Shaughnessy,
Vancouver,
Canada
Dear Father:
It has been a very busy week here in London. I had to throw some cold water on people over the CAB action against American Airlines (they of the "No Old Maid Stewardesses" policy) over their claim to be able to run Los Angeles to New York in less than eight hours. No, DC-7s cannot make that time, non-stop or not, and, yes, that means that, strictly speaking, they are in violation of labour laws that say that you can't have a pilot at the controls for more than eight hours, and, no, that doesn't meann that anything will be done about it, much less something as drastic as buying British. They'll just keep pretending until they get the 707, I explained. They're for sure not going to buy Comets, even if they could get one!
Besides, considering that we're going to have an atom war with Communist France and Communist Italy next month, why worry about airliners? If America is as Communist as Senator McCarthy says, shouldn't we bomb us, while we're at it?) Yes, I'm being silly.
Your Loving Daughter,
Ronnie
Letters
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| Karl Hongkee in 1955 |
The Periscope reports that Ike is toying with the idea of releasing the Army's file on David Schine and ruining McCarthy forever. What does everybody think? The Pentagon will appease McCarthy' on the "draftees who refuse to sign loyalty oaths" side by putting them in work camps and denying them veterans' benefits. Opponents of Hawaiian statehood think they have picked up some votes from the Puerto Rican "shooting up" of the House. One tropical island or another! The White House has joined everyone else in America in being disappointed with Senator Knowland. Communism is bad. The French are looking for a stronger Vietnamese leader than Emperor Bao Dai, who is probably going to bug out in time for the next season on the Riviera on the grounds of why not, it's not like he's accomplishing anything where he is. HUAC is going to Chicago to investigate Communism in farm organisations and Puerto Rican nationalism, because Harold Velde is facing a tough re-election fight next year. The Iranians are looking for a way to exile Mossadegh, Secretary Wilson has hung Stevens out to dry some more (serve him right for standing up to McCarthy!), Ferdinand Eberstadt is joining the Administration, Army and Air Force librarians are querying the Pentagon about whether they have to accept complimentary copies of McCarthy's book-length attack on General Marshall. Newsweek says you have a good chance if you take the IRS to court, an "independent automaker" is going to import an economical Austin four-cylinder model, the Air Force isn't going to allow pilots to testify in the Marine court of inquiry investigating Colonel Schwable's confession so as to keep its secret instructions to pilots secret, which sure doesn't seem like something that someone with nothing to hide would do. The Navy is having trouble fitting out USS Nautilus, and it's all due to Admiral Rickover's unorthodox methods. USS Albacore
will be the fastest sub in the fleet when it joins this summer due to its streamlined, whale-like shape. The latest evidence that Japan is about to go Red is that Hitachi is building four tugs and five trawlers for Soviet buyers.
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| It's got four cylinders, so that checks out. |
Ed Wynn and Bette Davis are coming out of retirement while Burt Lancaster is doing a movie version of the Broadway hit, The Rose Tattoo. and Goodman Ace and Jane are doing a TV version of their old radio show, Easy Aces. So are Ronald Coleman and wife, while Zsa Gabor's new show is a Western called Zsa Zsa the Kid. CBS' Adventures has signed Oliver La Farge for a film documentary about the Hopi. Where Are They Now reports that Bonnie Skiles Rockne is still in South Bend, living with her daughter. Iva Torino D'Aquino ("Tokyo Rose") is in the fifth year of her sentence, and barring a parole, will be out in June of '56.
. . .
. . .
Even by The Periscope standards, this is a wild one. Ms. Rockne died in 1956.
The Periscope Washington Trends reports that the President is going to hew to the middle, avoid a fight with McCarthy,and get ready to battle Stevenson in '56, while the Pentagon is trying to put together a policy for compelling Korean War veterans to turn out for reserve duties.
National Affairs
The GOP caucus is thinking about maybe doing something about that McCarthy fellow. They can't count on Wisconsin voters, who are set to sent him back to Washington in '58. Democrats have a new strategy. They're going to attack Ike. The Puerto Rico Nationalist Party is purging itself before the FBI can start looking for Communists in the ranks, while the House is installing bulletproof glass on the visitor's galley. It turns out that harness racing in New York is dirty. The Post Office is in trouble with Congress for slow service, self-taught scholar Marvin Hewitt has been fired by the University of New Hampshire for impersonating Kenneth Yates and teaching there until caught out by a graduate student. (It figures!) The surviving "aquatot" is off to perform in Mexico City, Will Hayes gets an obituary in the section, Ernest K. Lindley reports in Washington Tides that the President is thinking about standing up to McCarthy because he'll probably back down like a schoolyard bully. (My prediction: He will not! You wonder if anyone in Washington has ever dealt with a crazy person before. It's not like they're thin on the ground!)
International
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| Fremch sortie returns to the fortress |
with the Americans at proposed all-party talks in Geneva, and that the Red price for a ceasefire in Indo China will include French withdrawal from the EDC. We also get a bit more about Waruhiu Ite turning informer. In Britain it is reported that Oliver Lyttleton's career is hanging by a thread after one colonial fiasco after another, and that skepticism about a final victory in Kenya is growing due to the fanaticism of the Mau Mau activists, who are motivated by the ferocious oaths they take. We get Newsweek's more colourful account of the abortive showdown between General Naguib and Colonel Nasser in Cairo, and about Robert Cowell, who has undergone "the most complete sex change in history" to become Roberta Elizabeth Cowell. An Iranian oil agreement is in sight, all thanks to Junio Hoover with maybe the tiniest of assists from Anglo-Iranian,which agreed to concede majority ownership of Abidjan to the Iranian government. The Japanese now have a Self Defence Force and a resurgent Communist Party that will take over the country next Wednesday, Friday at the latest. Newsweek can barely spell "Syria" but is confident that it can explain the new national government. Aneurin Bevan is against West German rearmament and has 104 votes in the Labour caucus to the moderates' 113. Nehru's Congress Party has lost Travancore-Cochin to a coalition led by the Communists, who will get their first chance to govern. There has been another attempt on the Sultan of Morocco's life, at Friday prayers in Berrima Mosque.
"Life in Moscow a Year After Stalin's Death" Is reported to be a bit nicer, with more goods in the stores, but a lot of pressure to volunteer to farm in the Virgin Lands. In Latin America, the OAS congress has started, Dulles against everyone else. Dulles wants the Latin countries to take private investment and get rid of all communists everywhere forever, while the Latins want "blah blah blah who cares?" per Newsweek. This week's Special Report is about how Atlanta is quite nice these days.
