Shaughnessy,
Vancouver,
Canada
Dear Father:
I don't want to alarm anyone, but we're in the middle of Mamie mania and everyone who doesn't like a straight-cut bob has come to realise that we've had two weeks of Eisenhower, enough to be sure that he was some kind of secret Taftite all along, and now our only hope is winning the midterms in 1954 before the inevitable Nixon/McCarthy ticket of 1960.
Although by that time apparently the Viet Minh will be advancing from Cupertino into Palo Alto, so I shouldn't be worried that much.
On a more serious note, I get the feeling from this week's coverage that the servo and magnetic amplifier have lost the battle, and the future belongs to the transistor, even if we're not exactly sure what it will be made of just yet. Gallium? Cadmium? Something exotic! The key point is that just as soon as we can build a recorder using these fancy "transistors," the sooner we will reap the profits when everyone in America has nothing better to do than watch television thanks either to ever increasing prosperity, or the Second Great Depression that will follow us running out of copper. Unless we crack the world open with a hydrogen bomb first!
If you're wondering why all this morbid thinking, I was reading Newsweek and ran into this unlikely ad announcing that a plastic eye-doctor-thing would keep your child safe from eye infections. Of course, the unspoken fear under that is your daughter will need glasses. And then, well, firstly, she will never get a man; and, secondly, you'll have to pay for it. No wonder my generation has gone utterly strange (not just scared) and is lashing out in all directions!
Your Loving (and not at all paranoid) Daughter,
Ronnie
1:47 The Mamie bob so sexy
Letters
The Periscope reports that Joseph Dodge will be "a powerful anti-inflation influence" on the Eisenhower Administration. Eisenhower is angry at Truman over Korea. "Local leaders" say that Stevenson's divorce "cost him many votes." Republicans won't discipline Senator Morse for endorsing Stevenson because they need his vote to reorganise the Senate. Joe McCarthy says that he is going to give up all that Communist stuff and take up governance now that the GOP has a majority in the Senate and will double down on party discipline. Republicans are promising a "tax-saving" plan. Congress is likely to look into "present military procurement practices [in the] aircraft industry," and Martin is giving up on building airliners. The Army is slowing up troop rotation out of Korea because it is expecting some economy cuts. Marines are worried that Eisenhower will cut the Corps down to size now that he is President. The navy has a new plastic landing craft and the Army has a new amphibious truck. Russian protests against the US blockade of Korea are seen as a clever propaganda move to get support in Japan. The French might be about to ship Juin back to Morocco to get him out of everyone's hair. West Germany and China are said to be (gasp!) trading. The International Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation is said to be forming suicide squads to assassinate Tito. Father Alighieri Tondi was always a low-down Communist, the Vatican says. Moscow is also propagandising Europe, Ana Pauker might be back, Mossadegh may soon ask for the removal of American military advisors/ Marilyn Monroe will star in a biopic of Adah Menken, just to show that she can act. Lana Turner and probably Fernando Lamas will do a remake of Flesh and the Devil. Count von Luckner is involved in a movie about Count von Luckner, Sea Devil. CBS is doing a tv series called Life with Father and Mother, based on the Clarence Day stories, while Journey into Fear will be a London-based radio show written by Eric Ambler and Frankie Laine is going to be in a musical variety show, also from London.
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Washington Trends reports that Ike will set up study groups of concerned citizens to study things like military unification concern. Ike is expected to approve John Foster Dulles' plan for a "high level bipartisan council to plan long-range foreign policy." He will continue to "study" the McCarran act, and possibly try to get the unfair parts repealed. He will work with Congress, and will look out for the Republicans to possibly lose Congress in the mid-terms, based on the historic tendency for the party that wins the Presidential election to do poorly in the next midterm. There will be more investigations than ever before, the Republicans will try to build up support in the South and find attractive candidates to run. 
National Affairs
"Having Won Personal Victory, Ike Must Keep GOP United" Ike ran so far ahead of the party that the GOP should shut up and follow his lead, Newsweek says for three pages. Great advice, and I am sure that Joe McCarthy is on board! That said, Eisenhower's 55% still ran well behind Roosevelt in 1932 and 1936, and his electoral college victory total was lower than Hoover's in 1948. Eisenhower took Texas, Florida, Virginia and Tennessee by running only 262,000 votes behind Stevenson in the South, and while his coat-tails weren't impressive in Congress, Republicans won 20 state governor races, a gain of five. I'm not going to spend too much time on possible cabinet picks except to notice that Harold Stassen is said to be in, and Earl Warren, out. In Congress, the only names that stick out are Capehart, who gets Banking, because he has to get something; and McCarthy, who gets Investigations, meaning that you can just about take anything anyone has said about "bipartisanship" and throw it in the commode. Ernest K. Lindley points out that the most important outcome may be new, Republican appointees in the Executive Branch.
