22 NOME NUGGET
OLDEST NEWSPAPER IN ALASKA—MEMBER ASSOCIATED PRESS
VOL. LX_No! 3 NOME, ALASKA, MONDAY, JANUARY 6, 1958Per Copy—15<
TOURIST FLIGHTS TO SIBERIA
PLANNED BY ALASKA AIRLINES
SEATTLE—Alaska Airlines ap
plied last Thursday for authority
to operate commercial air service
to the Soviet Union, according to
an announcement by Charles F.
Willis Jr., president of the pio
neer Alaska airline.
The line seeks Civil Aeronautics
Board approval to fly from Nome
and other Alaskan cities' to Ir
kutsk, principal city in southeast
Siberia, and such intermediate
points as the Soviet may desig
nate.
Flights will originate in Seattle
or Anchorage or Fairbanks if the
CAB gives its approval. Willis
said the airline hopes to schedule
flights during the 1958 tourist
season.
Irkutsk, once the center of Rus
sian-American Trading Company
operations in Siberia, is a city of
314,000 population located near
the Mongolian border. The city I
and other areas in Siberia were
recently opened to tourist travel
by Intourist, the Soviet govern
ment travel agency.
There has been no airline or
steamship travel to Russia from
Alaska since 1938, when the Alas
ka Steamship Co. operated an
arctic cruise which stopped at
Port Dezneff at East Cape.
Located on the shore of Lake
Baikal, Hhe seventh largest lake
in the world, Irkutsk is a modern
industrial and recreation ' city.
Lake Baikal, with depths over
5,700 feet, is listed as the deepest
lake in the world and covers an
area greater than the states of
Maryland and Delaware together.
Rimmed by high mountains, the
Irkutsk region has been promoted j
by the U.S.S.R. as a boating and
recreation center in recent years.
“We believe tourists will want
to visit the Soviet if convenient
service is available,” said Presi
dent Willis. “Alaska Airlines now
flies over a region of magnificent
scenery and great economic po
tential. It is a natural step* to ex
tend our service to Siberian
points.”
Pointing out that Nome is the
natural air gateway to Siberia,
Willis feels that immediate tourist
interest in U.S.S.R. travel justi
fies the plan to extend the line’s
operations into Russia.
Willis also feels that Alaskans
will have an interest in the eco
nomic development which has
taken place in Siberia in recent
years. “The resources and climates
of both regions are comparable;
both countries can gain from free
travel.”
The Nome-Irkutsk route is
2,950 miles, a distance about 200
miles greater than Seattle to New
York.
OLDSTER GETS CHICKEN POX
CHICAGO —Michael Byczyn
ski has come doAvn with the
chicken pox at 74 years of age.
“It’s the oldest case I have ever
seen,” said the attending physi
cian. He added that Byczynski’s
condition is not serious.
Carl Sandburg
At 80th Birthday
FLAT ROCK, N.C., UP)—Lincoln
biographer and poet Carl Sand
burg today observed his 80th
birthday anniversary amid not
too-serious thoughts on the nature
of life and death.
“Age is all relative,” he told a
newsman last week regarding his
approaching anniversary. “I’ve
got a younger heart than most of
the poets. Three-fourth of the
poets we have nowadays were
born old.”
He waggishly predicted that he
will live to be 88 years old, maybe
99. “It’s inevitable, it’s inexorable,
it’s written in the book of fate,”
he said, “that I die at an age di
j visible by 11.” He pointed out
I that two of his great-grandfathers
I and one of his grandfathers died
at ages divisible by 11.
The poet said Russian scientific
advances have caused him con
cern recently. “Unless,” he de
clared, “we carry on with some
appreciation of the possible dan
ger in store, unless we can de
velop a greater degree of aware
ness and dedication there will be
hell to pay.”
