Postblogging Technology, November 1955: Even the Moderate Adlai Stevenson

The Ballad of Davy Crockett hit the Top 10 twice in 1955, by two different artists. Leaving the historic Crockett aside (JFC he was a Shawnee, deal with it). "Justice was due every Redskin band." What do you even do? RIP Estes Kefauver.

R_.C_.,
Shaughnessy,
Vancouver,
Canada


Dear Father:

The idea was good, but the material wasn't up to 
it and they took it too far. 

Fall is here, and I have to say that, as materialistic as it sounds, it is very nice to be making good money and not from a family allowance. James had leave, and we took the family up to Napa in our very nice new 405. (Fortunately the neighbours take it for granted that it is family money, and I don't correct them, because I am a liberal, but I am also a hypocrite, because it is just safer that way.) 

We saw the Ks for the first time since their return from Europe. I regret to say that all does not look entirely happy on the domestic front, but there is the thought that they will do it for the children, and one might hope that misery will lead to a great novel. One's fingers are crossed. We also saw, in a more bohemian way, V., who is making quite the splash on the science fiction literary scene, if not precisely the money. He pretends Bohemian diffidence, but I'm sure that he would be more comfortable being diffident with more money! On the bright side he introduced us to some friends, wild-eyed vintners, if you can imagine, and leaving us half-convinced that there's a reason to be wild-eyed about California wine. 

Your Loving Daughter,

Ronnie

Letters

T. Conn Bryan of Dahlonga, Georgia, writes to defend the honour of the notorious Henry Wirz, because for "Lost Causers" there are no depths. Kenneth Reed of Texas punctures Prince Hohenlohe-Langenbourg's  excuse for his parking ticket. Ernest Mandeville points out that college football is actually a business attached to universities, as shown by how much money there is in it, with coaches making more than professors and annual team budgets enough to build a library. E. R. Gunny of Los Angeles tells us that Chesty Puller is a man's general, contra all the women who are apparently "thumbs down" on Chesty, as Newsweek recently pointed out. Henry Burnett and George London really liked the article about George London. 

Hunter Leaf of Savannah writes about the moonshining article to point out that the real problem is that excise taxes on alcohol are too high. Irwin X. Leemen of San Diego writes to point out that John Foster Dulles wears his American Legion hat wrong, as opposed, to say, looking like a veteran of the Spanish-American War in the attached photo. (Which explains his politics and his diplomacy!) Leonard Engel points out that there's good fishing in Hawaii, too. June Sprint and the editor get into it over the proper spelling of "sanitorium." For Your Information was reading that nice Fortune article about their fact checkers. They're not worth an actual article or anything, but there's a paragraph's worth of room for Olga Barbi in the column. A "Wet Coast engineer" was disappointed to visit and find that The Periscope wasn't being written from "a closely guarded room, full of electronic machines that whirred, hummed, and blinked." On the other hand, the tour didn't show him(!?) the corner bar stool where it's actually written, either. 

The Periscope reports that "Intelligence reports" that Bulganin and Khrushchev will launch a "Marshall Plan" for Asia during their late November visit to India. "In highly secret tests," the Air Force's Nike missiles recently shot down Army Matador missiles, which could be good news for Nikes, or bad news for Matadors! Congressional mail on the farm support issue is running light and Congressional opponents of natural gas deregulation are cooking up a plot. Democrats are fighting over tax reduction plans and the Texas primaries. The Justice Department is cracking down on lazy Federal judges in Brooklyn. Adlai Stevenson is telling visitors that he's not sure that Democrats can win in '56 even if Eisenhower doesn't run. The Pentagon is cracking down on senatorial junketeers again as usual. The Red Chinese are shifting artillery withdrawn from Korea to the coast, opposite Quemoy and Matsu. "Experts" point out that Soviet weapons and tanks, with their simple maintenance and low fuel consumption might be better suited to desert warfare. France  "secretly" sold two merchant ships to Russia recently. The breach between France and the Afro-Asian nations has been patched up. "NATO intelligence" says that Russian military aid to Egypt includes technicians to fix up the naval base at Alexandria, and that Soviet warships will have visiting privileges. "U.S. military observers" fear a Red coup in Cambodia. Russia is also offering a SINISTER! trade deal with Germany. London is more optimistic about Cyprus. Russian diplomats from around the Middle East are meeting secretly in Cairo to plot this and that. "Insiders" report that the Suez Canal is under threat if Israel and Egypt fight a war over it. A big Communist conference is planned for Berlin in the Fall. The latest "Soviet futuristic project" is new islands in the Arctic, created by artificial volcanic eruptions triggered by subterranean nuclear explosions. Where Are They Now visits Clinton E. Frank, who has gone from being a star on Yale's football squad to being a man in a gray flannel suit, and Rob Macleod, ditto ditto, although he gave The Periscope a tour of his Colonial house.  

The Periscope Washington Trends reports that there will be some kind of tax cut before the election, while leading Democratic politicians think that Stevenson can't be stopped, although Kefauver is still going to try. 

National Affairs

The President is going to start keeping Oval Office hours again, and for some reason Herbert Hoover was there to greet him on the first day. The Democrats won all the off-year elections, but that's no portent for '56. (Which gets its own story below.) The campaign for the Ohio referendum on improved unemployment insurance is heating up. The Soviet housing delegation is still fighting amongst themselves, and now Alexander V. Vlasov has been recalled. Charlie Chaplin has turned into some kind of horrible Red. The three Korean War POWs who recently returned from political exile in China have been released from the stockade where they were being held for dishonourable discharge after a  judge found that when the rules say that you can only do that after a proper court martial, that's what you have to do. Their lawyer says that they're going to sue for back pay, and in the mean time they're going to appear at the Wings of Healing Temple in Portland, Oregon, as anti-communism experts. The upcoming Senate election in Georgia will be something because both the Democratic candidates are cornpones, and who ever heard of that! The men accused of murdering Emmett Till have been found not guilty, of course. 

