.22 NOME NUGGET
OLDEST NEWSPAPER IN ALASKA—MEMBER ASSOCIATED PRESS
VOL. LVII No, 135NOME, ALASKA, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1955Per Copy—15*
Pilot Testing Supersonic Sabre Is First
To Bail Out -- And Live To Tell Of It
LOS ANGELES, W—That day<
8V2. months ago started ordinar
ily enough for George Smith —
taking his clothes to a laundry.
Before it was over he became—
painfully—the first pilot to bail
out of a plane traveling super
sonically and live.
The whites of his eyes were
left blodshot solid red. He bled
in all parts of his body as his
parachute snapped open. It is es
timated he was subjected to a
decelerative force of 40 times the
pull of gravity. The 40G’s instan
taneously increased his weight
from 215 pounds to the equivalent
force of 8,000 pounsd.
The rush of air going by at
nearly 800 mile an hour sounded
to him like a continuous barrage
of heavy guns.
If he had bailed out just two
seconds later — at the estimated
6,500 feet altitude—his parachute
wouldn’t have had time to open.
After months of treatment his
right knee is a little stiff. Damage
to his liver means he never can
touch anything alcoholic.
And what does the 31-year-old
North American Aviation Co.
test pilot want to do next? Fly
a plane 2,000 miles an hour.
He and the Air Force disclosed
yesterday his historic jump from
• the Super Sabre jet last Feb. 26.
The security classification secret
had been removed after medical
experts studied the case.
The fast - spoken 6-foot-1 flier
recalled:
“I left my apartment at Man
hattan Beach to take my laundry
out. But I decided to stop at North
American to finish a report.
“An F100A was ready for its
first flight so the dispatcher said,
‘Why don’t you take it up?’ I put
on a ‘chute and life vest over
my sports clothes and grabbed my
helmet and oxygen mask.”
At 35,000 feet above the ocean,
Smith said, the plane began to
nose over. The control stick was
jammed fast.
Smith was picked up by fish
ermen. His shoes, socks, helmet
and mask were gone. His clothes
were in ribbons. His arms had
flailed to violently that his wrist
watch, tightfitting gloves and a
ring on his finger had been shaken
off. He was blind several days.
Surgery was required on his in
testines.
University Extension
Course In Mining Is
Concluded Here Friday
The University of Alaska min
ing extension course was conclud
ed on Friday night, Nov. 11, with
a session on geochemical prospect
ing and fire assaying in the newly
completed laboratory of the Terri
torial Department of Mines assay
office.
The following persons have suc
cessfully completed the course
and will receive “certificates of
training” from the Mining Exten
tion Department of the School of
Mines at the University of Alaska:
Daniel D. Berrettini, Ralph A.
DeLong, Francis E. DeSimone,
Dorothy R. Emmons, James Keali
her, Linda M. Kennedy, Edith-L.
Munz, Wilson J. Russell, Silvano
Viveiros, and Edward F. Walker.
It is tentatively planned to offer
the course at Kotzebue, starting
Nov. 21. Instructor there will be
Peter O. Sandvik, who also taught
the course in N • ' e.
>
Russia Refuses to
Trade 4 for 13
U.N. Membership
GENEVA, (A*)—Russia has flatly
refused a 4 to 13 package deal on
U.N. 'memberships, Western offi
cials reported today.
V. M. Molotov is insisting that
Outer Mongolia be included in
Communist countries to be ad
mitted to the world organization,
making it a deal of five Soviet
satellites for 13 Western - spon
sored nations—18 in all, it was
reported.
This would bring the’ U.N.’s roll
to 78 members.
The Soviet position was report
ed to have been made clear in a
two-hour talk yesterday between
Molotov and U.S. Secretary of
State Dulles.
The Western powers were re
ported divided on these lines:
1. The United States, Dulles
told Molotov, is prepared to ab
stain from voting against the ad
mittance of four Communist states
— Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria
and Albania. At first he strongly
objected to including Albania, but
finally gave way on that point.
Speaking of Outer Mongolia,
one American informant said
“How can they expect us to ac
cept as qualified for U.N. mem
bership a country which doesn’t
even seem to have an ambassador
in Moscow?”
2. Britain is willing to accept
all five of the Soviet candidates.
3. France considers the whole
deal should be put on the shelf
as long as the Algerian item is
still on the U.N. General Assem
bly s agenda. She walked out of
the Assembly when the item was
voted onto the agenda.
NORTHERN COAST DELEGATION — These
delegates from the Second Division to the Con
stitutional Convention are shown at Convention
Hall at the University of Alaska. They are. left
io right: John Cross, Kotzebue; John McNees,
Nome; M.J. Walsh, Nome; Maynard Londborg,
Unalakleet; Peter L. Reader, Nome.
Terri. Dept, of Mines
To Hold Open House At
Field Station Friday
Peter O. Sandvik of the Terri
torial Department of Mines here
announces that an “open house”
will be held at the newly-com
pleted field station and assay of
fice on Friday, Nov. 18, between
1:00 and 6:00 p.m.
Everyone interested in facilities
available to local prospectors and
miners under the Department’s
program is urged to visit at this
time. The office is open, of course,
to all interested parties at any
other time during regular office
hours.