Business
The Periscope Business Trends reports that the recession that wasn't going to happen is hardly happening and will be over soon. Which means that we don't need that $50 increase in the income tax personal exemption, but it is going through anyway. Personal income is likely to come in at $280 billin, down 2% from 1953, while construction is up by 3%, helped by lower prices. Gasoline prices are likely to be cut further, the airlines had another record year, moviegoers are upset to hear that four more projection systems will be tried out next year, preferring that they work harder to fix the ones we've got, and closed circuit television is likely to get a boost from colour television a long way before regular television sales.
"Surplus On Shelves Shrinking --But That's Good" Inventories are declining. Newsweek explains what that means. We check in with the biggest advertisers in the US, who are who you'd expect, (soap!), are told once again about the size of the national income and the Eisenhower Administration's version of the NLRB requiring secret ballots to authorise strikes. Notes: Week in Business reports that STandard Oil ils investing $700 million to develop new oil deposits and chemical operations, that Harold Harris has resigned as President of Northwest Airlines because he has broken with the board, that NCR and the NYSE, among others, have had th eir best years ever, while Chrysler is taking out a $250 million loan to expand its business. Products: What's New reports that Westinghouse has some new and more powerful electrical motors, that Mangel-Scheuermann have an extended handle for lawnmowers for mowing behind shrubs, and no, I am not buying any such thing from a company named "Mangel," and Eastman Kodak has a faster-developing film. This week, Henry Hazlitt finally apologises for starting a recession in Business Tides. No, on second r erading he's just on about why modern monetary policy is wrong notwithstanding what happened after the American Civil War and we'll all be sorry if we return to the gold standard at the wrong price.
Science
"Those 30-Day Outlooks for Breezes and Blows: Sometimes Bad, Mostly Fair" The US Weather Bureau's thirty-day forecast for September was way off. How did science let that happen? Science explains that it has a 75% record, which is pretty good. It is based on 1500 observations recorded on punch cards and fed into IBM calculating machines to produce thirty days of local averages. Science (Jerome Namias, to be precise) looks forward to the assistance of electronic computers, and does not think that humans have much effect on the climate, whether by atom bombs, man-made increases in carbon dioxide, cloud-seeking or "other, more bizarre possibilities." So when the thirty day forecast goes wrong, it is more likely to be a polar front from Canada going an unexpected direction than the effects of an atomic explosion. Science Notes reports that two Pennsylvania State College zoologists have rid Millheim of invasive starlings by playing recorded starling distress calls, that the Royal Navy's hydrogen peroxide-powered Explorer may be a match for Nautilus, that Stanley Reed, "a 34 year old research consultant in Washington, DC," proposes turning wheat into wallboard, which might actually be competitive at the full parity price of $2.48/bushel. Remember global famine?
"One in Seven Lives" Colonel Harold Glattly, formerly chief surgeon at Bataan and now personnel chief under the Army Surgeon General, reports in a study that of the 12,000 survivors who surrendered at Bataan, only 4000 lived to be liberated from the prisoner of war camps, and that only half those are alive today. The immediate cause of mortality was the extreme fatigue the men were experiencing due to undernourishment and disease by the time they surrendered, the "death march" to the camps, and, they say, poor treatment by the American medical establishment afterwards. Dr. Meredith Morley of the University of California's School of Optometry says that some "blind" people can be helped by a range of treatments from special lenses to corneal transplants. It is estimated that there will be 8.5 million widows living alone in the United States by 1960, up from 7.5 million now, due to the war.
Treasury of Literature textbooks are a sure way to get kids reading, says Newsweek in an article that can't be an advertisement because the authors are professors at Wesleyan, which is above such things. Professor Frederick Cassidy is a linguist who studies American English vernacular. He has a radio show and wants to produce a dialect dictionary some day, and for some reason this is an article in Education.
Press, Radio-Television, Newsmakers
"For War on Russia" The Boston Post is the "first" newspaper to say outright that America should start a war with Russia. Owner and editor John Fox predicts that Italy will fall to Communism within months, that the "princes of the Church" will be degraded, the Mediterranean closed, and that "Red-dominated Arabs" will move on Israel, whose people will be luckier than Italians because "they'll die quicker." Fox wants immediate mobilisation, an atomic attack on Russia, and the removal of GOP "creampuffs" like Dulles, Dewey, and Lodge. The British press is not impressed with Billy Graham. (Except for The Spectator, of course.)
Arlene Francis's television show has all the buzz. We get Newsweek on British commercial television. A New York court has ruled that Strike It Rich isn't a "charity racket."
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| They keep calling him a sculptor, but this is welding! |
The New Pictures
(I usually skip Movies stories, but this week there's one briefly covering the new Columbia projection system,VistaVision, which will be used starting with The Big Top and White Christmas, both now filming.)
RKO's She Couldn't Say No "wastes the talents of Jean Simmons and Robert Mitchum." Universal-International has a Canadian Western, Saskatchewan, with Alan Ladd, Shelley Winters, and Robert Douglas imported across the 49th for star power. It's got good scenery. From the same studio comes Ride Clear of Diablo, an Audie Murphy Western, good to see Medal of Honour winners getting honest work.
Books
Anti-Communist James Burnham is back with The Web of Subversion, which explains ("convincinly" says Newsweek) how the Reds have basically taken over the country and have stolen enough plutonium to make 20 atom bombs, which you can do at any half-decent machine shop. (Fact check: James? That's a five-star hand-to-forehead slap right there.) They have secreted around the country so as to blow us all up when the clock strikes midnight. And that's why America needs its own police state! Paul Hyde Bonner has a collection of hunting and fishing stories, Glorious Morning, which doesn't sound like my cup of tea, but which is at least not insane. Vincent Sheehan's Lily is a novel that is as good as his foreign reporting.
Raymond Moley explains in his Perspectives column why stabilising the world prices of commodities the US imports would be bad for America, and thus the world. If this "world" place even actually exists!
Web of Subversion appears in the "Works" section of Burnham's Wikipedia biography but is not discussed in text
Aviation Week, 15 March 1954
The special airpower issue is opened by a publisher's editorial ghostwritten by Chuck Wilson. American airpower is bigger and better and more powerful and industry is going great and we have massive retaliation too. And more research! Since it doesn't feel like that's nearly enough, he then writes an articles about how the Air Force "Takes Key Role in US Policy," which seems unfair to the Navy, which writes its own "Naval Aviation Makes Rapid Progress." There's going to be four Forrestals, the J40 failure was no big deal, giant flying boats are so a good idea, we can now explain sonobuoys in a bit more detail. What about the Army? Aviation Week hauls G. J. McAlister out of the mail room to write that "Army Puts New Stress on Air Mobility." It has helicopters now! And what about foreign parts? "Airpower is West's Weakest Link in NATO Defence Against Reds." The Russians have 20,000 planes, although only 8--10,000 could actually be used against NATO due to airfield limitations, but NATO has fewer than 5000, so it is outnumbered. (Not including US bombers in Britain, "a substantial part of the RAF," and the French Air Force in North Africa.) NATO still needs more bombers, all-weather fighters, and more ground facilities.
