Shaughnessy,
Vancouver, Canada
Dear Father:
So, here we are in Taipei carrying out OPERATION FAN OUT AND TALK EVERYONE OUT OF STARTING WWIII. (It's in capitals because it's official! In a completely unofficial "Everyone is cashiered if this gets to the press" kind of way. The dead hand of the Administration lies heavily on Taipei; there is no-one to take the reins because the President is sulking, Dulles and Knowland are idiots on collision courses, and Radford is an idiot. That leaves Felix, and even Ambassador Rankin out on a limb. Felix has Ray Spruance's ear, and Spruance out of the public eye in Manila now that the Seato Conference is over, and has been meeting with Frank Gibbs. So, to make a long story short, we might be agents of perfidious Albion. And everyone of any sense, really.
Your Loving Daughter,
Ronnie
PS Of course all of this activity is a most excellent excuse for not bringing back Engineering and Aviation Week.
The Periscope reports that Senator McCarthy is thinking about withdrawing from campaigning in the fall and going fishing instead. Sources close to Ike say that Ike has come up with the brilliant idea of calling himself a "moderate," instead of a "middle of the roader," which sounds wishy-washy. The President will also not be doing much campaigning this fall, because he didn't get enough rest during his vacation. What he will do, he will do by plane rather than whistlestop, and sources close to some idiots in the Secret Service say that some idiots in the Secret Service think that they can get the President into a parachute in sixty seconds flat. Some farm-belt Democrats aren't happy with Adlai Stevenson. Sources at the Pentagon say that there will be more money for continental defence next year. Sources close to Colonel Bernt Balchen point out that the Air Force is trying to retire Colonel Bachren, and that a fuss is to be made about it. Some New York Democrats are pushing Averill Harriman for Governor because he's so swell.
The Periscope Washington Trends reports that the fall campaign is going to be pretty tepid, although on the other hand it is said to be 50-50 that the Senate will be recalled before the election to deal with the Flanders report, which sounds nuts to me, but the talk is that control of both House and Senate are a toss-up, so maybe some people will be desperate. The Administration is still thinking about filing some indictments against prominent Democrats for this and that, mainly tax evasion, while Senator Byrd isn't blasting the Federal Housing Administration because he has soured on the President, but because there are actual problems.
National Affairs
"German Arms: Churchill Grabs the Reins" Since the Administration can't seem to do organise itself to do something, Britain is, instead. It looks like the British-brokered solution is that the Germans will unilaterally restrict the extent of their rearmament and the French will agree not to make a fuss. This leads into the article advertised in the cover banner about whether Germany will make a deal with Russia. After all, the historical introduction points out, they've done it before! (Oddly, the photo spread has Bismarck, Hans von Seeckt, Field Marshal Paulus and Walter Rathenau, but not Ribbentrop!) Over in Britain, the failure of the EDC is blamed on Mendes-France, and for the collapse of the Tories in the latest polling, leaving the mooted fall election out of the question. A story tells us that the SEATO conference happened, and General de Castries is back in France, but has not met the press, and there is talk that he is saying that the Viet Minh are the real nationalists and perhaps is saying anti-American things. In other words, the Reds managed to brainwash him in a mere four months. Also, authorities are cracking down on honking in Paris. Former Cuban President Carlos Prio Socarro has been found guilty in a New York court of trying to overthrow the Cuban government, which is illegal when some people try to do it. President Ibanez has ordered striking miners back to work. Colonel Arnaz has finally allowed the Mexicans to remove President Arbenz and his entourage from their asylum in the embassy and fly them to Mexico City. Newsweek is pleased to report that there was a demonstration against him at the airport.
The Periscope Business Trends reports that the recession that wasn't going to happen and that wasn't that bad and that will soon be over will soon be over in the fall, although it is unlikely that unemployment will go below 3 million. Cement, education, electronics, building, and consumer spending are all up, but defence spending cuts counterbalance this. It does look like the "long awaited uptick" in steel production might finally be happening, though. Arnold Malkan's antitrust action against the car dealership-franchise system continues. Discount department stores are doing pretty well, and there was some violence on the picket lines in Detroit this week.
"More Bang" For those as might be waiting for "push button soldiers," Dr. Jack Dunlap, a research psychologist working with the Navy, has bad news. "Machines, it appears, tend to gum up human behaviour, and vice versa." Machines need human operators who can operate them, and that means long training periods and "a low rate of soldiers who 'want out," and that's just not what the Services are getting, because their terms are just not as "psychologically attractive as they should be." Psychology! That's the problem! Another paper, given to the APA by Dr. Leonard W. Evans, proves with a well-designed study, that medical students get more cynical as they get on.
"A Clue in the Bones" Dr. R. W. Parnell, publishing in the British Medical Journal, finds that the "All-American" type, and fat men do not do well at Oxford compared with tall, thin, and lean men. Attractive men, he finds (he doesn't phrase it like that at first, but comes around to the obvious point in the end) do well in winning awards, prizes, and scholarships, but place lower in exams than students with "average muscle-and-bone development," probably because those longhairs are overtaught in school. In the long run it's probably best to be in the middle.
