SPAN: June 1969

Page 1

u.s. FLAG DAY JUNE 14


SPAN Tarapur: India Goes Nuclear

2

by V.S. Nanda

,Cargo-Handling by Roger H. Gilman

A Special Touch forEveryday

Living

The Last Days of Joseph Pulitzer

18

20

by !iV.A. Swanberg

Next Month: Man's Boldest Adventure

30

by P.R. Gupta

The New Attack on Killer Diseases

36

by Gene Bylinsky

Desert Fish 44 Photographs by Josephus Daniels Front cover The stylized design of the U.S. flag by Saul Bass commemorates America's Flag Day observed on June 14. Homage to "Old Glory" is also theme of U.S. postal stamps shown on page forty-three.

Back cover Rising above the landscape near Hyderabad is thedomeofNizamiah Observatory. It houses a 48-inch telescope. Tndia's newest and largest. For story. see pages 14-17. Photograph by Avinash C. Pasricha.

W.D. Miller, Publisher; Dean Brown, Editor; V.S. Nanda, Mg. Editor. Editorial Staff: Carmen Kagal, Avinash Pasricha, Nirmal K. Sharma, Krishan G. Gabrani, P. R. Gupta. Art Staff: B. Roy Choudhury, Nand K. Katyal, Kanti Roy, KuldipSingh Jus, Gopi Gajwani. Production Staff: Awtar S. Marwaha, Mammen PJ1iljp. Photographic Services: USJS Photo Lab. Published by the Un' tes Information Service, alpur House, Sikandra Road, Me n behalf of th.e.Am assy, Ltd., New Delhi. Printed by Ar .ehta at Vakil & Narandas Building, Spro Road, 18 Ballard Estat ay¡l. Manuscripts and photographs sent for publication must be accompanied by stamped, self-addressed envelope for return. SPAN is not responsible for any loss in transit. Use of SPAN articles in other publications is encouraged except when they are copyrighted. For details, write to the Editor, SPAN. Subscription: One year, rupees five; single copy, fifty paise. For change of address, send old address from a recent SPAN envelope along with new address to A.K. Mitra, Circulation Manager. Allow six weeks for change of address to become effective.



Completion of India's first atomic power project is an event of economic and technological significance. It provides valuable experience for development of the country's nuclear energy resources, with vital longterm benefits to national economy.

TARAPUR: India goes nuclear IN APRILthis year, India entered the atomic age as electricity began to flow on a test basis from its first atomic power station at Tarapur. Testing continued into June and India's Department of Atomic Energy expects the station to move into full scale commercial operation next month. When fully operative, the station, with its two reactors, will have a net total generating capacity of 380 megawatts. Availability of this large amount of additional electric power should have a highly salutary effect on the economy of Maharashtra and Gujarat. The completion of the Tarapur project marks the fruition of almost seven years of sustained effort which commenced with the visit to the United States in 1962 of a team of experts headed by the late Dr. Homi J. Bhabha. Although two years earlier a Commission from the World Bank had reported that India was not ready for such projects, the country's top leadershippolitical and scientific-was reluctant to accept this assessment. The late Prime Minister Nehru, whose vision and passion for technological progress created the Atomic Energy Department-now headed by the eminent scientist Dr. Vikram Sarabhai-was anxious that work on a nuclear power plant should begin as soon as possible. Inspired by his lead, and equipped with technical and economic data, the visiting Indian experts convinced the World Bank and other lending authorities that India could undertake the project with advantage. A report was prepared, ap-

proved and agreements between the Governments of India and the United States were signed. The U.S. Government met the foreign exchange cost of the project with a loan of $75 million or Rs. 56.25 crores. "Our contribution to this project is a measure of our respect for India's future in this field," former U.S. Ambassador to India Chester Bowles said at the signing ceremony. "This agreement serves to project India into the nuclear age, with an accompanying increase in skills and in the study of nuclear science." Under other agreements, the United States undertook to supply fuel for the station over a twentyfive-year period, on a long-term deferred

payment basis. The General Electric Company and the International General Electric Company (India)-collectively known as IGE-were selected as the prime contractors for construction of the power house. Work commenced in October 1964. One of the members of the Indian team which visited the United States in 1962 was Mr. M.N. Chakravarti. A man with an intensely scientific background, who served the Indian Railways for many years, Mr. Chakravarti was General Manager of Central Railway and later a member of the Railway Board. In the early years of the Atomic Energy Commission, Mr. Nehru selected him as a special officer for atomic projects. He was later appointed Administrator of the Tarapur project, a post he continues to hold. Looking remarkably young at sixty-five, Mr. Chakravarti has been the moving spirit behind the activity at Tarapur and has provided the organizing ability necessary for the success of a large and pioneer undertaking. A vast amount of planning, labour, specialized skills, supervision and co-ordination of varied activities have transformed an expanse of rural land on the Arabian seacoast, about sixty miles from Bombay, into the most modern of India's industrial projects. One of many possible locations, Tarapur, site of a village, was selected, in continued

Sophisticated, diverse machinery is integral part of power station equipment. Worker at right is operating controls of a travelling crane.




More important than immediate benefits is the future role of nuclear power in India's development. consultation with various departments of the Government of India, as best suited to fill the requirements of the power station. A primary need was a plentiful supply of water-as much as 530 million gallons a day-to cool steam from the reactors. The Arabian Sea is not only an abundant source of supply but its water at this site is low in silt content. Geological tests showed that the rocky coast should provide a good foundation for the projected structures. Health, meteorological and safety considerations also favoured the site. But perhaps the most decisive factor was the existence of large power systems in which the new station could be integrated. Mr. Chakravarti explains that while nuclear power has to flow uniformly, the demand for electricity is not uniform and the load varies according to the season and the time of the day. The most efficient way to use the new resource is for the Tarapur power station and thermal stations in the region to take up the base load while hydroelectric power, which can be regulated as necessary, could supplement these resources during times of peak load. With the operation of the Tarapur station, full co-ordination has been achieved between all available sources of power in the area-

hydroelectric, thermal and nuclear. Tarapur will be of immediate benefit to Maharashtra and Gujarat States in relieving the chronic shortages of power arising from failure of the monsoon and a consequent fall in hydroelectric supply. But more important than these immediate gains, Mr. Chakravarti emphasizes, is the future role of nuclear power in India and its likely impact on national economy in another ten or fifteen years. The'country's requirements of electricity (installed capacity) in 1978-79 are estimated at 42 million kilowatts, while the present capacity is less than 15 million. Although the total hydroelectric potential is 41.2 million kilowatts, 7 million of this lies in Nepal and 13.5 million in Assam and nearby areas which are not capable of heavy industrialization in the near future. The balance available is thus only about 20 million and, allowing for further difficulties in exploitation, some 18 million, including what has already been utilized, can be brought into use. Even with this, there would still remain a large deficit, which will have to be taken up by other forms of power-coal, oil, and nuclear energy. Although new sources of mineral oil have been found in the country in recent

At the peak of building activity, 6,500 men were employed at Tarapur. At left, construction is in progress on the operating floor. Below is a view of the station from the seaside.



Mr. Chakravarti says: "In~a's scientific talent is by no means poor. '... Our scientists and engineers can be relied upon, after due training, to run successfully even the most complex plant." years, India is likely to remain a net importer of oil for many years; any significant increase in the use of oil for generating electricity is unlikely. A limiting factor for the use of coal is the high ratio of volume to calorific value and the heavy cost of transportation. If a power house of the capacity of Tarapur were to operate on coal, Mr. Chakravarti points out, three trainloads would be required every day to keep it running and, apart from availability of wagons, the cost of transport from Bihar or even Central India coalfields would be prohibitive. The economic area for use of coal for power generation lies within a radius of not more than five hundred miles from the coalfields. Outside this area, nuclear power should have a useful, complementary role in augmenting the country's energy resources. A staunch advocate of modernization, M r. Chakravarti has little patience with those who say India should proceed slowly and not try to "leap into" the modern age. He says: "Let us look at the history of recent developments in countries like the Soviet Union, West Germany and Japan. Modern technology has transformed the faces of these countries after devastation of unprecedented magnitude during the Second World War. If these phenomenal achievements have been possible there, why cannot an emerging country like ours also take advantage of the new technology?" Mr. Chakravarti holds that "India's scientific talent is by no means poor; once science and technology are integrated with our economy to accelerate growth and development, our scientists and engineers can be relied upon, after due training, to maintain and run successfully even the most complex plant." The operation and maintenance of the Tarapur station will be the responsibility of Indian scientists and engineers, many of whom have been trained at IGE's plant in San Jose, California, under the terms of the contract. They also helped with the installation of the equipment and its pre-operational testing. The present strength of the station, where 6,500 men were employed during the peak period of construction, is only 225 including forty mechanics and other staff Rows of cylinders and tubes, at left, are part of the station's gallery housing control rod drive piping and the hydraulic systfm.

who form a maintenance pool. The twentybuilding activity or other development can take place without permission. The plant seven American technicians still in Tarapur design itself, of course, incorporates variare expected to leave soon. ous safety measures and devices aimed at The. experience gained by Indian enpreventing any possible release of radiogineers and scientists of the installation and working of the Tarapur station will activity and protecting personnel against radiation. The walls of the plant are thick be invaluable for completion of the two reinforced concrete. The reactor vessel, other nuclear power generation projects containing the core and nuclear fuel, is now in hand, at Rana Pratapsagar in made of five-inch thick steel and is conRajasthan and Kalpakkam in Tamil Nadu. pool of Mr. Chakravarti anticipates that this ex- nected to a pressure-suppressing water. The fuel system is so designed that perience and India's increasing capability to manufacture essential equipment will fission products are confined within the zircaloy cladding of the fuel. Exhaust steam be reflected in a progressive decline in the and air from the plant are treated for deforeign exchange element in the cost of the contamination before being released in the stations. It may come down from sixty per atmosphere through a 366-foot-high stack. cent in the case of Tarapur to forty per cent Notwithstanding these comprehensive safefor the second unit of the plant in Rana Pratapsagar and to as low as twenty peL. .ty. measures, laboratory studies and meteorological observations are regularly made cent for Kalpakkam. to confirm that the amount of radioactivity The two reactors at Tarapur are of the boiling water type and the fuel used is in the Tarapur environs is well within permissible limits. enriched uranium made available by the The layout design of Tarapur provides U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. Heat for future expansion of the station. The released by the fission of uranium boils cost of generation will be considerably water in the reactor core and produces reduced in the case of large stations, and steam, which is then routed to turbines to may work out to as low as 2.7 paise per generate electricity as in any conventional unit for a power house of 1,000 megawatts thermal station. The exhaust steam from capacity. For Tarapur, a much smaller the turbines is condensed by sea water and station, the relevant figure is 5.5 paise, the condensed water is again converted into partly accounted for by the high cost of steam, thus setting up a steam cycle. The initial charge of fuel for each reactor is fuel and the Government's decision to levy customs duty on it at 27.5 per cent. forty tons of uranium oxide, expected to In the United States, which is expected last two-and-a-half years, after which to have between 120,000 and 170,000 about twenty-two tons a year will be needmegawatts of nuclear generating capacity ed to keep both reactors in operation. This by 1980, the cost has dropped sharply and latter, comparatively small amount of fuel in many areas is now lower than that of is the equivalent, in terms of electrical power produced by burning coal or oil. The energy, of one million tons of coal. Tennessee Valley Authority's 3,150-megaWhile enriched uranium being used at Tarapur is imported, India has deposits of watt station, under construction in northern Alabama near a coal-producing region, uranium and also particularly rich deposits of thorium which can be processed for use will have at least an eighteen per cent advantage in generating cost over the most in reactors. Research into thorium technoeconomical coal-fired power station. logy is now in progress and is expected to Mr. Chakravarti-whose hobby is highresult in evolution of processes which will er mathematics-is as cost conscious as make the country increasingly self-reliant for its nuclear resources-necessarily, a any accountant or economist. But he is firmly of the view that even if nuclear long-term development. power costs more to generate than hydroFor a nuclear plant, safety is a prime consideration. The Tarapur station is lo- electricity or thermal power in some parts of India at present, the nation should go cated away from any large community. ahead with nuclear projects "to keep pace There is a one-mile exclusion radius within with the technological advancement taking which no residential quarters are allowed, END and a three-mile zone within which no place in the world."



