Postblogging Technology, February 1953, II: Too Good To Be Forgotten

R_. C_.,
Shaugnhessy,
Vancouver,
Canada

Dear Father:

I think I would be on and on about either feminine complaints or politics if I spent overlong with this, so best wishes, my love, and what a complete shambles the Eisenhower Administration has been! "Car dealers for New Dealers." 

Hah! Also, oops. Sorry. Like I said, better not to spend too long on this.  

Your Loving Daughter,

Ronnie

Letters

Albert Day of the Fish and Wildlife Service writes to point out that the article about Aleutian fur seals dying off due to a mysterious disease is completely made up. Karl Gehrken, an emeritus at Oberlin writes elegaically about birds, butterflies and hummingbirds migrating, and the Panama Canal. Arthur Stevens of the Automobile Safety Association welcomes the new German Volkswagen. American roads are killing 2 million a year and causing $3.5 billion in economic loss, not to speak of congestion, and the Volkswagen is safer because the driver isn't stuck behind the engine. Colonel Stafford's comments on the outcomes of court martials, mainly for desertion in Korea, attracts an enormous amount of uniformly negative comment from people who are not impressed with the general court martial system. Herschel Rogers of the First Baptist Church, Rockland, Massachusetts, is against the Rosenberg verdicts, while Paul de Gyarmathy seems to support them. At least they can agree that Communism is bad. For Your Information explains that Newsweek was ready with an explainer about the Koumintang army ahead of the President's address because they had a hunch it was coming. The reason that the rest of their Inaugural coverage was so great was that Newsweek is just the best. Which statement also indicated that Ernest K. Lindley wrote an excellent column, so I am just going to point that out and leave it for people who don't read Newsweek religiously and might have missed said coverage.

The Periscope reports that "the man who convinced Truman that the Russians might not have the Bomb" has changed his mind. The Russians do have the Bomb. Jack Bell says that the FBI can go right ahead and investigate where he got his advance tip that the President was withdrawing the Seventh Fleet. Expected opposition to Clare Booth Luce's appointment as ambassador to Italy hasn't materialised because the Italians don't seem insulted by a female ambassador and American Protestants aren't getting worked up about a Catholic ambassador as long as there is no special envoy to the Vatican. Also, the only Protestants who actually care about these kinds of things are cavemen who take their marching orders from Henry Luce anyway, but you don't say that at Newsweek. The reason that it took so long to staff Interior is that Taft and Dewey were fighting over it. Meanwhile Eisenhower is making nice to Taft and worrying about the health of major Administration figures after the rush to get the Inaugural Address done and the Administration staffed. Congress is getting ready for an inquiry into Communists in schools, the Truman pardons, and Truman Administration relations with gangsters. The Post Office will use more trucks, fewer trains, going forward. Some more Administration appointments are rumoured, including Jenkin Lloyd Jones as an Associate Secretary of the Navy, while it is point out that no Red planes have been seen over Hokkaido since General Clark gave his warning. The Army's soon-to-be-unveiled "Niki" missile is the most important weapon developed since the last war. Trygve Lie is set to stay on as Secretary General. The reason the Russians are so upset about NATO forces on Bornholm island is that they will be so close to super-secret Russian installations on the Baltic coast. The Czech leadership seems to be uneasy about the impact of the Slansky trials on local cadres. The son of the head of the Italian Communist Party is said to have denounced the Party and returned to the Church.  The East German Army will double in strength by year's end. Eisenhower is said to be a symbol of liberation in eastern Europe, while Monte Carlo's days as a gambling haven are numbered after Aristotle Onassis bought it to turn it into a general resort. Victor Lasky is writing an authorised biography of Mamie, while Lionel Barrymore's debut novel is expected in May. Edward R. Murrow is planning another CBS weekly news show to go up against Milton Berle and Father Sheen. (What a pair!) Clark Gable's home movies shot during the filming of Mogambo are to be made into a TV show with Gable  narrating.

 The Periscope Washington Trends reports that the fight over reorganisation wasn't a rout for Congress, it just looked that way, and Congress is fixing to get even. "Conflict is inevitable over the long haul." Eisenhower has big plans for the budget, for the Federal Security Agency, for the National Security Council, and for Interior, but don't count on him getting his own way. On the other hand, Congress may be underestimating his skills as a manager. 

National Affairs

"Lid Goes Off Wages, Prices, Goes on Capitol Cocktail Hour" The Wage Stabilisation Board is fired, all 700 of them, effective in thirty days as wage and price controls end. Meanwhile, no-one has time for cocktails because the new Administration is just so hard working, and the President has been heard on his favourite theme, the need for a religious revival in the United States. Meanwhile, Mamie is doing housework, it says here. We also get yet another look at the first week of Congress, with the pratfalls over beef and reorganisation, and Democrats feeling out the footing for some kind of push against the President's "trying to start WWIII but not as hard as some people would like" policy in the Straits. However, McCarthy's hearings on the mess at the loyalty review program were at least edifying. Officials in charge can't really account for  the "derogatory material" that was stripped out of the files before they were submitted to wage review boards with final ratings because of deficient paper work, never mind reconstruct the material itself. Was it a conspiracy to protect vast numbers of Communists? McCarthy thinks so!

Ernest K. Lindley dribbles "The Drive for Economy" all over his mustache and Washington Tides. It says here that the Administration is committed to economy but need to find $10 billion dollars in savings without raising taxes, never mind pressure to lower them, and that's impossible, and there you go, column done, off to lunch! (Looks at clock: It's only gone 10.) Off to brunch, see you all tomorrow!

"On the Eisenhower Team" introduces us to more new team-mates including Clare Luce and a bumper crop of small-time millionaires with GOP connections. Meanwhile, the tugboat strike at the Port of New York continues while the LAPD has launched an all-out war against the narcotics racket, just as the Defence Department reports an epidemic of drug busts in the Far East, 715 in 1951 versus 200 in 1949. Did anyone's face perk up when we got off politics and appointments and talked about crime? They did? Here's a bunch more crime to close out the section!

International

Blah blah Dulles having trouble getting Europe on board with "WWIII, but only a little bit" programme, and it is getting in the way of getting the United States of Europe started and giving Anthony Eden Parliamentary cover. 