Grace Kelly, Marilynn Monroe, Geoffrey Humphrey, Nat Holman, Miriam Stevenson, Joan Brownell and Ava Gardner are in the column for the usual reasons. If I'm reading it right, Miss Brownell changes her father's sheets every morning? Our Attorney General is rich, but not rich enough to have a maid! Marilyn Bell became the first person to swim Lake Ontario, so she's famous now. Life and Leisure looks at the exciting life of trophy fishermen.
From All Quarters reports that SAS's polar service will begin in November, and now Canadian Pacific is going to run its own Vancouver-Amsterdam service. The Helicopter Association is replacing Eric Mensforth with Lord Douglas as President. Air France is not going to sue de Havilland for lost revenue due to the grounding of the Comet. The first Avon-Sabre has been delivered to the RAAF amidst newspaper criticism of late development and high costs, with the price of locally-produced Canberras rising from £317,000 to £450,000. There were fast planes at the Dayton air show and the RAeC rally. A leaked document says that the USAF is going to loan the Japanese Self-Defence Forces a bunch of planes of which the only ones anyone cares about are likely to be the F-86Ds. W/C. F. Latham, M.D. is giving a talk on the health risks of vibration, toxic substances, and cabin pressurisation Australia is expecting the imminent delivery of its new aircraft carrier, the Melbourne, with a steam catapult and an angled deck.
Letters
Charles F. Starr points out that if we ship things to Russia that are not strategic, the Russians can switch their factories to making guns and stuff. So anything we export to Russia is a "strategic material," and the only solution is to make fun of Harold Stassen for suggesting more trade with Russia. Nigel Seymer writes from Laleham-on-Thames, Middlesex, to point out that what General Mark Clark is saying in his recent remarks is that if a "showdown" is inevitable in the next two years, and the Russians are too sensible to start it, then it must be the United States that will. That's the kind of thinking that has Britons worried, Mr. Seymer points out. Melvin Donald Streator uses the recent article about the World Council of Churches congress to point out that segregation isn't very Christian. W. C. Hardy points out that Northeast Airlines is just fine, thank you. Several correspondents notice that a picture of Senator McCarthy "relaxing" with some starlets was printed reversed in Newsweek. J. K. McGuigan writes from North Vancouver that the recent transit of the Northwest Passage by two American coast guard cutters was not, in fact, the first. Fred Colvin liked the recent Ernest K. Lindley column, "An Era of Common Sense?" because Lindley detects that the era of "demagogic exploitation of the Red scare" is coming to an end.
The Periscope reports that the U.S. is going to adopt an "eye for an eye" policy of retaliating for Soviet actions, such as seizing a Russian ship when the Russians shoot down an American airliner. "Some Pentagon officials are strongly urging this course of action." Senator McCarthy is going to investigate something to do with Hawaii while he sits out the election. Nice work if you can get it, Joe! The President has sent orders from Denver to the NSC to find and "plug" some holes leading to nationally syndicated columnists. Secretary Dulles is upset at Israeli Ambassador Abba Ebban's attempts to appeal over his head to the American people against the Administration's anti-Israel policies. Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study is going to have a board of trustees' meeting over whether or not to keep Oppenheimer around, and the press is hoping it turns into a story. Senator Jenner's Red-hunting committee has the names of two prominent columnists who were communists with Bella Dodd, and is discussing the best way of leaking the story. Can Franklin Roosevelt, Jr. run for President, considering that he was born in Canada? Probably, people think. Adlai Stevenson was the biggest contributor to the DNC fund raising drive, with a $2500 donation.
The inside word is that the United States will be backing Britain over Greece in the dispute over Cyprus because what if the Communists. West German military men are happy that the EDC was rejected because they didn't want to have anything to do with the French, anyway. Austrian businessmen returning from Moscow report that Nikita Khrushchev's face has been painted over a mural of Beria, so that's hot news. The intelligence officials in West Berlin who show up in every edition of this column are reporting this week that the east Germans are stationing "ten men, five armed with rifles and five armed with machine guns" to each state-owned factory in East Berlin to deal with future unrest. They have also discovered that the East Germans are very pleased with Dr. Otto John. U.S. officials note that Iron Curtain papers are covering American food aid to Danube flood victims. It must be some kind of plot! In Tokyo, police are rounding up 40 spies, including an American, based on information from Colonel Yuri Rastvorov, the MVD agent who came over to the west there in January.
Time for pages and pages about the Mid-terms, especially "rock-ribbed Republican Maine," where Edmund S. Muskie became a national figure overnight. Professor Willard Frank Libby is the Administration's latest pick for a scientist who won't clash with Lewis Strauss at the AEC. (I have, in my deep thinking way, come up with another way of preventing constant clashes with Strauss at the AEC, and will gladly divulge my brilliant idea for a small consideration.) Secretary Brownell has set up an investigation of corruption at the FHA, and specifically of Clyde Powell. He is also going to be prosecuting Communism even harder in the fall, because Communists don't have the votes, unlike the farmers, who will be parading Secretary Benson's decapitated head through Washington next week. Ticking It Off reports that Roy Cohn has reported to the New York National Guard for his postponed training period, that John Peurifoy, fresh off Greece and Guatemala, is going to Thailand next to fight even more Communists, and former Congressman Hugh DeLacy has pleaded the Fifth. Ernest K. Lindley defends Secretary Dulles' travel budget in Washington Tides. Which is fair, because as much as I hate the man, he's had a gruelling two years. Flying is not so much fun that anyone would want to do it as much as he does! He can be criticised for getting so little out of it, Lindley admits, but that's because he's an idiot, Lindley almost admits. "Just because he is the most travelled Secretary of State doesn't mean that he's the least t houghtful."
