getting rid of the brainy Jews" to be fixing things, that might be a bit much to hope for. The Walsh-Healey Act isn't working as intended, the 15 June tax deadline is squeezing small companies that cannot put money together, supermarkets are stocking more and more non-food items because the margins are better. Some have books, others have health and beauty aids, housewares (which seems pretty obvious --buy a grapefruit, buy a grapefruit knife!). Even hosiery. Food prices are moving downwards, which will continue into 1953 thanks to livestock herds building up again. 
There's a full-page story on the latest developments in controls that I am going to skip since it is hard to believe that there won't be a "reset" after the election. Then another one on the new extradition treaty with Canada allowing the SEC to put their hands on the Canadian boiler-shop stock brokers who have been fleecing naive American investors with worthless resource stocks for so many years. The Presidents of Bell and Howell, Anaconda and Adressograph and Multigraph get nice profiles mostly involving larger changes at the company boards.
Business Notes: Week in Business reports that Northwest Airlines has asked the CAA to cancel its merger application with Capital after it was turned down by shareholders. The NPA has authorised the building of two new Statler Hotels while Montgomery Ward's new catalogue features some notably deep price cuts. Douglas' use of titanium instead of steel in some parts of the DC-7 gets a mention. Western Union is raising rates.
Comptroller General Frank Weitzel told a House subcommittee this week that his office had referred $21 million in wartime contract fraud to the Department of Justice, and four years later only $300,000 has been recovered. Newsweek launches into a shaggy dog story about how it saw a note about how some Truman Administration officials scotched one investigation, but later the author of the note said he was drunk when he wrote it so it doesn't count.
Products: What's New reports that two companies, Colonial Alloys and Talon, have developed methods to colour zippers, to match the clothes they are stitched into. Seyber Manufacturing has come up with a remote control that will allow the person in the passenger's seat "some measure of control" when they are teaching someone to drive. Or backseat driving! Sales Associate has come up with a one-way "spyglass" that "sweeps" areas so that you can inspect them without being seen. I think it's technically called a "fish-eye" lens. The improvement is that it is one-way glass. Crystal Research Laboratories has a filter to remove various impurities from tap water, which will be especially helpful if your local tap water won't raise a lather.
Henry Hazlitt's Business Tides announces that "Seizure is No Solution" The actual solution, it turns out, amazingly enough, is smashing and crushing those upstart unions so that they can never go on strike again.
Science, Education
"Rocket Reckoner" Aiming weapons in high-altitude, high speed combat is really, really hard. Some modern interceptors carry rocket batteries, which present special problems. AiResearch has come up with a solution, an electronic brain that computes the solution and fires the rockets automatically as soon as the pilot lines up the "blip" of the enemy plane in the middle of the radar gunsight.
"Eyes Evaluated" The traditional Snellen Eye Chart has apparently been in the sights of sophisticated optometrists for years, who think that a more sophisticated eye chart could tell them much more. Now, Dr. Glenn Frey of the Ohio State University, in association with the American Optometrist Association, has come up with a new and better chart that does do all that. The AOA is going to hold the copyright on the chart and license it out to publishers.
"How Drugs Are Made" Newsweek checks in with Sharp and Dohme's new laboratory in Philadelphia to see all the new equipment they use to make drugs.
"The Bad Doctor" Some children have bad experiences in the hospital, and Dr. Dane C. Prugh of the Children's Medical Centre at Harvard Medical School set out to study the effects of those experiences. It turns out that when children are divided up into groups which are sent to nice and strict wards, respectively, the children in the nice wards do better than the ones in strict wards. In conclusion, hospitals should be nicer to children, because then children will be nicer to them. 
Barnard College is getting an official President, Millicent McIntosh, while Katherine McBride of Bryn Mawr has just become the first woman trustee in the 212 year history of the University of Pennsylvania.
"Almighty Sheepskin" It is graduation time around the country, with 215,000 men and 100,000 women to receive their diplomas this year, the smallest number since 1948. High schools will graduate 1.186 million, a similar new low. Twenty-five thousand new engineers will compete for 30,000 jobs, while 50,000 odd education graduates are only half of what is needed. There is a similar shortage of science graduates, and even law, which has had a surplus in recent years, needs more graduates. The only overstocked fields are journalism, music, radio and television, copywriting and illustrating. By the numbers there are too many liberal art graduates compared with science, but employers are willing to hire them, so that's all worked out.
Almost an entire page is devoted to the unpleasant story about a private school opening in Alabama this year. endowed by a Birmingham businessman who died in 1919. The reason that it has taken so long to act on Harry Woodward's bequest is that it is wildly racist, barring all but "English-descended" students from enrolling in it and specifically forbidding Jews and Coloureds from being on campus. The designated trustees wanted it set aside, but the courts have decided that if everyone else in Alabama is racist, this must be okay.
Press, Art, Radio and Television, Newsmakers
With financing from Cyrus Eaton, who was probably motivated by the paper's anti-Taft stance, the Cincinnati Enquirer has been sold to its employees.
Waldo Pierce and Andrew Wyeth are having shows.
