o
TWO MECrORD (OREOOKJ MAIL TRIBUNE
Tbuwday, rTormb? 7, 1957
J
)
Lack of Firm Hand at Top Cost U.S. Satellite Race, London Wri
Edltor't note: Bow did Kuiii fct
xna Lotted state In the race to
spacer Why were we left behind In
developing the Intercontinental mit
lile? The Unit', Pres. put the ques
tion to its LonStm bureau and to its
experts in Washington. This is the
first of two dispatches jrvlnj their
replies.
Says
Br ROBERT MUfEL
United Press Correspondent
London (W Aesop wrote a
fable about a hare and a tortoise.
It was true 2,500 years ago and
it is just as true today. There
are tfro satellites whirling
around in space to prove it.
The United States is the hare
of this story, Russia the tortoise.
In 1947 the Rand Corporation
produced for the U. S. Defense
Department a brilliant study of
the possibility of breaking into
O space. Outside of the dreams of
German rocket pioneers, this
was the first scientific verdict
anywhere in the world that the
age of space travel was at hand.
A year later, Secretary of De
fense James Forrestal announced
what he called "The Earth Sat
ellite Vehicle Program." Mark
the date well Dec. 30, 1948.
In the opinion of the world's
most authoritative rocket ex
perts from East and West, gath
ered last month in Barcelona,
Spain, at the International As-
tronautical Congress, the United
States should have been able to
breach the skies and have
launched a satellite bv 1955
or even a year or two earlier.
It is highly likely that the
Soviet Union started at about
the same time on a rocket pro
gram of its own and may have
had available much of the same
information both nations lean
ing heavily on a nucleus of for
mer German rocket men.
Odds on America
The odds at that time were all
on America. Russia had hardly
recovered from a war that killed
millions and devastated her
land. The United States had
available an efficient military-
)
PACIFIC ,
INDUSTRIAL
16 S. Cmtral PfcoM SP 1-3308
scientific organization which had
accomplished world - shaking
feats in nuclear fields.
But one thing Russia had to
herself singleness of purpose.
There were two things Russia
was vitally interested in in 1947
a hydrogen bomb and rockets.
Because it was a dictatorship,
the Soviet was able to order con
centration on those two pro
grams and shunt aside the de
mand for consumer goods. It
assembled an advisory board of
scientists to which the actual
workers and planners of the two
projects could apply for help
and advice.
Experts in West Germany say
that the Russians rounded up
the amazing total of 6,000 Ger
man workers on rocket projects
at the Vj and V2 base at Peene
muende and elsewhere. They
moved them all to Russia with
their families 20,000 persons
in all.
For the next five years, young
Soviet scientists worked daily
beside them in the laboratories,
picking German grains of all in
formation. Then the Russians
went on from there.
In the meantime there was a
sorry story to tell in the United
States as I heard it from famous
Medford Men Attend
Finance Conference
Portland Stan L. Stark of
the Stark Finance company,
Medford, was elected vice presi
dent of the Oregon Consumer
Finance association at its an
nual meeting here last week end.
L. T. Anderson, Commercial
Finance company, Medford, also
attended the meeting. The law
regulating consumer finance
which was amended by the 1955
state legislature was praised as
one of the outstanding consumer
finance laws in the United
States.
scientists at Barcelona before
silence was clamped on.
Effort Hampered
When the war ended, Maj.
Gen. Holger Toftoy of Redstone
arsenal, then a colonel, tried to
round up as many German
rocket scientists as possible for
the United States. He received
permission to bring back only
about 100 because of strong anti
Nazi feeling.
But most of them were top
men and, with German guidance,
the Army began a missile pro
gram. By September 1954, they
were able to inform superiors
that they could orbit a satellite
Try and Sfop Me
By BENNETT CERF-
LAWRENCE LANGNER, absent-minded impressario, board
ed a taxi in New York City and announced, Tve only 20
minutes to catch my train. Please get me to Grand Central
as quickly as you can." He
then opened his evening pa
per. Fifteen minutes and ten
pages later, he looked up
for the first time and dis
covered there was no driver
in the cab.
John Charles DaJy ver
heard this choice bit of repar
tee at the Rye (N.T.) rail
road station: A commuter
slapped a 4-year-old boy on
the back and inquired hearti
ly, "Well, there. Jocko, what
do you know?" The kid an
swered very seriously, "Yon know perfectly wen T dont know
anything!"
