Postblogging Technology, December, 1955, II: Peace On Earth and Sick Presidents. (In 1955!)

We've done this before, but Pogo has never been more relevant.

R_. C_.,
Shaughnessy,
Vancouver,
Canada

Dear Father:

Once again I am writing to the man downstairs. It seems a bit silly, but I also feel blue and somber and like somehow marking the occasion of Victor's death, which has hit James even harder than it has me. 

Test flying is dangerous work, and we have lost friends before, but this is the first of them to be killed on a plane that James was not sparing in describing as a pointless death trap. You have to swallow a certain amount of bile when your warnings go disregarded, and it is not like Victor is the last man this silly contraption will kill. 

I suppose this what we deserve for living in a country that turns out not to need a President at all, after apparently living through almost two centuries labouring under the illusion. At least as long as the Cabinet consists of good Republicans, the country flies autopilot!

Your Loving Daughter,

Ronnie

Newsweek, 19 December 1955

Letters

The First State Bank of Chester as of 2020 or so. 
By Publichall - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0,
 https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9679863

Cliff Massoth. William Farigy of the American Association of Railroads, and Harold Kuettner really liked the special report on railroads, but Fred Barrett, a Montana state representative from Chester, Montana, points out that up in north Montana, they are only served by the Great Northern Railroad, which, instead of running pushbutton trains working on atomic power, have a "skidoo" service to Chester with two coal stoves and kerosene lamps. Leonora Emerson liked that Newsweek printed "Recessional" and replies with some Longfellow by way of showing that modern poetry is so much tripe. W. Garland Emerson of the Board of Examiners of the Foreign Service, takes issue with the idea that the US Foreign Service is monopolised by graduates of the Jesuit-run program at Georgetown, with numbers. Boring, stupid numbers don't reflect the real reality of reality, Newsweek replies. Robert Atlick of Baltimore doesn't find a mistake in Newsweek, and should be ashamed of himself. Ken C. Carroll likes it when Newsweek criticises Liberace, and Chris W. Capener doesn't. Paul Johnson of Wichita does find an error in Newsweek. For Your Information reminds us that Compton Pakenham brings his British sense of class to Newsweek's Tokyo Bureau, and was just in the U.S. for the first time in five years to give a confidential(!?) talk to the Air Force Academy, which shows how important Newsweek is. 

 

It's the War on Christmas!

The Periscope reports that the French Assembly is being rocked by some kind of lottery scandal, because the end of the Fourth Republic won't be complete without someone embezzling some money. Eisenhower and Eden are going to swap atomic secrets when they meet because Communism is bad. I thought that was why they stopped swapping atomic secrets? Egypt may recognise East Germany, which will make West Germany mad. The newly restored Sultan of Morocco is raising the rent on the USAF base at Rabat. Thailand is going Communist again some more. The Finns are building nine unusual tankers with reinforced hulls and auxiliary power generators that will probably be used to refuel Russian submarines in the Arctic, and radar stations on the polar ice. NATO countries want a radar defence network, too. East Germany's crack technical high school has 8000 students and plans to have 14,000 by 1860, whereas Britain has only 17,000 students enrolled at that level in total. Bugaria's Vulkov Chervenkov is up for a purge. Robert Murphy and Chip Bohlen might be moving on from State because they are tired of Dulles. Emanuel Celler is calling lawyers before the House Judiciary Committee to opine on just how incapacitated a President has to be before he is incapacitated. He's attacking Ike! Get him! Communist Poland is making good money exporting Christmas ornaments to the U.S., which just goes to show. The Air Force isn't complaining about the Navy getting aircraft carriers because the Air Forcer and Navy have kissed and made up. The new waterborne ballistic missile will go on the uncomplete battleship Kentucky when it commissions, and the brightest stars in the Navy are lining up to command it. Where Are They Now catches up with Gertrude Scholtz-Klink who is an accountant in a soft-drink factory in West Germany since the whole "Fuehrer of women" ting didn't work out for her, and Prunella Stack, who is still famous, but moving back to the U.K. from South Africa.
 

The Periscope Washington Trends reports Republican leadership thinks that Eisenhower will nominate his successor if he does not run himself, except Bill Knowland, who is going to run. Democrats will focus on Brownell, Wilson, and Strauss as the most vulnerable members of the Cabinet, rather than attack Eisenhower. Meanwhile, in order to meet the balanced budget, defence will be held to $33 billion in spending, foreign aid to $2.5, as Dulles thinks that it is pointless to try to outbid Soviet aid to the uncommitted nations. 

National Affairs

Ike is getting better! Will he get all the way better? Here's a page and a half of speculation at the top of the news! Besides Knowland, we now here that "conservative Republicans" want to run J. Edgar Hoover. 

The SeaMaster prototype crash killed  Victor Utgoff and three unnamed civilian employees of Glenn Martin. More AFL-CIO merger coverage takes us to weather and crime coverage via a short report that the Ford Foundation has given away $500 million this week to private liberal art colleges, private hospitals, and private medical schools, upon which occasion Henry Ford (the younger) was heard to say that the Foundation is "left wing" and given to "dubious" causes, but there's nothing he can do about it. Squeezed in at the bottom is the news that Jim Medaris is the new head of the Army Ballistic Missiles Agency, and some copyplate about how the Defence Department missile business is up this week. (It's always up!) As far as anyone knows, that just means that the Redstone and Atlas are burbling along. Ernest K. Lindley checks in on the "Propaganda War for Asia" at Washington Tides. Khrushchev and Bulganin are still touring, more money is going to the USIA. 

