Daily Hansan
LAWRENCE, KANSAS
59th Year, No. 91
Tuesday, Feb. 27, 1962
Winter Blast Hits Midwest Hard, Activities Slow
Winter continued to unleash another frigid blast upon the Midwest today, curtailing all but the most necessary outdoor activities.
The temperature dropped to minus one at the KU weather station overnight and another low near zero is expected tonight. Snow, which began falling in Lawrence about 8 this morning, is expected to continue intermittently in the extreme east portion of Kansas through tonight, with high temperatures today predicted for the low teens.
University drivers and pedestrians received one break Monday when a burst of mid-day sun melted the thin coating of ice off streets and sidewalks before the new snowfall could make conditions more hazardous.
KU POLICE were not called to investigate any traffic accidents on the campus late Monday or early today after handling an outbreak of accidents during the weekend.
Lawrence police also reported a large dropoff in accidents, answering six minor calls in the last 24 hours.
Snow was being reported over much of Kansas and Missouri this morning, with north winds of from 12 to 20 miles an hour making conditions even worse. The flow of frigid air from the north is continuing and the Weather Bureau in Topeka says it appears there will be no relief in the next few days.
GOODLAND registered the overnight low for Kansas today — minus five. The night's upper range was a 14 above at Pittsburg. Those same two cities represented the range of highs Monday, also, with the temperature reaching nine at Goodland and 33 at Pittsburg.
Topeka's overnight low reading matched the KU observation of minus one to make the 12th time this winter the mercury has gone below zero. The Weather Bureau said that figure represents the most sub-zero readings since the winter of 1935-36.
Bentley Glass
World Would Survive War Says Guest Lecturer Glass
By Dennis Branstiter
The entire population of the world would not be destroyed by all-out nuclear war.
This was the opinion of Bentley Glass, professor of biology at Johns Hopkins University and editor of the Quarterly Review of Biology. He spoke before a zoology class in Bailey Hall this morning.
Prof. Glass said the major opponents in a nuclear war would be almost totally destroyed, leaving the
world to relatively unscathed countries that were not directly involved.
HE SAID in non-combatant countries, the radiation per person resulting from fallout in a nuclear war would be about 12 roentgens (the unit of measure for radiation). He said this dose is roughly equivalent to that taken during a fluoroscopic medical examination.
Prof. Glass will speak at the Humanities Lecture at 8 tonight in Fra-
South Vietnamese Pilots Strafe President's Palace Glenn Envisions Death, Failures
SAIGON, South Viet Nam—(UPI)
—Two American-made pilots planes flown by "discontented" South Vietnamese pilots bombed and strafed the Presidential Palace today in an apparent attempt on the life of American-backed President Ngo Dinh Diem.
Diem escaped unarmed, but three persons were reported killed and 20 injured. One American died while watching the attack.
Ngo Trong Hieu, Diem's minister for civic action, said the "discontented pilots made the attack for personal reasons." He said government officials were investigating the possibility that the attackers were part of a rebel movement against Diem's regime, which is engaged in a life-and-death struggle with Communist rebels.
One of the attacking planes was reported to have crash-landed outside Saigon and the pilot taken prisoner. The other landed in Phnom Penh, capital of Cambodia, and the pilot was held for investigation.
THERE APPARENTLY was no connection between the attack on the palace and the Guerilla campaign being waged against South Viet Nam by the Viet Cong Communist troops from North Viet Nam. More than 3,000 U.S. troops are in South Viet Nam aiding the fight against the Communists with training and supply missions.
ser Theater. His topic will be "Science and Liberal Education."
Hieu said two palace guards were wounded. The only other confirmed casualty was Sidney Ambrose, 59, an American from Ferndale, Calif. His legal address was given by a U.S. Embassy spokesman as Portland, Ore.
AMBROSE DIED IN A Saigon hospital from injuries he received in a fall from a room in his apartment house while watching the attack. He fell, reports said, while the planes actually were strafing the palace.
Ambrose was a contractor working with a firm called Videoco in Saigon.
SOUTH VIETNAMISE paratroopers and marines, along with army and navy units, were rushed into Saigon immediately after the attack. Other troops already in the city remained loyal to Diem. Tanks rumbled along the city's streets and jeeps with mounted machine guns at the ready cruised about on the alert for a further attack, but none came.
Glenn Envisions Death, Failures In Space Flights
WASHINGTON — (UPI)—Astronaut John H. Glenn warned Congress today that some future U.S. space flights will fail, possibly with loss of life. He urged the lawmakers not to lose faith in the space program.
We don't envision every flight coming back as successfully as the three so far," Glenn told a packed hearing before the House Space Committee.
"There will be failures. There will be sacrifices.
Rightist Revival Is Nothing New To 62-Year-Old Crusader
"I HOPE WE WILL all continue to have the same confidence in the program that we have now, despite the fact there will be times when we are not riding such a crest of happiness and success as we are right now."
But today, with the sudden appearance of a host of anti-Communist "schools," "seminars," and "crusades," Dr. Benson has become one of the major suppliers of ammunition to America's burgeoning right wing.
By Fred Zimmerman
SEARCY, Ark.—When you walk into the tastefully plush office of the president of Harding College and the National Education Program here, you need not waste time with ice-breaking.
Dr. Benson has not always been this busy.In fact, since founding the National Education Program 25 years ago he has been preaching his brand of patriotism to nobody in particular.
"TIME IS MONEY," the white-haired man reminded me as he settled into a green leather chair opposite mine. But before we could get beyond that truism, his telephone rang.