The Korean War
International
"Fears Mingled with Cheers Greet Ike Victory Abroad" Europeans seem strangely unenthused by the victory of the party of assorted isolationist, bigoted, anti-Catholic lunatics given to wild rants against European "socialism." Probably shows the left wing bias of assorted "left wingers, liberals, and 'informed opinion' around the world." It turns out that Pinay is some kind of leftist! Also, Britisih Conservatives, except for Churchill. Fortunately, various "uniformed" people are all for Eisenhower, and the article is illustrated by a picture of Queen Elizabeth smiling and waving to the crowds on her way to open Parliament. Only an uninformed person would think that she was waving and smiling at Ike!
Chaim Weizmann is dead, Yugoslavian communists are colourful and naughty as opposed to awful. West German local elections are happening. The staff currently putting together the German army are at odds with each other about whether Nazi ideas are sneaking back into it.
"Nationalist-Communist Axis is New Threat to Hemisphere" Assorted leftists are trying to nationalise tin here, oil there, and the Dole Fruit Company's vacant lands in Guatemala; and America still hates Peron, in spite of which the new presidents of Ecuador and Chile are probably Peronists. So probably they're all in cahoots together in a continent-wide movement to overthrow America and western capitalism.
Business
"Industry Has Confidence in Ike But Does Not Expect Miracles" (sales and profits are expected to be up, prices will hold the line, unemployment will be stable, inventory will be down, orders up). Also, Savannah is getting new docks, co-ops are a booming business, and GM president, C. E. Wilson, is looking for new ideas in highways to prevent an American "hardening of the arteries." So he is holding an essay contest.
The new De Sotos look nice, and so does Uncle Henry's Fiberglas sportscar. The liquidation of Standard Gas and Electric continues.
Notes: Week in Business reports that Burlington Mills has bought a rival, Reynolds Metal has completed its expansion programme, Chemical Bank will finance ten films from United Artists, and Kearney and Tecker are planning a special division and a Milwaukee factor to build huge machine tools weighing as much as 250 tons.
Products: What's New reports that Trailmobile is building an air-conditioned, refrigerated tractor trailer with expansion walls, allowing the construction of a 14 x 20 room. Sit-N-Rest has a golf bag you can sit on, in case gold is getting too strenuous for you. Rene-Craft has a clasp to replace knots as a rope hold. Eckstrom, Carlson of Rockford, Illinois, have a fully automatic metal-cutting machine for milling non-ferrous metals, with push-button control. A feature and a big pictorial looks in at the expanding copper mining industry. Henry Hazlitt's Business Tides has "A Letter to Harry S. Truman,' in which he invites the President to ignore the Constitution and bring in Eisenhower as President right now. Henry finds the Constitution to be very unbusinesslike, although his main example of this is Herbert Hoover being awful, which has nothing to do with the Constitution, and everything to do with the man.
Science, Medicine, Education
"The Fat Personality" Medical science has found that some people (mainly women) are fat because they are just bad people.
"German Exchange" America is bringing in a bunch of German students to see how democracy works. "The average German seems unimpressed." Speaking of which, "School Segregation" notices that communities around the country are fighting school desegregation, and that the state referendum in South Carolina "which could go so far as abolishing the system of public schools to maintain segregation." Georgia is similarly thinking about privatising its schools if segregation is ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
Radio and Television, Press, People
"Normality and $300,000" The Nelsons are, with the Hansons, the only normal family on television right now. Based on the lives of Ozzie and Harriet Nelson, or more exactly on the Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet radio show, the principals say that they are doing it for the money, and the boys have regular lives in spite of making $1500/week. Also, Wisbar's Fireside Theatre is loads better than working for the Nazis, and Robert Cumming's My Hero is a pretty okay sitcom, the main gimmick being that the premise allows them to shoot on all the RKO sets.
"Across the Wire" Newsweek covers the election coverage. The papers were mostly pro-Eisenhower but the live coverage wasn't allowed to call the election for Eisenhower until 11 because that would be a crummy thing to do to the advertisers.
Some officers at the Pentagon are the latest to do that thing where you fake modern art. Josephine Baker has visited America and said that Coloured people are treated badly here, so the State Department is thinking about banning her from the country. George Kennan is back in America after being kicked out of Moscow. Frances and Oliver Bolton will be the first mother/son pair in Congress. Various people celebrated Eisenhower's victory in various ways. The new Republican Governor of Nebraska wants to remove the statue of William Jennings Bryan across from the Nebraska statehouse because it is not historic enough. Alger Hiss has applied for parole, the Aga Khan wants his son to divorce Rita Hayworth quickly, for the sake of religion.
Kay Kyser, who is retired at 46 (nice work if you can get it!), has had a third child. Francois Mauriac has won the Nobel prize for Literature by writing real good and being an anti-communist. Whittaker Chamber has had a heart attack. (Proof he still has one!) Gilbert Frankau, Adolf J. Sabath and Dr. Painless Parker have died.
Movies
MGM's Prisoner of Zenda is a "solid Zenda." Something for the Birds (20th Century Fox) is a pretty funny movie about lobbyists and politicians in Washington. Warner Brothers' Operation Secret is pretty dumb.
Books
Joseph Grew's Turbulent Era is out, and already reviewed by The Economist, so I won't spend any more time with it. The Wonderful Country is the second novel by painter, Tom Lea is mostly about pistoleros shooting each other, but has "fascinating glimpses of details few readers will have known about before." Lillian Ross' book about the filming of John Huston's Red Badge of Courage, Picture, is a very good book because it keeps its subjects human for the same reason that "prevents sportsmen from hunting in zoos."
