[June 16, 1967] What's Going On Here? (June 1967 Galactoscope)

June 16, 2022 Victoria Silverwolf Leave a comment

by Victoria Silverwolf

State of Confusion

Two new science fiction novels feature protagonists who get into big trouble without understanding things until the end. They don't know who's fighting them or who's helping them, or why. One book comes from the pen (or typewriter) of a relatively new voice in SF, the other from an old pro.

The Rim-World Legacy, by F. A. Javor

Cover art by Paul Lehr.

F. A. Javor has published about half a dozen stories here and there, sometimes using the first name Frank instead of the initial. My fellow Galactic Journeyers have not been greatly impressed by his work. He's never scored higher than three stars, and sometimes earns two or one. That's not promising, but let's keep an open mind as we take a look at his first novel.

The book starts with the narrator running from an angry mob. He hides himself in a swamp by breathing through a reed. A flashback tells us how he got in this mess.

Our hero is a professional photographer down on his luck. He gets an assignment from a mysterious woman. It seems easy enough; just take pictures of her husband, a magician, performing his act.

Things start to go bad when it turns out that his camera has been rigged to kill the magician. As luck would have it, the assassination attempt fails. Our hero isn't out of the woods yet, however. Somebody takes a shot at him, barely missing.

On the run from the cops as well as the bad guys, the photographer tries to stay alive while figuring out what the whole thing is about. Along the way, a guy he never saw before offers him a bunch of money for information about the boy. The narrator doesn't have a clue what the fellow is talking about. It all has something to do with an incredibly valuable item.

You'll notice that the above synopsis doesn't contain any speculative elements. That's because this is a crime novel disguised as science fiction.

It takes place on a planet at the edge of the galaxy. (Hence the title.) The camera is rigged with a laser. The hero almost gets killed by a ray gun that leaves him with intermittent muscular and neurological effects. The thing that everybody is trying to get ahold of isn't the Maltese Falcon, but a matter duplicator/teleportation gizmo.

As a suspense novel, this is a decent if undistinguished example. The plot moves quickly, with plenty of twists and turns. As science fiction, it's so-so. I'll give the author a few points for considering the social, economic, and philosophical implications of the device that serves as the book's MacGuffin. Worth killing a few hours with, but forgettable.

Three stars.

Bright New Universe, by Jack Williamson

Cover art by John Schoenherr.

Veteran author Jack Williamson hardly needs an introduction to SF fans. Suffice to say that he's been going strong for forty years, and shows no signs of slowing up.

His latest novel takes place in the fairly near future. There's a thriving colony on the Moon, but no mention (unless I missed it) of the rest of the solar system, and certainly not of interstellar travel.

The protagonist breaks off his engagement with his fiancée, instead choosing to take part in a long-term project on the Moon. This upsets the young woman, of course, but it also distresses the hero's family and acquaintances.

He's willing to turn his back on everyone he cares for in order to pursue a dream. A lunar facility is searching for messages from aliens. Our hero believes that contact with extraterrestrials would benefit humanity to an almost unimaginable degree. As a secondary motive, his father, who died before he was born, was killed in an accident on the Moon, and he wants to find out what happened.

His stepfather argues with the protagonist, believing that progress is inherently bad. This scene serves as the philosophical heart of the novel. The stepfather points out the many dystopian works warning against the advance of technology. He argues that an alien species would lead the human race into this kind of dark future.

The book's title appears to be an allusion to Aldous Huxley's famous novel Brave New World, and Huxley is specifically mentioned in the text. Bright New Universe is the antithesis of that work. The hero believes that progress is good, and Williamson is obviously on his side.

(An in-joke appears at this point. Among other books depicting technology as a threat, the stepfather mentions This odd old book about the perfect machines, the humanoids, smothering men with too much perfection. This is obviously a reference to Williamson's own novel The Humanoids.)

On the Moon, the protagonist meets an alluring Eurasian woman. Unfortunately, her mission is to shut down the project as a waste of resources. She is much more than she seems to be, however, and we'll see a lot of her, in different roles, throughout the book.

Complications ensue when the hero finds out what really happened to his father, and winds up accused of murder. Back on Earth, he discovers a secret organization dedicated to fighting off aliens. (This group also happens to be extremely racist. Williamson is stacking the cards a bit here, making the xenophobes completely evil. I suppose the point is to compare two different kinds of prejudice.)

It's probably not giving too much away to reveal that highly advanced aliens have, indeed, been in contact with Earth. The protagonist's struggle to find out why this fact has been kept hidden leads up to a climactic confrontation between the xenophobes and the extraterrestrials.

The author depicts the two sides in this argument for and against progress in black and white, with no shades of gray. The aliens are completely benevolent, their opponents absolutely in the wrong. Although this renders the book's theme somewhat superficial, it's definitely worth reading. In addition to an action/adventure plot, you've got some very interesting aliens, and an enjoyably optimistic view of the future.

Three and one-half stars.

by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

The Kill[er\ing] Thing, by Kate Wilhelm

Just to explain the odd title, in the US Doubleday published this as The Killer Thing. However, my UK edition, from Herbert Jenkins SF, changed the title slightly to The Killing Thing. I am guessing they believed it was moderately more grammatically correct, although to my ear both are just as odd phrasing. I suppose the phrase “The Killing Machine” sounds slightly better than "The Killer Robot" but if they were that concerned should they not have called it The Thing That Kills?

All clear as mud? Good, good.

Kate Wilhelm is an author I have enjoyed via her short fiction but have yet to be impressed by her novels. The Clone read as an unnecessary expansion of Thomas’ excellent short and, whilst my incredibly smart colleague Victoria Silverwolf gave it 4 stars, The Nevermore Affair’s description sounded exactly the kind of book I do not enjoy and so I am yet to pick that one up.

But will her third foray into full length works be a marked improvement?

From the beginning there is definitely a sense of strangeness and unknowability to the whole enterprise, giving you more the sense of Moorcock’s New Worlds then Lalli’s Fantastic & Amazing (which formerly published a number of her pieces). We are immediately thrown into the fight against the titular robotic “Thing”, but it is not setup as an action-filled running commentary, but instead concentrating on lush imagery and the thoughts and reactions of those encountering it.

Within the text, I cannot help but read this as an anti-war novel. By this I do not mean the absurdist comedies of recent years, such as Bill The Galactic Hero or Catch-22, but more of a traditional serious piece like Wells’ The War in the Air or All Quiet on The Western Front. Whilst people seem willing to write about the potential horrors of the atom bomb, authors since World War 2 have seemed to shy away from criticizing conventional warfare. I cannot help but think this is due to current attitudes about it. Most new war films seem to portray the whole experience as a jolly jape of fine upstanding fellows and, in spite of some protests, polls still show a majority of the American public support the current US involvement in Vietnam. I feel the general view is summed up by Ian Chesterton in Doctor Who:

Pacifism only works when everybody feels the same

Large crowd of Pro-Vietnam War marchers in New York May 67 — Pro-Vietnam War marchers in New York last month

Therefore, it is a pleasant surprise to see a work that is so clearly pacifist. Whether it is in the clever title, the horror of the action, the horrified responses to what they are seeing or the brutal statements of the generals, e.g.:

You have to take lands with your blood, yours and theirs, mixing together in the dirt so that in the ages to come you can’t tell whose blood it is that nourishes the trees and grasses. Then you know it’s your world, Colonel, and not until then.

As a member of the Society of Friends, pacifism is part of my beliefs and understanding of the universe. Given how rare it is to see displayed in fiction (although Dickson did a very good anti-war novel a few years back), I found it warming to read.

However, more there is a significant flaw I found, one that overrides my appreciation for the whole work, that is in the style. It unfortunately engages in one of my biggest pet peeves, that of over-description. Where we will get one line of action or dialogue and then nothing but description for ages, on a loop. For example:

He turned to look about.
The carrier was on tracks that were six feet above ground level… [23 lines of description]…Their heads as well as their faces were clean shaven.
‘Nice isn’t it’ Duncan said, at Trace’s side.
He was tall as Trace, and a twenty-three, three years younger. Both were second lieutenants. His black eyes were shining with the excitement of leave after four months’ running battle with the fleet dispatched by Mellic. ‘You have any plans for the duration?’ he asked.
They had come to a large shopping area, where stores were open to the warm, air and sunshine, and good were spread out to be seen and handled.
‘No,’ Trace said. ‘You?’

It creates a sense to me of a picture book with a complicated painted image and a tiny description without any feeling of motion.

As such, in spite of the ambition, I could not really love this particular thing.

Three stars (four for effort, two for execution)

by Jason Sacks

The Avengers Battle the Earth-Wrecker, by Otto Binder

No, this novel isn't an adaptation of the wonderful Avengers TV series starring Patrick MacNee and Diana Rigg as the eternally delightful John Steed and Emma Peel. Instead, it's an adaptation of those other Avengers, the Marvel super-hero team which features Captain America and his pals. (By the way, if you are looking for a good novelization of those British Avengers, I can recommend the book below. It's apparently written by MacNee himself!)

Written by longtime comics writer (and science fiction writer) Otto Binder, The Avengers Battle the Earth-Wrecker had much promise. After all, Binder has written hundreds of comic book stories, including classic work on Captain Marvel as well as long runs at both National and Marvel, plus he's logged time at nearly every comic book company over the last 25 years. Beyond that, Binder has published dozens of prose novels, some under his own name and some under pseudonyms. Most of those books have been quick, fast reads.

Thus, with Binder at the helm, this book seemed like a big win for every Marvelite.

Sadly, though, Earth-Wrecker is pretty dire work. The book begins slowly and never improves from there, delivering a dull, sometimes campy work. This story likely would have been rejected by Stan Lee if it had been submitted for publication in the Avengers comic.

Earth-Wrecker begins as Captain America is leading a press conference to introduce his team of Avengers. The heroes quip and banter to the media in the most boring way (ten-foot tall Goliath complains about hitting his head, for instance) before the Avengers all agree to have a quick warmup battle for the media by playing their "Gladiator Games."

"Gladiator Games" seem like a combination of the X-Men's Danger Room and some arbitrary test of feats of strength. They also are something that never has appeared in any of the 43 issues of Avengers comics written by either Stan Lee or Roy Thomas. Mr. Binder obviously wanted the readers to get a sense of how the team bickers their way to victory, but the whole sequence falls completely flat. It's action for its own sake, without any consequences involved. Thus there's no reason for a reader to care about what they read.

And in fact, it falls even flatter as one of the Avengers suddenly realizes their teammate Iron Man isn't there with them and begins to wonder why that is the case. No member of the team thought they should try to get in contact with him or were keeping tabs on where Iron Man was. Maybe the team doesn't have telephones or telegraphs to stay in contact with each other?

Regardless, Binder's ramshackle plot has Iron Man flying over the Himalayas for some unknown reason when he's caught in a downdraft. That downdraft sucks our hero down towards Mt. Everest. Never mind that there's no explanation of how Iron Man can breathe in that thin Himalayan air, or even any good reason for the Armored Avenger to be there at all. No, the character just happens to be wandering through Asis so he can advance the novel's plot. And while at the roof of the world, Iron Man just happens to be attacked by a guy who wants to destroy the entire world.

That evil villain is called Karzz the Conqueror. He comes to our times from the 70th century. Karzzd has an extremely covoluted plan to conquer his future Earth by destroying it in the 20th century, and honestly his plans were so weird and complicated it gave me a headache to contemplate them. They verge on camp, on the sort of thing you can imagine the Riddler trying to do on the Batman TV series.

And that's on top of the fact that Marvel already have a a villain from the 70th century called Kang the Conqueror, who's been groomed for years to be the team's greatest enemy. Kang is fun, has a complicated backstory, and would have made comic readers smile. But no smiles are earned here. Nope: for no good reason, Binder decided to create an amazing facsimile of that real Avengers villain instead of having ol' blue-face appear in his novel.

Cynical me wants to say that's because Binder had never read an Avengers comic in his life, and was given a weekend to write this 120-page quickie. That complaint is certainly reflected in the book's pages. It may be why the book's plot seems to ramble and amble aimlessly, or why the Wasp is always described in the most sexist terms, or why Hawkeye is such a jerk, or why the ending seems so rushed and bland.

Oh heck, I could go on and complain more about this book, but perhaps I've said enough to persuade you to just give this one a pass. Roy Thomas and John Buscema are doing excellent comics in the monthly Avengers series (I'm very intrigued by the Red Guardian, an actual hero of sorts from the USSR!) So stick with that book and leave The Avengers Battle the Earth-Wrecker for some other sucker to pick up at your local Kresge's.

