Postblogging Technology, October 1955, II: Boom boom!

According to  Reddit User WeirdWings, this is the  Bartini A-57, a supersonic V/STOL delta
wing flying boat nuclear bomber, with a supersonic recon plane piggyback. "It was never put 
into production" says Wikipedia, which proceeds to speculate on why it was cancelled in 1957.

R_.C_.,
Shaughnessy,
Vancouver,
Canada




Dear Father:

With this one you find me back to work, in the office, and missing my children, whom I got to see a lot more when I was running around the Santa Clara Valley. As exciting as making sure you aren't followed on the way to a secret rendezvous and passing coded messages is, it was not to be. The young men who want to leave Dr. Schockley's employ have neither a patent case nor money, and there's not very many of them. We might be able to turn around the money. There are investors out there, but Shockley will have to get a lot worse for the rebellion to spread across the office, and, I don't know, tell them he doesn't want their work. It is hard to believe any of that is going to happen. 

Your son, if he hasn't written you separately, is settling into squadron life again. As he says, being in charge of planes at least means that he doesn't have to be in Washington championing the SeaMaster. He will be back in town next weekend, and we will go see Oklahoma!

Your Loving Daughter,

Ronnie

Letters

Harry Wright is upset that the United States exports movies like The Blackboard Jungle that portray the country in a bad light. Foreigners will get the wrong impression! Mrs. Edward Frisch of Brooklyn writes to correct Newsweek's description of Chicago's stockyards as "odoriferous," which, per Webster's, means that they smell good. The Chicago stock yards do not, in fact, smell good, as Newsweek correctly points out.  Jerry Winters of Silver Spring, Md, points out that Newsweek overrates Notre Dame football just a bit, but on the other hand Harry Gray of New York City extends Newsweek's list of old Notre Dame players who got cushy business jobs later. Herb Stein of Oak Ridge and Kenneth Canie of Louisiana point out that school or state college systems in their towns or states are desegregated, so it is possible. High school freshman Alex Pirie, of Penscook, New Hampshire, write to point out that it is rot that he and his lads are soft, because they all play sports and would prefer to be "weak Americans with a high standard of living, than a brainless but brawny European, anyway(!)" 

Robert B. Ruthman writes in to point out that high school girls are just as soft as boys. Caroline Bentsen of some place in Nebraska quotes Louis Bromfield to the effect that any foreign-born worker is worth three Americans, while Herbert Bursey points out that American athletes are better, Helen Frank says that boys should not exercise in case they are drafted and "sacrificed on the altars of Mars," Edward Carlin points out that we  need smart soldiers, not strong ones, and, at the end, a lone voice of reason, as Joanna Beardsley points out that the whole thing is rubbish. Boys are boys. (But no word about girls, sorry, Mr. Ruthman!) Several people write in to point out that if they started with that eight hour house at 8 and finished at 3, it was actually a 7 hour house. And while eight builders can do a lot of work, the experience of that three-day Liberty ship makes me think that I would rather not have an eight hour house! For Your Information highlights all the articles about "the Great American Boom" it has run lately. That boom sure is booming. So there, Communist Russian economists with your predictions of a crisis of capitalism! 

The Periscope reports that  Kefauver will be the first to announce that he is running in '56, ahead of Stevenson. The President may make his first public appearance on 28 November. The Air Force is getting ready to fight the Navy over the SeaMaster, which is likely to be the first atomic powered plane, because they want to have the first atomic plane, instead. Marshal Bulganin's "clever letter to President Eisenhower about disarmament" was an evil Communist plot, says "indications." Stevenson's lukewarm endorsement of the Democratic farm plan will hurt him in the election. The Navy is going to put an experimental reactor into one of the supercarriers now under construction. Senator Humphrey and Secretary Wilson aren't fighting! Don't write that they're fighting! Carmine DeSapio is working on Harriman's campaign. British security is lax, it is said based on a recent incident. Marshal Tito has stopped supporting anti-Red guerillas in Albania, and will send a military delegation to Egypt to train Egyptians with their Russian and Czech arms. WWII-era Japanese generals and admirals are advising the defence secretary, and  that means that a new Japanese military government is practically just around the corner. Australia might have a snap general election. Yugoslavia might be elected to the Security Council over Poland and the Philippines. The latest country to be disappointed by the refusal of an American loan is Turkey. Where Are They Now catches up with Bonnie Baker, who is a housewife, and Orrin Tucker, who is still in the grind.

Andrew Sisters re-enactors, because Youtube doesn't know that it was  Bonnie Baker's hit. Or that the Andrews Sisters didn't have a backing band, because Caesar Petrillo was fighting for residual rights, and yet somehow isn't the patron saint of the modern entertainment industry.

The Periscope Washington Trends reports if Eisenhower is out, so is Benson, since without Eisenhower on the ticket, the Republicans cannot carry Benson's Farm Belt unpopularity, and that farm price support might damage Stevenson, too. 

National Affairs

"Prospect: The Longest Campaign" It doesn't say here that the Presidential election campaign has always begun the day after the midterms. On the contrary, says here that before the President's heart attack, everyone thought that it would be the shortest campaign ever, but now, while Mike Mansfield says that you can't count Ike out, on the other hand Malcolm Forbes says that he is certain that Ike won't run, and that it would be the worst thing the GOP could do for Ike or the country to act like he can or should run. So what that boils down to is, if you agree with Forbes and not Mansfield, that the Republican nomination is open, and there is renewed interest in the Democratic nomination, and that's why the top Democratic candidates are already on the move. And meanwhile in Denver everyone's saying that Sherman Adams is just the chief of staff, and not the shadow president. Four pages in we get a look at the various dark horses, namely six governors who might have been bitten by the Presidential itch. (Herter, Stratton, and Craig for the GOP; Leader, Clement, and Williams for the Democrats. And then there's Earl Warren, looking distinguished and, unfortunately, old, in the inset box feature. 

Norfolk and Kalven both have Wikipedia articles. Neither mention these episodes.