David Anderton, "Missile Program Depends on What U.S. Can Afford" As usual, the guided missile program isn't organised enough, is outrunning its budget, and some of the missiles sound a bit unlikely. This being the Eisenhower Administration, all this is a bit more tailored to the ambitions of various people who are claiming to be taking charge, and even Anderton can't avoid putting the names of K. T. Keller and the Redstone missile in adjacent sentences. (Former Chrysler CEO K. T. Keller is knocking the missile programme into shape. One of his most promising results is a giant contract for the Redstone missile from Chrysler.) The embarrassing role of personality can now be seen in the "Gardner Group's" attempt to find an alternate source for the Hughes Falcon now that it turns out that Howard Hughes is crazy. Perhaps more pressing is the fact that the Falcon is supposed to go on the F-102, which is delayed. Sperry, Martin, and Bell all also have, or had, air-to-air missiles in development. I won't do a much longer list of the six surface to air missiles said to be under development, but it sure does make a case for some rationalisation, as does the even longer list of surface-to-surface missile "artillery"!
"Reds Put Muscle on Strategic Air Arm" To make a full article of this Aviation Week has to run down the full Russian air development effort since all we know is that they have a big turboprop and a light jet bomber. Aviation Week is sure that they're working on an intercontinental jet bomber, but concrete evidence is lacking.
Another from the pen of Chuck Wilson: "New Doctrine Aims to Stabilise Industry" This isn't like stabilising the price of rubber. We're talking about American jobs and dividends here! The only actual "stabilisation" in the article is an evasive commitment to spend $6 billion on aircraft again next year. The rest is about reorganising aircraft procurement, and a dizzying array of statistics about how the industry has been getting bigger, planes have been getting bigger, and, in general, that the Administration is keeping up with air power.
Irving Stone, "Military Copter Success Spurs Civil Use" The currently successful military helicopters are being used experimentally for passenger service and things that helicopters might be good for while we wait for new machines that beat the speed, noise, capacity, reliability, and actual landing issues that are getting in the way right now. And we are still talking about convertiplanes, one-man helicopters, and executive helicopters.
"Man-Machine Teamwork is Key to Best Use of Weapon Systems" We can all agree that human engineering is the most important engineering. Now we just need to figure out what it is.
It wouldn't be Aviation Week if we didn't have a long article about how the civil industry had its best year ever (although air freight is willing to admit to some challenges, maybe because it smells subsidies in the water). There's also a long article about MATS, which isn't civil, but is an airline, of a kind.
Nat gives us "Airpower Balances on Budget Tightrope" As usual, Nat's London despatches are credited through the McGraw-Hill World News Service. It turns out that holding British military air procurement to $392 million this year and last year wasn't done because Bevan was right. It was because of easing world tensions! And to help industry! And because planes keep getting better, so why buy them now? Also, exports and MSDAP are booming; more than half of British aviation industry revenues last year came from customers other than the RAF. They are hoping that the German Air Force will be rearmed with Hunters, but that will be up to the US, which receives the MSDAP-funded Hunters off the assembly lines. Another potential area of conflict is the Fiat all-weather fighter project. It looks like the Italians will produce F-86Ks and not Javelins, and beyond that there is the question of whether it makes sense to build up European air power when Europe is so close to Red bombs.
I'm going to deal with Ross Hazeltine's article, "Offshore Buying Props Up French Industry" more briefly. The big success here is the MSDAP order for the Dassault Mystere, as French airlines are not on a buying spree, and aren't buying French when they do. James Montague doesn't get his byline on the Canada article, not a good sign of what editorial might have done with it. Perhaps it is mainly because it is all publicity for the CF-100 and CF-86. The RCAF might be big and growing, but what we want to hear about is the delta-wing interceptor being developed at Avro Canada, while maybe the biggest story in world terms is Canadian Pacific's role as an early Comet customer and Trans-Canada's Viscount order. The Mother Country sends its thanks! You could write the same article about Australia, only their rocket interceptor is even more nebulous. Germany, Japan, and Italy are all talking about airpower, and Japan is making production agreements, but only the Italians are flying anything, and that is mostly experimental jobs like the Sagittauro rocket plane.
News Digest reports that the F-100 has the official world speed record, the Republic F-86F photo-reconnaissance variant is in production, American will begin installing Bendix ignition analysers. New York Airways is cutting the fare on its airport passenger helicopter shuttle from $15 to $10. Arthur Godfrey's pilot license has been suspended for six months. Everyone wishes the best of luck to the new Northwest Airlines president, whoever the lucky(?) guy is!
Romano Moglia of New York asks why, if Russian scientists are working so hard and studying our literature, why don't we translate theirs? Robert E. Page is worried that they are training more scientists than we are, and so we're doomed. Dr. C. O. Watkins of Sidney, Montana, reminds us that Russian physiologists are top notch, too. Several readers liked the story about cover stories. Bing Crosby sells newspapers! True Rice of California points out that, contrary to photographic evidence, you shouldn't wear a necktie while operating power tools. Secretary McKay did not order the censoring of a documentary film about Northwest Power, and The Periscope regrets its error!!!! S. Lester McCormick points out that increasing depreciation allowances increases production, which is good, unless it is agricultural surpluses, which is a separate matter, and no conclusions are to be drawn. The article about that doctor who was helping dumb children was heartwarming. For Your Information celebrates a million subscribers.
The Periscope reports that sources close to Senator McCarthy say that Senator McCarthy has lots of tricks up his sleeve if the Army comes for him. Senator Bridges will support McCarthy in Army hearings. Friends of Ike are saying to Ike that he should stand up to McCarthy. The Japanese are selling oil to China, just so you know. Austria is going red. Britain might send some troops to the EDC if it will help. Lots of companies, like Encyclopedia Britannica and GM, to name two, are getting into the toy markets because there are so many kids these days. Detroit Arsenal is working on tiny little mobile television cameras that will scoot around on their own behind Russian lines during a war, spying. The Adlai Stevenson event in Miami Beach might have galvanised Democrats, but didn't raise much money. Aviation writers have no idea what is going on with Pentagon security rules. Why are they allowed to look in the cockpit of the F-100 but not the MiG-15, for instance? The USN is quietly turning Crete into a massive air-sea base to counter Russian attempts to pass the Straits. So, shh! British diplomats in Berlin found multiple Russian microphones with small mine detectors, which our diplomats should carry at Geneva. A hot tip from the Far East is that Chu Teh is the designated successor of Mao. The Navy and industry are working to muffle jet noise, which can hit 140 decibels on carrier decks.
