Postblogging Technology, August 1955, II: Plane On Ice

(Per Newsweek of 1955, the theme of Porgy and Bess is that American racism isn't as bad as they say.)

R_. C_.,
Shaughnessy,
Vancouver,
Canada




Dear Father:

The last Renata cherries are off the market here, the peaches are ruined, it's raining,  the roof is leaking again, and James is off to his squadron. Summertime is not easy! And the worst part is that we only have a week to go, because I have to go down to San Francisco to look at our new digs and meet the partners, who seem very pleased to have someone with a track record of staring at patent applications all day, albeit admittedly in the service of selling turboliners, rather than making vast sums of money defending and prosecuting patent violation cases. At least I got to wear a nice flannel plaid to market in Nelson, which you would ordinarily not do in August.

But we did get Canadian polio vaccinations, and I guess no-one ever offered to cancel September. And, even if they did, I voted for the other guy. 

Your Loving Daughter,

Ronnie

Letters

Hilda Pinkman agrees with Lily Pons that San Francisco is a good place to live. I guess at  least it's a stamp sold. K. B. Tandan writes from the Indian Embassy to deny The Periscope's report that India is buying 100 MiGs and renting the technicians to support them. Warren Allen Smith can't believe that Major General Charles Carpenter requires Air Force recruits to declare their religion, because that's the sort of thing you see in Fascistic and Communistic countries. Carpenter, the USAF's Chief of Chaplains, also writes Newsweek with a correction that makes Mr. Smith seem a bit naive, even if he might be kicking up a bit too much of a fuss. I just can't imagine the Air Force, of all services, turning into a legion of crusaders out of a Robert Heinlein potboiler. (Newsweek also managed to run the wrong picture of Carpenter. That's some good journalism!) June Brownlow Patrick writes from "Berkhamsted, England," that the recent article about Australia was a bit slighting. Robert Wilson writes to correct a mistake in Henry Hazlitt's column that turns out to be a typographical error. For Your Information explains that the summer issues are being produced by thirteen-year-old summer students who are replaced in shifts as they collapse from heat exhaustion in the bull pen. Or, no, it is our publisher takings credit (for The Periscope) for predicting money tightening. The reporters who did the "in depth profile" of the Duke of Edinburgh last week are introduced, and the cover photo of Sophia Loren is provided with some covering comment. Give it up, guys. You're not fooling anyone. 

Vanguard had its own missile, but
Pioneer was launched by Juno,
and not from White Sands. 

The Periscope reports that Democrats are fighting amongst themselves over natural gas regulation. Senator Kefauver is taking his juvenile delinquency subcommittee on a national tour to prepare the way for his run for the nomination in '56. Averell Harriman is also rounding up endorsements. The Killian committee's report on the future of atomic war says that within five years, Russia and the United States will be able to destroy each other, no matter who attacks first. Voice of America is probably for the scrap heap, because its critics are eager to offer it as a cost saving. Marshal Tito wants an invitation for a state visit to the United States now that the President is hinting that Khrushchev will get one. Congress isn't going to let the VA close some small hospitals because people will get mad. The "space satellite to be sent up in about two years" will be launched by "the same secret system that will launch . . . the Atlas," probably from White Sands. The runways at Offut will be widened by 50ft to accommodate the B-52's wing draggers. If the new military reserve law goes through, it's going to need a bit more care in drafting than the version before Congress right now. The East Germans have stopped their People's Police recruiting campaign, French intelligence has a copy of the super top-secret latest orders to the Communist parties of Europe from the Kremlin. Other intelligence sources say that the Soviets made a major oil strike just outside Vienna, just before the occupation ended, and now something is going to  happen. Sixteen Europeans and 54 Moroccans have been killed in the public unrest in Morocco so far this summer. Yet more intelligence sources say that the next Russian five year plan includes eight atomic reactors. Even more intelligence sources report that Russia has sold five submarines to Red China. Where Are They Now reports that Parkins Christian, the great-great grandson of Fletcher Christian, is still living on Pitcairn Island with all the other Bounty mutiny survivors. Sir Charles Vyner Brooke, the last white rajah of Sarawak, is 80, and retired and living in London, in a small but very nice place. 

The Periscope Washington Trends reports that Congress won't be recalled for a special session in the Fall even though the highway bill still needs to be passed, and explains the politics. (The President and Democrats don't want to be seen NOT fighting.)

National Affairs

The President is going to run in '56 even though he'll be so old, at 66. The special session story gets some non-opinion coverage. The President definitely is hinting at it. It's hot in Alaska because it is August and this is a hot year. Fielding Wright lost the Democratic nomination for Governor of Mississippi in spite of running as the white supremacy candidate. Speaking of American racism, here's a story about how San Francisco's Chinatown has become so normal that the San Francisco Police Department is disbanding its Chinatown squad. Although as the rest of the story makes clear, it is actually because the Squad was corrupt and embarrassing. It's August, so the Pugwash conference-like event is on and Newsweek does its best to grapple with explaining why it's newsworthy. I understand! I think it's newsworthy and can't think of a thing to say about it, either! Hell's Canyon is going to be developed as private power by a decision of the Federal Power Commission, no matter what Democrats in Congress say. Newsweek catches up with the eleven fliers, who were deposited across the Hong Kong border this week.

General Spaatz's occasional column is back, to talk about American war memorials in Europe, which will see many visitors this month. The Navy's decision not to commission US Merchant Marine Academy graduate Eugene Landy, on the grounds that he was a security risk due to his mother being a member of the Communist Party for ten years, and having an active subscription to The Daily Worker. Since Milo Radulovich was reinstated when Harry Talbot told the Air Force to stop being so embarrassing, there is hope for Landy. (It seems particularly cruel in that Mrs. Landy quit the Communist Party specifically for the sake of his son's career.) The House Un-American Activities Committee reports that two members of the National Committee to Secure Justice in the Rosenberg Case were secret Communists, and that only $1300 of the $302,000 raised for them "in New York  alone" went to the Rosenberg children. 