A hock-shop on the feowery featured a stringiess violta la Its
window display. To it was affixed this sign: "Twenty bucks and
this superb instrument is yours. No strings attached."
1957, by Bennett Cerf. Distributed by King Features Syndicate.
Quotes From the lews
AIR MAIL?
Worcester. Mass. TO Prank
sters put pigeons in eight postal
boxes in various parts of the
city on a recent night. When
postal collectors opened the
boxes next morning, out flew
the pigeons.
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By UNITED PRESS
New York Adm. Sir John Eccles, British home fleet com
mander in chief, in saying NATO naval forces are inadequate:
"If there were a threat to the eastern coast of America and if
the full power of Soviet submarines were brought into play, we
have insufficient forces to maintain an Atlantic lifeline."
United Nations U. S. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge on dis
armament: "I cannot believe the Soviets would choose to bring on their
heads the obloquy and condemnation of the whole world com
munity as those who sabotage peace."
Richmond, Va. Sen. Harry F. Byrd (D-Va.), in saying the
smashing gubernatorial victory of Democratic , pro-segregationist
J. Lindsay Almond Jr. shows Virginia's determination to resist
integration:
"Almond's majority is a vote of confidence in his anti-integration
program. The result was so decisive it is bound to have a
great effect."
Palm Springs, Calif. Former President Truman, in comment
ing on the possibility of a bipartisan foreign policy:
"It would be a good plan to restore the bi-partisan foreign
policy which had been in effect while I was in the White House
and President Roosevelt was there and which has been thrown
to the winds by the present administration."
San Francisco Under Secretary of State Christian A. Herter,
in saying that mutual cultural understanding between nations as
promoted by UNESCO is essential in reaching intelligent political
decisions:
"Without knowledge and undestanding, there can be no mutual
confidence and no solid basis for satisfactory mutual cooperation."
Plentiful Turkey
For Holiday Season
With Prices Lower
GENUINE EVEREADY
PRESTONE ANTI FREEZE
39
GAL.
New York Iff) Turkey for
Thanksgiving will be plentiful
and cheap this year maybe
about five cents a pound less
than last.
While food consumers have
been sky-gazing, watching "Sput
nik" and the cost of living index
do unexpected tricks, turkey
prices have been going down.
Gobblers in retail stores now
are at a 15-year low and super
market merchants indicated to
day they may be even lower in
the weeks ahead.
Heavy Slock in Storage
A record-breaking crop and a
heavy stock in cold storage un
derlie the lowering prices.
Housewives juggling family
food funds can count on big sup
plies, not only for Thanksgiving,
but for Christmas and the New
Year's holidays, market econo
mists indicated.
Turkey raisers this year pro
duced a record crop of 81 million
gobblers 5 per cent more than
the 1956 record. This year's crop
has been unusually early. So dis
tributors have been freezing the
surplus in anticipation of the
November - December holiday
season when half of the supply
is usually consumed.
A big carryover stock from
last year has swelled the supply.
End-September stocks In stor
age were 33 per cent more than
1956.
Big birds, tilting the scale at
more than 18 pounds, will be in
best supply and the most eco
nomical in price. .
Home marketing economists
said the lower prices for the
large birds and the "greater pro
portion of meat to the amount
of bones" made them the "best
buy" for cooks serving a big
dinner, or for next day warm
overs. While overall supplies will be
more than generous, the propor
tion of small whites under
eight pounds will not be as
great. The small birds have be
come very popular with small
families and have largely sup
planted big chicken on some
dinner tables.
Present Prices
Turkey prices now, around
the New York metropolitan
area, are about two to four cents
a pound less than last year. On
Nov. 1, the ready-to-cook turkey,
under. 16 pounds, in one leading
supermarket chain was 49 cents
a pound. The large birds, over
16 pounds, carried a price tag of
45 cents a pound.
For generations, the turkey
was a farmyard bird, eaten only
once or twice a year, and raised
mostly for local home consump
tion. Today, things are different.
Turkey breeders have improved
methods for raising quality
birds. And distributors have de
veloped better methods for
handling, storing and transport
ing turkey.
The average American.in 1956
consumed over five pounds of
turkey as against 1.4 pounds in
1929. And indications for 1957
are for a per capita consumption
of six pounds.
Cranberries, the companion
piece for turkey, will be in good
supply, both canned and fresh.