"Wall Streeters" are upset about the upcoming Executive Suite (MGM), because Louis Calhoun's bad guy would never get away with that stuff in real life. Helen Hayes is returning to Broadway in a biographical play about Lady Mendl[* Also **!], while Gary Cooper will play Daniel Boone in an upcoming movie. The Ford and General Motors "extravaganzas" are going to lead to more companies producing similar, star-studded "specials." Mr. Anthony will make a comeback on TV next month. Where Are They Now reports that Bert Acosta is a patient at the Jewish Consumptive Relief Society Hospital near Denver. a gaunt 59, he says that he will write his memoirs "as soon as I feel stronger." That's sad!
I'm very happy to have read the biographies of Lady Mendl and her husband, and The Periscope is fun in its ridiculous way. I don't know what I'm complaining about.
The Periscope Washington Trends reports that even though the Army confrontation is hurting him, McCarthy says that he is going to bounce back.Some say that the issue for the GOP is to find a better figurehead who can hammer Stevenson as a "Truman Democrat" and for losing China. Sources close to Richard Nixon say that Richard Nixon is going to have a bigger role in the near future as the most effective Administration and GOP salesman "by far." Democrats point out that McCarthy is a disaster and that they are going to retake the Senate and probably the House in the fall if they can win the 85 House seats where the vote was within 5%. Paul Douglas is increasingly unlikely to be primaried, Stassen increasingly unlikely to run for the Senate in Minnesota, and James Roosevelt is a pain in the behind.
National Affairs
"The Rumbling" The AEC is getting ready to drop the "greatest of H-bombs," with twice the yield of the 1952 blast, and already it has inflicted "unexpected exposure" to radiation on 230 natives and 28 Americans. The AEC has also placed a contract for a 1.2 mW air-movable atomic reactor, and its first full-scale reactor, from Duquesne Light Company. Hence the uranium stakes rush in Colorado, which gets another story, but not the spring storm on the Great Lakes, which is not caused by atomic tests for the last time!
"Defence and Politics: Battle of the Potomac" Adlai Stevenson says that the "New Look" is an invitation to Communist nibbling around the world, because it's just cuts excused as "efficiencies" and leaves the United States unable to stop another attack like Korea. Dulles says that we have the means of "massive retaliation" without even waiting for Congressional approval, and everyone is saying that "we'll blow up Moscow if the Viet Minh doesn't stop ambushing columns" is either not a credible threat, or, worse, is a credible threat. Ike says that's not how it is, which leaves Wilson looking bad, so Admiral Radford says "Of course we've got enough guns," which, if you know the man, is just "blow up Moscow" again. That leaves Wilson counting his toy soldiers and model battleships for us. Is it enough? Will it be enough once there are Japanese and Turkish and German armies again? Who knows? Can Stevenson win an election on this? I think he can't! At Colonel Schwable's inquiry, General Dean and Lieutenant Colonel William Thrash defended the man, arguing that with enough "brainwashing," anyone will talk. Shorter Notes explore Governor Dewey's solution to dirty race tracks, George Kennan exploring a run for Congress as a Democrat, the death sentence for Pennsylvania Turnpike sniper John Wable, the Administration merger of the Alaska and Hawaii statehood bills, which will forestall Hawaiian statehood this year, a campaign to recall Senator Chavez of New Mexico on the grounds of election tampering, and the ongoing fight to save various historic ships, with USS Constellation having the inside track and Congressional approval.
International
Empress of Canada in Liverpool. Churchill is waving off resignation talk after two Tory byelection victories, and the Queen is looking svelte in the Australian summer. The lengthiest breakdown and explainer yet of the Naguib/Nasser confrontation follows, and a brief blurb about the Iranian election, which sounds violent. In Kenya, no-one likes Lyttleton's constitutional solution, as described by The Economist, while British troops push ahead with their "surrender or die" offensive. In Italy, a scandal has broken out over the death of Wilma Montesi, which I recall being reported around here last summer, and which turns out to be a sordid and corrupt web of scandal enveloping the Christian Democratic government of Mario Scelba, which, if you'll recall, is the last bulwark between civilisation against Communism. Then we check in to find out how the Iranian oil solution reflects well on the Hoovers, father and son, looking precisely as stupid as they are in a candid photo. Junior "catalysed" the discussions, it says here. In Latin America, Secretary Dulles was able to extract a 17-1 condemnation of Guatemala from the OAS (Mexico and Argentina abstaining), bribes to be arranged later. Peron's second wife is much less meddlesome than Evita.
Business
Business gets the Special Report pages for this week, with an investigation into whether "Prices [Will Come] Down This Spring." The answer is, "probably."
The Periscope Business Trends reports that the recession that wasn't going to happen and then wasn't happening is even closer to being over, and besides there's going to be a public works programme if things keep up and definitely another cut in the discount rate, and revisions to antitrust policy are being postponed six months, not that that matters because apparently cartels are good for us. The lead article then says the same thing, and the second story explains why there are more jobs and more jobless and more workers. It's because we're counting the totals wrong somehow, and we don't know how. That makes feel better! (One Detroit area reporter looking into the statistics found that in one local home a laid-off autoworker counted as employed while his teen daughter was unemployed because she couldn't get a babysitting job.) 
Notes: Week in Business reports that company presidents work so hard, just ask them, and lots of companies have lots of money. Nash is hoping that its Metropolitan will be "America's second car," and Borg-Warner is getting into plastics. That last two aren't actually under Notes, but they should be. Products: What's New reports a 36" double-oven gas range from Cribben and Creston, asbestos siding that repels rainwater without blocking vapours from Johns-Manville, a double-decker rail carrier that can load six autos from Evans Products, and a wire grate for increasing a wheelbarrow's load from Pope Manufacturing. Henry Hazlitt apologises for the recession he caused this week in Business Tides, oh, no, that must be next week. This week, he blames unions for unemployment.
Medicine, Education
Dr. Albert Szent-Gyorgi sounds smart, Jonas Salk's polio vaccine is confirmed this week to confer full immunity, Utah doctors can do remote education via television, as Newsweek keeps telling us. A study for the AMA by Captain Ashton Graybiel of the Medical Corps establishes that it is safe for heart patients to travel by air, while Parkes-Davis has a new variety of butterscotch-flavoured penicillin.
"The Vandals" The New York Board of Education is having some trouble with juvenile delinquents, circulating pictures of astonishing damage at Corlears Junior High on the Lower East Side. Dr. Harold Gibson Brown, who retired from the University of Mississippi's English faculty in "the early 30s" and has been living in a one-room bet-sit, left an estimated $135,000 estate consisting of 4728 shares of 47 corporations, all of which have risen in value since his death last December, which goes to show that some professors actually are smart. His will leaves the money to establish a public library for the county.