It turns out that when Professor Harry Kalven of U of Chicago Law got a $400,000 grant from the Ford Foundation to study how juries work by secretly taping them, he should have made sure that he could operate the tape machine without asking the department secretaries to work it for him, as he's now in trouble right up and down the justice system. (And well he should be!) The USN has announced that, in the wake of underway failure of Norfolk's outboard propeller shaft, it is replacing same
on fifteen of its newest ships (six destroyers, five frigates, Norfolk, and the supercarriers under construction.)

Newsweek's coverage of the UAL DC-4 crash gets into a bit more colourful detail about the body recovery effort, apparently a heroic bit of mountaineering. Senator Malone is back from Russia and says that he has no problem with the Russian leadership, as they are tough men who "won't do a thing unless it is in the interest of Russia," and also that it is silly to think that Russia is ripe for revolt and that "we should forget about Europe, stop all foreign aid to Europe, get rid of our national debt, and build up our strength for a possible third world war." He also says that Khrushchev isn't an alcoholic because he doesn't drink any more than Malone. Gee. Forget about cultivating New York progressives. It sounds like Nevada conservatives are the best friends Moscow ever had! Thubten Gigme Norbu, the older brother of the Dalai Lama and the "Tagster Lama," as Newsweek renders it, has arrived in New York intending to give up the incarnate Boddhisvata gig in favour of U.S. citizenship. 

Ernest K. Lindley uses Washington Tides to celebrate "The End of Sniping," by which he means that Democrats have to stop saying mean things about Ike because he's sick and also because it's pointless because he won't be running. The IRS has decided that donations to Clarence Manion's For America foundation don't qualify as tax deductions, as "combat[ing] super-internationalism, one-worldism, and Communism" counts as political advocacy. 

International

I don't know if you've heard, but France is having a crisis. Besides the politics, there have been three mutinies by Morocco-bound conscripts in the last month; which, on top of rioting in North Africa by "irresponsible colons," has at least helped the Assembly accept reality. Newsweek continues with some colourful prose about the fighting in North Africa, which is fierce in the Rift, getting hotter in Morocco, and less so in Algeria, which is the next touchpoint. North African nationalists broadcasting from Egypt and, perhaps, infiltrating from Spanish territory, are pushing the idea of a unified North African resistance. Newsweek also covers France's withdrawal from the UN, which France blames on the United States, and more specifically, Ambassador Lodge, for not twisting arms in the Latin American and Philippine delegations more effectively. According to the UN, the French are just boycotting the General Assembly in the same way that Russia boycotted the Security Council in 1950, ,not exactly a  happy precedent for the French. Taking the Algerian vote together with the Assembly vote on the Dutch claim to west New Guinea, "every country with territory outside its metropolitan boundaries" has grounds to be concerned. We go on to review the doleful collapse of NATO's rearmament drive with the French withdrawing three divisions from Europe, German recruiting down to 721 men per week, the recent British announcement of a 100,000 man cut over three years, and whatever is going on in the Aegean, and, on top of that, pressure for cuts in defence spending in many NATO countries.  

Molotov is said to on the way out again, and George Karamanlis is replacing the late Field-Marshal Papagos. Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister says tht there is no reason the Kingdom shouldn't make its own deal for East Bloc weapons, and Syria and Lebanon are said to be in the market, too. Pressed to justify their decisions, the Egyptians have produced  documents said to be sourced to French and British intelligence listing Western arms deals with Israel and reporting (this is the British document, which has been acknowledged by the British) that Israel, and not Egypt, is the main threat to peace in the Middle East. The dispute over the oil rich oasis of Buraimi, which might be on the border of Saudi Arabia and Dubai, if there were any such thing, continues. Sheikh Abdel Basset Abdel Samad, the man who chants the Koran on Cairo Radio, is quite the star in the Middle East, and is now the object of a breach of promise suit by a Syrian woman. Western authorities have decided to be alarmed about Indonesia now after the Nationalist Party won too many votes in the recent national elections, as it is too Communist. 

'Abdul Basit 'Abd us-Samad

The Queen of Greece gets a special report with the title, "The Job European Women Do." I had the most distinct impression that most European women weren't queens. Maybe I just ran in the wrong circles? To make its point clearer, the article spent most of its time talking about other glamorous women. In Latin America there is somehow still news even though Peron is gone. Mexico has had a hurricane and Brazil still doesn't have Vargas, leading all to wonder if the most prominent left wing candidate in the elections might be another Peron in disguise.
 

Business

The Periscope Business Trends reports that the boom is booming, that tax cuts are a good bet, that the railroads' new electronic ticket reservation systems are the cat's meow, and raises for everybody! (Except the CIO affiliated workers at the Perfect Circle Corporation factory in New Castle, Indiana, where the National Guard has been called out because of picket line violence.) And Britain's new commercial television network won't sell advertising on morning shows directed at housewives, whom they believe to be too busy to watch. 

The lead business story is Arthur Burns, a normally cautious member of the Council of Economic Advisors, confirming that the boom is real. The next notes American Presidential Line's announced fleet replacement building programme, which will surely turn the American shipbuilding industry around. 

"Another Peek" I. K. Kozuilia, the Soviet Minister of Urban Construction, is leading a fact finding tour of Soviet homebuilders in the United States and has some sharp criticisms of overly small lot sizes for individual homes, the bulldozing of trees, the prevalence of human hod carriers, and all the protests and picket lines the delegation has run into. On the other hand, he wishes the new Soviet homes were as big as American. 

"'Vehicle' For Space" The Navy has let the first contracts for its Vanguard satellite. To Glenn L. Martin. Uh-oh! Vanguard will be a three stage rocket, and, including the basketball-sized satellite itself, will cost $10 million. 

"What Goes at Hughes" Howard Hughes has emerged from wherever he was hiding to conduct a press tour of the Hughes factory in L.A., featuring at least superficial viewings of "airborne digital computers," and microwave devices. Hughes promised reporters an electronic guidance system that flies a plane from takeoff to touchdown, communicates with the ground, and shoots down enemy planes, and reports that Hughes has an annual turnover of $200 million on defence contracts and a back order list of the same magnitude. 

Products: What's New reports a new line of car tires from U.S. Rubber with high strength steel added to the textile cords. Underwood has a typewriter-sized prompter for speech giving, and for some reason NCR's new "packaged book-keeper" needs a mention instead of yet another ad. There have been some changes at the World Bank. 

