Postblogging Technology, December 1954, II: The Big Gamble

R_.C_.,
Shaughnessy,
Vancouver, Canada


Dear Father:

As is by now my tradition of many years, I am writing a "letter" that I will be leaving on my pillow at the knock on the door. And because it is a tradition, I don't even have to apologise any more! I should probably put something embarrassing in here that you can read when I am already halfway to Kelowna, and if I can think of anything embarrassing, it will certainly go in!

Your Loving Daughter,


Ronnie

PS: Please call Bill Radford and tell him not to start WWIII, since for some reason we seem to have decided that the chain of command runs from the senior senator from California to the Chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and apparently only Matt Ridgeway stands in the way, President be damned.  It's not that World War III won't be terrible. It's that it will be so embarrassing to explain how it happened to the children of a future generation. 

Newsweek, 20 December, 1954

Letters

Marlene Schmitt of Wheeling and Bela Fabian of the Hungarian National Council liked the article about how Godless Communists are bad, while Ken Klinkert is upset at the idea that being Godless makes you a bad person. People have heard various stories about how Red Saunders got his name. Most correspondents think that lieutenants hanging recruits by their ankles is wrong. It worries me that the one who doesn't signs himself "Master Sergeant." David DeZurik of the DeZurik Shower Company thinks that Ike should invited more small businessmen to his stag dinners. For Your Information tells us the story of Christmas Seals. They were invented in Denmark for tuberculosis! 

Not only did it never exceed Mach 1, the plane was grounded in October

The Periscope reports that the latest Soviet jet bomber can "overfly America" and drop bombs from altitudes where "few U.S. jet fighters can attack them." Only a handful of F-100s and the Army's Nikes can even reach that altitude. The Air Force "may be forced to concede" that the B-29 carrying those American servicemen being accused of espionage in China were attacked south of the Yalu and crashed north of it. "Expect to read soon" that the X-3 is achieving 2000mph with its radically-new rocketlike engine and Monel-metal body. The Army is training small parachute teams for "operations for long periods behind enemy lines and teaching them to use highly secret electronic equipment that 'vectors in' guided missiles --with or without atomic warheads --onto a target." Congressman Reese's subcommittee report on tax-exempt foundations is being withheld because it "attacks everything from the Kinsey report to Ike's friend Paul Hoffman and the New York Herald Tribune." GOP leaders are trying to get the report boycotted by other committee members. Ike's attempts to get a pro-Eisenhower Senator like Alexander Smith or Leverett Saltonstall appointed head of the Senate Republican Policy Committee are headed to failure because Styles Bridges has 30 of 47 votes in his pocket. Several more Soviet defectors will be made public in the next few months to warn against the perils of coexistence. More indictments in the IRS scandal over James Finnegan are coming, reaching "high up" in the Truman Administration. Ike's proposal to raise the Federal minimum wage will united conservative Southern Democrats and Republicans in opposition. James McConnell is a predicted, contentious nominee for Assistant Secretary of Agriculture. Stassen's Foreign Operations Administration is fighting with the Commerce Department over East-West trade laws. Stassen wants them kept loose for propaganda reasons. 

Newsweek is still beating the French spy scandal dead horse. Intelligence officials are keeping an eye on General Hinh to make sure that he doesn't go back to Saigon. Other intelligence officials say that the recent 200% increase in the satellites' economies is shaping up to a big Russian cold war victory. Churchill has cancelled a planned television debate between Admiral Mountbatten, Admiral Denny, and Air Marshal Boothman over what the Navy could do in an atomic war. Two-thirds of the new German air force will be fighters, because there are fighter-bombers now and Germany is small. U.S. plans to strengthen the Middle East are "shifting into high gear," with the first shipment to equip two Iraqi divisions with American equipment expected soon. William S. B. Lacy is going to Seoul as the new ambassador to South Korea to smooth things over with Rhee. Where Are They Now reports that Max Schmeling is a chicken farmer near Hamburg and has recently gone into the liquor business with his wife, Anny Ondra. Johnny (Pick-Up-the-Check) Meyer is a big man around Havana with permission to explore for oil in several million acres of Cuba.

The Periscope Washington Trends reports that the President is dead serious about turning the Republican Party into a "progressive moderate" party, but still fiscally conservative. The Democrats are worried that this will siphon away votes. Some Republicans think that McCarthy will push Ike to the right, while other Republicans hope that a McCarthy third-party effort will push Republicans into Ike's arms. 