Press, Radio-Television Newsmakers
The Miami Herald's campaign against dirty horse racing has paid off in the arrest of a bookie, Dennis the Menace is funny, Drew Pearson is sticking up for Fulton Lewis, and Bill Doherty is looking for work after being fired by the Chicago Sun-Times.
In Press we look at "Murrow vs. Senator McCarthy" Did Edward Murrow overstep the line by denouncing Senator McCarthy without giving him a chance to respond? Did the GOP get enough of a chance to respond to Adlai Stevenson? These, unlike random denunciations of purported Communists on the Senate floor, are serious ethical issues to be discussed at length. McCarthy is especially upset that the GOP booked rebuttal time for Nixon before McCarthy had a chance. Everyone agreed that McCarthy was a big baby, and off Edward Murrow went to ask, "On what meat does Senator McCarthy feed?" Ahem. McCarthy, in his reply, couldn't help slandering Murrow as a former Communist, which didn't help. Colour televisions, which are being marketed at above a thousand dollars each, are not exactly selling like hotcakes.
Massachusetts won't exonerate the Salem witches because it "would be bad for tourism." Prince Bernhard nearly had to ditch off LA after his Navy trainer's engine conked out. The Alabama State Supreme Court is all right with school spanking as long as it isn't too hard. Mamie, Joe Louis, General Guenther, Sergeant York, Danny Kaye, Julie London, Barbara Hutton, and the President are in the column for the usual reasons. Donald Douglas (of Douglas Aircraft) and Joan Benny are married. Curtis Roosevelt is divorced. Colonel W. S. Thompson, Lady Patrick-Lawrence, Harold B. Hinton, and J. A. Robert Quinn have died.
Aviation Week, 22 March 1954
Sylvania Electric has broken the 70C limit for transistors with a silicon-germanium transistor that is "immune" to moisture failure. We get a preliminary report on the BOAC Constellation landing accident in Singapore that killed 33 of 42 aboard.
I've never seen a Bring It On movie beginning to end, but maybe Fulton Lewis' Cavalier Song is in here somewhere.
New Films
Columbia's Drive a Crooked Road is a Mickey Rooney vehicle in which he does a pretty good job with a pretty silly premise for a "heist" movie. (You need a race driver to get away with a bank robbery now!) MGM's Tennessee Champ is a boxing movie with Shelley Winters, who is in all the movies this month, and is still not enough.
Books
Jacques Barzun may be a grand French man of letters, but now that he is America he really, really loves it and explains why in God's Country and Mine, although he does think there are too many boobs around. (by which he means actual boobs.) His critics, he says in a boxed quote, can go stuff themselves. Short reviews of Heinrich Harrer, Seven Years in Tibet, Jule Mannix's Adventure Story, and Raymond Chandler's The Long Goodbye liked them in about that order. Raymond Moley is upset that Spenser Miller was fired.
News Digest reports that Link Aviation is being sold to General Precision Equipment of New York. It will continue with current management but I have a feeling that Ed Link is off to Miami to enjoy the good life.
Ed made a better use of his retirement than a lot of people, and he inspired a Wes Anderson film
Industry Observer reports that the last major USAF procurement cancellation under the Administration's "weeding out" programme is coming. Boeing has flown a B-47 remotely from takeoff to landing. The 1952 DH110 crash at Farnborough has been attributed to wing flutter. The Navy has some ideas for the tailplane of the next fighter it procures, while De Havilland is developing a civil Gyron, Boeing is working on a high-altitude version of the J57, it turns out that worked titanium is expensive, Diane Bixby will fly a Mosquito to a round-the-world record, she hopes. Industry will get a new patent policy soon, while the Aircraft Industries Association is working on jet design standards.
Avionics has a nice precis of B. A. Kleinhoffer's talk to the Institute of Navigation about "Missiles Impose New Hurdles for Tubes," which explains what North American is doing about it, which is mainly quality control.
"New Avionics Devices Are Put on Market" Printed circuits, molded capacitors, lightweight resistors, high temperature resistors, a tiny precision pot. Manufacturers available from publisher on request. Motorola and Bendix will build te new Selcal unit for selective radio calls to aircraft cockpits,an accelerometer from Donner. Filter Centre reports new RCA UHF tubes, that Northwest will try out remote VHF, that Bendix is shipping its first DMEs, that Britain is buying Decca radars, that GE will have mass-produced printed circuits soon, that new plastics make better radomes that transmit at all angles without polarisation. Southwest Airmotive is expanding its maintenance facilities, R. G. LeTourneau's latest prefabricated hangar is a dome that can hold a dozen DC-3s. New Aviation Products reports a Belgian vertical crankshaft grinder, a 175t inverted press, and an engine pre-oiler from Durham Services. McGraw Hill linewide editorials pretty much finishes its conversion into a shill for Big Money by telling us about "The Electric Power Companies' Case for Public Confidence."
Letters
News Sidelights reports that Boeing is at a loss for a name for the 707, which Charles Lindbergh has been to Seattle to see. General LeMay was also in town, to fly a B-52. Thanks, Seattle already has enough horses' rear ends. F-86s with J73s are being tested at Edwards. Water-methanol injection is replacing rocket takeoff boost in the current B-47s.
Robert H. Wood's Editorial wants the CAB to grant Seaboard's application for a Transatlantic cargo service and take back the British monopoly (sort of) that they apparently have.
Letters
Lelah Allison points out that American English dialect has lots of funny words for food. Edward Warren makes the case for compensation for Bataan march survivors. Mildred Morrison of Toledo thinks girls don't wear enough clothes these days, Leslie Adams thinks that there are too many Hollywood-type women around these days. Sidney Schoenwald recommends that American servicemen be directed to give full confessions according to their captors' scripts, which will render them useless and spare prisoners from torture. L. C. Mademan incorrectly corrects Newsweek's usage of "former king" for Leopold of Belgium. For Your Information must be stumped for a story this week because it tells us about a nice letter from Holland.
Not just boobs!
Gordon MacRae and Debbie Reynolds will star in a movie version of Oklahoma, Marlon Brando will play Napoleon in Desiree if his studio forgives and forgets his walkout for The Egyptian. Marilyn Monroe is also in contract difficulties, but will be in Seven Year Itch if they are cleared up. Where Are They Now tracks down the Army privates who spotted the incoming Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor on an experimental radar setup. Joseph Lockhard, now 32, is a track supervisor for the Pennsylvania-Reading and lives in Tuckahoe, New Jersey with his wife and three kids. Kermit A. Tyler, now 40, is a USAF lieutenant colonel stationed in France.
The Periscope Washington Trends reports that Eisenhower is still popular and frustrated that he can't get his full programme through, that Hawaiian statehood will be delayed, that Dulles will be giving the French no help in Geneva, that the 1956 Senate race is heating up generally.
