Postblogging Technology, May 1956, I: A New Age

R_.C_.,
Shaughnessy,
Vancouver,
Canada



Dear Father:

Interesting to see this in 1956!

I am glad to hear that you will take on the children at Nakusp in July and for the first half of August. It doesn't seem fair to deprive them of their summer just because their parents have to make some pretence of furthering their careers. And while the senior partners might be able to get away with "Sell in May and go away," that is certainly not me this  year! 

It is quite exciting to see the Conway coming to America, and while I do not know the Rolls Royce people behind it as well as I know the Tyne team, who knows what might happen? I see that Canadian Pacific is set to adopt it as well. And having begun with aviation, so shall I end, with a little victory lap at the latest sad Proteus debacle. Turboprops are harder to build than they look! What that means for BOAC is entirely another matter. But probably 707s, and it is very hard not to be a bit smug about that, as the British really have brought it on themselves. 

Your Loving Daughter,

Ronnie

It's for, err, cosmic ray research

The Economist, 3 May 1956

Leaders

"New Atlantis?" John Foster Dulles has joined the ranks of the Atlanticists who think that Nato should be expanded beyond matters of defence. The Economist thinks that this is an important thought to have, and emits a cloud of words. 

"Soft Soap and Economics" Unemployment isn't high enough.

"Realities of Russian Trade" Khrushchev's proposal to buy £800--£1 billion in British goods and re-exports over the next few years sounds good, but is just Khrushchev being Khrushchev, because Russia doesn't have the sterling, but does suggest some rethinking of the strategic embargo.  Also, the government is thinking about reforming the administrative tribunals of the Ministry of Agriculture. 

Notes of the Week

The Grafenrheinfeld Nuclear Power was shut down in 2015

The Soviet leaders' visit was a triumph for Eden and a disaster for Gordon Brown, but the artificially high price of the ruble makes it expensive to send our correspondent to Moscow, and something should be done about that on matters of high principle relating to peaceful interactions between our two great nations. The South African government agrees with everything in the Tomlinson Report except the part where it says that the government has to pay to make apartheid work. At least it is being realistic about the ridiculous notion that Britain should just turn over Basutoland, Bechuanaland and Swaziland to bulk up the "Bantu heartland" to the size where the plan is in any way feasible. The Archbishop of Canterbury should shut not have to shut his bleeding heart yap about Cyprus, because having opinions like that is part of his job, like it or not. Besides, the situation in Cyprus has been completely fumbled. The debate over agriculture makes for a good moment to remind everyone that agricultural subsidies are bad and that we should get over them as quickly as possible. "Euratom" and the latest Schuman Plan talks about a European common market are two equally important new plans for Europe that deserve the same amount of space. The Economist covers the teachers' wage settlement and the Secretary-General's recent diplomatic mission to Palestine, where there is some progress on the matter of building a fence around Gaza, but a continuing deadlock over plans for Jordan river water. The Russians were very chauvinistic during their May Day celebrations, and Labour is ruining all hopes for racial progress in Rhodesia by insisting that the student dorms at the University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland not be segregated. Don't they undertand that progress has to be gradual? Some German politicians are admitting that peaceful reuniiication will mean surrendering German claims to territory beyond the Oder-Neisse line; London and Bonn are arguing about who pays for the BAOR's utilities. 

From The Economist of 1856, "The Terms of Peace" It's a fine peace. Don't mind anything we said earlier. The scheme to pay prisoners at the new training prison is being held up even though it is a pretty good idea. It probably has to do with the shortage of supervisory prison staff. 

Books

Margaret Cole has edited Beatrice Webb's Diaries, revealing an unexpectedly smart and human person that you shouldn't get too attached to, since in the end she is "the apologist for Big Brother." Field-Marshal Slim's memoir of the war in Burma is reviewed with Maurice Collis' Last and First in Burma (1941--1948) for no particular reason other than they are both about Burma in the war. Slim is the prophet of war in the atomic age, while Collis explains how and why British rule in Burma collapsed, at least in his mind. T. S. Willan's The Early History of the Russia Company (1563--1603) is a pretty good history considering that the Company's papers were lost in the Great Fire of 1666. Even the reviewer thinks that it is a very worthy book. Slavomir Rawicz's The Long Walk is a narrative of an escape from the Siberian prison camps overland all the way to India during the war. A. C. Ward's Illsutrated History of English Literature has reached Volume III. from Blake to Shaw, who are very interesting bookends, if you care about English literature. The reviewer also found it readable, if that helps.