"The Sea in the Fields" Give Newsweek this; when there's actual news, it covers it, unlike The Economist, where facts would get in the way of the more important job of making it about politics while people are still being rescued. (Not that Newsweek is immune, noting that Dulles and Stassen had to fly over the wreckage of the flooding on their way from Paris to London.) The flooding, caused by high tides driven by a cyclone. A new cycle of high spring tides begins 14 February and repairs cannot possibly be completed in time, threatening a renewal of the disaster. The major flooding in Holland covered an area "forty miles on a side," and looks from the air like an inland sea. German troops have now been deployed for pioneer duties, and DUKWs have been deployed by the 3000 American troops sent in. They are opening up three Zeeland islands of Tholen, Goederede, and Schouwen, where 75,000 people lived before the flooding. No-one knows how many of them are still alive (and not already evactuated.) Cold, wind, and driving rain is making life even more miserable for the homeless, who are still being rescued from second stories, dyke roads, and even trees. The wreckage continues south along the Belgian coast, although as the relatively accurate (I don't think the Scheldt river rises in the North Sea?) Newsweek map says, the dunes held; it is the dykes that went. King Baudoin is in trouble for spending the floods in the Riviera. 

It is very cold in Moscow right now and Communism is bad. Border troubles are besetting Israel, where Egypt says that there has been a tank battle in the southern desert over Egyptians looting Israeli desert settlement supplies; while more seriously an Israeli retaliatory raid into Jordan ended with the indiscriminate killing of six villagers who presumably didn't have anything to do with the original offence, the blowing up of a train track. In Egypt, General Naguib is having lots of diplomatic relations, notably with the Germans (both flavours), who are interested in getting involved in Egypt's development. 

An Irish horse wins a race, Jean Monnet, John Foster Dulles gets a feature interview.

"Chiang Can't Hit Red Mainland Without Jets, Trained Airmen" Senator Wiley is predicting air raids on the Chinese rail network. Dewey Short and Knowland want a blockade of the Chinese mainland, and claim that Admiral Radford thinks that it can be done without starting a war. Senator Taft thinks we can bomb Manchuria and blockade the coast without starting a world war, and that, anyway, a real war is better than half a war. Chou En Lai has called for the US to return to the Panmunjom talks and says that China is ready for an immediate ceasefire, but offered no path forward on the POW talks. The one thing we don't have to worry about is a Koumintang attack on the mainland, since it has no means to do it. Newsweek's reporters then wander off into some racist generalisations about how Orientals can't run an air force. 

General Spaatz is back with his occasional Military Tides column to explain "The Future of the Far East." It is a vast anti-communist counter-revolution spearheaded by the Koumintang.

 In Canada, the chartering of a new bank is somehow a national controversy and Parliament is trying to find a Formosa position that doesn't offend anyone, which fat chance, Newsweek (and, it says, America) are spoiling for a fight.

Business

The Periscope Business Trends reports that lifting price controls will probably not have much effect on inflation, but wage controls are another matter. Fair trade laws are going to the Supreme Court, cotton exports are sliding, the Administration will tip its hat on protection when the President issues his decision reviewing the Tariff Commission's recommendation to boost the tariff on briar pipes, which is already quite high. Southern textile manufacturers are taking the federal minimum wage law to court on the grounds that they don't want to pay darkies a dollar an hour, and Washington can't make them!  

B. F. Goodrich has opened a fourteen acre Museum of Science and Industry on the South Side of Chicago in case anyone needs reminding that John Collyer invented sliced bread, the lightbulb, and sunny days, although possibly not rubber. Paul Hoffman is resigning from the Ford Foundation to go back to Studebaker, not because he crossed Eisenhower during the election and Ford is mad at him, but because he wants to stay in Pasadena and also save Studebaker.

"The ABC of '3-D'" Newsweek guides the perplexed through Cinerama, CinemaScope, Natural Vision, Tri-Opticon, and Paravision. The magazine distinguishes two basic processes: The first uses curved screens and speakers behind the audience to put viewers in "the middle" of the action and stimulate peripheral vision. Cinerama and Cinemascope use this method. The second is true stereoscopy, which utilises the mind's natural ability to create a three dimensional image by using two slightly offsett film strips and by splitting the image seen between the two eyes using the special lenses in various kinds of "3-D" glasses. Newsweek quotes George Spoor, an 81-year-old experimenter who has spent thirteen years and a million dollars working on a true 3-D film process, as saying that Natuiral Vision, Tri-Optical, Paravision and Norling are all just well-known tricks and mainly stock promotions. Worse, before any of these are adopted, there has to be some standardisation. Theatre owners cannot possibly afford to install all this equipment. One of the Polaroid cameras used in the second process goes for a thousand dollars, while it is estimated that refitting theatres with curved screens could cost $25,000, and would cut into seat capacity. However, if these investments are made, it would be bad news for older, "flat" films, and Paramount is working on a process to turn them into "3-D" films. In fact, Dr. Edgar J. Fuller of Fayetteville thinks he already has a process. Meanwhile, Twentieth Century is taking the alternative path of developing cameras which can show flat or "3-D" films by switching the lens. Also, people are worried about obsolescence.

Products: What's New has Squeezit Corporation of New York, with a five inch, rubber-edged window-cleaning blade with a built-in reservoir of soapy water that it sprays ahead of the blade. Rowe Manufacturing of New York has a milk vending machine for apartment lobbies that keeps quart bottles at a standard 38 degrees. 

Franz Pick's 1953 Black Market Year Book lists the real prices of everything and predicts that the world's currencies are all set to depreciate into worthlessness because of politicians, who are bad. 

Notes: Week in Business reports that  the US Treasury Department has agreed to allow Formosa to import up to $5.7 million in goods above last year's level on the guarantee that they are absolutely, 100% from Formosa and not Red China, no fingers crossed! The Plymouth Division of Chrysler has a new semi-automatic transmission that will be available as an option in the spring, Hy-Drive. Courtaulds has opened a modern rayon plant down Alabama way. 

Henry Hazlitt has "Towards a Free Economy" in Business Tides. He likes Ike! (There's a tiny amount of actual work involved, in that he's head of Senator Capehart's proposal to keep a skeleton wage and price control organisation, and explains why he is against it. Inflation, when it does happen in spite of sound fiscal management, is good!)