 

Ernest K. Lindley uses Washington Tides to take on the mysterious appeal of "A 'Moderate' Stevenson," and concludes that it is because he is a moderate, as much because the Democratic candidate will have to be moderate to have a chance of winning in '56 as out of conviction. He writes good speeches, and has the advantage of being out of office, so doesn't have to take a position on this and that. 

International 

Germany gets a feature, "Battered 'Spirit,' Boxed-in Germany" Because the Geneva talks didn't manage to unify Germany, to everyone's surprise. 

"The Pressure for Peace" Ike appealed to everyone in the Middle East to be peaceful and warned that the United States would intervene to maintain the present frontiers, while Eden has offered to mediate. The Arabs are still insisting on the 1947 boundaries, the internationalisation of Jerusalem, and the return of a million refugees, or financial compensation. Israel doesn't want that, and wants to keep the additional 2000 miles it had occupied by the 1949 armistice. The U.S. and Britain have offered to help finance the resettlement of the refugees and to fund the Jordan river development and the $1.2 billion Aswan dam, although Nasser has warned that if the World Bank doesn't come through by the New Year, Egypt will accept the Soviet offer. The refugees, meanwhile, aren't exactly happy about compensation plans, although Arab observers think that they can be brought to see reason. The catch is that the same observers estimate the cost of the compensation package at $12 billion, compared with the current $27/year per refugee allotted to the UNWRA, enough for a 1600 calorie/day diet. Henry Labouisse of the UNWRA thinks that once the up to 150,000 refugees who might be resettled in the Jordan valley, and the proposed Egyptian irrigation project in the Sinai north of the Great Bitter Lake are under way, the full, gigantic compensation package might begin to flow. Faure and Mendes are sparring in a way that might or might not lead to a spring election, and apparently we are going to  have to read articles about the possibility of a French spring election until the spring. Andre Dubois is the fourth French resident general in Morocco in six months. Now that there are more countries in the General Assembly that aren't U.S. clients, there is more fighting in the Assembly, and the Afro-Asian bloc even swung a vote scolding South Africa for being white supremacist, which South Africa thought was mean. Field Marshal Songgram seems to be going senile. The elections in the Philippines have been quite the affair, and Magsaysay will probably win. 

Ivy Baker Priest, 1971

Leon Volkov's column this week is "Doing it Molotov's Way," because "What I Read About Russia in Newsweek this Month" couldn't get past the editor. Newsweek visits West Berlin and finds that it is quite the city these days, although pretty expensive. 

Business

The Periscope Business Trends reports that the boom is likely to continue through an entire capacity expansion cycles, until 1958, driven mainly by auto industry expansion, but with construction also playing a part. However, unemployment is unchanged this October at 2.1 million. Dividends are up and takeovers continue. (Chrysler and Standard Oil are the latest companies to announce major capital expansion plans.)

In the lead story, Newsweek reveals the results of its investigation into Ford's profits ahead of the company's hotly anticipated initial stock offering. And the result of the investigation is that Newsweek guesses that it is somewhere between GM's and Chrysler's. The first cars of Studebaker's 1956 lineup are out, the President and Commander, and show that Studebaker has given in to the Detroit look, abandoning its unique former streamlined look. 

https://savoymuseum.org/portfolio-items/1956-studebaker-president-classic-4-door-sedan/

"Race for the Jet" Boeing might have been first on the market, but the DC8 was winning all the sales until this week when Boeing got a 30 plane order from American. Current tallies are 50 707s and 61 DC8s ordered at a total book of $371 million. Newsweek gets the scoop on the official announcement of the cancellation of the V-1000 after an "agonising reappraisal" in the same week that Bristol announced a Super-Britannia with a promised speed of 500mph and room for 120 passengers. Ask your son to explain why the speed claim is hogwash the next time you see him. He's so cute when he's angry! 

"Revolution on Rails" Newsweek briefly summarises the results of a decade-long $11 billion industry expansion before getting to brass tacks. The railroad industry looked like it was in trouble before the war, and looks like it is in trouble now. Its share of the total U.S. transport dollar continues to shrink, although expansion is justified to keep up with a growing economy. It is likely that it would shrink faster without favourable tax treatment, and, in spite of impressive new trains, it is losing passenger traffic in particular. 

Henry Hazlitt uses Business Tides to celebrate the defeat of a number of bond issues in state referendums as evidence that the cherished prospect of a "Revolt Against Spending" is coming true, and that the Republicans' defeat in the mid-terms was due to voters rejecting them for not being conservative enough. 

Science, Medicine, Education

"Supersonic Bailout" This February, Lt. George Smith, USAF, became the first man to survive bailing out (of an F-100) at supersonic speeds. The description of his injuries, with "knee joints flopping loose" and "intestines scrambled," "countless hemorrhages," skin scraped and red, blood pressure so low as to be almost unmeasurable, and a damaged liver, is horrific. But he's alive, with nothing but a stiff knee and the liver damage to testify to injuries that kept him unconscious for five days after he was recovered from San Francisco Bay. Man has survived passage through the sound barrier! Some milk scientists at the University of Minnesota have discovered that milk is a miracle food, and may in the future be improved by inoculating cows with antibiotic-, and vaccine-producing cultures that they will spread to the milk and its drinkers. Geoffrey Gorer's study of "the British character" gets a review in Science. 