"The West: Feet on the Hard Road" The big story is (again), Dulles' travels, and the very small amount he seems to have got out of them. In Britain, the death duties on the Duke of Devonshire were so high that the estate had to sell 4500 acres in the Peak District out of the estate's total holdings of 50,000 acres, three entire villages, 230 farms, and also three palaces. Now the tenants of the farms he's sold are facing higher mortgage payments than their old rents, and have discovered the inequities of death duties. The Nile is flooding high this year, and Colonel Nasser has ordered a crackdown on dissident preachers. He is not asking for American military aid at present, but has let it be known that he's certainly not averse to some kind of arrangement. (I'm just going to go ahead and spoil the surprise; he wants to fix the flooding problem by building a dam.) Indonesia is holding an international fair, and some Russian guests have shown up, so the country's probably going Communist next week. The Japanese are fighting over the future of their Premier and are very worried about cuts in United States procurement in Japan and import restrictions on Japanese goods. It's official: Washington's policy on Quemoy is not to have a policy, which will keep Chiang guessing. Ticking It Off reports the lastest Soviet nuclear test, that the Iranian purge of Communists in the Army and police is proceeding, that Red terrorists are at work in Laos, that Attilo Piccioni has been unable to live down the Wilma Montesi scandal, and has resigned.
"Industry in Italy: A Revolution" Newsweek sent a man to the international industrial exposition in Milan that you haven't heard about in The Engineer for one reason or another, but it wasn't very interesting, so instead he travelled around northern Italy visiting factories. That's it! Factories! He is also impressed with the amount of work the Italians have done with the Po Valley natural gas fields, "the best thing to hit Italy in years." Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi, the public company set up to exploit the fields, has been diversifying into this and that, which is probably a good thing, and the more that Italian natural gas replaces American oil, the better the Italian foreign exchange situation will look. Canada is very proud of Marilyn Bell, but not so much of Alfred Valdmanis.
The Periscope Business Trends reports that the recession that wasn't going to happen and isn't so bad and is almost over is not almost over enough, so the Administration has no choice but to re-announce that it is stimulating the economy and going to easy money. The Administration is still trying to sell of surplus real estate and buy a "mobilisation reserve" of machine tools. As usual this is also the lead article. Then since it's been a week since the magazine promoted helicopters, we get an artist's conception of a New York heliport. The World Bank is issuing $50 million in US dollar denominated bonds to assorted foreigners because the global dollar shortage is easing and Wall Street is tapped out. Union Carbide is building a big titanium plant in Ashtabula, Ohio. GM, which earlier this year bought Euclid Road Machinery, is going all in on construction equipment. Notes: Week in Business reports that Republic Steel is buying the equipment of Follansbee Steel of Follansbee, West Virginia, and will move them to Gadsden, Alabama, throwing 2441 persons out of work. H. K. Porter has taken over Laclede-Christy. Ford's XM-151 vehicle for the Army will be called the Ranger.
"Anatomy of an Icecap" Last week in Rome, a team of French scientists summarised five years of research conducted in Greenland on what makes its icecap so special. They were the first to have a permanent, crewed station on the icecap, which is up to 9000ft above sea level, explored 60,000 square miles, and produced 55 volumes of research results. At the present rate of melting, it will last another 30,000 years, and, if completely melted, it would raise the sea level by 23 feet, which is a lot. Expedition leader Paul-Emile Victor says that it is a mystery why the cap is there.
"Universal Diet No. 1" Dr. Thomas D. Luckey of the University of Missouri School of Medicine has found the perfect way to make St. Louis worse: A "single diet which nourishes all forms of life from man to bacteria, from viruses to plants." It consists of a mix of milk powder, corn oil, corn starch, cellulose, sucrose, and trace elements and vitamins. It looks like rock salt and tastes worse, but in the bright new future it might be fed to all experimental subjects to remove variability due to diet.
From All Quarters reports that in the wake of the Comet, Certificates of Airworthiness are going to be much harder to come by. Among Qantas plans for the new year are an exclusive first class Sydney-San Francisco service with 39 passengers on a Super Constellation, sleeper chairs, four flight attendants, and free drinks. BEA and Sabena are going to operate an experimental London-Brussels helicopter service next year. Flight testing of the Boeing 707 will begin soon. Details of the Pratt and Whitney T-34 are now available.
"Airborne Radio and Navaids At the Farnborough Show: New Equipment Designed For Overseas Service" Radios, direction finding radios, omni-range navigation radios, DME radios, intercommunications, airborne search radars, an air search and rescue beacon,.