"The Big Pitch" Some television shows have too many commercials, and some commercials are too long. (One company is running fifteen minute "educational" commercials!) On the other hand, some commercials are pretty entertaining. Overall, commercials are getting better and will get even better.
"The House at Work" the House subcommittee on radio and television has been holding hearings, which mostly involved various church ladies of both sexes doing their acts, literally in the case of Congressman E. C. Gathings, who "did the hootchy kootchy" for the committee to show what was so offensive about some hula dancers on the television lately. Now that's television! Or would be if the hearings would just be on television.
Dr. Frank Buchanan has celebrated his 75th birthday with a bunch of other Very Serious worthies. Roberta Peters has separated from her husband, and so has Veronica Lake. Another of the captains from the Flying Enterprise (tug captain Dan Parker), was on the Queen's Birthday Honours List along with Carol Reed, Compton MacKenzie and Florence Anne Bevin. James E. Lough, Isabel Townsend Bell and John C. Crockett have died.
New Films
Ivory Hunter is an excellent new British film of a new type, and Americans should see it. 3 for Bedroom C is a come back film for Gloria Swanson from Warner Brothers. It's no Sunset Boulevard. Paula is one of those psychological thrillers with Loretta Young playing off against a precocious child, which sounds even worse than the review lets on. MGM's Glory Alley gets a long review, complete with a fetching picture of Leslie Caron, who dances like a trouper to hot jazz in an attempt to save the film and her Yankee dollar earning power. Good luck, Leslie, you're going to need it!
Books
Ralph de Toledano is another one of those bright young things of American conservatism that you'll hear as much as B. can fit into a monologue long enough to cover the time it takes you to chew your own arm off to get away. By that I don't mean that he is sleeping with Joe McCarthy, even if the author's headshot suggests that he's Joe's type; if only because he's Willoughby's man. That means an entire book trying to fill in the details of General Willoughby's painfully stretched theory that the Cominterm (notably Richard Sorge and Agnes Smedley) was actually behind Pearl Harbor through their naive Japanese dupes. You can find it wherever kindling is sold. Rene MacColl's Operation Stuffed Shirt is a comic spy novel written to make fun of the British. Aldebaran Flood, is the final volume of Marguerite Steen's "Flood" trilogy,
Oh. That is distressing.
Raymond Moley's Perspectives column gives us Moley's vision of the Supreme Court, which is a fine old institution of the American constitution because it threw out the President's steel seizure. We'll revisit his opinion after the Court rules on school segregation! (Cross my heart and hope to die that the Court finds for justice.)
Aviation Week, 23 June 1952
News Digest reports that General Vandenberg is recovering from his surgery. A B-36 caught fire and burned up while being fuelled up at Convair San Diego. The first Goodyear ZPN blimp arrived at Lakehurst, the Navy's lighter-than-aircraft base, last week. Static tests of the F-89 were successful. There were 54,000 active aircraft in the US on 1 January this year. A Vickers Supermarine 508 has completed carrier trials in the United Kingdom.
Industry Observer reports that Vickers is up to 54 orders for the Viscount, while De Havilland has 51 in hand for the Comet. The B-36, unbelievably, has one of the best safety records of any aircraft to enter service since 1936. Heat from high speed operations turns out to be very bad for nylon webbing. Someone is "grooming" the 7 cylnder Wright R1300 engine for the Sikorsky H-19 helicopter in place of its current Pratt and Whitney R-1340. New military requirements for turbojet engines place in-flight reliability above performance numbers. McCulloch will for sure start building its MC-4C civilian helicopter very soon now, and certainly won't disappear into the fog. Industry speculation is that the Beech entry for the TC twin-jet trainer will look like the jet executive "runabout" it floated in a recent IAS paper. The Marines' new S-56 twin-engine helicopter will get the Pratt and Whitney R2800, making it by a long shot the most powerful helicopter in the world.
Aviation Week reports that "Showdown Near on Air Power Stretchout" Congress may up the numbers, but the latest Presidential statement has a very positive view of the numbers, asserting that we have 91 out of 95 groups called for by August in the original plans.
"Two are Convicted in Procurement Case" The latest two convictions from the Wright Field trials are William J. Opper of Chicago and Robert G. Hollifield, formerly the project officer at the Aero Medical Laboratory, Wright Field. Also, Air Force Captain Jerry Mitchell was convicted in a court martiall, which counts as a separate investigation.
Katherine Johnsen reports that "Charges Against K-F Retracted" Representative O'Konski says that Kaiser's reply to Congress effectively refutes allegations of extravagance, excessive cost, and 'influence." As a result, Congress' drive to investigate Uncle Henry's cargo plane contracts has been slowed down, but not stopped, since the refutation mainly depends on deliveries speeding up and prices falling soon.
"Foreign Buying" We're giving the Europeans money to buy our planes since the exchange balance won't right itself any other way. The only question is when the contracts are going to start flying. The Defence Department says soon, the Mutual Security Agency says hold on there, the money needs to flow first. As for who is going to buy, the Dutch, probably.