"With Fewer Calories" Dr. Norman Jolliffe has been studying underfed Italian schoolchildren, who are subsisting on 30% fewer calories and 15--40% less animal protein than the NRC recommends. Specifically, he's been giving them Aureomycin tablets, and are showing weight gains over the control group of 157 schoolchildren who were also being left on starvation diets, but with no antibiotic supplements. The article is extended to discuss four other recently discovered antibiotics, cathomycin, thiostrepton, amphotericin, and stylomycin, now being tested by their various discoverers. Writing in Nature, British electrical engineer E. Colin Cherry proposes that stammering is a feedback condition, and that stammerers can be treated by preventing them from hearing themselves talk.   

"For Childless Husbands" Up to a third of infertile couples can be blamed on the husband. Fred Simmons, a gynecologist at Harvard, blames urologists, who are afraid of taking the scalpel down there and instead confine treatment to ineffective hormones. This variocele surgery for varicose veins in the sperm channels is safe and easy and doesn't threaten the sex glands. The same is not said of epididymovastomy for congential blockages, or removal of tumourlike growths. 

"On the Right to Read" Paul Blanshard, the anti-Catholic crusader, has The Right to Read out. It explains that in a free society, there should be no censorship, that diversity of opinion is normal, natural and good. Except for subversive literature and pornography. You've just got to get rid of that stuff. Periscoping Education 

In this hemisphere, Argentina is still having politics and Brazil hasn't had an army coup to keep Kubitschek out of power, although it was close for a while.  

Press, Newsmakers

This is Willmoore Kendall, who had his tenure bought out by
Yale in 1961 for $14,000, but the picture I really wanted was
Colin Cherry, to have an excuse to mention that he is the author
of World Communication: Threat or Promise (1971).

Nancy Woodward of the Miami Herald is doing a series about the most eligible bachelors in town, because she is unmarried at thirty, and you can't have that! The first issue of Bill Buckley's National Review is out, funded by $290,000 from 125 stockholders and containing articles by Bill Knowland, Russell Kirk, as you'd expect, and Willmoore Kendal (which is a real name), redundantly described as a "conservative Yale professor."  Everett Greaton, the "director of recreation" in Maine, is in trouble for cancelling the state's advertising contract with Harper's because Bernard DeVoto said some mean things about the state, and now Governor Edmund Muskie has apologised. Also, Jack Howard's conviction for keeping his sources secret even though they're in a union and don't count, has been overturned. A House subcommittee investigation into the Eisenhower Administration press policy confirms that it is stupid. The Kemsley newspaper group in Britain seems to be in trouble.

Linda Christian, Earl Wilson, Ernest Hemingway, Ivy Baker Priest, Barbara Hutton, Lucky Luciano, Jack Benny, Louis Armstrong, and that delegation of Soviet journalists are in the column for the usual reason. Dorothy Warren is engaged, Rock Hudson is married, Robert Sherwood and Daniel J. Tobin are ailing. William Armstead, Mrs. Westbrook Pegler, Jerry Ross, William Spellman, and Madame Rene Coty are dead. 

Movies

Sincerely Yours, a star vehicle for Liberace from Warner Brothers. It is a romantic comedy with Liberace starring opposite Dorothy Malone. MGM's Quentin Durward is stolen by Robert Morley as Louis XI. Fox's The View from Pompey's Head is pretty tedious and Dana Wynter gets a career-killing notice. United Artist's The Big Knife is a terrible movie intended as an indictment of Hollywood, so it works even better than intended! 

Books

The Japanese are a funny people say Donald Kean (editing an anthology of Japanese verse in translation) and Thomas Racaut. Arthur Meekerr's Chicago is about how Chicago was in the old days, when Meeker actually lived there, instead of in secluded luxury in Switzerland. And because it won't do to let the Second City get all the press, here are Ernest Cuneo and Grover A. Whalen with Life with Fiorello: A Memoir and Mr. New York: The Autobiography of Grover A. Whalen, respectively.

Raymond Moley takes on the Ford Foundation in Perspectives, and probably has a point about the problem of a charitable foundation worth $500 million doing politics-adjacent research work while benefitting from philanthropic tax-exempt status. I just hate that it is Moley making the point. 

 

 

News Digest reports that the DEW Line is being built, I assume to pad out word count. Litton is working on a new, low-cost digital computer for military and commercial applications, that Elwood Quesada has resigned from Lockheed in a dispute over research and development practices, and that the new Avro Vulcan prototype has a revised leading edge with compound sweepback. Industry Observer reports that Lockheed has offered Capital Airlines a version of its Electra powered with the Rolls Royce RB109 engines in place of the Allison 501s. The V-1000 cancellation is reported. Orenda's PS-13 20,000lb turbojet has completed 130 hours of static testing at NACA's Lewis Lab, because of the lack of high altitude testing facilities in Canada. USAF F-86 squadrons are "still the backbone of Britain's all-weather defence," proving that the RAF is completely wrong about the suitability of single-seat fighters for Britain's air defence. Bristol is completing work on the Bristol Freighter and helicopters to focus on the Britannia, which is not expected to enter service with BOAC until August because of de-icing difficulties. First evaluation of the Gloster Javelin is "satisfactory." The SAC is modifying its KC-97 tankers with unique tail lights to prevent mid-air collisions like the recent ones over the Gulf of Mexico in which a B-47 exploded and was lost. Performance of the RAF's Aden cannon is "still unknown" because of a lack of testing, possibly because early testing caused Neville Duke's death. The 80,000lb heavy forging press at Halethorpe, Md., is now operational. The House Armed Services Investigative Committee is looking into complaints that the Grumman F9F-7 Cougar is underpowered and dangerous to fly. Hamilton Standard propellers are still being "considered" for the Lockheed Electra. Washington Roundup reports that the ATA is having some budget problems, that the board of CAB have called in the FBI to investigate leaks, and has warned the industry against using pressure tactics. A Congressional investigation into alleged State Department favoritism to foreign airlines is likely to fizzle. It's about expedited delivery of some Convairliners to Saudi Arabia while National Airlines was waiting for delivery. Congress is also fighting with the Pentagon over the share of research and development funds to small business. 