1 star (the cover is nice, anyway)

No comments Leave A Comment

Science / Space Race

[June 14, 1967] What's Easy for Two (Venus 4 and Mariner 5)

June 14, 2022 Gideon Marcus 4 Comments

by Gideon Marcus

Red Venus?

Every 19 months, Venus and Earth reach positions in their trips around the Sun such that travel to the former from the latter uses a minimum of energy. Essentially, a rocket blasts off and thrusts itself toward the Sun just long enough to drift inward and meet Venus after about half an orbit (a direct path would be very costly in terms of fuel use). The less energy used, the bigger the spacecraft can be sent. That means more payload for experiments.

The Soviets have been trying to reach the Planet of Love, Earth's closest neighbor (besides the Moon) for more than six years now. In February 1961, they launched Venera 1 (Venus 1), the first interplanetary probe to fly by another world–but it had gone silent by the time it got there. Veneras 2 and 3 went up three opportunities later, in November 1965, but fell silent the next spring, just before reaching their target. Indeed, Venera 3, a soft-lander, is believed to have rammed the cloud-shrouded world, becoming the first artificial object to reach another world. Either way, no useful data was received.

Why didn't they launch any Veneras in 1962 or 1964? In fact, it looks like they did. The Soviets don't herald their failures. Nevertheless, according to NASA officials, we have a pretty good catalog of them, thanks to careful parsing of Russian news reports as well as radar and telemetry data we've managed to gather. Three Russkie Venus probes were launched in September 1962 and three more in February 1964. Getting out of Earth orbit can be tough, requiring a second firing of onboard engines once a spacecraft is circling our planet. Apparently, these six probes never got away.

But Venera 4, launched on June 12, 1967, has apparently passed that first hurdle. Moreover, at one and a quarter tons, it is several hundred pounds heavier than any of its predecessors. We don't know much about what's on the latest Communist probe, but scientists speculate some of the extra weight has been devoted to heat shielding. Venus is very hot, perhaps 900° Fahrenheit, and it is believed that heat is what caused Venera 3 to fail. Given that TASS, the Soviet news service, reported that Venera 4 is going to Venus, rather than by, it is assumed the spacecraft will make another landing attempt.

Provided it doesn't go slient like its predecessors. Communicating across planetary distances is a hurdle the Soviets only recently surmounted with their Zond 3 probe, which tested radio reception at about 150 million kilometers' distance–far enough for a Martian mission. Essentially, Zond 3 was the Soviet version of Pioneer 5–but five years later. This is suggestive as to the Soviet level of communications technology, at least. America would seem to have the clear lead there.

Well, I wish the Soviets luck. Politics or no, I want to know more about that mysterious, seared world that is Venus!

Yankee Two-dle

If Venera 4 fails, it has a back-up of sorts. Mariner 5, itself a back-up for the Mars-bound Mariner 4, was launched today early this morning, destination: Venus.

Already several hundred thousand kilometers from Earth, zooming at more than 10,000 kilometers per hour, it should reach Venus in October. The spacecraft, launched via Atlas-Agena, the same rocket that launched our first Venus probe, Mariner 2, is barely a quarter the mass of Venera 4. Moreover, Mariner 4's TV camera has been deleted, a decision that likely irks Venus scientist Dr. Carl Sagan, who insists doing so is short-sighted, clouds or no.

But that removal, along with the reduction in the size of the solar panels (less is needed so close to the sun) means that when Mariner 5's planned flight path brings it within 3000 kilometers of Venus, it will be able to investigate the planet with a wide suite of instruments. An ultraviolet photometer should not only refine temperature estimates of the Venusian upper atmosphere, it will tell us a bit about what gasses constitute it. For instance, if there be any water there, perhaps life exists in the cloud tops, above the intense heat at the surface.

The rest of the instruments are likely ho-hum for the general audience, but should return a bonanza for scientists. They include a magnetometer and various radiation sensing equipment that not only will measure the Venusian version of the Van Allen Belts (if they exist–Mariner 2 couldn't find any), but also tell us a lot about the solar wind on the way to Venus.

I will say, I'm glad we're sending a craft to Venus, and it does seem we did it on the cheap ($35 million), but I think I'm with Sagan on this one: for all the effort, it seems we're not going to find out very much about Venus with Mariner 5. Another reason to root for Venera 4.

And a good reason to write your Congressman about the importance of planning a bigger Venus shot, perhaps on the more powerful Atlas Centaur rocket, when the next opportunity rolls around in January 1969!

Want to find out what we currently know about Venus? Come read our previous articles on the planet of love!

4 Comments Leave A Comment

Fashion, music, politics, sports

[June 12, 1967] The Mouse that Roared (The Six Day War)

June 12, 2022 Gideon Marcus 1 Comment

by Gideon Marcus

Even now, it's hard to believe. Little Israel, surrounded, outnumbered, and all but written off as doomed a week ago, has emerged triumphant over its neighbors, occupying an area unequalled in size since the days of King Solomon.

How did we get here?

Prelude to a Clash

A month ago, this conflict hardly seemed inevitable. Yes, the Syrians and Israelis had tangled. IDF planes shot down six Arab MiGs in a single dogfight after Israeli forces raided to stop the flow of terrorists into the country. After that, it seemed things would calm down. Certainly, Defense Minister Dayan seemed relaxed during Israel's 19th Independence Day celebration.

But behind the scenes, the Syrians were panicking. Convinced that some eleven Israeli brigades were poised at their border (there were likely not as many companies), Syrian strongman Salah Jadid pleaded with Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser to agitate a preemptive invasion. The timing was perfect: the Soviet Union could secure greater influence with its Arab client states, and Nasser could regain stature, his support flagging dangerously over his expensive boondoggle war in Yemen vs. Saudi Arabia.

Nasser quickly ordered the UN peacekeeping forces stationed on the Egyptian/Israeli border to leave, which Secretary General U Thant unilaterally ordered. Then Nasser deployed the better part of 100,000 troops to the Sinai. On May 31, he invited Jordan's King Hussein, whom he'd only three weeks before derided as an imperialist puppet, to join the alliance. Hussein, who had been succored by American support late last year, must have been a reluctant partner. Yet, there he was in Cairo, all smiles for the camera.

All Arabia was inflamed with a passion to "drive the Jews into the sea" and "erase Israel from the map". Nasser just needed a pretense to invade. He aimed to provide it. Late last month, Egypt and Saudia Arabia closed off the Strait of Tiran, the southern end of the Gulf of Aqaba. This is one of Israel's crucial lifelines, and Prime Minister Levi Eshkol made it clear that this blockade constituted an act of war.

Shut down Aqaba

Arab exiles, enthusiastic to wipe Israel off the map

Of course it was. But Israel, now virtually abandoned by its former allies, the French, and receiving tepid support from America (tied down with its own foreign conflict), seemed at long odds to win this fight.

Strike first

There is a maxim among wargamers — it is better to strike first at 1 to 2 odds than second at 3 to 1. On the morning of June 5, 1967, Israeli planes sortied over the skies of Egypt and Jordan. It was an unprecedented tactic: fully 100% of the IDF's planes were committed, and no targets of opportunity were allowed. They were to destroy the Arab air forces on the ground. Not the support facilities, not the pilots, just the planes.

They did just that, guaranteeing uncontested control of the sky for the remainder of the operation. When Syrians launched a raid on Haifa, and Iraqi planes tried to penetrate Israeli air space, those nations, too, were savaged.

An Israeli armored column made a frontal assault on Egypt's defenses in Sinai, bolstered since the '56 war. Simultaneously, Israeli forces headed toward Kabanya, Jenin, and Latrun in the West Bank. This latter did not have to have happened. Indeed, that morning, Eshkol made an impassioned plea to Hussein not to honor his commitment to the Egyptian alliance. Jordan entered the war anyway.

The cream of Jordan's might

By the next day, it was clear the Egyptians had underestimated the Israelis. The IDF tanks under General Tal made it halfway across the northern coast of Sinai while other columns broke the Egyptian lines, savaging the artillery positions behind. In Jordan, the Israelis pushed further into the northern West Bank, and east to Deir Nizam and Ramallah. But their primary target was the ancient capital of the Jews: Jerusalem.

The IDF plows into the Sinai

The next morning, Israeli paratroopers (including my niece-in-law's brother) aided ground troops in a daring assault on the city. By early morning, Jews were once again at the foot of the Wailing Wall after nearly two decades of enforced separation. That evening, a bedraggled Jordanian King, a man who had lost half of his country, agreed to a UN ceasefire.

Heading for the West Wall

Israeli parachutists gaze in wonder at the remains of their Temple

King Hussein announces a cease-fire

In Egypt, Tal's forces reached the Suez while Israeli planes and armor savaged Nasser's vehicles in the Mitla Pass. By the next day, the IDF had secured all of the Sinai.

Egyptian wreckage in the Mitla Pass

Only one tragedy mitigated the exult of victory–on the 8th, Israeli jets attacked the U.S.S. Liberty, a communications ship close off the Mediterranean coast of the Sinai. What it was doing there is still unknown, but at the time, the IDF believed it to be a Soviet ship guiding Egyptian guns. 10 Americans were killed in the strike. The Israeli government immediately apologized for the error.

The Liberty limps home

With Egypt and Jordan out of the fight, now it was the turn of Syria, regarded in the West as the instigator of the whole affair. At first, it seemed Israel might not invade, fearing Soviet reprisals. But the threat of the Golan Heights was too great, and the Syrians at the border too hostile to ignore. On June 9, with the other two fronts of this latest conflict wrapped up, Israeli forces plunged toward Damascus. By the next day, the Syrian forces were smashed and the Golan was in Israeli hands.

Israelis in the Golan Heights

Syrians surrender

Whither the Holy land

Which brings us to today: the Arab world is humiliated, Israel controls twice the land it did a week ago (though I can't imagine they'll keep any of it if '56 be any precedent). Several hundred thousand Arabs exiled and born of exiles from the former mandate, identifying as Palestinians and whipped into a fury at the prospect of reclaiming the Holy Land, now find themselves under Jewish authority.

Israelis clear the "Gaza Strip", home to 300,000 "Palestinian" Arabs

At the UN Security Council

Moreover, the Egyptians have already received new planes from the Soviets by way of other Arab countries. There are concerns that Nasser may launch round two later this month or next month.

Israel is alive. Israel is triumphant. But what now?

An Undeserted Desert

The beaches in Gaza smell like San Francisco, except the water is warmer and no great fog banks cloud the views of the rolling Mediterranean Sea. But the feeling of a bustling city, full of creative minds, just on the brink of something incredible – it's the same. Families fish for squid and sardines here, frying them in open-sided kitchens right on out the sand. Some fishermen go out at night, turning on floodlights to lure them to the surface, tentacles drifting up as they seek the stars. The call-to-prayer echoes over the city; some people stop what they're doing to pray, and some do not. It's a mixed city, mostly Muslim with an Orthodox church dating back to the 1100s, named for St. Porphyrios, a 4th century CE bishop of Gaza.

People here feel a deep connection to this soil, whether they were born here or flew in on the morning El Al flight from SFO. There's a reason the unofficial Palestinian anthem is Ibrahim Tuqan (1905-1941)'s poem "Mawki" or "My homeland." ("Glory and beauty, sublimity and splendor / Are in your hills, are in your hills / Life and deliverance, pleasure and hope / Are in your air, are in your air.")

There are few things that everyone agrees about, when it comes to fights over this bit of dirt. Three major religions – four if you add in Baháʼí folks – call it "the Holy Land," so when I was traveling in the region, I sometimes took to calling it that to avoid fights.

One thing everyone agrees on is that the current modern fight over this land is asymmetrical. Now, no one will agree in whose favor it is asymmetrical. Is it "little Israel" against the eight Arab League nations? Is it a tiny Palestinian village now trapped in territory suddenly controlled by an Israeli army that, 19 years before, forced 750,000 Palestinians to flee their homes during what that community calls the Nakba or Catastrophe? The same army that has now conquered land where about a million more Palestinians and other non-Israelis currently live – many of whom are fleeing by the tens of thousands as I write?

(Many of my Palestinian friends still carry the keys to the homes they were forced out of, hanging by cords around their necks. I think about that a lot.)

A Premeditated War

In 1955, in a speech before the Knesset, former Israeli Minister Menachem Begin said:

"I deeply believe in launching preventive war against the Arab states without further hesitation. By doing so, we will achieve two targets: firstly, the annihilation of Arab power; and secondly, the expansion of our territory."

Menachem Begin stands at a podium in front of a map with borders that include large portions of modern-day Transjordan, Syria, and other countries. — Menachem Begin speaking in 1948 about the Haret, the major conservative nationalist political party he founded. Note the borders of the map behind the assault rifle. Credit: Benno Rothenberg / Meitar Collection / National Library of Israel / The Pritzker Family National Photography Collection / CC BY 4.0.