In separate stories, Alexander McSurely reports that we are currently spending $100 million a day on planes, although that may soon fall depending onn which of whose new budget projects are accepted. I'm not ploughing through the political he saids, she saids, to get you the precise details, because it is all just predictions, and I've given you the range of possible spending outcomes next year. George L. Christian, still in Korea, reports that sometimes the MiG-15s come up to fight, and sometimes they don't. The Russians probably have a night fighter based on the MiG, but no-one has seen it. We're pretty sure the Commies have put machine gus on some MiGs, 45mm cannons on others. The Reds probably have underground hangars, so even bombing north of the Yalu won't knock them out. MiGs are supported by effective ground radar, and our pilots will only accept cannons over machine guns if they have the same cyclic rate of fire.
"Air Schools Fight Losing Battle" Just because pilots and mechanics are short does not mean that government-funded private schools are the solution, says a majority of Congressmen on committee.
"Newark Field Gets Second Chance" Now that the excitement has died down, Newark gets another chance, but with restrictions that may discourage airlines from using it. Also, Doman is absolutely for sure ready to start building just as many helicopters for the civil market as it is for the Army, and absolutely won't fade away in the fog.
David S. Anderton reports for Aeronautical Engineering that "Forrestal Centre to Study Fundamentals" The James Forrestal Centre at Princeton University is for studying the fundamentals of aeronautical engineering on an 800 acre property that formerly belonged to the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. 
Also, Professor Lyman Spitzer will study interplanetary travel, which I'm not sure counts as a fundamental in the way that mixture chemistry and boundary layer control are.
"Canada Lab Analyses Jet Transports" Canada's NAE looks at the data and concludes that as far as it can tell, the jet transport of the future looks just like the Comet. Glad that's settled.
"M-270 Hull Reduces Flying Boat Drag? "I know how everyone says that the better a flying boat sails, the worse it flies, but absolutely for sure and not like all those other times that someone said it, this time our company has come up with the magic hull form that is better for both." The Glenn L. Martin edition. Your son can give you a more detailed critique of the M-270, better known as a modified XP5M-1.
Thrust and Drag has an anecdote about a "friend of mine" who was hired as a group leader for a fuselage design team and who had a designer who wasn't producing. Said designer turned out to be a former market analyst hired on the basis of his ability to draw curves, with no idea how to do engineering design at all. He then quotes TOM Sopwith as saying that we should be as adventurous as anything in aircraft design, because what's to be lost except for other people's money?
Production goes into Solar's toothless alloy steel bandsaw, which I am leaving in Newsweek's hands because at least it could be bothered to rewrite the advertorial..jpg)
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Philip Klein reports for Avionics that "IATA Hunts Space in Crowded Airwaves" Which is Aviation Week covering what Flight has already covered, the IATA meeting in Copenhagen. It does clarify that the British CLIMAX air traffic control system saves on radio bandwith, and so does the "private line," which consists of a single transmission timesharing between up to 60 airplanes, which is why the memory tube is needed --each plane only gets its one-sixtieth share of the channel by time interval. Clever!
Berkshire Laboratories reminds us about its new pulse transformer, useful in all blocking oscillators and other pulse circuits, while Astron's subminiature paper capacitors are the smallest, cutest capacitors ever and good from below minus to over boiling.
What's New has been enjoying Dale Cox's U.S. Fighting Planes and Howard Jensen's Design Manual for the Repair of Aluminum Alloy Structures. Less entertaining but useful are Riverside Manufacturing and Electrical Supply's new brochure describing its products, Houghton's Die Casting Lubricants, available fro msame, Air Power at Work, which is about Mead Specialties' pneumatic devices solving all the problems you have ever had, and not at all about fighters and bombers, Onsrud's brochure about its automatic contour milling machine, which is so much fund it doesn't even need a title, and John-Manville's "folder" on Thermoflex blankets. Jack and Heintz and Pratt and Whitney both have brochures. I sure hope that there's never a new typographical technology which has perverse and persistent problems printing ampersands! Aero Data of Long Island thinks we want a 1001 question Aviation Quiz.
Donwill, of Portland, Oregon, has a telescoping boom for servicing aircraft, while Sperry will send some engineers, equipped with a Reflectoscope and Reflectogage, around to your place to test for aluminum stress fractures in solid structures, while Kelite Deseal 1/NS is particularly good for removing fuel tank sealants, and Dowty has a hydraulic selector valve that will take 4000psi, and Suprenant has an aircraft wire of an alloy that resists fungus, abrasion, flame, and, specifically, Skydrol.
Captain R. C. Robson's Cockpit Viewpoint goes into the "knots" question. You'll remember that there was an order that American civil aviation switch over from using mph to knots, like the services do, and then suddenly there wasn't because the airlines thought it was pointless and confusing, and now there is a big argument about who in the whole American aviation regulation scene can order this sort of thing, or if anyone can, actually.
Letters Various correspondents are appalled about the 12 May story about a pilot who landed at Newark under automatic pilot. R.D., a USN fighter pilot, is tired of talk about the MiG-15 and wants actual specification data instead of the ridiculous claim that it is classified, and also a more modern plane. F. F. Offner reminds everyone that some recent missile plant isn't the first missile plant, since his company opened one for the Air Force in 1942. Norden Instruments really like the article that included details of the Norden in PAA Constellations. Gyrodyne liked the one about gyrodynes, while H. R. W. is upset that companies don't respond to his solicitation letters, which shows that they are rude.