1,800 FORCED TO
FLEE HOMES IN
TEXAS FLOODS
DALLAS, iff)—A surge of de
structive weather sent up to 1,800
persons fleeing their flooded
homes in south Texas and strand
ed as many as 500 motorists in
snow in west and northwest Texas
last night and today.
Worst hit from floods were the
lower Rio Grande valley at the
southern tip of Texas, and areas
around Corpus Christi.
The turbulent weather sent
waves crashing into Padre Island,
a long, low, sand-built island that
runs for 120 miles along the Texas
coast. Eight persons were strand
ed and the Coast Guard dropped
food and water to them.
Five hundred persons were tak
en from their flooded homes at
Bishop and 500 at Robstown, in
the Corpus Christi area Sunday.
Water spread over 7i blocks in
Edinburg, mostly in residential
sections. Water there was more
than knee deep. It covered the
area as far as the eye could see
and remained there, still and un
moving. There was no current.
WOMAN. 106. CRITICIZES
MODERN WOMEN
CINCINNATI, (£>—Mrs. Ellen
Doyle, a spry, white-haired wom
an in nearby Norwood who will
be 106 years old today, has \
complaint: modern women.
“They hardly wear any clothes,”
she said in her Irish brogue. “I
see them parading by in those
short pants and I tell them, ‘You’re
a lovely girl. Now go put some
clothes on’.”
CANDID CAMERA CATCHES
ROVER AMONG THE ROSES
BOISE, Idaho, UP>—No more can
dog owners here say, “That was
n’t my hound that dug up the
Jones’ flower bed. The mutt never
leaves the yard.”
The Idaho Humane Society
chapter has obtained a camera
for use in photographing dogs at I
large. The city has a new ordi- !
nance requiring dogs to toe kept '
on the owner’s property or pay a
fine of up to $15.
The society says fines have
been quietly paid when a master
is confronted with a photo of
Rover among the roses. If argu
ment should arise, the dog, the
master and the pictures go to
court.
Small British Plane
Crosses Antarctic
Via South Pole
AUKLAND.New Zealand, UV—
Four British airmen made history
today by flying across Antarctica
via the South Pole in a small,
slow, single-engine plane.
They flew the aircraft, a RAF
Otter, 1,600 miles from South Ice,
the British base near the Weddell
Sea, to Scott Base on the other
side of Antarctica. The plane has j
a top speed of 160 miles an hour.
It took them just under 11 hours
to make the flight which has nev
er before been accomplished toy a
small plane.
The plane passed over the U.S.
toase at the South Pole at 2,000
feet, then set course for Scott
Base.
ROCKEFELLER REPORT SEES NATION IN PERIL;
ASKS $3 BILLION MORE FOR DEFENSE YEARLY
By ELTON C. FAY
WASHINGTON, Uft—A civilian
study group says the nation’s
strategy and military forces are
out of step with the tempo of the
missile age and need big changes
and billions more money.
Defense spending should be in
creased about $3 billion each year
for the next several years, said a
special 21-man panel of the Rock
efeller Brothers Fund.
“It appears the United States is
rapidly losing its lead over the
U.S.S.R. in the military race,” the
panel said in a report.
“For perhaps the next two years
we still possess a superiority in
strategic striking power, and any
Soviet attack on us would meet a
crushing reply. But our position
in a year or two hence depends on
decisions which must be taken
iir. mediately. Unless present trends
are reversed, the world balance of
power will shift in favor of the
Soviet bloc.”
Summing up findings in a study
which began in 1956, the panel
concluded that:
1. Strategy “lags behind devel
opments in technology” and the
lag in missiles and space machines
“reflects our national compla
cency.”
2. “Strategy, as evolved by the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, is “a patch
work of compromise” among the
rival armed forces. The panel said
the JCS chairman “should be in
a position to shape strategic plan
ning,” with the other members
merely advising him. The secre
tary of defense, it added, now is
compelled to devote much of his
time to acting as a referee in ser
vice disputes.
3. Combined commands should
be created, in which land, sea and
air units would come under a
single commander.