Dr. George Stunt Benson, 62, is a busy man.
And if you don't get right to the point, he will.
"We've filled more orders for our materials in the last year than we did in the four years before that. We're getting five orders a day for films alone."
"THIS IS A REAL CONSERVATIVE. grassroots revival," Dr. Benson assured me, removing his glasses and chuckling softly.
N. E.P. spends about $5,000 a month on postage —from an annual budget of $261,000—to supply
the 60,000 persons on its mailing list with an enormous amount of ultra-conservative material.
OF ALL THE NUMBERS in N.E.P.'s expanding repertoire, everybody's favorite appears to be "Communism on the Map," a forty-five minute technicolor film of professional quality, which shows the United States on the verge of being swallowed by a gigantic Communist conspiracy.
Other current offerings:
- About 30 films emphasizing the advantages of the free enterprise system and the dangers of socialism and communism.
- A Styrofoam kit which can be assembled into a $ 3 1 / 2 $ -foot high structure illustrating "The American Way of Life."
- A touring "seminar" of one to four days, featuring films and lectures, and known as a "freedom forum."
- Dr. Benson's weekly newspaper column.
"Looking Ahead," which is sent free to more than 3,000 small papers.
- A multitude of reprinted speeches, such as "How Communism is Financed in the United States," and "Will the Kremlin Conquer America by 1973?"
- Thousands of taped lectures.
Glancing around Dr. Benson's office, I noticed a flag in one corner of the room. The desk was piled high with letters, magazines and newspapers. Bookshelves set into the wall contained about 400
(Continued on page 2)
Glenn, complimented by a committee member for his "down to earth" space talk to a joint meeting of Congress yesterday, also told the space group America's multi-billion-dollar space exploration work would be more than worth what it costs whether or not Russia was in the space field.
In what appeared to be an indirect answer to the doubts of some lawmakers about President Kennedy's announced plan to put a man on the moon before 1970, Glenn testified:
"These things would be worthwhile even if there were no such place as Russia. They are more than worthwhile for our own future, even if we were not in competition with anyone."
ONE OF GLENN'S fellow astronauts, Alan B. Shepard, told the committee the space men make their own luck. He said one of the questions he was asked most often was whether the United States has been lucky in its first three space shots.
Shepard and Glenn were accompanied to the Capitol by the nation's third space explorer, Virgil I. (Gus) Grissom, to help kick off the committee's hearings on the administration's new $3.7 billion space budget.
Grissom, in answer to a question from Rep. James G. Fulton, R-Pa., said he makes about $800 a month as an Air Force captain, and waits his turn with the rest for pay raises.
Glenn and his fellow astronauts ran a gauntlet of handshaking, picture taking and autograph seeking, on the part of dozens of enthusiastic Congressmen, before finally getting around to their scheduled testimony.
THEY SMILED through it all and Glenn managed the best line of the day when 41-year-old Rep. J. Edward Roush, D-Ind., asked Shepard whether he thought it proper to use "these old 40-year-old men" in the space program.
"Space life just begins at 40," shot back Glenn, who is 40.
He said, "When it comes to weapons testing, I am not inclined to be very alarmed about the biological consequences. What we really need to be concerned about is what would be the biological effects of a nuclear war.
"IT IS NOW quite possible for the great powers to wipe themselves out completely," he said. "The best way in the world for us to turn the world over to Communism would be to fight a war with the Russians and leave the world to the Chinese."
Prof. Glass said a situation like that in the novel "On the Beach," where nuclear fallout from a war in the northern hemisphere filtered into the southern hemisphere and destroyed it also, could not develop.
He said 95 per cent of the fallout from a war fought in the northern hemisphere would stay in that hemisphere, even if nuclear bombs were detonated near the equator.
Prof. Glass said the fallout from such a war would concentrate in that area between 30 degrees and 60 degrees north latitude. The United States lies approximately in the center of this area.
HE SAID the fallout from a single nuclear blast would be of three types—local, regional and hemispheric. The local fallout would cover an area approximately 25 to 50 miles wide and 150 miles long. Fallout in this area would consist primarily of particles the size of cinders. All exposed life would be destroyed.
Prof. Glass said regional fallout would occur if the bomb were of megaton size. Radioactive materials would be blown far up into the troposphere (the layer of the atmosphere in which weather occurs) and would be scattered over an area hundreds of miles in width and thousands of miles in length.
He said a number of bombs of megaton size would result in hemispheric fallout. Radioactive particles would be blown up above 40 to 50 thousand feet into the stratosphere (the layer of the atmosphere where no weather occurs).
He said radioactive dust at this level would be distributed throughout the hemisphere by prevailing winds. This fallout would last for an average of two and one-half years.
PROF. GLASS said fallout shelters would provide protection long enough to escape local and some regional fallout but not hemispherical fallout.
The danger from this long-lasting stratospheric fallout would result from radioactive strontium 90 and cesium 137. Strontium 90 would be absorbed by the teeth and bones from food. Its damaging rays do not have great penetrating power and would cause only local damage. The rays might cause bone cancer in the bone cells and lukemia in the bone marrow.
Prof. Glass said cesium 137 does not lodge anywhere, as does strontium 90. Rays emitted by cesium 137 have greater penetrating power than those emitted by strontium 90 and could cause changes in the reproductive cells that would result in mutations.
ASC Meets Tonight In Kansas Union
The All Student Council will hold a general business meeting at 7 p.m. today in the Sunflower Room of the Kansas Union.