Raymond Moley hopes that the new Secretary of the Interior will get rid of the Bureau of Reclamation, because it is bad for business.
Aviation Week, 17 November 1952
Industry Observer reports that Howard Hughes is going to sell Hughes Aircraft Company, since now that the company is finally getting Air Force business, the Air Force is finding that it has to deal with Howard Hughes. Glenn L. Martin plans to get back into the USAF picture with a supersonic jet bomber designed for low level attack work. Convair will test its F27 supersonic water-based fighter soon. The Navy isn't worried that the Wright J65 production bottleneck will affect its recent, small orders for planes like the North American FJ-3. The USAF and Navy have reportedly resolved their differences over turboprop orders by agreeing to order a new generation of 15,000shp turboprops instead of the current circa 8000shp developments, the Pratt and Whitney T52 or Wright T49 (which is based on the Sapphire.) The Avro 698 is announced as the "Vulcan." The Naval Air Material Centre has announced a device that synchronises the radio altimeter with a Polaroid-type camera to measure a plane's sinking rate, giving results "soon" after landing. The latest version of Pratt and Whitney's J48 centrifugal engine, to go into the F-94C, gives 10,000lbs thrust. The British are anxious to have their Javelin accepted as the NATO night fighter, but they are facing difficulties with the 1955 deadline set by MSA. The MSA will buy 340 Supermarine Swifts, provided the British buy an initial 140. The NATO Swifts will probably be flown by the RAF.
Katherine Johnsen reports for Aviation Week on "Outlook for Aviation Under Republicans" The GOP will accept the fiscal '54 defence budget, but will cut CAA spending. Ex-Senator Lodge is an early favourite as Defence Secretary, and famously supported the 143-wing air force. This is probably bad news for the Army, and might also impact carrier aviation, of which Eisenhower is said to be no fan. Defence cutbacks are possible after next year to cut inflation, and the Eisenhower Administration is expected to push service unification further forward in line with the Hoover Commission recommendations. Republicans are eager to see the CAB take a more narrowly regulatory than "promotional" stand. A long list of Republican senators who will touch on defence (mostly with a reputation as cost cutters) and office hopefuls follows.
"AF Criticised for B-36 Tornado Loss" The Senate Preparedness Committee is expected to fault the Air Force for temporarily wrecking the nation's strategic bombing force with a well-aimed hurricane last summer. On the other hand, it's not like runways that can support 100 B-36s grow on trees!
"Some Policy Revisions Certain" That's what it says here! The main thing I see here is a promised standardisation of avionics.
R. P. (Pepper) Martin reports for Aviation Week that "AF Switches Tactics in Korea" The new tactics of "saturation bombing" are just off the secret list. In the last week of October, the Air Force dropped 42,000 tons of bombs, 18,000 rockets and 200,000 gallons of napalm on "selected targets" in the mountains south of the Yalu in an attempt to blow up the Reds enough to stop whining about POWs and make peace already. Or, it says here, break supply lines, destroy depots and, if possible "undermine civilian morale," mainly by starving them. They're also continuing to hit hydroelectric plants, which hurts Chinese industry in Manchuria and fertiliser production, too.
We then get a report on the latest noise reduction measures at Newark airport, the new Rolls Royce repair facility in Australia, and a very long story about the changes (not many!) expected at the CAB, from Lee Moore.
"New Turbojet Alloy" Wright-Patterson has a new, light-weight aluminum alloy with a mix of copper, nickel, magnesium, titanium, manganese, chromium, vanadium, a sprinkle of cayenne pepper, some salt, and just a hint of garlic and cloves. Wright is using it in the J65, and you know how that's going!
Philip Klein reports for Avionics that "Automatic Factory Near for Electronics" GE is developing machine "to prepare, test and place conventional components in printed circuit units." Less dramatically, R. A. Gerhold of the Signal Corps Engineering Labs reported, in a paper delivered to the recent National Electronics Conference in Chicago, that GE will deliver several machines for automatic testing, handling, and placing of conventional-type components on printed-conductor boards. The main obstacle to replacing vacuum tubes with transistors is that tubes can be made at least semi-automatically, while transistors are still being made at the bench. The Signals Corps has been backing efforts to build automatic machines for "producing, assembling, and testing" transistors. This is not that, but this improved "auto-assembly" (controlled by IBM punch cards, yet, and already in use in television production) will be faster than hand assembly, more accurate, and meet higher Service tolerance standards. It is also a compromise along the way to directly printing resistors and capacitors onto the boards with silver and graphite, as the Signal Corps doesn't think that the accuracy is there, yet. Aviation Week notes the similarity to John Sargrove's automatic factory in Britain.
