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This section of America, Vol. 2 tracks the months from the end of 1949,
with Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, through early 1950, the
famous Brinks robbery, the 2nd Alger Hiss trial, Truman's decision to
build the h-bomb, the CIA purchases the film rights to 1984, and a car ride
up Rte 1 with Dylan Thomas, John Cage and Merce Cunningham.
1949-1950
December 26, 1949
Albert Einstein, after 30 years
pondering & jotting equations
published his "Generalized Theory of Gravitation"
to unite gravity & electromagnetism
in one flow of math
December 27
The Netherlands
gave up the former Dutch East Indies
(except Western New Guinea)
–over 13,500 islands
along the equator
which it had controlled since 1602.
The Japs had seized it during War 2
after which
the Dutch wanted it back
but now, under UN pressure, Indonesia was independent
and Sukarno was elected President
Apartheid
The Population Registration Act
in South Africa
began the procedures for defining humans
as white, colored or African
outlawing marriage 'tween Euro and non-Euro
& sex 'tween Euros and "Colored"
A for 1949: Meryl Streep on June 22
Novum '49:
Pete Seeger & Lee Hays' great labor tune, "If I had a Hammer"
the television soap opera, the sitcom, Scrabble, the telethon,
Legos, cake mixes
Robert Frost's Complete Poems
Simone de Beauvoir's Le Deuxième Sexe
"One is not born a woman, one becomes one."
Orwell came up with the ghastly word "brainwashing"
in 1984
Simone Weil's posthumous Need for Roots
Margaret Mead Male and Female
In Israel the Knesset was formed
Dr. Philip Hench of the USA discovered cortisone as cure for rheumatism
Life Magazine article:
"Jackson Pollock: is he the greatest living painter in the US?"
–is he?
(they were still debating it
50 years later
as I typed these words)
Fine tunes: "Some Enchanted Evening" "Balai H'ai"
"Younger than Springtime"
"Let's Take an Old Fashioned Walk"
Diesel Companies Kill Municipal Tram System
Trolleys were once a big part of city travel
just as they are now in Europe
You could go, for instance, from
Worcester to Boston by trolley
Diesel-heads at General Motors, Standard Oil and other companies
were found guilty of "conspiracy to tear up municipal electric tram
services"
but the d.h.'s were given only modest fines
Now came millions of diesel buses in all the cities
with their ghastly lung-eating fumes
causing untold ghastly slews of
lung cancers & emphysemas
because of the tram/trolley
thrill kill
•
In Britain the Iron and Steel Act nationalized the industry
Josef Albers began his Homage to the Square series
de Kooning Asheville
Henri Matisse The Tree of Life maquette
for the stained glass in the chapel in Vence, France
Robert Motherwell began his sequence Elegy to the Spanish Republic
Philip Johnson's glass house in New Canaan, Conn
Leonard Bernstein The Age of Anxiety
Benjamin Britten Spring Symphony
Marc Blitzstein Regina, an opera
Billboard's Country and Western Charts begin
and rhythm and blues
was created as a music category
Aldo Leopold's posthumous Sand Country Almanac
very influential essays on the conservation of wilderness
Paul Bowles The Sheltering Sky
Paul Goodman The Grand Piano
Thomas Merton The Waters of Siloe
T.S. Eliot's The Cocktail Party
Arthur Miller Death of a Salesman
Silly putty was invented
when a chemical process went haywire
& photo finish cameras to decide horse races
Flicks '49:
All the King's Men Les Enfants terribles
The Third Man White Heat
on the tube: The Lone Ranger
& Amos 'n' Andy
became a series
1950
January 5
Britain recognized Communist China
January 17
The Brinks armored car robbery
in Boston
masked men in pea coats
grabbed $2.7 million
J. Edgar Hoover thought it might be a communist
plot
January 21
Alger Hiss was convicted
in his second trial
of lying to a federal grand jury
–four months after the first trial had hung
Meanwhile the USSR had boomed its first a-bomb
and the Chi-coms had taken China.
Right wing harumphites
waved fists at one another
to get in front of the microphones first
to blame "Communist spies"
for these things
& on 1-25
Hiss received a five-year term in prison.
The next day Richard Nixon delivered 4-hour
"Lessons of the Hiss Case" speech
The commie menace was proven,
and McCarthy could sludge forth
with temporary impunity
except that he was to careen against liberals also.
Important lesson for right wingers:
there comes a time when liberals
will defend themselves
especially if the Arrow of Redbait turns
from to !
Now Nixon could campaign to be vice president in '52.
The CIA Buys Film Rights to Animal Farm
After George Orwell died in London on January 21
a CIA officer named E. Howard Hunt
(who later helped the CIA topple the
elected gov't of Guatemala,
and directed the Watergate burglary of '72
for which he received an 8-year sentence)
sent CIA agents to London to purchase film rights
to Animal Farm from Orwell's widow Sonia.
The screenplay was later scrutinized by a gov't entity
with the ghastly title, Psychological Strategy Board.
When the film was made, as a cartoon,
the CIA changed the famous ending
so that the movie's finale would not bear
any kind of equal sign regarding
Communist pigs & Capitalist men
January 27
First race riots because of apartheid in S Africa
Harry Okays the H
January 31
President Truman ordered development of the hydrogen bomb
The board of scientific advisors of
the Atomic Energy Commission
(chaired by J. Robert Oppenheimer)
in 1949 had rejected the building of H-bombs
but the fierce military industrial warrior caste
won the game
February 2
Klaus Fuchs
leader of the British Atomic Energy Center at Harwell
was arrested as a Soviet spy
He was what they call in the spook trade a "walk-in"
That is, he volunteered to fork over secrets
but he was not part of a ring.
Fuchs had worked for the Manhattan Project
at Los Alamos
till mid-'46
He confessed to the British
that Harry Gold, a chemist in Philadelphia
was a courier for the spy ring
Later Klaus Fuchs received a 14 year sentence
McCarthy Begins His Red Scare Scam
February 9
Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin
gave a speech to the Republican Women's Club
of Wheeling, West Virginia
in which he
thrust forth a sheet of paper saying it
listed 205 commies
in the State Department
"I have here in my hand a list of 205 that were
known to the Secretary of State as being members
of the Communist Party
& who nevertheless are still working
& shaping the policy of the
State Department."
It was a lie. He had no list.
Early Alarm at Tube-Stare
March 5
Children were spending as much as 27 hours! a week
watching TV.
Wrestling & Milton Berle
were among their favorites
and then on March 29
RCA flashed forward
with its color television tube!
March 8
In USSR marshal Klement Voroshilov
announced to the world that Russia had the A-bomb
March 12
John Malcolm Brinnin drove
Dylan Thomas, John Cage & Merce Cunningham
from Washington D.C.
up along Route 1
to NYC
Thomas was in a joyful mood, wrote Brinnin,
"and he and John Cage
began to weave a zany, pointless
& disconnected conversation
that lasted all day."
It was a "hilariously insane discourse on life in America"
Wish you were there with a tape recorder?
Think of your PhD thesis:
Postmodern Ontogeny in a Auto on Route 1
–to be continued–
America, A History in Verse, Volume 2, 1940-1961 has recently
been published by Black Sparrow Press. Volume 1 (1900-1939),
was published in 2000 by Black Sparrow Press.
More America, A History in Verse Vol. 2
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