Postblogging Technology, May 1956, II: "A Shabby Little Man"

Too old to rock and roll. 

R_.C_.,
Shaughnessy,
Vancouver,
Canada




Dear Father:

Just a month to the end of school! It's like I'm eighteen again, except for the part where I'm not! We have arranged for the kids to fly with  Dr. K. K., who is flying into Vancouver to give a "job" paper, and is, like graduate students everywhere, willing to take on a bit of extra work involving minding the younger set. Uncle George is right. It pays to cultivate these connections! 

Speaking of which, I have passed my FBI clearance check and am now allowed to work with Bill and David (in a very junior capacity, mind!) on their initial public offering, which will go ahead next year, obviously you didn't hear it from me, etc. I guess you should especially not tell the FBI, all things considered!

Your Loving Daughter,

Ronnie

Newsweek, 21 May 1956

Letters

Mohammed Yaqub, who might be a student at Tri-State College, found the recent article about Pakistan to be offensive, while C. Frederick Falk isn't necessarily disagreeing when he says that Pakistan is taking the U. S. for a ride. Several correspondents have opinions about Alec Guinness and one wants to know the name of Winston Churchill's dog. A Travel and Leisure article about Spain drew a lot of silly letters that I can't bear to talk about.  William L. Schneider points out that a photo shows Hutterites in South Dakota shocking oats, not wheat.  Readers' letters run six to two in favour of Raymond Moley's recent column about doing something about them Communist professors. 

For Your Information reports that the reception of some recent Special Reports has led to the promotion of Debs Myer to help the current editorial team of John Denson and Malcolm Muir, Jr.  

The Periscope reports that Alben Barkley's wife will finish his senatorial term, as is the way, while the Wisconsin GOP convention is expected to endorse a McCarthy ally over the incumbent Senator, Alexander Wiley. The Periscope predicts a Kefauver win in Florida. Robert Oppenheimer says he has no plans to appeal to have his security clearance restored, even though friends are said to be urging him to do so. Analysis of fallout samples from Russian tests show that the Russians have a more powerful bomb than the U.S., which will accordingly next year test a bomb even bigger than the 14MT device fired in 1954. Democrats are privately celebrating the retirement of Senator Walter George, who was a bit too close to the Republicans for comfort. It is hoped that office kickback charges against Adam Clayton Powell will help the school-aid-bill pass, because it will undermine his vote calling for the withholding of federal funds from segregating school districts. The reports that Ike is going to invited Marshal Zhukov to the White House before the election are completely false, say informed sources. HUAC wants to subpoena Vladimir Mikheev on the way out the door. Can they even do that? People are saying that Adenauer is about to retire, that the British would love a visit from Vice-President Nixon, that the Crown Prince of Yemen is going to visit Moscow, that the Czechs are selling another 50 jet fighters to Egypt and 28 T-34s passed through Damascus the other day on their way to "desert outposts. Reports from Tibet say that the Chinese repression campaign is gathering steam. Where Are They Now visits Henry Fletcher and Harrison Spngler, both veteran GOP insiders associated with Hoover, and both long retired. Spangler predicts that Ike will beat Harriman in November. 

The Periscope Washington Trends reports that the farm crisis and bomber gap are over, and that with the restoration of American-British harmony, the Americans have decided that Nasser is a problem, after all. Dulles believes that recruiting the Soviets into supporting Arab-Israeli peace is a major coup, but thinks that he could have done better with NATO. 

National Affairs

Senator Wiley has started a fuss by suggesting that the President looks unhealthy on TV, which is obviously TV's fault. Or Wiley's, because the President's doctors say he's fine. He's underweight, managing a 1500 calorie diet, and his blood pressure and so on are in line for a 63-year-old man. Newsweek sent a correspondent to this year's H-bomb tests out in the Pacific. Our Man in the Marshall Islands is so bored that he filed fifteen paragraphs. It's  big bomb, the 145 natives of Eniwetok have been evacuated, and there's a bar. This leads into a story about the defence budget fight in Congress, where the Administration cleverly won by giving up and throwing in another billion bucks. Congress  meanwhile wants to cut about the same out of foreign aid. Harry Truman and family are off to Europe, and the Post Office reminds everyone that dog bites are not a joke. Speaking of which, Simon Schaffer gets stuck with going out to Ohio to find out who this Frank Lausche who absolutely could be the President or Vice-President or anyway the nominee of one party or maybe the other. Stevenson is still campaigning in California, where he has discovered a GOP plot to win the nomination for Kefauver, who is in trouble you can tell because in Indiana, the Republican primary outdrew the Democratic one even though Kefauver was unopposed.