"H-Bomb in South Carolina: The Road Ahead is Clear" Lots of land in the Savannah river valley in Northern Carolina is being used for a giant H-bomb factory that also needs lots of concrete, lumber, and steel, not like those other factories that are made of pixie dust. Lots of people are being displaced from the 315 square mile military reservation, but it is okay because we're going to need lots of H-bombs to wipe out Communism. (But only if Communism starts it first. Look at this chip on my shoulder, Communism! Knock it off! Go ahead, I dare you!") Towns just outside the reservation are enjoying a construction boom, and will have lots of permanent residents working at the H-bomb factory when it is done. 

Science, Education

"Stinkless Chemistry" Three Louisiana State professors have a book out about a "sulphide free system of analysis"  so that chemistry departments won't need big hydrogen sulphide tanks any more. 

"Photon's Debut" Two French telephone engineers, Rene Higonnet and Louis Moyrond, have started a photolithography business producing the Photon photolithography machine, which is different from other photolithography machines in that Newsweek owes promoter William W. Garth, Jr, a favour, and so this article. Along the same lines, Lewis Lipp's method for propagating plant cuttings under plastic was developed at Harvard's Arnold Arboretum,

 but is now available to home gardeners everywhere.

University of Utah doctors give teaching clinics to isolated small town doctors working in the Great Basin, where there are no other doctors to keep them company. 

Medical Notes reports that a new antibiotic treatment for amoebic dysentery from the Abbott Laboratories is showing promise. Thin sheets of nylon, surgically inserted into the undersurface of kneecaps, is giving relief to arthritic knees, says Dr. John C. Kuhne and colleagues of Boston, Massachusetts. Edith Patterson and colleagues report success in using tri-ethylene melamine in capsules in alleviating Hodgkin's Disease and chronic leukemia in the British Medical Journal.  The Children's Medical Centre, Boston, warns that prolonged x-ray treatment impairs the growth of children's' bones. Nicotinic acid is showing promise in treating poor blood circulation leading to dizziness and ulceration, say Drs. Martin M. Fisher and Harry Tebrock of New York, who are promoting the brand-name medicine, Roniacol.  

"Chicago Parental" Newsweek horns in on Time's turf with an advertorial for an expensive private school, only this one is in Chicago and so maybe I'm more favourably disposed to it. A high school principal in New Orleans is horrible.   

Radio and Television, Press, Newsmakers

The Toledo water department reports that water pressure rises and then falls dramatically during television commercials because everyone runs off to  . . . run the water when the commercial starts. Tokyo got its first official television station this week, although the story indicates that it must have had an "unofficial" one at least  a year ago without really explaining what it was. Is? A Western television show set on the outskirts of Philadelphia is definitely a big story.

Communism is bad, and Drew Pearson is starting a private newsletter to compete with Kiplinger.  Someone named Sevellon Brown III wasn't quietly done away with in the locker room at his private school, and is, in fact, working in the real world without a name change. Because there is no  justice, that's why! 

  Leopold Stokowski is feuding with the Dixieland band that was playing in the auditorium next door. Princess Cecilie of Hohenzollern has become an American citizen. June Haver is retiring from Hollywood to become a nun. The Army claims to be short of generals right now. Bishop Fulton Sheen has won an Emmy as the biggest name on television of 1952. Judge Edward Dimmock offered the recently convicted second-rung Communist leadership the alternative of serving their jail sentences or being deported to Russia, which thirteen American Communists somehow took as insulting. It turns out that essay prize winner Shirley Malone of Muskogee, Oklahoma, copied her essay from a magazine, a crime that deserves national humiliation[?]. 

There is no New Pictures section this week because the editorial is taken up with a special report on the enormous new studio which Walt Disney has built to produce animated movies like Peter Pan, with some comment on other Disney productions, including live action.

Books

Norman Katkov has Fabulous Fanny, a picture book about Fanny Brice and her friends. Ruth Painter Randall answers the critics in Mary Lincoln: Portrait of a Marriage. She wasn't insane, just crazy. William Lindsay White's Back Down the Ridge is about the long journey back to health made by wounded Korean War veterans. I am not going to deal at any length with very short reviews of novels out by Christianna Brand, Dante Alferi, Vita Sackeville-West, and Leo Brady, because if Newsweek can't be bothered with a Sackeville-West novel, neither can I.

Raymond Moley explains how the Democrats didn't actually win a real majority of Congressional votes in 1952 and are sure to fall short of recapturing the House and Senate in 1954 when you look at the numbers dispassionately, like that Republican political operative Moley knows.

Aviation Week, 16 February 1953

News Digest reports that Lear is working on a low-cost autopilot incorporating the anti-spin mechanism similar to the one introduced a few months ago by Javelin Aircraft. The Mutual Security Agency has authorised several millions for supplies at the Moroccan bases and $22 million for a package of military aid for Austria, France, the French Overseas territories, and oh, no big deal, Formosa. Ryan has a contract to build sections for the C-97 for Boeing, while Grand Central Aircraft is going to build rocket engines for a new anti-aircraft weapon for the Army. 

Industry Observer reports that now that jet engine deliveries have caught up with Air Force orders, piston engines are lagging. The Vickers V-1000 jet transport will be designed for an all up weight of 180,000lbs domestic, 220,000lbs long haul. NACA is setting up a special committee to study flutter in swept wings in transonic flight. The fifth Custer Channel Wing prototype plane will fly very soon now. The USAF wants Howard Hughes to sell the electronics operations of Hughes Aircraft because he somehow stumbled into a good business and will ruin it in no time if he's left in charge because he's crazy. The USAF is ordering a bunch more DC-6Bs. The new alloys developed in Britain to braze Nimonic contain palladium and have very good properties. Japanese sponge titanium producers are going to enter the business in competition with American companies. 

Aviation Week reports that "USAF Tightens Japanese Air Defences" The 314th Air Division has turned into three air divisions, which have lots of F-86s and radar and is 100% ready for those Reds to try something, so the Japanese don't need to worry their pretty little heads about anything. The radars and supporting communications network are so good that they tracked 50,000 planes last year, which, trust us, is a lot. The Russians also have radars, which are pretty good, because they are based on American wartime radars we gave them. They don't have much in the way of offensive capability, just a few B-29skis, but they have lots of MiG-15s. The Japanese are taking over much of the work of maintenance, and their technicians are even better than American ones, it is to wonder! Next they will be incorporated into the active parts of the command. The Japanese Air Self Defence Force is looking at a force of 500 jet interceptors, but the Army and Air Force are fighting over what Japanese MSA money should buy. Which seems to be the actual point of the article. 