"The Industry Exhibition" Tanks, starters, fuel systems for gas turbines, micro-motors, a variable hp mechanical drive, batteries, circuit breakers, hydraulic motors, pneumatic accumulators, Hymatic reducing valves, complete undercarriages, cold-drawn titanium tubing, metal honeycomb structural material, creep resisting steels, fibreglass, precision-forged alloy blades, magnesium-zirconium castings, various stampings and pressings, flexible piping, wiring, cocooning material, a drift meter, dinghy stowage equipment, de-icing and space heating, dielectric radar covers, components of Redwing's guided missile, ram air turbines, thermal control units, electric motor clutches, electro-thermal de-icing.
Letters Frank Graves of Boy's Republic agrees with the article about teenagers being out of control and explains that Boy's Republic has an excellent record of bringing them back under control. Robert T. Morse of D.C. says that of course teenagers are out of control, look at the terrible times they've lived in! Teacher Shirley Glubok of St. Louis suggests that maybe being nice to teenagers will help. The Ambassador of Lebanon really liked the article about Lebanon. Charles Finch of Seattle asks how the new Elgin watch in the article about new watches, actually works. Apparently, it just displays the time in numbers. Samuel A. Montague of Mexico City nominates Mexico as another place where hay fever victims can seek relief, and a much nicer one than, say, Alaska. Blair Taylor, also of D.C., says that he is heartbroken that the French have turned out to be "sloppy" and "self-indulgent," whereas the Germans are "virile," and "self-reliant." He is a Frankophile no longer! For Your Information points out that Newsweek is doing its part for education by getting more Newsweek into the classroom. It's very patriotic.
The Scandinavian countries will all back Red China's entry into the UN next fall. Austria is going to make a surprise bid to join NATO. A Mediterranean pact between Spain, Italy, Greece, "and the Arab nations," is being discussed. Naval attaches in Stockholm are seeking information about a new Swedish submarine said to be as effective as Nautilus. The Russian embassy in Belgrade is thawing out but still won't talk about the 100 Yugoslavian cadets who disappeared in Moscow in 1948, who are thought to be the nucleus of a "Free Yugoslav Corps." Allied intelligence reports a mass roundup of East German biologists, presumably to work on biological weapons in the depths of Siberia. The Czechs might be expelled from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development next month for nonpayment of dues. Secretary Dulles is upset that the Philippines want to be paid so much money to be bought.
Where Are They Now chases down Rush D. Holt, former "boy wonder" and the youngest man ever elected to the Senate. He's going to run for the West Virginia legislature in the fall as an Eisenhower Republican. Clarence Chamberlain has a 175 acre in Connecticut and sells Volkswagen cars and still works as an aircraft mechanic occasionally, although he hasn't owned a plane in four years.
"Summer's End: A Time for Decision" Eisenhower held a cabinet meeting in Denver and probably thought about deciding important things. Hurricane Edna wasn't as big a storm as the Weather Bureau was worried it would be. Newsweek explains the New York gubernatorial elections even more. The latest Gallup poll shows Democrats leading Republicans in registrations 60 to 40%. An interview with Charles Halleck explains why the GOP is facing an uphill battle for the House. Democratic Senators have settled on attacking the Administration for being inept on foreign policy, with no clear direction. The Georgia elections also get an article leading into a review of developments in the desegregation front, as the segregationist candidates led the Georgia primaries. Things seem to be going well except in Mississippi, where it isn't. New York City police can't decide whether they are going to fight bingo like they fight other kinds of gambling. The Watkins Committee, which is also investigating Senator McCarthy, heard Senator Joe tell them that he's just the nicest boy. The Census Bureau says that the population has reached 162,700,000, up 11,583,000 since 1950. lt. Frank Jarecki, the Polish pilot who escaped to Denmark in a MiG-15, says that his car was followed for five miles near Chicago and shot at. This year's Miss America contest was controversial because there were two women entered as Miss Connecticut, although it didn't matter because of course.
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| Lee Meriwether. She played Catwoman! |
Ernest K. Lindley uses Washington Tides to explain "Formosa and the Quemoys" No-one wants a war only maybe they do so either something will happen or maybe it won't, and by the way, Chiang is bombing Chinese ports opposite the Quemoy islands. A longer article in International, below, brings us up to date with the fighting, which currently involves 15% of Koumintang troops (that is, 25,000 to 30,000 out of a nominal 300,000) and their navy, which has entered Amoy harbour, and their air force, which is bombing, as I just mentioned. Pentagon insiders say that the Reds will probably just keep on hammering it with artillery until the Nationalists give up.
Ticking It Off reports that the three foreign journalists arrested by the Reds outside Hong Kong harbour in March of 1953 have been deported. There is a cabinet crisis in South Vietnam after Ngo Din Diem fired the Army chief of staff, Nguyen Van Hinh. Premier Zahedi has carried out a purge of alleged Communists in the Iranian army, and an earthquake in Algeria.