"The White South Today: A Political State of Mind" This is actually a box story. Newsweek's Atlanta bureau chief was out and about to assess a revolution in American affairs that "will go on for years." But will there be a Southern third party in '56? Well, no. The new approach is to stop Black voters, and never, ever talk about it, and that's what third parties do. You can talk about school segregation, though. You pretty much have to, which shows where the pro-civil rights vote is soft, is my theory. We get another story about the fight in the AFL-CIO, and an explanation that Vladimir Mikheev, mentioned above, a statistician-translator at the Soviet embassy in Washington, who has been reported three times for approaching federal employees for sensitive information, and is now in hiding out of embarrassment as much as anything else, although he might be declared a persona non grata. So far, the main outcome is that one of the people he approached was suspended for loyalty reasons, and has now been reinstated at the Pentagon. Finally, there's a blurb about how Congress is doing some of the things that the Hoover commission recommended and is saving lots of money, and isn't that Hoover a great guy? I don't know. Some people just like rolling that stone up that hill. 

  Ernest K. Lindley uses Washington Tides to welcome President Sukarno to Washington. The leader of Indonesia is "truly a son of the American Revolution." He's great, and he's kicked the Communists out of his government. Give him money!

International

"Algeria: War Inside, Threats Outside" An FLN offensive is in the news this week, but there's no story to fill out the page unless you talk about disagreeable things like "French vigilantes" killing Arabs in the street, so we get yet another explanation of why it is impossible for the French to resolve this politically. At least there's some progress: The government seized an entire edition of L'Humanite for suggesting that the army is committing atrocities in Algeria. The very idea! "The Rope and Revenge" explains the British decision to execute those two Cypriot terrorists, in spite of Labour pleas and warnings from everyone else that it is a stupid idea. Sure, it's a stupid idea, but if the British keep on punishing the Cypriots, eventually they'll start liking them! 

"What Would a Frogman Look For?" What might Crabb have been looking at? Sonar equipment, hull lines, screws, shafts, and rudders. So, pretty much everything down there! 

"Embarrassing Frogman" From Newsweek's perspective, the PM's statement was an admission that Commander Lionel Crabb, who disappeared in Portsmouth harbour on 19 April, was spying on "the Soviet ships that brought Bulganin and Khrushchev to Britain." The Foreign Office has "expressed its regret," Labour is turning it into politics (the horror!) It's even more embarrassing because this sort of thing is routine. Newsweek reports that Crabb dove under Sverdlov when it attended the Coronation Review in 1953, while Crabb was a "shabby little man of 46 who could not hold a job for long." And most embarrassing of all, the Conservatives had just lost 270 local council seats. A box story quotes an anonymous fifteen-year-old Polish boy who doesn't seem too keen on the Communists. And a butler has won a council sear running as a Conservative, which is definitely news! Much more serious are signs that de-Stalinisation is turning from a "retreat into a rout," particularly in Poland, but also in Hungary. 

Birds coo for Nancy Reagan and Adlai Stevenson

Marshal Tito is in France looking for a license to manufacture Mystere IVs, and the French want to expel Irving Brown, the European representative of the AFL-CIO before he can make an ultra-dangerous fact-finding trip to Algeria. Burma has learned a lesson about trading with Reds, being stuck with a shipload of useless cement. Sukarno gets a box story, while on this continent it is time to give the Trans-Canada Pipeline a story and check in with Brazil, where railway fares doubled last week and commuters are rioting due to "soaring living costs and hot Brazilian tempers." 

Business

The Periscope Business Trends reports that the Federal surplus seems to be up, as are steel inventories, and there is nothing to worry about. Dividends are up, General Steel and Westinghouse are investing in expansion, Ford has set up Aeroneutronics as a subsidiary to bid for missile and space contracts, and the IRS figures to save $250,000 a year by reducing the size of the portrait of De Witt Clinton on the cigarette tax stamp. 