The scheduled airlines remind us that they had a perfect safety record this year, while a special USAF study of spares procurement saved lots of money this year. The Administration has almost finished hiring the complete defence cabinet, Bell Aircraftd has set a helicopter production record, and Grumman's new F9F will be nicknamed the Cougar. Prop reversal is suspected in the crash landing of that Northeast Airlines Convair at LaGuardia on 8 February. 

Aeronautical Engineering has the second part of its coverage of William Littlewood's Wright Brothers Memorial Lecture on the future and stuff of aircraft and things like that, if you thought last week's coverage was a bit much, it turns out that his gassing about the future was in the way of an introduction, and this installment is a bit meatier. It is probably safe to say that it focusses on safety, even if that isn't always clear. Littlewood thinks planes should be designed to be safe! He actually has some thoughts about designing safe structures, depreciates proposals for engine jettisoning, and is concerned about fatigue loading and crack propagation. He is a little shocked to see so little consideration of these in critical structures in new designs. After a brief digression about how planes are too complicated these days, he discusses new features in avionics design including flush antennas, possible new radiating devices such as corrugated surfaces and dielectric plates and even ionised exhaust gas. He is worred about approach speeds, turbine failures, vibrations, fire warning, control freezing. He also has some somewhat cliched thoughts about seat facing, and then goes into a lengthy exploration of the problems at the jetliner frontier which have kept Americans behind the British lead --fuel,  traffic problems, the limits of high temperature materials. The solution? Collective action? Yes, I am sure that will fly with the new Administration.

"IAS Summaries" covers rockets with a summary of three papers, and aerodynamics with eight. The rocket papers are concerned with measuring rocket performance, especially in flight, while most of the aerodynamic papers circle around the transition to and from turbulent flow in transonic flight, if I can generalise. 

"UK Industry Team Builds Tunnel" Who doesn't like a story about someone, somewhere, building a wind tunnel? This is the  associated British industry one, to be erected somewhere near Farnborough for common use by the fourteen British aircraft manufacturers. 

Production has "New Tool Grinds Various Shapes," which is a full page about the new grinder head from Polygon, which BuAer is very interested in! Lockheed's new beam bender is actually at work, bending beams for Super Constellations. Hopefully Lockheed will start a plane that starts with "B" at Burbank soon so that we can have a real tongue twister. 

Avionics has a job for Philip J. Klein, which is reporting on "Lear Damper Steadies F-86D," which is an electromechanical device consisting of a two-axis rate-controlled gyroscope that can dampen yaw or x-axis pitching via a triode-amplified signal to the rudder actuator with no deflection of the pilot's rudder that they might be inclined to counter. High precession speed means that the gyro does not have to be damped, although Lear is close-mouthed about the details. Filter Centre reports that the Air Force is looking at even higher frequency power, possibly up to 4000Hz. Colvin has the tiniest transducers and rotary relays yet.

 

Equipment has an uncredited story via the McGraw-Hill World News Service, "KLM Saves Sand-Bound DC-4 in the Desert," a short pictorial about same.

New Aviation Products has a new British aircraft camera, the Auto Mark 3, built by D. Shackman and Sons and marketed in the States by J. A. Mauer. Cyril Bath's new Brake-Press Unit is a multipurpose press brake and stamping press in one. Hartwell Aviation offers an easy access door for easy inspection and removal of vital parts. Dimetric Graph Sheets are a drafting aid. Bowser Technical Refrigeration's Cold Treat Units are a cool treat! Wales Spring's cylinder-piston spring delivers 600% more pressure than existing coil springs of the same size. 

Air Transport notes that Vickers has confirmed 75 Viscount sales and confirms the Super Viscount. Alexander McSurely reports that the CAA is standing its ground on Comet certification. There will be no short cuts! Unless . . . 

Robert Wood's Editorial wants safer air shows and less secrecy about Korea. Specifically, Wood has no idea how General Weyland came up with his estimate of 7000 Red aircraft in the Far East, which is totally out of line with any number he has seen anywhere else. Other sources have come up with similar estimates, but they have not been published because they are secret. Now it is not secret, but the facts behind the estimate are. Hopefully this is a good sign and we will soon have all the information we need to be scared out of our pants. 

Letters

Newsweek got down in the trenches to cover a failed American local attack in Korea the other week, and the letters are evenly divided between the one who liked the article and the one who defends the generals on the spot.  (If you weren't paying attention, this was OPERATION SMACK, in which 200,000 pounds of bombs, 10,000 rounds of artillery and 100,000 small calibre rounds were expended preparing a failed three platoon attack, leading to questions in Congress and even the House of Commons. If you did notice it, a big old eyeroll to you, too. Readers disagree about how many times Marilyn Monroe should be in the pages (including Hal M. Black of Wichita, Kansas, who has decided to immortalise himself in print by saying that she was gaining weight, which the studio denies. Where did I put my bottle of benzedrine, again?) Sue Simmons of Chicago and M. A. Neuhaus of San Antonio are so taken with the way that Black looks on paper that they take swings at I Love Lucy. (It's a dumb show and everyone who watches it is dumb. You heard it here first!) For Your Information is thrilled with all that Soviet anti-Semitism because it makes for an easy way to deal with Soviet propaganda. Which is the job of the editor's notes at Newsweek now. 