Filter Centre reports that Collins will have an autopilot out soon built around their version of the Zero Reader, while the Saunders Princess will have Ekco search radar. The Signals Branch thinks we need to bridge a "gap" between electronics producers and users. Norden is working on an aircraft fire control system for the Navy, possibly a ground or ship-based one for the BuOrd's Terrier missile. Globe Instruments has a small tach generator, Colvin Laboratories a chatterproof pressure switch for radio diaphragms, and Gorman Mfg an encapsulated, wire-round resistor for extreme humidity conditions.
Irving Stone reports for Production that "Progress Made in Heavy Forge-Press Art," which is about the 18,000lb heavy press at Wyman-Gordon that we definitely didn't just steal from the Germans. We only stole the good ones that we basically replaced the old Wyman-Gordon unit with. But don't worry about Wyman-Gordon, as it will have domestically-developed 35,000t and 55,000t presses, soon. There is a fairly extensive discussion of the kinds of pieces that Wyman-Gordon will be able to do that basically serves as an invitation to the industry to design them, and all of this takes up a good three pages.
R. P. (Pepper) Miller reports for Equipment that "C-124 Passing Combat Test in Korea" The C-124 is like a C-54, only lots bigger and more expensive. Is it useful? It sounds like it, and gets a five page writeup.
New Aviation Products (No, you may not ask, "Just what have I been reading before this?") reports that in Australia they have an automatic indication system for flight towers that shows the safest runway for aircraft to land on. Warner Sales has computing plotters and protractors for private flyers, and Sibley Machine and Foundry's two-spindle, 20" swing drilling machine is ideal for . . . drilling things. 3M promises to "dunk" your components in resin to keep the bad stuff out.
Down at Air Transport, Alexander McSurely reports on the latest gadget for preventing accidental prop reversal from Hamilton Standard. There's a little "Oh no, you don't" valve that the system has to talk into allowing it to reverse the propeller (but which is easily sweet talked into feathering). It is going into the DC-7. Lufthansa will buy American planes if it can get the credits
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Letters has Fred Ellis complaining that the airlines have been switching coach and regular services, with the effect of putting first class passengers on coach. E. C. Bowyer of SBAC explains that the Farnborough Display was, in fact, halted for a safe amount of time while the debris and bodies from the crash were cleared away. Various correspondents love Aviation Week's articles about them.
What's New really enjoyed the eight page brochure the Stillman Rubber Company snet them, and likes the colourful pictures in Towmotor's How to Stop Manhour Thieves. Berlin and Jones will send you two technical bulletins on volatile corrosion inhibitors if you write them, while C. J. Woods of the Research and INstrument Division of North American Philips will send you a poster l;ocating common faults in X-ray generators. Rivett Lathe and Grinder is up to Catalogue 84A, while Lindberg Engineering's Bulletin 131 discusses the annealing, normalising, tempering, nitriding, and special heating of some things. Landis Tool has only one catalogue, but it is comprehensive. Kenneth Gatland's Development of the Guided Missile is based on the author's series for Flight, while Ulrich Rudel's Stuka Pilot is only Fascist to an acceptable degree.
Newsweek, 24 November 1952
Letters
Washington Trends reports that Ike will have to run the country, because Congress doesn't have a mandate from the voters. His big job will be to pare the budget down to size. since foreign aid currently costs $5 billion and the armed forces, $50 billion, he doesn't have much room to manoeuvre with efficiencies, but he'll have to try somewhere! (Remember how this fell apart in '47for the 80th Congress? I'm sure Ike will be much more efficient.) The Democrats will be very bipartisan and middle of the road, except for "the hard core of unrelenting New Dealers," who will hammer and nag away at the President by doing things not by fighting for lost causes like civil rights, controls, or tidelands, but by making speeches and campaigning for votes to keep the Democratic party over on the left . The rotters!
National Affairs
"Ike and H.S.T. Make History: Smooth Path to Power Change" Based on the fact that the last inter-party transition was from Hoover to Roosevelt, and Hoover was in charge, and somehow, for some reason, it went badly, some people were expecting this transition to go badly. But so far, it hasn't! Is it just possible that Herbert Hoover is a terrible person and an incompetent boob? I mean, the vast majority of American voters think so, but what do they know? The next story has "Joe Martin Sizing Up the 83rd Congress," while Democrats are "Waiting for Adlai." Then, because the election is over and it is time to get back to real news, it's three pages of crime, broken up by . . .
Never mind! It's off to look at the Army Air Corps again, and then to Congress, where the House Select Committee on the Katyn Massacre is zeroing in on the real outrage here. And that's that the Roosevelt Administration soft-pedalled it during the war!
Ernest K. Lindley explains "Stevenson's Future." It's unclear, but he could be just like Wendell Willkie! Well, then. I'll remember not to sell him any life insurance.
The Korean War
"'Run, Hold, Fight' Decision Waits on Ike's Korean Visit" That's it; the headline is the story. "Death on Yebong" Patricia Scott reports from the summit of Mount Yebong, struck by a Fairchild C-119 carrying 7 crew and 37 men returning from a five day leave in Tokyo, with Christmas presents packed in their luggage. The crash came just days after a C-46 crash in the Sea of Japan killed 11, and in a week when a C-119 crash and a disappearance killed (presumably) 39.