The lead story in business covers concerns that politics will lead to a relaxation of tight money ahead of the election. There's a fuss about the distilling business in Virginia I can't be bothered to check up on, and a review of Burton Crane, Getting and Spending and two other popular economics books, appears in the main feature because so many people are investing these days, it is explained. The penny drops when the third book reviewed, after Donald I. Rogers' book of investment advice, proves to be Henry Hazlitt's The Free Man's Library, which turns out to be basically a re-issue of someone else's bibliography of books about economic liberty and anti-communism. Henry truly is a shining exampoe of how hard work leads to success in this free market society of ours! 

Products: What's New has "Permachem," a silver soluktion with 100 times the germ-killing power of iodine, from Permachem Corporation of Palm Beach, where all the legitimate companies are incorporated, and a reflector wash for cars from Minnesota 3M that can be sprayed over car paint at the factory.

"Designer Alexis Sakhnoffsky's idea of future sports cars"

Newsweek's Spotlight on Business has a feature about GM's new gas turbine engine that is so important that it warrants colour and three subtitles. And since it might not pan out, a box story asks, "An Atom Car, a Sun-Driven Car, What?" None of this is at all practical, say auto industry engineers, but they are intrigued by an electronic highway that would drive for you and also power your car. Because auto engineers aren't electrical engineers! Thomas Watson, Sr., has retired at IBM on the occasion of his 199th birthday, to be succeeded by Thomas Watson, Jr, after an exhaustive executive job search.  

Henry might be a bit embarrassed, because he puts in a full morning at the office to produce a Business Tides that isn't just a warmed-over American Mercury editorial, explaining about "Cheap Money and Inflation." Yes, Henry, we know why cheap money is bad. We just wish that you could remember what that horrible Red, Lord Keynes, said about other ways to stop inflation. They rhyme with "axes," if that rings a bell. 

Science, Medicine, Education 

"Now a Bubble Chamber" Bubble chambers aren't new, but Brookhaven has one filled with xenon, and that's a lot better than neon. 

"Jets and Rotors" A potpourri of stories/advertorials about the Sperry control system of the B-52, which, hold on to your hats, is an electronic brain; Trans-Canada's Conway order, which "boosts the sagging prestige of the British jet industry," Howard Hughes announcing that Hughes Tools will have an Atlantic passenger jet ready for service by 1961, an airborne TV that might go into a high-altitude supersonic plane and broadcast images back to the ground from Philco, and Hiller blah blah it's a convertiplane that is completely practical and will absolutely be manufactured in large numbers very soon! (This one has telescoping rotors that will drop into a slot on the plane's wing once airborne.) Periscoping Science reports that the Russians are hosting four German atom scientists in a beach resort on the Black Sea and buttering their toast in various ways to bet the best of their Teutonic brains, while aircraft metallurgists are tired of boring old titanium and want to give rhenium a try. 

"Master of the Medieval" A Medievalist (that's when you study a whole bunch of Medieval things to make up for the fact that there isn't enough material to do just one kind of study) named Harry Austryn Wolfson, who, with a name like that, obviously teaches at Harvard is working on a book! It will be a very big book about medieval stuff, because Wolfson is very smart! It will be out soon! It will be the sixth of the twelve books he  has planned, which he figures to be finished with by 1963, which, since he will be 75 by then, is good timing. At the other extreme, Dr. Boris Stanfield of Columbia has found a way to retire two years early, and good for him. 

"Pills vs. Worry: How Goes the Frantic Quest for Calm in Frantic Lives" "Miltown, the amazing white tablet that is the fourth highest selling prescription drug in the United States right now" is the "peace pill," say some doctors. While they started as treatments for mental patients, Newsweek gets down to brass tacks. Once they escaped the asylum, these drugs brought an unexpected dividend of $100 million to drugmakers.  Sales are so lively that some think that pharmacists have begun selling them without bothering with a prescription, and a Chicago police captain says that since they're not listed as habit forming on the box, the Chicago PD has no right to take action under the Narcotics Act. But some doctors are worried about overuse, and, Newsweek goes on with an intersting historical tangent, that has been the historic case with "melancholia" cures going back to Hippocrates' hellebore, and leading on to opium, chloral, bromides, and now the modern barbiturates. That brings us to Thorazine, which really seemed to be the miracle drug until it provoked some warnings, basically to the effect that treatment has to be managed and isn't for everyone. Periscoping Education reports that the Soviets want to send exchange students to the U.S. and that the chancellor of Teheran University has ordered troops off campus because they were just provoking the students.