Gantry crane lowers a container, capable of !lolding 20 tons of cargo, into a freighter. Containerization has greatly cut down the time a ship must spend in port at each loading and unloading, and speeded the movement of cargo.

THE PAST few years the international transportation of cargo has undergone the most significant technological change since steam replaced sail a little more than a century ago. A term that sums up the change is "containerization." Much general cargo, which has traditionally been shipped in separately packaged lots requiring a considerable amount of manual la"'~-Dour at each loading and unloading, is now shipped in large van-like containers that can be transferred easily to and from trains, trucks, ships and planes by highly mechanized routines. The change can be described in terms of two ships. The new technique is represented by the Trenton, a 16,000-ton container ship. The traditional technique is represented by a hypothetical vessel, typical of many freighters still in service, that I shall call the Breakbulk. The two ships are comparable in carrying capacity and cruising speed. Let us suppose we are watching each of these freighters as it enters the Port of New York to discharge and take on cargo. The Trenton carries, on its decks and in its holds, 609 metal containers, each thirtyfive feet long, eight feet wide and eight and continued WITHIN

Reprinted with special permission {rom Scientific American. Copyright Š 1968 by Scientific American, Incorporated. All rights reserved.


One of the basic econorilic facts of transportation is that a vehicle, whether it is a ship, an airplane, a truck, a barge, or a train, earns revenue only when it is carrying cargo.

a half feet high. They were loaded aboard the ship five days earlier in San Juan and contain a typical assortment of the products of Puerto Rico. The ship's destination is the Elizabeth-Port Authority Marine Terminal, a container-ship terminal the Port of New York Authority has built . at Elizabeth, New Jersey. The terminal's berths are quays-in effect parallel extensions of the shoreline-rather than the finger-like piers that are common elsewhere in the Port of New York. As the Trenton is warped alongside a quay, large cranes that move along the quay on tracks are put into position to work the ship. Eleven minutes after the last line from the Trenton has been secured to the wharf the first of the containers is lifted gently off the ship by one of the cranes and put on a trailer dolly. Special grips controlled by the operator of the crane make it possible to lift the container by its four upper corners. As a tractor pulls the trailer to the storage area that is an integral part of the terminal another trailer is moved into place for the next container. It takes about three minutes to pick up a container from the ship and deposit it on a trailer. In twenty hours all the Trenton's containers (each holding up to twenty tons of cargo) have been taken off the ship, 609 other containers with outbound cargo have been put aboard and the ship is on its way back to San Juan. . The Breakbulk must be handled in a much different way. It is a breakbulk freighter: its cargo consists of thousands of comparatively small units fitted into its large holds. When the Breakbulk is tied up at its berth, its hatches are opened and gangs of longshoremen go aboard to unload its cargo. The ship's booms are positioned to lift rope slings that carry loads of cargo from the hold and put them on the pier. Winches, powered by electricity generated by the ship's steam, are manned by longshoremen experienced in working together so that one winch is used to lift and lower a cargo sling while a second winch moves it over the horizontal distance be-

tween the hold and the pier. The longshoremen assigned to work in the ship's hold quickly begin to load packages of cargo into the slings. When a sling is filled, the deck man signals the winchman. The winches lift the sling out of the hold and swing it over to the pier. There more longshoremen detach the sling and fasten an empty sling to the tackle. The time elapsed from loading the sling to detaching it on the dock is about four minutes. The amount of cargo handled in that time is about one ton, perhaps as much as two. The Breakbulk takes three days to discharge cargo consigned to the Port of New York. It then goes to other ports along the Atlantic Coast, unloads the remainder of its inbound cargo and picks up cargo for its outbound voyage. After moving for a week from port to port it returns to New York to "top off," or take on last-minute cargo, before proceeding on its transocean voyage. The topping off takes three more days, including several hours of overtime for the five work gangs and the large dock force required to handle the cargo. Finally the ship's hatches are secured and it is able to get under way-two weeks after it arrived in New York from overseas. One of the basic economic facts of transportation is that a vehicle, whether it is a ship, an airplane, a truck, a barge or a train, earns revenue only when it is carrying cargo. While the vehicle is being loaded or unloaded it earns nothing. On the basis of time spent in port it is clear that the container ship Trenton, which unloaded and loaded the same amount of cargo as the Breakbulk, is by far the more efficient, economical and productive carrier. The trend exemplified by the Trenton is

towards eliminating the handling in cargohandling, that is, towards mechanizing the operation and incorporating automatic control. It is not too strong a statement to say that the trend is rapidly revolutionizing the transportation of cargo on land, across the oceans and in the air. The tremendous improvements that have taken place in the vehicles of commerce (from horse-drawn wagon to jet airplane and from sailing vessel to turbine-driven containership) are at last being matched by advances in the methods of transferring goods from storage places to carriers and from one type of carrier to ano,ther. The amount of handling that is required in traditional methods of moving cargo can be described in terms of a box of nails being sent from a factory in Ohio to a ranch in South America. It takes manpower to (I) put the box at the factory into a larger package with other boxes of nails, (2) move the larger package onto a truck that carries it to a railroad depot, (3) unload the package from the truck to the depot platform, (4) load it onto a freight car, (5) take it from the freight car at the port of embarkation and put it on a truck or a lighter, (6) move it from there to a storage place on the pier, (7) put it in a sling at the pier, (8) take it out of the sling and stow it in the ship's hold, (9) get it out of the hold and into a sling for unloading at the South American port, (10) move it from the sling to the pier, (II) put it on a freight car or a truck, (12) remove it from the vehicle and (13) separate the box of nails from the larger package for delivery to the ranch. Each of the thirteen handlings adds to the cost of moving the box of nails from the factory to the ranch. The costs are incurred mainly for manpower and for pre-

Airlines have developed dual role for jets like this Boeing 727. below. During peak passenger periods in daytime it carries 96 persons. At night, seats are remo)Jed, centre, to haul cargo.


paring the documents that must. be presented at each transfer point. Traditional methods of cargo-handling also involve the risks of damage and of loss through theft or misdirection of the shipment. The stowage of general cargo (which is defined as goods shipped in fairly small lots and mixed with other goods in the same vehicle) in containers makes it possible to move the entire contents of the container as a unit. The container lends itself to mechanical handling and thereby lowers the costs. Moreover, the container provides protection against theft and is not readily misdirected. In many respects modern container shipping evolved from technological advances in transporting bulk cargo such as grain, ore and petroleum. At one time bulk products were transported as general cargo. Grain was (and to some extent still is) carried in bags on break bulk ships; petroleum products were shipped in barrels and fivegallon tins; coal was carried in cars that were mixed in with boxcars on trains. As requirements for bulk products increased, more efficient methods were developed to reduce the amount of handling required to move them. Special ships were designed to carry ore, petroleum and grain. The emphasis in these ships was on mechanical devices for loading and unloading. Ore is scooped onto conveyors that carry it to and from the ship. Grain is blown into elevators or the holds of ships. Petroleum is pumped. All this work is done with little manual labour, although many skilled workers are employed in the manufacture and operation of the mechanical devices. The use of machinery for loading and unloading made possible the construction of larger bulk-cargo ships. Tankers with a

capacity of 250,000 deadweight tons' are tainers as units of freight without regard to now in operation, and 500,000-ton tankers the nature of the commodities in the conare in the design stage. Ore carriers with a tainers. As a result moving truck trailers capacity of 50,000 deadweight tons are "piggyback" by train advanced rapidly. In hauling ore from South America to steel 1955 the service was offered by thirty-two mills in the U.S. Shipments of 60,000 tons railroads; by 1965 it was available on fiftyof grain in converted tankers are becoming nine railroads. Indeed, the hauling of truck common. The trend is to ship more and trailers has been one of the few bright spots more products in bulk. The list includes in railroad economics. Although freightcement, sugar, wood pulp, orange juice, car loading decreased twenty-two per cent wine, molasses and chemicals. between 1955 and 1967, piggyback operaIt was logical that transportation men tions increased 700 per cent. should seek some means of applying bulkThe piggyback procedure originally emtransportation principles to general cargo. phasized the hauling of truck trailers bePlainly the solution was to transform such cause it is fairly easy to rig slopping platcargo so that it would have a uniform size forms fOf pulling trailers on and off flatand shape. This objective could be achieved cars. Recently the trend has been towards by stowing items of different shapes in concontainers that have no wheels to take up tainers. If shippers would accept such a revenue-earning space. It seems likely that method, the designing of machinery to railroads will someday be hauling stacked move containers by ships, trains, planes or containers on specially designed flatcars. other modes of transportation would ¡oow-".,eontainers already account for about ten comparatively simple. per cent of the piggyback loads on railThe concept was not accepted quickly by roads. the transportation industry, which has traThe principal advantage of container ditionaIIy resisted capital investment in new shipping is its adaptability to efficient transtechniques. Containerization as it is known fer between different modes of transportatoday finally found a foothold in the highly tion. Containers can be hauled by truck to competitive field of trucking. Truckers had railroad freight terminals or airports, where learned early to use detachable trailers that they can be transferred readily to flatcars could be loaded and unloaded at terminals or airplanes. The transfer of containers bewhile the tractor was hauling other trailers. tween a railroad freight terminal and a The logical step forward from this procemarine terminal can be accomplished with dure was to have the vans of trucks serve equal facility. No matter where the containas containers. er is transferred, machinery performs the Imaginative trucking and railroad men work with a minimum of manual labour. saw the possibilities of having railcars carry The container's adaptability to transfer loaded trucks as long ago as World War J. between the different modes of transportaLegal difficulties prevented the full develoption has had a major impact on the designment of this simple concept until 1954, ing of carriers. Container ships such as the when a decision of the United States Su- Trenton are representative of the change; preme Court allowed railroads to haul conlarger and faster container ships, some of continued

To convert for freight, overhead racks are folded; partitions, seats, food galleys, closets and carpets are removed. With special floor laid down, cargo containers are moved on board, right. The conversion, which takes only thirty minutes, provides space for eighteen tons of freight.


The full advantages of J.lewrevolutionary methods of moving cargo will be realized only when containers themselves-rather than trucks, trains or ships-are regarded as the vehicles of cargo movement.

which will handle as many as 1,000 containers, are now being designed. Airplane designers have plans for huge container planes. Railroads, which have been applying the principles of bulk-cargo hauling by operating unit trains for coal, grain and a ,number of other bulk commodities, are making up container trains. Containerization has made possible the operation of larger and faster general-cargo vessels just as mechanization of loading and unloading set the stage for the huge vessels that carry bulk products. Because containerization greatly reduces the amount of time a ship must spend in port, it has become economically feasible to make the heavy capital investment necessary for specialized container ships. In contrast, heavy capital investment in large breakbulk ships, which must spend approximately half of their time in port, would be most unattractive. The economic trend is clear in figures assembled by the U.S. Maritime Administration showing that 122 container ships were under construction or on order at the end of 1967. American shipyards led with

thirty-eight; these vessels will be large ones, averaging 17,400 deadweight tons, compared with conventional breaktulk freighters that average about 10,000 tons and seldom have a capacity of more than 14,000 tons. West German yards were in second place with twenty-two container ships averaging 12,400 tons, and yards in Japan and the United Kingdom were not far behind. Container-ship terminals, if they are to operate at maximum efficiency, must be designed differently from the conventional roofed piers used by breakbulk ships. The quay wharf with powerful shoreside cranes is the best kind of facility for handling container ships. Wide aprons are needed to provide easy access to the side of a ship for tractors moving containers. Moreover, a container-ship terminal needs ample room for assembling containers coming from overseas for delivery inland and vice versa. Studies have shown that twelve to fifteen acres of assembly area is the minimum requirement for each ship berth. Such an area can hold about 1,000 containers, half of which are inbound and half outbound. Finally, it goes almost without saying that a container-ship terminal should be close to major highways and convenient to trunkline railroads. More than a decade ago the Port of New York Authority (the joint public agency of New York and New Jersey responsible for developing transportation and terminal facilities in the New York-New Jersey port district) recognized the trend towards containerization in ocean trade and acquired

the land on which the Elizabeth-Port Authority Marine Terminal has been built. At the time the land was a swamp. In 1963 the facility began operation as the world's first container-ship terminal. So far the Port Authority has completed eleven containership berths at Elizabeth and at adjacent Port Newark and is constructing another twenty berths, which are scheduled to go into operation by 1975. The need for these facilities is indicated by a recent Port Authority study estimating that by 1975 some 8.8 million tons of oceanborne general cargo-half of the port's entire foreign commerce-will be containerized. Containerization is rapidly becoming a major factor in the movement of cargo by air. Indeed, the economic feasibility of the huge air freighters scheduled to go into operation within the next five years is predicated on the prospect that containerized cargo will be loaded and unloaded by highly automatic mechanical devices. Underlying these recent and prospective developments is a change in attitude towards air freight. Until recently most air freight was of a priority nature; the plane's speed was more important to the shipper than the freight charge. Now other reasons prevail. Air transportation enables many wholesalers to reduce inventories of stock on hand, because they can get more stock quickly by air freight. New markets have been opened or extended by air freight. For example, fresh strawberries, melons, avocados and other out-of-season foods are now available during much of the year

Flow of cargo (below left) ill a containerization shipmi'nt begins with the loading of individual packages in a van-like container, which can be either wheeled and pulled as a trailer or, wheelless, moved on trailer dolly. By truck or rail the container is taken to a port and put aboard a ship. After the sea voyage the container is put on a train or a truck and taken to a terminal where the packages are unloaded and delivered.