Henry Hazlitt uses Business Tides to point out that the Constitution was written by a monkey. Which is true, and it is a very good idea to get a monkey-level writer to bang one out on the subject and suggest that Congress do something about it, and it is very Henry Hazlitt-like him to suggest that the "something" should be to make Richard Nixon Acting President. but what is it doing in Business? 

Science, Education

Dr. Kenneth Davidson, a New York-based hydrodynamicist with a model towing tank for designing racing yachts and Navy (and Air Force) boats, and more recently the USS Albacore gets a Science story, because the SeaMaster is quite the story from both the hydrodynamics and "Battle of the Pentagon" angle. 

On the basis of counting engineers in Who's Who in Engineering, Dr. Charles J. Baer of the University of Kansas concludes that the United States' leading engineering universities are MIT, Michigan, Cornell, Purdue, Illinois, Wisconsin, California, Ohio State, Kansas, and Minnesota. 

This was the joke behind "Adrian Molseworthy." Somebody should have told me!

Sloan Wilson (The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit) is raining all over the National Merit Scholarship's announcement of 350 scholarships on the grounds that while the colleges need money, they don't need it like this. Meanwhile four tax exempt foundations (did you know that there is one for Cordell Hull?) gave money to this or that school or worthy educational cause, and the US government is going to give out educational deferments to students with at least a 70% average. Also in education, Ronald Searle's latest Molesworth is as funny as the last one. Public schools sure are odd! 

TV-Radio, Press, Newsmakers

Isn't funny the way that anything Arthur Godfrey does, generates yet more rumours. Why, take a little thing like disappearing from the air for a full week. People are reading things into it like CBS being upset at him! Arthur himself says that it is just one of those wacky things that happens now and then. And why should we doubt him? Periscoping TV-Radio reports that Captain Dick McCutchin of $64,000 Question fame, is writing a cookbook, that Doris Day is going to promote swimsuits, and that Captain Kangaroo outdraws NBC's Today.  

The Duchess of Windsor is fighting with the man she commissioned to write her biography, which is a major story for reasons I'm sure you don't care about.  Paris has too many papers already, and now there's another one, which is definitely news, because it is l'Express, the weekly (originally) that boosted Mendes-France.  The latest Social List of Washington has some scandals in it, but not as many as it could have. 

Estes Kefauver is putting on funny hats while touring the world, specifically India, guaranteeing a Presidential run. Ted Peckham, Charles Patterson, Orson Welles, the Aga Khan, Bertrand Russell, and Greta Garbo are in the column for the usual reason, and Westbrook Pegler for saying something even more horrid than what he usually says, although Peckham gives him a run with his current line evaluating the "cads of Europe," because everyone is ignoring his book about running an escort service in New York so that it will go away. 

Life and Leisure has a story about rich ocean sport fishers who go to foreign countries to catch exotic fish, and one about the New York Historical Society's new exhibit on American hotels, which is a worldwide story from one end of Manhattan to the other!

Books

Otto Dietrich's personal account, Hitler, gets a very long review because Hitler is fascinating these days. Also, it's the same week that we need to run the review of A. J. P. Taylor's Bismarck, and that will get eyebrows rising! Norman Mailer's The Deer Park inaugurates a new era in Mailer's life and writing where he is depressed, as all good highbrow authors should be. Periscoping Books reports that Dean Acheson, Joyce Cary, and John Masters have books coming out. Raymond Moley covers off for Henry Hazlitt by writing about how the Department of Defence is still fighting with Congress over how many contracts it gives small business.

Pan Am's jetliner order understandably heads the issue. I'm doing this out of order and cannot quite remember which issue of Newsweek covered this, but I'm not doing it again! You obviously don't need specific details of these much publicised aircraft or their J79 engines. News Digest notes another North American Fury grounding over unreliability of its Wright J65 engine, Convair talking turboprops again, this time with Canadair, as both are now GM subsidiaries, a helicopter autopilot from Sperry, and a prototype Saab delta-wing fighter to fly soon. Industry Observer reports a rocket plane contract for North American, the cancellation of contracts for the Wright J67, tests of the French SS10 surface-to-air missile, more record attempts by modified Canberras with Avon engines, news that new Royal Navy carrier aircraft won't be able to operate from the light carriers due to weight limitations, details of the unique push-rod aileron control system in the Victor's thin wing, more orders for the J79 and General Mills' "Skyhook" balloons. Washington Roundup reports thoughts from the Pentagon, including that economy should not get in the way of air power, that sea planes have no future, even SeaMasters, unless atom-powered that the Army still isn't allowed planes, and that Air Force experts are off to clear sheep off the airfields in New Zealand in preparation for IGY. (That  isn't what the story says AT ALL, but it is  New Zealand, so a sheep joke is mandatory!!!) 

"Illusion of speed" LOL

Aviation Week reports that the Army is giving industry its secret mobilisation plans so that it will know what is up when it applies for contracts, which is a development, and that there is going to be a major trial of TACAN out of Boston Airport to see what it takes to integrate military and civil air control with said system. ADC is getting its first Falcon air-to-air missiles, and Hughes is "stepping up" (having some!) production. Another DC6 crash has been blamed on unintended prop reversal, Senator Johnson had some rare words for top defence contractors, and Congress is  having a look-see at the effects of automation. The National Business Aircraft Association is looking at investing in business plane development, which seems ridiculous to me. There's a lot in here about defence contract award issues, of course, and Hawaii Airlines is looking at the Fokker turboprop to replace its DC3s. The Air Force is trying to speed up training, kind of like I'm speeding up my Aviation Week coverage. It's to make it better! I swear!

David Anderton reports for Aeronautical Engineering that "Gnat Wages Uphill Battle for Acceptance" Dear dreamers: No-one wants a cheap fighter, because everything else is still expensive and putting a cheap fighter at the point of the spear ISN'T COST EFFECTIVE! Goodness. But if people won't stop talking up seaplanes and zeppelins, I guess we must live in a world where people are determined not to learn from experience, and what can you do?