 

Press, TV-Radio, Newsmakers

"A Family Quarrel" For seven weeks, George Putnam, the chief newscaster at LA's KTTV has been calling out DA Ernest Roll, but now he's not, because, rumour has it, Times publisher Norman Chandler told him to stop, but that has just led to the other LA papers joining the pile-on. The feature is filled out with  a story about a local California paper investigating a local DA for mob ties, so this is a very California story. Also, there were some national newspaper awards, including one to a "30-year-old Negro reporter," and the Dean of Journalism at Columbia has retired, which is news, if you're a New York newspaperman because he is a great guy, except for that time when he published the first English edition of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which Newsweek does not find the space to mention. 

Lawrence Welk has quite the TV show, and the feature is filled out with capsule reviews of three made-for-TV movies.

Arts visits an exhibit at Yale devoted to various artists who were at Yale. 

Herbert Hoover, Lily Dache, Claire Booth Luce, Winston Churchill, Louis Armstrong, Rita Gam, and an assortment of royals are in the column for the usual reason. Adlai Stevenson is in it because of rumours that he is engaged to Nancy Davis. A. G. Vanderbilt is getting divorced, as is Ty Cobbs. theodore Van De Kamp, Louis Calhern, and Clarence Mulford (creator of Hopalong Cassidy) have died. If this seems like a short Transitions, I am skipping pointless bits about minor royals and J. Edgar Hoover. 

Movies

Warner Brother's The Searchers warrants an entire introductory article about the producer, Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney, the wealthy heir who makes movies and has a ranch, making him the right man to do a Western which has John Wayne, Technicolor, and a fine story. Or so Newsweek says. "Ford's redskins have all the foreboding malice, violent temperament, and pride of outraged savages." Fox's Hilda Crane gets a terrible review.

 

Books

Edward Grierson's The Second Man is a mystery, while Lauren van der Post's Bar of Shadows is one of the "most searing novels" of the postwar. I'm curious as to whether 61 pages makes it a novel, though! Michael de Bedoyere has one of those French histories that digs into the country's fascinating history (no, really, it is!) for a vignette that illuminates the whole, this one involving Fenelon's collision with the court over a Catholic mystic writer --you know what, if you're interested, you're interested, no point in me carrying on. A. J. Cronin's A Thing of Beauty is one more  novel to review. Then it is over to the back page to discover that Raymond Moley has found more to write about Hell's Canyon dam.

Flight, 19 May 1956

Leaders

"Power for Jetliners" The Conway sale, yet again. Also, reassuring words for Bristol about the Olympus. This is important enough news to be repeated again and again, as also see the next Leader, which, to the extent that it has anything important to say other than to dwell on the sheer idiocy of the cancellation of the V.1000, is to point out that Herb Seagrim was smart enough to read the Conway's numbers. 

From All Quarters reports that TCA has bought the Conway, that the BE 25 turboprop is to be the Bristol Orion, that the RCAF is looking at the F-105, as might be the Ministry of Supply, given rumours that it is not going ahead with the Olympus-powered "thin-wing" Javelin development. The Lockheed U-2 is a high altitudde USAF plane for studying the weather and stuff. Just like weather balloons! I sure hope a U-2 doesn't break loose of its tether and fly over Siberia accidentally taking pictures downwards. RNAS Gosport is now closed, and will become a civil airport. The Philco TV reconnaissance equipment is mentioned, and the Chairman of De Havilland's "Won't someone please buy the Gyron" annual statement is quoted in full. 

"Supersonic Flight: Discussed by Four Specialists and R. Ae. S. Graduates and Students" Supersoonic flight is pretty hard, everyone can agree on that. 

Here and There reports that they're building new ranges at Woomera, the Soviets are claiming a helicopter flight record, Howard Hughes has put in an application to the CAB to build 25 jetliners, promising that TWA will buy 25 of them. Israel is going to be allowed to buy another 12 Mysteres and 12 Canadian Sabres. Colonel Moseley of the Air Force Aero-Medical Division says that 67% of Service accidents last year were caused by human factors. Various historical re-enactors are out and about with replicas of pre-war Farmans and motor gliders. A Viscount delivered to Central African Airlines is out of service due to a bee nest in the engine nacelle. The Hispano R. 800 is quite a nice small turbojet. 

"The Comet 4: Its Design and Operation: A Synopsis of the Paper Presented in Canada by the Designer and Chief Test Pilot" Medium-sized airliners are definitely wanted in the market, the Comet 4 won't blow up in mid-air, and the controls are much improved. What else do you want? 