National Affairs

"Acid Test for the U.N."The new Secretary General has a hard-to-pronounce name and has to talk the Reds into seeing reason before the U.S. is unfortunately forced to start WWIII. Meanwhile, Senator McCarthy's talk of a third party has the Senate running for cover, except for Herman Welker, but at least General Van Fleet is in his corner. Meanwhile, the President is adopting the tried-and-true "Ignore him until he goes away" strategy. This is not to be confused with the "Hiding in the back office until you qualify for a pension" strategy, because, as Eugene Milliken says, Ike will have to run again in '56 or the GOP will fall apart. (And to be fair, the President's programme of Hawaiian statehood, medical insurance for eighteen-year-olds, public housing expansion, tax cuts, Upper Colorado power and reclamation projects, tax cuts, trade liberalisation, and Taft-Hartley revision is pretty ambitious.) A box interview with Senator John R. McClellan, the new chairman of the Senate Permanent Investigations subcommittee, gets a box interview to explain that there will be no more "One-Man Investigations" in the current Congress. Hazel Abel was quite a Senator for the 55 days she was the ELECTED interim Senator from Nebraska. The AFL and CIO are merging, and Hubert Humphrey is great because he's tough on those ungrateful Latin Americans. Senator Byrd thinks there's something wrong of the country has to run a deficit in '56 in the midst of unprecedented prosperity and something should be done. (Okay! I propose not driving the economy into recession!) Rubin Hardin, the former FBI plant in the Pennsylvania Communist Party, has testified before Congress and is sad to be out of an old job of informing on people he pretended to be friends with. 
 

"Air Force for Peace: General Twining's Formula --And His Headaches"

The chiefs of staff are reported to disagree with the President's Asian policy, with a majority of members thinking that Knowland is "basically right" in calling for a more militant policy. Admiral Radford wants to implement a blockade until the Chinese render the captured airmen, and so does Admiral Carney, the CNO. General Twining (hey, the point of the article has arrived!) disagrees. He doesn't think that the blockade would be effective. But only Ridgeway, the Army Chief of Staff, is actively in favour of caution. As he is a minority of one, the world's main hope of avoiding WWIII is that Twining wants to be bold in a different way from the two  Navy men. Twining believes that the Reds can only be deterred by the atomic threat against their centres of power, and that the main threat to peace is giving any sign of diffidence about our willingness to use air-atomic power. He approves the 137 wing air force, is happy that the fighter-bomber force is now all jet and that the B-29s have been retired. He is also in favour of an all-volunteer Air Force to the extent possible, and is upset at the inefficiency of training and then turning over Selective Service men. He might even prefer a 100 wing air force if the entire force was well-trained and steady. The Air Force believes that the next war will be atomic, and therefore short, lasting no more than 30 to 60 days, and will be fought in the air with manned planes. USS Forrestal gets a box story to let us know that it is a "floating aerodrome" that can launch "baby A-bombs." It seems as though Twining is "bold" in a very cautious way?

International Affairs

"Japan: Singer of Hymns at the Helm" Hatoyama Ichiro is the new, conservative, care-taker Prime Minister of Japan and is very anti-Communist, has a nice house, is not arrogant or devious like "many Japanese politicians," and is a Baptist who sings hymns every day. Hey, that's the article title! He hopes to win a mandate of his own in a spring election. Various news items from Europe and the Middle East all kind of blend into "Communism is awful," except for the part where even though the Germans have voted to raise a Bundeswehr and fight in NATO, they haven't given up on the Saarland and the Arab countries can't be as pro-American as they'd like because the common folk aren't impressed. The U.N. General Assembly didn't vote for the Dutch to get out of New Guinea because the United States is cooling on its "anti-colonial stance" that applies to Indonesia but not Indo China. "Cognac for Breakfast" looks at the latest front in Premier Mendes-France's war on his country's drinking habits, the substitution of milk for wine in school lunches. Mendes-France doesn't drink because he has ulcers, but alcoholism costs France more than two billion dollars a year, with per capita alcohol consumption running to 33 quarts (pure alcohol) per year, with the rate of alcoholism tripling since the war and 15% of French adult males "living in a state of alcoholic impregnation." It is reported that French agricultural workers drink 6 quarts of wine a day, and, in Normandy, they receive 4 to 5 quarts of hard cider and a pint of Calvados in addition to their daily pay. The reaction to the Premier's anti-alcohol campaign has been so fierce as to be the first sign of a threat to his government. The Vancouver gang war gets a story, and the "first all-Canadian fashion show held outside Canada," L'Association des Couturiers Canadiens show in New York at the Hotel Pierre. 

Business

The Periscope Business Trends reports that the 1956 federal deficit will be larger than expected and the outlook is "quite gloomy," and this reduces the likelihood of an early tax cut. Also, the recession is almost over! The lead story reports that auto production is booming, and leads into a profile of George Romney. Robert Young of the New York Central is in the news. 

"Uranium Stocks: The Facts"

A speculative uranium boom is well under way.

Notes: Week in Business reports that the CAB has approved the purchase of Pioneer Air Lines by Continental, that Sun-Ray, United Cigar-Whelan, and Rexall Drugs are working on a three-way merger. US retail sales were up last month over November 1953. 

Invention reports on "Specks in the Sea," which is about Lorac, the "Long Range Accuracy" set by the Seismograph Service Corporation of Tulsa, Oklahoma, which is a radio navigation system for small boats with the ability to "remember" sea markers. It is for offshore oil exploration in the Gulf. 

Products: What's New reports a low-frequency radio navigation system for helicopters from Bendix that sees into "blind spots" created by mountains or high buildings, a mobile rotating sprinkler powered by its own spray is on offer from Valley Manufacturing of Valley, Nebraska, and a camouflaged hearing aid embedded in horned-rim eyeglass frames.