"Rolls-Royce's Pearson Reviews Jet Engine Development Problem" The problem with het engine development is that lots of American engineering firms are run by idiots, but Pearson kindly adds that lack of user input is an issue, too. One advertorial deserves another, so next we hear about N-155, a miracle high-temperature nickel alloy from Wright, while Electronics Corporation's "Fireeye" detector is quick enough to detect a rogue fire in an underwing rocket engine and eject the missile before it burns through the wing, which can happen very, very quickly. (And is another of those problems they have in the air that never get mentioned until someone claims to have solved it. Just think of all those WWII fighters winging out with an underwing rack of mass-produced wartime rockets, and no jettison system at all!) The Navy has a new engine testing facility, Willow Run's airfield is getting an embedded wire mesh to extend tarmac life. Philip Klass reports for Avionics about GE's new 6BY4 high temperature receiving tube, which is aimed at the television market but, in later modifications, will be good in avionics. It uses lots of titanium, so this is kind of a breakthrough in factory titanium machining, or whatever process GE uses to make the tube parts. The Radio Technical Commission has a report out about this and that avionic improvement in air traffic control to make us all feel better about the box story, which is about how somehow we're STILL arguing about Tacan. (It hasn't been absolutely proved to be adequate to all contingencies so maybe we should go ahead with Omnirange in case someone likes something lighter.) 

New Avionics Products has various switching devices, power supplies, meters, and silicon rectifiers for a brief moment of something modern. I mean, not that we won't need physical circuit elements for a long time into the bright, silicon chip future, but it does get boring after awhile. New Aviation Products follows with various pumps, and, again, motors. Aviation Safety has a summary of the CAB report on the January Des Moines UAL crash involving a Convair 340, which it blames on a shop error in which a servo tab was reinserted incorrectly. What's New "reviews" nine bulletins and the like and notes another four, including two monographs. Captain Robson's column this month is a bit to wrap your head around. I think he thinks that we're too hard on pilots, and pilots are too hard on themselves, mainly leading to excessive risks to make their schedules, which is very timely! Editorial this week is a bit of blather about how the industry is growing and needs to pat itself on the back more. 

Letters

Horace B. English (Ohio State) Walter G. Wells (California) and H. B. Gilbert (Ontario) have very different but equally telling reasons for thinking that Newsweek is full of it. They're not very consequential transgressions, but they're all in the same Letters, which makes it look like a readers' revolt. Elsa Jedel liked the explainer about heart disease, John Minor Wisdom, the chairman of the RNC, writes to correct Newsweek's erroneous summary of his comments about Eisenhower and the second term. (Wisdom prefers a sick Eisenhower to a well Democrat now, but that doesn't mean that he endorses a sick Eisenhower running in '56.) People liked the church art article, argue about the baseball article, and continue a trend by calling out a ridiculous error about the cost of tax cuts in a Hazlitt column. Chalmers Godlin writes from Venice, Italy, pointing out that John Gunther was some kind of communist when he knew the man, too. Winthrop S. Greene writes from Vienna to defend an Austrian princess, who, in fact, did not act "crazy" at her wedding, which, on the contrary, was very dignified and tasteful. For Your Information opens with an editorial-sort-of-thing in favour of slum clearance and then explains why foreign journalists come over to the U.S. to study how free the press, specifically Newsweek, is, here. 

The Periscope reports more shocking developments in the Burgess-Maclean story related to how American intelligence was funneled to British through the two men. The arrest of a Danish civil servant is leading to changes in NATO's war plan for northern Europe. Britain may well follow France in its walkout if the General Assembly keeps poking its nose into colonial affairs. Red China feels that it is unfair that Egypt got a sweetheart deal for East Bloc arms. Observers in Kirkenes, Norway, report that 3 Red Chinese divisions participated in the latest Russian manoeuvres across the frontier, having been brought all the way from China via the Siberian passage on Russian amphibious craft and destroyers. Marshal Tito is sick. General Billotte is reported to be a secret member of Presence Francaise. Large crates of goods being landed in Beirut are for sure Czech arms bound for Syria and not irrigation equipment as is being claimed. The French secret police in Rabat are sure that the Moroccan disturbances there are being directed by the Egyptian terrorist, Rached Toufik. The Japanese have found radiation in fish up to 2000 miles from Bikini. Russia and Spain are having trade talks, Libya might have a civil war between rival crown princes. A Defence Department release of General MacArthur's official papers is likely to spark new controversy. The President might take part in cabinet meetings from his Gettysburg convalescence via close-circuit television. The Pentagon budget is under pressure from the bloc obsolescence of mass Korea-era purchase.

Let me just stop right here and point out that Newsweek is reporting, albeit in The Periscope, that the Russians convoyed 30,000 Chinese troops from, well, China, right around the coast of Asia all the way to the border with Norway so that they could participate in military manoeuvres. What kind of idiot do you have to be to write this seriously?

 The AEC believes that the Soviets are using planes and balloons to sample radioactive dust from Western atomic tests. "Intelligence reports on Russian shipbuilding" indicate that the Reds will challenge U.S. control of the West and North Pacific with missile ships and submarines within four years. Government catastrophe insurance is coming in the next session of Congress. The Democrats warn that Republican restrictions on consumer loans could torpedo the economy, and "aviation experts are worried" about reports of a Soviet turboprop service between Moscow and Peking that might start soon. Where Are They Now catches up with Max Pruss, the former captain of the Hindenburg, who is still retired on a disability pension, and his former engineer, Rudolf Sauter, who runs a line of clothing stores in Hamburg, and is helping Pruss with his retirement project of getting zeppelins running again some day.

The Periscope Washington Trends reports that Republican bigwigs are likely to settle on Earl Warren as their preferred candidate in '56. The Democrats are going to run on lowering the age at which women and the disabled can receive Social Security, a generous farm aid bill, and a tax cut. 