So this is the first transonic wind tunnel in the world, and transonic tunnels are different from supersonic wind tunnels, and actually the first supersonic tunnel
in the world was also at RAE, and was built in 1923, and these are interesting facts that will never, ever impinge on the "Wunderwaffen" conversation. 

"Passing the Megabuck" Boy are full-sized jetliners expensive these days. And that's why we should buy British! Flight then visits No. 56 Squadron RCAF and the new transonic tunnel at the RAE.

"Art and Industry at London Airport" A pictorial shows lots of pretty buildings and such at London Airport.   

"Aircraft Electrical Equipment: Institution of Electrical Engineers Symposium: Papers Summarised" One sentence summaries of three sentence summaries aren't likely to be helpful to anyone. It might be historically interesting that the designers still thought it was worthwhile to put a DC power supply on the Saro Princess, but how important is the Princess, historically speaking? It was a Saro design, and that's a pretty big black mark, right there! 

Aircraft Intelligence reports that it's got a pretty good three-plan drawing of the F-104 illlustrating its engine inlets pretty well. Over in France, Fougas and Vautour prototypes continue to exist, and various light planes are being built the world around. 

"Pilot and Flight Log: Decca in Use: A Viscount Captain's Lecture" Speaking to the Institute of Navigation, Captain F. R. Wright explains his flight log. 

Correspondence

M. J. Hardy, Associate Editor of The Airport Visitor, makes an excellent case for never readsing the Airport Visitor. H. Wilson asks when the F-104 will make a speed record run, and Flight answers that it is  hard because of all the arrangements that have to be made, so it might happen soon, or not. R. W. Jackson and T. R. Loudon recall the old days, before the war. (One is on about the DH4, the other abot wing warping.) 

The Industry reports that GEC has an automatic announcing system consisting of some recorded messages, but which is "ingenious" due to some switching arrangements and because GEC says so, Crossley has a new and even more practical building set, and the Minister of Civil Aviation visited a factory.  Civil Aviation reports that the thirtieth Viscount has been delivered, that the IATA Technical Conference will be a fun but also professional fortnight on the Riviera, and that a Brazilian airline is 100% serious in ordering the DC3 replacement that Jack Frye is absolutely going to build in Texas. Proteus engines  continue to flame out in trials and Bristol continues to promise that the problem will be fixed soon. The new Comet 2s being built for Transport Command have now got Certificates of Airworthiness after a brief hold up. Flight wonders what all the fuss was about, because Flight is like that sometimes. 

 Letters

John P. Smithson relates how he was arrested for Communism in Istanbul because he was reading a Newsweek with the hammer and sickle on the front page. Harry Foster thinks that the kids these days need rigorous physical training in the schools because they are just too soft for army life. E. M. Budelis is upset at a staged picture of a firearm lying on the ground, Louis Dolezal recalls his Selective Service days and says that it wasn't the exercise, it was that it was deliberately cruel. Edward Larson has an anecdote about a temperance campaigner who use to distribute cough drops before a lecture --and who also manufactured them, this in light of Viscount Montgomery handing them around before his lectures. Opinion about John Lardner's story about Grace Kelly's wedding runs the gamut as illulstrated by two letters, pro and con. The President's reading habits were worth an article, and are now worth some letters of the usual sort. (He's a brilliant reader of brilliant books; Come on, we know he only reads Westerns; And where's the Bible?) For Your Information is pleased to report that columnists all over the country were impressed with its latest Red-baiting story. In its telling, the recent return to the Soviet Union by five of the crewmen of the Tuapse was a kidnapping by a network of Soviet agents in New York. 