Even more startling to the ob
servers of military tradition was
the group’s proposal that all offi
cers above one-star rank cease to
be identified with an individual
service, becoming officers “of the
Armed Forces of the United
States.”
The 21-man panel, headed by
Nelson A. Rockefeller, includes
scientists, former diplomats, for
mer defense officials and military
officers, industrialists, atomic ex
perts, educators, publishers and
a labor union representative.
The group says perhaps the
most difficult thing for this na
tion to accept is “the reality of
our peril.” Nuclear weapons, with
explosive force of 20 million tons
of TNT “have been tested and
there is no theoretical upper limit.
As the power of the weapons
increases, the speed with which
they can be delivered on target
-'rows even faster—“soon missiles
will be able to travel interconti
nental distances and wipe out
whole cities in one blow.”
An attack on 50 of the most im
portant metropolitan areas would
f" 11 upon 55 percent of the na
tion’s population and 75 percent
of its industry.
The report concludes that the
casualties in such an attack might
b" between 10 and 15 million
dead: between 15 and 20 million
injured; and between 25 and 35
million caught in radioactive fall
out.
SHAKEUP IN U.S. MILITARY
HIGH COMMAND SPURRED BY
RESIGNATION OF GEN. GAVIN
WASHINGTON, lift—A spectac- ;
ular one-man revolt by Lt. Gen. j
James M. Gavin spurred demands
today for a shakeup in the mili
tary high command.,
Gavin, chief of the Army’s re
search and development program,
told a reporter he is sticking by
| his intention announced Saturday
I to retire from the Army March 31.
By that time he will be 51 years
old with 30 years of service.
Gavin said “I haven’t been able
■ to get much done, the system be
ing what it is.” He said he is “not
doing any good” inside the Army
“so I’ll take a cut at it on the
outside.”
As a civilian, Gavin said, he
would be freer to “recommend, to
apply creative thinking to nation
al defense.”
Testifying before the Senate
Preparedness Subcommittee last
month, Gavin said the Joint Chiefs
i
GIANT U.S. JET
CROSSES ATLANTIC
AT 390 MILES AN HOUR
PARIS, UR—A. U.S. Air Force
giant turbo-prop C-133 four-en
gine transport landed at the air
base in Chateauroux Saturday
after a flight from the United
States at an average speed of 389
j miles an hour.
It was the initial transatlantic
flight for the new plane. It car
ried a cargo of almost 40,000
pounds but fully loaded it is able
to carry about 275,600 pounds.
The flight began at Dover, Del.,
and covered 3,890 miles in 10
hours, 10 minutes. A second C-133
landed a few hours later.
j of Staff system should be abol
j ished for its present purposes of
planning over-all military pro
grams. He suggested it be re
placed by a planning group not
specifically representing the dif
ferent armed services.
Gavin said he was not critizing
past or present Penaton leaders.
But he expressed dissatisfaction,
with the present system by which
decisions are reached by compro
mise among the service chiefs.
Both Gavin and Army Secre
tary Brucker denied Gavin’s testi
mony had anything to do with his
decision to retire.
But Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson
said the subcommittee he heads is
“not going to tolerate any admin
istration rubber hose tactics or
any effort to put committee wit
nesses in a strait jacket.”
• And Kefauver, a subcommittee
member added: “Gen. Gavin
should not be penalized for giving
the (subcommittee) his best judg
ment on the military situation.”
“There are two fundamental
things that must be corrected,”
Kefauver said.
“The first thing is that there is
now no system in the Pentagon of
getting any decision made. The
second thing is that those who
| eventually make a decision should
| not be special pleaders for any
particular cause.”
J Gavin, a decorated veteran of
paratroop combat in World War
j II, indicated he might reconsider
; his retirement decision under cer
i tain circumstances.
“That’s up to Secretary Bruck
er,” he said, adding he had set
certain conditions for remaining.