National Affairs
"Panic after 'Sunrise'" It is almost cherry blossom season in Japan, but the Japanese are paying more attention to the 23 man crew of Lucky Dragon No. 5, which was caught by the Eniwetok blast some 80 or 90 miles away, which is close enough to suffer a deadly dose of radiation from 'fall-out.'In the resulting panic, police raced to round up the ship's load of "deadly radioactive" tuna, and tuna sales fell 5%. Sushi and Sashimi restaurants (helpfully explained for American readers) are deserted. The opposition members of the Diet are demanding that Premier Yoshida ask for an enormous compensation from the United States, and Japanese scientists claim that dust samples from the hull of Lucky Dragon will reveal the secrets of the H-bomb, claimed to be a three-stage weapon in which an initial plutonium fission causes tritium to fuse, producing the conditions for the fusion of lithium, which, it has been argued, although not here, ought not produce the amount of fall out that the distance between blast and fishing ship implies. Dr. John Morton of the AEC is now in Japan, and claims that the crew will recover fully within a month, unless they develop leukemia.
We get even more about the upcoming Army-McCarthy hearings, an interview about Communist infiltration with Roy Cohn, the latest developments in the Senate fight over tax cuts, and the hearings in New Orleans where Senator Eastland is hearing assorted people accuse other people of Communism and other people threatening to kill witnesses. The President is still popular, but less so. The same can't be said for everyone in Congress heading into November. The thirty day forecast says that spring will be wetter than normal in some places and drier than normal in others. The Port of New York has been hit by another wildcat strike and rioting between unions, and a small town in Alabama is in trouble after it turns out that its uninsured, unregulated bank was a seventeen-year swindle. 
International
"Geneva Prelude: Indo-China Flames, Korea Balks" At Dienbienphu, "[F]or three consecutive nights, wave after wave of screaming, bugle-blowing Reds charged fanatically over their own dead and smashed to within half a mile of the bastion's command post. Communist suicide squads, pushing little, torpedo-bearing carts, blasted openings through French defences. Some even strapped torpedoes to their own bodies." "Thousands" of mortar, 75mm and 105mm rounds were fired at the strongpoint, but "coolie crews" filled craters in the airfield as quickly as they were made. Twelve thousand French defenders (Moroccans, Legionnaires, French and Vietnamese paratroopers) are isolated hundreds of miles from friendly lines and surrounded by four times their number in besiegers. The French have thrown in everything with wings, and Claire Chennault's planes are bravely flying in supplies. Ringed by napalm, Dienbienphu has had a respite in recent days as the Vietminh withdraw to recover. Estimated French losses are 1200 men(!) Meanwhile the Koreans will also be bringing their grievances to Geneva and the EDC remains in question, with the Germans threatening to go ahead with rearmament with or without France. The Montesi scandal continues to unfold in Italy, and there is talk of a settlement in Suez. The British chiefs of staff agree that Suez is useless as a base and want to shift their troops to Cyprus, and Colonel Nasser is using his openness to a settlement as a weapon in his battle with General Naguib. Unfortunately, Conservative backbenchers are reluctant to "withdraw" from "Empire," while Anthony Eden is now the favourite to succeed Churchill. In Pakistan, the national election proved anything but, as the results diverged drastically between West and East Pakistan. Newsweek explains that while it is important to remember that East and West Pakistanis belong to different races, East Pakistan also has economic objections and thinks that it is being exploited by West Pakistan.
Ticking It Off reports that an Arab ambush of an Israeli bus in the Scorpion pass has killed eleven civilians. Jordan has denied all guilt. Nikita Khrushchev was in Poland for the recent Polish Party congress, in which Premier Bierut and farm collectivisation deemed a failure. The British embassy is trying to find four Russian women who married assorted British men, notably including Mrs. William Ricketts, fetching cameo inset. Newsweek checks in with Scotland Yard, currently working death threats against the Queen over her proposed visit to Gibraltar and copycat death threats aainst everyone under the Sun, a 48 hour work week for $22/week for a constable, a serious manpower shortage, and high turnover especially amongst plainclothes detectives.
Leon Volkov's column on Russia points out that the luxuries on sale in Moscow are only for the rich, and what about Communism? A sale of 100 million Israeli oranges at 2 1/2 cents, for example, are showing up in stores at 47 cents each, a big profit for the Kremlin, but, also, who can afford that? On the bright side, at least the privileged are Party members and not capitalists. Everyone can agree that those silly Latins are silly, blowing off ineffectual steam at Caracas with their resolution against "colonialism," passed 19--0, moved by Guatemala, seconded by Argentina. I mean, obviously they're all upset at the United States,but what are they going to do?
The Prime Minister of Canada's world tour has reached Japan.
Business
The Periscope Business Trends reports that the recession that wasn't going to happen and didn't happen is now almost over. The President's Council of Economic Advisors is very upset at the unemployment numbers the Commerce Department is putting out. The lead story is basically more of the same, followed by yet another list-article of companies with good earnings before finally getting to a story, the ongoing takeover fight at the New York Central.
Business: Notes of the Week reports that the London gold market has reopened, that Sheraton Hotels has started a closed-circuit television business conference service that allows businessmen to meet over the television at Sheraton Hotels around the world, and Pan Am is adding executive cabins to its overseas "President" flights with a $125 surcharge. Newsweek notices that it is faster to fly to Europe over the pole and writes a story about it on the occasion of SAS submitting a bid for a Los Angeles service. United Airlines is experimenting with weather radar and will make a decision about putting it on its airlines soon. This week, Henry Hazlitt uses his Business Tides column to apologise for the recession he started. No, I'm sorry, he's taking a break from complaining about government spending causing inflation to explain why your taxes are too high. It's because we're letting poor people keep too much of their money!
Business has the Special Report again this week, on "New 'Hearts' For Our Cities." Downtown redevelopment includes the New York Coliseum, Chicago's Fort Dearborn Project, and the "golden triangle" in downtown Pittsburgh.
Science, Medicine, Education
The University of California's new Bevatron atom smasher hits 6.25 billion volts, making a mighty, although at the same time delicate, er, atom smasher. I know that without context large numbers can be meaningless, but it's still amazing to read that the high speed protons it wields for, uhm, smashing atoms (look, it's just not that complicated!) travel 300,000 miles in their whirligig! A shorter story at the end about the President explaining how National Science Foundation grants are going to work is somehow mashed up into one about how chlorophyll gum might fool the wife into thinking you haven't been drinking, but not the police. Mashing up multiple stories in the same column? That's what I do, Newsweek. You're in terrible company!