"Expansion of our territory" brings to mind colonialism; up until fairly recently, some of the founding advocates for a modern state of Israel comfortably used the language of colonialism to justify their project. In Nachman Drosdoff's fascinating 1962 self-published biography of Ahad-Ha'am (one of the foremost pre-state Zionist thinkers) Drossdoff describes a "Lovers of Zion" meeting in Odessa in 1901 where the colonial intentions of those meeting were clear and central to their work.

"The principal reason given for the unsuccessful colonization was that the settlers had too many supervisors and trustees who do not give them the opportunity of becoming self-sustaining and independent. Therefore, the Conference worked out a new, more modern economic system of colonization, according to which every settler would be in a position, during a certain period, to repay his debts and become owner of his own land."

Ahad-Ha'am, biography by Nachman Drosdoff. The copy I have has had its cover stripped off and is marked in Hebrew and English: "Not for Sale." It's also dedicated by the author's son, which was a treat to find.

As I've written about before in a much less serious context, colonialism often relies on the lie of empty land. Of open territory for one people to expand freely into without harm or consequence.

The problem is, there is no part of the Holy Land that is empty: empty of history, empty of culture, empty of language, and certainly not empty of people. A desert is rarely deserted; though the Negev or Sinai can look barren, there are families who traverse it, who know the wells, the stories, the wadis.

Families Flee Fighting

Those families watched as Israeli fighter pilots zoomed overhead in those lovely pictures in the piece above, blasting away at air fields; just as the families in Gaza watched soldiers from the United Arab Republic retreat before Israeli forces last week, leaving terror and questions in their wake.

Just as Minister Begin hoped for 12 years ago, "Arab power" has in many ways been annihilated; and Israel's territory has certainly been expanded. But for the close to a million Palestinians and other non-Israelis now living under Israeli control, what does that mean? Will families no longer be able to fish? Will the call-to-prayer be silenced? Will Israel force more families out of their homes, into camps, into neighboring countries, doubling the number of people made stateless by the what impacted communities would call the Nakba?

Dark Days Ahead for Poets (But Still There is Starshine)

And what will it mean for the poets? For Khairi Mansour, who friends expect to be deported from the West Bank this year? For Salma Khadra Jayyusi, who has stopped writing her second poetry collection because of this war? For Rashid Husain or Tawfiq Zayyad, who have already spent time in Israeli prisons?

It is not just Palestinian poets who I worry for, but Israeli poets and writers too. When Nathan Alterman wrote "Al Zot" ("On That") in the Israeli newspaper Davar in 1948, he was speaking out against violence against Palestinians during the events they would call the Nakba. He wrote:

"Across the vanquished city in a jeep he did speed–
A lad bold and armed, a young lion of a lad!
And an old man and a woman on that very street
Cowered against a wall, in fear of him clad.
Said the lad smiling, milk teeth shining:
"I'll try the machine gun"…and put it into play!
To hide his face in his hands the old man barely had time
When his blood on the wall was sprayed.

We shall sing, then, about "delicate incidents"
Whose name, don't you know, is murder.
Sing of conversations with sympathetic listeners,
Of snickers of forgiveness that are slurred."

When Alterman published his poem, David Ben-Gurion asked for permission to reprint it, to send it as a cautionary tale to Israeli Defense Forces soldiers; could Prime Minister Levi Eshkol do the same today? I worry for Moshe Erem, a Tel Aviv City Councilman, who in 1948 protested against thousands of Palestinian residents being held in barbed-wire encircled camps, saying:

A Palestinian man in Jaffa is trapped behind barbed wire in the neighborhood of al-Ajami. Credit: Israel Defense Forces and Defense Establishment Archive.

"This arrangement will instantly compare Ajami to a closed, sealed ghetto. It is difficult to accept the idea that evokes in us associations of horror…Barbed wire is not a one-time project; it will always be in their vision and will serve as an inexhaustible source of bubbling poison. And for the Jewish residents the wire fence will not add social 'health.' It will increase feelings of foul superiority, and perpetuate separations that we do not want to erect."

Those separations seem even higher than ever, 19 years later, after the battles detailed so carefully above. I wonder how much higher still they will climb with the triumphalist, with-us-or-against-us narratives Israel is spinning about this war. I wonder what room those victory stories leave for peace; for protest; for poetry; for any light to get in at all.

I don't know what will come next. But as I've watched my friends' countries get bombed this past week, I've been thinking a lot about one of Fadwa Tuqan's poems (the still-living sister of the Palestinian poet I quoted at the top). The poem is titled "Face Lost in the Wilderness" and ends:

"A rush and din, flame and sparks
lighting the road –
one group after another
falls embracing, in one lofty death.
The night, no matter how long, will continue
to give birth to star after star
and my life continues,
my life continues."

Translated by Patricia Alanah Byrne with help of Salma Khadra Jayyusi and Naomi Shibab Nye.

1 Comment Leave A Comment

Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[June 10, 1967] Music To Read By (July 1967 Fantastic)

June 10, 2022 Victoria Silverwolf 6 Comments

by Victoria Silverwolf

So May I Introduce To You The Act You've Known For All These Years.

The Beatles, that is.

I know, I know. By now you're a little tired of the Fab Four. Well, the release of their latest album in the USA early this month may change your mind.

(Those lucky folks in the UK got it late last month.)

After evolving from catchy, expertly crafted pop songs into new musical territory with the albums Rubber Soul and Revolver, the Liverpudlians have taken a giant leap.

You could spend hours just studying the cover art.

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is extraordinary. It takes rock 'n' roll, mixes it up with other forms of popular music, adds more than a little modern psychedelic surrealism, and comes up with a genuine work of art. I'm afraid I'm going to wear out lots of phonograph needles listening to it over and over.

Because I've already got the songs from this album stuck in my head, let me suggest the ones you might listen to while reading the latest issue of Fantastic.

Cover art by Johnny Bruck.

The image on the front is stolen from one of the weekly German magazines featuring the adventures of space explorer Perry Rhodan.

Perhaps one of our German Journeyers can supply a translation.

The Narrow Land, by Jack Vance

Illustrations by Gray Morrow.

The only new story begins with the birth of our hero, forcing his way out of an egg and fighting off others of his kind. He then grows up swimming in swampy water with other amphibian youngsters.

You can tell he's not a human being, can't you? All of the characters are of his species, but there are different kinds. The number of ridges on their heads indicates what variety they are.

One-ridge folks are the most common, and exist as fully developed males and females. Two-ridge types are sexually neuter. Three-ridge individuals are invariably male. As we'll learn later, there used to be a lot of them, but war with the two-ridge kind left only one alive. There's also one four-ridge being, a monster that preys on the one-ridge children.

Confused? So is our hero, as he tries to understand his world. As the title implies, it's a thin strip of inhabitable land between a region of cold, dark mist and an ocean of constant thunderstorms.

(The editorial blurb states that this is a planet with one side always facing its sun. This is not explicitly stated in the text. It explains why it's always twilight.)

There are also birds, but they are barely mentioned.

We'll get a detailed explanation for the various subtypes of aliens. Suffice to say that the main character leaves the water and is taken in by the two-ridge folks as one of their own. Later, however, he is labeled a freak, and has to escape to the realm of the three-ridge being. He learns a lot more about what's going on from that fellow, and comes up with a plan.

The story's setting and exotic alien biology is fascinating. The author does a good job of seeing things through the eyes of a character very different from a human being. The end comes rather suddenly, suggesting the possibility of a sequel.

Four stars.

(Suggested listening: Fixing a Hole, because the protagonist is trying to fill the gaps in his knowledge of the world.)

The Ship Sails At Midnight, by Fritz Leiber

Cover art by Robert Gibson Jones.

This lovely and sad story comes from the September 1950 issue of Fantastic Adventures.

Illustrations by Henry Sharp.

The narrator is one of a quartet of jaded, world-weary intellectuals in a small college town. He's a writer. One is a philosopher, another is studying physics. The only woman in the group is a sculptor. They're all fairly skilled in their various fields, but far from brilliant.

The four meet a strikingly beautiful woman working as a waitress at an all-night diner. She doesn't say much, and reveals almost nothing about herself. Somehow or other, she brings out the best in each of them. They lose their cynicism, and produce works of genius.

She claims her name is Helen, suggestive of the ancient Greek myth of the Trojan War.

It's obvious from the beginning that she's from another world. If the illustration wasn't enough of a clue, the story starts with reports of a meteorite falling to earth and sightings of a UFO.

The narrator falls in love with Helen, and she returns his affection. A strange man shows up, telling her it's time to leave. She chooses to stay. It turns out that the other two men are in love with Helen as well, and had also won her heart. Jealousy rears its ugly head, leading to sudden violence.

(As a side note, it seems to me that the author very subtly suggests that the sculptress is in love with Helen too. This is somewhat disguised by the fact that she is engaged to be married to the physics student. I may be reading too much into this, but I would not be very surprised if Leiber, a sophisticated writer always ahead of his time, meant to offer hints of a lesbian romance.)

This is a beautiful and heartbreaking tale of joy won and lost.

Five stars.

(Suggested listening: Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, because Lucy is as transcendent a creation as Helen.)

The Remarkable Flirgleflip, by William Tenn

Cover art by J. J. Blumenfeld.

The May 1950 issue of Fantastic Adventures supplies this futuristic farce.

Illustration by Leo Summers.

At some unspecified time in the future, human activities are controlled by time travelers from an even more distant future. In particular, they forbid a researcher from inventing time travel, because it's not supposed to be invented until a later time.

(I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Time travel stories are confusing.)

The guy decides to invent it anyway, and to heck with the consequences. He tricks the narrator into getting sent to the Twentieth Century. The fellow just wants to go back to his own time. Complications ensue, partly because people of the future don't wear clothing.

After hiding in a garbage can for a while, he winds up with a wisecracking newspaper reporter. It seems his story makes for hot news, even if nobody really believes him.

This is a silly story, without much of the satiric edge often found in Tenn's sardonic yarns. As you can tell from the title, it's full of goofy invented words. That always annoys me in a science fiction comedy.

Two stars.

(Suggested listening: Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite!, because it's the most whimsical song on the album.)

From This Dark Mind, by Rog Phillips

Cover art by Vernon Kramer.

The November/December 1953 issue of the magazine is the source of this look at tomorrow's psychiatry.

Using a device that gives a patient a word association test and analyzes it, the headshrinker is able to determine that a woman needs psychological surgery. This consists of altering her memory of an incident in her past.

As a secondary plot, another patient fails to show up for an appointment, and the psychiatrist suspects he's going to kill somebody. This part of the story turns into a kind of mystery, with a twist ending of sorts.

The background assumes that psychiatry is going to take over many of the functions of medical care. An outbreak of influenza among children, for example, is said to be caused by their anxiety over an event in the Little Orphan Annie comic strip!

At that point, I thought the author's intent was satire. As far as I can tell, however, the story is meant to be serious. The premise reminds me of the pseudoscience of Dianetics. (There's even a reference to pre-birth experiences as a source of mental disorders, which sure sounds like part of L. Ron Hubbard's nonsense to me.)

Setting aside my disdain for Dianetics, this isn't a very exciting story. There's some banter between the psychiatrist and his receptionist to fill up space. The two plots never come together, and they're resolved pretty much as you'd expect.

Two stars.

(Suggested listening: A Day In The Life, because the story takes place during one long day and night for the psychiatrist.)

The Man with the Fine Mind, by Kris Neville

Cover art by Robert Frankenberg.

This chiller comes from the January/February 1953 issue of the magazine.

Illustration by Leo Summers.

A man is at a party with his fiancée. He's drinking pretty heavily, and he doesn't seem to be too happy. He even thinks about killing her.

(Don't ask me why these two are engaged. They seem like a very unlikely couple indeed.)

She makes some remarks about how it's a shame he has to leave. He insists that he's staying. Things get weird when everybody at the party acts like he's gone. They ignore him completely. Figuring that this is some kind of cruel prank, he gets angrier and drunker. The situation ends badly.

I have to admit that I didn't fully understand this story. I wasn't sure if the guy had actually left, and some kind of unseen doppelganger was left at the party, or the other way around. Despite my confusion, and an unpleasant lead character, it held my interest.

Three stars.

(Suggested listening: With A Little Help From My Friends, because the protagonist was in desperate need of assistance from his acquaintances.)

The Ant with the Human Soul (Part Two of Two), by Bob Olsen

Cover art by Leo Morey.

Here's the conclusion of a novella that appeared (in one part) in the Summer 1932 issue of Amazing Stories Quarterly.