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because they can be shipped quickly by air. Flowers are regular items of air cargo. The scope for air freight was increased considerably by the advent of jet planes as commercial vehicles in 1958. Since then the domestic movement of cargo on scheduled airlines has more than doubled to upward of 1.6 billion ton-miles. International movement has almost quadrupled to 1 8 billion ton-miles. Those figures, compiled as of 1965 by the International Air Transport Association, represent a total movement of nearly 3.5 billion ton-miles. The forecast is that the total on scheduled carriers alone will be 10.6 billion ton-miles by 1970 and 52.7 billion by 1980. The' largest share of air freight is still uncontainerized. The use of containers is advancing rapidly, however, as is the development of mechanical handling techniques for air freight. Two major airlines have opened highly mechanized cargo buildings at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. Within the next four years more than sixty automatic cargo facilities are scheduled to be built throughout the world. The loads now carried by jet freighters range up to fifty tons. The Boeing 7,47's and Lockheed 500's due to begin operation in a few years will be able to carry more than 100 tons. The costs of operating these large jets fully loaded will be as much as thirty per cent lower per ton-mile than current costs, offering the possibility of reduced rates for air freight if enough traffic can be generated to keep the planes full. Jndeed,

Lockheed believes its L-500 could rect'uce the cost of door-to-door shipment to about ten cents per ton-mile, making it quite competitive with surface transportation for types of cargo not now sent by air because of the cost. The trend to containerization is not without its problems. Stowage is one of the more serious ones, particularly on ships. Inexpert stowage of articles in seagoing vans has caused a number of consignees to receive their shipments in a highly scrambled condition. Another problem is back haul, the transportation man's word for what a freightcarrying vehicle carries on its return trip. If more cargo moves in one direction than moves on the return route, it becomes necessary to deal with empty containers. Several ship companies have met this problem by carrying a full load of containers on every voyage. When all the loaded containers have been put aboard, the remaining space is filled with empty ones. In this way the possibility of a shortage of empty containers at one end of a run (at a time when there may be a surplus of empty containers at the other end) is reduced. Paper work continues to be a problem. In parts of the world separate bills of lading are still demanded for each item in a container. Frequently individual bills of lading are required to move a container by truck to a raii terminal, by rail to a port, by ship to a foreign port and by train or truck for the inland trip abroad. Alan S. Boyd, first secretary of the new U.S. De-

partment of Transportation, took note of the situation in 1967. "When it takes a sheet of paper twelve feet long and eleven inches wide to describe the processing steps involved in documenting international shipments," he said, "it is easy to see why some transactions produce so little profit." Industrial groups involved in cargo-handling have formed a National Committee on International Trade Documentation to attack the paper-work problem. The U.S. Bureau of Customs, under its mandate to enforce laws requiring the inspection of all imports, could establish regulatory p~ocedures that would impede the movement of containerized cargo. The bureau, however, has co-operated closely with the air and sea transportation industries as containerization has developed.The co-operation has included assigning customs inspectors to inland points to inspect cargo when the consignee opens the container. Regulatory barriers in foreign countries are expected to fall as pressure from shippers overcomes the reluctance of governments to change traditional practices. The full advantages of this revolutionary method of moving cargo will be realized only when containers themselves-rather than trucks, trains or ships-are regarded as the vehicles of cargo movement. In other words, one would think in terms of a container transportation system rather than of railroading, trucking, shipping or air freight. This intermodal concept, or total transportation system, is gaining increasing recognition in the transportation industry. END

A marine terminal, handling huge containers, must be designed differently from the conventional roofed piers used by bulk cargo vessels to achieve maximum efficiency. In keeping with the trend towards containerization, the New York Port Authority in America has eleven new terminals, such as the one below. The port is also constructing another twenty berths which are scheduled to go into operation by 1975.


Anew window on the stars

A NEW and exciting structure now stands among the ancient rocks of granite which dot the Hyderabad landscape. It is a huge aluminium dome, thirty-six feet in diameter, housing the Nizamiah Observatory's 48-inch reflecting telescope-the largest in Southeast Asia. The only larger instruments in the area are an 84-inch telescope at Okayama, Japan, in the east, and a 74-inch telescope at Helwan, Egypt, to the west. The new telescope project, which took thirteen years to complete, came into use last December. Its installation is a landmark, both physically and figuratively. Especially designed for research and training, it will also be used for astronomical studies. So that students and researchers may easily use the new facility, the University Grants Commission selected Osmania University, Hyderabad, as best suited to accommodate the Centre of Advanced Study in Astronomy. The telescope was located near Hyderabad to scan the southern part of the sky which is beyond the view of many larger laboratories, including those in higher latitudes at Mt. Palomar and Mt. Wilson, Californ ia. (continued) A village craftsman chisels stone for the Nizamiah Observatory buildinJ!s. Domed structure in background houses the new telescope. The telescope, right, can study the moon's surf~ce, atmosphere of distant planets, track stars accurately over a wide area, probe for quasars.



The new telescope at Hyderabad can scan the southern part of the sky which is beyond the view of many of the larger observatories.

The Nizamiah Observatory was established in 1908 at Begumpet, on the outskirts of Hyderabad. The initial facilities comprised two small telescopes donated by the late Nawab Zafar Jung Bahadur. Soon after creation of Osmania University in 191-8, the Observatory was attached to the university and has since continued to function as one of its departments. To keep pace with advances in astronomy Observatory officials looked for ways and means of improving their equipment. A grant of $230,000 from funds available from the U.S. Wheat Loan Educational Exchange Programme allowed work on the new observatory to begin in 1955. The site of the old observatory was considered unsuitable because of artificial light and factory smoke from the expanding Hyderabad city. A new, 200-acre site was chosen near Rangapur village, thirty-five miles south-east of Hyderabad. The telescope, which cost about rupees twelve lakhs, was built in the United States by J.W. Fecker Company (now known as Owens-Illinois Fecker Systems Division) of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Its construction was supervised by two American astronomers-initially by Dr. J.J. Nassau, director of Warner and Swasey Observatory, Cleveland, Ohio, and, after his death in 1965, by Dr. A.B. Meinel, director, Optical Sciences Centre, University of Arizona. The new telescope will assist studies of the moon's surface, the atmosphere of Mars and Venus, and motion of gaseous nebulae. It will also facilitate optical identification of recently discovered radiation sources in the universe. Among these are quasars, the most remote objects so far detected in the universe and estimated to be 10,000 million light years away. Dr. R.V. Karandikar, director of Nizamiah Observatory, believes that Nizamiah "will fill an important gap in the worldwide chain of co-operating planetary observatories. "

Seen in the telescope's reflecting mirror is the face of Dr. R. V. Karandikar, Nizamiah Observatory's director, as he inspects the instrument.


Final operation of mounting the ten-ton telescope, above and left, required diverse talents. Astronomers, engineers and technicians of the Observatory were aided by two American experts from a Pennsylvania optical company which built the telescope. Below, two specialists check precision of the mirror during its grinding. Five years of work, and the efforts of more than 200 men went into the making of the telescope, India's largest. END

II~

II


The

look of tomorrow, today," might well have been the theme of the 14th annual Design Review sponsored by Industrial Design magazine. The exhibition, held recently at the Brooklyn Museum in New York, featured 130 welldesigned items, chosen from among 1,000 U.S. entries on the basis of appearance, ingenuity, use of materials, ease of maintenance and production costs. All functional, the artefacts ranged from scientific equipment to toys and, altogether, attracted some 27,000 viewers during a three-week showing. The enthusiastic response reflected the public's growing awareness of good design in everyday objects and, commented Time magazine, "The big surprise for many is that so many prize-winning objects are both readily available and often cheap as well." Summed up one youngster, stunned by the display of plastic, glass and paper furniture: "Wow! That's what we're going to have in the really Modern Age!"


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e as ose The annual Pulitzer prizes announced last month focus attention on one of the greatest and most colourful figures in the history of American journalism. Editor-publisher of the St. Louis Post Dispatch and the New York World, Joseph Pulitzer exerted a powerful and progressive effect on American life. His newspapers achieved a rare combination of wide popular appeal, accurate reporting and an enlightened editorial policy. Stricken by blindness in mid-career and afflicted with a chronic restlessness, Pulitzer travelled constantly-accompanied by a retinue of six male secretaries. The excerpts on the following pages from the biography by W.A. ~Swanberg illustrate Pulitzer's views on the ethics and practice of journalism, and bring to life a man of genius who was also an incurable eccentric. They are reprinted with the permission of McIntosh and Otis, Inc., from the book Pulitzer, published by Charles Scribners Sons, N.Y.C. Copyright Š 1967 by W.A. Swanberg. Pulitzer portrait on the opposite page is by John Singer Sargent.


"Accuracy is to a newspaper

Walking the tightrope was never alone for a moment except when asleep. He took breakfast with only one secretary, usually Pollard -so clearly his favourite that the others made jokes about The Importance of Being Pollard. During the meal Pollard read him articles from such magazines as the Fortnightly Review or the Revue des Duex Mondes, selected in advance for special interest and skilfully condensed so that a piece taking fifteen minutes to read in full was given in no more than four minutes. Then Pulitzer closeted himself in his cabin with that model of tact, Dunningham, the man most of all in his confidence. To him he laid out his plans for the day and dictated letters he felt too private to' entrust to other members of the staff. Thereafter, another secretary read him the papers-not only the World and Herald and others from New York but highlights from several London and Paris newspapers. This waS'an exacting chore, and since it was not always known which secretary would be charged with it, all of them often had to prepare in advance. Copies of the World arrived with the name of the writer of each article noted in pencil so that he would know whom to praise or blame. He expected secretarial mastery of political situations, speeches, murders, fires, strikes and all important events-expected also to be informed of any difference in accounts of the same event as reported in the World and other New York papers. It was a good idea first to read him a few light human interest items to put him in good humour. This done, he called in Thwaites to dictate to him those long, detailed criticisms and suggestions that eventually reached the various editors of the World and Post-Dispatch. Then he was off for a ride or drive with one or more of the secretaries, who had to produce stimulating conversation to keep him from dejection or anger. All of them read copiously and kept notebooks filled with unusual or diverting items to have ready for such occasions. Before lunch he took a twenty-minute stroll with a secretary who was expected to "gut" a half-dozen magazine articles for him during that time-a brief biographical note of the author, then a hammer-blow precis of the facts without an unnecessary word. Since he always took the secretary's right arm, and the latter had also to guide him away from obstacles, this required intense memorization. Ireland would spend three hours or more preparing for that short crisis. In his left-hand pocket he carried cards containing notes to which he referred as they strode along, glancing at the notes and simultaneously steering their course. The master had lunch with the full group, then took a siesta, being read to sleep by one of the secretaries-and woe to him if he coughed or was guilty of a mispronunciation. PuLITZER