The Periscope reports that the big brass in Korea are expecting a big Red push any day now. And not the one where they hold press conferences at Panmunjom demanding an armistice right now, either. The Air Force's "unanswerable argument" for advanced based in Greenland, Alaska, England, Morocco and Tunisia is that if they didn't have them it would take forever to bomb Communism to smithereens. Thirty six hours or more! "It isn't generally understood that even from North Africa our B-47 bombers can't strike any vital targets in Russia without being refuelled." Maybe the Air Force could explain that? Oh, no, if you did that you'd have to explain that the B-47 is  a piece of junk compared with the Vickers Valiant and Boeing would be so very cross with you that they would sentence you to a horrible flaming death via all-expense paid Stratrocruiser vacation. "Associates" say that General Ridgeway and Marshal Juin haven't exchanged a friendly word in months. Pentagon officials are worried about how weak our defences are. If we arm our European allies, build up a twenty division force in Korea, equip the Koumintang and support the French in Indo-China, we'll be left with only ten days of supplies if a world war breaks out. And that's not enough! Talking about OPERATION SMASH, the Army says it's the Air force's fault for dropping those 200,000lbs of bombs the wrong way round. US military intelligence reports that the Reds have switched their POW tactics from mass demonstrations to attacks on individual guards. Red raids on the South Korean coast might start in the fall, while the Marines have been practicing mass helicopter assaults. The Administration is trying to improve its press relations. Farm bloc congressmen are attacking the Agricultural Secretary over falling prices, but not the President. A decision on John Carter Vincent's loyalty is expected soon. Mrs. Eisenhower is going to be a much more active hostess than Mrs. Truman. Saving bonds sales are up and the FBI is cutting its field agent force. The CIA is in trouble for the Wataru Kaji fiasco, while western embassies are expected to be dragged into the "Doctor's Plot" trials in Moscow. Beria is not in trouble, Maurice Thorez may be in trouble,  the East German Communist party is being infiltrated by Nazis, various Communists are awful, Walter Brennan is getting a TV show, and so is Bing Crosby. Herb Shriner will star in The Ernie Pyle Story, Dick Powell will dance in Rough Company, Lili St. Cyr will make her film debut in Girls of the South Pacific, while Lew Ayres, former Dr. Kildare, will be a doctor again in Donovan's Brain.  

 
 

(Lili St. Cyr was in a movie, and the Donovan's Brain rumour is accurate, so there's that. )

The Periscope Washington Trends reports that the President is beset in all directions (tax cuts, farm prices, European unity) but he is a great leader and will pull through. 

National Affairs

"Price and Foreign-Policy Rifts Strain Ike-Capitol Relations" Agricultural Secretary Ezra Taft Benson is an idiot (so are Sinclair Weeks and C. Wesley Roberts, but they don't count), and the President is having trouble persuading people that "starting WWIII just a little" is the perfect compromise between starting WWIII and not starting WWIII. One thing is for sure, there is no way to end the Korean War when the Reds won't give in on the POW issue. No way. At all. And we can't give Chiang guns because we just don't have enough. And did I mention that farm prices are down? Benson says that that is great, because lower food prices are good for everyone who isn't a farmer. Like I said, Benson is an idiot. And the Democrats are ready for action, led by Adlai Stevenson, "tanned and rested after a Caribbean vacation," pointing out that so far it looks like the "New Deal has been replaced by the Big Deal," because the New Dealers have been replaced by the "car dealers." 

Ernest K. Lindley is going to tell us about "Objectives in the Far East" in today's Washington Tides. Let's see if he has to work through coffee break! Hmm. Says here that a Korean armistice would be good, but trying to get it by starting WWIII risks starting WWIII. Maybe telling Chiang where he can get off will  help in some mysterious way that we mortals will never understand and which certainly wouldn't involve some kind of compromise on POWs?  And just in time for coffee! See you guys Monday! . . . Tuesday. 

Mayor Bowron gets a profile, the Minot Jelke trial continues, and the Rosenbergs and John David Provo are getting the death sentence, no clemency. 

Korean War

"'Big Jim' And Blockade Talk" There wasn't a dry eye in the house when General James Van Fleet said good bye to Eighth Army on relief by Maxwell Taylor. Meanwhile, the big brass is talking about how to end the Korean War without starting WWIII: Should there be a big blockade, a really big blockade, or the biggest blockade? And what about a compromise in POWs? Who said that? Was that you in the back? Come up here and explain yourself!

"The Settlement in the Sudan Eases Middle East Crisis" Egypt and Britain have agreed on independence for Sudan at a moment when Moscow's break with Israel seemed to signal a Russian diplomatic offensive in the Middle East while American talks with the Iranians are floundering. Egypt gets a continuation of the 1929 Nile Waters Agreement and the withdrawal of the 50,000 strong British garrison of the Suez Canal, leaving only enough technicians to actually be legal under the Suez Treaty. Sudan retains its rights to a twelfth of the Nile water. Britain gets equitable treatment for the southern Sudanese. Other countries in the Nile basin get access to Egyptian investment in hydraulic works such as the dam that will raise the outflow level of Lake Victoria in Uganda by twelve feet, making the lake a "century storage" of Nile waters. A full hundred MPs are out sick in London with the flu; MPs are taking the subject, and the Doctors' Plot, very seriously. Or not! Silly things are happening at Cambridge. The Dutch will build artificial terps, or mounds, as refuges for inhabitants of low-lying ground in the event of another flood like the one of January. It looks like this week's spring tides won't bring more flooding, so it is time to talk about rebuilding, anyway. Europeans are drinking "European Unity" cocktail of Monnet brandy, Mirabelle, orange liqueur, Cinzano, kuemmel and Curacao because the ECSC brings the United States of Europe that much closer. Yuck! James B. Conant is the new US high commissioner in Germany as Freikorps Deutschland seems to be getting more organised. A Russian financial fraud artist has been caught, just to show that Communism has them too, and the Argentine ambassador to Moscow says that Stalin was in the peak of health during their recent 45 minute meeting. England still has fox hunts.

In Latin America, the Reds are this close to taking over Guatemala. (Ronnie holds up fingers this far apart.)  Oh, please, won't someone think of the poor banana company? I mean, besides major shareholders like the Dulles brothers. General Trujillo is in New York to address the General Assembly on the subject of where's a nice place to eat near the Empire State Building and how much should you tip the bouncers at a good night club? 

Business

The Periscope Business Trends reports that there is no cause to be concerned about the economy whatsoever, that falling prices, a falling stock market, rising inventory, declining order books, rising layoffs, declining job creation, and rising unemployment are signs of a healthy, booming economy that will invest more abroad, especially in Latin America, now that foreign aid is declining. 

"'Boots' Adams of Philips Oil Wins Right to Explore Alaska"  So let's tell you about Boots Adams! in other famous businessman in the news, news, John Stuart, the 75-year-old Quaker Oats chairman, is founding a group that he is calling "I'm Going to Holler About Taxes," which is at least refreshingly honest. Anheuser-Busch is complaining that competitors are interfering with its distributors in the Chicago area. 