International

Communist propaganda is bad! Which brings us, eventually, to Chiang raising his bald pate in the pages of Newsweek for the first time in it seems like forever, by using the seat on the Security Council he holds to threaten to veto Outer Mongolia's application for membership in the General Assembly, and sinking the other seventeen applications in the same package, which has everyone mad at him, and not just the Communists. (Although if all the memberships are approved, the Assembly will go to a neutralist majority and no longer be reliably anti-Communist.) Also, Russian officials are no longer barred from the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, which Newsweek covers like it is a Soviet invasion or something. In the Saarland, on the other hand, the Nazis are back and campaigning for the pro-Germany position in the plebiscite. Mendes-France is running in the election because there is an election and he is a politician, but that doesn't really make for a story so we get a review of how he got the Socialist Party behind him, which the early election call was supposed to prevent. Labour lost the general election in Australia because Herb Evatt is dumb. Nepal's internal politics get a long column. The Bertha Hertogh story seems to be over. You may remember that as the case where a British judge in Singapore decided that having a chance to be White was grounds for abrogating a custodial arrangement. Cyprus is in revolt, Clement Attlee is one of just 55 Labour members of the House of Lords out of 878, and Morison, Gaitskell, and Bevan are the leading candidates to be the new Labour leader. 

The Canadian Army is short 700 officers, because it lacks an "officer class," and needs to pay them, instead. The Coffin case gets a mention, and Social Credit is talking about reviving its signature policy of giving money to individual voters, although it has been suggested that the reason is less a shortfall of aggregate demand than the upcoming election. 

Business 

Periscope Business Trends reports that the President will say that the "boom is entering a less hectic stage," and there is no call for easing off on tight credit. Eyes are on consumer spending and business outlays. Boeing's jetliner backlog is up to $275 million, while Chance Vought has a $100 million order for Crusaders from the Navy, Pepsi-Cola has dropped its P.R. firm, Studebaker has orders for 30,000  of its Hawk sportscars, American Motors is confident about future sales, British TV ownership has passed 5 million, North American says that can afford to sell $261 transatlantic coach tickets if regulators will let it, and there is a shortage of pennies.

The lead stories in Business cover the Senate's investigation of the auto industry and car dealerships. After that, it is  a look at how the Christmas shopping season is shaping up. Products: What's New reports that American Bosch has a practical fuel injection system to replace auto carburetors, and a low cost method of television transmission via telephone lines from the Dage division of Thompson Products, which, contra the implications of the introduction, is just another facsimile broadcast system. Henry Hazlitt's Business Tides has a typically thoughtful and deeply considered column proposing to reform agricultural subsidies by getting rid of all agricultural subsidies, because the free market cannot fail. 

Science, Medicine, Education

People and Things reports that Vannevar Bush is retiring, Brookhaven National Laboratory is getting a new atomic medicine wing, and MIT and IBM are working together on giant digital computers. 

"Sovereignty in Space" Inasmuch as space travel is starting to be a serious consideration, it is time to worry about how far national sovereignity extends into space, and here is Andrew G. Haley, the "irrepressible general counsel of the American Rocketry Society" to weigh in, which he will in a forthcoming, massive treatment of the law of space. 

"Towards Silent Jet" Everyone loves the jet age except actual people, with their bleeding ear drums. Good news, though, Boeing has a solution, so don't worry. What is it? Well, it's a secret. But trust Boeing! 

Jacqueline Ariol has returned to being famous because she flies planes and helicopters even though she is a beautiful young woman after six years of seclusion and plastic surgery after her 1949 crash. Alfred Kinsey's researchers are producing one study of sex in a given country after another like some kind of assembly line. 

"The Explosive Lecturer" Headmaster William Saltonstall has invited J. Robert Oppenheimer to lecture at Philips Exeter, provoking a critical editorial in The Manchester Union Leader and making this the most New England story ever. 

Press, TV-Radio, Life and Leisure, Newsmakers

Detroit's press strike gets a story, followed by the sale of the Cincinnati Enquirer to its employees. 

Bob Sarnoff, 37-year-old son of chairman David Sarnoff, is the new president of NBC, because he is the best man for the job. Arthur Godfrey is still making an ass of himself. 

Life and Leisure looks at fox hunting and Parker Brothers' line of family games like Monopoly. 

Billy Graham, Kyle MacDonnell, Winston Churchill, Joan Culver, Alfred Hitchcock, Dr. Joyce Brother, the President of Uruguay, and Howard (Hopalong) Cassidy are in the column for the usual reasons. (Posterity may forget Culver, but she is Queen of the Roses this year.) Colin P. Kelly III is in the news because there are rumours that he doesn't want to go to a service academy now that he's old enough. Morehead Paterson has resigned the directorship of the President's Atoms-for-Peace program. Nanette Farrey is recovering from her on-set accident. Honus Wagner, Hermann Weyl, and Horace Liversidge have died. 