We're skipping Editorial this week. 
Letters
Canadian readers really appreciated that article about Canada. The article about forest conservation also continues to elicit letters, one by Alfred Reill, the President of Evans Automatic Lighters, pointing out that Evans lighters don't cause as many forest fires. Harry Sommers of Georgia is very upset with a fallacious story about the way that state Republicans are campaigning for Taft or Eisenhower. Harry Murkland, Newsweek's Hemisphere Editor, went to Canada to research the Canadian articles (another one in this issue!), and reports back that Canadians are mainly obsessed with America. Sounds about right! No-one's being fooled by the way that you pretend to be obsessed with Britain, instead!
Alec Guinness, who refuses all offers from Hollywood, will star as a man who can run 100 miles a minute in his next movie. Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz are going to be on one of four stories in an anthology movie to be entitled Billy Rose's Broadway Tales. Michael Redgrave will star in Captain Hornblower, the CBS radio series. Howard Welsch has bought the TV rights to Damon Runyon stories and articles. Michael Rooney has signed to do a TV comedy series for NBC, and a Britisih production group is going to film some Bible stories on site in Israel.
Washington Trends reports that "Taft has taken a commanding lead in the GOP nomination race." And that's the whole page.
. . . And the first four pages of National Affairs, until we finally get to one story about Democrats deciding whether to form up behind Stevenson or Harriman to stop Kefauver. Harriman in particular has put his foot in it by being popular with Coloureds. After all, the Dixiecrats are such reasonable people, we should worry about what they think!
"Immigration Veto" The President may not veto the McCarran-Walter immigration bill because, while it might be wildly racist, he can't afford to cross McCarran or be seen to be catering to the Party's left wing. Also, House Republicans are in deep trouble after voting against an extension of Social Security because the AMA told them it might be spent on medicine and so was socialism. Now Democratic leadership is trying to figure out how to embarrass the GOP as much as possible and still get the bill through the House on a second vote. The steel strike is back in the President's lap, because the union has dug in at the bargaining table and Congress won't pass a bill allowing the Administration to seize the industry.
"Unfit Youth" Of 1.535 million youths called up for the latest draft, 35% were rejected, 245,000 for medical reasons. The rejection rate was particularly high in the south, with up to 50% of Mississippi call-ups being rejected, and lowest in the Midwest. Selective Service Director General Lewis B. Hershey calls it an "one of the most challenging problems of our time." HMM. A general with, coincidentally, the same name as the famous candy maker is in charge of forcing mostly poor young men to serve in the armed forces, and finds that the poorer a state is, the unhealthier its young men are. Yes, that certainly does sound like one of the "challenging problems of our time." (Ronnie squares her chest and belts out Ca Ira.)
"Subs and H-Bombs" The President attended the dedication of USS Nautilus and told off Congress for economising when we need more guns, then said a nice thing about Senator Brien McMahon of Connecticut, who is in charge of the AEC and also represents the state that builds atomic submarines. (So far.) Meanwhile, Senator McMahon said elsewhere that we're on the verge of having a hydrogen bomb, and promised to make them in the "four figures" to replace expensive conventional firepower. Also, some general somewhere said that we're not making enough guns. So there, Mr. President!
The City of Philadelphia's current citizen reform government gets a nice, long story.
"Determined to Have Own Way, Rhee Rebuffs Allied Diplomats" The President that the US put into office and whom we prop up with massive amounts of aid, is determined to be a tyrant. It's terrible, but what are we going to do? Stop looking at us that way, foreigners!
"Conquering Koje" The POW occupation of Koje Island and its POW camps has been ended by force, and not, Newsweek points out with lip-smacking satisfaction, not appeasement, just like they were defeated in battle by force and not appeasement. The obvious moral is that we should get an armistice in the Korean War by something or other that isn't negotiating. The article then goes on to explain that, after a battle in Compound 77, the other three compounds negotiated their surrenders. But they weren't appeased! That's the important thing.
"Front-Line Visitor" Lord Alexander followed up his visit to Washington with a trip to Korea to see the ships and the troops and gently suggest that the US stop with the anti-Communism and the carpet bombing at least long enough that all the sane countries could extract their troops.
International
"Reds Heat Up Attacks on US with Propaganda, Diplomacy" Why did the Reds shuffle their ambassadors around? George F. Kennan explains from Moscow that there is something sinister going on, which he can tell by how much fiercer Red anti-American propaganda is, lately. (Uncle George says that of course there is, and that we should be worried, because the Russians are sorting out who is going to succeed Stalin.) A follow-up story points out that the appointment of Andrei Gromyko as Ambassador to Britain is a pretty clear sign that the Russians have shifted their focus from the United States to Britain. Congratulations to my fellow Americans on being officially promoted to "Impossible to reason with."
Canadian Affairs
"British Columbia: A Land of Infinite Resources Rides a Boom, But There Are Pitfalls Ahead"
You made the papers! British Columbia, it says here, has it all: Trees, rocks, rain, fish and now oil! (Also, "the largest indoor swimming pool in Canada.")