National Affairs

No-one knows whether Ike will run in '56, so no-one knows what to do, except dogpile on Richard Nixon, because no-one likes Nixon except the people who like Nixon, and GOP bigwigs would prefer that no-one talks about that. Carmine DiSapio is wandering the nation talking up Harriman, other people are talking about "Stop Stevenson." The head of the IRS is retiring, the ram storms in New England are "pure murder," coming in the wake of the hurricanes as they do. Republican farm belt governors are leaning on the Administration for aid. That Russian housing industry touring delegation is very rude! Pan Am's decision to order 20 707s and 25 DC8s gets Newsweek coverage, as it is the order that puts American jetliners in the black. Professor Kalven's jury-bugging study is continuing to blow up in the press, with Senator Eastland threatening to subpoena the Federal judges who approved it before the Senate Internal Security Committee. 

"The Legion Did This" At its annual conference this year, the American Legion voted to condemn UNESCO, revision of the UN Charter, withdrawal from the Korean Armistice Commission, economic aid to India, the ACLU, tax-exempt foundations, and Red China. It also took a moment to reject a proposal to advocate for pensions for WWI veterans, because what does that have to do with the Legion? Reached for comment, Harry Truman pointed out that the Legion has "gone kind of haywire" over the last few years. Ernest K. Lindley has "Easier for Presidents" in Washington Tides, where he points out that Presidents only work hard because they want to. It's not like anyone can make them show up for the job! Which means that Ike being convalescent for the next however long it is, is nothing to worry about. The Cabinet can just make their own decisions!

International

Tax cuts, good. Defence cuts, good. Less defence, bad. Also the Reds are about to take over the Middle East again some more because there is oil there. (And Eric Johnston's Jordan river plan has collapsed, and now the Arabs are afraid that the Israelis will go ahead with their Jordan river diversion, even as Herut calls for preventive war against Egypt.) Here is some more fuss about the Saar. Morocco continues to progress towards self government notwithstanding all the huffing and puffing, the Frenchy are very silly, and Pete Townshend and Princess Margaret have met, and the thought is that Margaret can marry him, providing she abdicates from being a princess. A Royal Navy courtesy visit to Leningrad really brought out the crowds, and the fruits of Adenauer's visit to Moscow, in the form of the last German POWs to be returned to Germany, who are all former SS or worse, who were held because they had been convicted and jailed for war crimes. The papers' solution is that the men should "Go home quietly and keep their mouths shut." In this hemisphere, the Dominican Republic is one of those hilarious tinpot dictatorships they have down there, Argentina can now enjoy a ruined economy and Peronista threats to its national security instead of Peronist rule, and Lester Pearson's goodwill trip to the Soviet Union is generating good will.

Business

The Periscope Business Trends reports that the bond is going great, the Administration is split on what to do about farm prices, bond sales are up, there are signs that the housing boom is losing steam, Congress will launch an atom-powered merchant ship programme next session, Du Mont Laboratories is switching its focus to electronics production, "spinning off" du Mont Broadcasting. 

The lead story is about how the stock market fall since Eisenhower's heart attack has actually been good for it. Taconite processing (as iron ore) seems to be taking off after forty years of being talked up. Chrysler's '56 models are bigger, and have power transmission, steering, and seats as standard features, and gasoline heaters that will get your car up to toasty in atomic time. Somehow the Federal government and Louisiana are still arguing about tidelands. Brook Brothers gets  a profile, the latest corporate raider story features a Broadway producer. Products: What's New has an amplifier that clicks into phone receivers, a fifty-language typewriter from Ralph Cogshead that uses interchangeable type fonts and a "coder" that organises and spaces the sentences. A linguist substitutes number codes for all the special typographic features in a foreign language text, and the typist can then retype the text using the number codes. Bixler of Fremont, Ohio, has a burlap bag for "toting" heavy items. 

Henry Hazlitt spends this week's Business Tides ranting about farm price supports and "the myth of a 'farm crisis.'" 

Education, Medicine

Newsweek looks at the way that the British deal with juvenile delinquency. They're nicer to their juvenile criminals, and it seems to work, is the conclusion. Newsweek really likes The Heresy of Democracy, by "Lord Percy of Newcastle (Lord Eustace Percy is the seventh son of the Duke of Northumberland") which is the one about how voting is ruining democracy again. Periscoping Education reports that the British think that they will lick their teacher shortage by 1960 by paying teachers more.

Mental health gets a Special Report. Psychiatry has promised cures, but can it deliver, and, maybe more importantly, in the incredible volume that our situation seems to demand, it being estimated that one in twelve Americans will have mental health problems in their lifetime, and no less than 1.5 million psychotics in the population. There are only 9500 psychiatrists in the country, and although over 12,000 more are needed, the current increase is only 250/year. Much of the rest of the report is devoted to various approaches to psychiatric care, including of course the Freudians, but there is an interesting box story on "Who Should Go to a Psychiatrist?" that points out the issue is the patient's level of adjustment to life, not their eccentricity or lack of it. But, if there is a single authority to point to in this Report, it is Karl Menninger, and his point is that we cannot expect progress in a hurry. 

TV-Radio, Press, Newsmakers

Newsweek checks in with Goodman Ace to get the lowdown on the business of comedy writing on the occasion of the publication of his The Book of Little Knowledge. 

"The Air Around Us" So far this year the story is $64,000 Question, but I think everyone would like to be in the position of Imogene Coca, who broke her ten year, million dollar contact with NBC because she thinks she can do better elsewhere. 

Bernarr Macfadden's death last week was preceded by the death of his physical culture publishing empire, which Newsweek mourns. The press is not exactly covering itself with glory covering the Presidential convalescence, Congressional investigations and parental concerns are seriously hitting "horror" comic sales, James Cameron of The London News-Chronicle is back from his tour of Red China. What a country! 

Prince Rainier of Monte Carlo and his possible girlfriend, Grace Kelly, the Hoovers, Vivian Leigh, Lord Beaverbrook, Harry Truman, and Noel Coward are in the column for the usual reason. Cardinal Stritch of Chicago is in it because Catholic dioceses in the U.S. have gotten in the habit of banning the good wedding music because people might have too much fun in church, and John Foster Dulles because somehow we have a vicious moron as our Secretary of State, and only the Canadians are allowed to make fun of him. (In the latest development, he locked his speech in the Embassy safe and had to extemporise at a meeting with the Canadian cabinet.