Prospecting equipment available
on rental basis through a bill in
troduced by Sen. Neil W. Foster
at the 1955 legislative session will
be on display.
Completion of the building has
been possible through appropria
tion of the 1955 legislature under
a bill introduced by Rep. Lester
Bronson.
Bernard De Voto, Pulitzer
Prize Winner In History,
Dies After TV Appearance
NEW YORK, W — Bernard De
Voto, 58, writer, critic and scholar
who won the Pulitzer Prize for
history in 1947, died of a heart
attack last night at Presbyterian
Hospital.
De Voto, who lived in Cam
bridge, Mass., had been here to
take part in the CBS television
program “Adventure.” While with
friends and associate shortly after
the broadcast, he collapsed and
was taken to the hospital.
The Pulitzer Prize was award
ed to De Voto for his book “Ac
ross the Wide Missouri.” The
American West and its history
was also the topic of his current
CBS-TV broadcasts. The subject
was one he always described as
“close to my heart.”
FBI Arrests Son of One of Victims
For Sabotage Of United Airliner
-3
Martin Durkin, Resigned
Secty. of Labor, Dies
After Long Illness
WASHINGTON, UO — Martin P.
Durkin, the Democrat who was
President Eisenhower’s first Sec
retary of Labor, died yesterday
after a long illness.
The 61-year-old union leader—
he was president of the AFL
Plumbers Union — had been hos
pitalized much of the time since
he was stricken with a brain
tumor 14 months ago.
Durkin resigned from the Eisen
hower cabinet Sept. 10, 1953 after
serving seven months. His term
was the shortest of any labor sec
retary. He contended Eisenhower
has violated a pledge to seek Taft
Hartley law changes which Dur
kin had recommended. The Presi
dent replied that he never had
broken a promise to anyone.
James P. Mitchell, the present
Secretary of Labor and Durkin’s
successor, yesterday termed Dur
kin “a great American who served
labor, his state and nation with
devotion and distinction” and who
“earned the undying affection, ad
miration and gratitude of his fel
low men.”
GLORIA VANDERBILT MAKES
MOVIE OPPOSITE SINATRA
HOLLYWOOD, (£>—Gloria Van
derbilt is here to make here first
motion picture, a western oppo
site Frank Sinatra.
The heiress and the crooner
actor have dated but she denied
on his arrival that they were any
thing but “just good friends.”
She turned to acting after sep
arating from her former husband,
orchestra conductor Leopold Sto
kowski.
> DENVER, (fl> — FBI agents to
day arrested John Gilbert Gra
ham, 23, and charged him with
sabotaging a United Air Lines
plane that exploded in flight and
carried liis mother and 43 others
to death Nov. 1 near Longmont,
Colo.
The restaurant and construc
tion worker w'aived preliminary
hearing before U.S. Commission
er Harold S. Oakes on the charge.
Oakes fixed Graham’s bond at
$100,000.
The FBI said Graham, married
and father of two children, took
out an air flight insurance policy
for $37,500 on his mother, Mrs.
Daisy King, at the Denver airport
minutes before she boarded the
ill-fated DC6B plane on her way
to Anchorage to visit her daugh
ter, Mrs. Helen Hablutzel.
Details of the sabotaging of the
plane were withheld by the FBI.
Graham in his construction work
had become familiar with the
handling of dynamite. An authori
tative source said Graham would
be eligible for one-fourth of his
mother’s estimated $150,000 es
tate in the event of her death.
Civil Aeronautics Board inves
tigators have said the plane ex
ploded in a “bomb-like blast” at
tributed to “foreign” matter
aboard the craft.
The federal charge against Gra
ham accused him under a section
which makes it a crime to sabot
age a national defense facility or
materials. The code defines com
mercial airlines as among such
facilities.
The maximum penalty for con
viction on this charge is 10 years'
imprisonment and a $10,000 fine.
W. A. Patterson, president of
United Air Lines, was present for
the hearing. Earlier he told news
men he wanted to express “my
appreciation to those agencies
who assisted in the investigation
of the cause of this accident, and
particularly to the Federal Bureau
(Continued on Page Two)
Robert Sherwood, One Of
America’s Foremost
Playwrights, Dies
NEW YORK, m — Robert E.
Sherwood, 59, one of America’s
foremost playwrights, died today
in New York Hospital two days
after he suffered a heart attack.
The author of numerous suc
cessful Broadway dramas and
four times a winner of Pulitzer
prizes, Sherwood was a close
friend and associate of the late
President Roosevelt.
He had been ill for the past
week and early Saturday suffered
what was called a “moderate”
heart attack.
A World War I combat veteran.
Sherwood’s major, works dealt
with the horrors of war, the evils
of aggression, and appealed to
democratic peoples to defend
their freedoms.
Although some of his import
ant works, such as “There Shall
Be No Night,” were a call to arms
against tyranny, Sherwood did not
believe war was inevitable. He
once wrote in a postscript to a
play:
“I believe the world is pop
ulated largely by decent people
and decent people don’t want war.
Nor co they make war. They fight
and die, to be sure, but that is
because they have been deluded
by their exploiters who are mem
bers of the indecent minority.”