Business
Products: What's New reports a pocket-sized tape recorder with an hour's play, weighing 3 1/2lbs, from Mohawk Business Machines of New York, and a faster way of drilling blast holes for dynamite from Reserve Mining of Cleveland consisting of a kerosene flame lance. The new owners of United Artists are doing pretty good. Notes: Week in Business reports that Records-management officials are meeting in New York to try to cut a burden of 8 million clerical workers filing 40 billion pieces of paper to the files every year. robert Young of the New York Central is in talks with developer William Zeckendorf to build an 80 story tower above New York Grand Central. Paul W. Litchfield of Goodyear promises that the inner tube is doomed, with half the company's production already tubeless, and probably all of it by 1959.
Special Report: "The Helicopter: A War Baby With a Big Future" The ATA held a conference, heard that passenger helicopter services are just around the corner. Why, they can land on the Post Office roof!
Science, Medicine, Education
"Bedstead in the Sky" Farnborough was pretty boring this year because it's been three years since Labour got turfed out, not that anyone who likes airplanes is likely to admit it, but the Farnborough vertical takeoff demonstrator sure is keen.
"The Energy Squeeze" Twelve thousand chemists at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society heard from Dr. Clifford Furnas this week that the world faced "[a] fast dwindling supply of energy resources." This is being caused by a rising world population, which might triple in the next century [To more than 8 billion! Yikes! See what you miss when you don't read a Newsweek?], greater industrialisation, and an inexorable increase in per capita use of energy. The global pinch in coal, oil, and gas, is only ten years out. Worse, the more oil is extracted, the higher the cost of extracting more. Nuclear fusion might solve all our problems, but Dr. Furnas recommends work on non-oxidising fuel cells running on carbonaceous materials, direct conversion of solar energy, and solid state physics. The last isn't to generate more energy, but rather to use what we have more efficiently, in particular the efficiency of devices for turning solar radiation directly into electricity. And because business isn't likely to finance it, he sees the Federal government doing the work.
Periscoping Science says that people are talking about the "curse of the Pharaohs" again after the two young daughters of the Inspector of Antiquities died within months of each other and Kamal el-Mailakh had a car crash. And the guy who writes Periscope is the boss's son? You don't say!
French schoolteachers are on strike, the New York State Maritime College makes good use of old Fort Schuyler, Quasset School, the oldest one-room schoolhouse in the country, has been saved from demolition by public subscription, two colleges in North Carolina are coping with declining enrollment by combining courses but not merging. Two school boards in completely different places are having the same problem with bored housewives who want to ban all the books in the library for being smutty and unpatriotic. The superintendent of Pennsylvania's reform school at Morganza has resigned because no-one is listening to his very low opinion of his students, and Turkey is thinking about building some "land grant" style colleges.
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| Baker seems to have fallen off the radar, or I wouldn't have used this image. |
Press, Art, TV-Radio, Newsmakers
"Fantastic Photon" The Quincy Patriot Ledger has adopted the new magnesium-plate process for turning out engraving plates in one-sixth the time The Photon is the "most advanced" of the new machines that work by put type characters directly on film, ready to be transferred to an engraving plate, and was developed by the Graphics Art Research Foundation, a research group funded by 275 book and newspaper publishers. Invented by French engineers A. Higonnier and Louis Moyroud, Newsweek describes it as having a "thinking'" element that works like a dial telephone, and promptly crosses its lines by referring to an electric typewriter, which is what the copyist works at. The copyist types, and the machine "reproduces the type image on film in the size and character of type selected and on the width of line required." When the text is fully reproduced on film, the film is "pasted up" and a plate made, between two and ten times as fast as traditional methods depending on the complexity of the job. The publisher, G. Prescott Low, figures that twelve Photons could replace 22 linotype machines, but right now has only one qualified Photon operator, a young lady who is a former Teletype operator. Low is optimistic that the resulting labour savings will reverse the current trend of dying papers. Collier's new publisher is confident that he can save the magazine, and Okinawa's 35,000-strong American expatriate community is getting its own paper, the Okinawa Morning Star, since they are there to stay on that "balmy, strangely beautiful island with a pleasantly slow-tempo way of life."
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| Ms. Brownell is working as an airplane stewardess until college opens. |
Medic,by the producers of Dragnet, seems pretty good. They film TV shows in Europe now, too.
Newsweek discovers a way of keeping up with Time's art coverage. Specifically, doing an art scene besides New York, which is easy thanks to the Downtown Gallery hosting a showing of Chicago artists in Manhattan! The Gallery isn't committed to showing artists like Don Baker permanently, because if they were any good they wouldn't be living in Chicago, but it does feel that it needs to give these guys some exposure, since one of them might turn out to be the next Georgia O'Keefe. And you can pick up a canvas for between three hundred and five hundred bucks, so come on down, the Downtown Gallery won't be undersold! A blurb about Alfred Pouinard's doctoral thesis in progress, "Research on Folk Music of French Origins in the United States" follows. He is trying to collect the really old stuff, from the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century, and finds that a full third of it comes from the Midwest and not Canada or Louisiana.
Adlai Stevenson, Jr., is engaged, Dr. Peter Lindstrom is married, H.C. (Bud) Fisher has died, as have Chauncy McCormick, Pops Warner, Charles Lindbergh's mother, Curtis Dwight Wilbur, and Andre Derain.