Aviation Week reports on CAB's liberaliation of irregular operations, and more discussions between industry and the Air Force about methods for reducing collision hazards. It can be generally agreed that it is mainly down to better air traffic control while still talking endlessly about collision-avoidance gadgets. It is pointed out that there have been lots of mid-air collisions lately, about seven per month since 1952. Jet airliners will be an even bigger problem. 

"SAGEBRUSH Manoeuvres: Atomic Attack Tests Dispersal Concept" SAGEBRUSH opened with pre-emptive atomic tests on 18 "U.S. and  friendly" air bases as far north as Langley by Martin B-57 jet dropping a simulated 350,000t of TNT. It is not announced how many were used, but 7 were intercepted and four were deemed shot down. Only a few hours before the attack, General Timberlake of 9th Air Force said that the exercise would use 50 air bases in 12 states to test the dispersal concept. There are all sorts of problems implementing this much dispersal, but it is necessary, and so are large air forces, since air interdiction of attacking armies might use non-nuclear forces. Meanwhile, Vice Admiral F. S. Low of the Western Sea Frontier is the latest airman to remind us that the only defence against strategic bombing is more strategic bombing. The Army and Air Force are fighting about how paratroopers will be organised in the helicopter age, with the Army arguing that everyone in Army helicopters should be Army, and no Air Force helicopters will carry Army men. 

It is announced that Hughes is going to try to market products on the civilian market, and that testing has already begun at the Tullahoma Centre. Aeronautical Engineering has a report on flying the 707, from Boeing. Dr. C. G. Suits of GE says that "Solid State Physics May Spark Revolution," with research accelerating over the last five years and giving rise to new materials made of "perfect crystals," and also all those transistors and diodes we're always hearing about. Irving Stone reports that "Control of High Energy Sound Seen As Path to Engine Improvement," which is a rewritten advertorial from A. G. Bodine of Soundrive Engine, on account of which  it is doing lots of research and math to find out what the heck high energy noise is doing down there in those engines. Pardon the flippant tone, because even though the company is getting research funding, this sounds like claptrap. (Ronnie made a funny!!!)

George L. Christian reports for Equipment that "New Cameras Keep Pace with Supersonic Speeds" Chicago Aerial Industries makes Precision Automatic Photogrammetric Intervalometers to take, well, automatic high speed photographs. There follows actually quite a long and interesting article, at least if you are interested in what goes into a system for automatically adjusting a camera to take a photo with the right focus and so on, at the right location, taking into account altitude and flight speed, including at night. Hydro-Aire is very impressed with its new automatic turbopump, which is for fuel tanks, not that the title of the advertorial indicates anything of the sort. Gulf has a new engine oil. The B-52 is the first American aircraft to have all jet compressor ancillary systems operated by air. 

What's New has thirty bulletins, catalogues, directories and so on, on subjects ranging from nuclear reactor cooling to finishing machined holes to precision optics to punch card tabulators.

Philip J. Klass reports for Avionics that "Lack of Channels May Block Use of Tacan as Common System" So apparently this argument will never end, and, more importantly, different airports will continue to buy VOR/DME, Tacan, or both. Filter Centre reports that orders for X-band radars continue to grow, that the Navy has  a new HF transceiver, and that industry insiders say that you shouldn't call a computer an "electronic brain," because it's not. Hughes Aircraft, it says here, is working on "a new anti-aircraft network which employs array-type antennas and travelling-wave tubes, in combination with digital data-handling and processing equipment." 

New Avionic Products has medium-powered transistors, printed circuit connectors, miniature vacuum fixed capacitors, vacuum tube shock mounts, heavy duty pulse transformers, oscilloscope "memoires," and sweep syncs for same. New Aviation Products has valves, test stands, a Bakelite flouroethane resin that resists rocket fuels, timers for machine guns, hydraulic testers, an "enclosed aircraft motor," and filters. 

Letters 

The President of Bobrich Products sure liked the article about Bobrich Products. People are confused about security clearances. The President of Remmet-Werner has no time for all the industry associations they have these days. Robert Hotz's Editorial celebrates the Civil Air Patrol's new role of taking radioactive fallout samples and missing radioactive debris. 

    

Letters

Self-described "effete Briton" C. A. Joss liked John Guenther's look at Africa, while Florence Reid, formerly a missionary in Africa and now the superintendent of St. Peter's Hospital in Helena, Montana, didn't. Winthrop Greene and Otto Weideman of Seattle liked the article about the Vienna Opera. L. J. Herbert is reminded of the old days, before the war. Henry Hazlitt's column on the "Farm Price Parity Fraud" gets a lot of mail. Julian Calhoun explains the difference between counting frames and abacuses. Murray Kempton unconvincingly protests that he doesn't hate Westbrook Pegler. For Your Information announces the launching of Newsweek's Japanese edition. 