Arising, Pulitzer resumed his newspaper reading and dictating of letters, then dressed for dinner. This was the hardest meal of the day, for by now he was apt to be tired and crotchety, and Dunningham, who knew his every mood, might warn the group to keep the conversation light and amusing. After dinner he might attend a concert at Monte Carlo, taking a box with two secretaries to preserve his privacy. Otherwise he would repair to the library, where a secretary would read to him from a novel or play while Dr. Mann played Wagner, Liszt or Brahms on the piano only a dozen feet away, always finishing off with the "Liebestod" from Tristan and Isolde. This was one of Pulitzer's devices for wringing more out of every fleeting moment of life. It was especially difficult for the reader since he was expected not only to condense adroitly but to keep his voice at that exact level of volume (without shouting) so that it could be heard above'the music, which itself could change from pianissimo to fortissimo. Any misplay by Mann-a B instead of a B flat-drew the master's instant rebuke. At ten he went to bed, with Mann reading him to sleep in German. Mann was required to watch him closely, note his breathing, and lower his voice by degrees as slumber approached. Otherwise Pulitzer would murmur, "Leise, ganz leise"-"Softly, quite softly"-and the reader's voice sank to a whisper for a time until he was certain the master was asleep. Mann would then sneak out softly, quite softly, on rubber-soled shoes. Often Pulitzer would awaken during the night and would arouse a secretary to read to him until sleep came again. Thus passed a typical day at the Villa Cynthia, or, with minor modifications, aboard his yacht Liberty. Ireland found himself working twelve hours a day, much of it in anxious mental preparation for his meetings with the chief, who bore down on him pitilessly. To test his men, he often had two secretaries read separately from the same group of newspapers, thus discovering and scolding omissions by each. At dinner he could be hard on any of them, as one learned when he unwisely said that he had reread all of Shakespeare's plays. Pulitzer pounced. For an hour and a half the victim was required to outline clearly each of the historical plays, tragedies and comedies, name the principal characters, describe the outstanding scenes and quote vivid passages. Perspiring, he got through it with the aid of notes passed to him by his sympathetic colleagues, whereupon Pulitzer said, "Well, go on, go on, didn't you read the sonnets?" This extravagance brought a ripple of laughter from the group in which he at length joined. Always he probed minds and memories until he found the flaw that established his own superiority. When another secretary professed some knowledge of a play, Pulitzer said, "Good! Now begin at the second scene of the third act,


what virtue is to a woman ... "

where the curtain rises on the two conspirators in the courtyard of the hotel; just carry it along from there." He carried it along, but the blind expert soon found an error. He permitted disagreement with him if the other's argument was logical and convincing; if not, his contempt was crushing. Occasionally, when feeling well at the table, he would launch into an hour's discourse on Athenian government or a British parliamentary crisis in which his scholarship was so deep, his language so well-ordered and his points made with such vivid emphasis that the group listened with utter admiration and pleasuJ:e.

Liberty-Ha! THESECRETARIES had long since rechristened the yacht the Liberty Hal Hal While each man was given a fortnight's paid vacation a year, and Pulitzer was generous in cases oftrouble or illness, he felt uneasy unless all of the six were on call night or day, and their hours of leave were few. After a month, however, secretary Ireland's severest test had been passed and he was elevated to full membership in the retinue despiteaslight harshness of voice that grated onPulitzer'sear. He was on dangerous ground when he admitted to Pulitzer that during an earlier stay in New York he had read only the editorial page of the World, never the news pages because he felt them too devoted to crime and disaster. "Go on," the martinet said, "your views are not of any importance, but they're entertaining." Ireland had clipped from an old copy of Life rhymed characterizations of the various New York newspapers, and he was daring enough to read aloud the one about the World: A dual personality is this, Part yellow dog, part patriot and sage; When't comes to facts the rule is hit or miss, While none can beat its editorial page. Wise counsel here, wild yarns the other side, Page six its Jekyll and page one its Hyde; At the same time conservative and rash, The World supplies us good advice and trash. "That's clever," Pulitzer admitted, "but it's absolute nonsense, except about the editorial page .... Now, I'm going to give you a lecture about newspapers, because I want you to understand my point of view. It does not matter whether you agree with it or not, but you have got to understand it if you are to be of any use to me." Ireland listened to a dissertation which perhaps contained a few rationalizations and which made no mention of Pulitzer's passion for wealth and power but which otherwi$e expressed the essence

of his journalistic philosophy: "I do not say that The World never makes a mistake in its news columns; I wish I could say it. 'What I say is that there are not half a dozen papers in the United States which tamper with the news, which publish what they know to be false. But if I thought that I had done no better than that I would be ashamed to own a paper. It is not enough to refrain from publishing fake news, it is not enough to take ordinary care to avoid ... mistakes ... you have got to do much more than that; you have got to make everyone connected with the paper-your editors, your reporters, your correspondents, your rewrite men, your proofreaders-believe that accuracy is to a newspaper what virtue is to a woman .... "I do not say that The/World is the only paper which takes extraordinary pains to be accurate; on the contrary, I think that almost every paper in America tries to be accurate. I will go further than that. Thete is not a paper of any importance published in French, German or English, whether it is printed in Europe or America, which I have not studied for weeks or months, and some of them I have read steadily for a quarter of a century .... [A]lthough there are in Europe a few newspapers, and they are chiefly English, which are as accurate as the best newspapers in America, there are no newspapers in America which are so habitually, so criminally stuffed with fake news as the worst of the European papers .... "Now about this matter of sensationalism: a newspaper should be scrupulously accurate, it should be clean, it should avoid everything salacious or suggestive, everything that could offend good taste or lower the moral tone of its readers; but within these limits it is the duty .ofa newspaper to print the news. When I speak of good taste and of good moral tone I do not mean the kind of good taste which ... refuses to recognize theexistence of immorality-that type of moral hypocrite has done more to check the moral progress of humanity than all the immoral people put together -what I mean is the kind of good taste which demands that frankness should be linked with decency, the kind of moral tone which is braced and not relaxed when it is brought face to face with vice.... "We are a democracy, and there is only one way to get a democracy on its feet in the matter of its individual, its social, its municipal, its State, its National conduct, and that is by keeping the public informed about what is going on. There is not a crime, there is not a dodge, there is not a trick, there is not a swindle, there is not a vice which does not live by secrecy. Get these things out in the open, describe them, attack them, ridicule them in the press, and sooner or later public opinion will sweep them away. "Pilblicity may not be the only thing that is needed, but continued


" If I caught any man ... suppressing news because 01

it is the one thing without which all other agencies will fail. If a newspaper is to be of real service to the public it must have a big circulation, first because its news and its comment must reach the largest number of people, second, because circulation means advertising, and advertising means money, and money means independence. If I caught any man on The World suppressing news because one of our ad, vertisers objected to having it printed I would dismiss him immediately; I wouldn't care who he was .... "

Acourse in journalism A NEW MANAGING EDITOR, also received a free course in journalism at the hands of the schoolmaster, who defined news and World policy and adjured the pupil never to forget the lesson: 1st. What is original, distinctive, dramatic, romantic, thrilling, unique, curious, quaint, humorous, odd, apt to be talked about, without shocking good taste or lowering the general tone, good tone, and above all without impairing the confidence of the people in the truth of the stories or the character of the paper for reliability and scrupulous cleanness. 2nd. What is the one distinctive feature, fight, crusade, public service or big exclusive? No paper can be great, in my opinion, if it depends simply upon the hand-to-mouth idea, news coming in anyhow. One big distinctive feature every day at least. One striking feature each issue should contain, prepared before, not left to chance. 3rd. Generally speaking, always remember the difference between a paper made for the million, for the masses, and a paper made for the,classes. In using the word masses I do not exclude anybody. I should make a paper that the judges of the Supreme Court of the United States would read with enjoyment, everybody, but I would not make a paper that only the judges of the Supreme Court and their class would read. J would make this paper without lowering the tone in the slightest degree. 4th. Accuracy, accuracy, accuracy. Also terseness, intelligent, not stupid, condensation. No picture or illustration unless it is first class both in idea and execution .... In August the Liberty took Pulitzer again to Greenwich, where he had final conferences with his editors before she sailed for Plymouth August 13. He went on to Wiesbaden, continuing the education of his new managing editor:

The man who wrote the enclosed story on "Why Tennessee will Elect a Republican Governor" certainly ought to be discharged and the copy reader and the man who passed it. Who is Hooper? Banker, cow puncher, astronomer or what? The story does not say.. '.. Somebody ought to be ashamed of himself. Apropos of the sketch of Stimson [the same Henry L. Stimson who had prosecuted the World, now Theodore Roosevelt's candidate for governor of New York] in the paper ... what is ordinary height? Would it not have been just as easy to have said, "The man is five feet six, or seven, or eight?" Just ask any number of men "What is ordinary height?" and see whether you can get two men to agree. Again, "A sizeable nose!" Who edited that copy? Who was the reporter? Who was the editor in charge? Is this the result of over twenty-seven years of teaching the importance of personal description ... ? I want to know every man who had anything to do with this description .... Again, "His hands do not hide themselves because of nervousness." Who said they did? Did anybody make that charge? ... Pretty bad workmanship .... Apropos of the destruction by explosion of the Los Angeles Times, what is the matter with twenty people killed? The story is put on the thirteenth page ... I wonder it was not put on the eightyseventh page. Has there been any story like this for years? Did it not happen on Saturday morning? That would be four o'clock New York time. Kindly explain. It was worth first page position, more than that it was a dreadful story. The P-D printed it Saturday afternoon and a hundred times better. Whose fault? Whose judgment? At Wiesbaden he was seized by one of his intermittent urges to consult with doctors. Several famous European specialists arrived one by one, to charge substantial fees despite their failure to find a cure. One can imagine the surprise of the noted Dr. Carl H. Von Noorden, who travelled from Vienna only to be informed that Mr. Pulitzer was "too, ill" to see him. He had the World support the uninspired Democrat John A. Dix for governor on the ground that the defeat of Roosevelt's candidate Stimson would also defeat Roosevelt's hopes for a third term as President. Dix won by 67,000 votes, the first Democrat given the governorship in sixteen years. a victory the World hailed as a repudiation of Roosevelt and his certain elimination for consideration by the Republicans


our advertisers:...I would dismiss him immediately .. !'

in 1912. Pulitzer was as happy over the victory of Woodrow Wilson in New Jersey, a man he had watched for four years. Indeed, Wilson propelled him into the President-making fever that always erupted at mid-term election time. He was appalled when one of his secretaries was inconsiderate enough to leave his employ in order to marry, and he wrote Barnes to request his further attention to the matter of more secretaries. The hard-working Tuohy in London furnished one replacement, George Craven, formerly with the British civil service in Rajputana. A new physician, Dr. Guthman, had replaced the long-suffering Dr. Wrench. Still, there were only five secretaries and Tuohy was looking for more. In November Pulitzer settled at Cap Martin, where he leased the Villa Cynthia, sent a stream of journalistic instruction to World men, maintained an affectionate correspondence with Dr. Hosmer, now living on a Pulitzer pension in Summit, New Jersey. Hosmer, as well as Kate and Ralph, had vainly urged him to write his autobiography. Now he wrote Hosmer of his surprise on learning that the doctor was essaying a biography: I never dreamt of your even attempting anything like a sketch. of a life ... a story of misery and decrepitude, to be sure, but still, a story of unceasing work and worry. You are the only man living who can speak from actual knowledge about my connection with the editorial page. That feeble, invalidish activity was my only thought. As Mary Stuart said about her heart being left in France as she sailed for Scotland, my heart was and still is in the editorial page .... Nothing could have been truer than this. Over the years the World in a sense had been and still was a display window cunningly devised to lure readers inside to the editorial page, where the schoolmaster would instruct them, lecture them on the issues and how to meet them, lecturing also public officials from the President down to aldermen, prison wardens and policemen on the beat. Unfailingly it had reflected the thoughtfulness, experience, constructiveness and sense of justice (and occasionally the spleen) of the nation's most gifted political professor. The assistant professors who wrote the editorials had been selected by standards as rigid as those applying to the papacy. The master had instructed them like so many schoolboys. Who could tell how many thousands, how many millions, had joined this largest and longest of all classes-had learned their political lore from this page appearing 365 times a year in the twenty-seven years since the professor had opened his New York academy? Who could weigh every ounce of its influence, or assay the credit it surely deserved in the instruction of the public,

the gradual betterment of American politics, the elevation of aims, the slow retreat of the robber-baron ideology and the advance of a sense of social responsibility to all the people? One of the minds in which the seed of reform was planted so well as to grow a flourishing crop was that of the young Fiorello LaGuardia, who later wrote, " ... I would carefully read every word of the World's fight against the corrupt Tammany machine .... I could not understand how the people of the greatest city in the country could put up with the vice and crime that existed there." No other newspaper had offered a tenth of such redthread tutelage. If the professor had a few sins to answer for, he had a right to be proud of his page. In fact, he was so proud of it that he urged a staff member to write a history of it-a quaint idea that would eventually emerge as a book, The Story of a Page.