Oscar Ewing is married, Tamara Toumanova is divorced, Edgar Guest and Connie Mack are sick, Hector MacNeil, Oscar Hammerstein, Manuel Avila Camacho, Captain Harry Burris, and Alexander Dunbar have died. 

Movies

Oklahoma is the sensation of the week. Two recent Westerns (Fox's The Tall Men and RKO's Tennessee's Partner are formulaic, but "old-time entertainment without anxiety." 

Books

The first volume of de Gaulle's war  memoirs are out, and nicely paired with Sartre's Literary and Philosophical Essays. Newsweek makes the very original claim that Sartre is a modern de Tocqueville (it's not completely crazy, because many of the essays are about America), but I'm more impressed with the decision to pair him with de Gaulle. Speaking of, a new edition of de Tocqueville's Ancien Regime and the French Revolution, translated by Stuart Gilbert, is out. 

Moley is still on about the Defence Department's attempt to shake free of the clammy grip of business. 

Speaking of!

News Digest has nothing much to say. The Navy has rushed to homologue a speed record for the A-4 before the Fairey Delta flies. Industry Observer reports that the F5D is a development of the F4D, that GE is working on a ducted fan development of the J79, that the SeaMaster's follow-on will be the SeaMistress, and the Navy better hurry up and order a bunch of them before the British get ahead of us in the Stupid Jet Seaplane stakes. Various improved altimeters and such using "instantaneous" inertial devices are rumoured or advertised to be closing on market ready. The Conway is running at its commercial type power of 13,000lbs. 

The lead story is that the boom must be real because PAA has touched off an "Equipment race." All the big orders except a BEA order for the Vanguard, which I fear will be the only one, have already been covered. "Misadventure" caused the Folland Midge loss, ARDC has published one of those press releases with a table of organisation and superlatives about the equipment at their latest test centre. (Not to be outdone, the Navy is on about its new rocket test centre later in the issue.)

Irving Stone pops in for Aeronautical Engineering to cover crew demands for practical ways of escaping the new jet bombers and "Century" fighters. Ejection seats are reaching their limits and the crew escape capsules seem a bit impractical. William J. Coughlin is sent off to the wilderness to cover Weber Aircraft's new Vertiplane, which is absolutely a plane that can happen and isn't just an elaborate hoax on gullible investors. Speaking of which, "Prefab Heliports." They must exist, it's a headline!

Philip Klass is stuck making a Westinghouse silicon rectifier sound like  news for Avionics. At least he doesn't have to cover a cooling jacket, which is relegated to New Avionics Products along with a Westinghouse magnetic drum computer, some new transistors, and the usual run of gyros, circuit elements, and instruments. George L. Christian offers "Pneumatics Fade, Hydraulics Gain As Supersonic Power Sources" for Equipment, which is actually a summary of a speech by R. T. Cornelius about why his company is exiting pneumatics, with details about the company's hydraulics line, overshadowed by its traditional share of the pneumatic market. What's New must have got itself too excited last week as it has only five bulletins, etc., to cover this week. Letters has Alexander de Seversky complaining that the young folk don't listen to him any more, the CAA complaining that Captain Robson is mean to them, Aviation Week is sticking to its story that KLM  will only consider the Britannia as a freight plane in spite of a denial from KLM, and a very long letter from Ernest Lagelbauer objecting to the "area rule" as a firm parameter of future supersonic aircraft production, since after all it is only relevant in the transsonic. New Aviation Products is all mechanical gizmos, although a 3000psi sequence valve sounds like clever engineering. 

Robert Holtz's Editorial is fine with jetliners now that they're American jetliners. 

 Letters

Robert Weik asks, what with all the attention given to James Dean's death, what happened to the other driver? The answer is that Donald Turnupseed of Tulare, California, wasn't seriously injured.  Several correspondents have opinions about the article about Catholic intellectuals, the issue being that there are apparently not enough of them. Several people correct Newsweek's incorrect identification of Nixon confidante Ross Barrett, and Newsweek's acknowledgement of the error is muffed, too. (Reader Martin Samuelson identifies Barrett as the president of Byron Jackson Corporation, and Newsweek apologises for misidentifying "Mr. Jackson." Is everything okay at Newsweek?) Several correspondents defend the Air Force's POW survival training. Alfred Spetz is happy that a journalist as titanically influential as Raymond Moley questions John Dewey, the NEA, teachers' colleges, and progressivism. Definitely on the right side of history there, Mr. Spetz, as H. R. Bredenkamp writes in separately to point out. Dick Rawls of KPHO-TV, Phoenix, writes in to defend KPHO-TV, Phoenix. For Your Information says that Frank Gibney is the editor in charge of the articles about the boom, and he's really smart, the kind of smart that writes that great Special Report about mental health last week, let's give it a hand.  

The Periscope reports that Harry Truman has offered to do a joint appearance with Stevenson, same as he did with Harriman. Lyndon Johnson has been cleared to go back to work. The Big Four will not be expanded to include Red China, but Dulles says that he is willing to have informal contacts with the Chinese if they renounce the use of force. The U.S. has told its allies that it won't pay to replace all the Korea-era military aid equipment it gave European NATO powers. Reports that George Humphrey has endorsed Earl Warren are wrong. George Humphrey doesn't even know who Warren is. The ignominious burning out of the shaft bearings on Forrestal's trial run has been traced to trouble in the forced-feed oil system. As evidence of the U.S. intention to dominate the intercontinental ballistic missile field, the Atlas missile will soon have a rival, the Titan. Next year's Navy budget is expected to have money for nine more atomic submarines and the conversion of the battleships to guided missile ships. The NSC is going to cut the U.S. munitions stockpile from an eighteen month margin to a six month margin, thereby saving money on the next war even before it happens. Congress is going to crack down on barbiturates, but not natural gas. Juan Peron is said to have transferred his money from Spain to Switzerland, indicating that Spain isn't happy about the idea of giving him asylum. "Marshal Paulus" is secretly a bad person. Poland might be the next East Bloc power to sell arms to the Middle East. Clement Attlee is not well and might get a peerage to send him to the Lords, where he can relax. Russia is "surreptitiously" selling cotton on world markets, but also buying it, and it's all too confusing for Newsweek. The General Assembly is going to vote on a resolution calling self-determination a universal human right. The Reds and anti-colonial nations will push it through, but the U.S. will vote "No." "Intelligence checks" are revealing that many of the "miscellaneous camp followers" gathering around the U.S. bases in Italy which have been occupied since the withdrawal from Austria are Communist spies. Well-to-do Chinese in Malaya support the Chinese Communists because they are worried about the fate of the Chinese minority when the British leave. "So long as the terror persists, the British will remain." Where Are They Now catches up with Richard Barthelmess and Floyd Dell, turning in two of those boring "They used to be famous, but now they are old and retired" pieces that drag this feature down. 