Periscoping the Nation reports that the Navy isn't saying anything, but Soviet "snooper" subs are following Nautilus around. As James points out, if they can follow Nautlus around, there's not much point to it! The Air Force is working on a long range reconnaissance missile. The real story of the cut-down Air Force flyover for Armed Forces Day is that Harold Stassen talked the Russians into cutting down their "provocative" flyover for May Day, and this is a reciprocal gesture. Democratic Digest says that Democratic party leaders tend to be too "egg-headed." Ike is going to clear out his cabinet if he is re-elected, but count on George Humphrey to stay at Treasury, if not for the full four years. The White House is getting complaints about tasteless TV ads, Senator Margaret Chase Smith is going after the airlines for overbooking, the aircraft industry is upset that there are too many rules attached to t heir contracts. Despite denials, it is clear that Lionel Crabb was working for MI6, and that his buddy diver was an American agent. Top Kremlin figures are upset that Chou En-lai has met with Tito. Mendes-France will resign from the Mollet government next week over Algeria. Churchill's speech at Aachen was an embarrassment for Eden. A renegade Egyptian officer now in hiding in Iraq has told the British that Nasser intends to close the Suez Canal if Western Powers "upset his plan for domination over the Arab powers." Morocco is expected to ask for economic aid and rent for the US bases in its country. Sukarno won't visit Britain until he is invited for a state visit. Carl McCardle is not being forced out at State. He is going to go voluntarily. Where Are They Now catches up with race car drivers Ab Jenkins and Edgar L. Apperson. Jenkins works for Pontiac as a safety consultant, and Apperson is very old and advocates for a 50mph limit. 

The Periscope Washington Trends reports that Democratic insiders think that Stevenson is back on top after the Oregon primary and Kefauver's loss to Governor Meyner in New Jersey, and can seal the deal with wins in Florida and California. Harriman will put Johnson or Symington on the ticket to placate the South, while Stevenson is said to be looking at John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts. In Congress, Democratic leaders are looking to go into the election with action on Social Security extension, the Hell's Gate high level dam, a public housing program, perhaps the school aid package, and a tax cut. Action on Taft-Hartley, the Federal minimum wage, and civil rights, is off the table. Hopes are rising over a disarmament deal with Russia. No-one is impressed with their army cuts, but progress on ending the stockpiling of nuclear bombs is hoped for while atom bombs are still a three-power club.

National Affairs 

"Gold Braid Feud at the Pentagon" Army generals think that the Revolt of the Admirals was so much fin that they want to have one, too. The revolting generals think that the Administration's "Massive Retaliation" doctrine, which has led to massive cuts of the "obsolescent" army is a disaster, and are leaking position papers left, right, and centre to that effect. Communism is on the rise, Communism has plenty of atom bombs, and Communism has 400 divisions. With an atomic stalemate,, how are those divisions going to be used? On the other hand, Jim Gavin has been ordered to shut up and it will all go away, probably. Also, the Administration is still fighting tax cut proposals, the farm bill is going to pass, and Congress is very reluctant to pass a foreign aid bill.

 

"Strategy for a Solid South" The Democrats will go into '56 with a solid front by having two civil rights policies, one for the north, and one for the south. The one fear is that if the Coloured vote wavers in '56, the northern wing will find it necessary to put "insulting language" in the next platform, and the South will bolt because it will have been "forced from the party." The primaries are grinding down, so we need to fill up some pages with Pappy O'Donnell's sad gubernatorial campaign in Texas, the last gasps of the Democratic primary, and for who knows what reason, the return of Mamie momentum, with  a full page inside spread devoted to Mamie at state events and Mamie's hats. Congress is up in arms because we sent some arms to Saudi Arabia and delayed a shipment to Israel, and a box story allows that the day of the circus is pretty much done. 

Ernest K. Lindley looks at the way that the Administration has started being mean to former Senator Harry Cain, who was brought on to the Aversive Activities Control Board because he had a reputation as a right wing extremist inclined to find Reds under beds. But since being given a bit pof power and independence, he has instead been looking at the Administration keeps throwing tender victims off the sled to the slavering pack of --well, people like the former Senator Cain. 

International

"The Big Gap in Russia's 'Peace Front'" Russia may talk peace and army manpower cuts, but it has a million jets, a zillion submarines and "four figures" of stockpiled atom and hydrogen bombs. Leon Volkov's column looks at "Khrushchev as a Napoleon," by which he means that the man is reckless, aggressive, interested in guns, and has his eye on the Middle East. Guy Mollet's state visit to Moscow went as well as could be expected. The official communique wasn't too offensive about Algeria, although Khrushchev was, and also publicly insulted Marshal Zhukov at a state banquet. We get the latest about the ongoing British struggle for influence in the small oil states on Saudi Arabia's flank along the Persian Gulf coast, and in Aden, too. No doubt, four hundred million Moslems, crazed by fanaticism, or possibly fanatically crazed, are about to push him into the sea led by the notoriously religious ideologue, Nasser. For his part, Colonel Nasser seems himself as threatened by both imperialism and Israel. The Italian Communist Party has gone anti-Stalinist and is hoping that the issue will go away so that it can go back to being the party of the working class. Claude Gerard (a former Resistance leader, if you have to ask, and you probably do) has re-emerged, and people say that this means that the Mollet government is reaching out to Messali Hadji in an attempt to split the Algerian resistance. (Because she met with his people in the Kabyle.) Also, France is  having protests over farm relief leading to roadblocks and nationwide traffic snarls.