Letters

Roscoe Herbert of the Potato Marketing Board explains that the Board didn't oppose potato imports because it is silly, but because the British harvest was a bit late, but mainly under-sized. American citizen Helen Maxfield asks the editor why she has to be expelled from Britain for changing her studies from general university courses to being a student nurse. B. H. Wormsely is disgusted and appalled by the new National Coal Board plan, which doesn't even consider the brilliant future of underground gasification. 

American Survey

"Freedom for the 'Fed'" The very important question of the independence of the Federal Reserve Board is explored at length on the occasion of Arthur Burn's public objections about the latest, fifth increase in the discount rate this year. The Administration's attempts to interfere with the Fed's independence is, of course, terrible. Alben Barkley has died the same week that Richard Nixon allowed as he would really like to serve a second term to everyone's surprise. The one was a pretty nice guy, and the other is, maybe not as bad as some people say. The President's decision to accept a special tax to fund this highway bill instead of his original plans for a bond issue has saved the bill in time for the election, but "is contrary to sound fiscal policy." It's terrible that farmers keep voting their interest, because it costs too much. While Senator O'Mahoney's attack on GM as a monopoly in general seems a bit much, The Economist points out that it has far too large a share of the bus, locomotive, and construction equipment market, and that is concerning. The fight over the most recent Civil Rights Bill leads The Economist to hope that the Coloured vote will finally come back to the GOP this fall in frustration over years of failures by northern liberal Democrats to get civil rights action through committees dominated by Whte Supremacist southern Democrats. "A Special Correspondent" reports on "What Automation Costs," which is more than it is worth in many cases of recent installations. For example, the new Plymouth plant in Detroit has batteries of machines that cost $50,000, explaining why the total outlay on this plant in 1955 was $50 million,, 20% more than a similar plant completed in 1953. The industry's total tooling cost in 1955 will be $2 billion, up from $1.4 billion, and there are cases where the automation is more expensive than hand work, although this assertion is offered without numbers or cases. Automated batteries do not even save as much labour as expected due to high maintenance costs and the need for highly trained operators. "What automation costs today is almost frightening."

The World Overseas

"Farewell to What Arms" Disarmament, as is all the talk these days, is a great idea and also a Communist propaganda plot, something that would be difficult to make an article about if you didn't pursue both lines of thought in adjacent but not connected paragraphs. Pierre Poujade's movement is making steady progress and might contribute to the fall of the Fourth Republic, if the Fourth Republic falls. "Our Correspondent Lately in Pnom Penh"  reports that those funny Asiatics sure are funny, but at the cost of the small amount of American aid Prince Norodom actually receives, he is probably as good an ally as one can find in Southeast Asia. France, The Economist thinks, needs to accommodate Bourguiba in Tunisia if they expect him to be a "go-between in Algeria." "An African Correspondent in Nyasaland" reports that Africans in the Central African Federation seem pretty dead set on running their own countries and opposed to the idea that Europeans and Asians should actually run them through rigged constitutions because they are better and smarter. In fact, they seem quire unreasonably opposed to this argument!

Special Report on Housing and Building Societies in 1955 This very worthy report underlines that inflation means that rents are going to have to go up, and also a lot of stuff about the future of mortgage rates. 

Grangemouth wants to remind you to ship from Grangemouth.

The Business World celebrates "A Notch Nearer Convertibility," the sunny uplands of a future long dreamed of, what's taking so long!? The official and black market conversion rates are even converging, mainly due to sterling leaks from Hong Kong, Bahrein and Kuwait, so why not? "Market for a Metal?" takes the occasion of the Fairey Delta II speed record to look at ICI's titanium business, where the demand for wrought titanium recently fell so sharply that the Witton plant had to issue redundancies. The British aviation industry is a heavy consumer of titanium, but it has its own problems with maintaining output, without which it is not really in the market for titanium. The solution would seem to be a wider market for titanium, but even at ICI's economic gains, which have brought the price down to $2.95/lb for crude titanium (well below the American price of $4.50 used to justify the plant in 1953), the metal is pricy. No-one is talking about "20-cent titanium" any more. However, it is possible that the cost of reagents such as tetrachloride, and process materials like magnesium, might fall. Fabrication costs could fall, but only with increasing production scales. As it is, we have ICI titanium because of a government contract, and it took as much as 40% of the research effort at ICI's Metals Division for several years to get the existing production going. The moral of the story is that you are not going to have things like titanium without government and big business going in together, sorry ideologues.