"Rice and Self Discipline" Dr. Walter Kempner's rice, sugar, and fruits diet for controlling cardiovascular disease is perfect for controlling cardiovascular disease, says Dr. Walter Kempner. His critics are wrong, and any failures come from the patient's lack of self-discipline. Psychiatrists meeting in Washington "revealed to Newsweek" this week the cost to psychiatric patients of the gradual alienation of friends and family as their involuntary hospital stays extend into years and decades. The VA, which has 50,000 "crazy men" in care, feels the effects acutely. Fully a third of the men have not been visited in a year. They go on to offer advice for visitors. Don't listen to wild complaints about the institution! Don't give them too much food, or they will gorge. Don't give them large amounts of money, because they will lose it. It seems like, for a relative of a suspicious mind, this advice is just going to make things worse!
Eugene, Prince of Sweden, really liked painting groups of fishermen, but gave his paintings titles in Swedish with diacritics, which is why I'm being lazy
"Television in Controversy: The Debate and Defence" Opinion about Edward Murrow's See It Now episode on Senator McCarthy is obviously divided on partisan lines, but defenders of the Senator have a powerful rhetorical tool in the form of the claim that journalism should not have opinions, and Murrow was having opinions all over the place. Newsweek gives it two-and-a-half pages. On the brighter side, Newsweek's neutral and non-opinioned reporting has it that this summer's Rodgers and Hammerstein-written General Foods ninety minute special with all the stars will be the bright spot of the summer. Good thing it doesn't need to have an opinion on whether NBC or CBS has the best morning show! Although NBC has David Garroway and J. Fred Muggs, and CBS has Walter Cronkite, Humphrey the Houn' Dog and Charlemane the Lion.
Museums have lots of old stuff, and Prince Eugene of Sweden is a painter.
On to Indian Territory!
The Washington Times-Herald has been sold to The Washington Post and Newsweek is shocked and sad.
New Films
Books
F. Beverley Kelly's life story of his service in the Eisenhower cabinet, Clown, is a story of one hair-raising disaster after another --I am sorry, this just in, with the Ringling Brothers Circus, and it's just the Hartford disaster. Antony Were's Smuggler's Paradise, Hans Hass' Men and Sharks, Harold Lamb's Charlemagne: The Legend and the Man, a new edition of Kipling get brief reviews, and three even shorter ones of mysteries from The Butler's Pantry. I'm not sure that you'd call Ian Fleming's Casino Royale a mystery, since it is actually a spy thriller and the absolute talk of London. Raymond Moley is upset as anything about tax cuts targeting the basic personal exemption, since poor people get too much of it.
Aviation Week, 29 March 1954
News Digest reports that Convair is recommending that all operators check the elevator control system after the ConvairLiner crash at Odessa on 16 March. General Twining says that the Air Force hasn't found any UFOs, Prince Bernhard is looking for a lightweight fighter for production in the Netherlands. Bell's HSL-1 antisubmarine helicopter has an autopilot.
Katherine Johnsen reports for Aviation Week about airpower and the new tax bill. Do you want to know about how airports might be taxed? I know I do! Donald Put replaces Lieutenant General Laurence Craigie as USAF Deputy Chief for Development. In a bit of a boo-boo, a Defence Department catalogue listing all its classified projects had been released to the press. Or is it complete? I don't see any UFOs! It's not secret, so Aviation Week publishes a list. I do see an alphabet soup of acronyms beginning with "X," which isn't very enlightening, with occasional codenames like "Sidewinder" (and air-to-air missile) and "Honest John" (a short range surface-to-surface missile) sprinkled in. The general public is also informed about mortar-tracking radar, tracking and guidance radar for yet another missile ("Terrier") and new airborne electronic countermeasure receiving and transmitting sets, and new navigation, bombing, and search radars. All that and Communist spies, too! Colonel Francis Taylor is the new head of the ANDB.
William J. Coughlin reports that "U.S. Passes Air Production Crisis" The USAF did not have enough planes to fight in Korea while simultaneously engaging in a global conflict, but now it does and everything is fine, says General Twining. (I like the part where the USAF had no jet bombers in 1951, unlike the Reds. who apparently had lots. Because I am pretty sure that's not true! The Reds having a fleet of jet bombers in 1951, that is.)
"Navy Studies New VTO Fighter Tactics" Now that the Navy has them, it is exploring what it might do with them if they ever had them in service, which they won't, because they are nuts. In a vaguely related Navy story, Robert Hotz reports that "Navy Eases Security Regulations" The X-1A has hit supersonic speeds, and, after consulting an astrologer, the Tarot, a half-decent crystal ball, and a battalionof sleek, well-fed Washington lobbyists, Boeing ""Predicts AF Will Buy 707." The story goes on to explain that, without the B-52, there would probably be no 707, so important has the Air Force's demand for a high speed tanker been to the development of the jet transport. (A box story says that the 707 will have thrust reversers.) The 707 has also been engineered to use the Conway and Olympus, in hopes of wining overseas contracts. Boeing is confident that the 707 is a better bet than the Comet 3, which has already gone through two phases of design stretch, and which is slower and has less capacity than the 707.
A, W, Jessup reports for McGraw-Hill World News that "Japan Air Industry Gains Muscle," yet another article about the Japanese-American co-production agreements. Bell reports for Production that "Bell Begins Volume Production of HSL-1." Thompson Products is building a jet research lab in Cleveland. Aviation Week promises a hot time at the next helicopter design symposium, which is also what you get from Harvey Aluminum's hot extrusion process for steel.
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| Died in one of two T-33 crashes on 3/04/56 |
"A Course on Human Engineering is to be held," says a headline, by Dunlap and Associates, the burb explains. Arma has a new analog computer with a thermal 'On' switch, Circon Components has the neatest, smallest printed circuit ever, various new dvices are available (multi-channel amplifier, miniature pressure transducers, others). Filter Centre reports that Western Electric's experimental water-cooled high power transistors are pretty keen, putting insulating sleeves on vacuum tubes is keen, and a new potting material is available from some plastics maker. Bernie Long reports for Aviation Safety that "Pilots Go to College for Safety." (Because USC has a special seminar on same.) New Aviation Products has a Centerless Grinder that is pretty keen, from American Hertforder, a magnaflux assembly line inspector is pretty good, from Magnaflux, heat resistant paint and a degreasing pan are neat.
TCA is getting ready to operate Super Connies, SAS is still planning to fly over the Pole from Scandinavia to LA if it gets the service, Americans have found a new Communist thing to be worried about (competition from Aeroflot), and after recent controversies, American Airlines makes it clear that its stewardesses must cease flying duties on their 32nd birthday, move in with their former Vassar classmate in a small college town in Vermont, and wear sensible shoes while playing in ladies' golf tournaments. (Those who want to stay with American will be given some other, behind-the-scenes job where they don't scare off customers with their age-withered looks.) Meanwhile AA is in trouble over the fact that its "8 hour LA-NY" DC-7 service is a fantasy and a violation of American labour laws. But, hey, at least it kept the Jetliner out of American skies!