Henry Hazlitt uses Business Tides to ask "Who Speaks for America?" He is upset about the "mania for giving away American money. Foreigners are ungrateful socialists and America is going broke from high taxes. 

Science, Medicine, Education 

"The Air Age's Genius of Speed" is Theodore v. Karman, who gets a profile. 

"Thickening Flock" The 8500 members of the Prairie Hutterite community in the Dakotas, Montana, and Canada are increasing so quickly that there could be a half million of them in 2054. With a birthrate of 41.5 per thousand, they are very, very prolific. 

Wonderland: Newsweek very briefly reviews eleven popular science books for children, about conservation, whales, magnifying glasses, dinosaurs, numbers, weapons, cavemen, chemistry, and Willy Ley's Engineers' Dreams, which is about all the mad things engineers imagine that don't involve space,like his The Conquest of Space, which is the most-stolen book at the New York Public Library. 

"Hope for the Stricken" The American League Against Epilepsy, composed of the country's leading neurologists, met in New York last week. Keynote speaker Dr. Roscoe Barrow of the College of Law at the University of Cincinnati is not a neurologist, but he does now about the terrible laws on epilepsy in the various states. Nineteen states have laws requiring their sterilisation, seventeen prohibit marriage for epileptics, sixteen prohibit them from holding drivers' licenses while 31 states restrict license issues. Something needs to be done. Jonas Salk is doing something, but about polio. He now believes that his killed-virus vaccine confers permanent immunity to polio.  

Schools and Scholars reports that Principal Harold Campbell of Key West High School is cancelling his school's school band visit to Havana because during the students' last visit, the girls were subjected to indecent gestures and pinches. Cuba's Key West consul denies the accusations and is very insulted on behalf of his nation. The National Education Association reports that there are now thirty million students crammed into elementary and secondary schools, 700,000 of them on half-day or part-time schedules. The New York State Library decided to clear out some useless old records stored in the basement of an Albany building only to discover that the alleged wastepaper included thousands of state historical records, some of which were fortunately recovered at the Rolland Paper Company mill in Quebec before they could be pulped. A separate one-and-a-half column obituary for Ernest Dimnet follows. 

TV-Radio, Art, Press, Newsmakers 

Police dramas are out, medical dramas and documentaries are in. But what about all those people who were so shocked by the violence in police dramas? Well, I have good news for you about the law of conservation of being shocked. (Childbirth on TV! A young mother with cancer in a drama!) A new radio soap opera, Way of the World, is being produced for Borden by Young and Rubicam is going to be lots better than the other ones because it is going to go through its storylines faster, have better actors like Edna Best, and a helpful book of advice from psychologist Paul Popenoe about building a better America through entertainment leading to "a population with physical and mental health and emotional maturity."  

Popenoe was not a guy you want improving your race

In breaking news from the art world, there are two more claimed works by Leonardo da Vinci being flogged by collectors, which is far more interesting than a painter who has made the awful mistake of still being alive, Helmut Silber.

The Women reports that 22-year-old Abbey Johnson, a general-assignment reporter with the La Porte (Indiana) Herald-Argus was abducted at rifle point by a former beau and survived, that Marguerite Higgins was just in Moscow establishing that Communism is awful, and that Dorothy Kilgallen, the Hearst reporter at the Sheppard trial, is thoroughly annoyed by the way the trial is being run. The Aga Khan's son. Sadruddin, is investing in the Paris Review, and fancies himself a publisher. Frank Bartholomew, the new vice-president of the United Press gets a very short profile. Boston has too many papers. Will The Post go to the wall? Possibly not. 
 

Sloan Simpson, Robert Maynard Hutchins, Elizabeth Arden, Antigone Constanda, the Chief Justice, and an unusually small number of royals are in the column for the usual reasons. Mamiemania is absolutely real. religious people continue to be very sanctimonious. 

Harold Velde (of HUAC), Sylvia Gable (formerly of Clark), and Alexander Stewart (of Jimmy) have married. Jane Wyman is divorced. Hugh Gibson, Joseph Keenan, Bili McGowan, Gladys George, George A. Reach, Dr. Stephen Penrose, and Robert Cade Wilson have died. 

The New Films

Deep in My Heart (MGM) is a musical with not much going for it. Romeo and Juliet is from United Artists with British and Italian actors, and the reviewer thinks it is a good adaptation. Also from UA, and Britain, The Beachcomber is an adaptation of the W. Somerset Maugham short story set on a tropical island.

Books

Ernest Gruening's The State of Alaska is a very worthy history of the territory but must be hard to review, since once Newsweek decides to give it a page and a half, all it can do is summarise the history of Alaska. British poet (Welsh, he's Welsh!) has a poetry collection that is "slim but good," Early One Morning. George B. Parks' The English Traveler to Italy is a "good Gothic Baedeker," that is, a history of English travellers to Italy back in the old days when it was more adventurous. (At least, considering that letters passed to and fro on a regular basis, it was more adventurous for famous people who wrote about it while presumably couriers were doing it for a living!) 