Ernest K. Lindley explains "Our Stake in Formosa" in Washington Trends. As I read it, it's an important part of our defences in the Far East and a strong ally although they should try to be more democratic. 

International reports from the continuing Geneva talks where nothing has  happened except for the prisoner release and statements about or around the release, which doesn't make for good newsprint, so we get the usual bit about Communism being awful. On the other hand, "Back and Forth" covers the Soviet response to the President's "Open Skies" proposal, which is big news, although, once again, the actual response is diplomatic evasion, since the Politburo is evidently at a loss to response. Summer diplomacy continues with state visits being scheduled. Premier Faure is the latest to be scheduled to visit Moscow. "Is NATO Falling Apart?" asks a sensationalist box story to the effect that the taxpayer wants to cut all this "defence" stuff even though the Soviets still have 175 armoured divisions ready to attack at a moment's notice, or something to that effect. Summer in Korea means rioting, by celibate Buddhist monks against married ones, and popular crowds against the Communist members of the armistice commission. Then, because it's the silly season and because San Marino's Communist government might be defeated in the upcoming elections, here's a story that notices that Europe's four mini-nations exist. The summer students may be competing for silliest copy, though, because the next one explains that the French go to the spa in August. 

"Looking Into Space" A conference of 200 space experts in Copenhagen this week is trying to sort out the science from the science fiction, predicting that the first permanent Earth satellite will be launched by 1965, that the first manned space flight will occur by 1970, that unmanned space ships will hit the Moon within twenty years, that men will land on the Moon by the end of the century, that spaceships will "whiz around the stars" "in the unforeseeable future." Krafft Ehricka of Convair suggests that "earth's first reconnaissance patrol" should be aimed at Venus, not Mars because "the former's surface appears to be liquid and 'very interesting.'" Soviet observers were much more down-to-Earth, which is a strange way to say that they will launch their first earth satellite in 1957, and that it will be much larger than the "breadbasket-sized" satellite that the Americans intend to launch. Canadians are mad for long-distance swimmers this summer, while the inquiry into police graft and corruption in Vancouver continues. 

Business

The Periscope Business Trends reports that Congress will have to deal with tax cuts, the highway bill, customs, the stock market, railroad regulation, and public housing when it returns from summer vacation, whenever it does. Reynolds Metal is expanding its aluminum production, Union Carbide is going into atomics, and Phelps Dodge has broken ranks with the other miners and settled with the Metal Workers. 

"Tighter Money? Humphrey's Answer" The Treasury Secretary is looking to somewhat firm money, not hard money, so don't worry your pretty little head about it. Stocks up, Chrysler's profits are up. 

Products: What's New reports that Bendix Aviation has an ultrasonic cleaner for cleaning machine tools efficiently, N. W. Curson and GE have a heater for cracking the "paraffin barrier" in low-producing oil wells to give access to as much as 20% of the nation's currently inaccessible oil reserves. Plaid is in fashion this year. 

Henry Hazlitt uses Business Tides to denounce "Keynesian Confusion," by which he means the increase in down payment thresholds to cool consumer credit, which he deems to be interfering with personal freedom, although the "confused Keynesianism" he refers to is British (and Swedish) restrictions on internal investment. Hazlitt thinks that the Treasury should just boost interest rates a bit more. 

Science, Medicine, Education 

"Red 'Shocker' and Ours" Newsweek reports from Geneva that the Red's 5000kW atomic power plant is surprisingly efficient. American scientists responded by giving more details about American reactors. We also get a profile of Walter Gordon Whitman, the senior American scientist at the conference. We also here a bit more about the American scheme for selling uranium fuel. 

"The Blood Line" Dr. C. Nash Herndon, president of the American Eugenics Council, has heard your inquiries about marrying your first cousin, and recommends against it. Second cousin marriages are less dangerous! (Ronnie is relieved!!!) 

There's a new university in Israel, which is news because so much of the money that went into its endowment is from American donors. Southern states are making some concrete moves in the direction of  replacing the public school with state-supported private schools in order to maintain segregation. Periscoping Education reports that the Russians are having the same trouble educating enough scientists and engineers as the United States. 

 Press, Art, TV-Radio, Newsmakers

The Press feature is mostly about baseball journalism this week, and we don't cover that. Louis Wolfson is suing The Washington Post for being mean to him, and the government's antitrust case against the Kansas City Star continues. 

Giorgione is getting a show, and he's only been dead for four hundred years! I think the important point here is that the show is in Venice, and so are all the senior Newsweek staff. James Rorimer is the new director of the MoMA. 

Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis are going to do one  more year together, even though they want to break up, because they have contracts. The Russians are being nice again, by letting U.S. correspondents broadcast radio news stories from Moscow again. 

Linda Christian, Westbrook Pegler, Billy Graham, Richard J. Daly, Alvin York's son, George, and Winston Churchill are in the column for the usual reasons. (Well, Pegler is in it for stalking Krishna Mennon around New York and making awful racist comments about him, but what the heck, it's America.) William Faulkner is in it for telling the Tokyo Foreign Correspondents' Clun that it would take three hundred years for the "Negro in America" to vanish by assimilation, and until then, they would have to have "tolerance, intelligence, patience,, and to be sensible" because "the white man is frantic; he's afraid, he's fighting."