Business Notes

Money! Automation raised as an issue in the strike at Standard Motors. Industrial production has stopped rising over several months mainly due to the fall in the production of passenger vehicles and standard consumer goods. This is also true on the radio and television market, at least in that sales aren't rising as expected. In this Note, at least, The Economist is even willing to point out that the problem is falling hire-purchase rates. The new board at BOAC will have to consider new equipment just as quickly as possible, having put off the decision far too long. Although, in fact, it did not put off the decision. The decision was made for it! The NCB's year-end deficit is not too serious considering how far it recovered from its rate of loss in the first half of the year. The expansion of the steel plant at Margam is welcome news. Finance. The rubber growers' association reminds everyone that if they get more tax breaks to renew their plantations, they will renew their plantations. Russian gold exports are increasing, although not nearly enough to accommodate Khrushchev's shopping list. (Which, just to remind everyone, is predicated on increasing grain exports.) Copper prices are down, The new industry-financed wind tunnel at Bedford is a welcome reminder that sometimes capitalist companies do capitalism instead of waiting for the Government to do all their research for them. New fast cargo services to Asia from the UK, including one to run from the new deep water port of Grangemouth in Scotland, are worth a Note along with lots more finance. Unilever had a pretty good year. Vast African empires are good for stockholders!

Editorial: "Wilson's Record on Airpower" It's terrible. He's why Russia is beating us, as General LeMay points out. Curtis LeMay knows what he's talking about!

Industry Observer reports that the air force is looking at various planes with decisions pending on a fighter-bomber followed by a long range interceptor, the Northrop Snark, a standard issue of same-mark training planes to every operational squadron, and the delivery of the first B-57 Hustlers in the fall. Deliveries of C-130Js are being held up by propeller difficulties (uh-hunh), some quieting measures will make the Fokker Friendship quieter than the Vickers Viscount. (Oh. That's how it works.) Sikorsky can't deliver S-58s to all the airlines that absolutely want them because the French have bought them all for Algeria. Washington Roundup reports that the DoD is going to change its rules to allow an F-104 to make a speed record attempt against the Delta II. NACA says that now that it has appealed budget cuts that would have required it to lay off scientists, it needs relief from more budget cuts so that it can give them something to do. SAC's plan to disperse its squadrons is being held up by Congress' unwillingness to pay for runway upgrades. No-one knows exactly who MATS is carrying around the world, but it better be a lot of "hitch-hikers" to justify the amount of money they're spending.

Katherine Johnsen reports for Aviation Week on General LeMay's testimony to the Symington Committee to the effect that Russia will overtake the United States in the air in four years. I won't get into details, but supposedly the Russians are overtaking the Americans in the rate of aircraft development, construction, and deployment, and the answer is hordes of B-52s as soon as possible, and ICBMs at some later date. The section also reports on the lightweight hydrogen bomb breakthrough discussed at greater length below by The Economist. We also hear about the new Convair plant to produce the Atlas missile and the ongoing fight for control of Piasecki between Frank Piasecki and Don Berlin, representing Laurence Rockefeller's investor group. 

"Gust Loads Probed to Aid Jet Operations" A new experimental Lockheed plane, the U-2, is conducting research flights, as see the headline. We also get a bit more coverage of the Russian Tu-104 service to London, details of the T-58 for helicopters, and the Army budget's provision for doubling spending on guided missiles in Fiscal 1957.

Aeronautical Engineering runs a ridiculous article by Russell Hawkes about various hobbyist helicopter designs and some proposals for fixing the engineer shortage from actual engineers. (Train  more. You're welcome!) Production farms out an advertorial to Solar about its tiny gas turbines, honeycomb construction method, and missile production subcontracts. It's not really news when this happens any more, but Qantas has bought some simulators. Avionics is also offering an advertorial, this one co-written by Philip J. Klass and covering some new Collins' transceivers, with details of the electronics for filtering out distortion and arrangements for linking them to flush antennae. 