Notes: Week in Business reports that the syndicate that Ralph Stolkin put together to buy 29% of RKO has fallen through. Howard Hughes is going to have to find new backers. The International Bank is loaning Tito's Yugoslavia a cool thirty million for the usual lot of dams, mines, and refineries. The Massachusetts Investment Trust's 100,000th member is Keigh Collins, of Kevin the Bold. A New York syndicate headed by Roger L. Stevens is spending $4.5 million to buy 28 acres of Back Bay, Boston, to transform from rail yards into something nice like the Rockefeller Centre, his last project. 

Products: What's New reports that Kermath Manufacturing has a jet propulsion unit for boats with a high pressure pump expelling a propulsive blast for shallow water navigation. Magnaflux is getting into the everyday fault-finding world by adding a penetrating dye to its inventory of magnetic flux devices and the like. Spray it on a wall, and etc. National Cash Register's new adding machine is completely electrified while North American Philips has an "auto shaver," by which it means an electrical shaver and not an automatic one. 

Henry Hazlitt's Business Tides says "Farewell to Price Controls," because just because the one thing that Hazlitt has been campaigning for since he first got this column, has happened is no reason to bother writing a new column when he can just recycle the same old one. 

Is it February? Then it is time for a Special Report about Montego Bay, the booming resort town in Jamaica where you can go if you don't like a New York winter, and incidentally pad out four pages without reprinting a press release from some Los Angeles screw manufacturer like some magazines I could name. 

Science, Medicine, Education

Science Notes of the Week reports that scientists may have discovered the Biblical "coney," which is a mouselike animal called the hyrax, which, it says here, is most closely related to the elephant(!) Professor Ross Allen McFarland of the Harvard School of Public Health says in his new book, Human Factors in Air Transportation that current ideas about airline pilot health aren't very good. For example, they are often flunked out of hearing tests for not being able to discern high pitched tones, but those ae only distractions in an airplane cockpit, where all the worthwhile noises are low pitched. The New York State Agricultural Experiment Station has discovered how to make white grape juice into an "opalescent" beverage instead. 

"Cloud Over Paradise" The Pineapple Research Institute has been funding an investigation into ways of affecting the Hawaiian weather for three years now. The report is in: Irving Langmuir is sure that siliver iodide cloud seeding will work, and that the repeated failures of the last three years have a very good explanation, and please don't stop sending money.

"Mescal Madness" Schizophrenia is a frightening and intractable disease, so it is good to hear that mescalin is showing promise of being a treatment. Yes, that mescaline. 

Washington University, which is very confusingly in St. Louis and not in Washington (city) or Washington (state), is a hundred years old! Arthur Compton is the new chancellor, so that's nice. Are you wondering where the new generation of American scholars are coming from? i) Swarthmore; 2) Reed College; 3) Chicago; 4) Obelin; 5) Haverford. It is then Harvard, Yale and Princeton in order. Not very impressive performance from the Ivy League, especially since the Seven Sisters lead amongst women. Norris Orchard's How to Study is the latest hit out there in the ivy-covered halls of academe. 

Art, Press, Newsmakers 

Newsweek may not know art, but Newsweek knows what it likes, and that's Marcel Vertes' charcoal nudes (or almost nudes. It's charcoals, so it is hard to tell.) 

"Washington Chowder" So, last week, the White House passed down the word that everyone was to stop talking to the press. Which went as you'd expect, with Everett Dirksen and Margaret Chase Smith making a joke about not being able to discuss the menu at a White House lunch for the Senate. This week, The Periscope has its rumour about the White House telling everyone to be more open with the press. Which, it being The Periscope, was either made up off the op of Lindley's head, or word-for-word what the guy buying lunch told them to say. This probably reflects the fact that only one Secretary has given a press conference so far, and that was Benson. (Ronnie rolls her eyes.) Word is the President will formally reverse course at a press conference on Tuesday. With victory in that minor skirmish for press freedom in hand, it is on to push for access to the Jelke trial. Also in press freedom, the Las Vegas casinos have cut the Las Vegas Sun a $75,000 cheque after they realised how much trouble they are in for trying to run an advertising boycott over some comments critical of Senator McCarran. Because, yes, you can find something bad to say about Saint Pat. His feet of clay may wear nice shoes, but they're in there somewhere! (Sarcasm!) And now it is time for a profile of a big name at a big paper, in this case newspaper turnaround expert William Townes, now of the Los Angeles Daily News. I hope he does save it, although I'm not sure how much of the old Daily News will be left if he does. 

The President and Omar Bradley are still famous, but his office isn't very well organised. The State Senate of North Dakota has banned candy cigarettes because they lead to smoking. Herbert Hoover is still famous, and so is Christine Jorgensen. Marcellino Romany is a lawyer even though he is Puerto Rican! And a Republican, too. William O'Dwyer is going to stay in Mexico after his ambassadorship ends for very good reasons he isn't talking about because he ain't no squealer. Ted Williams was nearly shot down in Korea. Sioux Indians are demanding the return of the skull of Sitting Bull from the Smithsonian, which denies having it amongst its extensive collection of Sioux skulls. Off the hook! Charlie Chaplin is selling his Hollywood home while John Agar is on the wagon, while Eric Severeid has discovered the "celebrity saint," who is the kind of celebrity who is a celebrity just by being a celebrity. Severeid laboratories will next investigate whether water is, in fact, wet. The White House switchboard operator is retiring because she is 62 and because she is a Democrat. The Grand Army of the Republic has just lost its last member, William Allen Magee of Los Angeles. There are still two surviving Union Army veterans, but neither are members of the Grand Army.

John L. Lewis has had  a birthday, Ralph Cameron, Lev Zakharovich Mekhiles, Clark Lee, David A. Reed, Elbert D. Thomas, James M. Skinner and Roy C. Woodruff have died. Lee had a heart attack. He was only 46! Which is a lesson about looking after your health. No more candy cigarettes for you, and no real ones, either.

New Films

Moulin Rouge is the much awaited John Huston study of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. It is very pretty but "very heavy going." The Stooge (Paramount) is Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis's seventh, and an attempt to "go straight." It still has enough comedy to be a Martin and Lewis movie, though. Sounds okay? Tonight We Sing is the musical biography of impresario Sol Hurok, from Twentieth Century. Ezio Pinza and Tamara Toumanova do a pretty good job. 