People think I'm dead IT WAS Pulitzer's last summer at Bar Harbour-his last on earth. Perhaps there was a presentiment that the man who had believed himself near death for a decade now really felt the soft brush of the wings, for there was more "family" than usual at Chatwold. Kate was mistress of the household as always, a vision of charm at 58, a woman who had exerted singular patience and a modicum of independence for thirty-five years to make a success of marriage to the world's outstanding eccentric, and who perhaps could have written a book about her experiences that no one but her children, Dr. Hosmer and some few others would have believed. His great pride in his children, his fear that they were not developing all of their talents, so exercised his nerves that he had to keep his meetings with them short or suffer insomnia. Ralph and Joseph, his sons, he met on a business as well as paternal plane and he questioned them unmercifully about every phase of their respective newspapers. As Ireland observed, "[I]t was an easier task to be one of Mr. Pulitzer's secretaries than to be one of his sons. I have never seen men put to a more severe test of industry, concentration, and memory than were Mr. Ralph and Mr. Joseph, Jr., while they were at Bar Harbour or on the yacht." The telephone to the World was a constant temptation, but even though he always spoke through a third person, these conversations left him unstrung. For relaxation he took short excursions on the launch, or longer ones in the yacht. To get him over the gangplank from the yacht to the continued


" Get things out in the 'open... and sooner or

launch on anything but limpid water was an ordeal. The faithful Dunningham went over first, backward, with Pulitzer following, one hand on Dunningham's shoulder, the other on the rail, an officer and a secretary behind him to help him if he slipped. The climax was the step from the gangplank to the bobbing launch. Dunningham would await the moment when the drop was short, then say, "Now, step, please, Mr. Pulitzer." But the cantankerous monster would hesitate, the launch would sink several feet and then he would step into nothing, to be seized by his aides. "My God!" he would cry. "What's the matter? You told me to step." And there would be arguments and explanations, quite exasperating, but all who partook of them later missed them. Life without Pulitzer lacked the magic element of suspense always present in life with Pulitzer. He fluctuated between intense energy and such weariness that he rested almost his full weight on Dunningham when walking only a short distance. The major-domo, who had been his closest companion for fifteen years, had seen him fail visibly since 1908 and laid his decline most of all to the worries connected with the Roosevelt-Panama libel case against the World. Ireland by now had won enough of his confidence so that he told the new secretary something of the history of his illness and blindness. "From the day on which I first consulted the oculist," he said, "up to the present time, about twenty-four years, I have only been three times in The World building. Most people think I'm dead, or living in Europe in complete retirement. Now, go on and give me the morning's news." Although the Old Man preferred to look ahead, he could review more than four thundering decades of newspapering during which his achievements dwarfed those of any other American journalist. Never losing sight of his ten-point 1883 World platform for public service, he had pursued it with the "red thread" and had seen much of it come to pass. Yet, for all the importance of these specific issues, his greatest contribution was a totally new attitude of mind and heart along with a genius at communicating it. The most vicious evil he had found was the middle- and upper-class complacency of the eighties, unmoved by manifest injustice. No one had so punctured complacency as he had, nor had anyone won such abuse from the stand-patters. But editors all over the country had read the World and discovered not only that the masses had some rights but that it might be profitable as well as decent to tell them so. Blowing his own personal gale, Pulitzer had whipped up ripples in the stagnant expanse of national selfishness-ripples that grew to a wave of reform that still rolled and would continue to roll. The true greatness of his sometimes noisy World was in its inspiration, its infectious spirit of optimism, of confi-

dence that reform was possible, that America could realize its promise by work, by vigilance, by electing men of intelligence and vision. Somehow he had escaped that bane of the press, that disease among journalists, that barricade against all progress, cynicism. Now in his enfeeblement he was as hopeful and excited about the future as he had been while working as a cub for the Westliche Post. Once again his family and secretaries saw him gripped by that recurrent distemper, Electionitis Pulitzerium. Although the symptoms were the same, they were less violent and'his motives were perhaps more innocent and unselfish than they had ever been. The firehorse could not help responding to the bell. He wanted to elect a President, but the lust for personal power that had driven him when the years ahead stretched long had waned now with his shrunken future, and his deliberations seemed disinterested, benevolent, devoted to the good of the party and the country. Despite fifteen years of failure, eagerness and hope plucked at his brittle nerves. The Democratic Party, which in 1908 he had feared would die, seemed to him resurgent in Woodrow Wilson. Wilson was the man who, given proper guidance and support, could rescue the country in 1912. Pulitzer had studied Wilson's speeches minutely and had been delighted. He had been coaching Frank Cobb, one of his editors, to give Wilson the Pulitzerian instruction he needed in cautionary editorials in the World. He sailed to New York to give Cobb and others personal instructions and to spend many hours with the attorney Hornblower in revising his will. He sailed back to Bar Harbour. What with the excitement of family gatherings, legal discussions and his fear that Wilson might make some foolish error, he was so exhausted that he set out again on September 3 on a slow coastal cruise for sheer survival, not knowing where he was going. The great white Liberty, a leviathan of sea-going luxury, poked along without destination at the whim of the most miserable man alive. The escape he sought was impossible since he could not escape himself, his nerves, his compulsion to communicate, to govern. To his wife he wired, "Hold all mail forward nothing [,] just off don't know where [,] much love." He touched at Heron Island, at Marblehead, at New London, at each place picking up newspapers and dispatching a flock of the telegrams to which he was helplessly addicted. Most of them were tender and approving, as ifhe felt that he had little time remaining to express tenderness and approval. He sent his compliments to Ralph and particularly to Frederica, knowing that she was soon to bear her second child, a prospect that both excited and unnerved him. He sent a pleasant greeting to young Mrs. Joseph Jr., and to Joseph he wired that he and his wife must take a fortnight's holiday together, adding:


later public opinion will sweep them away ... "

My movements still uncertain but wish extremely your mother would permit Herbert to [remain out of school and] go with me for fortnight into Southern warm climate .... I am hungry for him or somebody. I am dreadfully tired and unfit. Miss you. Love to all. At once pathetic and indomitable, he simultaneously fled responsibilities and pursued them, sought rest and demanded action, one lobe of his tired brain longing for peace, another lobe rejecting it. Even the luxuries he depended on trapped him in the planning that compounded his weariness, for he cabled Tuohy in London: "Hope Paterson will enjoy fortnight's study of National Portrait Gallery [,] British Museum [,] Tower and sail around September twentieth." He wa~ looking forward to Paterson's description of paintings and crown jewels. To Billing at the World: " ... Send file Worlds [,] Evening Post other papers ... " To Cobb: I wish you knew how much pleasure Friday and Saturday's [editorial] pages gave me. Compliments. Better get a hundred first class cigars but don't smoke more than three daily for your health.

Give Ketten one week's extra pay with my special compliments for yesterday's cartoon. To Ralph he wired instructions and added, "Hoping all well especially Frederica." To Kate again: "How are you [,] Herbert. Hope well.... " There were many others. On September 18 he reached Greenwich, where in response to his telegrams Ralph and other World executives arrived by train to board the launch that would take them out to the Liberty for their lessons. At last, late in September, he reached New York for a short stay at his "wretched" 73rd Street residence, where the swimming pool was never used because the water bill was so high. Here he took his meals in a small soundproof inner room with a glass dome from which light filtered over slim columns of Irish marble. Although Cobb had received frequent and explicit instructions from him all summer, he sent further thoughts in a 600-word memorandum, the last written lecture of the great professor, the very last of countless thousands of messages of instruction to his editors and lieutenants: ... You ought to have somewhere at the end (perhaps the very end), a reaffirmation and reasser-

tion of our shibboleth that half a dozen men, nay, one man (say Mr. Morgan) or Swift or Armour, particularly the Beef Trust fellows, in prison for twenty-four hours, would do more to help the law and make it respected than all the monopolies dissolved and a hundred prosecutions by Mr. Wickersham .... It would save further prosecutions. A telegram sent you last Sunday a week ago on this point was not well treated. Read it over again .... There is a chance for a very neat bit of serious, ironical and sarcastic writing. That is, not that Mr. Morgan is behind the bars, but that the public welfare would be more affected by the example of his being in jail for twenty-four hours, than by one thousand speeches by the most illustrious demagogues in the land ... A procession of Democratic leaders called on him, their heels sinking silently into thick rugs, looking to 1912 and paying obeisance not only to the most powerful Democratic newspaper but also to the most sagacious political mind extant. Advised by Ralph and Seitz, he authorized the purchase of the De Grasse paper mill at Pyrites, New York, so that the World would have its own newsprint supply. On October 5, Frederica bore his second grandson. Again his blindness barred him from the joy of seeing his new descendant. But the imaginative Pulitzer, the lover of children, worn out at 64, feeling himself near death, could not have failed to discover in the event the eternal continuity that obsessed him-=--thecontinuity he had laboured to implant in his sons and editors, the continuity Cobb had expressed so well: Mr. Roosevelt is an episode. The World is an institution. Long after Mr. Roosevelt is dead, long after Mr. Pulitzer is dead, long after all the present editors of this paper are dead, The World will still go on as a great independent newspaper, unmuzzled, undaunted and unterrorized. He relaxed by listening to music from the fine organ which he had once ordered not to be built into his home. The hit song of the year was "Alexander's Rag-time Band," by the young Irving Berlin, but he preferred Wagner or Bach. In this he differed from many contemporaries including Henry Clay Frick, whose mansion, just around the corner on Fifth Avenue, also had a church organ. Frick would settle back in deep contentment as the pipes pealed out his favourite tune: Dearie, my dearie, nothing's worth while but dreams of you,


"Accuracy, accuracy ,accuracy ... "