New Aviation Products has aqn "altitude simulation chamber" for testing responses to skin heat from American Research in Bristol, Connecticut, an accelerometer, a "Ballistic Films Analyzer," a snap-on solenoid, several tachometers, a "screen printing kit" for making diagrams of printed circuits, and a plethora of screws. Safety reports on the Beech Bonanza that crashed into an apartment building in Hollywood, killing eight, last October. The pilot had been repeatedly cited for unsafe flying practices. The cause of the accident was a wing failure due to excessive load, followed by pilot loss of control. The scandal here is that the pilot was still flying. 

Letters has a letter from a British correspondent (Leonard Bridgeman), and an extract from The Aeroplane taking offence at the sour grapes Aviation coverage of the Fairey speed record. Name Withheld is upset at airlines' "no show" policy. 

The Economist, 12 May 1956

Leaders

"Peace is Positive" Peace with Communism would be great if Communism just got better, or if we decided that Communism was getting better; but not, obviously, if we decided that Communism was never that bad. Also, foreign aid is a good thing, actually. Also, the United States needs to cool it a bit. 

"Next Step for Television" I don't know, something about putting programs on the air? Honestly, I actually read this, and I'm none the wiser about what The Economist thinks, except that TV should be for the middlebrows. 

"Henry Patrick Shinicky" to his foreign friends.

"Question Marks Over Korea" Koreans are actually quite an orderly and literate people when allowed to be, and such industry as exists, and agriculture, are recovering, so how they are going to respond to being asked to put up with Rhee for another term, as was the foregone conclusion of the upcoming election even before Shinicky dropped dead, is unclear. The country's woeful exports situation needs to be improved, inflation must be beaten, and reunification, or the resumption of the war, is right out. Rhee is 81, so he might not be a problem much longer, but the four men running for vice-president are all named "Lee," so who can tell them apart? (Patronising tone aside, this is a good question, because they were chosen as non-entities!) It might be an army general, instead, as they are young and ambitious. 

It is now time to use the most valuable space in British journalism to paint a pastiche picture of a "Union Boss" to make the important point that they are, unlike the writers of The Economist, second-rate men. 

Notes of the Week

And that is how you get assassinated by a Buddhist monnk

Things are going wrong in Cyprus because Harding keeps on digging the hole deeper and deeper. The annual Nato meeting has agreed to keep on talking about talking about Nato. (Hopefully something comes of this one day, as with civil aviation, instead of it all just floating away into the clouds.) Since the Canadian foreign minister is a principal in this talking about talking, Lester Pearson gets a second Note about his other worthwhile Canadian initiatives. Something about the Monopolies Commission, also at the stage of interminable talks. In the spirit of which there is also a Note about the Saar, upon which the East German government has been so indelicate as to make a statement, while in West Germany some of the "wild men" of German politics are on about Winston Churchill being a bad person on account of his killing several hundreds of thousands of Germans with his area bombing campaign, about which the Germans are off their heads. There is some threat to the Pakistani government due to there being politics there. There is renewed hope that the United Kingdom might be able to do away with conscription at some point in the future, for which the Army would be grateful, as the repository of all the sad sacks. Talk is also of the NHS, and the printers' dispute settlement. "Even" Belgium is now tightening its money, and the new premier of Ceylon is holding firmly to his position of getting rid of British planters and the RAF and RN bases in good time, not precipitously. 

"A Frogmarch for Sir Anthony" The Prime Minister's statement on "the missing 'frogman'" was "right in substance but maladroit in expression." The PM obviously hoped that the Russians would accept at face value, his assurance that Commander Crabb had just gone diving around the Ordzhonikidze on his own lookout, completely unauthorised by any Minister of the Crown, but the Russians are being, as usual, quite unreasonably paranoid. We should focus on the real villains, who are Gaitskell and the other Labour MPs who are making it political. The Economist firmly declares the matter to be closed. That will do it!

. 

'"Smoking is Deadly'"?' The Minister of Health, asked in Parliament, has allowed the same. There is "an incontrovertible association between cigarette smoking and lung cancer." The Economist concludes that it is time for the Government to publish official odds of your chances of dying of lung cancer due to how much you smoke.  Burma is getting a World Bank loan for port work, showing that neutral nations can get World Bank loans. 