Business
Periscope Business Returns reports that the steel strike is raising prices, that corporate profits are down, and the main reason for that is that the capital depreciation allowance is too small and is ruining business. Department stores are improving their profit margins by cutting employee benefits and making them work harder. Hey! I used to work for a department store. That actually affects me! At least, I remember how it would have affected me, which is pretty much the same thing. The liquor industry makes too much liquor.
"Recession or New Boom Ahead: Signs Point to Recovery" Why am I imagining a Hollywood Indian putting his fingers to his lips and saying, "Watch for the sign"? Arms production is just starting to roll, and will be a major prop to the economy. On the other hand, homebuilders are upset with new, tighter credit limits intended to fight inflation. Not at all related are the Government's final settlement with the Dollars for seizing their shipping line and folding it into the Maritime Commission, and Rystan's success with chlorophyll toothpaste that freshens your mouth and would make it impossible for anyone to tell if you've been drinking, which you haven't been, so why am I even talking about it, let's have a drink?
"End of 'B' Films" Columbia, Warner and Twentieth Century are all entering production contracts to produce TV shows, because there's more money in it than making B films, and MGM is next.
Henry Hazlitt's Business Tides proposes that "Seizure Creates Strikes" Well, duh. Everything but shooting strikers in the streets causes strikes, according to Harry! I wish I had a full page in Newsweek to share my completely unsourced prejudices. I'd even be willing to go out and buy a nice suit for my column photo!
Medicine
"The Big Show"
Newsweek checks in with the AMA's annual convention, in Chicago this year. The first thing that strikes the eye is the AMA's campaign against weight loss fads; the second is the "heart kitchen," a specially appointed kitchen where housewives with heart conditions can do most of their work sitting down, which seems to me like it might be some kind of comment on the first item. Next is hyaluronidase, the miracle kidney stone cure, a life saving demonstration on Lake Michigan by the Chicago Red Cross, and reaction to a barnstorming speech in favour of the President's commission on national health insurance by Dr. Paul Magnusson. Those reactions varied between "We should hear him out before we burn him at the stake," and "Socialist, anti-medicine, anti-Americans make me reach for my nitroglycerin pills!"
Press, Radio and Television, Newsmakers
The Bolivian paper owned by the tin mining interests is in trouble with the revolutionary government and there's not much to say about either U.S.A. Confidential or William Hearst: A Portrait in His Own Words that you couldn't already figure out. Including that U. S. A. Confidential was mostly made up and now everyone on Earth is suing the authors for libel. If it's wrong to say stuff just because it is hurtful and wrong, how can you even be a Senator, nowadays?
Leon Pearson is on the radio. Kukla, Fran and Ollie, Frontier Playhouse and What's My Line are popular on TV. Tory MPs carried the vote in the British Parliament for ads on television, eventually, when Britain can afford the frivolity of private television networks, even though some Labour politicians are upset at the way that American commercials prey on teen girls' by harping on about halitosis and dandruff and so on. 
Hedy Lamarr, Jimmy Durante, James M. Curley and Zsa Zsa Gabor are famous. Vic Damone would like to still be famous. Maxwell Bodenheim used to be famous. Roy Rogers and Dale Evans are not going to quit show business to be full-time evangelists. Everyone reads Dick Tracy, including Western Electric, which gave Chester Gould a radio that fits on a wristwatch, which is kind of like Tracy's watch-radio. Ingrid Bergman is an unfit mother, says some judge.
Judy Garland and Patrick Munsell are getting married, Ethel Merman is getting divorced, Adolf Busch, Felix Wildenstein, Michael Cardinal v. Faulhaber, Emma Eames and William E. Schiff have died.
New Films
Books
David Stick's Graveyard of the Atlantic is about the shipwrecks of Cape Hatteras. Six hundred of them! That's it. Tear the place down. It's a traffic hazard! More seriously, the author finds evidence of an effort to cover up the full impact of the German 1942 U-boat campaign in those waters. Hey, I remember that! Adlai Stevenson is kind of running for President, so it's time for an entire book about him, from Noel Busch. He's a "flexible conservative," and that's just what the country needs, it says here. Also, Louis Budenz has arrived to save us all from Stalinism with The Cry is Peace, and William Faulkner's younger brother has his second book out. The book? Did we mention that he is William Faulkner's brother? At least it is an important and serious book, the kind where a man who got to where he is on the strength of his connections (John Faulkner teaches creative writing at the University of Mississippi), makes fun of women for not being serious enough.
Raymond Moley thinks that Taft and Eisenhower should fight a duel or something to settle their beef, because America needs a united GOP now, more than ever, and if they can stop campaigning against each other so hard, it will clear the way for President Knowland!
Letters
Apparently I missed an article from some musician-type who said that it's hard to sing the national anthem of Germany because it is poorly composed. Many, many, many readers helpfully explained just how wrong he is, leaving just a tiny bit of space for people to send their best wishes to ailing John Lardner of Sports and for some writers to disapprove of "panty raids" and psychologists who excuse them as natural outlets for young men's fears about the world today with the draft and all. For Your Information is on about how the readers love photographer Ed Wergeles, who is a true artist.
Washington Trends reports Taft-Eisenhower-Knowland.