Movies

Kismet, from MGM, is a Christmas-time fantasy involving the Arabian Nights, which Newsweek enjoyed. Marcel Pignol's Letters From My Windmill is a very serious movie by a very serious French director. Periscoping Movies reports that Clarence Mulford (Hopalong Cassidy) is making a movie about his life, that Pearl Bailey is "daring" Hollywood to option the autobiography of Ethel Waters for her next movie, that Pontis, de Laurentis, Silvana Mangano, and Henry Fonda are associated with a film version of Tolstoy's Resurrection. Jose Ferrer plans to direct and play the lead role in an adaptation of Al Morgan's The Great Man. 

Books

Winter's Tale is an anthology of stories by well-known authors that will hopefully be an annual event from now on. Daniel Bell's edited collection, The New American Right is subtitled "The 'Liberal' Case?" The seventeen authors describe the rise of a new movement of "neo-conservatives" in American politics devoted to rolling back what it perceives as the left wing trend in American governance. The reviewer is particularly impressed by Richard Hofstadter's essay on the "Pseudo-Conservative revolution." Richard Wilbur's A Bestiary is likely to be a more popular Christmas gift, while Archie Binns' Mrs. Fiske and the American Theater is a slice of American theatre history. Raymond Moley uses Perspectives to point out that there's too much government bureaucracy these days. Thanks, Ray! 

News Digest reports that the Chance Vought F8U-1 is a pretty hot ship, and that the new bombing-navigation system being developed by IBM for the B-52 under an $11.6 million contract "presumably employs the new digital techniques." The million-dollar contract for stationary trainers for the F-102 has gone to a Convair subsidiary. Industry Observer reports that MATS will buy a "substantial number" of the Boeing C-135 jet transports, that the GE J79 is a pretty hot engine, that roll-bond skin, developed by Olin-Mathieson, offers a potential solution to the thermodynamic problems of supersonic speeds. The sheet is fabricated with internal channels through which coolant such as fuel can be circulated. The Navy says that the bugs that no-one ever mentioned have been wrinkled out of TACAN, which can now go into mass production at Federal Telecommunications Laboratory. The US Army is looking at converting its L-17s into twin-engined types. Lockheed is building a laboratory at its Marietta, Georgia factory to check aircraft for the aftereffects of atomic exposure. Corning is working on a radome that will resist Mach 2. Aeroproducts has the first turboprop propeller in the United States to pass the test for a 1000 hour overhaul schedule. Washington Roundup reports that R. Karl Honaman is out as Pentagon PR, that CAB is getting a new chairman (it also lists the leading candidates) , that the CAB accident report on the Sandia Mountain crash will be reopened, that Harold Pearson, "reently fired as president" of the ATA, is job-hunting at the Pentagon. Good luck with that, the column says, gleefully. Someone made some enemies! 

Philip J. Klass reports for Aviation Week that "U.S. Plans to Launch 12 Earth Satellites" That is, providing Congress appropriates the money for it. They will probably be launched from the Air Force Missile Test Centre, Patrick AFB, Florida, "although the Australian Woomera range is another possible site." Important details were publicised for the first time in a recent presentation to the Institute of Radio Engineers by James Van Allen and Martin Sommerfield. The venue was chosen because telemetry is likely to be a bigger problem than actually launching rockets. However, some scientists, including Australians, are still looking at balloon-launched two-stage rockets instead of an untried three-stage design. The orbits will be a "diagonal" compromise between a polar and equatorial path, because of the limits of the launch sites. The size of the rockets is determined by the expected short life of satellites launched to only 100, or even 200 mile orbits, where there is enough atmospheric drag to being them down in as little as a year. The final insertion speed of a three-stage rocket-launched to a 300 mile orbit will be up to 29,000ft/sec, compared with the Earth orbit escape velocity of 36,700ft/sec, or a 7000 mile-range ballistic missile's peak velocity of 24,200ft/sec. There are some complexities, mainly having to do with the difficulty of detaching the satellite from the third stage. These can be resolved by choosing a "tangential" trajectory, and by not trying to do it on the other side of the world from the control station. Van Allen emphasises that this is not cover for a secret military program, that there is real science to be done, mainly having to do with measuring cosmic radiation. The telemetry problem can be greatly simplified if the satellites can broadcast at higher power, meaning that the satellite needs a better power system. This is why they were working on solar silicon wafer batteries generating nearly 5w per pound weight. 

In other words, it's a flashbulb

Clause Witz reports that "Shortage of Maintenance Personnel Curbs F-100's Operational Capability" Everything is terrible, but also perfect and getting better, and the reason for it, deep journalistic research reveals, is that the Air Force doesn't have enough maintenance personnel. Follows a slightly longer treatment of the mass resignation of Lockheed scientists, three of whom were department directors, along with an assistant director and a group head. 

"Wrangle Looms Over Defence Budget" In breaking news, critics think that the Fiscal 1957 defence budget is too small. This article manages to take up a full page by listing the various underfunded service priorities in somewhat vague terms. The Navy wants nuclear power and is doing stuff! The one thing I take away is that the Army really wants turbine helicopters. Aviation Week. The Air Force says that even though the lamp illuminates the ground, it is hard to see from the ground because it is a blue-white mercury lamp. In shorter news, the Hughes XH-17 has finally completed its test program. The second SeaMaster is ready for taxi trials. Lockheed's Special Projects Group in Marietta is doing lots of special projects.