Illustration by Morey also.

Last issue, we met a fellow who attempted suicide because his loss of religious faith led to his girlfriend leaving him. (Oddly, the guy remains a rather jolly, wisecracking sort.) A Mad Scientist rescued him. In return, the man agreed to undergo a bizarre experiment.

Part of his brain went into the body of an ant, so he could experience its sensations. (This involved a lot of shrinking and growing. That's one talented Mad Scientist.)

In this half, the guy's mind goes into several different kinds of ants. We learn about gentle farmers of fungus, aggressive warriors that enslave other ants, herders of aphids that live on the liquid they secrete, and so forth. It all winds up with the fellow regaining his faith in God, based on life among the ants, and going back to his sweetheart.

As in the first part, the main appeal of the conclusion is in the detailed description of the ant colonies. The author must have done a lot of research. Some of this stuff is a little too anthropomorphic, but otherwise it seems very accurate.

The subplot of attempted suicide and loss of faith seems way out of place with the rest of the story. It's not a comedy, but it's very lighthearted. (The man gives whimsical nicknames to the other ants, such as Sherlocka Holmes.) The premise is outrageous, of course, but go along with it and it's not a bad read.

Three stars.

(Suggested listening: When I'm Sixty-Four, because this is the oldest story in the issue, and the song is also a featherweight piece of fluff.)

Mr. Steinway, by Robert Bloch

Cover art by Augusto Marin.

From the April 1954 issue of the magazine we get this bit of dark fantasy.

Illustration by Bill Ashman.

The narrator is a woman who falls in love with a pianist. The musician practices an odd sort of meditation, in which he enters a trance. In this unconscious state, he communicates with everything, including inanimate objects.

In particular, he has a special relationship with his piano. Nicknamed Mr. Steinway, it was a gift from his mother, now deceased. The instrument has its own preferences. It doesn't like certain composers, for example.

As the two lovers grow closer, Mr. Steinway displays signs of jealousy. As you might imagine, this doesn't end well for anybody.

On a superficial level, this is just a spooky yarn about a haunted piano. There's a bit more to it than that, I think. The author does a pretty good job of writing from a woman's point of view, which is not always something you can say about a male writer. What happens to the narrator is more subtle and disturbing than you might expect.

(If they made this into a movie, her fate would be a little more openly violent, I think.)

Three stars.

(Suggested listening: She's Leaving Home, because the narrator is never going home again.)

I've Got To Admit It's Getting Better, A Little Better All The Time.

Well, that was a pretty decent issue, with only a couple of poor pieces, a very good new story, some readable reprints, and one great classic. Not as perfect a masterpiece as the latest Beatles album, but enough to keep smiles on our faces.

Mustaches and band uniforms optional.

6 Comments Leave A Comment

Movies

[June 8, 1967] Rebels With And Without Causes (Riot on Sunset Strip and The Wild Angels)

June 8, 2022 Victoria Silverwolf 2 Comments

by Victoria Silverwolf

From Flappers to Hippies

Movies about young people rebelling against society's expectations have been around since the silent days. One influential example is Flaming Youth (1923), starring Colleen Moore.

No less an authority on the Jazz Age than F. Scott Fitzgerald, in later years, noted the film's importance as a reflection on the revolutionary behavior of young people during the Roaring Twenties. I was the spark that lit up Flaming Youth, he wrote, Colleen Moore was the torch.

So risqué was the movie that it was officially judged immoral in Canada, making it illegal to show Flaming Youth anywhere in the nation. Unfortunately, only a fragment of the film survives.

Several films about sheiks and flappers followed the success of Flaming Youth. Things seem to have settled down a bit for a couple of decades, what with the Great Depression and World War Two as distractions from youthful rebellion.

The theme came back with a vengeance in the 1950's. There were far too many movies about juvenile delinquents, hotrodders, beatniks, and so forth to mention. Most of these were cheap drive-in fare. A notable exception was Rebel Without a Cause (1955) with the late James Dean, a serious drama about emotionally disturbed high school students.

(I would be remiss if I failed to note that even science fiction and horror movies got in on the troubled teen craze, with things like I Was a Teenage Werewolf and I Was a Teenage Frankenstein [both 1957] all the way down to Teenagers from Outer Space [1959].)

With the recent appearance of the hippies, a new kind of film is on the horizon. As a preview of what are sure to be many similar coming attractions, let's take a look at what might be the first of a flood of movies with long hair on boys, short skirts on girls, psychedelic drugs, and groovy rock music.

Fiction and Reality

Riot on Sunset Strip is very loosely based on a real incident.

The so-called Sunset Strip is part of Sunset Boulevard, about one and one-half miles long, that passes through the community of West Hollywood, California. In recent years, it's been a hangout for hippies and other young folks, partly due to a number of rock 'n' roll nightspots with youth permits, which allow them to admit people under twenty-one years of age. The most famous of these clubs is probably the Whisky a Go Go, but a place called Pandora's Box played a more important role in what happened next.

In response to underage drinking, drug use, and traffic congestion, the city administration imposed a 10 PM curfew and laws against loitering. On November 12 of last year, as many as one thousand people showed up outside Pandora's Box to protest the restrictions and clashed with police.

Young actor Peter Fonda, son of Henry, is arrested during the protest. He'll show up later in this article, too.

Unrest continued for the rest of the year, causing the politicians to take away youth permits from a dozen of the Strip's clubs, and forcing Pandora's Box to shut its doors completely. The incident inspired the haunting song For What It's Worth by the rock band Buffalo Springfield.

The movie industry was quick to exploit the protests, with Riot on Sunset Strip showing up in theaters just a few months later.

Mimsy Farmer stars as a teenager new to the area, living with her hard-drinking, pink-haired mother. Dad has been away for some years, it seems, but don't worry; he'll show up in a bit.

Mimsy hangs out with the cool kids at a nightclub on the Sunset Strip. The film makers have the nerve to call the place Pandora's Box, but it's strictly a fictional version of the real one.

Four hippies who seduce Mimsy into their psychedelic world.

On the Strip itself, we see protestors carrying signs that say things like Rights Not Fights, Live and Let Live, Lovers Not Fighters, and Be Nice. As you can see, it's hard to tell exactly what they're demonstrating against.

The wild quartet shown above takes Mimsy to a so-called freak out in an empty mansion, where they spike her soft drink with LSD. This leads to what I believe they call an acid trip, shown as a slow-motion modern dance routine with red lighting.

Mimsy freaks out.

Up to this point, Riot on Sunset Strip has been a enjoyably silly film, with some great music from bands like the Chocolate Watchband and the Standells. After Mimsy's LSD trip, however, it takes a much darker turn. Taking advantage of her drugged condition, a group of boys rape her.

The cops show up to arrest the trespassers, and guess what? Mimsy's estranged father (former leading man Aldo Ray) is a local police lieutenant. Enraged by what happened to his daughter, he eventually beats up three of the rapists.

Aldo tries to comfort Mimsy after her ordeal.

Aldo's attack on the creeps winds up in the news, which leads to the so-called riot, which consists entirely of folks carrying protest signs. During the demonstration, Aldo stops a cop from hitting a hippie with his nightstick. This prevents a real riot from breaking out, and reconciles Aldo with Mimsy. The end.

As you can see, this doesn't have much at all to do with the real demonstrations on the Sunset Strip. It also doesn't seem to be a very accurate portrait of the hippie subculture. For the most part, it's a soap opera that tries to be hip. Watch it for Mimsy's freak out, and for the groovy music.

The Chocolate Watchband.

Hell On Wheels

A very different kind of youthful rebel showed up on movie screens not too long ago. I'm talking about the members of outlaw motorcycle gangs. A little background is needed to appreciate this phenomenon.

In July of 1947, about four thousand motorcyclists converged on the small town of Hollister, California. That nearly doubled the population of the community, and things got out of hand. Reports have been exaggerated to some extent, but it can't be denied that there was a lot of drinking and a lot of noise. About fifty people were arrested on charges of public intoxication, reckless driving, and disturbing the peace.

A famous photograph of the incident, probably staged, shocked the nation when it appeared in Life magazine.

Writer Frank Rooney's 1951 short story The Cyclists' Raid was inspired by what happened at Hollister. In turn, it became the basis for a memorable role for Marlon Brando as the outlaw biker Johnny.

The 1953 movie The Wild One offered this bit of famous dialogue, neatly summing up the nihilistic philosophy of its antihero.

Mildred: Hey Johnny, what are you rebelling against?
Johnny: Whadda you got?

It took Hollywood more than a decade to jump on this particular bandwagon with another film of the same type. Maybe that has something to do with the current younger generation challenging the beliefs of their elders in general. In any case, let's take a look at a new movie about rebels on two wheels.

The Wild Angels stars Peter Fonda (I told you he'd be back) as Heavenly Blues, the leader of the fictional Angels motorcycle gang. (Yes, they're obviously based on the infamous Hell's Angels. As the poster proudly informs us, members of that organization show up as minor characters.)

Heavenly Blues, in a pensive moment.

Much of the film consists of the gang drinking, smoking marijuana, fighting, busting things up, and making out with their barely clothed girlfriends. There is a plot, of sorts.

It seems that a rival gang stole the motorcycle of Heavenly Blue's aptly named buddy Loser. While on a quest to get the wheels back, Loser winds up stealing a cop's bike. The police chase him and shoot him. With the help of his girlfriend (Nancy Sinatra), Heavenly Blues grabs Loser out of the hospital, but he dies anyway.

Bruce Dern as the dying Loser and Diane Ladd as his girlfriend. The two are married in real life.

The gang holds a funeral for their departed member, propping him up with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. A bewildered minister, trying to add a note of dignity to the proceedings, has a conversation with Heavenly Blues.

Heavenly Blues: We don't want nobody telling us what to do. We don't want nobody pushing us around.
Preacher: I apologize. But, tell me, just what is it that you want to do?
Heavenly Blues: We wanna be free! We wanna be free to do what we wanna do. We wanna be free to ride! We wanna be free to ride our machines without being hassled by The Man. And we wanna get loaded. And we wanna have a good time. And that's what we're gonna do. We are gonna have a good time. We are gonna have a party.

The debate in the church. Note the bikers' fondness for Nazi regalia.

True to his word, Heavenly Blues turns the funeral into a wild party, smashing the place to pieces before the gang takes Loser's body to the cemetery. The film ends there, in properly hopeless form. The last two lines we hear from Heavenly Blues are Nothing to do and Nowhere to go.

Coming Soon

I'm sure these won't be the last hippie and biker movies to show up at the drive-in. In fact, we've already had Devil's Angels (with Mimsy Farmer again) in theaters a couple of months ago, as a follow-up to The Wild Angels.

According to my sources in the film industry, later this year more snarling motorcycles will show up in something called The Glory Stompers.

As far as hippie movies go, at the start of year we had Hallucination Generation. (Oddly, it was in black and white instead of psychedelic color.)

Next month I'll rush out to see The Love-Ins, and I hope it will be as groovy as the poster.

I'm sure there will be many more to come. See you at the movies!

Is this trip really necessary?

2 Comments Leave A Comment

Fashion, music, politics, sports

[June 6, 1967] Blood in the Streets of West Berlin: The Shah Visit and the Shooting of Benno Ohnesorg

June 6, 2022 Cora Buhlert 2 Comments

by Cora Buhlert

Aftermath

Last month, I reported about the devastating fire at the À l'Innovation department store in Brussels, which completely destroyed the historic Art Noveau building and cost the lives of more than three hundred people.

Recovery work and investigations regarding the cause of the fire are ongoing. The exact number of the dead is still not known and identifying the victims of the fire is difficult, since many were burned beyond recognition. The unidentified dead were interred in a mass grave on a Brussels cemetery.

Victims of the Innovation fire being buried — Unidentified victims of the À l'Innovation fire are being buried in a mass grave in Brussels

On May 30, a memorial service for the victims of the fire was held at the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur church. The young Belgian King Baudouin and Queen Fabiola attended the service. Earlier, King Baudouin had also visited the site of the fire only a few minutes from the royal palace.

King Baudouin and Queen Fabiola of Belgium attend the memorial service for the victims of the À l'Innovation fire.

King Baudouin at the stire of the Innovation fire — King Baudouin of Belgium visits the site of the À l'Innovation fire

I had hoped to have a more cheerful article for you this month – especially since I found Lin Carter's latest novel Flame of Iridar in the spinner rack of my local import store. However, this was not to be, because not quite two weeks after the Brussels fire, another terrible event struck West Germany, specifically West Berlin.

Fairy Tale Princesses and Dictators

On May 28, 1967, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, and his third wife Farah Diba arrived in West Germany on a state visit. Normally, this would not be particularly remarkable, since foreign heads of state regularly visit West Germany.