The Periscope reports that Eden might make a flying visit to Washington, that the DNC plans to make the President's health an issue if he runs again, that the State Department says that the sale of 20 tanks to Saudi Arabia  won't change the balance of power in the Middle East. The Navy says that it is going to get the world speed record with the F8U, to which the Air Force replies that it is going to take it away with the F-104. EXERCISE SAGEBRUSH evidently showed how the Air Force's "new electronic devices" "totally blinded" the best U.S. radar equipment, permitting the Air Force to achieve a "devastating atomic knockout" of the Army. "Vast stocks of equipment" may have been made instantly obsolete. The Assistant Secretary of the Army is fighting with the Chief of Naval Operations over medium-range missiles. The White House says that you can't run for the GOP nomination until the President decides not to, or the White House will be really, really mad. Sources say that Kefauver is okay with the VP slot on the Democratic ticket. Adlai Stevenson, Paul Douglas, and Hubert Humphre have told Americans for Democratic Action not to endorse Stevenson, in case some voters decide that he's a liberal or something. Some people say that the services have to start being unified for real. Secret reports from Russia indicate that the new Russian jet bombers are having engine problems, mainly having to do with burning too much fuel. The Navy's atomic aircraft carrier will be the biggest warship in history at 85,000t displacement, compared with 75,000 for the Forrestals. European powers are talking about a continental atomic pool. Russia is dangling a withdrawal of its veto on Italian membership in the UN for some diplomatic recognition. The sons of various East German worthies have fled to the West. U.S. Navy officers living in Japan are sending their families home due to rising Japanese hostility towards Americans. Trade tensions are rising between Red China and the Soviet Union. Notwithstanding denials, Italy is selling 48 Macchi jet fighters[?] to Egypt. Where Are They Now catches up with Jacob Yurovsky, the executioner of the Czar, who is retired and living on a farm near Sverdlovsk, while Grand Duchess Xenia is rooming with her sister as a guest of the British royal family. 

Didn't Yurovsky die twenty years ago?

The Periscope Washington Trends reports that Republicans are increasingly hoping that Ike will run again, and that there will be no right wing challenger, as both Knowland and McCarthy have abandoned their plans. The Administration is resisting Israeli pressure for military aid, and Congressional pressure for foreign aid cuts. 

National Affairs

It is time to start talkinga bout talking aobut the next round of Geneva talks! The crash of UAL Flilght 629 has been traced to John Gilbert Graham, of Denver, who put a bomb in his mother's suitcase to collect on a $37,500 life insurance policy. The Treasury Secretary allows as how the Administration will run on the economy in '56, which is DEFINITELY news. Also news is a likely Stevenson/Kefauver ticket in '56. You don't say! (That's sarcasm. In fact, Newsweek does say it, and will say it every week from now on to the election.) The President is champing at the bit to get back to work. a Gallup poll shows that Nixon and Stevenson are actually running pretty close, and the governor of Kansas says that the GOP is making electoral trouble for itself by running to the right of the voters. 

If the Navy is working on a flying submarine[?] and the Air Force on a flying saucer, then the Army will damn well work on a flying tank!  According to a semi-official article in Armor, the Army is working on a "logistical carrier" capable of carrying 48 men, accompanied by flying jeeps and possibly tanks. Which might actually only be "jumping" tanks able to hop over minefields. This would remove the need for roads and forward airfields and reduce the inflluence of terrain on warfare by "70%." That's right, there's a number. A cold snap is coming, and Raritan, New Jersey, is experiencing police labour action in the form of traffic ticket blitz. Ernest K. Lindley uses Washington Tides to highlight problems in public education rising to the level of a "National Emergency." 

International

"The Middle East: Dangerous Ingredients" Too much garlic, they say. And too many Russian guns, and too many demands for American guns. In Iran, a Muslim fanatic tried to assassinate the prime minister, and Lady Docker is in trouble again. Morocco celebrated the re-coronation of their Sultan with some random mob violence in anticipation of independence as soon as the French persuade themselves they've done enough face saving. The French seem to have settled on not having an early election. Two box stories and Leon Volkov's column explain how the Reds have a new plan to take over the world starting with the poor countries. Volkov also explains that Khrushchev is quite the guy. Just to remind us that Communists are bad, people are saying that that architect who was recently summoned home from his housing delegation is being recalled against his will and will be shot or something when he gets there.

Business

The Periscope Business Trends reports that there are signs of rising inflation, that retailers are hoping to have an even better Christmas than last year (talking dolls are going to be the big thing), that U.S meat production hit a record of 27 billion pounds this year, that Southern Pacific has placed a record 11,000 car, $90 million order, that, at $300 each, colour television sales are predicted to hit 3 million units in 1958, American is accepting reservations for its first jet service between Los Angeles and New York on 16 June 1959, and that Preston Tucker is looking for investors. 

KLM has ordered 8 DC8s, the Ford Foundation is really big and rich. Senator O'Mahoney thinks that the results of his investigation into GM's purchase of Euclid in 1953 is more grist for the mill, specifically is argument that the U.S. needs new and stricter anti-trust laws. 

  

Products: What's New has an alarm, Water Watchman, from Gem Corporation of Denver indicating water damage in the walls, Sifrag Air Curtain Corporation has an "air curtain" that seals off an air conditioned shop without the need for walls and windows. Sifrag is Swiss, and installation in the U.S. is handled by Sulzer's and the American Air Curtain Corporation. Henry Hazlitt throws his weekly fit about the federal deficit. 

Science, Medicine

Science reviews various new and established planetariums under construction around the country, including at the USAF Academy before doing a digest-style column reporting on the National Science Foundation's definitive census of Soviet technicians showing that the Soviet Union has far more science students than the U.S., a study by Lawrence Kimpton of the University of Chicago showing that the social sciences are a bunch of hooey, more from the NSF, which also wants a national astronomical observatory and for five or six scientific satellites to be launched during the IGY. Richard Whitcomb of NACA is getting a prize for coming up with the "coke bottle" shape for supersonic planes. 

"For the Forgotten" Dr. M. Murray Peshkin, of the National Home for Asthmatic Children in Denver, has found that many asthmatic children can be  treated simply by separating them from their over-protective mothers. Periscoping Medicine reports that various philanthropists are distributing $100,000 in lifesaving drugs in Central Africa based on a "3800 mile helicopter suvey." Dr. John Meyer of Johns Hopkins finds that diet foods have no correlation with weight loss, while the Air Force is experimenting with "semi-liquid foods" to feed aircrews via tubes on long-distance, high-altitude missions, and a massive Cornell long-term study of 200 service retirees finds that it's not bad for their health, after all.  A new blood test for cancer is said to be 90% effective. 