Babe Didrikson Zaharias is ailing. Suzan Ball, Carmen Miranda, Wallace Stevens, and Michael J. McDermott have died. Various royals have done various things. 

The Special Feature on Buffalo and the "Inland Empire" makes for two special reports this week, the first being about Sophia Loren and Italian movie stars in general. 

Books has no reviews, and neither does Movies. 

Raymond Moley is up to Alberta to find that the province is still ruled by Social Credit, which has given up on socialism, first because socialism isn't a Provincial jurisdiction, and second and more importantly because Alberta has so much oil that it can afford to have a Bible-thumping idiot as premier.

Flight, 19 August 1955

Leaders

"Too Many PROtotypes" Sir Miles Thomas is complaining that there is too much publicity razzamatazz in the aviation industry. Flight points out that, while it's true, it's also hard to avoid in a commercial industry. "Production, not Prediction" The following Leader takes on further comments by Thomas in the same address, to the effect that the push to have something new every year at SBAC leads to too many prototypes and not enough production. This will be the fourth SBAC appearance by the Britannia coming up, Thomas points out. BOAC ordered the plane back in the misty, distant days of 1949, and where are their bloody airliners? The Comet, he points out, won't fly again until 1959, and Viscount deliveries have fallen behind schedule. Here, Flight concedes, he has a point. 

From All Quarters leads off with the M. L. Utility Aircraft, which looks like a throwback to 1909, and is a joint venture by Marcel Lobelle and the Ministry of Supply that seems to be intended to be a plane that can be carried around in the back of a Jeep. A Blackburn Beverley is off to Libya for tropical trials. We catch up with the Bell X-2 and the Saro Princess, and explore suggestions of a Canberra all-weather fighter. Fraud, bankruptcy, and an unblemished record of failure is not going to stop Frederick Miles from floating the "M. 100," which is to be a jet trainer. 

Here and There reports on the new Air Force Secretary and revises the informal Valiant speed, distance, or, I don't know, prettiest-in-class record set last week by the Valiant that was going out to Australia for bombing trials and absolutely no other reason whatsoever. 

C. M. Lambert, "Handling the Piper Apache" is two pages of sales brochure for the "lightest American twin." Kill your doctor today! 

Leonard Thornhill, "Helicopter Survey" is an article from a South African pilot who has been doing a helicopter survey for a new railway line in the Belgian Congo. 

"Smith's Flight System: The Britannia's Director/Indicator Instrumentation" Smith's has just released details of "probably the most advanced blind-flying and navigation instrument system yet produced by Smith's," for the Britannia. The two major components of the system are an S.E.P. 2 autopilot "using only magnetic amplifiers," which provides radio-coupling, and height and airspeed monitoring, and the Smith's Twin Compass, which uses two gyro-compasses linked to cross-monitor each other. these provide an integrated for a sixteen instrument dashboard, which can also receive instruction for ILS and VOR aids. There's an extensive discussion of how heading, horizon  bars and pitch attitude are displayed, how the scales are adjusted, and how they are followed to maintain the glide path. Various warning lights and flags are noted. I'm particularly taken by the  red light that flashes when the two gyro compasses disagree too strenuously, which, if  you ask me, is a must at any dinner party!

"Pictorial Maintenance Schedule" relates how Vickers has provided a handy visual reference to keep up with maintenance of the Viscount. 

Aircraft Intelligence reports that a B-36 is being prepared to be the first flying atomic testbed, and that development contracts have been awarded for the F-108 (formerly the F-107),  a delta-wing development of the F-89, and a new Lockheed "straight wing design." Stroukoff Aircraft Corporation is working on a C-123 with "retractable hydro-skis,"  the so-called Pantobase. Three Hurel-Dubois H-35 have been ordered by the French Navy as long ranged anti-submarine helicopters, which would seem to point to a quantity order in the offing. SNCASO is touting an Argentine order for its Djinn helicopter, and Marcel-Dassault's 550 delta-winged interceptor now had five flying tests under its wings.  The Czechs have some trainers on the go. 

"Handley Page Herald: Thought and Practice Behind Britain's New Branchliner" Stop me if you've heard this one, but Handley Page has a prototype small four-engine airliner. How small, you'll realise when I tell you that the power plant of choice is the Alvis Leonides Major. Supposedly, the small airlines and regional routes that Handley Page is aiming for want good old, reliable piston engines, like in the DC-3. "Stop right there," you say, "The point of the DC-3 is that it's cheap as chips, and no four-engine type is going to beat it." I know! But no-one's told Handley Page! Or, on the other hand, "It is clear that the thinking behind the Herald is deep and clear." You're having me on, right, Flight? From the description, it's a nice, neat design with all mod cons, and it'll be ready for Farnborough, but it might as well be what Miles Thomas was talking about. There's no plan beyond Farnborough! And if you're wondering why you haven't heard of it, this is the former Miles Marathon, adopted by Handley Page in the going-out-of-business sale, although the article doesn't exactly dwell on that point, I presume because everyone else is just as tired of Miles. 

"Douglas Military Design: Ed Heinemann Discusses the Technique Underlying His Aircraft; Precis of a Talk to the Fifth International Aeronautical Conference, Los Angeles" The A4D doesn't fall out of the sky because Heinemann took aerodynamics into account designing the plane, which you'd think wouldn't be worth a paper, but then there's the F-100 and the F-102 and the Swift and . . . 

Flight tells us about photos of the dunk tank they're testing the Britannia in for Comet-like behaviour. Big plane, big tank. 

"Man in Space" "Author John Brown" talks to various experts in space medicine about whether men and women will be able to fly in space. "I don't know, probably," they answered. "As long as they stay inside. It's cold out there and there's no air. But that's no a problem inside. Maybe being shot up by a rocket is a problem, but so far it looks like people can live through being shot up by a rocket that can get them into space." 