And you can make ev'ry dream come true; dearie, my dearie! Pulitzer was so wearied by the incessant nearness of business and politics at 73rd Street that by mid-October he was ready for the usual cure, a cruise. Unhappily, Paterson had not yet arrived to describe all those pictures. Craven . had left his service, and he felt naked with only four secretaries. Through Dunningham he wrote James Barnes, asking him so importunately to go along that Barnes, though his father was ill, agreed. The Liberty sailed for Jekyll Island October 18, with Herbert and his tutor-governess, Elizabeth Keelan, in the company along with the secretaries Barnes, Thwaites, Pollard, Ireland, Mann, Dunningham and Dr. Guthman. Ireland, appointed official humorist to amuse the tired monarch, read to him from Mr. Dooley, Artemas Ward, and George Horace Lorimer's Letters of a Self-Made Merchant to His Son. He also had a collection of humorous stories culled from magazines. Once or twice he tried jokes in which the point was not instantly visible. When he came to the end there would be that awkward pause and Pulitzer would say, "Well, go on, go on, come to the point. For God's sake, isn't there any end to this story?" Barnes found him talkative enough, discussing his plans for the school of journalism at Columbia, his intention to make further changes in his will, his concern for the freedom of the press. "What is to be feared in this country," he said, "is the combination of destructive, radical opinion arrayed against freedom and constitutional liberty." Yet he agreed that the Constitution might be to some extent outgrown, and that it would be the Democrats who would strike out in the direction of revision. "The Republicans will always be the conservatives," he said. "You may live to see all this come to an issue; I will not." On October 24 the yacht put in to Charleston to pick up letters and newspapers, something to which he looked forward as a hungry man awaits a meal. Since there were warnings of an imminent West Indian hurricane, it was decided to stay in port until the blow was over. Next day, when he was seized by stomach pains, Dr. Guthman (well knowing he was not fully trusted) called in Dr. Robert Wilson of Charleston, who diagnosed the trouble as indigestion and administered veronal. Soon Pulitzer seemed himself again, and on Friday, October 27, he had Robert Lathan, editor of the Charleston News & Courier, on board for luncheon and an animated discussion of Wilson and of Democratic chances in 1912. Lathan cited a political argument made by Edmund Burke, whereupon Pulitzer, remarking that he had not read Burke in twenty years, "instantly quoted verbatim from one of Burke's later speeches in

which he had expressed a directly contrary view to that suggested. " On Saturday morning he was ill again-not surprising in his life of infirmity. Thwaites merely followed orders in telegraphing Mrs. Pulitzer, who had received many such messages over the years. Now, however, she had a premonition. Her husband had looked more fatigued than usual. She took the next train from New York, riding a private car as usual. If Monday was usually a lean news day for the World, the chief was to provide a front-page sensation for this coming Monday. At three o'clock Sunday morning, Dunningham aroused Ireland in his cabin, saying, "Mr. Pulitzer wishes you to come and read to him." Ireland donned a robe, snatched up books and hurried to the bedside to read to him steadily for two hours, finishing off with Macaulay's essay on Hallam. Pulitzer, obviously in pain, twitched from side to side and for a time got out of bed and sat in an easy chair. But he listened attentively, interrupting Ireland occasionally to ask him to repeat a passage. At length he sent for Dr. Guthman. "Good-bye, I'm much obliged to you," he said to Ireland. " ... Go, now, and have a good rest, and forget all about me." The Liberty heaved almost imperceptibly as dawn illumined the harbour, the ruin of Fort Sumter, where the American Civil War had begun only fifty years before, and touched the handsome spire of St. Michael's. The secretaries knew Pulitzer as the kind who could be expected to spring from his bed of pain and demand the world's news engraved on the head of a pin. They had breakfast and studied the newspapers with traditional attention. Towards noon Friedrich Mann read to Pulitzer in German from a life of Louis XI, once being interrupted when the master asked, "Is there any new political development today?" The eleventh Louis interested him, although in his own monarchical status he might have found something disturbing in Louis' unfilial intrigues against his father while dauphin, and his dismissal of his late father's most trusted advisers when he became king. Around one o'clock he murmured quiet final words, for one whose life had driven steadily into the tempest: "Leise, ganz leise." Mann dropped his voice and continued reading. Kate Pulitzer arrived at 1:20, winning the race by some fifteen minutes. She entered the cabin with Herbert to find him unconscious, to see him die so gently that his passing was invisible. Thwaites, Pollard and Ireland were dawdling over their luncheon coffee when the head butler opened the door to the dining saloon and announced with the dignity characteristic of the establishment: "Mr. Pulitzer is dead." END


Dear Sir:

This reversal is partly the outcome of a total change in our social system in which celibacy, strict adherence to monogamy, or abstinence from sex, are not only looked down upon but openly ridiculed. But in the main it is the outcome of a change in our juristic attitude which calls for fewer penalties for lapses in sex behaviour, supports legalization of abortion, and condones homosexuality between consenting adults.

Dear Sir: I congratulate you on publishing the

K. C. LAL VANI

R.R. NIPANI

Calcutta

Nuzvid

I have read your article on "Birth

Dear Sir: You deserve sincere congratulations

very fine and informative article on "Birth Control" which is more thrilling than a novel. Taken as a whole it made me think of that mighty intelligence behind and beyond human agency which directs and sustains the progress of a tiny cell into a baby over which the conscious individual has absolutely no control whatsoever.

Dear Sir: The three chapters from Ernest Havemann's book BirtII Control reprinted in SPAN throw much light on the past and present of a fascinating topic. I do not know much of ancient Greece and Rome, but in India, on account of the high mortality among infants, the wearing of magic charms by women has always been for the preservation of the newborn rather than applying a brake on procreation. The use of 'medicines' to prevent child birth was indeed known to our forefathers though it is debatable to what extent these were really administered and whether or not there was any need for their use. Simultaneously there existed a whole branch of Ayurveda which propagated and popularized procreation. For our present purpose, however, the more interesting thing is that some of the medicines of birth control were very commonplace things which could be had in any household, namely, three-year old ghee or three-year old gur, or even a pill of which the major ingredient was jayanti flower or kadambe fruit or an elephant's excreta, which costs nothing. It is no use denouncing all these remedies as being "born of ignorance and superstition" and hence "doomed to failure." A condom, a pill, a loop or a diaphragm is indeed a modern reliable device. But some of these old remedies deserve testing, and adoption, if found suitable, not only because they are so cheap and so readily available everywhere but also because they are a part of the cultural tradition of the country. In August 1964, the Central Government's Central Council of Ayurvedic Research meeting at Varanasi considered twenty-one drugs of birth control listed in some of our ancient texts but I do not know what steps this agency or the government took to test the efficacy of the products. Contraceptives, ancient or modern, may take care of the objective aspect of birth control only and have little or no effect on the subjective side which is the will to procreate. A few years back Eugene Black observed that this desire is on the increase all over the world. I would go a step further to add that the easy availability of contraceptives has created a false sense of security and intensified the subjective part of the problem. In ancient times the subjective checks on procreation were an important factor and the objective checks were helpful auxiliaries. The position is reversed now and objective checks are proving inadequate. The population explosion is already there-a stark reality of contemporary life.

Dear Sir:

for having published an elaborate and exhaustive article on "Birth Control"-the burning problem of the day-in the March 1969 issue of SPAN. Its presentation of practical methods is of great educative value both to the worker in family planning and to the general public. The prescription of the right method depends on the needs, circumstances, idiosyncracies and psychology of the couple. Evidence on this point would have made the article more useful.

Control" very carefully and I believe it contains everything a medical man, layman, or even a scientist should know about the subject. Please accept my heartiest congratulations for publishing very useful and much needed information. I am preparing a short summary of this article which I will read in our medical union's meeting. DR. M.D. LATHIGARA Upleta

Dear Sir: The cover of SPAN, March 1969 issue, conveys to me the charming image of a young Punjabi village girl wearing a brightlycoloured, attractive head-dress. "Phulkari" means literally the art of making flowers. Its coarse, hand-woven, cotton cloth, on which skilful hands embroider patterns of rare beauty, is often a home-made product. The cotton may be grown on the farmer's own land, and the processes of carding, spinning, weaving and dyeing carried out either in his own home or within the small rural community. As the young damsel adorns the cloth with imaginative, multi-coloured patterns in silk, she cannot help feeling a sentimental attachment for the "phulkari." PROF. B.S. GREWAL Ludhiana

Dear Sir: We are extremely grateful to you for publishing the beautiful photographs of the landscapes of our country taken from Apollo 8 and indicating the important rivers and places on them in the April issue. It is not only extraordinary in the history of mankind that Americans have sent spacemen around the moon, enlightening the world about it, but that they should have enabled all alike to know about our globe in the light of their findings is equally great. It is perhaps their greatest contribution to the world in contemporary history. The U.S. has made tremendous advances in space research .... We congratulate the spacemen on their triumphant journey to the moon. We are thrilled to join the Americans in their joy. C. RAMANATHAN Bangalore

I

Dear Sir: I read the March issue article "Literacy on the Farm" with deep interest. Who would not admire Mrs. Welthy Fisher for her work in India? That she spent the entire amount of her Ramon Magsaysay Award for the establishment of the Literacy House in India is extremely praiseworthy. It is really surprising how she was able to organize her effort in such a way as to make two million people literate in no more than three years. Nobody would be surprised if the entire population of the two districts chosen by her for her literacy drive finds itself literate in another two years. It is an example which is worthy to be followed by men and women of vision in India who wish to see the whole country literate within a reasonable time. PREM BAL KHERA Ambala City

Dear Sir: Literacy House (March 1969) has evolved its own system known as 'Naya Sabera Vidhi' for teaching adults. Also it has developed a very acceptable system of training writers in writing and producing literature for neo-literates. Another innovation introduced by the institution is that of puppet dramas as an aid to education. The training which the institution gives to audiovisual education is also worth mentioning. The prayer of Literacy House, too, is of some significance as it is secular as well as religious. K.G.B. PILLAI Trivandrum



'Next month: man's boldest adventure

The

mI" SSI"on

NEXT MO TH, a trio of American astronauts is expected to break the bounds of earth, as shown in the diagram at left, and fulfil a dream that has haunted the imagination of men for centuries. For millions of years, the airless, soundless moon has coursed an elliptical path around the earth-mysterious, unattainable, always presenting the same face to the mother planet. Now, at last, it is attainable. A task force, codenamed Apollo and operating under the aegis of the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), has progressed to the final stage of this adventure-boldest since Christopher Columbus, attempting to find a new route to India, discovered the Western Hemisphere in 1492. Fifteen stages of the Apollo-II flight from liftoff to splashdown are charted at left. The moon is shown in four positions at the right of the diagram. Each position represents the moon's relation to earth during the ten-day journey.

The flight of Apollo 11 1. Liftoff 2. Earth orbit checkout 3. Injection on path to moon 4. Turnaround and docking 5. Course correction 6. Retro-firing for lunar orbit 7. Elliptical lunar orbit 8. Lunar Module separation

9. Landing on the moon 10. Ascent stage docking 11. Ascent stage left in orbit 12. Injection on homeward trip 13. Course correction 14. Final module separation 15. Chutes lower men to earth

continued SPAN JUNE J969 31



The me n

j

I

THE THREE ASTRONAUTS at left will Journey to the moon next month and one of them-probably Mission Commander Neil Armstrong, centre-will be the first man to step on the moon. All three were born in 1930, and two are U.S. Air Force officers. The commander of Apollo II is a civilian, but all are experienced aviators and veterans of previous space flights in earth orbit. During the moon landing, Astronauts Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin will descend to the lunar surface in the spidery Lunar Module while Colonel Michael Collins orbits the moon in the Command Module. On the moon for some twenty-two hours, Armstrong and Aldrin will telecast lunar views to earth, collect assorted rock and soil samples, and place radio devices for reporting temperature changes, radiation levels, lunarquakes and micrometeoroids to earth. The equipment is expected to operate for as long as a year. Three and a half days later, after splashdown in the Pacific Ocean, the astronauts will go into quarantine for more than a fortnight to avoid any possible risk of contamination to life on earth. Simultaneously, scientists will start testing and analysing the lunar rock samples to seek answers to some of the fundamental questions that might help man know the unknown moon. Chosen/or Apollo 11 moon landing mission are, left to right, Astronauts Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr., Neil A. Armstrong, and Michael Collins. The first two will explore the lunar surface while Collins remains in the moon-orbiting mother ship.



. . . and on ear- th

WHEN ApOLLO II begins its flight to the moon next month, world attention will be focused on the three astronauts in their spacecraft atop the Saturn V rocket. The responsibility for protecting the lives of these bold adventurers and ensuring the success of their mission rests with thousands of scientists and engineers on the ground-at Cape Kennedy's Launch Control Centre and in NASA's Mission Control Centre at Houston, Texas, a thousand miles west of Cape Kennedy. Seldom seen, these men keep watch over every phase of the mission. Working in small groups, they check thousands of individual components of both rocket and spacecraft. When the moon mission is under way, teams of scientists will be watching closely. One group will observe the performance of the Apollo craft and its Saturn booster during launch, checking fuel consumption, temperature, pressures and power supply. An aeromedical team will monitor the physiological conditions of the astronauts-pulse, respiration, blood pressure. They will also be concerned with the operational condition of life support systems-cabin pressure, temperature and oxygen consumption. Another group, in direct communication with the astronauts, will monitor the flight course and provide the necessary correction data to the crew. Still another group will be responsible for the performance of electronic and computer systems on the ground. It is through the co-ordinated efforts of these various groups of scientists, medical men and technicians, no less than the skill and intrepidity of the astronauts, that the United States expects to achieve its cherished goal of a lunar landing.