TV-Radio, Newsmakers

NBC is launching a series of hour-long documentary news specials with Assignment: India, while ABC has decided that if it can't lick NBC and CBS' ninety-minute and two hour dramatic blocks, it will launch its own, Command Performances. 

Mary Grice of the Wichita Beacon is quite the girl reporter for breaking an adoption-for-pay racket. The Field family runs the Chicago Sun-Times still, and Marshall Fields, Sr., is still a liberal, fancy that! (The story, such as it is, is that it has a new printing plant.) John Oliver La Groce has fifty years with the National Geographic.

Various Cabinet secretaries,  Marlon Brando, Maria Callas (with a spectacularly unflattering photograph), regimental commanders in Fort Dix, Ty Cobb, four hundred various royals, and Jacqueline Kennedy are in the column for the usual reasons. The Czech ambassador to the United Kingdom is in it for complaining about a bug planted in his office, and Bob Hope for making tasteless jokes about Princess Margaret and Group Captain Townshend. Prince Charles has had a birthday, Marie Dionne is ailing, and Daniel J. Tobin, Lloyd Bacon, James P. Johnston, Paul Crouch, and Marquis James have died. 

Movies

Diabolique is a French import directed by Henri-George Clouzot, which is a tense thriller doing well in the French box office, hence the import. Newsweek isn't so sure. MGM's I'll Cry Tomorrow is another musical with a heavy theme, but not as good as Love Me or Leave Me. The reviewer has harsh words for Susan Hayward. 

Books

C. E. Carrington has a biography of Kipling, the sense of Newsweek's hero-worshipping review is captured by its decision to print "Recessional" in an accompanying box. John Malcom Brinnin's Dylan Thomas in America is "the saddest book, . . A hangover-by-hangover documentary of the last three years of Dylan Thomas'  llife." Ten North Frederick marks a return to form for John O'Hara. Rumer Godden (which is a real name) also has a novel out. Periscoping Books is pretty tedious, since forthcoming books is something The Periscope doesn't need to make up. 

Raymond Moley answers Ernest K. Lindley's silly idea that the Federal government needs to spend more on public education by citing a report from the American Enterprise Institute that essentially finds that a proper and satisfactory Federal spending programme is impossible, and that we shouldn't even try. 

News Digest reports that the Bomarc missile will be built at Boeing's Wichita plant, that the Army is going to deploy the Nike missile that it is going to deploy, that Ryan is hoping to continue deliving Firebee target drones through the middle of 1956, and that Piasecki and Hamilton Standard have more orders. Industry Observer reports that one reason for the Vulcan's modified planform is instability during high-altitude bombing, that Lear and Narco are working on light weather radars for light planes, that Supermarine Swift Mk 5 reconnaissance jets are in production, that the new Saab double-delta fighter will be armed with a 30mm cannon and air-to-air missiles to be designed and built by Bofors. TWA is the first customer for the completely transistorised PB-20 Eclipse-Pioneer automatic pilot, and that the Ministry of Supply has cancelled the Avro 720 rocket-turbojet interceptor project, leaving the Saunders-Roe entry as the sole candidate. Which means either that Saunders-Roe's friends in Parliament won't rest until it gets an actual contract, or that the Ministry has given up on the rocket interceptor. Washington Roundup reports that the Army and Air Force are fighting over helicopters (and the Army and Air Force over anti-air missiles), that contract renegotiation and the prospect of new scheduled airlines are roiling Congress, that a sabotage committee is looking at measures to prevent further disasters like the recent UAL bombing. 

By Sisaphus - https://www.flickr.com/photos/sisaphus/4527153400/sizes/o/in/photostream/,
CC BY-SA 2.0 uk, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12035425

Aviation Week has some reporting on regional carriers' recent successes with regulators, and some bumpf about the B-57 framing a box story about how "SAGEBRUSH Raises Serious Defence Question," mainly that B-57s can scoot right through existing air defences and lay atom bombs on al the air bases for instant air superiority. Another lesson is the vital need for all-weather interception capability. Meanwhile, the B-57 could be even more lethal with radar, better low-altitude manoeuvrability, improvements to aeronautics for low altitude, high-speed flying, and even more and better electronic countermeasures. 

Senator Henry Jackson is telling the Navy to hurry up with atomic power before the Soviets build the Red Navy up into the ultimate world-conquering fleet of tomorrow. To fill out Aeronautical Engineering, Boeing sends in an advertorial about how "New Boeing Equipment Will Speed Flight Cycle" to be polished up by Irving Stone. To the extent that there's anything new here other than a complete list of Boeing flight test units, it is a mention of a new airborne instrument recording equipment using magnetic tape. George L. Christian points out that, in comparing the 707 and DC8, it is like Douglas and Boeing have swapped design philosophies. Beyond that, the DC8  is a bigger and more technically ambitious plane, and there might be delivery delays. Napier is testing its Oryx. Philip J. Klass reports for Avionics that "Arinc Warns That Special Tests of Vacuum Tubes Can Backfire" Too many testing and supposed breaking-in processes are just leading to the rejection and loss of too many vacuum tubes. 

Filter Centre reports new ADF circuits, a cold cathode emitter, the use of SPAR precision radars in the Navy's Antarctic operations for IGY, that KLM is buying the SEP2 autopilot, that Delta is ordering C-band radars, work on flush-skin ADF radar receivers continues, that Bell is working on a light-duty sensor for guiding helicopters to navigation beacons, that UAL's telegraph messaging centre is quite the thing. What's New reports has the usual mass of industry publications on everything from silicon rubber to a new line of battery-powered trucks from Baker-Raulang. 