"Astronautics in Copenhagen" A bit more from above, particularly on the subject of the danger from cosmic rays, a summary of various papers calling for more efficient rocket engines, possibly burning exotic fuels, and updates from the U.S. about how their satellite would be placed in a stable and uniform orbit, and tracking it as it goes with radio transponders. 

The Industry has centrifugal test gear for Farnborough, developed by Graseby Instruments to test components for g-force resistance; and a lightweight 24v alkaline battery from Nife Batteries, to Ministry of Supply specifications.

Correspondence has letters about the old days, before the war, from Norman Macmillan and Lance R. Rudd, and a detailed critique of R. J. Clark's article, "Are Air Fares Artificial?" from P. C. F. Lawton of BEA. No, they're not. Civil Aviation notices a Viscount prototype for African service, has some details about the de Havilland airscrews for the Herald, reports of orders for the Britannia flight simulator and air navigation beacons from India, for Redifon. Panam is hiring pilots. Over in Seattle to make up for all the Americans being in Europe,  Peter Mansfield talked at a Seattle confab about the market through the Sixties. He is dubious about how far turboprops can go, unless they get really cheap. The world market for "prestige" airliners like the 707 and DC-8 would seem to be about 200 ships. Category two, with the Britannia and Electra, could take 400 machines. "Medium range" plans like the Comet 4 might sell to 100 machines. There might be a market for 400 Viscount-type machines, and as for "Our old friend, the DC-3 replacement," 600 planes when there actually is one, since all previous contenders have been too big except when they're too small. The industry is very polite about not spelling out the fact that they're offering "dangerous and cheap" to people willing to fly it, because if the passengers knew just how dangerous, they're more likely to stop flying than upgrade. That's my theory! Speaking of which, the inquiry into the latest DC-3 accident, the one that flew into Kilimanjaro in May, blames the mountain for jumping out at the plane from behind a cloud, as the crew were too slow to react in time due to not having supplementary oxygen even though flying at 14,500ft. 

 Letters

J. A. Kerrigan mistakenly believes that the Duke of Edinburgh is dressed wrong in one of his recent photos.  G. R. Jones, the General Sales Manager of the Oldsmobile Division of GM writes to point out that Oldsmobile is selling 4.5% of its cars with air conditioning so far this year compared with 2.6% last year, so what about the heat? C. G. Raymond gently corrects Newsweek. Bert Thomas of Tacoma swam the Strait of Juan de Fuca to Vancouver Island, specifically Victoria, and not the city. Newsweek excuses itself on the grounds that it thought that "Vancouver" was a perfectly acceptable abbreviation of "Vancouver Island." Several correspondents point out that a picture of Louise Allbriton appeared in Newsweek, and that she is a very attractive woman, and married to Charles Collingwood. Raymond Moster of the Audubon Society celebrates the departure of Secretary of the Army Robert T. Stevens, who tried to poach land from a wildlife refuge for an artillery range. For Your Information catches us up with Newsweek's particularly mistake-riddled August by telling us that its fact-checking researchers have access to a 13,000 volume library and70,000 clippings, and adds that the magazine has very tight deadlines, and get off Newsweek's back, okay!?

The Periscope reports that Stevenson's campaign might be in trouble in Illinois, that Selective Service call-ups will hold at 10,,000 a month through the late Fall and then rise to 15,000 because of the shortage of volunteers. Eisenhower's favourite trout stream is drying up because of diversions into Denver's municipal water supply. Everyone agrees that Donald Quarle is so smart and discreet that he's the perfect Air Force Secretary. The GOP is hopeful of taking the Kentucky governorship after Happy Chandler's surprise win in the Democratic primary. The President will be doing even less presidenting during this year's summer vacation. Arthur Burns and Gabriel Hauge can take credit for the money tightening. Lewis Strauss tried to keep U.S. fusion power research secret, but everybody else was being so indiscreet that he had to give way. Nehru and Tito are fighting. Moscow is wooing Tito again. Another sign of NATO's growing problems is that the British are relaxing conscription. The Russians might release thousands of German POWs ahead of Adenauer's visit. (The remaining POWs, you can learn from places that aren't Newsweek, are all war criminals convicted in Soviet courts.)  Maurice Thorez might name Francois Billoux or Laurent Casanova as his heirs apparent. Sir Anthony Eden wants a "parliament for NATO," while the actual Parliament thinks that he should try paying attention to Britain at some point, and that Rab Butler should be less interested. (It's a joke about hard money!) Western diplomats are trying to persuade the Russians to launch their satellite "as part of a multinational scientific effort," like the Americans. The fact that some Arab gun runners lied when they told British troops that they were running Soviet arms proves that Communism is awful. Where Are They Now reports that bank robber kidnap victim Edward G. Bremer is still working at his bank, and that H, Norman Schwarzkopf is semi-retired in New Jersey and has a son at West Point. 

The Periscope Washington Trends reports that the '56 election will be between Eisenhower and Stevenson, which must be news because it's in a  news magazine. (To give the editors as much credit as possible, this is framed in terms of Eisenhower being happier with Presidential life lately and willing to do the work.) 