South Africa seems to be moving to discourage White immigration for fear that new settlers won't see the logic of the apartheid system that protects the White population against being a minority, which leaves The Economist tapping its temple and making the "They're crazy down there" sign. Trouble is also breaking out in Tibet, where the Tibetans do not seem happy with Chinese rule, notwithstanding the £43 million spent on new roads and work on giving it a rail connection, plus miscellaneous expenditure on hospitals, schools, etc.The local elections in Blackpool, which have gone all scandal, the local elections in general have tipped to Labour, but not to any significant degree, while the byelection in mid-Ulster is very discouraging, since the opposition (to the Unionists) vote went to Sinn Fein and not some nice moderate. 

From The Economist of 1856, "The Treaty of Peace," which has passed the Commons by a unanimous vote, and now must be considered, like frogmen coming floating up in the harbour any day now, a closed matter of which there is to be no more discussion of the magazine's editorials of times long past.

Letters

F. C. Hooper writes to tell us just how tired he is of the line about how British exports are failing because British firms are inefficient, and so on. Lord Listowel (a hereditary Labour peer, no less!) has some thoughts about getting on with it in Cyprus.  Harry Paten writes to modestly proposed that the nuclear program be speeded up substantially given the sheer scale of the anticipated coal shortage. Harry Meigh of the London Schoolmaster's Association writes to point out that the teachers' pay settlement is anything but excessive. E. J. Hill has a correction, while P. C. Allen proposes a modest coinage reform. 

Books

J. F. Lipscombe and Peter Evans are reviewed together under the subtitle, "Kenya Testimony." Lipscombe's We Built a Country explains that only Kenya settlers are qualified to have opinions, and there opinion is that they built Kenya, and they get to keep it. Evans, on the other hand, points out that the settlers are a bunch of barbarians. The truth lies in the middle! Alan Morehead's Gallipoli is a pretty good history of the campaign. H. S. Ferns and B. Osrey, The Age of Mackenzie King: The Rise of the Leader is readable but partisan. Frank Dunnill has a book about the British civil service, very worthy I'm sure, and Harold Nicolson is out with The English Sense of Humour, which is described as an "amateur's" look at the subject, which probably isn't the insult it reads as. Lord Elton has a book about the first fifty years of the Rhodes scholarship, which sounds very worthy indeed, and R. E. Megarry's Miscellany-at-Law is lawyer humour. Michael Florinsky is too cynical by far about Integrated Europe? while Studies in Communication, out from the Communications Research Centre of the UCL is a very diffuse book because of the number of scholars from different fields who have jumped on to "Communications" in recent years. J. G. Crowther's Science Unfolds the Future is a work of "unclouded optimism."

American Survey

The first, main Leader is about the frictions which have quickly emerged within the newly-merged AFL-CIO. The President, it is delicately suggested, is at fault for delaying the finalisation of this year's foreign aid bill until it could become an election issue. The primaries so far suggest that Stevenson is at best containing the rot in his campaign against Kefauver. Unfortunately for James, the word from the grass roots continues to be that Stevenson will do well in California, which will be a real problem for Kefauver going into the convention. Johnson's victory in the party conventions to select delegates to the DNC in Texas shows that Johnson is boss in Texas and that the Democratic campaign will not have to deal with a white supremacist insurgency, although on the other hand the opposite result in Arkansas suggests that there will be trouble there. 

"Missiles Break Through" The Defence Department has suddenly become more forthcoming about missiles, and also about related subjects. So for example it allows that there has been considerable progress in miniaturising H-bombs, so that the intercontinental missiles that might carry them can be shrunken in size even as expensive new factories are erected to build them. In news completely unrelated to missiles, more B-52s will be ordered, and faster, and the F-104 is the fastest plane around, and likely the fastest there will be given metallurgical limits. The F-104 gets up to two-thirds of its thrust at high speeds and altitudes from the "ramjet" effect on its J79 engines, and, the Air Force hopes, can be adapted to many other roles. The Economist has paid attention to the critics who point out that it is a bit of an aerodynamic freak of nature, but seems to assume that this will come out in the wash before returning to the question of missiles with exciting news from Rocketdyne, which is carrying out very loud tests at its engine testing facility with such frequency that they can only mean that "the technological 'break-through to which Mr. Wilson referred some weeks ago without giving any details," which cannot be in the field of metallurgy, fuel, or guidance, which have yielded only gradual improvements, must be in the warhead itself. So that is more confirmation that the warheads have been greatly shrunk, and also that the new missile probably combines a jet and a rocket engine. There is also a "Policy for Rubber," which is to leave it to private industry and hope for production to rise to meet anticipated demand, which seems to be a problem for both natural rubber and the newly privatised American industry. The Farm Bill can't be vetoed a second time, so the one we have is the one we'll get, which might take the Farm Belt out of play in November. It seems incredible, but Kefauver might win the Democratic primary in Florida. He might be both economically and racially liberal, but he's a good old Southern politician, is The Economist's conclusion. Or as Uncle George would point out, maybe journalists have a professional investment in misunderstanding how white supremacy really works in America. The New York Coliseum is quite the thing, and The Economist is quite worked up about the rising price of newsprint. 