Books

P. R. Reid's The Colditz Story  is one of those true-life world war adventure stories. George Simenon's latest novel is pretty much like all his other non-detective novels, only with different sex and crimes. Knopf has the translation of Simone de Beauvoir as The Second Sex. Newsweek is not impressed. It likes women more like Louise Baker, with her memoir of being a pioneering teacher in old Arizona, etc. James Aswell has one of those novels about boys becoming men in the South, while Maude Parker's Invisible Red is a thriller about the Cold War and Heinz Schaeffer's U-Boat 977 is a true life adventure from WWII, only from the German side and with a bit of that European sophistication where you can write as though the war wasn't the best thing that ever happened to him. Remember how in the first three years after the war, no-one wanted to read war books? Sigh. 

Raymond Moley's column is about how he read James Conant's last address to Harvard, "Education These Days, I Just Sigh and Shake My Head." Moley agrees! For example, there are just to many sociology courses these days! 

Aviation Week, 23 February 1953

News Digest reports nothing of any consequence. 

Industry Observer reports that the Navy calls the Douglas XF4d Skyray is a supersonic plane. The McDonnell F3H Demon has now completed 100 test flights. Production ships will shift from the Westinghouse J40 to the Allison J71. Prospects for the Allison T40-powered North American A2J seem dim, but survival of the Douglas A2D will depend on its next round of test flights, as it has the T40 power plant, too, and it is hoped that the flights will work out its bugs. The last production Corsair was not, it turns out, the last production Corsai technically, because it is still in production as an attack plane. Jacqueline Cochran will not fly a Canadair-built F-86 in a bid at the world absolute speed record, after all, but Anson Johnson is working on a modified P-51 in hopes of setting a world prop-plane speed record. A final solution of the aircraft fastener problem may be at hand. 

Aviation Week has Alexander McSurely reporting that "ODM Shuffles Aircraft Production Setup." It is one of those fascinating articles about how new people you've never heard of are going here and there. I'll pass it on to Reggie in case he knows some of them. The CAB has published new, lower weight limits for the C-46 in hopes that it will crash less. Communist night fighters may now be using airborne radar in Korea, says Captain George Kross, a Marine F3D pilot who was fired on by surprise. CAB has opened an investigation into the 7 January C-46 Associated Air Transport crash at Fish Haven, Idaho, that killed all 50 aboard.  

"Details of New Turboprop C-130" Lockheed must have heard my prayers and is building a new plane, a high wing "low slung," four engine type with four Alison turboprops driving four Curtiss-Wright electrical propellers. It is another pure cargo transport, unless some airline can find a way to make it work as a liner, in which case, more power to them. Investigations of the 14 February National Airlines DC-6 crash in the Gulf of Mexico that killed 46 people are focussing on possible structural problems. That story about the RAF training German "technicians," in this case specifically pilots, runs again. The Aircraft Owners and Pilots' Associations blames pilot error for seven recent light plane crashes. The Hamilton Standard propeller for the new  5700hp Pratt and Whitney T34 turboprop is, understandably, the biggest Hamilton Standard propeller ever. Ryan wants us to know about the Fairchild engines in its new Fairchild J44 and Marbore target drones. They are both low-cost turbojet units. 

Aeronautical Engineering has "Hawker Theory Explains Sonic 'Bang'" This story has me a bit cold, I confess. There's no real mystery here. Sometimes, when planes go very fast, and specifically at or higher than the speed of sound, they make a very loud bang. The mystery is exactly what aerodynamic factors cause it, and it is only an interesting question because if we can find out why, we might be able to stop it. Well, Hawker seems to have found out why it happens, and good on them, no better people, etc. And we can't stop it, so that's that. 

"Spacemen Study Universe Remodelling" At the latest meeting of the British Interplanetary Society, R. A. Smith looked at "Landing on Airless Planets," while E. Hope-Jones lectured on "Planetary Engineering." It turns out that the first involves rockets sitting down on their tails, while the other involves vast cosmic processes of planetary transformation beyond the capacities of humanity. So instead Hope-Jones talked about solar power. 

"Plane Icing Course at Michigan;" and "F2H Parts Tested in New Altitude Chamber" round out the section. 

"IAS Summaries" has more sections this week, "Electronics in Aviation," "Aerodynamics," "Aviation Medicine," "Motorless Flight" and "Transport Safety." Cooling, UHF, and magnetic amplifiers are covered in the first; supersonic laminar flow and compressibility conditions in helicopter rotors the second; transport safety looks at approaches. 

Production is looking for easy page count, so goes to Thompson Products of Cleveland for their new Cermeting process. Powder-formed tungsten carbide could be very useful in various aspect of jet engine manufacture. Babcock and Wilcox is experimenting with molten glass as a lubricant for stainless steel extrusions (pipes), Rohr Aircraft gets more machine tools into a given space with a slant installation, and Convair is "Pushing Metal Adhesive Studies," while Kurt Orban Company is distributing a high speed Shiess A. G. lathe. 

Avionics is in the same boat as Production, and GE comes to the rescue with a long article with lots of pictures about the company's new capacitor, which, get this, it'll knock your socks off, is small and rugged. Even Aviation Week is a bit exasperated, and attaches a half page summary of four other recent "small" and "rugged" stories. Another article tells the story of British training for German technicians again, but this time it is McGraw-Hill World News, which has the good sense to phrase it as "NATO personnel" getting a course in GCA. Which is in the middle of this "New Avionics Products" insert for some reason followed by an insulating varnish from Dow Corning, an Integrated Flight System from Collins Radio, and a console recorder from Goodyear. Filter Centre has mostly service and corporate news; new standards from the Navy and the New York ARTC, Clevite and Lear looking to expand their business by buying into new interests, yet another small and rugged capacitor, Bendix testing gear. 

Equipment has George Christian reporting on "Pesco Pumps Fly on all US Jets" Which is basically Christian narrating the Pesco catalogue. (Not one of those fifty page ones, the ones that you insert in an issue of Fortune.) New Aviation Products has the Hydra-Brake from Industrial Engineering Company, a test unit which can be installed on a jet accessory driveshaft to measure the actual power output, a navy-tested leakproof hydraulic line coupling from Eastman Manufacturing,  a line of very efficient and small Barber-Colman electrical motors, the Maxisafe Duragauge, which is a safe gauge for measuring high pressures in hydraulic lines, a trim router from Ekstrom, and oh for Heaven's sake some hose clamps from Resistoflex. 