National Affairs

"No Third Party, But--" Democrats are worried that they're going to lose what slim chance they have in '56 with another Dixiecrat run. Harold Talbot is very upset that people are making a big deal of a little bit of corruption. Hurricane Connie is very unladylike, but on the bright side the United States Weather Bureau received a radio facsimile of a weather radar scan of a hurricane for the first time. Airman Second Class Daniel Schmidt is definitely not taking his wife, Una, back. Not that she wants to go back to the former POW.  Congressional Republicans supported the President 94% of the time, compared with 70% for Congressional Democrats. The President signed 878 bills sent up from Congress, vetoed  11, and let one pass without his signature. Our eleven heroic USAF prisoner-flyers get a box story about how heroic they are. The Taft political family gets a two page story. Ernest K. Lindley uses Washington Tides to take up what looks like  two lines of editorial, the title gives him another three, and his by line looks like four, and that's how much he doesn't have to write about how, in international diplomacy right now, all signs point to check back in six months. Russia is doing diplomacy in the Middle East. Stay out of the Middle East! That's our subcontinent! The Red Army is being cut by 640,000 men, they say to reduce international tensions, but in fact because they need the manpower in civil society. The French Army is in the streets in Morocco, but the Moroccan independence party warns that the anger of "Morocco's 5 million Arabs" can't be contained much longer. the way that Newsweek reports it, anyway, is that the French are caught between their native collaborator, the Pasha of Marrakesh, and everyone else. The French have appointed a third resident general in two years, Gilbert Grandval, who is tasked with getting a regency in to give the French some distance from the inevitable decision to bring King Mohammed back and appease the right wingers who are threatening to bring Faure's government down if he "goes too far in appeasing the Moroccan nationalists," whatever that means.  There's also an update on the Saar. It turns out that Grandval is "iron-fisted" in the Saar and too conciliatory in Morocco! Princess Margaret might abdicate from being a princess to marry? The IRA raided an armory in Arborfield and came away with 55 Sten and 12[2!] Bren guns, so that's a worry. The commotion in Korea with Rhee trying to get rid of the Armistice Commission via staged protests gets another story. The French are launching a major excavation campaign at Angkor Thom, which is near Angkor Wat and lots of other places with the same first name which is very confusing. Don't be confusing, ancient Khmer! San Marino is still a story, because who can even bear a Communist government anywhere? Thomas Mann's latest, posthumous novel, is doing well, so because it is August, and because Mann died last week, it gets a story in International, instead of Books. Latin America, which has dictators and pretty ladies instead of authors, saw Prio Socarras return to Cuba with his wife to contest the next dictator election. They have those in Cuba, right? Colombia's dictator is disappointing those who thought that he was a good dictator when he took over dictating, because now it turns out that he is a bad dictator.  

Business

The Periscope Business Trends reports that too much cotton is a problem, leading to the question of trade with Russia, which is good again, but won't lead to clearing out the U.S. cotton surplus, because the Russians don't have the exports to pay for it, and the Russians won't be able to trade strategic goods, because that kind of trade is bad again. (Did you know that cotton is made into explosives? Of course you do!) The Guaranteed annual wage is not on the table in recent labour settlements, world-wide shipbuilding is up 10% over 1954, with 1,437on the slips or at least the order books, just 14 in the U.S. 

The insurance industry is very interested in the weather suddenly. Congress is fighting over the Business Advisory Council. Specifically, Emanuel Celler is bringing various eminences before his subcommittee to ask them whether they might be a bunch of cabalistic monopolists. It turns out that the correct response isn't "Why, you want a piece of the action, Congressman?" 

Products: What's New has a "skindiver's watch" from Elgin National, a backup alarm that can be installed in a car's trunk, by Sleetex Corporation, and central sound for homes, from Kodak, in the form of a speaker aimed into the air ducts. 

The "Chrysler Comeback" gets a story, and Henry Hazlitt discovers, I am gobsmacked to say, that the GOP is just as much a "New Deal Party" as the Democrats because the President wants to build highways, public housing, and the rest of the world, via foreign aid, and supports an increase in the minimum wage, and didn't push Dixon-Yates hard enough. 

Science, Medicine

"Towards Mastery of Hydrogen for Man's Work" Women's work is just fashion and stuff, and you never heard of atomic fashion, have you? Well, yes, bikinis. But besides that! Anyway, Newsweek finally takes on the agonisingly difficult job of summarising what happened in the order that it happened at almost the top of the article, instead of as the reward for reading a page of meandering prose poetry. I mean, it still took several paragraphs to get to the story, but they were spread around an entertaining Low cartoon, so I forgive it. The story is: Dr.. Homi Babha told the Conference that fusion power was twenty years away in his Presidential Address. Sir John Cockroft responded with a summary of British research, which has been going on, he said, for four years .The Russians replied that they have been working on it since last June. The Americans held their peace for three days, because while American work on fusion power is an open secret, a secret is a secret. Then, Lewis Strauss finally told the Conference that Americans are working on the problem,, too, but ducked details, saying only that there has been "progress" but no "breakthroughs."" From less elevated sources," it was learned that fusion research is going on at Liverpool under Teller and Harvard under Lyman Spitzer, and no doubt elsewhere, too. Newsweek goes on to give a short explanation of why fusion power matters, then notes that the whole discussion was a distraction from the intended topic of the Conference, which was atomic power from fission instead. The intended topics were given an airing. This included work on atomic accelerators of ever-increasing power for fundamental research, the U.S. citation of prices for uranium, heavy water and even complete reactors (which was on the American agenda, if no-one else's), the possibilities of thorium reactors, which came up in the context of breeder reactors, which are operating on the uranium/plutonium line right now, but could be used to turn thorium into uranium and then into power, at some point in the future. On the one hand, thorium is much more abundant in the world than uranium. On the other, the British announced that their experimental breeder reactor produces two units of  power for every unit of power consumed, suggesting that a commercial breeder reactor isn't that far off.   Finally the Russians were a bit nonplussed by the way that the Conference tended to degenerate into an atomic bazaar, and the Americans by the fact that the British were making all the sales, as "a matter of national survival," said one British engineering executive, because coal prices are so high there.There was also a discussion of atomic reactor accidents and the atomic waste problem.