"Witch Doctors and the Courts Fail to Halt African Tension" The witch doctor in question promises to cleanse Kikuyu tribesmen of their Mau-Mau oaths, while Oliver Lyttleton explains the problem to Parliament: Kikuyu have a "nostalgia for barbarism." It's certainly not "genuine economic" issues driving the rebellion! Meanwhile, riots in Kimberley have seen "[h]ysterical mobs of blacks" turn on "everything white." While it is all racial animosity and barbarism, Premier Malan also tells us that it is all outside agitators, especially the Indian-promoted passive resistance campaign. I don't think that means that South African police are allowed to shoot to kill at sit-ins, but it's Malan, so no guarantees.
Also, General Papagos has won the election in Greece in a "right-wing triumph" and an American UN employee, Abe Feller, has committed suicide probably not because of relentless persecution by the McCarran committee, but because the Committee is getting close to the truth, as illustrated by Trygve Lie's mysterious resignation. Some textbook publishers in Germany are in trouble for bribing people to get their "pro-Communist, anti-Catholic, anti-Jewish and anti-theological" "synchronised history" textbook accepted in German schools. Aneurin Bevan is a spectre haunting Britain, which yo can tell because Woodrow Wyatt has written an anti-American diatribe based on his coverage of the American election, and how else could that happen, I mean, really? He even says that Ike is some kind of conservative! Frederik IX of Denmark is a very unusual king who does very normal things like conduct orchestras.
In Canada, there is talk of Bermuda joining Confederation, and Bermuda doesn't care about all the quaint "social credit" in Social Credit, now that it runs a province that floats on oil. At least they are doing better than Psychiana!
Business
Periscope Business Trends reports that the incoming Congress is going to be anti-labour and might "scrap" the existing National Labour Relations Board. (and also the Council of Economic Advisors, said to be using government statistics in partisan ways.) Unions for their part might act against price controls and consolidate wage gains against expected deflation. The Administration will be pro-business and rein in the New Deal bureaucracy all over the place. Business hopes for a reduced capital gains tax (with more deductions) as well as the scrapping of the excess profits tax. Don't expect this go too far, though, as there is still a deficit to plug. Meanwhile, "institutions holding consumer dollars" are investing cautiously.
"Bitter Fight or Compromise: Which Course for CIO Chiefs?" It's a timely story, with Phil Murray's death, but I still say, wait and see. Speaking of which, the next story, "Soft Spot Ahead?" suggests that there might be an "intermediate recession" in 1953 or 1954. Stabilisation officials can't decide what to do in the three months before they're all fired, and, I read here, if you can believe it, that housewives are "helpless," by which the GE survey that Newsweek is quoting, means that no-one helps with the housework. The long term prospect for selling dishwashers is great! (Short term, not so much, because most of the people who haven't already bought one, can't afford it right now.)
Notes: Week in Business reports that coal price ceilings have been hiked to cover the new contract, Lever Brothers is consolidating its laboratories at a new building in Edgewater, N.J. The oil refinery at Ferndale, Washington, is scheduled to expand to meet the supply of Canadian oil coming via the Trans-Mountain pipeline when it is completed next year. Du Pont will build a new factory to make its Mylar plastic wrap, in Circleville, Ohio.
Products: What's New reports that General Metals is offering a dashboard indicator of low brake fluid, United States Movidyn a water disinfectant that inhibits algae and mold, is non-corrosive, and not poisonous. Sylvana's "Bantam 8" is the smallest light bulb yet. Walter Behlen offers an aftermarket "power steering" for tractors that absorbs shock and prevents backlash.
Henry Hazlitt is appalled at the Mutual Security Agency Green Book and thinks that it is high time that President Eisenhower stop spending American money on European socialism via that "stabilisation scheme" that would allow foreign inflationary Europeans to draw on our gold. We wouldn't even need all these institutions and funds and banks and whatnot if we just waved our magic wands and brought back full convertibility!
Science, Medicine
"Dowwind Din" Engineers say that runways should be heated to loft sound above the ears of sensitive locals, but now Professor Karl Uno Ingard (which is a real name) says that it is not even worth trying, since the heat will cause turbulence and make airport noise problems even worse. In a paper to the Acoustical Society of America, he shows that sound doesn't work that way.
"Recipe for Life" In the inaugural Rudolf Schoenheimer Memorial Lecture, Nobel Laureate Harold Clayton Urey says that, as far as science can tell, the state of affairs in planets in the earliest history of were "soups" of chemicals being stimulated by ultraviolet radiation from early stars in a way calculated to bring about life within a few hundred million years. Just to be sure, he has a graduate student shooting a bottle of Primordial Brand Soup (ammonia, methane, and water, sounds delicious) with radiation and maybe a bit of lightning, and he hopes to be able to report that he has created life by the time the next lecture is ready.
The United Nations' World Health Organisation is in Afghanistan fighting malaria, infant mortality, and the lack of women doctors and midwifes.
Press, Radio and Television, Newsmakers
Charles and Eugene Jones are identical twins who both became news photographers and have written a book. also, Newsweek owes their dad, Alfred Jones (most recently of the Buffalo News) a favour, so here's a full page and a half column about them. What can I say? Election, H-bomb, it's a slow news week! Tupelo Tribune Circulation Manager Newell Anderson says that he was abducted and his life was threatened if he didn't go back to North Dakota, which is news because Tupelo is the "in" location to relocate your industry south right now.