New Films
Speaking of exotic Far Eastern lands, a new film from Japan, Ugetsu, sounds pretty good. Shield for Murder is an unexpectedly good B-roll movie from United Artist, in part because of Edmond O'Brien's standout performance. Also from UA is a British import through UA is The Little Kidnappers, which sounds good but has far too long a plot review summary for me to bother with.
Books
"Paper Heavyweights" Paperbacks continue to take business from the old cloth jacket, so it is time for some heavy words in a light format, and Newsweek looks at publishers doing classics and such in paperback. Kierkegaard! Orwell! Camus! Speaking of which, Newsweek interviews the man himself in two half-columns. Finishing off an all middlebrow number, a review of Magarshack's Turgenev: A Life.
Raymond Moley explains that it might look like the President is just moping around in Denver, but actually he's learning to be a great statesman,
Leaders
"Turbo-Levitation" Turbojets are so powerful that if the pioneers had had them, there probably wouldn't be any fixed wing planes at all. Instead, it was the Wrights' decision to design their own 12hp engine that made the Wright Flyer possible in the first place. Modern propeller VTOs are very different from helicopters, and the Rolls Royce jet-powered is different again, and wouldn't it be great if we could do without runways.
"Farnborough Reviewed" Flight is very upset at the absence of the P.1, but does its best to make the review sound exciting anyway. To be fair, guided missiles are taking some of the shine away from planes, and some missiles were very cautiously displayed or at least drawings of them. But it is no compensation for the lack of zooming prototypes!
"The Show Dinner" Duncan Sandys gave the speech at the dinner, in which he promised faster deliveries for about the millionth time, and talked very obliquely about high supersonic speed prototypes, and the flying bedstead, and new free turbine engines for helicopters.
Aircraft Intelligence reports that the turboprop Constellation, otherwise known as the Lockheed R7V-2, is the "world's fastest and most powerful airscrew-driven transport," cruising at 440mph, with a 3000 mile range with a 10 ton payload. Bell wants us to know about new variants of the Model 47, and Nord has a twin engine transport, the Noratlas Hercules in series production, with 34 delivered of a total of 110 ordered.
"The Problem of Noise" This seems to be an editorial leader? Maybe something was spiked? It discusses current methods of reducing aircraft and especially helicopter noise, all of which seem a bit daft. We're not going to build starting-up pens at London Airport for every outgoing flight! Short pieces at the bottom of this remember the Battle of Britain, celebrate the McKee Trophy for outstanding achievements in the field of Anglo-Canadian airmindedness, and, in a telling admission to just how boring everything is, gives one sentence summaries of four British Standards Institute bulletins, including one on cadmium-plated close tolerance shear pins.
"Vampires Without Wings: The Provost/Vampire Training Scheme in Operation" Flight visits a training unit where they fly Provosts and then two-seat Vampires.
Correspondence
G. S. Drinkall writes in to complain about the lack of details about the P.1 in the last issue. Flight offers the editorial comment that it got lots of letters like this, nudge nudge. A. J. Jackson remembers the old days, before the war. Flight gets into an argument with long term reader T. O. W. Purkis about which planes 199 Squadron used during the war, with Flight defending its article as referring specifically to 119 Squadron's tour as a radar-jamming unit, which may have been after Purkis' time.
Civil Aviation reports that BOAC has received its second-hand Constellations and Stratocruisers that compensate for missing Comets. BOAC's first apprentice class graduates next year, while Intair, Ltd, which operates under contract for the Belgian Congo, is receiving S-55s. That Nene-Viking of Farnboroughs past is being converted to a regular Viking to fly for Eagle Aviation.
The Aeronautical Bookshelf reviews Walter Dornberger's V-2, Neville Shute's Slide Rule, and John S. Fay's The Helicopter and How It Flies. That's a pretty choice selection of airminded books, but this feature hardly ever runs unless Flight is very short of material, which is unusual for a Farnborough number, but admittedly it was raining. The reviewer shows a lack of practice. The Industry pads its run with corporate moves, but has time for a press-tool making course to be given by the City and Guilds of London Institute, a new company, or rather a subsidiary of Giannini of New York, which is being set up to produce Gianinin instruments for sale in the UK under license, negotiations for British Paints to sell PRC aircraft sealant compounds as patented by Products Research, Ltd, of Los Angeles, and a bulk filter for aircraft refuelling tankers by Automotive Products
Letters
I hope so! I don't usually cover subjects like the Miss Universe pageant, so you might not know that the South Korean and Greek representatives were barred from entering the United States because of Communist connections. Beauty queens! The Greek girl, who was admitted after a direct intervention by Dulles, did a commission for illustrations for a book by a Communist. There is no word on what kept the Korean girl out. For Your Information is happy to report that Newsweek's Miami correspondent, Bert Collier, just got a grant from the Ford Foundation to document desegregation, and celebrates with a pocket biography.
The Periscope Washington Trends reports that the Democratic win in Maine is a shot in the arm for the party, but it shouldn't get overconfident. Word is that American forces won't protect Quemoy. Won't anyone think of the real victim of the Flanders committee report on Senator McCarthy, Senate Majority Leader Knowland? He might have to make a decision!