"The Dark Polio News" It looks like it will be a bad polio year on the basis of regional trends running ahead of 1949, the previous worst year. Fortunately, the vaccine campaign is going well. 

"Cooling and Deductible" No, it is not about the dependent deduction. The IRS has decided that air conditioners are deductible for people with heart conditions. For other medical news, Clara A, Hackett has Relax and See, which describes his institute's eye exercises to correct presbyopia and myopia. So-called truth serum, Dr. John Macdonald, a consulting psychiatrist to the District Courts of Colorad, is not actually a truth serum. Dr. Nathan W. Schock of the U.S. Public Health Service says taht stanalone, a derivative of testosterone, is "a useful treatment of some older people," which is a very partial confirmation of the old "transplant monkey testes" quacks. 

Germany's universities are modern these days now that it's now. 

Press, TV-Radio, Arts, Newsmakers

Even though Edgar Guest, he still writes opinion columns for the Detroit Free Press. I guess I know where to go for my "Kids these days" columns! Knight is investing in the Chicago Daily News, Alfred Toombs has been writing a novel since he was blackballed from the Washington press corps (I speculate, based on the fact that he's 42 and editing a weekly in the deep Virginia countryside suddenly.) Speaking of dubious journalists, Periscoping the Press reports that the Russians are soliciting American news bureaus for Moscow, and that the odiously familiar William F. Buckley is a week from launching his National Weekly and is still a hundred grand short of the finance he needs. I guess Franco just doesn't have that much money. Wouldn't it be a hoot if his KGB handler kicked in the money on the grounds that whatever gets Buckley's opinions more circulation in the United States is bad for America and good for Soviet Russia?  (And if there are any prying eyes that might intercept this package and break our code, you should know that the Fort Rupert boy who was blackmailing Buckley has cut off his family and moved to Victoria and is very happy.) 

Al Morgan's The Great Man is admittedly a novel, but it's about a radio/TV commentator, who turns out to be horrible when he dies. "Ha ha," says Newsweek, "You TV people turn out to be terrible!" Gino Prato is doing very well in his run on $64,000 Question."

Newsweek skips the plastic arts this week. 

Vice-President Nixon and the family went to Disneyland on vacation. Diego Rivera, Barbara Hutton, John Foster Dulles, and Marlon Brando are in the column for the usual reasons, but even celebrity and royal gossip seems in short supply this month, so much of the column is Americana-type stuff. An elephant trainer who was arrested for stealing a car after discussing his job on the radio, some high school students pranking their teacher, that sort of thing. Antenor Patino is divorcing. John E. Peurifoy, the United States Ambassador to Thailand, has died in a head on auto collision. Frank Seiberling, Dr. Robert Williams Wood, Andrew B. Sterling, Thomas Jeeves, Baron Horder (which is a real name!), and, of course, Thomas Mann, have also died. 

Movies is not exactly New Films, but has reviews of The Divided Heart, a German documentary released through Rank about a difficult child custody case, The Phenix City Story, another documentary, from Allied, about a notoriously corrupt city in Alabama, and a comedy from Universal-International, The Private War of Major Benson, and The Virgin Queen, a Fox picture featuring Bette Davis, lured out of retirement to play Good Queen Bess for Fox. It's not very good. 

Books

Robert Penn Warren has a historic novel about the harrowing case of Amantha Starr, the daughter of a Kentucky planter who discovered on his father's graveside that she was the daughter of one of his slaves, and was promptly sold down the river, launching a meditation on "hidden motives and dark secrets." Jean Bloch-Michel's the Flight Into Egypt is a war novel featuring a refugee family. Sloan Wilson's The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit is a disturbing book that implies that being in business isn't necessarily all that good. Alan Harding's The Revelations of Dr. Modesto is a satire or something. Periscoping Books just retypes upcoming books release, and isn't very interesting. Raymond Moley is happy that the Echo Park dam has been turned down.

 

Letters

C. A. John and Cecilia Lowry are yet more careless readers who thought he caught Newsweek out in a mistake. John Murley points out that cricket is, in fact, a man's sport. Charles Campbell does find a mistake, as does Cyril Bassett of Toronto. Two clergymen take opposite stands on the vexed question of whether all vulgar subjects should be banished from stage and screen. For Your Information introduces the odious Arnaud de Borchgrave as Senior Foreign Editor. 

Walter Ulbricht did not in any shape or form disappear in 1955, but let's
appreciate that facial hair, anyway!

The Periscope reports that Americans are crossing the Canadian border to be vaccinated for polio. It is supposed that if people are talking about fusion power, medium-sized nations will have fusion bomb arsenals over night. Adenauer may offer heavy machinery to the Russians as a trade ace-in-the-hole. Randolph Churchill will not run for  his father's seat. Soviet goods will not be shown at the Leipzig Trade fair. The mysterious disappearance of Walter Ulbricht presages a gentler East German government. Russian work towards reaching the moon are accelerating, and they are working on an atomic engine with greater power than rocket engines. Field Marshal Papagos might be dying. Premier Hatoyama is pushing for UN recognition and a peace treaty with Russia to bolster his government. "Despite high-sounding Red talk about equality," the tree Coloured men among the remaining 17 "turncoat GIs" are segregated. Intelligence officials believe that the Chinese and Yugoslavs are moving closer together, that the area of Bulgaria where that Israeli airliner was shot down might contain secret uranium mines. Eisenhower wants a balanced budget, is giving Rhee some F-86s so he will quite down, and has declined to receive that Russian farm delegation at the Summer White House. Estes Kefauver is also in trouble in the race for the nomination in his home state. The Air Force is ahead on recruiting, the Navy is launching balloons from ships in the Atlantic, which will probably lead to UFO sightings, Harold Stassen is heading the President's disarmament initiative, and orders for U.S. jetliners have hit 150, a billion-dollar business. Where Are They Now looks up Billy Bishop, who is very old and retired, and lives in Montreal, here's a few lines about his wartime fame. Lord Lovat is also semi-retired. Here's a few lines about his wartime fame. These are not very interesting vignettes! 