The World Overseas

From Our Correspondent in Tel Aviv, "Keep Going, Mr. Hammerskjold" Israelis hope that the Secretary General's tour was only a preliminary, and that he will be back soon with a comprehensive peace settlement. Fortunately, talk of a pre-emptive war is on the downswing with only the Heurthi Party still holding out for it, but there is not much sign of a full peace treaty otherwise. Our Special Correspondent in Portugal chimes in to point out that "Portugal continues to be one of the best-administered countries in Europe, and that all talk is of the succession to Salazar, which is to be managed by a new constitutino of "corporations" that is not Fascist in any way at all. Clearly more foreign investment in this fine country is needed. "A Correspondent" explains the Western view of India's foreign policy, which is that it is a bit much. No-one is trying to overthrow President Kubitscheck in Brazil, but it might happen spontaneously because the regime is just so "unhealthy." Uganda can't be independent because it is too backwards. 

The Business World

"Spectre of Automation" Everybody talks about automation and no-one knows what it means. The retooling of the production lines at Standard Motors "certainly does include some elements of automation," but not much, and is meant to increase production, not cut jobs, even though there have been layoffs, which are due to the rising rates, not automation. Since Britain's real problem is a shortage of workers, not of work, perhaps some Government-backed retraining might be in order. 

"The Geological 'Scandal'" That is, the Belgian copper belt is "scandalously" rich, but isn't producing anywhere near as much as the Rhodesian belt, because it is remote and inaccessible, mainly. However, everything is going great there, Our Correspondent reports. Why, blacks even do complicated jobs!

Business Notes

The National Coal Board's borrowing power has been increased, but only to £650 million, because the government has decided that raising the price of coal would be less inflationary than borrowing to meet the full £1000 million NCB investment plan. The extent of the increase is still being decided, but the fact that it needs to deal with a £35 million operating deficit gives some idea. 

"Battle of Engines" The announcement that TCA will put Rolls Royce Conways on its DC8s is a major coup for Rolls-Royce because it breaks the united North American front in favour of American engines and other airlines will follow given the Conway's performance advantage. Rolls' only problem is convincing potential customers that the Conway will be broken in sufficiently on military aircraft before it is delivered for airliners. The government has made that commitment, but that is bad news for the Olympus, which is theoretically in the running as well, and would need to find a military type to go into. In related  news, the reverse-flow Proteus on the Britannia has developed the most predictable icing problem in the world, and the plane now cannot go into service in July, with August now expected. The increase in the price of steel this week was expected and realisitc and  mainly due to wage settlements and not at all to Rab's idiotic tax cuts. British shipowners are getting together to decide if they can or want to do anything about the increasing use of flags of convenience by merchant carriers, and the P&O is thundering on about the excessive prices charged by British shipyards. It being summer, the latest tourist-class price cuts on Atlantic flying are in the news. Film policy is up for review, cigarette demand is abating after frantic growth since the war and the industry is launching new products in an effort to attract customers. A paper read by Anthony Gell of the British Heat-Resisting Glass Company to the Society of Glass Technologists reveals that the company has discovered a more economical method of making glass with electric heating that will make it commercially viable in Britain. The large increase in the sterling area's trading deficit with the rest of the world last year was almost entirely due to Britain, and the British export performance. 

Editorial 

"Where Are We Going?" I know! It's just impossible to fold those maps back up and get them into the glove compartment and they rip and get dog-eared and pretty soon the La Jolla panel is missing entirely! No, that's not the story. The story is that it's been 53 years since the Wright Brothers and now aviation is science fiction and we should all relax about the politics. (In other words, stop writing us mean letters about putting Curtis LeMay's nonsense on the cover.) 