The Periscope Business Trends reports that Johnson is pushing a "moderate" Democratic ticket, meaning probably Stevenson, even though it will mean watering the platform down to "gruel." Stevenson might personally prefer eggheads, but he is going to keep "the professors" in the back room during his campaign. Meanwhile, Nixon is going to preview the Republican campaign in his speech to some investment bankers, to the effect that, whoever runs in '56 will be an "Eisenhower Republican" who will be progressive and humanitarian without being socialistic, will be proud to embrace the Administration's version of conservatism, and will "do it better," even if New Dealers "talk better." Also, you never had it so good, so don't knock it. 

National Affairs

The upcoming presidential election gets boring after a while, always talking about the same thing, and here's a chance to talk about "the spirit of Geneva,' instead. There's going to be another one! Also, the President is still in the hospital. That release of MacArthur documents turns out to be related to Senator Lehman's claim that MacArthur called for concessions to the Soviets at the Yalta conference to get them into the Pacific war. MacArthur denies it, and the Defence Department release shows that he was lying about that. It's not going to change anyone's minds about the old buffoon, but it is good to have it in writing. 

"The Plus Side" The population of the United States, currently 165 million, will rise to between 207 and 228 million by 1975, the Census Bureau predicted last week, the bounds being determined by assumptions about the future birth rate, the low figure being the result of a reversion to the Thirties rate, the high one being due to the current high birth rate continuing. The Schuessler-Peterson murder in Chicago is too gruesome for me to not at least mention. The Communist Party of the U.S.A. is reported to be coming above ground for the '56 elections, although a parallel party "in the Lenin method" will remain covert. Speaking of, Newsweek catches up with some Fieldings, who continue to be fascinating because they are Americans, Communists, sometimes agents, and willing to talk about it. 

Municipal elections around the nation get a feature, Federal flood insurance remains likely, Ike is still popular, Southern Democrats like Stevenson, and Ernest K. Lindley uses Washington Tides to review the Defence Department release, pointing out that it is simple common sense that clears up the "fantastic nonsense written and said in recent years about the Yalta agreement on the Far East."

International

The Saar plebiscite has gone in favour of reunification with Germany, so that is another crisis that they are having in Europe. The Middle East is jealous, because a moment ago everyone was looking at their crisis, so they have decided to act up. Because it is Jews and Arabs who are killing each other and not real, White, people, a tone of arch irony is appropriate as I comment on skirmishing between Israeli and Syrian and Jordanian troops. In the Knesset, the right wing Herut party is calling for preventive war, predicting that the Arabs are about to fall on Israel en masse. Premier Sharrat has rejected war, but says that Russia will be to blame if there is one. Soviet diplomats, "rejecting restraint," have now offered arms to Afghanistan and trade agreements to Libya and Yemen. Egypt has also disclosed that Russia has offered to fund the Aswan high dam (financing of which is still in negotiations with the World Bank) with a thirty year deal for cotton and rice. The Damascus Pact, which has allied Syria, Egypt, and possibly Lebanon and Syria in the future, is seen as a threat to peace because it presents a unified front against Israel. Senators Saltonstall, Kilgore, and McClellan are in trouble for donating to an apparent charity  worker in Cairo who was actually collecting money for Communist arms. Communist! General Zakharov of the Soviet General Staff has predicted that Aeroflot will have a 60-seat jetliner in service as early as next year. Various British pundits are upset that there is so much public fuss over Princess Margaret and Group Captain Townshend, and even people who support her think that she should get on with it. Rab Butler has, as pretty much everyone expected, thrown in the towel and all but announced that he is partially reversing the April income tax cuts. The Swedes are having a plebiscite on driving on the lefthand side of the road, since the one on ending alcohol rationing was so successful. 

"Colonialism's Challenge," announced on the cover, is a box story. It explains that the problem is that Black half-savages aren't grateful enough for the  "half" part, without much consciousness that it's not actually clear which "half" part the colonialists are responsible for. It's three pages, which is quite long enough since we haven't talked about France in three pages not counting French colonialism, so it is time to talk about, well, France, where people are continuing to pretend that France isn't getting out of Morocco and Tunisia just as fast as it can. The staff of the U.S. Consulate in Hanoi was very bored since they can't do anything because we hate Communists, so the State Department ordered them all home, and the Vietnamese are delaying their exit visas, because everyone knows what happens when the embassy closes. In Canada, the dollar keeps falling, and no-one quite knows why. (Financial people in Toronto think it might be the repatriation of corporate profits.) Ottawa is having a Festival like the Edinburgh Festival, and Premier Smallwood wants a plan for "have not" provinces.

Business

The Periscope Business Trends reports that the boom sure is a boom, that the Administration and Congress are at odds about how to go ahead with atomic merchant ships, that Paramount is going into partnership with an unnamed electronics firm to market colour televisions, that trail riders have made Shetland pony breeding big business in Texas. 

The lead story is about how the auto industry is doing just great. The second story is about how the coal industry is doing just great since it replaced all those miners with machinery to rip coal out of the mountains, but no-one was doing anything with those mountains, anyway. Westinghouse isn't doing so great these days, New York Airways is buying newer, bigger helicopters, and Henry Hazlitt offers "Farm Fiasco: A Way Out," in Business Tides. Whether you agree with Hazlitt's solution or not (I actually do like parts of it!), this is a million times better than "The problem isn't real, let's cut spending and taxes." 