National Affairs
International
Business
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| "Roll over, roll over . . ." AlfvanBeem - Own work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20228749 |
"Warmth by Watts" Five new hospitals to be built by the United Mine Workers will be heated by electricity. Radiant-heating panels are already used at the USAF base at Thule, and a development at Oak Park Manor, just inland from Atlantic City, are other examples of buildings with electrical heating, which goes to show that the industry is growing fast, with 250,000 installations likely this year. Utility officials do not think that electrical heating is cost competitive, but the industry disagrees. Products: What's New reports a temperature alarm that protects machine parts and bearings from overheating, a heavy duty steam cleaner from Vapor Heating that can jet 20 gallons of hot water a minute, and a leak-proof and stain and smell-resistant fish and game bag from Seal-Dri Sportswear. the Hilton profile follows.
Science, Medicine, Education
"Of Man and Science" A catchup article notes that President Eisenhower came out of his burrow to dedicate a $4 million government radio propagation laboratory in Boulder, that Dr. Erik Jarvik, a Swedish paleontologist just back from a Danish-sponsored expedition to northern Greenland, believes that land animals went through a quick transition from fish to amphibian at some point in their history, presumably the Upper Devonian, since that is the period of the fossils he recovered in Greenland that brings him that theory. Dr. Victor K. Le Mer, a chemist at Columbia, told the ACS last week that he'd come up with a method of recovering uranium from the "vast slime lakes of waste pumped from Florida phosphate fertiliser plants." Millions of tons of the waste are accumulating, but a simple coagulent will solidify it and allow the uranium-bearing components to be filtered out. George B. Lake, a chemist at 3M, has found a new family of film-forming chemical agents, the flourocarbons, which he has shown are a good surfactant to prevent gasoline evaporation, are promising components in insecticide formulations, and have potential in paints, waxes, inks, and perfumes.
"Fat's The Villain" The Second International Congress of Cardiology was held in Washington, DC last week, with 2800 heart specialists from around the world, including the Soviet Union, in attendance. The big discovery is that the more fat there is in the diet, the more heart trouble. Drs. Aaron Kellner and Theodore Robertson of Cornell Hospital think that strep and rheumatic fever may be the same disease, they told the Congress, while Dr. Bruno Kisch has observed "sarcosomes" in the tissue of the heart that sustain the muscles and keep them beating. Finally, the doctors remind heart patients around the world not to take it easy. They can safely do a full day's work and will feel all the better for it.
"Now Resegregation" Greenbrier County, West Virginia has resegregated its schools after parents protested desegregation. In Baltimore, Bryant W. Bowles of the "National Association for the Advancement of White People," has won a court ruling requiring the school board to justify desegregation. Mississippi's Assembly has passed a constitutional amendment allowing the state to abolish public education, and Virginia's Commission on Public Education is holding secret meetings on the subject of keeping segregation. The Supreme Court will convene in October and is hearing submissions asking it to pass substantive orders directing how desegregation is to occur.
TV-Radio, Arts, Press, Newsmakers
"Race with the Rainbow" NBC launched colour broadcasting in style with a Betty Hutton musical comedy that wasn't actually that much. Utah Representative William A. Dawson, Steve Allen, and Garry Moore are this week's TV scoundrels of the air. Periscoping TV-Radio reports that Will Rogers, Jr., will play Scattergood Baines on TV, that Peggy Wood is going to be on a religious radio series called Another Chance, and that Omnibus will produce at least one televised live play at The Cloisters.
The Milan Triennial is quite the affair.
"Flies and Freedom" Richard Applegate, the NBC correspondent recently freed by the Red Chinese, says that Chinese prisons are pretty bad, and Communism is bad, and he's going to be saying so from now on. He also saw plenty of flies, so take that, Clement Attlee, with your objectively pro-Communist remarks about the Reds having done a pretty good job against flies. (Also, thanks for intervening to get the prisoners freed, Mr. Attlee.) Harrison Salisbury, the former New York Times correspondent in Moscow is just back from same, and has made some remarks about his experience, and then [interject tired sigh and hand rubbing eyes] no, it wouldn't be a good idea to recall Western journalists and diplomats from Russia. Newsweek is sad that much of Park Row ("Newspaper Row") is going to be razed for a new approach to the Brooklyn Bridge, and that reminds it of the old days, before the war.
The Omnibus bit might be legit, although it's not mentioned in the section of the Wikipedia article about The Cloisters in popular culture, and the Wood radio programme would have been obscure enough that it wouldn't be surprising if it weren't in her bio. So between 0 and 3 out of three this week.
Sloan Simpson, Governor Allan Shivers of Texas, Arthur Godfrey, Ava Gardner, Jimmy Goldsmith, J. B. Priestley, the whole Dodge family, various British royals, and Marlon Brando are in the column for the usual reason. (Including the Governor, who had a bit part in a recent movie.) James Burnham, I'm glad to say, is in it because even the American Committee for Cultural Freedom can't take him any more. Newsweek is not letting up on the idea that the passage of US Coast Guard cutters Northwind and Burton Island are the first to pass McClure Strait, "the western entrance of the Northwest Passage" in history. The pretender to the Austrian throne has had twin baby pretenders. Ann Clark Rockefeller is engaged to a nice Episcopal minister and what is this, a Nineteenth Century novel? Clark Ryan, Helen Nicolay, Phyllis Baker Astaire (at 38, of cancer), Herbert W. Hoover (the Hoover vacuums guy), James M. Cecil, and General Paul T. Carroll have died. Life and Leisure catches up with European travellers.