The crop of fresh berries this
year is expected to be 8 per
cent more than 1956 and about
12 per cent more than the 1946
55 average.
VII U UU IUJ UV!
MIDWAY MARKET
We Reserve the Table Rock Read
Right to Limit Phone NO 4-1511 At 4 Corners
THE
HIGH
PROTEIN
PET FOOD
pefs love BonniQ
in less than a year. Still gather
ing dust in an Alabama ware
house are the satellites they
thought would be, by now,
circling the earth.
Instead of a go-ahead, the
Army got a committee. It con
sidered the satellite programs of
the Army and Navy and to the
astonishment of rocket experts
worldwide awarded the Inter
national Geophysical Year satel
lite program to the Navy which,
in 1955, began on this new pro
ject. Americans at Barcelona said
top levels in the United States
took the view that there was
no hurry, no race and when we
launched a satellite it was to be
a real, gleaming, gadget-crammed,
hundred per cent scientific
vehicle. Said one scientist:
"It was just as if Columbus
had said he wouldn't sail in that
little boat he wanted the
Queen Mary."
So while the Eussian tortoise
crawled along, the American
rabbit was floundering in a
quicksand of inter-service riv
alry and industrial feuds. A
dozen electronics and engineer
ing firms lobbied for their own
ideas with the Army, Navy and
Air Force.
Meanwhile, the Russians
passed us. Apparently we didn't
even know it, although we
should have.
For example, in September
the United Press bureau in Mos
cow reported the launching of a
Russinan satellite was imminent.
It is now known that Soviet
scientific organs were printing
specific instructions then to
amateur astronomists and ham
radio operators on how to sight
and contact Sputnik.
The Reasons
Are there greater incentives
in Russia for scientists?
Comparatively, yes. A British
scientist recently returned from
the Soviet said they were "priv
ileged in every way including,
in my experience, freedom of
opinion, at least in private."
He is Prof. H. W. B. Skinner
and he also had this to say:
"We do not want to copy Rus
sian political methods. But we
ought to look closely at how
they achieve their successes. The
formula seems to be simple: to
train scientists and engineers in
large numbers and to employ
them on reasonable projects, to
support them in every way and
not to waste them by splitting
up their efforts among too many
parallel lines of work."
In the opinion of every au
thority to whom I spoke at Bar
celona, in London and elsewhere
in Europe this was. the major
reason the United States was
beaten its effort was split up
among too many people, too
many industrial firms and mili- compact program. singleness of purpose.
tary segments. It lacked at the There is no other reason. Rus- . ,.. . . .
..... , , ,. . . , . . . , , , Tomorrow: A Washington ex-
top the firm hand that might sia wields no magic wand ex- pert view of why we are be.
have drawn all of these into one cept the wand of efficiency and hind.
STARLAC the hearMmilk is the
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For drinking, cooking,
baking and whipping
o
p ;X
Use this thrifty nonfat dry milk in all mide-
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And it's the best kind of nourishment
Borden's takes fresh pasteurized milk re
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ABOUT &A QUART in the
12 at. family-size package
1957, The Borden Cm
IS
GQ0 QMS? IK) 0 lAimii)
(MOOD
cnn ri) ...
000
flitfi TI30 Gni Q32H Q3H& fto
ENTER THE BIG WHITE SATIU SUGAR
TELL YOUR FOLKS TO
BUY PLENTY OF
dUVAK
- IMIA.
stop in day and 0 rtic-,potm9 N
can win. If tW.rt 1 not P h given a
ftwinY0urpr""d
You mty be one of the sixteen Gr nd Champions
to win all the toys you can carry out of Newberry's
toy department in 8 minutes. It's fun and easy to
wis in this big local contest.
You can win footballs, games, dolls, basketballs,
roller skates, jumping ropes, trains, fire trucks, cow
boy outfits, drums, baseballs and bats, boxing gloves,
coloring sets, trains . . . anything you want! It's the
most terrific contest ever held in your town for children
ten years old or under.
WIN FREI GROCERIES!
And you win lots of FREE GROCERIES for your
folks, all the groceries they can cany in 8 minutes out
of the grocery iftore where you bought your White
Satin Sugar. o
Contest dates: Oct. 28 to Dec. 7, 1957
ii r wu i i in ii ftta rw m i i i wn i ii i mm i m mm
1