Industry Observer reports that friends of the Vertol H-16 project are raising a stink at the Pentagon over its cancellation and trying to get it uncancelled. Just about half the items in this column relate to Vertol, and just so you know, that's Piasecki's new name. Looks like having Don Berlin and Laurence Rockefeller in your corner counts for something when you're trying to sell junk to the Air Force.  The Army says that it is now "possible" for it to train instrument-rated pilots, the Navy is looking at using helicopters to tow seaplanes around, and the Bell XV-1 convertiplane is doing hovering tests. Washington Roundup lets the staff show that they can cover regular stories like procurement scandals, CAB appointments, and absurd interludes in various Wilson testimony. Although right in the middle there's one of those "some say" bits revealing that the Russians are about to show off an in-flight refuelling capability that would actually allow their bombers to bomb us. 

Aviation Week's headline news section is various features as the Administration and Congress manoeuvre their way to the elections. The White House is fighing allegations that it is weak on air power while Congress has been forced to approve the Administration's "Airpower plan" or have nothing to show. 

"Trans-Canada Buys British Jets to Power American Planes" Aviation's coverage of a story that gets heavy play in The Economist briefly  notes the Conway's superior performance before pivoting to Trans-Canada's requirement for a medium haul transport, for which it might buy the Vanguard, or a reduced-size DC8 to be called the DC9, but definitely not the latest Convairliner being flogged. There are rumours that the French are going to buy some Olympus engines for civil use, and, in general, British engine builders want everyone to know that they are in the commercial market. The cancellation of the V-1000 and the thin-wing Javelin have been bad news for the Conway and Olympus respectively. Surprisingly, The Economist beats Aviation Week with details of the Britannia service cancellations. PAA has bought the IBM705 for reservations work, the November Seattle C-54 crash was due to propeller failure coming out of a bad maintenance session. The Army and Marines are looking for a new STOL observation plane, and speakers at the American Helicopter Society meeting in Washington allow that helicopters are still a tiny-weeny bit dangerous and maybe something should be done about maintenance, training, instruments, and the fact that the rotors are pure Rube Goldberg. Speaking of, the second SeaMaster is beginning tests to see if it falls out of the sky, too. The low acceptance rate of the B-52 is explained as being due to their being giant very complicated planes with all sorts of bugs to fix, some of which make the planes fall out of the sky and explode, which is bad, and should be fixed even though the Russians have built a million bombers since Tuesday. 

From Transport, but still! "Elizabeth Schools Help to erase Rancor Left by Three Crashes" Apparently the industry is in Elizabeth, N.J. schools to "teach" teachers to "'sell'" aviation. 

Captain Robson's Cockpit Viewpoint is promoted above the fold to ask for "Realistic Schedules." A new CAB rule would require scheduled airliners to arrive on time at least 75% of the time. The industry is not impressed, because right now, Robson summarises the policy as one of "the airline is allowed to advertise any schedule it wants to." It is supposed that passengers might like that. Airports and pilots certainly would!

Missile Engineering has Robert Cushman reporting on "Next Satellite Problem: Data Descent" The current idea is a "data capsule" in a "stainless steel balloon," which the satellite will drop, or, rather, launch, towards Earth. It might be recovered from the sea after a water landing, and the balloon and associated gear would take up the entire room available for telemetered instruments in the Vanguard design in order to get a small amount of photo film to the Earth. This is a summary of a presentation, and the article concludes with comments from the audience in which major firm designers were very skeptical about these steel balloons. 

A massive survey of engineers to determine why they change jobs concludes that it is to get better ones. To be fair, it also makes an effort to quantify what makes a job "better" other than pay. 

New Aviation Products has  a windmill vane motor for missiles, an actuator, a "transistorised fuel gauge," and some less important components. If you are wondering why I'm not covering Telling the Market, it is five pages of catalogs and fact sheets this week. It's almost as boring as George L. Christian's article this week, the dreaded "cabin design" story about how putting in nice seats nicely is good for airliners. We also have some short advertorials for a new method of installing aircraft canopies, a J57 cold starter, and the University of Colorado's High Altitude Laboratory. (Studying the Sun can help with weather forecasts, it says.)

Letters has M. Schuler, the noted scientist, writing from Germany to praise the article on inertial guidance, a very long letter from J. Mills Summers of Camloc Fastener Corporation about the mess that is the industry's current approach to fasteners (no consultation means a proliferation of types), more letters on the same responding to an article, evidently, and "More British reaction" to the Delta hit story . There's also one of those letters from someone in the industry asking "What engineer shortage?" Always hard to tell if that's sour grapes or word that we're being snowed into training more engineers to bring wages down. 