The Periscope Washington Trends reports that it will be "open season for Congressional investigations" soon, with McCarthyism a particularly ripe target for resurgent Democratic committee members looking to make a name. Also, farm income is down 30% since the war, and look for the Democrats to make hay over that!
 

National Affairs

"Feuding Among Our Red Visitors" It's been a while since the lead article in National Affairs was news, as opposed to chewing over politics. That's because the Soviet farm delegation, which is winding up its 10,000 mile tour through the United States, is visibly sick and tired of each other, and feuding in public. Then it's back to normal, with a dissection of a Gallup poll showing that most Americans don't see the President as a partisan politician, and then another story about the President playing cwith his grandson, who is visiting in Denver. In breaking news, Harry Truman is still around. HUAC is in New York searching out Communists infiltrating the theatre, as you know they're like to do. Sergeant James Gallagher has been convicted of mistreating and even murdering fellow prisoners of war as a trustee in a POW camp in Korea. A new Code of Conduct for PWs has been issued by the Armed Forces to address these sorts of questions. Hurricane Diane was so bad that Newsweek pulls out all the stops and calls it a divorcee. 

A Circuit Judge in Florida is mysteriously missing 

along with his wife. Admiral Burke's induction as Chief of Naval Operations was driven indoors by hurricane weather.

"Dent in the Boom?" Newsweek investigates falling farm income, and Ernest K. Lindley ventures into Russian studies by asking what might be "The Avid Test of Red Intent." The Soviet proposal is for inspection of ports, railway junctions, and so on, which seems to focus on giving the West assurances that there won't be a sudden Red offensive in Europe, which is dismissed as less important than information about "the danger of atomic devastation." Restricting the size of Red and American armed strength to  1.5 million each is besides the point. Absurdly, Newsweek's diplomatic correspondent, Edward Weintal, rehashes the subject in his own boxed feature in International. To be fair, he focusses on the Russian position that it will relax control over its satellites and the dependent soviet republics if American troops withdraw from Europe, but it's still opinion, not news!

I'm bewildered. Wasn't the whole point of Western rearmament the threat of a Red steamroller? Peron is still holding on. 

International

"French Morocco: After the Slaughter?" The massacre of "50 to 100 French and other Europeans" at Oued Zem ought to be met by "repressive measures of the greatest energy," say nationalists in Paris. There has also been violence around Casablanca, and in Algeria, bringing the death toll to "both nationalists and Europeans" to "at least 600." Newsweek then takes a break from the race war rhetoric to point out that the cause of all of this is the disastrous French decision to depose the King, and that the obvious solution, bringing back the King and getting out of Morocco, is being held up by the French right wing, and not, of course, the Moroccan nationalists. The Russians are continuing their peace offensive with this gesture and that. John Foster Dulles says that the Russian armed force reductions are all very well, but who knows how many men the Reds have under arms, anyway? The Red Chinese continue to purge each other. Indian nationalists are invading Goa again, Egypt is squabbling with Sudan., and Peron is still holding on. 

Business

The Periscope Business Trends reports that inflation will moderate in the next twelve months because commodity prices are cooling off. Guaranteed Annual Wage clauses continue to be off the table as settlements continue, there is an oil rush in Alabama, the Air Force is testing their Ryan VTOL, Sears. Roebuck is entering the Australian market.

The lead story in Business wonders if the uranium boom might be a bubble, as see the news about fusion form Geneva. The Periscope hot bit about the rush for jetliners gets some concrete data to go with it. National has ordered 6 DC-8s, and United will order 25 jetliners later this year, and it is between Boeing and Douglas, so make them an offer! Capital is still buying 60 Viscounts, making them the biggest turbo(-prop) customer so far, although American is ordering 35 Electras. Chrysler's New York show is something, and GM is in a tizzy over someone who almost got away with shipping 500 Chevrolets to Bulgaria, since trade with the Reds is bad now. American bicycle manufacturers propose to welcome in the new protective tariff by doing nothing and reaping higher profits. Products (No What's New) reports an automatic braking system based on a radar antenna in the front of the car that triggers the brakes automatically when a car in front slows down. Carl Rashid, the Detroit engineer behind the invention, hopes it will retail at $225 and that it will be available soon. Another new product is a waterproof camera case for underwater photography from W. J. Voit Rubber of New York. Henry Hazlitt uses Business Tides to complain about easy money. Which, he explains, is due to low interet rates and not anything else whatsoever. 

Science, Education

"Worst Weather Ever: Science Has No Ready Answer, But It Might Be" Heatwave, two onshore hurricanes, and to add to that the soggiest summer in the Northwest in years makes for possibly the worst weather ever. The Northeast and Midwest heat wave feeds theories about summers getting hotter. "Millions of Americans last week were dead sure that their weather had abandoned its traditional patterns. Meteorologists were dead sure it hadn't." Dr. Hurd C. Willett of MIT has a theory about a forty year cooling and moistening trend in the northern states, beginning right now. Other weather scientists think he's a crackpot. Hurricane frequency is up, though, and in good news, we are getting better at tracking them. Jerome Namias thinks he can pick out single-year trends based on fluctuations in the jet stream, and says we might be in for a few more onshore hurricane hitting the lower South. Gordon Dunn, the nation's foremost hurricane predicter, it says here, gets a box story. 