If it's not annotated in the video, which I'm playing but not watching, the tune is Early One Morning.

 

Raymond Moley uses his Perspective column to put clothes on Carroll Reece's insane burblings about tax-exempt foundations and wipe the filth off its face so people will mistake it as somehow sane. 

Letters

Several writers want to know more about mezzo-soprano Rosalind Elias. And Richard Nixon! Although at least in the Vice-President's case, reactions are split between people who like him and people who noticed that the article about the elections somehow turned a Democratic victory into a GOP one. Sidney Cornell points out that for people who won't drink milk, the French sure have done a lot to make it safe to drink! S. O. Wassner wonders what harm it could possibly due to keep Russian chess players out of the country. Several writers liked the article about the Pope. For Your Information seems to have taken a  holiday. 

The Periscope reports that "a leading atomic scientist" is depressed and approaching a nervous breakdown, "friends" say. General Ridgeway is expected to break with the Administration over the Army strength cuts. The Administration may appoint a federal judge in Wisconsin over McCarthy's veto, which, on the one hand, it's McCarthy, but on the other, Senators are supposed to be able to do that. Speaking of renegade senators, Strom Thurmond is going to be promoted to brigadier general unless the White House vetoes it. The AEC is going to do an atomic test series this winter, testing anti-aircraft missile warheads and conducting some experiments, so expect some failures. The AEC and the Public Health Commission are fighting over radioactive fall out, with the Commission wanting more information ahead of the tests, and the AEC believing that this will just cause people to worry needlessly. SAC bombers are now flying with atomic bombs at all ti me, except for the cores, which only the President can authorise. The Army is mass producing the Redstone missile, while the Navy is converting some destroyers into anti-aircraft missile ships with Talos and Terrier missiles. The New York Communist Party is reorganising as "Freedom of Information" clubs, Adlai Stevenson is expected to campaign for the nomination to block possible opponents. 

Washington has agreed to back Britain's opposition to Greek calls for an election in Cyprus in return for British support to recover the American airmen in Peking. Observers expect that the airmen will be released to Dag Hammerskjold during his visit to Peking, and that this will be accompanied by the "most urgent and widely supported demands yet" for Red China's admission to the UN. Another aspect of the Red "soft offensive" will be the release of Cardinal Wyszynski. "Usually reliable tipsters" report that the Reds will cut off Hong Kong's water supply to pressure the British to condemn U.S. support for Formosa. It is reported that France has sold 100 of their heaviest tanks to Israel, widening their superiority over the Arab countries. "Intelligence reports" from Rome report a new anti-communist movement in Rumania, the "Legion of Archangel Michael," which is not fascist at all, while ones from London say that the Russians have a two-stage rocket weighing 100t with a range of 1800 miles. The Hungarians are making a renewed effort to lure Hungarian exiles to return, while the Japanese report underground hangars and missile-launching sites on Sakhalin Island, a mere thousand miles from Japan. Where Are They Now reports that Al Barabas is 34, has quite athletics, and is working as a furniture buyer for a New York department store in Bayonne, while Hiram Evans, old-time Grand Dragon of the Klan, is living in secluded retirement in Atlanta and is pretty sure that the Klan is dead. 

By User:Katangais - Own work, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.
wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44622282

The Periscope Washington Trends reports that "the Eisenhower-Democratic coalition" is going to have no trouble ramming its foreign policy through, but his Republican critics such as the "Asia First," "Nationalist" and "Get-Tougher-on-Reds Interventionists" will be free to complain about the mutual defence treaty with Formosa, trade liberalisation, military aid to Europe, and East-West trade. 

National Affairs

"To most Americans, it was the best Christmas in years." We get an update on the budget deficit, the President's domestic agenda, and more about that coalition that is refuting the idea that the second half of the President's first term would be a period of paralysis. We also look at the proposed defence manpower act, which would extend the current Selective Service act for the 18 1/2--26 group, leave the National Guard unchanged, and create a "service calleable reserve" of men who volunteered for regular service for six months to avoid the risk of being drafted for two years, which would consist entirely of training, after which they would be subject to call up for ten years, with the hope that 100,000 volunteers a year, giving a reserve of 10 million by 1959. This would cost a lot, although we're not sure how much. In Alabama, Attorney General Silas Garrett has been charged with putting out the hit on "Democratic Attorney General-nominee" Albert Patterson to stop his clean-up of Phenix City. Oklahoma Congressman Victor Wickersham is back from a state-sponsored fact-finding tour of Moscow, which seems to be full of normal people. The House sub-committee investigating tax-free foundations has collapsed  into in-fighting over their allegedly county-destroying social science investigations. 

Spoiler: He couldn't

"Counting the Toll" Most people liked Christmas, except for the people who died in that Italian Airlines DC-6B crash and the private plane crash in Cincinnati two days before that killed Frederick Miller. Americana devotes a full page to Chris, George Wood's beagle. George Wood lives in Rhode Island and Chris is a very good dog who might be able to do math, and it's two days after Christmas, so what are you expecting, news? 

