Supplementary Postblogging: What Did Happen in Late January 1953?

 To Whom It May Concern:

The total archive of these papers, in their tiny parchment and cribbed family code, covers almost a hundred years and five correspondents, is packed in two-and-a-half steamer trunks, and has been moved back to Arcadia now that the roof is fixed. They would not fit in even that much if the scheme of writing monthly, semi-monthly, or sometimes even weekly letters had been carried on continuously, so I shouldn't feel ashamed of myself for getting mixed up last month, but I do. At some point we will know just how important the last two weeks have been, perhaps once the Fourth Republic has fallen or Dwight Eisenhower, or, any of Adlai Stevenson or Estes Kefauver or Richard Nixon or Joe McCarthy (I refuse to believe that the American electorate will pull the lever for Bill Knowland after a full campaign) are elected President. On the other hand, I'm not sure the reader will care. This is supposed to be a kind of investor's newsletter, highlighting the Progress of Science, as our first correspondent was wont to capitalise.  Well, some of the most important technology of the last ten years has involved the projection of motion pictures and the recording of music, and the most important technology news has pertained to Air Force budgets, so it is hard to set hard and fast limits.

On the other hand, now I'm just going to give you a quick rundown of what was in Newsweek, because it's the weekly with the best pictures. (Which will go into the trunks as photographic flimsies bleached of all interest for the future reader, but at least you, the reader of 1956, if any, will see the clipped originals, or, better yet, get your own copy.)

I thought about embedding Starr Faithful's glam shot
from the Wiki, but is that what I want to do here?
Here's some streamlined 1956 style, insteasd.

 I've got no intention of being thorough about this, with separate discussions of every issue and all of that, but I'm not ignoring a Letters column where George Hecht, the publisher of Parents magazine, tears a strip from Henry Hazlitt for his idiotic notion that the Federal government shouldn't fund public education because it might cost too much, when it is a tiny budget item compared with roads. Or Bernard Crittenden of Belleville, Michigan pointing out that the SeaMaster looks like a drawing from Buz Sawyer, and that the plane in Buz Sawyer was atomic-powered, and exploded. Speaking of silly things taken too seriously, The Periscope reports that the U.S. will drop its first (air-droppable) H-bomb in the Pacific this year and test a radically new H-bomb that doesn't need an atom bomb trigger, and tht the U.S. State Department has also tried to snub President Kubitshek, while the Reds are trying to subvert the Arab Legion in Jordan. The Periscope has, and prints, the name and office address of the Russian intelligence chief running operations in West Germany, and catches us up with Dr. Alexander Gettler, who gave dynamite expert testimony in the Starr Faithfull scandal of 1931.

Things that aren't horrible scandals include the Governor of Utah refusing to pay his income taxes on the grounds that the Constitution is unconstitutional, or some such, and the AEC's  plans, say Congressional sources, to fire off a 50 megaton H-bomb in '56, because come one, it'll be fun! Iva Togui "Tokyo Rose" D'Aquino has been released from jail for good behaviour and because everyone is embarrassed in retrospect. Newsweek explains how France isn't an empire because the Poujadists and Communists between them elected a third of the members of the National Assembly in this week's election, with the Communists ending up the largest single party, followed by Mendes' left-centre bloc. The difference between them is that Poujade seems to be hiding in case  he ends up having to be a minister and actually responsible for something, which George Duclos is campaigning for a popular front coalition with either Mendes or Faure. Also, the Eiffel Tower caught fire, and just for fun everyone hates Eden, and public opinion in Cairo is against the strings-attached World Bank funding for the Aswan Dam, compared with the conditions-free Red offer. Admiral Byrd and Sir Edmund Hilary are now in Antarctica with a supporting case of hundreds of "snow men," tractors, helicopters who are preparing the way for the 800 scientists who will arrive next year. The Bridey Murphy fad has led the AAS to have an open session on ESP. It's interesting to read Dr. Percy Bridgman saying that he didn't trust any phenomena that rested as heavily on probability claims as ESP does because "there is something funny about probability." Really? That seems like a pretty basic thing for science to still be grappling with! Richard Hofstadter is definitely worth looking out for considering how how mad he makes Raymond Moley. 