Letters

George Tenney of McGraw-Hill had a bad flight on TWA (and extrapolates that there is no reason for first class), Lieutenant Peter Mongilardi really liked the writeup of the Air Italia LaGuardia accident report. Thomas Woersching of the Operations Analysis Group at Convair comments extensively on the article about negative camber as used in the DC8. For the second issue in a row, a union official complains about Aviation Week's coverage of a labour dispute. Several editorial errors are pointed out by correspondents. J. D. Smith of ALPA points out that greater air safety will come from implementation of proper procedures now, not better equipment later. New Aviation Products has various cargo deck accessories, instruments, a maintenance work tower, and a radiation exposure dosimeter, and a separate subsection for "New Missile Products" including an accelerometerand APU. For some reason Also on the Market turns into a three page section. Safety repors on the latest Martin crash, a TWA 4-0-4 that ran into a mountain near Albuquerque last 19 February, killing all 16 on board. The investigators cannot understand the course the plane was flying, but conclude that it was intentional. CAB has also turned in investigation reports on three other accidents. Two seem to have been malfunctions, one pilot error. Robert Hotz's Editorial salutes the revival of naval aviation, with indirect testimony indicating that carrier planes can now deliver H-bombs and Navy fighters getting ever faster and better, with atomic power right around the corner. 

The Engineer, 18 and 25 November 1955

In its latest concession to the modern age, The Engineer has moved the Leaders from the middle to the front of the paper.

For the 18th, "Ought Exams to be Examined," and "Long Range Air Policy." The first is a well-intentioned but silly discussion of a discussion at a meeting of the IME where everyone got tied up in knots asking how engineering schools can teach students to think. They can! They can't! Welcome to the conversation that never ends, my newly-fellow learned professionals. The second is the polar opposite, a serious conversation about a serious matter, the cancellation of the V-1000. The Engineer points out that the Atlantic service is too vastly important to the whole economy of the western world for BOAC to give it up. While it is unlikely, it says (ignoring the economics of utilisation rates) that jets will match the ticket prices of Britannia service, rich people will fly jets because they are faster, and making BOAC dependent on steerage rates makes it vulnerable to business downturns. Not having a British jetliner to compete with the 707 and DC8 at time of launch, if that is the result of this decision, and it probably is, means that BOAC must buy American. And unless there is a British plane at a very advanced point in development on the drawing boards at a major firm, it probably means no first-class British jetliner in the future, either, at least for a very long time. 

For the 25th, "Really High Pressures" and "A Mobile Nuclear Reprisal Force?" The point of the first is that when D. M. Newitt talked about high pressures in his Thomas Hawksley lecture to the IME, he was talking about pressures ranging from 750,000 lb/sq inch to the pressures obtaining in the middle of stars. This is because he is using math that takes its departure from the forces between atoms, and chemical engineering is starting to conjure with such numbers, which, in fact, modern lubricants are experiencing in practice. It is hard to even measure such pressures! In spite of the title, which seems to reference US Forrestal, the second Leader is mainly worried about atomic defence, which may or may not be impossible, but it is time for the Government to explain why Britain doesn't have its own Nike. 

The one and only RuthAS

A Seven Day Journal  for the 18th reports the official V-1000 cancellation announcement, which blames weight growth, as the V-1000 had grown too large for adequate performance with the Conway, and notes that since British needs for long-range airliners have been met for the next ten years,  the Ministry does not intend to "foster the development" of any further British jetliners in that period. The cancellation will leave Vickers' design and development team free to work on a design that will compete in the ten-year horizon, and in the mean time the RAF will get the very long range version of the Britannia and the Ministry will chip in with the costs of the Vanguard. In other news, the Hunter will be superseded by the  English Electric P.1 and a derivative of the Fairey Delta 2. The Javelin is ready for service, and the Ministry announces that it will go ahead with the Saro rocket interceptor and an experimental vertical lift-off type from Short and Harland, the P.D. 11. Monell alloys are celebrating their fiftieth anniversary. The  joint meeting of the ICE and IMEW heard an interesting paper about mechanical draft cooling towers, which originated in the war emergency and are now being put to peacetime use. The London Docks Inquiry report cites the most important reasons why it is hard to run a major dock in London, which are labour problems and the fact that it is in a city. The Engineer visited the Cycle and Motor Show and is disappointed by the lack of development of heavy machines for road work, and the disappearance of the Vincent, and with it, weather protection. There were also three-wheel vehicles, and interesting transmissions to make them more practical. Less momentous matters are covered next week, mainly parties and meetings and sessions, although also the latest attempt to fiddle with engineer apprenticeship schemes and a report on farm safety. The Institute of Gas Engineers' meeting is particularly interested in preventing accidental explosions in industrial ovens. Aren't we all!

A. K. Jenkins, "Characteristics of Oscillatory Mass Instruments" appears on the 18th. Putting an instrument on something that wiggles requires a bit of math to extract the wiggle noise. Following on the same date is a related article, "Mechanical Analogy to a Plastic Hinge," by J. W. H. King and Jenkins. Both articles appeared in Ministry of Supply reports. The Engineer also visits the Building Exhibition at Olympia and sees some interesting examples of largescale timber construction, and, related, woodworking machinery from Wadkins that doesn't look that innovative, and various concrete handling and pouring machinery. On the 25, Professor Newell's eyebrow-raising talk understandably gets a longer summary. Some construction, of a Marine Engineer's War Memorial Building, and of a mass-produced, easily assembled light radio mast from Callenders, fills out the third page of the Newell article. 

"Flame Research at Ijmuiden, Part 1" appears on the 25th, covering work in the fuel-burning industry. Some space is available for a very short advertorial for Russell Constructions' strainer for heavy slurries and viscous materials. A. B. Macintosh. "Metallurgy of Nuclear Power Production" follows. It briefly discusses high pressure/temperature vessels such as are needed for Calder Hall-type reactors before moving on to the fabrication of fuel elements, which, because they are metal, might be turned out in various alloys, even including some  liquid ones, followed by a discussion of the "canning" materials for holding them, and the liquid metals to be used in liquid-metal cooled reactors and coolant gasses for gas-cooled reactors. A problem is that the chemistry of the uranium-niobium family still isn't fully understood. 