Robert H. Cushman reports for Aeronautical Engineering that "Fairchild Builds Short Take-off Transport" To be more specific, Fairchild has dug out the twenty-year-old brainchild of William E. Hunt, originally a triplane with heavily flapped wings and a flapping, hinged propeller. It is also has a twin-boom tail for easier loading, for what it is worth. It is theoretically interesting, but utterly impractical, which makes you wonder why it is given three pages. The answer, of course, is that it is the middle of December. Speaking of which, Henry Refer reports for Production that "Quality Control, Reliability Plans Bring Dividends to Eclipse-Pioneer," a breath-taking investigation into how Eclipse bought some new micrometers and barometers to use in the standards laboratory they, like every other factory, already had. It's still better than the following advertorial from General Dynamics, "Variable Router Uses Electric-Eye Scanner." The scanner, it turns out, just keeps its eye on the hand-drawn template. 

What's New has just four data files and such under "Telling the Market," although interestingly two are for computing. The rest of the column is made up of over-the-lanyard non-reviews of eight publications on subjects ranging from an introduction to turbojets or air navigation to two monographs on current combustion research. Letters has praise for the Navy's atomic initiative from Charles Wilils, a wild polemic from Paul Carpenter of Bell aimed at everyone from FDR to the Luftwaffe on its way to condemning the Navy. Robert Colin defends Tacan, Stanley Bernstein defends proprietary data, Name Withheld explains that the Air Force is short of engineers because it doesn't hire some applicants because even though those applicants are perfectly qualified, the Air Force is dumb and thinks they aren't. Richard Revord of the Winzen Research Laboratory has a very full history of how Otto Winzen pushed the "Skyhook" plastic balloon on the Navy, got Commander George Hoover on side, and built the lab, which is now doing all sorts of useful research. 

Philip J. Klass reports for Avionics that "Civil-Military Design Differences Laid to Procurement Practices." I bet they do! There was a symposium on the subject in Baltimore recently, and Klass reports what mainly seems to be a complaint that the services are too strict. 

Dowty Equipment reports for Equipment that "Expendable Skid Brakes Light Vulcan Bomber Undercarriage." There's also one on a compact battery going into a new Sikorsky helicopter before we get to New Aviation Products, none of which seem particularly new or interesting. 

The CAB accident report on the American Convair 240 crash at Fort Leonard Wood last August gets a summary review instead of a full article for some reason. Is it because the report finds that it was caused by an unairworthy engine that failed six hours after it was put back into service after repair, probably because the American Airlines shop routinely passed cylinders on visual inspection of bolt flanges instead of the specified use of surface plate and feeler gauge. Captain Robson's Cockpit Viewpoint looks at air traffic over New York on a typical rainy night, when there might be 20 to 30 aircraft in holding patterns under voice control, all 30 on the same circuit, and all cross talking. This just isn't good enough, which is why Editorial has "One Step Toward Better Air Traffic Control," which is that the CAA has to get on top of the crisis in air traffic control which has been building up over the last six months before SAC takes over. 

Letters

Eight letters reflect readers' broad interest in the Education special, mostly supportive, although there's the usual letter about high school graduates who can't read or write and not enough attention for Catholic schools. Heslip Sutherland complains that he's never heard of the American quarter horse, because if there's a reader who is too dumb to for Newsweek, he's probably a horsey guy. Several correspondents liked the story about the Jewish National Home for Asthmatic Children. 

By Foto: WAF, scan: Marek Debski - Skrzydlata
Polska nr 434/1959, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.
wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14643698

The Periscope reports that Kefauver is mending fences with Democratic brass, that General Van Fleet might run for the Senate in 1958, that Secretary Benson is mending fences with farmers, that the Army reserve proposal is in trouble, that a secret report on the Dienbienphu defeat for the Joint Chiefs says that the Communists had complete access to French military decision making due to having the French codes. Even as Uruguay's President is making nice in Washington, his Vice-President is looking for markets in China. Red China! Egypt has already received its first Il-28s, France claims to have i intelligence that the Moroccan revolt was supported by nationalist commandos who were shipped to Morocco in an Egyptian freighter. South Korea is nearly bankrupt. The Scottish Aviation Twin Pioneer has impressive short landing and takeoff performance, there was an anti-Russian riot at a soccer game in Prague. the U.S.-British decision to fund the High Aswan Dam will be followed by projects on the Tigris and Euphrates. Tito and Haile Selassie are discussing a joint development agreement to be partly funded by the World Bank. Egypt is approaching former German U-boat commanders to train them to operate the Red submarines they are buying. Congress is teeing up for a fight over military appropriations for aviation amidst concerns that Soviet strategic aviation will outpace American within five years. Where Are They Now catches up with Finlay Jay Shepherd, who is retired from being famous and is running a dairy farm and is involved in multiple sclerosis, because his wife is stricken, while Nick la Rocca has been retired since 1926. (Which misses his recent activity claiming to be the inventor of jazz!) 

The Periscope Washington Trends reports that the President's request for $5 billion for foreign aid will be the big fight of the upcoming Congressional session. Pentagon officials "would not be surprised" by a surprise Red Chinese attempt on Quemoy and Matsu in March or April, taking advantage of favourable weather. At home, Republicans want a balanced budget, Democrats more money for air power amidst that "in five years more Red bombers" scare. 