However, the West German tabloid press has a particularly interest in the royal house of Iran, for Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's second wife Soraya Esfandiary-Bakhtiary is the daughter of the Iranian ambassador to West Germany and his German wife, grew up in Berlin and was educated in Switzerland. And when the barely eighteen-year-old Soraya married the Shah in 1951, the tabloid press eagerly reported about "the German girl on the peacock throne".

Shah and Soraya — Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, his second wife Princess Soraya and Princess Shanaz, the Shah's daughter from his first marriage.

Soraya Esfandiary-Bakhtiary after her divorce

The marriage did not last long and the imperial couple divorced in 1958, when Soraya failed to produce an heir, which did not diminish the tabloids' interest in her at all. However, the gossip press also quickly focussed on her successor, Farah Diba, another young western educated Iranian woman from an upper class background.

Shah and Farah Diba — Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi marries his third wife Farah Diba in 1959.

Again, this is not particularly remarkable, because the tabloid press likes to print gossip about royalty. However, most of what West German citizens know about the Imperial State of Iran is gossip of questionable veracity about its royal house, filtered through the eyes of two privileged western-educated upper class women. What these gossipy articles – a remarkable number of which are published in the magazines and newspapers of the Axel Springer Verlag – ignore is that Iran is not just a fairy tale land of princesses and peacock thrones. It is also a brutal authoritarian state, ruled with an iron hand by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, especially since the coup against the democratically elected prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953, which was backed by the US and the UK, because Mossadegh intended to nationalise the Iranian oil industry, cutting out British and US oil companies.

One of the rare critical articles about the Iranian regime appeared in the June issue of the student magazine konkret, where Ulrike Meinhof, a brilliant young investigative journalist, penned an open letter to Farah Diba criticising the situation in Iran in response to a fawning interview with the Iranian Empress in the gossip magazine Neue Revue. This was not the first frank article Meinhof has written about the Iranian regime. Three years ago, she reported about a hunger strike of Iranian students in West Germany to protest human rights violations in their homeland as well as a state visit of West German president Heinrich Lübke to Iran.

Ulrike Meinhof konkret — Journalist Ulrike Meinhof at her desk at the student magazine konkret

Students versus the Shah

In 1960, Iranian students in West Germany founded the Confederation of Iranian Students (CIS), a leftwing group critical of the Shah and his government. Encouraged by his friend, writer Hans Magnus Enzensberger (whose former wife and brother are members of the leftwing Kommune 1 and were responsible for the disgusting pamphlets about the À l'Innovation fire), CIS co-founder Bahman Nirumand published a critical book about the Imperial State of Iran entitled Persien, Modell eines Entwicklungslandes oder Die Diktatur der Freien Welt (Persia: Model of a Developing Country, or Dictatorship in the Free World) earlier this year. While the book received little notice among the wider West German society, it was widely read among politically interested students and together with the open letter to Farah Diba in konkret galvanised the students of the Free University of (West) Berlin.

On June 2, the Shah and his wife were due to visit West Berlin. Therefore, the student parliament of the Free University organised a panel discussion about the Iranian regime on the day before. Among those invited to speak at the meeting was Bahman Nirumand. The Iranian embassy in West Germany was incensed and demanded that the panel discussion be cancelled. However, the chancellor of the Free University refused, citing the rights to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. This is not the first time that the Iranian government has tried to suppress criticism in West Germany, by the way. They have also repeatedly invoked a lese-majeste law dating from the days of the Second German Empire (which ended fifty years ago) in order to have unfavourable news articles retracted.

Bahman Nirumand Free University Berlin — Iranian activist Bahman Nirumand speaks at the Free University of (West) Berlin.

In the days running up to the panel discussion and the state visit, pamphlets condemning the Shah appeared on the campus of the Free University, including a Wanted poster accusing the Shah of murder. The Kommune 1 felt compelled to interrupt their cheering about the deaths of more than three hundred people in Brussels to publish a pamphlet in which they threatened to pee on the Shah, which is a step up from threatening to throw pudding at US Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey. In another pamphlet, the Kommune 1 also condemned other leftwing groups for not being radical enough. Anti-Shah pamphlets had also been distributed by students at a protest in Munich during the Shah’s visit there.

Pamphlet Wanted poster — An anti-Shah pamphlet in the form of a Wanted poster accusing the Shah of murder.

Kommune 1 pamphlet — The Kommune 1's pamphlet about the Shah visit mostly criticises other leftwing organisations of being not radical enough.

The leftwing student organisation Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund (SDS) had been planning a protest against the war in Vietnam on June 3. However, Nirumand's speech during the panel discussion at the Free University of Berlin galvanised the roughly five thousand students in attendance and it was spontaneously decided to bring the planned protest forward by a day and protest against the Shah's visit. Because – as radical student activist Rudi Dutschke said – fighting against oppression in Iran is also a fight against the war in Vietnam.

No Worries

Among the five thousand students at the panel discussion inside the Audimax auditorium on the campus of the Free University was also Benno Ohnesorg, a 26-year-old student of German and Romance languages and aspiring writer. Ohnesorg had only just married his girlfriend Christa six weeks before and the couple were expecting their first child. Like many students present, Benno Ohnesorg had read Bahman Nirumand's book and was galvanised by the man's speech at the panel discussion.

Benno Ohnesorg and Uwe Timm — Happier times: Benno Ohnesorg and his friend Uwe Timm in Hannover.

Benno Ohnesorg was politically interested, a pacifist and member of the Lutheran student church. He had only attended a single protest in favour of education reform before. However, Nirumand's speech persuaded Ohnesorg to take part in the protests planned for the following day. His wife Christa was worried, because there were reports about increasing police brutality during political protests. Ohnesorg (whose surname means "without worries" in German), however, dispelled her fears. It certainly wouldn't be that bad. And so the young couple agreed to attend the protest.

Shah and Heinrich Albertz in We — Shah Mohammad Rez Pahlavi and West Berlin mayor Heinrich Albertz walk past a parade of West Berlin police officers upon the Shah's arrival in West Berlin.

Cheering Persians

However, the students of the Free University of Berlin were not the only ones planning a rally on the occasion of the Shah’s visit to West Berlin. A pro-Shah group of Iranian expats filed for permission to hold a rally outside the Schöneberger Rathaus, where the Shah and his wife were due to sign West Berlin’s official visitor book. This group was remarkably well organised and bussed in some 150 Shah supporters, many of them young men in dark suits. They were carrying placards and portraits of the Shah attached to wooden sticks. It later turned out that these Shah supporters were not regular Iranian expats at all, but members of the Iranian secret police SAVAK who had been explicitly flown in. Others had been paid to attend the rally and cheer for the Shah. The press has since called them "Jubelperser", i.e. cheering Persians.

Meanwhile, the student protesters were also congregating outside the Schöneberger Rathaus, on the very same spot where John F. Kennedy held his famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech almost four years ago. Several of the students wore paper bags with stylised portraits of the Shah and Farah Diba over their heads. Also present were many overwhelmingly elderly Berliner housewives hoping to catch a glimpse of the tabloid empress Farah Diba.

Elderly ladies and student protesters — Elderly ladies hope to catch a glimpse of Farah Diba outside the Schöneberger Rathaus, while student protesters unroll a banner criticising the torture of political prisoners in Iran.

Student protesters 1967 — Student protesters stage a sit-in outside the Schöneberger Rathaus, wearing paperbags with stylised portraits of the Shah and Farah Diba over their heads.

The key to managing protests by rival groups is to keep protesters and counter-protesters separated to prevent clashes. The West Berlin police completely failed in this, even though they had orders to keep Shah supporters and anti-Shah protesters apart. Furthermore, the West Berlin police were on edge, because there had been rumours about a planned attempt on the Shah's life as well as the Kommune 1 threatening to pee on the Shah. And so the John-F-Kennedy-Platz in front of the Schöneberger Rathaus quickly descended into scenes of pandemonium.

Student protesters and housewives — Students protesters and spectators mingle outside the Schöneberger Rathaus.

When the Shah and his wife arrived, the cheering Persians did what they had been hired to do and cheered on the Shah. The student protesters countered by chanting "Murderer, Murderer", while the elderly housewives still hoped to catch a glimpse of Farah Diba. So far, it was still a normal, if lively and noisy protest.

Cheering Persians versus student protesters — The cheering Persians begin to clash with the student protesters.

But then, the Shah supporters tore the placards from the wooden sticks, broke through the police lines and started beating up the student protesters, seriously injuring many protesters and even bystanders, while the West Berlin police stood by and did… absolutely nothing. The only people arrested were five student protesters. None of the cheering Persians were arrested. There even are reports that some police officers cheered on the battering Persians and started beating up students themselves.

Cheering Persians attack protesters — The cheering Persians show their true face and attack students protesters with wooden sticks.

Cheering Persians and student protesters clash — The cheering Persians attack the student protesters outside the Schöneberger Rathaus.

Up to this point, I had been fairly neutral about the Shah of Iran and his visit to West Germany. Make no mistake, the Shah is a dictator, but there are many terrible regimes and dictators in the world and when they chance to visit West Germany, they have to be treated like any other head of state. However, when a foreign politician visits West Germany, they also have to accept that we have freedom of speech and freedom of assembly here and that yes, there might be angry protesters chanting unpleasant things.

West Berlin traffic cop escorts elderly lady to safety — A West Berlin traffic cop escorts an elderly lady who was injured during the riot outside the Schöneberger Rathaus to safety.

But once I saw footage from the riot outside the Schöneberger Rathaus and heard reports from a friend who was there, I found myself seething with rage at the Shah and his cheering Persians. For while no one in West Germany can stop the Shah and his secret police from beating up protesters in Iran, they have no right to beat up protesters here in West Germany. The West Berlin police should have arrested those cheering and battering Persians and put them on the next plane back to Iran. And they should have sent the bloody Shah and his wife back as well, since royalty or not, even a Shah can't just flaunt our laws.

But things got even worse…

Fox Hunting Outside the Deutsche Oper

That evening, the Shah and his wife were due to attend a performance of Mozart's The Magic Flute at the Deutsche Oper opera house together with West German president Heinrich Lübke and West Berlin mayor Heinrich Albertz. Given Lübke's nigh legendary lack of education, I would almost have felt sorry for the Shah and Farah Diba for having to endure such a stupid man, if not for the terrible scenes in front of the Schöneberger Rathaus.

Shah and Farah Diba in Schloss Charlottenburg — The Shah and Farah Diba at a reception of the West Berlin mayor in Schloss Charlottenburg

Shah, Farah Diba, Lübke and Albertz inside the Deutsche Oper — The Shah, Farah Diba, West German President Heinrich Lübke and his wife as well as West Berlin mayor Heinrich Albertz enjoy a performance of "The Magic Flute" at the Deutsche Oper, while all hell breaks lose outside.

The student protesters congregated outside the Deutsche Oper, among them Benno Ohnesorg and his wife Christa. The West Berlin police were also there in force to cordon off the area in front of the opera house, so the honoured guests could enter without being troubled by chanting students. Shortly before the Shah himself appeared, the cheering Persians arrived at the opera house in two rented busses, once again remarkably well organised for an expat group that had only been founded one day before.

Student protesters outside the Deutsche Oper — Student protesters behind a police barrier outside the Deutsche Oper

The student protesters chanted slogans and some of them threw eggs and tomatoes taken from a van parked at the curb as well as rubber rings "borrowed" from a building site onto the road outside the opera house, though none of the missiles even came close to hitting the Shah or any of the other opera guests. The cheering Persians started a counter chant, as the Shah and his wife entered the opera.

Police and student protesters — Student protesters argue with the West Berlin police outside the Deutsche Oper

This time around, the West Berlin police did not just stand by and do nothing, but actively grabbed individual student protesters, alleged ringleaders, from the crowd to beat them up on the street, a tactic that the West Berlin police had also employed during previous protests. Infuriated, some students started hurling stones from a nearby building site at the police. A police officer received a cut to the scalp, which bled heavily.

Police officers carry off a student protester — West Berlin police officers carry off a student protester outside the Deutsche Oper.

West Berlin police beats up protester — West Berlin police officers beat up a student protesters on the Bismarckstraße in front of the Deutsche Oper.

Once the Shah was inside the opera house, many of the students prepared to go home, since the performance would take three hours and few wanted to wait so long for the Shah to emerge. Among the students heading home was also the five months pregnant Christa Ohnesorg, who was appalled by the violence and feared for her safety and that of her unborn child. Her husband Benno stayed behind. It was the last time Christa would see him.