Science, Medicine, Education

"Is This the Future" George Paget Thomson's The Foreseeable Future gets a review. The future is so bright that the only thing Sir George is worried about is that commuting times are so long, which means that transport helicopters might just have a future. He also hopes that geneticists will breed smarter monkeys to be our domestic servants. In other news, Ernest Lawrence's Bevatron at Berkeley has confirmed the existence of anti-protons. 
 

I can't believe this was an actual thing!

"The Structure of Cancer"

"Cats and the Deaf" Dr. Harold Schuknecht of the Otological Laboratory of the Henry Ford Hospital has found an ingenious way of torturing cats to find out what frequencies they can hear, which will surely lead to a breakthrough in the field of which frequencies humans can hear, or recovering deaf people, or something. Look, the important point is that we get to administer "mild shocks" to cats in a soundproof cage. 

Dr. Cornelius P. Rhoads of the Sloan-Kettering Institute announced this week a new insight into how cancer cells use vital nucleic acids like DNA and RNA that might explain their uncontrolled growth and point medicine at the specific points in the structure of cancer cells that might be vulnerable to attack. 

"Cats and the Deaf"

William F. Russell of Columbia is promoting citizenship education., and sociologist David Riesman has doubts about whether teachers "really teach." 

Arts, TV-Radio, Press, Newsmakers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silas_Jayne

A second special report, on the rebirth of the Vienna opera gives Arts a bit more glamour than Newsweek usually gets it, although I won't cover it because it's not plastic art.

Albert McCleery has a new daytime weekend theatre adaption show for NBC. Philadelphia's UHF WGBI-TV is showing that commercial broadcasting on ultra-high can work, and is building the most powerful broadcasting station ever to reach more of the population in the Delaware basin.

There are developments at Look, Anchor Review, the Literary Digest, potentially the (defunct) Brooklyn Eagle, and, in general, Sunday newspaper magazines.  

Hugo Theorell, Jean Cocteau, Lady Docker, Albert Schweitzer, Louis Armstrong, W. H. Auden, Ike, Grandma Moses, Robert Wagner, that Austrian prince and princess, James Michener and his second wife, Porfirio Rubirosa, and Barbara Hutton are in the column for the usual reason. Okay, Michener has divorced and remarried, which is news of the kind that belongs on this page, my apologies to the editors. And Zsa Zsa Gabor is in it, because, really. 

Books

But, wait, not books, because why waste a header when there's only one movie reviewed this week, The Tender Trap, which is notable for being a Frank Sinatra vehicle. 

Jose Ortega y Gasset gets a mini-feature in actual Books because he is old and it is time to gently usher the wise man of Spanish Not-At-All-Fascism from the stage with all the gentility his kind wisdom (Ronnie really lays the sarcasm on!) deserves. MacKinlay Kantor's Andersonville takes a look at that old wound of the Civil War, Arthur Ekirch has The Decline of American Liberalism (Newsweek's reviewer attacks it from the left, if that's telling you anything) and to make it a diptych (look it up!), Richard Hofstader's Age of Reform gets a review. Periscoping Books reports that Liddell Hart will be editing a volume on Soviet strategy, that biographies of Nixon and Stevenson are coming, and so is Immanuel Velikosky's sequel to Planets in Upheaval, Earth in Upheaval.  

You know who doesn't like reform? Raymond Moley, who is on about the CIO's campaign to improve unemployment insurance in Ohio by means of Ohio's citizen plebiscite legislation that forces the state to schedule a referendum if enough people support it by petition. Raymond explains why this is terrible. 

News Digest reports the first commercial all-transistorised digital computer, from NAA, and restrictions on the Hunter's turn rate, since it is too hot for its pilots. Industry Observer reports that Lockheed, Boeing, and Convair are looking at atomic-powered bombers for the Air Force, and Boeing is also looking at a bomber with ethyl-borane fuel for extra-long range. The Army's television-camera drone is being held back by the helicopter relay that sends the signal back to ground operators, because helicopters and electronics don't really mix. Electra sales are expected to cut heavily into Britannia and Vanguard sales. UAC's Leonard S. Hobbs speculates that the Russians get that 15,000lb thrust from a single-spool engine with poor fuel economy. "No very marked improvement in shielding material for aircraft reactors" is expected in the near future. Washington Roundup reports that the DoD reserve tool Programme is basically dead, and that the SAGEBRUSH army/air force joint exercise is going to be steered by the participants into another argument over whether the Army should have planes. Aviation Week reports on BuAer's ongoing explanation of the J40 failure to Congress, which led in turn to various fighter orders being unsatisfactory, and, in particular, all those F3H Demon crashes. The USAF has confirmed its interest in the Avro "Coanda effect" saucer, we are still going ahead with flight nuclear power plant tests in 1958 until someone tells the generals they can stop, because listening to physics is for eggheads. Irving Stone checks in with some kind of talk session about the future of the Mach 6 fighter, which doesn't really seem to have a future. 

Fairchild has a mini-submarine now for testing things, the final design of the Electra has been sent to the shops, and a leading Russian scientist "Approves of the U.S. Satellite: But Says He Can Build Better One." The article being summarised is in the popular press, but manages to make the point that, given existing rockets, it would be possible to put a much larger satellite into the same kind of orbits that the Vanguard is proposing to use. Philip Klass has to make the Hughes FCS sound interesting and new for Avionics. There are details, but ones we can basically work out on an envelope for ourselves, the issue is the engineering! Equipment devotes itself to spark plugs. Who says Aviation Week has less ancient history than Flight? (To be fair it will probably be big news in the cars of the future!) We skip right into New Aviation Products to look at gears, valves, switches, and stands. 

For Safety, CAB finds that the Alitalia DC6B Idlewild crash last December was caused by pilot fatigue that led him to wander off the ILS beam. It's quite a long article, since it is a pretty pressing and serious  issue. United has ordered 30 DC8s, and Captain Robson is back to urge airlines to think about the future of air traffic control before the future is on us. Robert Holtz's Editorial continues the McGraw-Hill campaign against excessive secrecy. 

. . . And I hope you won't miss The Engineer too much if I skip it after all of that. We'll catch up next month.