National Affairs 

You know what there hasn't been for at least a week? A lead story about how the President is getting better, but maybe not fast enough? So here's one! Etc, etc (with a Christmas theme featuring the decorations at the White House), Kefauver getting ready to  run, more about Stevenson. 

26 "Zulus," 30 "Quebecs," 215 "Whiskeys" through 1958, and none for Egypt.
By One half 3544 - Own work, Public Domain,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2519858

"The Reds Reach Far" Remember two years ago when Koumintang pirates brought Tuapse, a Soviet freighter into Formosa, and how "diplomacy" eventually got 20 of the crew returned to the Soviet Union, while 9 sought asylum in the United States? Well, now the nine asylum seekers say that they are being stalked by Red agents, and they've told their story to Leon Volkov of Newsweek as well as the FBI. Various eminent people think that Herbert Hoover's idea of a full-time Administrative Vice-President is a great idea. Happy Chandler is back, the Air Force is revising the curriculum of the Survival School to include less torture, Herman Welker has been associated with Harry Cashin and Tony Anastasia. The Senator explains that it is simply that they are all fraternal members of the Worst Fellows Society. Ernest K. Lindley uses Washington Tides for "Less Bang for a Buck" to explore the current state of American resistance to "Communist imperialism." He finds that the Democratic position that we are not spending enough on defence, particularly military aviation, is sound. The massive Soviet buildup with their estimated 400 submarines and presumed stockpile of fission-fusion-fission bombs must be countered. 

International

"Defence of the West: Only an Edge" Newsweek popped by the meeting of NATO defence ministers in Brussels, which was very sour because of defence cuts, 300,000 French troops being in Algeria, and the formation of the first West German division still eighteen months away. The assessment is sixteen NATO divisions between the Baltic and the Alps, and just 10 more by D+5, against 25 Russian divisions west of the Elbe. The Soviet Navy is now the second largest in the world, with a reported 400 submarines and long range bombers. The meeting agreed on a $45 million NATO radar screen and no repeat of last year's aggregate $2 billion defence cut, but on the other hand no increase in the European NATO $10.5 billion defence budget , less than a third of the U.S. The solution would seem to be more cooperation. 

"Outcry for War" Egypt's Nasser says there will be war if there is another big Israeli raid on Gaza, especially like the latest one on Syrian lines on the northeast shore the Sea of Galilee that left 41 Syrian defenders dead after a four hour battle. Ben-Gurion's "Bring it on!" response is upsetting Israeli moderates. 

"Route to Tranquility" As Egypt's Finance Minister recently told Nasser from Washington, "The High Dam is in the bag!" The dam is estimated to cost $1.3 billion. Russia has offered $600 million at 2%, which is far better than the World Bank's 4.2%, but Egypt would prefer to take the West's money. The World Bank has unblocked a $200 million loan, the existing American and British commitment is $70 million, Congress is being asked for $114 million more, Britain will unblock £86 million of Egypt's holdings, and another $800 million will be committed in future years. This counts as a "resonating diplomatic victory for the West." At the United Nations, Ambassador Sobolev has won his uncommitted-nations majority in the General Assembly by the neat parliamentary manoeuvre of excising Outer Mongolia from the package of applicants, and also managed to exclude Japan, which is most upset. Khrushchev and Bulganin are in Afghanistan, where Commnist propaganda is still terrible. Hugh Gaitskell is the new Labour leader, and Eden has reshuffled his cabinet. Rab is out at the Exchequer in favour of Macmillan. This is read as Eden wanting Macmillan out of the Foreign Office, where he is deemed too tough and anti-Communist, and Butler entirely sidelined as Deputy Prime Minister. 

Also Charles and Anne are very excited about Christmas, which
is cute. 

In other European news, Otto John has returned from East Germany  and the Poujadists are making a spectacle of themselves as the French election campaign advances. Various royals are in the news. The Saarland is still going back to Germany. In Canada, tight credit is coming in, and the saga of SS Makedonia is the biggest story in Vancouver. Or, at least, the second biggest after the aftermath of the murder of a police constable revealing disarray in the Vancouver Police Department. 

Business

Periscope Business Trends reports that this is probably the top of the boom. Again this week there is a short Notes-like section packing in short news vignettes such as a new GTR synthetic rubber plant, Continental Air Lines' recent aircraft buying binge, including some Viscounts.

The lead news story finds "Clearing Weather for American Shipping," reporting that the bulk obsolescence of the American merchant shipping fleet of over a thousand vessels is leading to some major replacement orders. 

Scientists Take a Walk" Seven PhDs have resigned at Lockheed, led by Ernst Krause, over "a conflict in approach" a month after Elwood Quesada's resignation. Krause and colleagues aim to set up their own company, following the precedent set by Ramo-Woolbridge. Following up on that, a story about how distillers are using "bizarre bottles" to distinguish their products, and Uncle Henry's reorganisation of his business empire, which seems to be an excuse of getting shut of it, because it's boring. Yet another story about the farm problem, and the Seiberling press group. 

Henry Hazlitt looks at "The Arithmetic of Federal Aid" and proves that it can't do anything for anyone because it comes out of taxes, so it's just reallocating it, which is obviously worse than useless, because the free market would do it better. 

