m NOME NUGGET
OLDEST NEWSPAPER IN AIJVSK A —MEMBER ASSOCIATED PRESS
VOL. LIX No. 99 NOME, ALASKA, MONDAY, AUGUST 19, 1957 Per Copy—15*
University of Alaska Professor Is
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First Man to Swim Across Lake Erie
SANDUSKY, Ohio, UP)—A 36
year-old ex-marine, urged on by
an escort of marines and Navy
men, became the first' man in his
tory to swim Lake Erie last night
when he walked out o£ the water
onto the beach at Point Pelee,
Ontario, Canada.
Harry Briggs Jr., a history pro
fessor at the University of Alas
ka, fell exhausted on the beach
after completing the 32-mile
crossing.
Briggs staid he had been ready
to give up when he was only a
few miles from his goal. At that
point Briggs said he was unable
to see. He does not wear goggles
Spare Rod, Spoil Child,
Says Billy Graham
NEW YORK, UP)—Evangelist
Billy Graham says he approves
the use of the rod and trips to the
woodshed to discipline children.
Graham addressed an audience
of 19,000 last night in another of
his New York crusade meetings
in Madison Square Garden.
However, the evangelist said,
parents should also discipline
children thru love i and under
standing. The parents, he added,
should set a good example for
their children and provide them
with regular religious teaching.
to protect his eyes in the water.
But his vision cleared, and he
saw the people on the beach
cheering him on. Spurred by the
urgings from escort boats nearby,
Briggs told them he would hit
right on Pelee Point, a sandy spit.
His stroke suddenly became
more powerful and he went on.
Briggs said the first 10 hours of
the 32-hour and 55-minute grind
“weren’t too good.” The next 10
hours were a littljs better, but he
felt like quitting six miles from
the Canadian shore.
“He had more pesence of mind
than the rest of us at Pelee,” said
one of the men in the escort.
“Briggs, who swims without a
bathing suit, was the only one
who remembered the trunks at
Pelee. We rummaged around the
beat and found them so he could
go ashore.”
WAY THE BALL BOUNCES
I KANSAS CITY, Kan. (#>—B. G.
I Van Natta reported it to police
j when his bowling ball went into
I the gutter yesterday.
His car door swung open on a
turn and the ball rolled out of the
car into the street, he reported.
Before Van Natta could retrieve i
it, mother motorist leaped from
a car, grabbed the ball and sped
I away.
OVERNIGHT f
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THE AIRLINE THAT FLIES MORE PASSENGERS
IN ALASKA SERVICE THAN ANY OTHER AIRLINE
TWO U.S AIRMEN
DIE IN CRASH NEAR
GERMAN FACTORY
FRANKFURT, Germany, OP)—A
U.S. Army courier plane crashed
into the grounds of a factory to
day. Two crewmen were killed.
The two-engined plane narrow
ly missed the factory’s adminis
tration building, where 25 people
were at work.
U.S. Army offciials on the spot
said the plane had just taken off
from the Army’s Bonames air
base and was trying to gain alti
tude. It plummeting to earth in
an open square and burst into
flames. German police said the
plane struck a chimney at the
factbry.
Beach Outing
Turns to Tragedy
As 3 Boys Drown
PH IPPSBURG, Maine, IP)—A
gay family beach outing turned
into tragedy yesterday when three
brothers, the oldest 11, drowned
just as they were about to return
to their Litchfield home.
The bodies of John 11, Erwin*
10, and Edwin 9, sons of Mr. and
Mrs. Frank Thibodeau, were re
covered from the waters at the
mouth of Morse River near Po
pham Beach.
The youngsters were sucked
under by a strong current while
wading to a sandbar as their
mother and the oldest brother,
Merle, about 20, loaded the fam
ily truck for the trip home.
A fourth brother, Arlington, 13,
who was wading with the three
youngsters, reached shore safely.
He was treated for shock. Arling
ton was the only one of the four
who could swim.
Terry Townsend
Is Winner of
Soapbox Derby
AKRON, Ohio, UP*—For the sec
ond time in the 20-year history of
the All-America Soapbox Derby,
the champion is from Anderson,
Indiana.
A crowd of 70,000 watched yes
terday as a blue and white racer
driven by 15-year-old Terry
Townsend flashed to a length
and-a-half victory in the cham
pionship heat. Another Anderson
boy, Maurice Bale Jr., now a far
mer, took home the grand cham
pionship in 1935.
Terry’s racer covered the 975.4
foot distance down the dark green
concrete runway at Derby Downs
in 27.18 seconds, an average of
over 24Vt> miles ^n hour.
“I just prayed,” the freckle
faced, dark haired Terry said
when asked if he carried any
good luck charms. He aid he has
n’t made up his mind which col
lege he will attend on the first
prize of a $5,000 scholarship.