The DC-7 is nearing its first test flight, Captain R. C. Robson is back with a Cockpit Viewpoint column on "Pilots and Those AF Crashes," which explains the disastrous winter run of Air Force crashes as being due to the Air Force being overstretched and using relatively inexperienced (at least on the types they were flying) pilots in difficult conditions. 

Robert Woods' Editorial on "How a Business Press Can Serve Its Industry" is a blast against the shameless promotion of corporate claims in the guise of legitimate editorial content --oh, wait, no it isn't. We had that article from The Economist last month. Instead, Woods calls for actual journalism, specifically with reference to Korean air fighting, where genuine reporting turns up actual facts. At least, as factual as one side of an ongoing air war can be; and I have no idea how many years, if not decades, it will be before we have the Red point of view, so there you go.  

The Engineer has, all too briefly, in the 20 February and 27 February numbers

In Sadly Not the Seven-Day Journal Any More a review of the upcoming Princess flying boat, the prospects of atomic power in ships, a test code for fan performance, a review of reconstruction in the coal industry from the Coal Board, the latest productivity report (General Director E. H. Browne says that 124 projects costing £124 million have been approved, but much less has been planned, and still less spent), this one on plastic moulding, and a preview of this year's International Mechanical Engineering Congress.
 

 A long feature on hydroelectric works in the Italian Alps, a lengthy article by H. W. Greenwood on "Considering Powder Metallurgy," another on "The Proton Synchrotron at Birmingham University," and a review of the (non-classified, I suspect) recent Hydraulic Servo-Mechanisms session at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. I had no idea that T. E. Beacham was even still alive! The whole thing has a bit of a valedictory feel, in that the British pushed high pressure hydraulics to the limits in the war, and now they're settling down to everyday use at lower pressures with less exotic design, and looking to an electrical future. In spite of this, H. S. Conway's "An Introduction to Hydraulic Servo-Mechanics" continues through both issues and looks quite interesting. 

W. A. Dymonds compares two of the gas turbine locomotives that exist to be compared, a grinding machine company writes to explain how they control dust, and a medical equipment maker tells us about their ophthalmological flash lamp. The aircraft carrier Hermes has been launched, the Short S.B./5 Adjustable swept wing research aircraft is quite something, cooling concrete is something you have to do in big construction projects.

Leaders for the 20th look into lightweight marine machinery for mercantile use, the Navy calling for lighter steam machinery than the industry prefers,  while the industry looks to get out of steam entirely, except big tankers, where there might be a meeting of minds. The Engineer has thoughts about the College of Technology, specifically that it is probably not a good idea to try to do all Government training of technologists at a single location. Literature looks at great length at Hald, Statistical Theory with Engineering Applications and much  more briefly at an English translation of Prandtl, Fluid Dynamics. Some handbooks, including one on colliery windings, are out, and R. E. Mills has a letter about simplifying gears. 

Big articles after the fold are on testing concrete mixers (very worthy I am sure, by R. H. Kirkham), and the vicissitudes of Offshore Procurement in the United States by an anonymous correspondent. You can sell 500 Centurions if the US has no tanks to spare; otherwise, good luck unless the French play the "We'll go Communist if we have to close this plant" card. Finally,  a summary of A. Patton, writing for the British Electrical and Allied Researchers Association, on "Fuel Cells." Those are the various battery-like gadgets that consume a fuel to produce an electrical current output. In spite of fifty years of work, there are no practical fuel cell designs out there, but it seems as though the day might not be too far away.  I. A. Mossop looks at blade clearance in aircraft turbines and American Engineering Notes is mostly devoted to electrical generating, with a review of the 19th Annual Report of the TVA, which is making money and fighting floods, including now with a reversible pump-turbine unit, and the Schiller Power Station at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, which is noteworthy for its very high steam conditions. 

Leaving the advertorials aside, it is on to the end of the month and yet another lost chance to say "Seven-Day Journal." Oh, the old traditions: The Chamber of Shipping is happy with the Egyptian settlement, and notes that more than half of new construction these days is tankers. There aren't enough docks, canal engineers are upset that no-one cares about them nowadays, and there is a report on inspections in industry out. Leaving continuing articles aside, there is a report on the work of the National Institute of Agricultural Engineering by W. H, Cashmore, on improving coal production from H. D. Browne, and a heavy duty gearbox from Guy Motors using the Wilson system.

Metallurgical Topics looks at high tensile steels, the forging of arc-melted chromium, the energy stored in plastic deformation of metal, sulphur-impregnated sintered iron (for anti-friction work) and titanium and zinc production in Natal. This leads to

Well, Leaders, of course, reviewing the 1953 Defence Statement, and progress in gas turbines. Taking the latter as perhaps not that likely to show promise, the first is the PM's statement that defence spending will be levelled off in 1953 instead of continuing to rise, as envisioned by the Labour government. This is purely to allow the engineering industry to concentrate on exports, of course, and has nothing to do with falling tax expenditures and rising interest costs on national debt. More money will be spent on research, less on potentially obsolete-before-they-are-complete weapons. The Engineer urges against the pernicious idea that depending on US forces for various weapons, such as long-range bombers, is some kind of efficient standardisation. 

H. A. Ferguson is dead, while correspondents are impressed by the high speed achieved by "The Capitals" on the London-Edinburgh route, as reported by Edward Livesay. On a more serious note, L. S. B. Simeon explains what a big deal the east coast floods were, and just how expensive reconstruction of all the reclaimed areas will be. The Institution of Mechanical Engineers hears about fretting corrosion, and British Railways reports on its latest thing, cam poppet valve-equipped locomotives.

American Engineering Notes has a report from the AEC on the Submarine Intermediate Reactor, which is a test volume for the submarine reactor, the seven year's progress report of the Bureau of Reclamation, a new open-hearth shop for the Indiana Harbour Steel Works, and the National Bureau of Standards on the high frequency calibration of magnetic materials. 

Coal prices are up, coal output is up, British exports are up, that's a wrap.