Science, Medicine

"Even Faster Skis" British scientist F. P. Bowden has overturned the folk physics of skiing and discovered that faster skis is just a matter of giving them a slippery coating of polytetrafluoroethylene, or, in other words, Teflon. 

"Seeing in the Dark" The Air Force has declassified its hypersensitive television system that "sees in utter darkness, giving a perfect image of the ground from as high as 20,000ft on moonless nights. The Air Force "Cat Eye" system works by collecting more light, and not by illuminating the ground, as in infrared and radar systems.  

"For the Emotionally Ill" looks at efforts to treat sex psychopaths in the California penal system. An extensive study of ten years of water fluoridation finds no adverse medical effects, notwithstanding which opposition to fluoridation continues. Polio cases continue to fall in the United States ass the "Salk Score" piles up. Periscoping Medicine reports that University of California scientists believe they have found the long-sought brain abnormality that might outline schizophrenia, a different in oxygen usage; while the United States Public Health Service is making a further effort to expand access to psychoanalysis by funding analyst training; new research reveals that the heart has "two zones," and that electrocardiographs may not be effective in detecting heart abnormalities in the "inner" zone; and that immunity to syphilis might exist in patients treated by penicillin, making a vaccine for syphilis possible. 

Press, Life and Leisure, TV-Radio, Newsmakers

Jim Hagerty gets a long profile in Press, and we catch up with the Detroit press strike. The New York local of the Newspaper Guild has voted against funding the defence of journalists fired for being Communists, but it does not seem likely that the national executive will go along.

Life and Leisure looks at the way that Pogo, the rest of the world, and department store Santas celebrate American Christmas.

The National Council of Churches has chosen Christmas as a good time to release a report concluding that there's not enough religion on TV , and especially not from the churches. After a thrilling return to reporting random and inaccurate rumours last month, the entertainment side of Periscoping TV-Radio confines itself to some TV plays that might be made in the next few months. 

Jack Downey, John D. Spreckels, James Van Fleet, Cardinal Spellman, John Nance Gardner, Arthur Godfrey, the six most successful women of 1955 as chosen by the women's Home Companion, Maria Callas, Sophia Loren, Gina Lollobrigida, Tony Curtis, and several Italian politicians are in the column for the usual reason. Lt. General Harmon, the commandant of the USAF Academy, and Merle Evans have retired. Ann Blythe has had a baby. Jack Holtzclaw, George Villiers, Antonio Moniz, Charles E. Mitchell, and Dorothy Caruso have died. 

Movies

Paramount/'s Rose Tattoo is pretty good  and so is Anna Magnani, even if she is doing her press tour in "spaghetti English." And one good European turn deserves another, with Otto Preminger's the Man with the Golden Arm being released by United Artists this week. 

Books has the special Christmas issue covering several hundred books, and there is no way that I am giving every one of them a sentence when even the feature can't give them all a proper title. The top ten are Thomas Mann's last, Robert Penn Warren, Hachiya, O'Hara, Allen's biography of Walt Whitman, de Gaulle and Truman's memoirs, the latest volume of the life and works of Freud, the latest volume of C. V. Wedgewood's history of the English Civil War, and the edition of the Dead Sea Scrolls. 

Raymond Moley uses Perspectives to whine about how "Conservatism is Also Change." Anti-statism is the wave of the future! 

This issue leads off with the publisher's year-end message. Aviation Week is a very influential magazine covering a very important subject, Robert W. Martin, Jr., concludes. 

Industry Observer reports that GE and Ramo-Woolbridge are cooperating to develop a complex airborne early warning radar and control system for Navy aircraft, that Northrop Snark cruise missiles are getting wing tanks, that Soviet Arctic expeditions are being supported by old PBYs, is scooped on the RAE's sold fuel research rockets, that Frank Piasecki's "new Piasecki Corporation" doesn't have any business, but does have leads, that a new long range surveillance radar (AN/FPS-8)  is being installed at New York International and will go into service in February, that the CAA is trying to get 2 B-47s to prepare airports for jetliners, that new models of the B707 with an all up weight of up to 276,000lbs are being proposed, that Rolls Royce is flogging its Conway around since it has no military requirement in Britain. Washington Roundup reports that the CAA is in trouble over free flights for members, that Arthur Godfrey keeps saying stupid things, that Charles Wilson is apologising for calling the atomic airplane a "bum airplane," that Fred Lee was ousted as head of CAA because he objected to the privatising of its teletype network.

The headline news is Defence's pursuit of $2 billion more in the budget, the industry's expected 1956 $8 billion turnover, and the origin of the current scare over Red seapower, which is lobbying from Arleigh Burke.

Claude Witz reports "Industry Faces Army Challenge." The Army wants "finding," "fixing," and "destroying" vehicles, aircraft capable of doing the reconnaissance, artillery, and "tank" jobs. These will be necessary during combat operations after atom bombs have destroyed the world, because that includes roads, buildings, bridges and so on. But not the people to fight over! At least, that's how the Army's aviation guy, Brigadier General Carl Hutton sees it. 

Aviation Week is scooped by Flight on the new "cat's eye" night time reconnaissance system, which will be fielded as soon as Westinghouse and RCA get a new and better optical amplifier going. It is also scooped on the new Boeing noise suppressor. We get some original news with "Rocking, Not Tumbling, Is Bailout Hazard," as determined by tests of instrumented dummies launched from rocket sleds. 