Left above, engineers ill firing room of Cape Kennedy Launch Control Centre countdown for liftoff of Apollo 9. All systems of the Command Module and its launch vehicle are monitored by specialists at electronic consoles as 3,lOO-ton rocket begins space journey. Left bottom, Launch Director Dr. Rocco Petrone concentrates on hands of clock, seconds before he pushes liftoffbutton to send Apollo 9 on its way. Next to him is Dr. Kurt Debus, director of the Kennedy Space Centre. Directly behind Dr. Debus, looking through periscope, is Dr. Werner von Braun, designer of many successful American rockets including Saturn.


Medicine has been fighting a losing battle against chronic diseases such as heart ailments and cancer. The best hope of controlling them effectively lies in treatment at the level of the cell's molecular machinery, where the diseases first manifest themselves. This approach has been made possible by the successful synthesis of the living core of a virus.

THENEW

ATrACKON KILLER DISEASES by GENE BYLINSKY Associate Editor, Forfllne

Li/e in a test tube has been a goal 0/ science since the dark ages 0/ alchemy. The nearest modem man has come is the synthesis 0/ DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), the genetic matter present in all living cells.

THE DRAMA OF the transplanted human heart marks a historic advance in the struggle for the preservation of human life. Yet, precisely because of their vivid and moving nature, the heart transplants have overshadowed an achievement that holds a vastly greater promise for the future: the successful synthesis, at Stanford University in California, of the living core of a virus. The first heart transplant and the creation of the viral particles were achieved within a fortnight in December 1967-but the disparity in the meaning of these accomplishments is enormous. The heart transplants represent the culmination of the old approach to treating chronic disease-after it has run its ravaging course. The synthesis of the viral core, on the other band, points the way to the future-to treatment of disease at the level of the molecular machinery of the cell, where slowly developing chronic maladies manifest themselves long Reprinted with permission/rom Fortune magazine. Copyright Š 1968 Time, Incorporated.

before their overt symptoms become vis ble. It is this approach that holds the bes hope of really effective control of the bi killer diseases, such as heart ailments, stroke and cancer. The specialists who are working on thi new frontier of research are trying, in ef fect, to correct the rather lopsided advance of medical science. While medicine ha scored some remarkable successes in tam ing great infectious scourges like tuber culosis and pneumonia, it has been fighting a losing battle against chronic disease. Th incidence of cancer, for example, is increas ing, and so are the deaths from it, despite a steady improvement in the cure rates There is a growing realization that current techniques of medical treatment are woe fully inadequate rearguard efforts. Dr George James, dean of the Mount Sina Medical School in New York City, goes s far as to say that many present-day thera pies compare in effectiveness to the pres criptions of bleeding, claret wine, and tight ly shut windows, which used to be recom


Heredity in man's hands: By subjecting chromosomes-the tiny ribbons of proteins and nucleic acids that dictate growth and heredity-to a powerful electric field, scientists can disperse them and prevent cells from reproducing. This technique may playa big role in cancer control.

mended in the treatment of tuberculosis. Says Dr. James: "The fullest application of what we are capable of doing in therapy holds less promise than the hope offered by the new approaches of some future day." That day may not be far off. Some of the new approaches are already producing encouraging results in an array of developments that stem from the latest findings of molecular biology. Through deciphering the genetic make-up of the cell, scientists are moving closer to more precise and permanent correction of inherited defects. Using this same knowledge about the structure and function of the cell, they are beginning to engineer drug molecules so that the drugs act with a precision of effect undreamed of only a few years ago. By learning just what changes occur in cell metabolism in both healthy and diseased conditions, investigators are opening up such possibilities as a simple blood test for cancer and even vaccines against some malignancies. Particularly useful insights are coming

out of the exploration of the mysterious rhythmic fluctuations of the body's metabolic functions. It has long been known that certain bodily organs work with an almost clocklike precision. The heart has a predictable beat; the lungs inhale oxygen rhythmically. It has become clear lately, however, that almost every internal body function is periodic-from the precisely timed activity of that hereditary key to all life, DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), to the rhythmic production of hormones. This discovery refines a concept called homeostasis that dominates physiology. The concept is based on ideas expounded by the nineteenth-century French physiologist Claude Bernard. It holds that a healthy organism's "internal environment," such as blood composition, is in a state of equilibrium. The homeostatic concept recognizes that certain fluctuations take place in blood components, but it does not c1earIy define such changes as being of a predictable, cyclical nature. Physiologists are now discovering that

what Bernard called the body's "internal milieu" is constantly in a state of rhythmic change. Biochemically, an organism just is not the same two hours later. In a healthy organism, the rhythmic cycles run with an amazing regularity, and the timing of various metabolic functions is closely synchronized. When illness begins, however, these rhythms may become altered or desynchronized. The man who has done more than most to put the study of rhythms on a scientific basis is Dr. Franz Halberg, 50, professor of experimental pathology at the University of Minnesota Medical School. Several years ago, while he was doing research on cancer causation, his attention was caught by the remarkable once-a-day "beat" in the number of eosinophils, a type of white blood cell. He soon plunged into the study of biorhythms, and the university eventually set up the Periodicity Analysis Laboratories under his direction. An intense man with a passion for precision, Halberg brought rigorous experimental analysis to the field. He focused other scientists' attention on the nature of the rhythms, on their metabolic relationships, and on the possibilities of developing this knowledge as a precision tool for early diagnosis and prevention of disease. Halberg coined the term "circadian" (Latin for "about a day") to describe the daily rhythms in the internal functions of men and animals. Circadian rhythms run through one cycle every twenty to twentyeight hours. Not only does the body as a whole function on such a cycle, but enzyme activity and hormone production wax and wane over the day's span, and so do the life processes of cells and tissues and of various elements inside the cells. In the view of periodicity researchers, circadian rhythms represent the organism's structure in timeJjust as various organs and bones represent its structure in space. The rhythms represent a division in metabolic labour. Enzyme activity and hormone production, for example, appear to be linked as if on an assembly line. In order for this assembly line to function efficiently, the right products have to be there at the right time. A delay or disarray in "product arrival," expressed as a desynchronized rhythm or a rhythm out of phase with others, can point to disease. This knowledge is particularly important in diagnosing chronic conditions, which usually develop slowly out of cellular malfunctions that manifest themselves


A gene and its creator: The electron micrograph above shows the DNA viral molecule synthesized by Nobel Prizewinning biochemist Arthur Kornberg, right. The biologically active virus can both infect bacteria and reproduce itself and may some day allow man to treat those suffering from genetic diseases.

much earlier than organic malfunctions. By focusing the doctors' attention on when and in what sequence metabolic events occur, definition of biorhythms adds a third dimension to pathology. It supplements the anatomists' question aboLlt where these events occur and the biochemists' concern with how they occur. Apart from what it promises for the di agnosis of disease, knowledge of the cyclic patterns may allow more effective use o drugs. Halberg has demonstrated that mice exhibit what he calls "hours of diminished resistance" when given drugs or subjected to high levels of artificial noise at different times of the day. In a typical experiment, very large doses of a heart drug, ouabain, given to mice around eight in the morning; killed many of them, while most of the other mice that got the drug around eight in the evening survived. All the mice were kept on a controlled lighting schedule. The concept of hours of diminished re sistance has been extended to man in a series of studies carried out by Dr. Alain Reinberg of the Fondation A. de Rothschild in Paris. He recently found that the body's elimination of the chemical sali cylate, of which aspirin is one form, de pends upon what phase the circadian sys tem is in at the time the drug is administered. In co-operation with Dr. Constantine J. Falliers, director of the Children's Asthma Research Institute in Denver, and Karl Reindl, a medical student at the University of Munich, Halberg is now analyzing what happened when a group of asthmatic children were given carefully timed treatments with steroids. The ideal times for administration of drugs do not occur at the same time of day for everyone; they depend on the particular individual's in ternal timing of rhythms. Some of a night watchman's rhythms, for instance, would have their peaks when those of a daytime worker registered their lows. Comparisons of rhythmic metabolic processes among people living continents apart have shown remarkable coincidence in cyclic metabolism when "mid sleep" was used as a reference point instead of a specific clock hour. The idea that timing is critical to the


Medical research has discovered that the ideal times for the administration of drugs do not occur at the same time of day for everyone; they depend on the particular individual's internal timing of rhythms.

success of drug treatment is slowly beginning to gain acceptance in therapy. Doctors who practise at some large cancer research institutes have recently begun to co-ordinate the administration of antileukemia drugs with the irregularly timed division of leukemia cells, which occurs at two- to eight-day intervals. During their "resting phase," the leukemic cells are relatively invulnerable to certain cancer drugs. Since the reproduction cycles of cancer cells differ from those of normal cells, massive doses of drugs can be administered in a series of strategically timed pulses to ca,ncer cells with little effect on normal cells in the surrounding tissue. Halberg and Garcia-Sainz have suggested that the same idea might work in irradiating solid cancer tumours, with radiation bursts timed to hit the cancer cells just when they are dividing. In his current research, Halberg has advanced from the detection of rhythmic variations to the analysis of the amplitude and phase of the rhythms. Halberg is analyzing rhythms that not only display peaks and lows once every twenty-four hours but also have distinct weekly, monthly, and even annual cycles. Production of certain steroid hormones runs in such cycles. To aid this work, Halberg and Dr. Grover Pitts of the University of Virginia have developed complex computer programmes, which reveal components of rhythms just as electron microscopes disclose components of cells. The next step is practical application of this knowledge in mass screening of people so as to detect incipient disease. Accordingly, Halberg and other scientists are now seeking simplified ways to take sample readings of rhythmic functions. It is easy enough to record heartbeat, but it takes much longer to get a meaningful, panoramic view of peaks and lows that occur only once a day. "In one minute you get sixty cardiac cycles," says Halberg. "But it takes us sixty days to get sixty cycles of circadian rhythms." So he is trying to devise techniques and instruments that would make it possible for a doctor to tell on the basis of perhaps three samples within one day whether-and to what extent-

a person's rhythms are normal. A second important sector of research is rapidly building up knowledge about how disease originates inside the cell. On the molecular level, disease starts when the functioning of cells is interfered with or their structure is damaged. This can happen in a number of ways. Cells can be damaged by mutation, viral infection, or other outside influences. Sometimes even before birth. But cell damage can also be transmitted from generation to generation via errors in the chemical blueprint that determines how a cell functions. Such errors can include improperly built, faulty, or missing proteins, including enzymes that act as catalysts in chemical reactions, as well as deformed chromosomes, the carrier units of heredity. No one knows exactly how frequently such inherited disorders occur in the human population. But scientists are perfecting techniques that will enable them to find out. For the past four years, the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City has been conducting a programme called Genetic Alert, aimed at discovering how often genetic errors crop up in children. Researchers at the school take tiny samples of blood from children and babies as young as six months. They then break down the blood and analyze it to ascertain whether there are any protein abnormalities. This is the closest scientists can come right now to observing the genes themselves, which are too small to be seen even with the most powerful electron microscope. An abnormality in protein production can be an indication that the enzymes are not working, and this in turn reflects aberrations in the genetic make-up. Eventually, by taking enough samples, scientists hope to be able to draw up a "genetic profile" of the population. They suspect that the prevalence of inherited diseases is far greater than has been suspected up to now. In the meantime, Genetic Alert has been finding hidden cases of such inherited disorders as Wilson's disease, an enzyme deficiency that results in the failure of the body to excrete copper. The copper is

ingested in minute amounts from food, accumulates, and then becomes lodged in the brain, kidneys, and liver. If such disorders are spotted early in life, doctors can prescribe special diets and drugs that can help prevent years of suffering and agony. In the past, victims of genetic disorders were often misdiagnosed and wound up in mental institutions because physicians and psychiatrists did not realize that correctable organic damage lay at the heart of the trouble. Of more immediate promise is the work being done on the very early detection of cancer. Some scientists in this area believe they are coming closer to the goal of devising a simple blood test for cancer. It is becoming clear that as cancer upsets certain metabolic processes inside the cell, these abnormalities show up in the blood. The key to all disease at the molecular level is contained in the proteins. The wildly proliferating cancer cells seem to manufacture some of these proteins in excess. So changes in the protein and enzyme content of the blood have become a subject of intensive study, the aim being to discover cancer when it first starts and is still invisible to present diagnostic techniques. There is evidence that the concentration of enzymes in the blood rises more or less proportionately with tumour growth. Scientists have found high concentrations of an enzyme called acid phosphatase in the blood of many patients, with cancer of the prostate gland. The enzyme level seems to depend on how far the cancer has spread. Very few of the patients with cancerous growth still confined to the prostate had a high level of the enzyme. But among patients whose cancer had begun to spread, eighty-seven per cent had high levels. Some other cancers, notably leukemia and cancers of the pancreas and liver, are also known to boost levels of specific enzymes in the blood. Through further investigation and refinement of data, researchers hope to learn at exactly what point the cancer begins to generate enzymes. There is still another approach to a blood test for cancer. At the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology in continued


Scientists of a drug company test a new method to determine molecular changes that occur when drugs interact with body proteins. The discovery is a giant step towards diagnosis of disease at the level ofthe-.molecular changes in the cell, where chronic ailments manifest themselves long before overt symptoms are evident.