On the 25th, the UKEA has a report on the availability of atomic energy information at public libraries, and notices a British Rails announcement of plans to offer £10 million in contracts for 130 diesel-electric and eleven diesel-hydraulic locomotives as part of its modernisation plans. 

Metallurgical Topics for the 25th looks at papers given to the Iron and Steel Institute on steel cold forming, including, separately, transformer steels, surface finish, residual stresses, induction and flame hardening, the effect of molybdenum and tungsten on temper brittleness. (The Autumn meting of the Institute gets a separate article that gives titles and very short explanations for many, many papers, of which the largest and coherent body consist of visits and reports on the Russian industry.) 

On the 25th there is "Progress at Calder Hall Power Station," the power station associated with the plutonium-producing plant at Windscale.  

Some advertorials follow, including "Excavating Plant for Shaft Sinking" from the National Coal Board, and "Flameproof Gate-End Control Panel," from GEC. Below the fold, Hudswell Clark gets in a long one about the small diesel-mechanical locomotives they are making for South Africa, the NCB, again, for the operations of their first offshore coal boring tower, Metrovick for its proton linear accelerator, which it unnecessarily adds is for "atomic research," the other possibility being shooting at Tom Corbett, I guess! Plus, radars for small craft from Marconi, yet another approach at a helicopter autopilot, from Sperry, a "simplified capstan lathe" imported by Murad, an "Electrochemical recorder' for oxygen in feed water from Cambridge Scientific that gets full article treatment for no apparent reason, a heavy-duty hacksaw machine, a radio transmitter, a PA for a coal washing station, a "machine vice for irregularly shaped work"(!) and a catalogue(!!) Buried in the middle is a short summary of a paper on "factors affecting the efficiency of Fluorescent Lamps" given to the Society of Illuminating Engineers by Jackson, Molloy, and Scott. A. B. Love replies at great length on "Technical Education" with various complicated engineering problems, and just how do you teach students to "think" about this stuff, what? On the 25th, The Engineer shares advertorials for a big press for wringing out steel plates from Joshua Bigelow and Son, the "H.R.G" sportscar, and a Transport Equipment light lorry, describes its visit to AEC's engine casing machining shop, and summarises and presents the discussion of a paper by F. J. Bradbury and F. G. Parnell given to the IME's automobile division about disc brakes for motor vehicles, although the discussion veers into brakes on factory equipment. The Gas Council writes in about renovations at its Fulham laboratories, which is now to have a pilot plant. What does the Gas Council need with plants? 

"Air Transport Project" Oh, for Heaven's sake. Preliminary work is being undertaken by the people who are undertaking the preliminary work in Washington, DC on a DC3 replacement, it says here. (Trees were cut down for this! Poor, innocent trees!) The piece goes on to identify it as the 'Frye transport," which is the crucial clue telling us who is working on it, specifically, Jack Frye, who must have needed a retirement project. It might have turbines, if the Air Force wants to buy it, and wants turbines, or it might have P&W Wasps, because they sound nice. Anyway, it will be a DC3 replacement, so put in your pre-orders now. 

See, Jack Frye was killed in a car crash the same day "the music died." According to the Wiki biography, this is why we've never heard of him. Your grandchildren are proud of you, Jack!

Probably Virax. From Ebay.

On the 18th, Continental Engineering visits various exhibitions and congresses and looks at a French competitor for Decca and the prospects of the aluminum industry in French Africa. On the 25th they visit the shipyards in Hamburg and the "inauguration of the ECSCE Council of Association," which is a way for the United Kingdom to join the ECSCE without associating with nasty Continentals. Industrial and Labour Notes is the usual broken record of unions are mean, exports are up, but . . . Except in Northern Ireland, which is backwards and sad. Maybe we can send them a few more planes to build! On the 25th, the usual litany is joined by Ivan Stedeford of Tube Investments explaining why more automation means more jobs, not fewer, and concerns about the supply of raw materials. Stedeford's Who's Who entry says that he is the son of a Methodist preacher, so a good form for endlessly repeating platitudes runs in the family. American Section visits the National Machine Show in Chicago both weeks, but Fortune had better pictures. On the 25th, a brief discussion of the Trinity River reclamation project in California and a picture of the FJ-4 is slotted in. Three Launches and Trial Trips, both weeks. On the 18th, 1 Norwegian, all motor tankers; on the 25th, all three are British, one by Bruntisland, two by Harland and Wolff, all motor ships: one cargo, two passenger-cargo. 

 

Shown here at the Port of Vancouver sometime in the late Sixties after
renaming. Stranded in Ponape in 1971 and sank. 

Literature reviews The Automatic Factory: A Critical Examination, by the Instrument \s Publishing Company, Telecommunications Principles and Equipment, by W. T. Perkins, Practical Ideas for Metalwork Practice, from McGraw-Hill, Constructional Steelwork, by Oscar Fabe; and Dale S. Davis, Nomography and Empirical Equations, on the 18th. The former is ultimately a group of Harvard engineering students who did a study, and concludes that talk of automatic factories, at least for complicated piecework, is hopelessly premature, although they are optimistic as regards the distant future. Except for Davis, the rest are pretty elementary. Davis' "empirical" equations show just how far away the purely automatic factory might be, although it does show how to calculate lots of interesting things. The talk on "Technological Education" then gets a (much) longer writeup. 

Ordered in large numbers as an atomic strike aircraft, intended to "lob" atomic bombs at low altitudes.
Can't let the Air Force have all the atom bombs.  By Paul Nelhams from Shannon, Ireland - N400FS, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=26447886