National Affairs
The Presidential conventions will be the most exciting things that ever happened. National Affairs can't be just about the election, so after a page and a half, we break for . . .
"End of Brewster" Owen Brewster is lost the Republican nomination, perhaps because he crossed Eisenhower, or Margaret Chase Smith, or because of just the slightest whiff of corruption related to "Washington mystery man" Henry Grunewald or maybe because he blatantly sold his soul to the airlines, crossing Howard Hughes. Also, he crossed Governor Payne, or the Governor wouldn't have run for the nomination. Or maybe it is because he is a cranky old man and no-one wants to change a grown man's necessities in the well of the Senate unless he is from a Southern state, from whence it smells not.
And then it's back to Eisenhower, Taft and Knowland.
"Alarm Over Aircraft" Sit down, loosen your tie, and put a cold compress to your forehead, because what I am about to tell you will shock you to your core: It seems like we Americans are missing our aircraft production targets!!! It must be true, because Lyndon Johnson's committee has done an investigation and proved it! It seems as though it might be because we didn't spend enough, or because we didn't organise enough? One or the other! Also, the steel strike is having an effect, the House has decided to have a debate on controls, Ernest K. Lindley suspects that promised GOP tax cuts might not actually happen due to budgetary constraints, and a newspaper reporter found out an unfit mother consorting with "husky" teenaged athletes out in California (southern California. Nothing to do with us! Seriously. That's a story.)
International
Korean War
"Is Two-Year Fight Worth Price? Defence Chiefs Say 'Yes'" 19,000 Americans are dead and more than 9000 missing, and the war drags on even though Americans are thoroughly tired of it. The truce talks are dragging on and Syngman Rhee is the President for the indefinite future under the new election law, but we stopped Communist aggression. At the front, UN ground forces are raiding, and more than 500 US planes hit the Yalu hydroelectric works, including ones that power Chinese industry in Manchuria, just to put some pressure on.
In Latin America, it seems like Guatemala's president might be some kind of Communist due to land reform (America must be on the right side. It has the landlords in its corner!), and those awful Argentinians might be angling to buy Iranian oil.
Business
"What is Our Raw Materials Future? Policy Board Says, 'Ominous'" We're using more raw materials than we produce. That can't go on, as ricing prices threaten our standard of living.
It looks like 500,000 Americans will travel overseas this year, beating the previous high of 1930, 350,000.
Products: What's New reports that Kimble Glass Company has glass blocks that open to admit the air, while Rudd-Melkin has come up with a water-cooler sized coffee urn that will help out in the office in the morning. Haspel Brothers have an Orlon-cotton blend summer suit that dries in four hours and doesn't need ironing, and Dualline Sales Company has a more efficient drying line with a pulley that "allows the line to go right around the pulley." I am not visualising it, and there is no picture. Maybe the clothespegs are included? Newsweek attends the Graduate School of Banking at Rutgers to see what bankers study in summer school. Important stuff, probably!
"S. S. United States: First Lady of the Seas" The newly-launched United States is the subject of a special story that explains how big it is, and goes into detail about the controversy over how much the Government paid for it (probably too much), but doesn't give us all those naval machinery details we'd get from Engineering.
Henry Hazlitt's Business Tides has "Why Not Try Capitalism," where he takes a point I can't disagree with, that Man in the White Flannel Suit doesn't have a very good message about technology and innovation, offers an excellent alternative anecdote about the constantly falling rate of flat tires, and confines the boilerplate rhetoric to a single paragraph in the conclusion. You win this one, Harry. I hate flats, too. I won't kill you today!
Science, Medicine
"Miracle in Metals" Edward Roberts came up with a cheaper way of refining cobalt for the American Cyanamid Corporation twenty years ago, and now runs the plant that produces up to 40% of the world's refined cobalt. Other universities will probably copy the University of South Carolina's self-funded atomic pile now that the AEC says it is fine and has agreed to provide uranium. But maybe not, as "bring your own money" is a hard sell.
In an odd codicil, the article then goes on to explain that the duo has since "split up," that "volatile Virginian" Williams is still regarded as a rising star at Harvard, while Watanabe has married, moved to Philadelphia, and is balancing homemaking with work for the Army Quartermaster Corps' Development Laboratory. Although separated, the article ends, they are stil collaborating on further work on mitochondria
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Medical Notes reports that radioactive iodine is showing promise in treating advanced heart disease by inhibiting thyroid activity, the new tuberculosis drug, isoniazid, is being used to treat leprosy, phenylbutazone is being tested for its symptomatic relief of rheumatoid arthritis, keloids might be treatable with injections of hyalurinodase, and a new machine that "televises" X-ray pictures is helping diagnose stomach and lower intestine cancers.
"How to Stop Hiccups" Drs. Albert Gigot and Paul Flynn of the Lahey Clinic have suggestions, which don't seem to include drinking a glass of water while standing on your head, my favourite. They do include heavy doses of barbiturates or opiates, inhalation of carbon dioxide, deadening drug injections, and crushing one or both phrenic nerves. That's alarming!
"Bahnhof Culture" Newsweek sent Robert Haeger to a "round table discussion" in a bookstore in the Bonn railway station. It was about education-related things, they are held every Wednesday, and they are vey lively, because some Germans have very elevated thoughts about things. Then he went on a tour of vinyards. I assume. He sure didn't stick around to find out what was being talked about!