Newsweek's account of the Korean elections appears to be one
of those "first drafts of history" things. 

A box story features romantic Tibet: "Reds and Far Tibet: Revolution in the Clouds" Tibet is in revolt and the West should absolutely intervene. Rhee took only 55% of the vote in the Presidential election in Korea running against a dead man, while his Vice-Presidential nominee was defeated outright. Singapore wants self-determination as soon as possible, with its first minister threatening to resign, and Lee Kuan Yew, now hilariously deemed the leader of "an ultra-leftist party," threatening that there will be blood in the streets if the British try to reimpose colonial rule. We are told that India's five year plan will fail because it is too nice. Away down south, Venezuela is rich from all those minerals and oil, Artentina is having student riots over the government's appointment of a "Catholic reactionary" to be Education Minister, and people are talking about an army-vs-navy coup and counter-coup. 

Business

The Periscope Business Trends reports that pressure continues on the Federal Reserve to lower rates and unleash massive business investment. The U.S Government has forbidden Dresser Industries of Texas from swapping a rock drill design for a Soviet turbo drill, and will have to invent its own. The Atoms for Peace insurance proposal is getting a favorable hearing that will boost the domestic atomic power industry, and CAB has come out in favour of those Atlantic tourist rates that Pan Am and TWA have already implemented. 

Lead story is "Fewer Auto Sales, More Spending," but a box story is less optimistic, noting a number of signs that a business recession might be on us. Products: What's New has "a removable, interchangeable 'cooking brain' for electrical cooking appliances by National Presto Industries, essentially a thermostat, while Burroughs has a 2-ton electrical printer-pincher robot for cheaper mass  mailings. Steel has a wage escalator problem, and this week's Newsweek Spotlight on Business looks at "Today's Jobs: The Killing Pace," which is about how executives work so  hard now and are getting sick. 

Henry, tuckered out by saying vaguely original things grounded in the real world last week, summarises the US Steel report on how wage increases cause inflation
. 

Science, Education

"The Lazy Prodigy" Here's that story about a child prodigy again. Signals Corporation has found a way to slice quartz with high frequency sound "slicers" that allows more efficient use of blocks of crystal that currently have to be imported and go for $8/lb. "On the Wing" summarises several stories about migratory birds, including one that confirms that several species of American hummingbirds do fly across the Caribbean to winter in Central America, and a West German study tending to confirm that birds are guided by the stars.

Education has stories about Bard College's clever attempts to recruit students, a profile of Culver Academy, and the latest about a Cambridge city councilor's private war on Harvard before getting on with some real news, a parapsychologist associated with the Amsterdam schools who is finding impressive levels of ESP in prepubescent students in Durham and Burlington, NC. California schools are being afflicted by panty raids again this year. A group of Utah specialists are studying juvenile delinquency in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and finding it is about the same thing in the corn belt as it is in big cities, while the Army is rolling out a combination vaccine for all the cold-like and cold-related illnesses that can, unlike the cold, be vaccinated against. 

Press, TV-Radio, Newsmakers

A Hearst syndicate investigation has revealed that several Chicago lawyers are acting as "baby brokers" and arranging adoptions for pay, while Der Spiegel has revealed the plans of several German papers to move east on reunification for cheap printing costs and easy monopoly sales, but especially Axel Springer's group, which has built a printing plant in West Berlin for this exact reason. New York labour beat reporter Victor Riesel is recovering in hospital from an acid attack. 

Newsweek looks at why you don't hear much about some comedians but not others. It's a mystery! (That goes on for five half-column pages.) 

The Trumans, Frank Costello, Jean Simmons, Ike, Sukarno, Noel Coward, Mrs. Earl Warren, and Princess Margaret (no point in saying "various royals," because it's usually Peg) are in the column for the usual reasons, although given that Simmons is pregnant by Jimmy Stewart she could have had a spot in Transitions, where instead we learn that Jean Kennedy is married, Glynnis Jones and Sonja Henie are divorced, Ambassador James Dunnis retiring, Kieutenant General Harmon (Air Force Academy commandant) and Jerry Lewis are ill, and that Will Oakland, Frank W. Phelan, and Max Beerbohm have died. Arts has no plastics story this week.