"Our Traffic Mess" Traffic is costing us billions in delays and accidents and will cost billions to fix. Fifty-one people died on the President's "Safe Driving Day!" Is the day of total Manhattan traffic shut down at hand? Maybe. Some day. 1984, maybe. Right now, Boston is building a new bridge over the Mystic River, Detroit is building 115 miles of expressways, Chicago is finishing its giant underground car garage at Grant Park, Houston is building 350 miles of expressways with cloverleafs costing $3 million and an "electronic 'brain'" to control the lights at 300 intersections. New York is splitting $100 million even-stevens between the Major Deegan and Cross-Bronx Expressways, plus another hundred million for the Brooklyn-Queens and $60 million to finish the Queens-Midtown-Horace Harding Expressway, plus work on a tunnel and two bridges. Los Angeles will complete 74 miles of freeway in 1954 and 14 more in 1955, and will prohibit parking on 300 miles of thoroughfares during the evening rush hour. San Francisco is working on a Skyway, a freeway, a bridge, and is thinking about 5700 new downtown parking stalls. Newsweek checks in with Hank Barnes, Detroit's traffic chief, who recommends more street signs, one-way streets, wholesale parking bans, through streets, more electronic brains, pedestrian "scrambles" at downtown intersections, ripping up streetcar tracks (he has nothing against streetcars except that they run on streets). He even promotes more public transportation, which sounds more reasonable than double-decker freeways, conveyor-belt sidewalks, and using "air rights over railways for parking ramps." Or maybe even the President's $100 billion highway plan. 

Ernest K. Lindley uses Washington Tides to talk about "Bipartisanship: The Whole Hog" which is about how great bipartisan foreign policy is. Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller is replacing C. D. Jackson as Special Assistant to the President in charge of propaganda and expanding his role to be the "'general'" leading the effort to win the cold war. Sources close to Nelson say that Nelson is one of the most able men in government. Ticking It Off reports that the Forrestal is being commissioned some more, and that Edward Condon, the nuclear physicist who formerly headed the National Bureau of Standards has resigned as research director of Cornell Glass Works because his security clearance has been withdrawn in spite of his being cleared of disloyalty, mainly because Richard Nixon is slipping the knife in. 

International

The Russians and Chinese continue to be awful Communists, and talks continue on the Paris Accords. The TV version of 1984 running on the BBC is causing controversy over its "brutality" and "horror," and is implicated in a fatal heart attack, presumably due to the close-ups of the rats torturing the hero. However, the BBC thinks that the controversy might have been a bit artificial considering that most of the calls it received came in the first minutes of the broadcast.

"Classic and Cut-rate" Soviet spies Irmgard Margarethe Schmid and John Clarence show how sad Britain is these days, because the alleged German spy is a blonde bombshell while the alleged British spy took pound note payments to turn over AA secrets, lifted all his information from magazine articles, refused counsel, demanded thirteen members of the Communist Party as character witnesses, and said that he would offer a defence of "mental instability." Japan wants to  normalise relations with Russia, but is in no hurry. The Greeks are protesting American support for the British over Cyprus. A box interview with Herbert Morrison asks whether Britain and the U.S. can get on side over Red China. No, they can't, because we are being nuts over Red China! Everybody is still suspicious about Malenkov's new look. Ticking It Off reports that the UN's ninth session is winding up, that American advisors are hopeful that the aftermath of General Hinh's mutiny against Diem won't ruin South Vietnam, and that Indonesia is not giving up on Western New Guinea, or, as they call it, Irian. In Canada, Squadron Leader Andrew Mackenzie is giving interviews on the subject of being a Red prisoner. It wasn't nice, and eventually he gave up and signed a confession so he could get out. In Argentina, the Peronists got a new family bill through that allows for divorce. 

Business

The Periscope Business Trend reports that the Federal Reserve is making its first slight pullback from easy money because things are looking up and Washington doesn't want the stock exchange to get too far ahead of the economy. The railways are looking at a 5% gain this year if autos and steel keep to their current trends. Natural gas consumption is up 7--8% over last year's figures, with only a shortage of pipelines keeping it from rising further. Soft coal production is up, although overall coal production will probably be 6% below 1953 figures. Corporate dividends are at record levels. 

"Plugging a Big Hole in Industry" The U.S. steel industry uses 800,000t of manganese a year. Before the Soviets embargoed exports in 1949, that country was our chief supplie. Replacement suppliers in India and the Gold Coast could be just as unreliable in wartime, so John C. Udd's announcement in Montreal of the formation of the Strategic Materials Corporation to exploit a deposit of manganese ore in New Brunswick is exciting news. It's not so much the ore deposit,since there is lots of low-quality manganese ore in North America, but rather an improvement in the sulphur-leach process for concentrating the ore, which has previously been too expensive for largescale production. It's the discovery of another deposit, of sulphur-rich iron pyrite, that makes Udd think that this is a good play. The portable atomic reactor gets another story, this time one developed by American Locomotive Corporation for the Army, which might be used for Arctic bases or isolated communities. In slightly related news under a new heading, Air Secretary Harold Talbott has let the cat out of the bag in regards to a new generation of very large cargo aircraft, probably from Douglas, to use turboprop engines, which has C. B. Smith of American complaining that there isn't any reliable turboprop big enough, and the Air Force should get on that. Industry is in jitters over the Justice Department's antitrust case against Philco for placing illegal restrictions its dealers and distributors. 