Philip J. Klass reports for Avionics that "General Electric, Westinghouse Facilities Test Accuracy of Fire Control Systems" which is about how the two companies have built testing labs for the gun turrets they are putting on bombers instead of doing expensive and unreliable air testing with drones. Filter Centre pops up to report that Dr. R. R. Carhart, formerly of Lockheed, has a paper disputing the idea that the accuracy of complex avionic systems can be predicted from the performance of individual components, that BEA is officially adopting Decca, that HMS Ark Royal has a television remote conning station which is part of a closed circuit television system which can also provide information and entertainment to the entire crew. Especially the part where the officer of the watch dents the ship live on camera! 

Irving Stone reports for Production that "One Piece Castings Slash Plane Weight" Of course they do! That's why there are one piece castings! Why are you wasting my time, Irving? Oh. R. H. Osbrink Mfg thinks it can do bigger and more complicated magnesium castings, although it doesn't explain how. 

Safety has the Israeli report on "El Al Plane Shot Down Without Warning," covering the episode in Bulgaria. The question is whether it diverted as far into Bulgaria as the Bulgarians think it did. It did not, but it was in Bulgarian air space, and airways in the Balkans need better radio navigational aids. Captain Robson continues his look at "Rainy Night Over New York" with Part III in Cockpit Viewpoint looking at the factors leading to the hours-long delay last 30 October with an examinatino of point-to-point radio communications, which are also a problem. Robert Hotz's Editorial wants Congrss to investigate the CAA because control is slipping behind the air traffic it is supposed to control. 

The Engineer publishes on the 16th, 23rd, and 30th this month. 

The Leader for the 16th looks at "The British Machine Tool Industry," and concludes that criticism of an industry with £88 million in orders on the books is basically directed at the tools it doesn't make, and the question is why such a large industry should also make tools which can be bought in the U.S. and Germany. As for there not being enough automation or degreed scientists, well, automation is coming, and the number of scientists varies so wildly between firms that the conclusion is probably that some companies need them, and some don't. For the 23rd, the question is "Efficiency and Humanity," looking at a century of concern over industrial welfare, followed by "The London Ring and the Munich Star," which looks at a proposal from F. A. Rayfield for a London ring road carried in tunnels and viaducts with nine access points. This turns out to be just the latest in many proposals. But Munich would seem to be best served by a "star," so we should keep an open mind, even if a "star," specifically, is totally unsuited to London. On the 30th, "A Century of Service to Engineers" a very brief history of the magazine, and "Long Range Rocket," catching us up with ICBMS and their ilk with such succinctness that there had better be something more substantial in the body of the magazine, a perfect subject for Christmas week! And there is not.

For the 16th, The Seven Day Journal catches up with administrative changes at British Rails and the Central Electricity Authority, the Engineering Guild's party, a report on pneumatic tyres, and papers on gas turbines of some note, and the latest report on accidents in coal mines. On the 23rd, it is mainly Christmas parties, at the IME, British Engineer's Association, and Samuel Williams and Sons, but a report on atmospheric pollution, and Lloyd's Statistical Tables are out. On the 30th, more meat, only The Engineer holding a party, while the great and good worry about technical education in general (the Russians are the latest to overtake British engineers!) and of chemical engineering students in particular; and London Airport's latest terminal has been inaugurated. 

On the 16th, J. G. Withers, "Effects of Indicator Passages on the Accuracy of Indicator Diagrams" looks at error in speed measurements in small, high speed engines reliant on surface pressure sensors to make the measurements. A BTH advertoioral about its latest remote transductor indicator of AC field current follows, then a precis of Dr. G. H. Daniel's presentation to the Institute of Production Engineers on "Britain's Energy Prospects,"  which concludes that while you never know what the future might bring, they may well be dire. A. H. Boulton, "Negligence and the Designer," and a conference report on "Use and Welding of Aluminum in Shipbuilding" also appear on the 16th. Boulton's article is a summary of a court judgement in a major negligence case bearing on just how much the designer might be responsible for a given finding of negligence by making their designs hard to operate. The eminent naval architects heard on the use of aluminum in ship building are enormously interested in inspection and quality control problems. Further advertorials celebrate a GEC heat treatment furnace and Solway Chemical's electrical equipment for its acid and cement factory. (Also, 3 ton  cranes, coal shearers, something called an "Engineer's Stethoscope, from Capac, lorry bodies, sprayed productive coatings, a transport sand for jet turbines, and something called a "Diffuser Throat Checking Instrument" from British Indicators .) D, Napier had the lads around to look at the Deltic in production, F. G.. Miles, which just won't go away, is trialling a jet trainer, and G. Somethurst wants to tell us about the floating waterworks he has been installing in Iraq.

E. A. Watson's James Clayton Lecture on "Fuel Control and Burning in Aero-Gas-Turbine Engines" begins on the 23rd. It seems conveniently bookended by a look at the "Measurement of Steam Temperature in Power Stations" by Lucas and Peplow. J. E. Fields, which is unfortunately separated from Kay and Hutchinson on "Pressurised Water Reactor as a Source of Heat for Steam Power Plants" by a continuation of the scientific literature contribution, "Tensile Stripping Tests on B.S.W. 3/4"-10 TPI Threads." C. Wordsworth has a look at "Locomotives for Heavy Industry," following an advertorial for ICI's new process for heat treating brass coil strip for some reason, since otherwise the front half is blessedly short of advertorial.  Separate from Kay and Hutchinson is a report on the very long discussion of the paper after its presentation to the IME. We are then at the point where I will tolerate advertorials, with automatic pressure butt welding for gas lines from HM Dockyard, Rosythe, various cargo handling equipment, and a capstan lathe from Murad. 