Letters

Senator Willis Robertson writes to point out the inflationary potential of consumer credit at current rates, predicting not a recession at the current governmental spending levels, but a bust in about a  year or so. Several other correspondents confine their comments on the article on consumer credit to praise. James McInerney, O.P., the "National Spiritual Advisor" to Theta Kappa Phi asks why business recruiters don't just go to the fraternities for their college candidates. Good question, Father McInerney! Several others write to say how much they liked the article. Walter Holbrook liked the one about how businesses make "seven men do the work of one," and wants to send copies to every member of Congress. Guy Lloyd and Irene Sirugo have comments about the architecture article. Fortune apologises for calling some architect's parabaloid house the first ever built when it's not. Is Fortune going to have to check when someone claims to have invented something from now on? That's hardly fair! 

Business Roundup reports that the current business "readjustment" is very mild and that everything is fine and everything will continue to be fine for the indefinite future in this period of what this issue's Editorial calls "Republican Prosperity." It's just a "slight easing of business"!

The Business Globe reports that US foreign aid seems in danger of becoming dumping due to high price supports for domestic agriculture, that postwar Europe is amazingly good at making autos. Fortune dug up a British businessman to complain about exchange controls, notes that Krupp is back in business and that Eruope is very concerned about Middle East oil, and then it is off to Russia, where Khrushchev is getting back into the swing of things on his return by telling Russian restaurants to shape up. Visitors chime in: Russian restaurants are pretty bad. 

Editorial 

I've already covered the main editorial, which is not entirely self-congratulatory, there being things about modern America that upset it, like high price supports and unions, but, in the main, it comes down to defending the Administration. Editorial Notes covers proposals that well-heeled colleges offer long term loans to promising students who can't afford education on their own dollar. The brewery tiff between Maryland and Canada is a good example of how protectionism gets in the way of foreign relations. George Meany and Walter Reuther are fighting over India, of all things. Meany thinks that it is too communistic. Reuther thinks that it is just fine.

"Defence: The Revolution Gets Revolutionary" This is a very strange article. With all the furor over bomber gaps and missile gaps, it seems more than about time for a friend of the Administration like   Fortune to shed more light than heat, The title promises a lot. What about the "New Look?" That waws certainly revolutionary! But the article continues over the fold after just two pages and is substantively about the results of a Joint Chiefs were retreat. Their conclusions are important but just about foregone. The US Armed Forces will remain at their current manpower, 3 million men (and women!); They will spend more in 1958, about $1 billion, because weapons keep getting more expensive; They are not worried about a Soviet challenge in the late Fifties. The Russians have not solved the "5000 mile problem" of building a true ICBM any more than the U.S. Nor have they solved the guidance problem. The American ICBM program only began in 1953/54, and so cannot be said to be behind, although arguably it should have started earlier. And we are told, yet again, about a new generation of lighter H-bombs. And that's it!

Spencer Klaw, "New Glitter at Pittsburgh Plate" A company profile, but of a "technology" enterprise, Pittsburg Plate Glass, a major glass (and paint, and automotive finishes, bulk alkalli, and some plastics) maker. Unfortunately the article is mostly about how the industry stood off anti-trust action in 1948. There is some tantalising suggestion that we are going to get to specifics in the matter of the company's latest money-spinnner, the wrap-around safety windshield, but alas. 

Duncan Norton-Taylor explains "How to Give Money to Politicians, opening the issue's effort to keep Henry awake, which continues with an article about business espionage, and William Whyte's latest bit of sociological reporting, an inquiry into the question of why the middle class doesn't save money any more. These sandwich a company profile of Montgomery-Ward, finally over all takeovers, contested exists, and proxy battles, and a pictorial about "power farming" that is a faint echo of The Engineer's already interminable coverage of annual Olympia Agricultural Engineering shows. 

Francis Bellow, 'Light: New Source in Light" The discovery of electroluminescence raises hopes of a literally brighter future in which spaces can be illuminated with a coat of paint plugged into a wall socket, which brings us to a fatuous "lifestyle" article about being a Jaguar owner, and finally, a profile of a Toledo-area businessman, because, after all, advertising pays the bills.