Robert H. Woods' Editorial is on about airline insurance and the outcome of the North American strike. He is also happy that the Atlantic weather ships were saved.
So what's up in The Engineer for 19 and 26 March 1954?
On the 19th, (Not the Seven-Day) Journal reports that the Marine Engineers had a party, E. S. Cox gave a paper on the British steam locomotive, the National Factory Equipment Exhibit has opened, Roxbee Cox gave a paper on progress in fuel research, the General Council on British Shipping says that shipping generated £221 million in invisible exports last year, and no you may not see the raw numbers, it is not that kind of report. The report on the Royal Scot derailment says that it was due to track buckling due tow eather. A description of Colonel Wilson's 8 March Cantor Lecture on "Transportation Safety" doesn't make the Journal, although it is suited by its brevity. On the 25th, we hear about IME, Institution of Refrigeration, and Liverpool Steam Ship Owners' Association parties. HMS Vidal is to visit London on show before going into service, surveying.
On the 19th, a long article by D. A. Senior, "Recording Signals from Resistance Strain Gauges" begins. I guess the moral is that using resistance strain gauges is harder than it looks. As of press time, Edward Livesay was on a coal train in Lens, Belgium, and allegedly still enjoying himself. Our American Correspondent is also getting a long article into press, with Part 1 of "High Tensile Steel Bolts for Structural Joints" running on the 19th. Good for him! (Or her.) Research sponsored by the Industrial Fasteners Council of America. D. Napiers and Sons has an excellent article on D. Napiers and Sons' new "Electro-Thermal De-Icing Equipment," while BTH gets into the authoring game with the fetching tale of two BTH diesel-electric railcars bound for faraway Bolivia. Shorter advertorials running on the 19th alert us to a sidemounted air compressor, a diaphragm pump, a centrifugal pneumatic swaging machine, a boring and milling machine, a "device" for cleaning coal tar, a four-inch magnetic brake, and a hydraulic lifting and tilting truck body, which, in spite of just being a dump truck, gets a longer article, so I will mention that it is from Monometer. 
"New Glide Path Indicator for the Navy" Not a cockpit instrument, but a deck-mounted sight to replace manual signalling. It is vaguely described as using an optical system with light sources and a large curved mirror with gyro stabilisers. The device projects a "blob" of light on the plane's windshield to guide the pilot in.
The newly launched French coaster Catenac gets a short article.
The other big article launching this week is "Electrical Engineers' Exhibition," which begins with a page-and-a-half of heavy power engineering equipment before looking at gas turbine components like turbine and compressor blades and air nozzles. On the 25th, the heavy grid engineering is followed by some factory equipment, vari-drive controllers and fans, for example.
On the 25th, an uncredited article discusses "Colour-Light Signalling in the Southern Region," which is about the ongoing effort to add colour to basic light signalling in the southern region. F. S. Lawton reports from faraway British Columbia on the "Kemano Hydro-Electric and Associated Kitimat Aluminum-Reduction Works, four pages of heavy electrical engineering. 
A longer, and credited, advertorial from English Electric runs on the 25th, "Electrical Drive for a Planetary Rolling Mill," which discusses the electrical equipment incorporated in a hot rolling mill installed at Ductile Planetary Mills, Ltd. The DSIR Report for 1952--52 sounds crazy. For example, there is a section given over to the British Electrical and Allied Industries Research Association, which takes up its entire space in this annual report to discuss two trials, one of two different floor heating installations, the other of a heat pump for factory use. I cannot quite wrap my mind around the idea of the entire Department of Scientific and Industrial Research boiling down to one or two studies done by each of the major constituent research associations, which appears to be how they do things --and the Institution of Mechanical Engineers' annual report has a similar sectio boiling the work of just four British colleges and the like (including the Royal Anthropological Institute!) into one or two studies each. South African Railways is getting some rolling stock. Metallurgical Topics looks at a study of precipitation hardening in an austenitic steel before popping across the Atlantic to attend an American Society of Metals symposium where the effect of aluminum and nitrogen in steel; of grain size; of hardenability; of the martensite transition; and of alloys in austenitic steels are discussed. Out in the Murex Review is a look at hydrogen embrittlement of steel. Isn't murex the snail they used to make purple dye out of? In which case is the Review the magazine that used to cover the making-dye-out-of-snails industry that there used to be in Britain? Talk about crazy! (The paper is about measuring the amount of hydrogen in steel, which would seem like an important thing to worry about before getting on to its effects.)
Leaders
On the 19th we are interested in Freight Locomotive Performance, and then "Nuclear Powered Submarines." The Engineer thinks that the problems that the nearly-800 new "Austerity" locomotives are having while burning low-quality coal are being swept under the rug. It is very impressed with Nautilus, but deems it too big to survive in close proximity to ASDIC-equipped escorts, problematic in manoeuvres underway at its full speed due to lack of hydroplane authority, and subject to the same kind of wi ld heat problems that cut the "K-class" submarines' careers short, and calls for experimentation with these problems before a British nuclear submarine enters service. On the 25th, The Engineer really digs into the Royal Society of Arts bicentennial before checking in with the future of the British standard locomotive. Is electrification? the solution to coal supply problems?
Letters features "Pyrotechnic" venting about there being too much bureaucracy in locomotive design on the 19th, a call for information about electrical equipment in the Royal Navy for P. Raynar-Wilson's history of same on the 25th. Literature devotes long reviews to a book about engineering training (H. R. Mills, Techniques of Technical Training), two textbooks (A. H. Shapiro, The Dynamics and Thermodynamics of Compressible Fluid Flow, and William W. Hay, Railway Engineering, Vol. 1). However the theme cannot be maintained and the editor is forced to admit one edited technical work, Welding, Brazing, and Metal Casting, ed. E. Molloy. Not enough on automatic welding or the concrete workings of a stanine grading system, but otherwise it is all fine. On the 25th, we review P. S. Houghton, Workshop Costs and Costing, which is a vital thing that more workshops should do. A. C. Hartley visits the Bi-Centennary of the Royal Society of Arts and talks about how engineering looked long ago, before the war.
Things are not all right at The Engineer editorial, which finds itself with paper left at the end of its content, and which has to run three pages of advertorial, so you know where to look for a new time interval recorder, aerating cone for sewage purification, magnetic ore separator, corrugated aluminum roofing sheet, cast iron swarf briqueting press, accelerated continuous carbonisation by Rochdale Process, re-designed gate valve, rotating red clamp for fork trucks, or the overhaul of the caisson gate at the King George V Dock. This week's Industrial and Labour Notes is a "down" week due to all those wage demands ruining everything. Seven Launches and Trial Trips this week, five motorships, two steam ships, four tankers, one cargo, one cargo liner, one sludge vessel.
"Bovril Boats"
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