City College of New York held its 106th convocation this year, the Harvard Crimson's annual report on violations of academic freedom was chock full of outrage this year, and the Henry George School of Social Science says that there is a big revival of Henry George studies these days, which is what you'd expect it to say.
Press, Radio Television, Newsmakers
Ike's candid talk with the press, where, among other things, he talked about the "steal" in Texas, is the big story in Press, followed by a story about Boston financier, John Fox, buying The Boston Post and a very peevish and defensive story about whatever is happening at Counterattack, the notorious anti-Communist scandal sheet and a profile of Collier's Louis Ruppel.
Radio entrepreneur Harry Allen Towers gets a profile in Radio Television, followed by a rundown of the upcoming summer television season, when low-cost shows replace expensive ones for the sultry season, including some repeats.
Drew Pearson has been in another fist fight, this one with Charles Patrick Clark. Adlai Stevenson is not dating Dorothy Fosdick. Mamie Eisenhower, Ida Lupino, Lou Costello, Samia Gamal, Kurt Carlsen, Ralph Reader, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the mayor of New York are famous. A man flew his Piper Pacer across the Atlantic to prove to his ten children that being a pilot was as exciting as being a cowboy, another man paved the road outside his auto repair shop on his own just to prove a point, while a girl has been hired on to be shortstop of the Harrisburg Senators. We need to know that she is "curvaceous," but not that, say, John Lardner is Ring Lardner's son. A boy fell off a fifteen-hundred foot cliff that wasn't precisely a cliff so he just rolled down, but it was a long way, so that's even more newsworthy than a cute story about two young girls who keep showing up at a St. Paul, Minnesota police station with bizarre and horrifying self-inflicted injuries.
Elizabeth Taylor is getting married, Ingrid Bergman has had twin daughters, Martha Rountree has married, General Ridgeway has received some awards, Charles Elmore Chopley, Andrew Cowper Lawson, Raymond Benjamin and James Wadsworth have died.
New Films
Lure of the Wilderness is an MGM romance set deep in the Okeefenokee Swamp, where there are mysterious goings-on, a fey, wild beauty, and lots of dull romance. Based on a story by Vereen Bell, which is a real name. California Conquest is a sweeping Technicolor Columbia epic about some Easterners getting stuck in the snow and eating each other and anyone else who happened along. No, wait, it's about some imaginary conquest in which Zorro (but not the real Zorro, that would actually be interesting), fights off the Russians so that California can be annexed by the Americans, instead, like God intended. Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis' Jumping Jacks has them being paratroopers for the US Army and Paramount. Twentieth Century Fox's Diplomatic Courier is a spy thriller! It is a "satisfactory entertainment."
Books
Howard Horne's Concord Bridge is a historical novel about the American Revolution. Win Brook's The Shining Tides is a compilation of two stories. One is good, the other is better. Barnaby Collins has written a novel about the "the greatest bullfighter of his time" coming back for one last bullfight, while John Bell Clayton's Six Angels at My Back is a "hard-boiled" story of poor people being awful to each other, so buy three copies, says Newsweek. A. J. Liebling's Chicago: Second City Story inadvertently rouses sympathies for Colonel McCormick by being too mean to him. I can see how that could happen, but it must be really, really hard!
Aviation Week, 30 April 1952
News Digest reports that details of the Douglas DC-8 jet transport will be announced soon. Pan Am says it would prefer a straight-wing design, and the J67 has been chosen as the engine. EAL as left the Air Transport Association, because Rickenbacker doesn't like the way it treated Executive Vice President Robert Rampspeck. The first KC-97F has been delivered to the Air Force. The recent B-36 crsh at Carswell wasn't caused by a landing gear failure. The gear was torn free of the structure after the crash. Glenn L. Martin is shutting its entire plant down in the first week of August, which should mean a vacation for us, but doesn't, because we've already been told that the Navy will be taking Reggie's time. Fokker is going to build six SAAB Scandia transports, because SAAB is too busy with defence orders.
Katherine Johnsen's Washington Roundup reports that the election won't make much difference to air power, since while both parties support it, they also support a balanced budget. Candidates are actually suggesting more (or less) emphasis on aircraft, especially big bombers, which might get a boost when the hydrogen bomb is tested. The Defence Department says that America has hardly any air power at all, only 13 large and 15 small carriers (compared with the 1948 plan for 12 and 10), and 91 activated air wings (not "groups," here), compared with 70 proposed in 1948. Engines are still a major bottlenecks. The Marines are for sure going to get a seat on the Joint Chiefs because the President says so. Then there's a full page on air strategy that boils down to the same old argument, fighters versus bombers.
"Defence is Issue in Airline Case" Seaboard and Western has applied to buy five Lockheed Super Constellation air freighters, and for a trans-Atlantic air freight certificate. The Defence Department and the President have intervened with the CAB in support, but CAB is still adamant in rejecting the application, because the certified trans-Atlantic airlines would like more freight business to stabilise their demand. This has Lockheed hot and bothered, because it wants to sell more planes.