Movies has Crime in the Streets, from Allied Artists, a "venture in sadism," or possibly an exploitation of the juvenile delinquency panic. Paramount has a Hitchcock-helmed thriller, The Man Who Knew Too Much, a remake of his 1935 thriller that shows how far cinema, but also the master, have come. 

Books has John W. Aldridge, In Search of Heresy: American Literature in an Age of Conformity, which sets out to say one thing in the title; and an American review of Rawicz's The Long Walk, now, it is said to me, on the basis of various inconsistencies, to be an anti-communist fabrication; which says quite another. Aldridge wants great social novels, while Newsweek swallows  The Long Walk hook, line and sinker. Stanley Walker is Home to Texas, which is a memoir of Texas, while William Saroyan's Mama I Love You is another Saroyan novel, and what can you say?

Raymond Moley explains that the Eisenhower Administration giveaway of Western lands and resources to private interests isn't a giveaway because it all belongs to the people, and well-connected insiders are people, too! 

Flight, 25 May 1956

Leaders

By Ken Fielding/https://www.flickr.com/photos/kenfielding, CC BY-SA 3.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=32257025

"For the Common Good"  Airlines should talk more. It would make life easier for the IATA. Fight thinks it is time for someone to design a 100ft wing with slats and boundary layer control that could cruiser at 350kt and support two 4000shp turboprops, which plane could lift 20t out of a 100ft grass strip, and that would be great!

From All Quarters reports that a B-52 has air dropped the first H-bomb at the current tests at Eniwetok. "The explosion was unofficially estimated to be equivalent to that of at least 15 million tons of TNT." Barry Aikman has unexpectedly resigned from Aquila, which he founded in 1948. Short has opened its wind tunnel in Belfast, paratroopers are doing live drops from Beverleys, Studebaker-Packard is to merge with Wright.

I was going to post a picture of the 9, with its flagrantly unstreamlined Lion installation,
but this is instrument panel is  much more interesting. 

"Farren on Aerodynamics: The 44th Wilbur Wright Memorial Lecture" Sir William Farren summarises the history and state of the art in aerodynamics for the assembled notables. 

Here and There reports that space and gliding are being talked about a lot, and the British Geological Survey has begun. 

"The CT-10 Guided Target" SNCA du Nord's new flying target is a guided, pulse jet powered, unmanned aircraft for target practice, The guidance is pretty good, so it won't get lost or anything. The historical aircraft series has arrived at the DH9A. 

Aircraft Intelligence reports that various light airplanes exist, that the Chance Vought F8U Crusader rollout is not going well, that the latest version of the Sikorsky S56 is slightly different from the last, that Dassault's Mirage fighter development is going well, and that a French helicopter is on a sales tour. A pictorial says "Goodbye to the Sabre," which is leaving RAF service. 

A. R. Weyl, "the Truth About German Guided Weapons: Reflections on a Recent Munich Symposium" An old-time airman attended a historical symposium about those old German wonder weapons and returns to tell us that they were all very interesting. The Germans had to pioneer all sorts of difficult issues, and if they didn't solve them, at least they got to be the pioneers. Then it  is off to fly civil aviation in New Guinea, which is a very exotic place! 

Correspondence

Maurice Allward gives all due credit to the Tu-104, J. E. Reynolds writes to suggest that UFOs are real, and J. A. Moffett and PMH Lewis recall the old days, before the war. (DH9 department.) 

The Industry reports that NPL is buying digital instrumentation from Racal, because it is about time to go to digital, NPL thinks. Various people have been promoted or appointed.

The article about the transonic wind tunnel occasions a letter from the staff of the Southern California Cooperative wind tunnel at Caltech in Pasadena, which has been going since the war, and is now expanding. Flight provides a forum for someone to propose a "tube" wind tunnel that would somewhat reduce the enormous amount of power needed to run high speed, and particularly transonic wind tunnels. 

Civil Aviation reports that IATA is working hard down there on the Riviera and not wasting dues at all. The US Government is going to look into air fares to see what's up. Fokker and Fairchild are publishing joint ads that give the flyaway price of a Fokker Friendship in the U.S., the first time that Flight can recall an ad that dared to do that since De Havilland's Tiger Moth ads of the Twenties. Further on money issues, "a lawyer" looks at airline liability insurance.