Notes: Week in Business reports on a uranium play, Continental Insurance's record dividend, the auto industry's millionth 1955 auto, produced well ahead of schedule, Wanamaker's shutdown of all four of its stores in New York, plus cancellation of one being built in Yonkers. Twenty-three western railroads are suing trucking firm Riss and Company for depriving them of $100 million in revenue over twelve years by "illegally" shipping explosives. Products: What's New reports that Hobart Manufacturing of Hobart, Oklahoma, has an automatic livestock feeder that has a timed horn to call the animals in to feed and a home sewing machine with an automatic needle threader by the American Pfaff Corporation. Henry Hazlitt is on about "the right to work,"continuing his recent campaign to tell the Twentieth Century to go away and stop bothering him. 

A box story reports that 1955 will be "Another 'second-best' year for us." Because the recession was so mild, the recovery will be mild, too. 

 

Science, Education, Medicine 

"Brighter and Brighter" GE demonstrated a thin chemical film able to reflect back light "multiplied at least ten times." The material will make an excellent replacement for the phosphor materials in TV screens and foreshadows a day when the vacuum tube recedes into the background as speciality materials take over its job of bossing electrons around. It could be applied to safer X-rays and "souped-up cameras," too. RCA says that it is on the track of these magical new materials, too. 

"Safety at the Pole" Just in time for Christmas, a

"A Mountain Moves" Dorothea Forster of Knoxville, Tennessee, used to be overwhelmed by raising a mentally retarded son, but now she campaigns to raise money for educating the mentally retarded in Knoxville schools.

Metropolitan Life says that the "health of the American people has never been better" this year, based on a death rate of only 9.2 per thousand. This was largely due to there not being a flu epidemic this year, although the tuberculosis death rate fell by 20%, and while measles and whooping cough cases were up 50%, death rates remained low. Cancer deaths remained at the same rate, heart and lung disease death fell slightly, and so did the diabetes death rate. 

"Test-tube Babies" Superior Court Judge Gibson E. Gorman in Chicago has found that test tube babies where the husband is the donor are like any other children, but those born from donors the mother isn't married to are illegitimate products of adultery.  People are outraged, although the ruling does support the mother's plea to cut off her husband from contact with her son, because this affects a great many people. (An estimated 50,000 test tube babies are born in the United States every year.) Dr. Goodrich Schaufler has warned the Sixth Annual Congress on Gynecology and Obstetrics that "bosom consciousness" is leading teenage girls to diet, and when the curves fail to materialise, to "a wave of teenage tragedies," ranging from mental crackups to worse. He goes on to warn about the appalling prevalence of this "semi-respectable sex appendage." 
 
Press, TV-Radio, Newsmakers

The Los Angeles Daily News has folded, leaving the city with just four, conservative papers. Ralph Stein, the latest writer to take over Popeye since the 1938 death of the strip's creator, Elzie Segar, is ditching Olive Oyl because her bust size is too small. And no, I'm not making this up!

As advertised on the cover, TV comedian George Gobel gets a three page profile. 

Ambassador Henri Bosset is in the column for defending French drinking on his departure from Washington, and Dr. Fritz Heese for apparently not being able to collect a consultant's fee for diagnosing Stalin's morbid condition from medical reports available to officials in East Berlin. Ann Baker, General McAuliffe, Generalissimo Franco, Carl Sandburg, Raymond Cartier, and just one royal are in the column for the usual reasons. Ex-GI Walter Rechsteiner is in it for returning the lost copy of Petrarch's Africa that he bought in postwar Trieste for $45 in cigarettes, and the winners of the Young Americans Award for Bravery for being brave. 

Herbert Morison is engaged, William O. Douglas is married, Gregory Peck is getting divorced, Francis Cardinal Spellman is going on an Asian tour, Arthur Garfield Hays, Raymond Hubbell, Thomas Gatch, and Eugene Du Pont have died.

The New Films

Moved well inside the back cover, ahead of Arts, Sports, and Science, Newsweek goes gaga for Disney's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and leading man Kirk Douglas, replacing Verne's protagonist, Professor Aronax, as a more manly Ned Land. 20th Century Fox's There's No Business Like Show Business also gets a review. It's "jumbo vaudeville" with Marilyn Monroe! 

Books has a special feature on cartoon books for holiday gifts, including anthology collections from Pogo, Peanuts, and Grin and Bear It, as well as a "baby sitter's guide" from the creator of Dennis the Menace. and a very long list of stable cartoonists, among whom Charles Addams of The New Yorker stands out. 

  

Leaders

"Industry or Infantry?" Flight points out that drafting apprentices deprives industry of valuable skills and contributes to in-service delays. Even though the services are short of specialists, this is bad. In a separate Leader, Flight balls out BEA for denying the Aga Khan a seat on a Viscount flight to Dublin just because he was late, and there should be different rules for rich people, just like there are when rich people want to take the bus. Glad to know there are limits to the magazine's obsequiousness towards the airlines!