The Periscope reports that leading Democrats are terrified that they are going to have to take a stand on civil rights, while the National Indications Centre is very impressed with the quality of vehicles the Red Army is receiving, which make American equipment look like "Model Ts," just as it is about to unwrap the idea of a "Pentomic Army" (a highly mobile organisation of five battlegroup divisions, each armed with atomic weapons.) The Poujadistes are reported to be falling apart, with Jean Le Pen, head of the Paris branch, challenging Poujade for leadership. Congress is super duper mad at John Dulles over his "nation has been at the brink of war three times since 1952" claim, which they think proves that he's either a mad man or ready for the nursing home, or both. Well, Republicans in Congress think it's fine. 

This man will just not go away.

Also, Ike! Er, and Eden is absolutely not invading Jordan. Unless the Daily Sketch calls him a weeny, in which case it's paradrop ahoy! I wonder if history will remember that Gerald Templer started this by trying to bully the Jordanians into the Baghdad Pact? Although per Newsweek it's all down to Egyptian radio, Saudi gold, Palestinian refugees, agents provocateur, and Communists, which we should really just put in the watermark to save the effort of writing. Communists, being awesome as well as amazing, never have trouble getting the Arab street on side, unlike the Foreign Office. I wonder why that is? Speaking of which, Libya is in trouble with France for not doing more to stop guns being smuggled into Algeria. Everyone concedes that their "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" defence is appropriate and wise, but ALGERIE FRANCAISE!!!!Maybe if we blow up Libya, too, that will help. West Germany is a real country now. You can tell because its politics are boring. Where's a neo-Nazi when you need them? Never mind, they've all joined the army. Newsmakers reminds us that people are something. Henry Hazlitt is bored with using politics as an excuse for not talking about business, so this week he turns to constitutional law, presenting his novel finding that you can fix up a provision for a sick President with some legislation, no Constitutional Amendment required. The fallout from John Foster Dulles' "Threaten atomic war to get your way" interview continues to be highly radioactive.  Science reports AEC denials that this year's H-bomb tests will be bigger than Eniwetok, we hear about how starfish eat clams, which doesn't seem that surprising to me, and visit the Hittites, as Helmuth Bossert has discovered how to read their hieroglyphics (the Hittites had hieroglyphics and cuneiform) and expects to learn a bit more about them, including whether they influenced the ancient Greeks. Senator Kennedy's Profiles in Courage is quite a book. 

What's wrong with economists is that their predictions are inaccurate. 

The Periscope reports that the draft Arab-Israeli peace settlement that Eden brings to Washington involves Israeli concessions on borders and Palestinian refugees, and will not be well received, even if Administration figures agree with it privately. (The Security Council this week voted to condemn the latest Israeli raid on a Syrian position near the Sea of Galilee to head off an even tougher, Soviet-sponsored, resolution that would have made them pay indemnities for the 56 Syrian troops killed.) The President has started walking up the stairs at the White House on doctors' orders, leaving the press to  use the elevator. THAT GOES UP ONE STOREY!!! FDR put it in because he had POLIOI!!! I mean, I'm not asking Uncle George to go up stairs, but Ike is only 66! MIT is working on an electronic ray that would "jam the mechanism of an enemy H-bomb before it could be detonated," while the Air Force is working on an atomic missile to be launched at enemy bombers from jet fighters or Bomarcs. It is reported from London that the Russians turned out 100 submarines and 100 destroyers last year, and from nowhere in particular that Si Hadaoui is in Moscow being extensively indoctrinated along with Red leaders from French Central Africa and Madagascar. Clarence Birdseye is still retired, Irving Jafee is working in sales. 

Delightful stories about Redstone Arsenal, in Huntsville, Alabama, where the ex-Nazi rocket scientists work, which is fine, the East German Army adopting Wehrmacht-style dress uniforms, which is bad, and the "Chinese Octopus," a fifth column of overseas Chinese poised to bring Red revolution to Singapore and, uhm, other places. You know, Southeast Asia. Because if you want to find a Red, just look at an Overseas Chinese! 

Science's big story is about SAGE, focussing on George Valley as a convenient inventor/promoter figure, and the AEC assuring us that the current round of atomic tests won't give the human race "a crop of nasty mutations," in the paraphrased words of Herman J. Muller. Warner's Helen of Troy is terrible because it's not authentic, but, man, can those Japanese make movies!

Raymond Moley is somehow even stupider than usual as he explains how the Korean War reveals General MacArthur's military genius. Did you know that South Korea was defended by only an ill-armed constabulary in 1950? And that victory was at hand, if only Truman, Acheson, the British, and specifically Burgess and Maclean had not frustrated plans to extend bombing beyond the Yalu?

Is this the pivot to showing computer ads with male operators?