Gotte erhalt den Kaiser Franz is a pretty slapping tune, but maybe not this authoritarian moment.
The New Movies has Rogue Cop (MGM), which is a movie about a bad cop who tries to kill all his associates after his straight arrow brother gets murdered, which sounds and is lively. Betrayed (MGM), on the other hand, is described in the review as a waste of Clark Gable and Lana Turner's time. High and Dry is a British import via Universal-International, which branches out from movies starring locomotives to feature a collier instead. And the Hebrides, and dry humour for double, no, triple the Britishness.
Books
The Memoirs of the Aga Khan explain exactly who said hereditary Muslim religious leader is, and what he's been doing all his life. Anita Leslie's The Remarkable Mr. Jerome is a biography of Winston Churchill's American grandfather. Melbourne seems worthier of a biography, and gets one from David Cecil. John Dos Passo's twelfth novel is, not unexpectedly given what he's been up to in recent years, an anti-communist screed Most Likely to Succeed, although the Newsweek reviewer is politer than I am. Periscoping Books reports that Luis Miguel Dominguin is a retired bullfighter who hangs off Hemingway and is writing a book about bullfighting, and that Graham Greene is back in England after being refused entry to Puerto Rico by immigration, and that he will finish The Quiet American there. I have a feeling that American diplomats in Southeast Asia will not come off well in that one!
Raymond Moley points out that the Federal government deficit didn't just rise this year because of tax cuts. It was also due to spending increases, and it's all the fault of everyone and so mostly not the Administration.
Leaders
"Sprint, Crawl, and Shuffle" Flight flew to Paris to take in the IATA meeting and spent most of its time waiting around airports and crawling from airport to city centre. It's easy to overlook that part, or dream of the day when the helicopter leaps over it, but that just gets in the way of improving these legs of the journey right now. Airports need rail lines, and the check-in procedure needs streamlining. Having to report to an airport a half hour before the scheduled departure is ridiculous!
"Progress with the Caravelle" An update of progress on the SNCASE Caravelle with twin aft-mounted Avons.
Here and There reports that the USAF has ordered $100 million worth of F-100s, that Britain is asking for £367,000 in compensation for the Cathay Pacific DC-4 shot down over Hainan, that Hawker Siddeley has bought is first Scottish subsidiary, a construction company, that zoologists at Wood Buffalo National Park are using a novel method to track herd migration, flying low over the animals in helicopters and shooting them with paint guns, that Mr. R. G. S. Hoare has been given a nice job at the Ministry of Transport because of the very talented way that he has the same last name as his dad, that Saab had a good year, that spoilsports around Croydon are complaining about low-flying sport planes, as usual, that Vickers has established a subsidiary in Australia.
"Contracting by Helicopter" The British Helicopter Association brought Knute Flint over from America to explain how his Bahama Helicopters, Ltd, makes money, which is by doing this and that. "Not conducting scheduled inter-city passenger air service," the crowd asked? "Boo," the crowd shouted.
"Ground Radar and Radio and Lighting Equipment: A Survey of the Farnborough Show Exhibition" Not actually a lot of new equipment, but Cossor showed off its secondary search radar, there was some DME equipment, and some new lighting. In general, like the air side, it was all a bit disappointing. So much so that here's a pictorial of V-bombers in the air to make up for it.
"Behind the Scenes at Farnborough" Flight's correspondent was bored because of the rain. I have a feeling that Fairey was unusual in arranging for a tent, because the sketch artist has a full page of details of the undercarriages of various Fairey planes.
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| I can't find anything about a Redwing company and its guided missile, but if this is anything, and it might not be, then it is a precursor to the Bristol Bloodhound, which was the RED HAWK at one point. |
"Crew Comfort and Safety: Some Farnborough Exhibits Studied from the Pilot's Point of View" Or, "What I Did To Kill Time Out of the Rain." We looked at some cabin comfort equipment. And instruments, and ejection seats. Please God let this page end, the writer thinks, typing away.
Correspondence
"Learner" has some concerns about insurance for new fliers. John D. Alford writes from Sydney that the Princess could be used in the Pacific if it were just given an engine configuration he's dreamed up of six Proteus and two Avons. He also thinks that the RAAF needs more planes, and should look into the Vautour or the Supermarine 525 specifically. J. M. Baker really enjoyed Farnborough. Someone had to! Civil Aviation More about the Super Constellation, Fokker Friendship, and the DC-7C, which is now in production. IATA passed various resolutions about running airports that are so boring my eyes refused to read them. Airworks has a new trooping contract between London and Singapore. The Woolsington DH Rapide crash was due to icing, which was brought about by pilot negligence. The swap of old Constellations for new with Capital Airlines cost BOAC a lot of money, but will be worth it in the long run, BOAC swears.
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