Around this time, rumours spread that a police officer had been stabbed by a protester. This rumour was false, but nonetheless all hell broke loose, as the police decided they would go "hunting foxes" as they put it.

Student falls over barricade while trying to flee — A student falls over a barricade, while trying to flee the aggressive West Berlin police.

Student in chokehold — West Berlin police officers arrest a student protester outside the Deutsche Oper, holding him in a choke hold.

The police officers surrounded the students and began indiscriminately beating up the protesters with the cheering Persians joining in. Hereby, the West Berlin police did not care whether the students were ringleaders or bystanders, male or female, whether they were aggressive or cowering in fear. They beat everybody they could get their hands on with their truncheons. Even passers-by who had not been part of the protest at all were attacked, when they tried to help injured or fallen students or simply if they got in the way of the police officers. Not even nurses and paramedics trying to help the wounded were safe from attack. Meanwhile, protesters who were taken to hospital often found themselves subjected to further abuse, particularly young women, who were called "sluts" for daring to wear short skirts, the mini-skirt apparently still being a new and shocking thing in the isolated enclave of West Berlin.

Bleeding student — A bleeding young woman who was injured during the protest.

Pollice officer escorts bleeding woman — A police officer escorts a bleeding young woman, whether to jail or hospital is unknown.

Erich Duensing, a former officer in Hitler's general staff who is now chief of the West Berlin police, cynically described the actions of his officers as "liverwurst tactic" – puncture it in the middle and the contents will be squeezed out on the sides. Cynical as it is, this is also an accurate description of what happened. Horrified by the violence, the student protesters ran away and the police gave chase, beating anybody they could grab hold off.

Erich Duensing and Ernst Reuter — Erich Duensing, former Nazi officer turned chief of the West Berlin police, with former mayor Ernst Reuter.

A Shot in the Night

Among the students who ran away was also Benno Ohnesorg. Together with other students, Benno Ohnesorg found himself driven into a narrow street opposite the opera house called Krumme Straße (Crooked Street). He witnessed police officers grabbing a student and carrying him off into a backyard just off the Krumme Straße, beating him all the way. Together with other students, Benno Ohnesorg followed in order to help or at least try to persuade the police to leave the student alone.

Police officers beat up student protesters — Police officers beat up fleeing students.

One of the reporters on site noticed the group of students following the police officers into the backyard and informed other police officers – whether maliciously or out of genuine concern for everybody's safety is not clear. At any rate, the police cordoned off the backyard, trapping the students, including Benno Ohnesorg. Then they began beating up their prey. Nine-year-old Hansi B., who witnessed the entire scene from his bedroom window, later reported that it was like a real life game of cops and robbers or cowboys and Indians.

According to eye witness reports, Benno Ohnesorg hung back and did not attack or provoke the police officers. He then attempted to flee, but was held back and beaten up by the West Berlin police. Benno Ohnesorg raised his hands and on a tape recorded by the radio station Südwestdeutscher Rundfunk SWR, someone – likely Ohnesorg himself – can be heard saying, "Please don't shoot." Then, around half past eight, a shot rang out in the Berlin evening, and Benno Ohnesorg collapsed onto the pavement of the backyard off the Krumme Straße. The young witness Hansi B. said that only when "the man in the red shirt" did not get up again, did he realise that what he'd just witnessed from his bedroom window was not a game of cops and robbers at all, but deadly serious.

On the SWR tape, the voice of a police officer can be heard shouting "Are you crazy shooting in here?" "It just went off," another voice answered. This voice, as we now know, belongs to Karl-Heinz K., a 39-year-old plainclothes officer of the West Berlin police. "Go to the back. Quickly," the first voice ordered.

While the police officers were arguing, Friederike Dollinger, a 22-year-old student of history and Latin, bent over the fatally injured Benno Ohnesorg, put her handbag under his bleeding head and yelled at the police officers to call an ambulance, a scene that was caught on camera by photographer Jürgen Henschel.

22-year-old student Friederike Dollinger holds the dying Benno Ohnesorg in her arms.

Police officers stand around Benno Ohnesorg — West Berlin police officers, among them shooter Karl-Heinz K., stand around the dying Benno Ohnesorg and refuse to help.

Police officer and nurse load Benno Ohnesorg into an ambulance — A police officer and a nurse carry the fatally wounded Benno Ohnesorg into an ambulance. The nurse was beaten up for her attempts to give Benno Ohnesorg first aid.

The police officers refused to call an ambulance and even attacked a nurse and a medical student, who attempted to give first aid to Benno Ohnesorg. And so it took twenty minutes after the fatal shot, until an ambulance finally arrived to take Benno Ohnesorg to hospital. And because two nearby hospitals were already filled to capacity with injured protesters, it took forty-five minutes until Benno Ohnesorg finally arrived at the Moabit hospital. By that time, he was dead.

Lies and Cover-ups

The death certificate of Benno Ohnesorg lists a basal skull fracture, sustained as he fell to the pavement, as the cause of death. However, a post-mortem carried out the following day revealed a bullet wound in the back of Benno Ohnesorg's head, fired at a distance of approximately one and a half meters. During the post-mortem, it was also discovered that a part of Benno Ohnesorg's skull, the part with the bullet hole, had gone missing during the night, most likely to cover up the true cause of death, though the bullet itself was still stuck inside Ohnesorg's brain.

Meanwhile, police officer Karl-Heinz K. came up with a new explanation for why he shot an unarmed man in the head every other hour. Initially, Karl-Heinz K. claimed that he had fired a single warning shot, then it was two warning shots, then one warning shot and a second shot, which accidentally went off. Finally, Karl-Heinz K. claimed that several students were threatening him with knives, whereupon he drew his gun, fired and hit Ohnesorg. However, according to Hansi B., probably the closest thing to a neutral witness in this case, there were no students armed with knives. Instead, "the man in the suit [Karl-Heinz K.] drew a pistol and shot the man in the red shirt [Ohnesorg]".

The West Berlin police, aided and abetted by the West Berlin senate and the tabloid press, tried to portray Benno Ohnesorg as a ringleader and aggressive radical, who brought his fate upon himself. Once again, this is demonstrably wrong, since everybody who knew Ohnesorg described him as a quiet pacifist, politically interested but not a radical. And even if you don't want to believe the people who actually knew Ohnesorg, the fact that he was shot in the back of the head belies claims that he threatened Karl-Heinz K.

Students in West Berlin and all of West Germany were understandably furious both at the police violence and at what many of them consider a political murder. Protests and solidarity marches were held in many West German cities, except for West Berlin itself, where the police and the courts banned all public protests. They also tried to ban meetings and protests on the campus of the Free University, but once again the chancellor and several deans refused, citing the fact that freedom of assembly and freedom of speech are guaranteed rights in the West German constitution.

Student protest in Muncih following the death of Benno Ohnesorg — Students in Munich protest the shooting of Benno Ohnesorg.

A Dark Day

June 2, 1967 was a dark day for the Federal Republic of West Germany. Not only were peaceful protesters beaten and attacked by the very police force supposed to protect them, but the secret police of a foreign country was also allowed to run riot in the streets of a West German city. Even worse, a 26-year-old young man, an aspiring writer and teacher, a new husband and father-to-be, senselessly lost his life.

There are fears that the shooting of Benno Ohnesorg will further radicalise the student movement. These fears are not without justification. Because more and more students realise that their protests are not only ignored, but met with violence. So far, those who call for more radical actions are fringe elements, like the Kommune 1. But their numbers might well grow.

Furthermore, West Germany needs to rethink its relationship with dictators like the Shah of Iran. Because right now, even the worst dictator is welcomed with open arms, as long as they are not communist and have something to sell that West Germany wants or needs, oil in the case of Iran. Foreign heads of state must also accept that when they visit West Germany, they are bound by our laws and cannot just have protests banned or have their own secret police beat up West German citizens in the streets of a West German city.

We also need to tackle the problem of former Nazis in positions of authority in West Germany more than twenty years after the end of the Third Reich. It is well known that the West Berlin police force, probably the most militarised in the country, consists to more than fifty percent of former Wehrmacht members and officers who already served during the Third Reich. And the fact that many of the student protesters reported that police officers hurled not just anti-communist but antisemitic slurs at them shows that these leopards have not changed their spots.

Moreover, we need to discuss the role of the tabloid press, particularly the newspapers and magazines published by the conservative Axel Springer Verlag, in both fawning over the Shah and his wife and demonising the student protesters as Communists, terrorists or worse.

Finally, the shooting of Benno Ohnesorg must be investigated thoroughly and without bias and police officer Karl-Heinz K. must stand trial for shooting an unarmed man in the head. Because only justice for Benno Ohnesorg will calm the enraged Left in West Germany.

Students in Muncih place a wreath at the monument for the victims of the Nazis — Students in Munich place a wreath for Benno Ohnesorg as well as a banner calling him a victim of police terror at the official monument for the victims of the Nazi terror.

2 Comments Leave A Comment

Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[June 4, 1967] The Daleks Stoop To A New Low… Vehicle Theft! (Doctor Who: The Evil Of The Daleks [Part 1])

June 4, 2022 Jessica Holmes 1 Comment

By Jessica Holmes

EX-TER-MIN-ATE! I hope you aren’t tired of Daleks, because we’ve got angry pepperpots aplenty in the latest Doctor Who serial– and this one’s a long-haul. Will the Daleks quickly wear out their welcome or leave us begging for more? Let’s find out as we watch David Whittaker’s Victorian spin on the ever-popular villains, The Evil Of The Daleks.

EPISODE ONE

The Doctor and Jamie can’t catch a break, can they? Fresh off the whole palaver with the Chameleons, they try and return to the TARDIS only to find that it’s been stolen! Trailing their suspect to a warehouse, the Doctor and Jamie soon realise that they’re being led into a trap, and the TARDIS is bait–but they have no choice if they ever want to get it back.

But who has taken the TARDIS? Another man out of time. Enter Waterfield (John Bailey), a dealer of Victorian antiques who seems to belong to the period himself. He’s very anxious to bring the Doctor to his shop, obeying the orders of an unseen master… Give you three guesses who that’ll turn out to be.

However, it doesn’t seem that he pays his lackeys well enough, because the rogue who nicked the TARDIS for him comes snooping around his parlour looking for extra compensation, and gets rather more than he bargained for. A hidden room– and a deadly foe.

Enter the real villains–the Daleks!

EPISODE TWO

The Dalek in the secret room kills the intruder before vanishing, leaving the Doctor and Jamie unaware as they arrive for their meeting with Waterfield. Noticing that all these Victorian ‘antiques’ appear to be brand-new, yet somehow genuine, the pair begin to suspect they’re dealing with another time-traveller.

Meanwhile, Waterfield finds his dead lackey (much to his horror). He realises he’s definitely in too deep–but there’s no backing out for him, for reasons that will later become clear.

The Doctor and Jamie discover the body a few minutes later, and believe that Waterfield has murdered the man. Soon finding the hidden room themselves, they inadvertently set off a booby trap that knocks them out—and then Waterfield makes the three of them disappear.

When the Doctor wakes up, he finds himself nursing a cracking headache in Waterfield’s house–and he’s been transported to Victorian times. 1866, to be precise. Waterfield introduces him to his colleague, Maxtible (Marius Goring), and the pair explain that they’re in big trouble. While conducting experiments into time travel, they accidentally opened the door to horrors beyond imagining. I dearly love the look of dawning horror on Troughton’s face as the Doctor, hearing the familiar scream of the Daleks, realises what the pair have unleashed. It’s a great little moment of acting.

The Daleks, unusually for them, don’t want to kill the Doctor. Not yet, anyway. They require him to assist them with an experiment. After however-many attempts to conquer humanity, the Daleks have realised they need a change of tactic. They want to understand what makes humanity tick–that unknown human factor that they can transplant into themselves, and thus become unstoppable.

The Doctor has little choice but to assist. If not, the Daleks will kill Waterfield’s daughter, Victoria (Deborah Watling).

However, he’s not so keen when it turns out that Jamie is to be the Daleks’ test subject.

While all this has been going on, Jamie has woken up in the other room, met Maxtible’s daughter Ruth (Brigit Forsyth), and worked out what year it is. Before he can snoop any further, however, a man breaks in and abducts him!

The Doctor arrives to find him missing, the unconscious maid in his place. He needs to find Jamie, fast. Any delay in starting the experiment will result in Victoria’s death.

EPISODE THREE

So, what’s happened to Jamie? He wakes up in a stable and finds that his kidnapper acted on the instructions of another: a posh bloke called Terrall (Gary Watson). Terrall doesn’t seem to have any better idea of what’s going on than Jamie. Though he had apparently promised to pay the kidnapper, he refuses, claiming to know nothing of this. It doesn’t get much clearer from there. One moment he’s asking about the whereabouts of Victoria, then the next he’s claiming to be sure she’s gone to Paris. He’s quite all over the place.