More televisions were made this week than radios for the first time. There's another playhouse television show for all the smart people. ABC wants to buy United Paramount and start a proper television network, providing more competition to NBC and CBS than it can with its existing business, which relies only on broadcasting for revenue. The FCC is said to be moving closer to giving its okay this week. Hurrah for the one and only Magnetophon network!
Movies
We skip reviews this week for a three page feature on Ava Gardner.
Books
"Devoto's Explorations" The Course of Exploration is the third volume of Devoto's history of the "Western expansion of America." Newsweek either liked it or thought it was a bit windy. It's hard to tell from the review. Archibald MacLeish has a volume of collected poems out that isn't Fascist at all. Sinclair Lewis's letters are out in a collection that is unironically non-Fascist.
Aviation Week, 24 November 1952
News Digest reports that the Turbo-Compound Super-Constellation is undergoing testing, that the TVA has bought three helicopters, to be used to patrol transmission lines, and a surprisingly large number of aviation pioneers died last week. (Three of old age, one crashing his single-engined light plane on takeoff.)
Industry Observer reports that MDAP commitments include 10 Sikorsky helicopters for NATO, that the Martin seaplane will be designated the XP6M, that Republic is developing a new supersonic fighter designated the XF-104, that the first Boeing B-52 ordered from Boeing will be the B-52A photo-reconnaissance version, as the first bomber versions won't come until the end of 1955. The Air Force does not expect to get any Wright J67s before the end of 1955. Chase will roll out the first production version of the C-123 from its Trenton plant in a few weeks. American safety experts do not believe the British conclusion that more than half the passengers injured in a recent Viking transport crsh were injured by "flexion of the body over the seat belt," but is planning on shoulder belts, anyway. De Havilland will build a third Comet assembly line at Chester if additional orders warrant. BOAC is thinking of retractable air inlet screens for its Comets to prevent ingestion of pebbles, mechanics' rags, mechanics, and so on.
Katherine Johnsen's Washington Roundup reports that pretty much the same thing as last week with the addition of calling out the airline attorneys likely to testify before Congress this year.
Floyd Odlum says that the airlines should order some B-60s as jet airliners, since the Mach 2 airliner is on the way, anyway. The State Department has told the CAB to get on with hearings on the Trans-Arctic air route to Europe before the Swedes get upset. Trans-Canada is buying 15 Vickers Viscounts, and the CAB is reorganising. No, really, this is a new story. This one is about how they are "shuffling the chairman's duties." That seems good for a page and a half! The Comet crash in Rome is attributed to the pilot taking an excessively nose-high attitude at takeoff. Otto Koppen, inventor of the all-new, all-safety, four-place Helioplane, tells Aviation Week that he will be delivering the first prototype to the Army next month. Colonel H. J. Sands of the Air Force tells us to ignore the idiots. Airplanes are going to have to get more complex if people who have invested large amounts of money in California-area avionics production are going to make a lot of money --I mean, if we are going to stop Communist world takeover of our precious suburban real estate developments --I mean, freedom. Piasecki writes to explain that its copter blades are built up from compression-formed spar booms, while Bowser Technical Refrigerating makes walk-in refrigerators for testing aircraft components at up to -85F. British Taylor-Hobson's Micro-Alignment Telescope, as marketed in America by Engis Equipment, makes optical tooling faster and more accurate. Mechanical Suspension of Westbury, N.Y., has a spring mounting to reduce shock impact on your guided missile. Armour and Company has a foaming-in-place low-density, cavity-filling plastic suitable for aircraft applications. Lockheed is building a giant treadmill to study landing gear shimmy. The Dodge plant in San Leandro, California, will produce propellers, and the Japanese are studying jets. The Ground Observer Corps still needs a few good volunteers to fill out the ranks. Not much, just 300,000 or so.
"Transistor 'Aging' Troubles Producers" Point-contact transistors are aging on the shelf due to lack of moisture sealing. This is a setback to industry hopes to replace vacuum tubes with transistors, although the manufacturer is taking prompt action, and users should be aware of the problem.
"Turboprops: NACA and Services Seek Better Plane Designs: Mach 1.5 Speeds Possible With Present Know-How" I guess that once Hamilton Standard began fiddling with supersonic propellers, an engine and plane to use them was inevitable. It will go into a version of the F-84, and then a B-47, and then possibly something like the old Douglas XB-42 Mixmaster. Bell drops a line to explain that Bell 47D helicopters are being used by governments and some civilians around the world. Now that the Democrats are out, Uncle Henry is in trouble, and Senator Bridges wants to unleash the hounds specifically on his C-119 contract, where, the Senator claims, the Air Force is paying almost five times as much for a Willow Run plane as for a Fairchild plane. Which sure sounds like Uncle Henry!
Aeronautical Engineering has, unsigned, "By-Pass Engine Promises Fuel Economy," which is the same article as last week, only longer.