David Hakman, 15, of Los An
geles, won a $4,000 scholarship
for his second place finish.
A Canadian boy, Andy Vasko
of St. Catherines, Ont., finished
third. That was the best finish
ever recorded by a contestant
from outside the United States.
SHAKE-UP IN SYRIAN GOV’T
PUTS RED IN CHARGE OF ARMY
3 Workmen Die
After Blast Under
Lake Ontario
OSWEGO, N.Y., (jf)—Workmen
resumed efforts today to recover
the bodies of three construction
men from a tunnel under Lake
Ontario where one rescue worker
already had died and more than a
dozen felled by gas.
Three three construction men
were killed yesterday when an
unexplained explosion tore thru
the 6,250-foot water tunnel, that
runs thru rock 100 feet below the
lake bottom.
There was no official word on
the cause of the blast. But it was
disclosed the three had been car
rying dynamite with 90 percent
nitroglycerin content. This grade
of dynamite is much more explo
sive than the kind ordinarily used.
The three killed were John La
goe, an electrician; Phil Taylor,
36, tunnel foreman; and Linwood
P. Heiston, 47, general superin
tendent.
SENATE CONFIRMS McELROY
|FOR DEFENSE SECRETARY
WASHINGTON, UFf—The Sen
ate confirmed by voice vote today
President Eisenhower’s nomina
tion of Neil H. McElroy as the
new Secretary of Defense.
McElroy is resigning the presi
dency of Proctor & Gamble to re
place Charles E. Wilson in the
nation’s top military policy post.
Also confirmed by voice vote
was the nomination of James H.
Smith Jr., 47-year-old Colorado
rancher, as new foreign aid chief.
Smith succeeds James B. Hol
lister of Cincinnati as director of
the International Cooperation Ad
ministration (ICAh '
Rightists Purged By
Pro-Soviet Officers
By TOM MASTERSON
BEIRUT, Lebanon, OP)—Volatile
Syria apparently moved closer to
the Communist bloc today as pro
Soviet officers purged rightists
from the politically powerful
army.
Gen. Afif Bizry, known thruout
the Middle East as the most ex
treme leftist in Syria’s army, took
control of the army over the
weekend, usually reliable sources
said.
Bizry, 43, a known Communist,
immediately began to purge right
wing opponents. Thirteen officers
were fired or resigned in Damas
cus and a number fled to Beirut.
While Premier Sabri Assali’s
Moscow-oriented government ap
peared to be strengthened, Presi
dent Shukri Kuwatly’s professed
neutrality between East and West
—already cloudy behind Russian
arms deals—became a little more
indistinct.
Kuwatly had once threatened
j to resign rather than let Commu
nist supporters take complete
control of the army. But the
weekend’s coup d’etat by leftists
came with formal approval of the
sick President.
After promoting Bizry to gen
eral and chief of staff Saturday,
Kuwatly flew to Egypt Sunday.
In Cairo for the third time in six
months, he talked with Egyptian
President Nasser for over an hour.
The Syrian and Egyptian arm
I ies are united under the joint
command of an Egyptian officer
and both are heavily stocked with
Soviet arms. But Nasser has kept
his own Communists suppressed.
The announced purpose of Ku
watly’s trip was a medical check
up in a hospital in Alexandria.
Churchill’s Son-in-Law Found Dead
With Empty Box of Sleeping Pills
LONDON, UP>—Antony Beau
champ made a 4 a.m. telephone
call to the blonde sister of the
Marquess of Londonderry only a
few hours before he died. The
marquess has been one of the
critics of Queen Elizabeth II’s
court.
Scotland Yard indicated today
this call may help them in piec
ing together Beauchamp’s last
hours. The 39-year-old society
photographer and TV producer
was the husband of Sarah Chur
chill and son-in-law o#f Winston
Churchill.
Beauchamp was found early
Sunday morning sprawled across
a bed in the fashionable Hyde
Park apartment where he lived
alone. On a table rested a half
empty box of sleeping pills.
Beauchamp and his wife had
been living alone for three years.
Lady Jane Ven-Tempest-Stew
j art, 25-year-old sister of the mar
' quess, told police:
s'
“I pleaded with Antony and
tried to persuade him not to be
foolish. I was frantic. While I
talked, suddenly the line seemed
to go dead.”
Pony-tailed Lady Jane called
the police, who broke into Beau
champ’s apartment and found
him dead.
Beauchamp disliked being known
as Churchill’s son-in-law. Altho
living apart from his wife Beau
champ told a friend “we are still
good pals, but the basic cause of
the breakdown of our marriage
is too much separation.”
Sarah Churchill, who has spent
most of the last three years mak
ing television films in the United
States, stayed with her parents
when in England. It was reported
she and her husband had an
agreement they would not get a
divorce while Sir Winston, now
82, was alive. She was four years
older than Beauchamp.