The Doctor catches up to them before long, so we don’t get any better idea of what this bloke’s problem is. Perhaps it will become clear in due course. Until then, I’m just going to call it a bit of a plot cul-de-sac.

The pair return to the house. The Doctor leaves Jamie with the maid, Mollie, while he goes off to discuss the experiment. He doesn’t give Jamie so much as a hint of what’s going on (at the Daleks’ insistence), and boy is Jamie mad about being left out of the loop. He gives the Doctor a good telling-off once he gets back from the meeting, both upset about the secrecy and that the Doctor is so chummy with Waterfield, who for all Jamie knows is a murderer. It delights me to see a companion with a bit of backbone.

While the Doctor is off playing mad scientist, Jamie gets to know Ruth a little better. She is either mind-controlled or an extraordinarily bad actress, because everything about how she talks and carries herself is just plain weird. She turns out to be with the posh bloke who had Jamie kidnapped earlier–he’s her fiance! Perhaps whatever made him so odd is also influencing her?

Jamie gets along much better with Mollie (Jo Rowbottom), the maid. She tells him that Ruth’s fiance, Terrall, is normally quite a nice bloke, but does have anger issues since coming back from Crimea.

When the Doctor and Jamie meet back up, the Doctor warns Jamie that under no circumstances is he to attempt to rescue Victoria.

As expected, he immediately goes off to do just that. Truly the Doctor is a master of reverse psychology.

Mollie sneaks Jamie a copy of the house plans so that he can find his way around, and he commences his quest.

However, little does he know that the house is full of booby traps! What's more, a silent Turkish strongman by the name of Kemel (Sonny Caldinez) guards the way.

And so the experiment begins. Jamie charges off to mount a rescue, and the Doctor returns to Maxtible’s lab to monitor his progress and analyse his actions. In case you’re thinking the Doctor is being a bit too cooperative with the Daleks, he did offer himself as a test subject in Jamie’s place, but he’s not exactly human, is he? If I wanted a new face I’d need a boatload of money and a very good surgeon. Though the Doctor looks human, I think we can assume by now that he’s at least a little different from your average Joe.

Unhappy with being stiffed on the payment by Terrall, the ruffian who kidnapped Jamie earlier attempts to blackmail him. When that fails, he settles for a mugging. Unsatisfied with the contents of Terrall’s pockets, the ruffian pushes his luck by breaking into the house.

The Daleks find him before long, and his end is swift–and painful.

Final Thoughts

Though I’m beginning to worry that the Daleks are becoming a tad overused, I cannot deny that The Evil Of The Daleks is off to a good start. There’s something quite H.G. Wells about our time-travelling Victorians encountering horrors from another world. It’s some really old-school science fiction, and I’m on board.

There’s only so much I can say about the new characters thus far, being only a handful of episodes in. Poor Waterfield doesn’t strike me as a bad chap. I think he’s in over his head. I have my doubts about Maxtible. He seems a lot less uneasy about the unethical things the Daleks are making them do.

The Daleks’ new scheme could mark an interesting evolution in their villainy. What would a more human-like Dalek be like? If they end up taking on more humanity, might they end up becoming more like their Kaled ancestors? Can the Daleks be reformed?

We’ll have to wait and see.

1 Comment Leave A Comment

Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[June 2, 1967] Uneasy Alliances (July 1967 IF)

June 2, 2022 David Levinson Leave a comment

by David Levinson

Persecution and division

It’s rarely discussed, but a major condition of the decolonization of Africa has been that the newly independent nations are expected to retain their old colonial boundaries. The stated reason is to prevent squabbling and even armed conflict over redrawing those boundaries, such as we’ve seen between Pakistan and India. It sounds good on paper; unfortunately, paper is where those boundaries were drawn, often with little regard for people living there and leaving major tribes and ethnic groups split by lines on a map. Add in the tendency of colonial administrations to favor one tribe over others and you have the basis for a lot of unrest.

Nigeria is proving to be a case in point. Economic problems, tensions between the Muslim north and Christian south, government corruption, and an election widely seen as fraudulent all came to a head in an attempted military coup at the beginning of last year. Although the coup failed, the military was left in charge, and military governors were placed in the four states. An attempt to create a more centralized government led to a counter-coup and the near dissolution of Nigeria. Under Western pressure, the new head of the government, Colonel Yakubu Gowon, restored the federal system.

Then pogroms in the north against the Igbo (a largely Christian tribe from Eastern Nigeria) and other eastern groups left as many as 30,000 dead and over a million refugees fled to the east. The strain on the east led to negotiations between Colonel Gowon and Eastern military governor Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu seemed promising, but have fallen apart. On May 27th, Gowon declared that Nigeria would be divided into 12 states (cutting the Igbo off from oil money). The same day Colonel Ojukwu declared the independence of Eastern Nigeria. As we go to press, it has been announced that the new country will be called the Republic of Biafra. Nigeria is unlikely to accept this assertion of independence.

l.: Colonel Yakubu Gowon of Nigeria. r.: Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu of Biafra.

Mediocrity strikes again

Similarly unstable is this month’s IF, full of shaky partnerships, from famous authors and vikings to complicated family politics. Some expect betrayal, others will find themselves surprised.

Joe Miller is the most fearsome warrior these vikings have ever seen. Art by Gaughan

The Felled Star (Part 1 of 2), by Philip José Farmer

Twenty years ago, everyone who ever lived and reached the age of five or so awoke on the Riverworld, brought back to life by someone for mysterious purposes. Samuel Clemens (better known to the world as Mark Twain) is traveling with a band of vikings led by Eric Bloodaxe. Also along is Sam’s best friend, Joe Miller, a “titanthrop” or ape-man with a nose like a proboscis monkey. They’re seeking a source of iron, which is almost non-existent. Bloodaxe carries an iron axe, most likely from meteoric iron, but he wants more for the power it will bring. Sam wants to build a steamboat (and find his beloved wife Livy). They also hope to reach the headwaters of the River, which Joe once visited and saw a mist-shrouded tower and flying boats.

The group is attacked by a settlement of 19th century Germans, equipped with gliders and bombs. The fall of a huge meteor several valleys away smashes everything with a massive wave, but the viking boat manages to ride out the destruction. They fish Lothar von Richthofen (the younger brother of the Red Baron) out of the wreckage, and he gladly joins their quest.

Curse you, Red Baron’s little brother! Art by Gaughan

This brief installment is largely set-up. Mostly, we get everyone’s motivations and witness a possible source of a lot of iron. The most interesting bit here is Joe Miller. His tale of the tower is very well done. The implication that this distant relative of Homo sapiens counts as human for whoever is behind the great resurrection also raises some fascinating questions. We’ll see what Farmer manages to do with all this.

Three stars.

Pelandra’s Husbands, by E. A. Walton

Pelandra is destined to become an immortal and marry the immortal leader of an expedition to a planet circling another star. Along the way, she is expected to marry a series of men selected for their compatibility as spare parts for the immortals. Unfortunately, she has fallen in love with husband Number Three, and he is scheduled for recycling very soon.

Walton is a British fan, making her first professional sale. Very little makes any sense. The whole situation is contrived just to create the problem and obvious ending.

Two stars.

Population Implosion, by Andrew J. Offutt

The oldest people are dropping dead for no apparent reason, and what constitutes oldest is getting younger every day. It turns out that the death rate now corresponds exactly with the birth rate. International efforts try to reduce the birth rate, but somebody’s cheating.

Bob Hope and (presumably) Bing Crosby starring in The Road to Armageddon. Art by Vaughn Bodé

Another story that makes no sense and has more holes than all the cheese in Switzerland. It’s an interesting “what if?”, but Offutt doesn’t do anything with it.

Two stars.

A Ticket to Zenner, by C. C. MacApp

Tom Larrow has worked on the planet Merob for several years, but a revolution means that all non-Merobans must leave. He was attacked and had his passport and ticket for Earth stolen. Lucky for him, since the ship blew up just as it entered space. His assailant also kindly left behind another passport and a ticket to Zenner. With the help of his employer, Tom gets away with a ring of little value and the name of a contact, but someone is still hunting for him.

Tom tries to smuggle himself off the starship. Art by Virgil Finlay

When he’s not writing about Gree or trying to be funny, MacApp is a decent writer. Somebody like Keith Laumer might have made this story (which owes more than a little to North by Northwest) a bit more exciting and tied things up a bit better, but MacApp’s rendition is serviceable.

Three stars.

The Tusk, by L. Sprague de Camp

A very short poem musing on a mammoth tusk in a museum.

Art by Gaughan

I have a poor sense of meter, but the rhythm here feels jarring and inconsistent. The punchline is also facile at best. Not Sprague’s best work.

Two stars.

The Purpose of Fandom, by Lin Carter

It doesn’t have a purpose, says Carter. But here he looks at how science fiction fandom differs from others. Notably, the large number of fans who become pros. This month, it’s those who became publishers and editors, next month will be writers.

Three stars.

Adam’s Eva, by Alan Dirkson

A minor mishap during his activation leaves Adam Pilot more ambitious and more prone to ask questions than most robots. His first day on the job, he meets Eva Hostess, who goes to great lengths to make everything perfect in the hopes that today there will be Passengers. But Passengers never come, and flights are often canceled due to fuel shortages. When Eva disappears, Adam does everything he can to find her, even going down to the Slag Heap, where he makes a big difference to the lives of the unfortunates there and eventually learns why there are never any Passengers.

Adam on the Slag Heap. Art by Virgil Finlay

Here is our second first-time author this month. Line by line, the writing is serviceable, though nothing special. But the whole thing is painfully obvious, and the title really gives away the ending. It’s also a bit long.

A very low three stars, though that might be generous.

Spaceman! (Part 3 of 3), by Keith Laumer

Billy Danger accidentally found himself aboard a spaceship where he committed himself to seeing to the safety of the beautiful Lady Raire. He lost her, found her and lost her again. Now he’s a slave. He befriends a fellow slave, the insect-like Fsha-Fsha, and they plan an escape. Before they can pull it off, Billy is sent to a punishment assignment. He’s rescued by Fsha-Fsha and Srat, whom he thought had betrayed him. Srat is killed, but Billy and Fsha-Fsha gradually work their way toward Raire’s home planet, having several adventures along the way. Eventually, he’ll have to rescue Raire one final time.

Billy became an expert swordsman by… sorting fruit. Laumer almost makes it believable. Art by Castellon

All in all, it’s a decent space adventure, but that’s all it is. Laumer is capable of much better. This also feels like it’s based on his notes for Earthblood and ideas he pitched to Rosel Brown that they didn’t use. It’s a fine novel, but if you have to choose between reading this or Earthblood, choose the latter. However, reading them together will give you a greater appreciation of Brown as an author.

Three stars for this installment and the novel as a whole.

Summing up

A pretty weak issue overall. Some stuff that’s okay and some that fails to reach that level. The Farmer has potential, but we all know he has problems with endings. There’s also a letter from James Blish, talking about his Star Trek book. Apparently, it’s done very well, and both he and the publisher have been deluged with fan mail. There’s a second volume due out towards the end of the year.

Speaking of Blish…

No comments Leave A Comment

Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[May 31, 1967] Phoning it in (June 1967 Analog)

May 31, 2022 GalacticJourney 7 Comments

by Gideon Marcus

Monopoly Bell

For nearly a century, the telephone lines crossing this great nation of ours have been the property of one big mother–specifically "Ma Bell", the colloquial name for American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T). Practically an arm of the government, this entity employs a million people and (for the most part) has no competition.

The Belles of Southwestern Bell

Now, I'm not saying that it's not a near miracle to be able to call anyone, any place in the country, now that direct dialing has replaced operator-assisted station-to-station calling (for the most part). I'm not even complaining that I have to dial seven digits when I call a local friend instead of just four.

I will say that it seems like highway robbery to have to pay 50 cents for a three minute call to my brother in Los Angeles. We've gotten to the point where we don't actually call to let the other know that we got home safe after a visit; we just ring the phone once–that's free. And how about the whopping $12 to (try to) phone my Journey pals in the UK?

Of course, we have the luxury of being fantastically rich–how else could we have a dedicated line and a telefax machine to transmit articles and images?

But for the regular schmo on the street, long distance calling is expensive…and Ma Bell wants you to make it a habit.

Thankfully, their switch to multi-frequency (MF) circuits, where operator-switched connections have been replaced by tone-controlled automatics, has proven quite the blessing, making Ma Bell more efficient, which has in some cases translated to reduced rates.