From All Quarters reports that the hall was packed when the Duke of Edinburgh gave the tenth British Empire and Commonwealth Lecture to the Royal Aeronautical Society, this year on the subject of "Aviation and the Development of Remote Areas." The Duke mentioned flying doctors in Australia! The Prime Minister threw a tantrum about slow fighter deliveries in the Commons on 16 December, leading the Minister to point out that, well, the RAF already had three squadrons of Hunters in service, and that the Javelin and Valiant would soon be in service. Others noted that the Press hadn't been invited out to see the Hunters and when they did come along on junkets had only seen four. We get an update on the Napier Eland, which  has now given birth to the Oryx, a turbine with free compressor for providing hot gas directly.  The operating principles of the Rotodyne are given at some length. Some Hunting Percival Pembrokes have been sold and flown away to various countries such as Burma and Sweden. 

"New Punch for Suffolk" No, East Anglia hasn't bought an air force because its tired of being the butt of jokes. Actually, Brigadier General J. D. Stevenson of 49th Fighter Division is now able to reveal that for the last two years the 81st Fighter Bomber Wing has operated Republic F-84G Thunderstreaks with tactical atomic capacity. Five years ago, it was proposed to transfer the 81st to Britain and also to develop a "crash" atomic capacity there although the two pieces were never put together in public because the official position is not to comment on the presence of American atomic-capable aircraft in Britain, and presumably all those B-45Cs are there for looks. The G is now being replaced by the F-84F (confusing!) is a "formidable" aircraft, Flight says, with a touch down speed between 135 and 145 knots, taking off under RATO and having, but not demonstrating, a sonic dive speed. Most of what Flight has to say further about it concerns its controls, which have the "spring bungee" feel of American power controls, and a bobweight to prevent excessive "g" forces. 

Here and There reports that Israeli Meteors recently forced down a Syrian Air Lines Dakota with nine passengers aboard for violating Israeli airspace, escorting it to Lydda Airport. The Israelis are also having a difficult time exporting three of their Spitfires to Burma because the Arab countries they keep making ferry or emergency landings are scrutinising their documents. Flight tries out the  Aero Commander at some length, and, because it is the holiday system, offers some dry, British humour. (And a joke about women who are fat, which are always welcome, Ronnie says with a glare in her eye that invites you to ask her about "dry" humour.) Followed by a two page spread of "Junior Flight and Aircraft Apprentice that isn't actually half bad for the genre, and a pastiche Sherlock Holmes story that exceeded the limits of my patience. Separate are a Christmas Crossword and an indispensable guide of an article, "Inspiration Unlimited: Or, How to Write Travel Books Without Actually Going Anywhere." A sequel on writing Picture Travel books without going anywhere is on my Christmas list for next year!

Aircraft Intelligence reports that the Mk. 3 Shackleton is  extensively redesigned, that a three-plan view of the Grumman F9F Tiger can now be printed, that the F-86 Sabre Trainer and Breguet Deux Pont continue to wend their way towards service, and that the Monocoupe Meteor, Aerotecnica AC-13, and unnamed Hispano-Suiza aircraft are American light planes, Spanish light helicopters, and Swiss advanced jet trainers that might be in production some day.  
 

J. W. Fozard, "The Supersonic Fighter, Part 3" In conclusion, supersonic fighters are very aerodynamically challenging since their flight envelopes are so restricted, and they need a lot of power. If we're going to go into the supersonic fighter business, we need to be ready to spend some money.

"Helicopter Flight Simulators" At the fourth annual meeting of the Helicopter Association, Norman Hill and Pierre de Guillenschmidt read papers leading into a discussion session entitled "The Simplification of Helicopter Pilot Training" that mainly involved simulators. Hill is an executive at Redifon while de Guillenschmidt is associated with Giravions Dorand. Both firms are interested in simulators. Dorand's DX50, which has an analog electronic computer, was extensively discussed. 

Combined Ops, the sixth episode of BBC's War in the Air, gets a review that is a bit cranky that, by focussing on Dieppe and TORCH, it neglects the strategic bombing offensive. 

Correspondence

"F. Urious" explains why the Auxiliary Air Force should get Hunters. And a pony! Henry T. Hough has a story from years ago, before the war, about the "years ago, before the war" wing of the Smithsonian's museum of flight. E. C. Cheeseman, which is a real name, contributes his own story of years ago, before the war, while J. V. Sircom writes to gripe about British gas turbine manufacturers letting all those foreigners build or buy their engines, which is bad for business. 

Pye Industry reports for The Industry that industry is using Pye's closed circuit televisions. Plessey adds that Plessey heavy duty plugs and sockets are electrical connections that can stand very heavy duty. Shell, for its part, reminds us that Shell's Epikote resins have diverse applications such as in paint.  Civil Aviation reports that Cossor Radar is in service at Zurich Airport, and provides our weekly fix of the news tht Convair is putting turboprops in Convairliners, including possibly Rolls Royce engines. National Airlines' "Fly and Drive" plan allows tourist families to rent cars for their vacation at  Miami Airport.