"Hughes Flying Boat To Get New Engines" The Hercules, or whatever they're calling the thing these days, is going to get R43560-4s, and for sure they'll be enough to get it off the water. Speaking of our west coast confidence men, the House is definitely going to hold more hearings into Uncle Henry's C-119 and C-123 contracts, and is in trouble over that statement from Representative O'Konski about how he was completely satisfied with Kaiser's rebuttal of all the allegations in his 21 May floor speech, which O'Konski now says he never issued. It looks like it comes down to who is flakier, Uncle Henry or O'Konski. Uncle Henry is pretty flaky, but O'Konski could be flakier, not that there's any reason to think so!
Production Engineering has "The Cost of Titanium-Alloy Advantages," which is basically the same story as ran in Flight. I admit I haven't covered the Flight story, but I did snip a chart out of interest. titanium alloys have good strength-to-weight ratios, but are expensive to refine and hard to work. They also have inferior charactistics on fronts like fatigue, which is why it is not being used in gears, and notch sensitivity, hence not being used in rods. The most promising application is in turbine and compressor blades, but more work is needed to determine the creep and fatigue characteristics of various alloys.
"British Course for U.S. Turbine Men" The British School of Gas Turbine Technology is holding a summer school for US engine men, while MIT is offering one in aerodynamic measurements.
Philip Klass reports for Avionics on "The Hurdles of Avionic Complexity" The idea that all those electronics make airplanes more complex has really taken hold this month. This story comes to us via the Navy Bureau of Ships, which has Reggie rolling his eyes. He has been complaining that avionics makes planes smoky for literally years, and like the premature cynic he is, he has been waiting for BuShips to roll out an excuse for all the nonsense that has been foisted on him. Submarines have magnetic fields. And they make noise! Here's a large handful of vacuum tubes, o make something of it! So, anyway, Lt Comdr. Frank S. Quinn of BuShips Electronic Designs Standards has "Circuit Design and Unitisation out," because obviously the solutionis to make all the designers use the same setup so it will be cheaper --I mean, easier to maintain. Contra the article, it is not going to do anything for reliability, because the issue is the failure rate of vacuum tubes in the aeronautical environment. On the contrary, using subcomponent circuits in places and for uses that they were not designed for will reduce reliability. Once implemented with sub-circuits, Quinn wants the Navy to do this with pretty much everything else, so with servos, for example. He points to a number of dubious examples of Navy suppliers like Minneapolis-Honeywell, which makes a standardised series of amplifiers, as evidence of business leading the way. Bah! Humbug!
Off the Line reports that aluminum will probably be replaced by steel in all equipment using air bleeds from jet engines, that Douglas is removing the spoilers from DC-6s, because they don't do anything, that Shell is testing single-line high pressure fuel delivery, that North American is researching the thermal barrier limit, that Boeing is seeing a decline in parts rejections.
Airlines are looking at the Lear F-5 automatic pilot/approach coupler, which has recently gone into use with USAF fighters, while R. G. Porter of BOAC thinks that atomic-powered air transport is the natural next step.
R. C. Robson's Cockpit Viewpoint finds "Minimums Confusing, Not Amusing" He explains: The landing minimum for a scheduled airline at Chicago Midway Airport is 300ft and a 3/4 mile visibility. This applies to a straight-in ILS landing on Runway 13 right only and with both glide path and localiser received properly. If the glide path is inoperative, the minium is 300 to 1. "Straight in" means no turn of more than 30 degrees. Circling increases the minimum to 500 to 1 in the day, 500 to 1.5 at night, but for a Connie only, as for a DC-4 or 6 it is 500 to 1.5 at all times. If Chicago is being used as an alternate with ILs, it becomes 600 to 1.For a DF landing, straight in limit is 400 to 1. Kedzie DF limits are different. Other runways are different, depending on turning direction. Convair limits are different. GCA limits are different, and more generous. The 'sliding scale" increases minimum ceiling by 100ft for every 1/4 mile reduction in visibility, and vice-versa for ILS landings. Cargo limits are more generous. Low visibility caused by non-weather factors like smoke are less generous. Pilots have to consider their gross weight, cross-and downwind speeds, "and a few other routine elements."
This is why minimums are confusing.
Robert H. Wood's Editorial says that too much complexity may cause the end of democracy due to our fighters being too hard to fly and I will show you fear in a handful of dust. Ahem. I get the impression that Ed Heinemann of North American is flogging a "simple" fighter. It's a bit embarrassing to see everyone jumping through their hoops, says Reggie. Yes, he's a skeptic about avionics as they're applied right now. But, he says, it's ridiculous to think that they're not the future, especially if magnetic amplifiers or transistors or even hydraulics replaces the vacuum tube. Well, probably not hydraulics, because they're as inherently unreliable as vacuum tubes, but you get the picture. Also, he wants to "clear the air" on Kaiser, even though I'm not sure what air there is to clear, because anyone who can't see that Uncle Henry is a con man is taking money from Uncle Henry. To his credit, I think Wood knows that, he just wants someone to say it. He also thinks that the "knots" story shows that there's too much government control of civil aviation.
With rescue parties struggling to even reach the latest crash site through the Brazilian jungle, I think that's a bit rich.
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