And for some people, it's resulted in absolutely phree phone calling…

You see, the phone system is controlled by tones, and the tones are consistent–and meticulously cataloged by the phone company in easy-to-obtain manuals. So if you can find some way of producing the tones yourself, you decide whether a call is going to cost money or not. Particularly if you have some way of producing, at the beginning of your call, the 2600 hz tone that indicates to the automatic system that a line is not being used, and therefore should not incur a bill.

If only there was some cheap, easy to find item that would enable you to do that…

That would be MF-ing great!

Broken Monopoly

It used to be that Analog, back when it was called Astounding, was the one game in town if you wanted what we now call "hard science fiction", that crunchy stuff based on real science, and not Buck Rogers stuff. Astounding editor John Campbell ushered in what folks are calling the Golden Age starting the end of the '30s.

It's now thirty years later, and Campbell's still around, and so's his magazine. Unlike the phone company, however, Campbell is content not to innovate, letting the latest trends in the field pass him by. The latest issue is a particularly regressive example.

by John Schoenherr

Computer War (Part 1 of 2), by Mack Reynolds

by Kelly Freas

SF veteran and globetrotter Mack Reynolds has as one of his settings a future in which humanity has spread out to dozens, if not hundreds, of worlds, each free to develop its political institutions as it sees fit. Reynolds has used this backdrop as a way to explore several different types of government taken to extremes. For instance, most recently, he took us to a (seemingly) woman-dominated world in Amazon Planet, which turned out to be something of a paradise. I liked that one.

This particular story features a world with two main nations: Alphaland and Betastan. Between them are 21 neutral nations that don't count too much. The head of Alphaland is contemplating a war on Betastan, which though it will be costly, has been deemed necessary by the computerized statisticians if he is to maintain his grip on the totalitarian country. To get the populace behind the move, he concocts a "Crusade" againt the "Karlist Amish" minority that have corrupted Betastan and threaten to bring the whole world to heel.

Stop me if you've heard this one before.

Mixed in is a bit of political thriller involving a minister and his Betastani spy mistress. But for the most part, it's lukewarm historical allegory. Reynolds can be quite good at this kind of thing, but he's just going through the motions on this one.

Three stars so far, barely.

The Double-Edged Rope, by Lloyd Biggle, Jr.

by Kelly Freas

East meets West in a Yugoslav greasy spoon as two agents swap stories of a rumored UFO invasion. When the Eastern spy goes to make his report, he finds that the BEMs-in-human-form have already taken over, betrayed by their signature stiff pinky fingers.

Oh wait, that's The Invaders. In this story, it's their really small ears.

Either way, it's a stupid story. Two stars.

Political Science, by Douglas M. Dederer

Newcomer Douglas Dederer offers us a detailed and exciting (if one-sided and slightly incomplete) account of how Von Braun's Army team didn't and then did become the first to orbit an American satellite. It's very pro-Nazi…er…Von Braun, and rather anti-Vanguard and Eisenhower, but I learned a lot.

Four stars.

Security Measure, by Joseph P. Martino

by Kelly Freas

A Russian-born American is inserted into the Soviet Union to survey any anti-revolutionary groups that might exist. Once he finds one, he finds himself hip deep in a plot to seize a nuclear missile base and atomize army garrisons around the country as a prelude to a massive internal takeover. Can Michael Antonov stop the plan before millions are vaporized?

Martino's written a lot of edge-of-the-future spy thriller stuff, generally exhibiting decent writing in otherwise trivial pieces. I quite liked this one, however. It feels quite grounded in reality, and the solution doesn't offend credulity or sensibility. If anything, Security Measure feels like an episode of Secret Agent.

Four stars.

Project Lion, by Lawrence A. Perkins

by John Schoenherr

Back down we go with this short piece about visitors from Procyon. The rulers of Earth are convinced that if they don't make first contact, they will be destroyed just like the Incans, the Neanderthals, and every other beaten culture of humanity that got off the second shot. A scramble is made to select the optimum personnel for such a mission.

This story really doesn't make any sense, neither the "logic" involved in the puzzle nor the puzzle's solution.

Two stas.

The Dukes of Desire, by Christopher Anvil

by Kelly Freas

Several months ago, we followed the exploits of a three-man team trapped on a planet under the thumb of robot overlords in Strangers to Paradise. They overcame their difficulties through the use of mind control through scents.

Well, now the team is back. The planet has fallen further into anarchy, and the trio have to figure out a way to put things to rights. A combination of scent application and false identity does the trick, making the planetary population believe that the two ships flown by the trio are actually flagships in an interstellar war. The idea is that an external foe might unite the people of the planet. Or something.

I didn't much like the last story, and I really didn't like this one, even if my nephew, David, sang its praises.

Two stars.

Tallying the Bill

At 2.8 stars, the latest Analog definitely ends up near the bottom of the pack this month, only beating out the perennially puny Amazing (2.2). Scoring better were Fantasy and Science Fiction and If (3.2), with Galaxy sitting on top with 3.3 stars, mostly thanks to the new Niven novella. There was but one woman-penned piece the entire month, and that done under initials.

We did get some bright news this month–apparently Galactic Journey has finally made the Hugo ballot after several years of dashed hopes. So there's the possibility we may actually come home from Nycon with the big rocket ship.

And that would be something to phone about! On Sunday, when the rates are cheaper…

7 Comments Leave A Comment

Science / Space Race

[May 28, 1967] Around the World in 80 Months (May 1967 Space Roundup)

May 28, 2022 Gideon Marcus Leave a comment

by Gideon Marcus

Between the tragic aftermath of this year's twin space disasters (Apollo 1 and Soyuz 1) as well as the dramatic results from the Lunar Orbiter and Surveyor Moon explorers, it's easy to forget the amazing things being done in Earth orbit.

So here's a little news grab bag of some flights you may have missed over the last several months (and even years, in some cases):

Moscow calling

Two years ago, the Soviets joined the world of comsats with the orbiting of their first Molniya satellite. Launched into an eccentric orbit that takes them up to geosynchronous altitudes but then swooping down to graze the Earth, they work in pairs to facilitate transmissions across the 11 time zones of the Soviet Union.

It's an impressive system–half a ton of satellite broadcasting at 40w of power, more than twice that of the Intelsat "Early Bird" satellites. Unfortunately for the Soviets, it's also been a balky system. Both of the first two satellites stopped working within a year, Molniya 1B failing to keep station in space. It's a bad thing when your comsat moves out of position! This is something more likely to happen in an eccentric orbit than in a more-stable geosynchronous orbit where a satellite goes around the Earth once every 24 hours, remaining more or less stationary (except for a little figure eight over the course of the day) from the perspective of the ground observer. Worse, because the Molniyas scrape so close to the Earth, it doesn't take much to send them careening into the atmosphere, which happened to 1B March 17, 1967.

Still, the Soviets prefer their odd orbit because it's ideal for their purposes (giving coverage to Eurasia) and, I suspect, requires less booster power. And it still carries the satellites high enough to return photos like this one, shot by Molniya 1A last year–the first all-Earth photo ever:

Molniya 1C was launched on April 25 last year, Molniya 1D on October 20. They were replacements for their non-functioning companions. But Molniya 1C may well have given up the ghost, too. Molniya 1E was launched on May 24, apparently to replace it.

May they solve their teething problems sooner rather than later!

A Pair of Imps

Out beyond the Earth's magnetic field is the sun's domain. High energy plasmas (the "solar wind") and our star's magnetic field fill the vacuum of interplanetary space. Not very densely, to be sure, but with profound effects on the planets and offering clues as to the nature of the stellar furnace that creates them.

It is not surprising that NASA has devoted so many satellites to understanding and mapping this zone given how many spacecraft (including the upcoming Apollos) will travel through it. Explorer 18, Explorer 21, and Explorer 28 were all part of the "Interplanetary Monitoring Program" (IMP). The first two have already reentered, and the last just stopped working a couple of weeks ago. Luckily, virtually uninterrupted service has been maintained thanks to the launches of Explorer 33 and Explorer 34!

Explorer 33

Explorer 33, launched July 1, 1966, was supposed to be the first of the "anchored" IMPs, returning data from the orbit of the Moon (which does not have a magnetic field or radiations of its own). Unfortunately, the satellite was shot into space a bit too rapidly to safely decelerate into orbit around the Moon. Instead, it now has an extremely high (270,000 miles perigee!) but eccentric (low apogee) orbit from which it still can return perfectly good science. Indeed, NASA planned for this eventuality.

Explorer 34

The other Explorer, #34, was just sent up on May 24. It is a more conventional IMP and will pick up where #28 left off.

With four years of continuous data, we now have terrific data sets on the Sun through a good portion of its 11-year cycle, including the recent solar minimum. I look forward to a slew of reports in the Astrophysical Journal over the next few years!

Yes, I read those for fun. Doesn't everyone?

Bright Future

If the IMPs exist to monitor the Sun's output, the Orbiting Solar Observatories' job is to directly watch the Sun. Prior to 1967, two of these giant satellites had been orbited: OSO 1 on March 7, 1962, and February 3, 1965. A third launch was made on August 25 of the same year, but it failed.

Sadly, the OSOs haven't quite provided continuous coverage over the last five years. Still they have returned the most comprehensive data set of solar measurements to date. And, as of March 8, the wiggly needles that mark the collection of data are jiggling again: OSO 3 has been returning data from its nine instruments on all manner of solar radiation–including and especially in the ultraviolet, X-Ray, and cosmic ray wavelengths that are blocked from terrestrial measurement by the Earth's atmosphere.

The timing is perfect–the Sun is just entering its period of maximum output. OSO 3 will not only tell us more about the nearest star, it will report on its interactions with the Earth's magnetic field and the space environment in near orbit.

A Meteoric Rise

The Soviets have been awfully cagey about a lot of their launches. Every couple of weeks, another unheralded Kosmos heads into orbit, stays there for a week, then lands. It's an open secret that they are really Vostok-derived spy satellites that snap shots and return to Earth for film development. This is utterly reprehensible–certainly WE would never do anything like that.

But while many of Communist flights have been hush hush, one subset of their Kosmos series has been pretty open: the weather satellite flights of Kosmoses 122, 144, 149, and 156!

The first of the Soviet meteorological satellites went into space on June 25, 1966, broadcasting for about four months before falling silent. For a while, it seemed the Russkies were going to keep the pretty weather photos to themselves, but on August 18 of last year, they suddenly started sharing data over the Washingon/Moscow "Cold Line"–both visibile and infrared pictures, too. It appears the delay was due to the Soviet reluctance to announce a mission until they're sure of its success. It is entirely possible that some of the unexplained Kosmoses before 122 were failed flights.

Kosmos 122

The picture quality was pretty low at first, probably due to the length of the line the data must be sent over. Improvements were made, and the new stuff is great.

Since 122, the Soviets have launched Kosmos 144 on February 28, 1967, Kosmos 149 on March 21 (it reentered on April 7–a failure of its weather-related mission, but it successfully tested the first aerodynamic stabilizer in orbit), and the latest Kosmos, #156, just went up on April 27, 1967. It is my understanding that photos are being regularly shared with the National Environmental Satellite Service (NESS) in Suitland, Maryland. I don't know if these are revolutionizing our view of the planet given our successful ESSA and NIMBUS programs, but it does give a warm glow of international cooperation.

If the nukes fly, at least we'll know if it's nice weather over their targets…

From the Far East into the Drink

The Japanese have been working their darndest to become the sixth space power (after the USSR, US, UK, France, and Italy). Unfortunately, all of their efforts have thus far come up a cropper.

Their Lambda 4S rocket is the first one capable of launching a satellite into orbit, specifically an ionospheric probe with a 52 pound science package. The problem is the vehicle's fourth stage. The truck-launched Lambda 3 has been pretty much perfected, but when the new engine was put at the top of the stack, everything went to hell.

The successful precursor of the Lambda 4S, the Lambda 3

On September 26, 1966, the first Lambda 4S was lost when the fourth stage attitude control failed. The fourth stage didn't even ignite the second time around on December 20. That happened again on April 13 of this year during the third flight.

It looks like Nissan and JAXA engineers will be going back to the drawing board before trying another flight. Maybe 1968 will be the year the Rising Sun joins the rising sun above the Earth…

What's next?

This summer, our eyes will surely turn beyond the Earth to Earth's twin, the planet Venus, for June marks the latest opportunity to send probes to the second planet at a premium on fuel consumption and payload allowance. You can bet we'll be covering Mariner 5 and Venera 4 when they launch!

Testing Mariner 5

No comments Leave A Comment

An Undeserted Desert

A Premeditated War

Families Flee Fighting

Dark Days Ahead for Poets (But Still There is Starshine)

55 years ago: Science Fact and Fiction