Production reports, unsigned, that the Stratojet has a new magnesium tailcone, that Willys Overland is getting new forge hammers for airframe and engine production, and that Polyplastex of New York has a sealant for porous castings, this being a problem with low-density metal castings like magnesium pieces.
Philip Klein reports for Avionics that "Search is On for Electronics Reliability" This is Klein reporting from the National Electronics Conference the week after we started getting paper summaries from it. Apart from instruments for detecting progressive failures, there were papers on a continuous indicating loran, presumably one that not only auto-tunes on the signal, but which "lingers" if signal is lost (and gets brighter every time it is repainted!), a new type rectifier made of cadmium sulfide, various improved servos and mag-amplifiers, and the National Bureau of Standards Failure Predictor, which predicts future failures in vacuum tubes tested on the instrument with a simple, "good/no-good" return. Attendees remind us that equipment reliability is often only as good as the circuits that it is installed in. The problem might be there, and not in our equipment!
"Missile Guidance System Outlined" I hate this kind of title, and it's an unsigned article, too, but it seems too important to skip. It describes an "inertial-type" navigation and guidance system which measures "true groundspeed, direction of motion, and distance travelled," which sounds a bit magical to me. A gyro system is definitely good for direction of motion and relative speed, and the double-integrating accelerometer the system is based on is a good idea, but I am not seeing how we get to true ground speed without radar or star sights.
"Computer Solves 7th Order Equations" Beckman Instruments' EASE (Electronic Analog Simulating Equipment) isn't doing anything new, but it is supposed to be very cheap.
New Aviation Products reports a jet engine lubricating pump from Romec, a channel-isolating amplifier from Flite-Tronics that displaces voice, marker, range "and other audio signals" on separate loudspeakers instead of forcing the operator to assign them. GE has a high-slip induction motor that is smaller and lighter than ever.
Alexander McSurely has an article about good seats for safety based on the Cornell Crash Injury Research organisation that we heard from last week being skeptical about seatbelts causing the injuries in that Viking crash. Its full report recommends shoulder and lap belts, but also other features that will reduce crash injuries.
The McGraw-Hill Linewide Editorial asks, "How Prosperous is the United States," explaining that, due to inflation, the US GNP actually declined this year, and has not changed very much since 1945. Americans are still richer than Canadians and almost three times richer than Britons, but we are using up irreplaceable natural resources, so that won't last unless we speed up progress somehow.
Captain R. C. Robson has a "Treatise on Pictorial Computer" in Cockpit Viewpoint. He points out that this, yet another black box crammed with electronics and showing VOR and DME on a cathode screen, is not a substitute for cockpit radar because the inputs that supposedly make it so useful are o nly as reliable as the signals themselves. VOR, for example, has an average error of 5 degrees even in ideal conditions, while the computer adds another 4. Besides, the thing isn't fail safe. give us radar already! Reggie points out that the problem with radar has always been paying attention to it when so much else is going on as you land. Now, if the "pictorial computer" can fix that problem, it will be a real lifesaver!
What's New didn't get a single new catalogue or brochure this week, and so had to make do with reading The Air Officer's Guide from cover to cover and watching Breaking Through the Sound Barrier. The column is taking its time getting to General Billy Mitchell: Champion of Air Power.
Letters hears from Ken Purdy of True, The Man's Magazine, which has been on the reversible pirch story for awhile and considers itself vindicated by Aviation Week coverage, and points out that the CAA is still minimising the problem. Aviation Week agrees. Wally Irwin points out that the Eastern Constellation ad showed the Constellation trying to crash by flying with two propellers feathered, and presumably was taken during a training flight. W. L. Tenney of Shevlin Manufacturing writes to contest the article that said the Army gave up on pulse jet helicopters because they are a terrible idea. Actually, they are a great idea, it is just that no-one can see this because they are all dumb. Otherwise, everyone loves the articles about them.
The Engineer, 17 and 24 November 1952
We have some Canadian content in these numbers, as old correspondent Edward Livesay takes another of his trips across Canada, this time commenting on railroad practices from the berth, as he is too old to ride in the engine. As a result, there isn't much actual rail engineering to be discussed, but he does share his memories of surveying in the Alberta bush forty years ago and his opinions of Canadian rail in the old days (the Grand Trunk was dumb) and today (there isn't anywhere near enough business to justify the amount of railway stuff on the West Coast, and particularly the CN passenger terminal. Which is separate and beside the Burlington Northern terminal, which at least I have used!
For the week of the 21st, The Engineer takes in "The Centenary of the Patent Office" at the annual Newcomen Society meeting, checks in with the SS Braemar Castle, the sixth large passenger-cargo liner built since the war, for the "Round Africa" service. The latest productivity report is from the Woodworking Machinery group, and is more of the same, although the spirit of interest is alive enough for the group to recommend better housing for British workers as a route to higher productivity. F. T. Mason is to succeed Sir Dennis Maxwell as Engineer Vice-Admiral of the Fleet. Mason was a gunnery expert, interestingly enough.