Artist's sketch illustrates the disturbance that jet travel can cause in the body's natural biological patterns by too rapid a shift from one time zone to another. Many long-distance travellers experience discomfort for a few days because their rhythms get out of phase and cannot adjust to the new sleep-wakefulness schedule.

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Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, researchers think they have spotted a strange and unique factor in the blood of cancer sufferers. The discovery was made when tumour cells from hamsters were exposed to blood from human cancer patients in combination with estrogen, the female sex hormone. Mysteriously, something in the human cancer serum killed some of the hamster cancer cells. The next step is to isolate the substance and to determine just how early it may show up in the blood of people with incipient cancer. The weapon that helped conquer such scourges as measles and polio is the vaccine -viruses of the disease that have been weakened or killed. It now looks as if it would be possible to develop vaccines that will combat at least some types of cancer. Scientists at the National Cancer Institute and elsewhere find it hard to conceal their optimism. For they appear to be entering the final lap of their long and arduous search for the specific viruses that are believed to cause certain cancers in man: leukemia, a cancer of the blood-forming tissues and cells; lymphoma, a group of cancers of the lymph glands; and sarcomas, cancers of the connective tissues. These and other similar malignancies killed about one-fourth of the approximately 300,000 Americans who died of cancer last year. The fact that viruses can cause leukemia and other cancers in animals has been known for sixty years. For man, the situation has been far less clear-cut. In recent years investigators began to spot virus particles in the blood of leukemia patients. These particles resembled viruses that cause leukemia in chickens, mice, and ?ther animals. But they did not resemble any viruses that are known to attack humans. It was as if archaeologists kept finding fragments of mysterious letters carved on stone tablets -letters that did not fit into any known alphabet. Now some new clues to the puzzle are appearing. For the first time, viruses that cause human respiratory ailments have been shown to cause cancer in animals such as newborn hamsters. Could it be possible that these so-called adenoviruses are also


Molecular engineering of drugs is still so imperfect that one doctor says, "We are presently trying to do something roughly comparable to making some very fine adjustments in your Swiss watch with a crowbar."

the cause of cancer in man? The answer could open the way for development of trial vaccines against such cancers. Such vaccines have already worked on hamsters. But it would not be easy to prove unequivocally that adenoviruses are indeed the culprits in human cancer. Even when it has been shown in animals that a virus caused the cancer, the virus itself has often vanished by the time scientists started analyzing the cancer cell. The virus has subverted the cell and blended into its core so sucyessfully that it can no longer be recognized. Sometimes, though, the virus will leave "footprints" in the cell, elusive fragments of its genetic material. With chemical detection tools about 100 times more sensitive than electron microscopes, scientists have found traces of adenoviruses in cancer cells taken from hamsters. The search for these same "footprints" in human cancer cells has just begun. Even as they grope for anti-cancer vaccines, scientists are beginning to attack disease inside the cell through another means: molecular engineering of drugs. This means designing drug molecules so they will attack the mechanism responsible for the formation of disease cells. The traditional method of developing drugs has been to test compounds on an empirical basis in the hope that one would work. Penicillin is based on the molecular-engineering principle, although exactly how it works became clear only recently. Structurally, penicillin closely resembles the materials that bacteria need to construct their cell walls; the bacteria mistake the drug for the materials and are thus killed.

all the varieties of cancers, only one, choriocarcinoma, a rare uterine malignancy, can really be cured with anti-metabolites. Drug designing will remain imperfect until a great deal more is known about the cell and its operation. "At present we are trying to do something roughly comparable to making some very fine adjustments in your Swiss watch with a crowbar," says Dr. John Moffatt, director of Syntex Corporation's Institute of Molecular Biology. Recently a group of Merck scientists, led by Dr. Oleg Jardetsky, developed a new method that should make it possible to design drug molecules far more precisely. The Merck men bombarded certain proteins with radio signals and recorded the energy that bounced back from the protein atoms. Since the echoes depend on the structure of molecules, the bombardment enabled the scientists to discern the arrangement of certain atoms in the protein. By introducing a drug into the protein solution, the scientists could "see" what happens when a drug molecule binds to a protein molecule, and they could determine which atoms in the protein molecules were particularly receptive to the drug. The advantage of the Merck technique is that it examines the protein structure in sobtion, the same state the protein is in when a drug acts on it in the body. An extremely important aspect of the technique lies in reducing the toxic side effects of molecular drugs. Toxicity results when a drug molecule binds with the wrong kind of protein molecule. More precise targeting of drug molecules avoids this kind of trouble. When en~ineered druss are perfected,

in less than three hours. Kaiser-Permanente uses this so-called "multi-phasic" approach in testing 40,000 adults it has enrolled in the San Francisco Bay area. In 1967 the programme was expanded to include sixto-twelve-year-old children and eventually infants will be tested, too. Dr. Morris F. Collen, director of the programme, says it has uncovered "a large hidden reservoir of asymptomatic disease," i.e., disease without overt symptoms. Hypertension was found in nine per cent of those tested, diabetes in four per cent, glaucoma in one per cent. Some eighteen per cent of the women and twentyone per cent of the men turned out to have heart abnormalities. In children the doctors have been finding things "we can't even begin to explain," says Dr. Henry R. Shinefield, director of paediatric screening. One such mystery is the presence of abnormal blood particles in the serum of apparently normal children. By testing about 10,000 youngsters a year, the doctors hope to gain new insight into what is and is not normal in children. Even now, with admittedly imperfect detection and therapeutic techniques, there is a payoff from spotting early signs of disease. Many kidney ailments, for example, can be alleviated by surgery and drugs if detected early enough. Automated largescale screening also helps relieve the shortage of doctors. For these reasons, projects similar to Kaiser's "multi-phasic" are being initiated in other parts of the country. Bills have been introduced in Congress to establish a Federally-financed programme to make comprehensive examinations available to anyone past the age of fifty,

Molecular engineering has been applied to a group of anti-cancer drugs called anti-metabolites. Molecules of these drugs

early detection of disease will be all the more vital. A really effective, broad-scale system of physical checkups needs to be

But the full value of such examinations will be realized only when they are extend~ ed to include rapid analysis of biorhythms,

are made to struciuraUy resemble meta 0lites, the building blocks that a cell needs for its growth. The cancer cell takes in the drug molecules through mistaken identity. As a result, at least some cancer cells die. Although some engineered drugs work extremely well, others fail because they are not selective enough; they destroy some healthy molecules as well as sick ones. Of

eve ope. e ramework lor such a system is already emerging. Some years ago the Kaiser-Permanente Medical Programme, a brainchild of the late Henry J. Kaiser, pioneered the administration of a battery of biochemical and other tests to large groups of people. Procedures have now been automated so that a person can be given more than thirty different tests

chromosome abnormalities, blood components, enzymes, and proteins. Encouraged by the emerging techniques for detecting and conquering disease, pioneering doctors envision a dramatic shift in the emphasis of American medicine-away from the costly care of the sick to a concentration on keeping people from getting sick. END


Homage to 'Old Glory'

On June 14 each year America honours its flagpopularly known as "Old Glory" or "the Stars and Stripes"-and the day is celebrated as Flag Day. The series of stamps portrayed on the opposite page also reflect this national homage to the flag. The original design of the flag-"thirteen stripes, alternate red and white, with a union of thirteen stars of white on a blue field"-was adopted on June 14, 1777, and modified later to include a .star for each new State joining the Union. Some of the stamps in this collection depict flags used by individual States before the Union flag was adopted. The flag which inspired the U.S. national anthem is second from the bottom. Presenting a fascinating pictorial history, in miniature, of national progress, heroes and ideals, both Indian and U.S. stamps have commemorated some aspect of the country's development or paid a tribute to national and international leaders. Indian issues have honoured, among others, Abraham Lincoln, Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt and Martin Luther King.


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DESERT FISH

"But how can you breed fish without water?" This is the question, says the young Fisheries Development Officer from Rajasthan, that he has been asked more often than he can remember. And it is true that in the minds of most people, Rajasthan is usually associated with camels and vast, unending stretches of sand. Yet precisely because water is a precious commodity in Rajasthan, it has always been stored-in ponds, tanks and artificial lakes, many of which


are now being used for fish breeding. At present, the desert State earns between Rs.I0 and Rs. 12 Jakhs a year through the sale of some 5,000 metric tons of fish. Some of this is sold in Delhi and Agra, but most finds its way to Calcutta's Howrah Mandi, the biggest fish market in India with a daily sale of 300 metric tons. Today, there's many a Bengali housewife who buys the family's rahu, little knowing that it comes from more than 1,500 kilometres away. lakes of Rajasthan.

continued and through their export are a valuable source of income for the desert State.



An age-old occupation grows into a modern industry.

Fishing in Rajasthan has graduated from a traditional occupation to an industry. And in guiding its development along scientific lines, officials of the State and the Government of India work together in close co-operation. The Fisheries Research Centre at Udaipur conducts a many-sided programme which includes a survey of the State's existing fish fauna-approximately ninety species have been identified thus far. It also studies their eating and breeding habits; estimates the efficiency of various types of fishing nets; carries out soil, water and plankton analyses; and conducts training classes for fisheries personnel throughout the State. One significant activity is a survey of all the important waters in Rajasthan to assess their productivity and suitability for fish breeding. As yet it is..estimated that only one-tenth of the State's fisheries potential has been exploited. According to Mr. S.G. Mahnot, Rajasthan's Deputy Director of Fisheries, "The scope is tremendous-the future is very bright." Like the Biblical story of the loaves and fishes, it might yet come to pass that fish from the Rajasthan Desert will feed multitudes of people. continued


Current conservation measures ensure rich harvests of fish. Catch data is carefully recorded, right, in a laboratory at the Udaipur centre. Researchel;s take measurements to study the length-width relatiOilships of various species, also note the relationship between types of nets and the fish caught. At the Udaipur centre, major carp is raised through induced breeding: one male and two female fishes are injected with crushed pituitary glands, then kept in a separate enclosure; after 6 to 12 hours they will breed, and the spmlm can be collected. Opposite page, worker nets fish to be injected.

Fish are sorted, graded and weighed at the landing centre near Jaisamand Lake, below. They are packed with a mixture of ice and salt in baskets weighing 1.5 quintals each, which are loaded onto trucks bound for the railhead to Calcutta.

The fish that inhabit the waters of Rajasthan belong mainly to the major carp family, of which the Indian varieties are known as katla, rahu and mirgal. Because the major carp does not breed in confined waters, the spawn is collected from streams and canals, then placed in hatcheries. Once the eggs are hatched, the fish are reared in nurseries up to the stage of fingerlings. If these are released into the lakes too early, their survival rate is low, for the Rajasthani wat'ers teem with predatory catfish. Since intensive development of fisheries started in the State only about five years ago, the catches are strictly controlled-no fishing is permitted in the breeding season. Fishing rights are awarded to contractors who pay royalties on a per quintal basis, and who undertake not to catch fish weighing less than one kilogram. They know that, with the government's current conservation measures, "there is just as good fish in the lake as ever came out of it."




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