"The Debatable Loaf" Dr. R. A. McCance and E. M. Widdowson, in very controversial research from Cambridge, find that children grow no better on whole-wheat bread than on unenriched white. They point out that people have had odd ideas about bread for a very long time, and fearlessly predict that their research will be completely ignored, but insist that it is true, nevertheless. Says the first nutrionist Newsweek could reach, Dr. Carlton Frederick, "Sputter, sputter!" The Defence Department is still having trouble recruiting doctors. 

American educators are gathering in Yale to push more Shakespeare into the American classroom, and Barnaby Keeney is taking medieval history to the peak of American education by becoming the president of BROWN!!!! (Yes, that's sarcasm, I apologise! Silly, silly Newsweek.) 

Art, Press, TV-Radio, Newsmakers

Clare Boothe Luce is an artist now. She does not have a show, like most artists who get a story in Art, but three of her paintings are being exhibited in a collection, and, well, she's Clare Boothe Luce. Periscoping the Arts reports that Porgy and Bess might play Moscow if the Reds are nice, that the Polish government has agreed to the creation of a State Jazz Orchestra, and that Anita Loos and Charles MacArthur are collaborating on a play, while a Morris Graves exhibit may tour in Japan and India soon. 

Carl Estes is a newspaper publisher in Texas, and newsprint restrictions on the British press are removed as of immediately. 

CBS is definitely opening a bureau in Moscow, Jack Benny is retiring because he is old and because no-one listens to the radio any more, and Periscoping Radio-TV reports that Laurel and Hardy are going on TV now, Lassie is getting a colt and a beagle hound for comic relief this summer, and "Retire for Life with Eddie Cantor" might be NBC's answer to $64,000 Question. 

Diego Rivera, Kirk Douglas, Alicia Patterson, Dr. Rudolph Max, Billy Sunday, Bernard Baruch, Ellen Borden Stevenson, and Hjalmar Schacht are in the column for the usual reasons, even though Sunday is dead.  Patricia Ann Priest is married, General Romulo has been honoured, Clement Attlee, John Dickson Carr, and Bing Crosby's son, Philip, are recovering from thrombosis, an accidental drug overdose, and a car accident, respectively. Alan Devoe, Lemuel Ayers, Harry Palmer, Edward Smythe, and Herbert Putnam have died. 

Books has an enormously long feature on Robert Ruark, moved in from the back cover. Life and Leisure lands close to stuff we're interested in here by looking at the de luxe Wagons-Lit cars that American tourists might take on the European rails this summer. They're still pretty old-fashioned. 

Raymond Moley takes a victory lap over Hells Canyon. American conservatives sure love not building stuff! And getting the taxpayer to pay for what is built without owning it. 

(If you thought that that was a lot about $64,000 Question, wait 'till September!)

Flight, 26 August 1955

Leaders 

"A Commonwealth Year" It's been a year since the last special issue of Flight on Commonwealth aviation, so here's another one even though not much has happened. 

"Variations on a Theme" The British Lockheed Aerobatics Competition is impossible to judge because all the different planes made basically the same manoeuvres so the question is whether it is tougher to do a loop-the-loop in a Meteor than a Spad. Or something like that. 

From All Quarters reports that a Canberra PR7 flew the Atlantic the other day, so that's a thing they can do. The Conway has passed type testing. Rolls Royce representatives dwell on how quiet it is. Henry Wiggin informs us that its new Nimonic 100 is even better than Nimonic 99 1/2. Douglas Aircraft wants us to know that its new, downward-firing ejection seat isn't as dumb as it sounds. Now that the Americans have finally thrown in the towel on VOR and accepted TACAN, the Ministry of Supply feels it appropriate to describe the standards to which its TACAN equipment is being built by Standard Telephone and Telegraph. Rolls Royce is licensing a North American rocket engine, Wily Messerschmitt is working on a jet trainer for the Spanish, the Beverley we're sending to Africa for tropical testing that's getting all the press for no reason whatsoever is pretty neat, and a new edition of the late G. Geoffrey Smith's Gas Turbines is out. I couldn't find an obituary for G. Geoffrey at Notre Dame Library! Admittedly it's a small collection, but I still wonder how much anyone missed the poor man when he went. 

Here and There has news of helicopters flying over the American flooding, and that's pretty much it. Civil Aviation reports that BEA made a profit, that Australian Viscounts are doing well, that Silver City's air ferry to Belfast is "booming," that 97,000 American tourists, or almost half, flew to Britain in 1954, and that the third production Britannia will be doing route proving. Convair's jetliuner will look a lot like the DC-8 and 707, and National may be ordering the DC-8. There's a story about the Coventry Air Show, and then on to the Commonwealth, which gets full coverage in spite of, as the Leader says, not much happening i the last year, so that it would probably be better to run special commonwealth numbers every seven years, which I didn't mention above because the idea was introduced in the framework of a"dog years," and the point wasn't very well made! Also, I don't mind special features that don't say anything, because I'm lazy and there's only so many advertorials I can take! 

This would have been a strange place to live, back in the day

"Salvage from an Ice-Floe" A DC-4 which had to land on an ice floe on its way back to its base in New Jersey (Everybody lived, so it's okay to joke about this!) has now been salvaged. If you were wondering, it was in United States Overseas Airline livery, and ran out of gas. Also from Canada, news that components for the northern radar chain are being flown it, as opposed to those amazing but impractical diesel land trains or romantic dog sleds. (I'm adding the trains and dog teams in because the bald story is such a waste of space!) Then it's off to Australia, from dog teams to a place called "Woomera."