Leaders

"Tailor Made" The British aviation industry should try harder to provide aircraft tailor made to the needs of its customers, because that's a good idea and Flight is late for a party. 

From All Quarters reports that people are talking about bringing back the Ministry of Aircraft Production because of all those production delays. The Air Minister, Selwyn Lloyd, in a written reply, lays out the conditions under which the Swift is now in service. We get our weekly report that USS Forrestal does, in fact, exist. The Bristol Orpheus is running. The Hunter F.3, which will have an Avon with reheat, is discussed. Napier is forecasting a four-engined British turboprop airliner that  might exist so that someone besides Fairey would buy the Eland. Air Marshal Sir Guy Garrod, currently the chairman of the Air League of the British Empire, criticised all the secrecy over British guided missile development, pointing out that Britain started well ahead of the Americans, and asking if there is something being covered up around here. 

"Outback Aviation" The Duke of Edinburgh's talk to the R.Ae.S., noted last week, is summarised. Beavers! Flying Doctors! Australian ranches ("stations," I think?) Central African Highlands! Planes spray agricultural chemicals now!

 

Giving the "Yahoo Serious Film Festival" clip a rest for a change.

"Delivery Deluxe: Impressions on the Flight of a T.A.A Viscount from England to Australia" On October 13th, Trans-Australia Airlines Vickers Viscount 720 VH-TVA John Batman arrived in Melbourne after a 12,080 mile delivery flight with seventeen passengers aboard. It was a very smooth flight and everything worked perfectly. Here are the names of every passenger and crewmember, because pages don't fill themselves!

Here and There reports that the South Koreans have received a delivery of a 75 F-86s, that the ex-Israeli Spitfires have been released from detention in Lebanon. The F-100 grounding was caused by high speed yaw and not structural failure as thought. The largest aerial survey of Australia, looking for oil and mineral deposits, will begin in 1955. A book about Alcock and Brown's flight is out, and the 1954 "Amy Johnson Fellowship" has been awarded. 

Flight visits a Shackleton squadron in Malta. It also prints a long letter from Charles Copeland of NPL about aircraft noise remedies, a De Havilland Canada Beaver that fights fires in Canada, Wichita, where Flight flies a twin-engine Bonanza, and Londonderry House. It's very nice. 

"Booster Ramjets for Helicopters" An engineer from Marquardt goes into detail about helicopter rotortip booster jets and notes that the additional power required for takeoff might justify the use of more "dangerous fuels," which doesn't sound good! Honestly this idea keeps sounding worse and worse. Also a Toronto company wants us to know about a Catalina (but in the flying boat tradition it gets a different name, in this case because it was made in Canada under license) equipped with a scintillator and a magnetometer for finding ore deposits. "Fire Research Technical Report No. 2: Report of Committee on Vaporising Liquid Extinguishing Agents" is summarised. Chlorobromomethane and trifluorobromomethane show distinct advantages over tetrachloride and methyl bromide, in part to reduce the toxicity risk, because they can be used in smaller quantities. They have also been found not to cause excessive carbon monoxide buildup. 

The Aeronautical Bookshelf reviews Wolfgang Langewiesche, A Flier's World," F. H. Ludlum and R. S. Scorer, Further Outlook, Hugh Popham, Sea Flight, Cedric Allingham's Flying Saucer from Mars, and the current Jane's All The World's Aircraft. Pophaqm's book is a memoir of his war service in the Fleet Air Arm, mostly aboard Indomitable, Ludlum and Scorer are on about weather research, Langewiesche introduces us to flying, and Allingham is a hoaxer who claims to have seen a genuine flying saucer from Mars, and to have a quote from a leading British astronomer to the effect that the RAF and the Palomar Observatory have great photo albums of Martians full of candid personal shots and sensitive character portraits of tall, shaggy green men. And women, too, probably, if Mars has women! Flight continues its occasional series on civil aviation in Russia.

 

I won't defend this movie, but Lynn Thomas deserved better. So, anyway, if you haven't clicked through the "Cedric Allingham" link, you really should. It's a crazy story. 

Correspondence has G. D. H. Linton echoing the generally negative reviews of War in th Air. M.F.A. agrees, mainly on the grounds of a lack of early war film footage, "On the Ground" is kinder. Taffy Jones is happy with the review of his book, Tiger Force, and R. v. Essen returns to the fray, objecting once again to John Grierson's article about Antarctic flying and subsequent letters defending it. 

Civil Aviation reports the Idlewild crash, the work that BEA is doing to avoid maintenance holdups in a busy season, a new Silver City ferry service, progress with the 600 gallon wing fuel tanks for KLM's Super Connies, an order of De Havilland Herons for BEA's Scottish islands service, a TCA Super Constellation crash in Malton, fortunately with no casualties, and Fokker's plans to produce the Friendship. BALPA recommends  legislation to reduce pilot fatigue by reducing their allowed flying hours. The Industry reports a circular power saw for crash rescue from Black and Decker, and we get a one-page summary of the RAF's twelve annual arctic exploratory flying seasons.