On the 30th, skipping over the second installment of Watson, we have R. E. D. Bishop, "Wind-Excited Oscillations of Self-Supported Steel Chimneys," L. W. Nickols, Comparator for Measuring the Average Diameter of Nominally Circular Work," which is not an advertorial because it is from the NPL, and a continuation of Kay and Hutchinson looking at boiling water atomic reactors. Below the fold is W. Lewicke, "Theory of Hydrodynamic Lubrication in Parallel Sliding," then particularly long advertorials for the 275kV switchgear at Drakelow supporting this very high voltage transmission line, and the automatic gearbox factory which David Brown has built at its Parks Gate Works. GEC's "Improved Remote Control Switch" is a single advertorial that looks like many due to strange page composition work, GEC wants to tell us about how it machines aluminum and synthetic sapphire rods, and for some reason a year-end report on industrial activity in Australia is sandwiched in this section. Apart from noting that 120,000 of the 230,000 motor vehicles registered in Australia might count as locally manufactured, the precis article is mostly about what is in the full Report. 

The 30th is the end of the month, meaning Metallurgical Topics, this month concerned with transition phases in a chromium-iron alloy, some technical details to take into account in powder metalllurgy, and the influence of vibration on the solidification of aluminum alloy.

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On the 16th, Continental Engineering News looks at the scientific recovery of Germany, and, separately, an atomic research centre in Essen. American Section visits the National Metal Congress and Exposition, where it heard about titanium and uranium alloys (which also get a separate note), nickel "super" alloys, and vacuum melting. On the 23rd, atomic and rail developments dominate CEW. On the 30th we manage to fit in short blurbs about the Federation of British Industries visit to Austria and the French auto industry in space not needed to take up German atomic developments. I think the editor needs to have a talk with this correspondent! AS is still visiting the Congress on the 23rd and 30th, hearing about measuring equipment  (mostly spectrometer type for auditing alloy composition) and welding on the 23rd. We do note revisions of the Buy American Act to make it easier for tariff advocates to get their way on the easy decisions, and hopefully dissuade them from pushing for more unreasonable findings. Good luck!  On the 30th, more on welding and fatigue testing, then a fish screen for a town pumping station and a lightweight experimental train from GM before fitting in the announcement of the discovery of the anti-proton, which is, with a crashing lack of appreciation of basic science, proclaimed to be basically useless for now. Given that we might assume that there was some thought that it might have been useful, and that the announcement was made jointly by Berkeley and the AEC, one shudders to think what it might have been thought to be useful for! 

Industrial and Labour Notes is largely committed to the various factory inspector reports on the 16th, finds coal production slightly up and also employment. On the 23rd there is the annual summary issue of the Bulletin for Industry, reports on steel production and fuel demand, and, of course, some worries about wage demands. On the 3oth there are year-end reports on overseas trade, on coal output and port mechanisation, and the latest in what I now declare to be a trend in studies in the employment of older men. Launches and Trial Trips on the 16th has 9 entries, all British, 3 steam ships, 4 motor, two naval, with one diesel and one steam frigate. The seven civilian types include three bulk carriers, three tankers and one trawler, on the 9th, four entries, all steamships, one a triple-expansion plant. They are a trooper(!), a collier, a cargo ship, and a oil tanker. On the 30th, just three, two French, one Norwegian. 

HMS Blackwood

On the 16th, Letters and Literature have D. Williams at very great length on the design of gymnasium floors, a reply to critics of the original article and defending sprung floors. Reviews of Lavasky, An Introduction to Fluid Dynamics, Bruns and Sanders, Analysis of Feedback Control Systems, and Town, Hydraulic and Pneumatic Operation of Machines follows. Town in particular is so well known in his field that I recognise the name, but Lavasky is also a doyen. All three books come recommended. On the 23rd, the correspondence on gymnasium floors continues with a letter from a Cave-Brown-Cave. Reviews are shorter and more numerous this week, Stepanoff on Turboblowers, Claire Clarion on Movement Oscillatoire avec Viscositie et Inertie, Devienne on Etude Thermodynamique des Ecoulements d'Air Rarifie en Regime Moleculaire Libre, Donald Campbell on going fast, Nelkon on Technical Electricity, Erskine on Dynamics in Machines, Ward and Blakeley on the slide rule, an edited volume on Heat Insulation, and another on the history of the Swiss engineering firm, Escher Wyss. Campbell is the cuckoo's egg here, since his is a semi-popular treatment of the engineering and hydrology of Bluebird. Crossley is a well-known name although the textbook is too expensive for British students, otherwise these are more obscure works. On the 30th, H. D. Challen reinforces the irenic treatment given the British machine tool industry, R. K. Vinycomb amplifies and expands on indicator passages, and R. W. New detects an error in the editorial handling of his work on radial drilling machines. There is just one book review, of A. W. Judge, Modern Petrol Engines, which seems over-ambitious, leading to mistakes and omissions.