Dr. Goldbeck is invited over to talk about years ago, before the war --all right, all right, "Otto and the Otto Engine." Our American Correspondent writes about "The American Application of the Ugine Sejournet Extrustion Process," which uses molten glass as a lubricant, allowing hot extrusion processes to be extended to stainless steel and some particularly difficult sections. Cambridge University's Engineering Department has some very nice new digs. We visit. A "Pneumatic-Hydraulic Closing Mechanism for Circuit Breakers" reminds us that high-tension lines can short, and when they do, you need something a lot more forceful than a knife switch to stop bad things from happening. National Physical Laboratory has a report on recent work on utilising solar energy, concluding that it is not likely to ever be practical to use it to produce heat. We also visit the Power-House of the Maple Lodge Sewage Disposal Works, which is hopefully not as disgusting as it sounds, and the Conference on Rubber in Railway Engineering, which hears numerous papers from French engineers.
"A Flight Deck Arrangement for Aircraft Carriers" very briefly covers ongoing work in both the British and American navies to develop the slanted or canted or angled deck, originally invented by Captain D. R. F. Campbell along with L. Boddington of the Ministry of Supply. Someone has built a peat-burning gas turbine. Ingenious, but right up there with solar-powered hot-water turbines.
The meat of this week's issue is N. F. Mott, "The Mechanism of Work-Hardening Metals," which uses crystal theory (the crystals formed by metals, which are not perfect and contain numerous faults and slips, which is where motion starts) to explain how work hardening happens. We visit the Conference on Aluminum Alloy Castings and the US National Metal Congress and Exposition. Titanium, forging, automatic welding and better grades of tungsten carbide for toolheads. India has a five year engineering plan for the development of Kashmir, for developing the iron and steel industry, and for improving navigation on the Ganges. We visit a fuel depot, look in at the London Transport installing hydraulic lifts, gaze in awe at a 100 mV transformer, read the Forest Products Research report for the year to find out about pest control and better logging practices. British exports are down and industrial production is not growing very quickly and The Engineer's designated expert isn't afraid to blame tightening credit, which he considers necessary along with high taxes, and which make it all the more vital that, sigh, productivity should be increased. Sure. So buy more machine tools! The industry has been saying that since 1948, and you're not doing it! You'll be sorry, says the machine tool industry, and, yes, they are self-interested. But still.
A. E. Johnson investigates "Stress and Plastic Strain Relations of a Magnesium Alloy" for a full five-and-a-half pages, and in a kind of sequel to the grim NPL forecast for solar power, we visit an experimental setup for producing power from hot water, for example at hot springs, where there is plenty of it. A whole group of British companies are building 25 diesel-electric locomotives for Ceylon, and London Transport has brought in push-button signalling control at the Ealing Broadway terminal. The Institute of Metals had a salon on the 18th, which gives us enough material for a two page Metallurgical Topics feature. We're worried about surface conditions, treatments, machinability, chemical and electrical behaviour, and caustic cracking in steam boilers. Boiler compound is not a solution; welded boilers and better testing are. 
Editorials for the 28th focus on the proposed closure of Woolwich Arsenal, where 9000 employees do various arsenal-related work for the Army, but which is vulnerable to bombing in these modern days, and is also a lot of valuable London real estate, not that anyone is thinking about that. Instead of an expensive modernisation, let's ship the work elsewhere! There's also something about engineering firms and iron and steel nationalisation, Heaven help us all. On a separate page, The Engineer summarises the report on the Royal Ordnance Factories from which this is extracted. The editorial describes the rest of it as "interesting." It is not.
Letters show up, on calculating the inlet diameter of turbine intakes and from the Institution of Agricultural Engineers on the educating of new engineers.
A summary of a session of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers on "Recent Developments in the Machinability of Steel follows. It is mainly concerned with measuring the results of ongoing drilling and machining, as I glance at it. (This sort of thing is a bit rich for even the one page summary, never mind the summary of the summary. Go get a copy of the Proceedings!) We pay for the paper with advertorials about a portable pile driving plant from British Steel Piling, a turbine plus diesel motor torpedo boat, Bold Pathfinder, powered by a development of the Vickers Gatric (not "Gastric!"), and a "thermal relay for protecting induction motors" from Chamberlain and Hookham. 
J. E. Gordon's "The Future of Plastics in Engineering" is so cracking good, he should write a book. (I kid, I kid!) And our American Correspondent, concerned for the international conservation of boredom, writes about recent work in "The Standardisation of Temperature Measurements" at the National Bureau of Standards. A surprisingly long paper on statistical research methods in organising transport by F. A. A. Menzler closes out the issue except for the monthly African Engineering News, with the usual arrangement of railway progress in South Africa, a new power station, in South Africa, and a dam, somewhere else, and Industrial and Labour Notes. This week, British overseas trade and steel production are up. Cancel last week's gloom and doom! If you are wondering, five ships under Launch and Trials, four motor (Obuam cargo liner from Harland and Wolf, including engine; Guildford collier, Buntisland with engine from British Power; Cedric cargo liner from Harland and Wolff, same firm for engine; Brier Rose, a John Lewis coaster with a Mirrlees engine). And one steam, a double reduction 450/b/750 degree oil tanker, 17,s50 tons, Caltex Liverpool.
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