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Show RAJ Ay drew p cars on tJckX Trk-m . r.Ti. . -i-w Fr 1 Airlift a Grim Problem j Now that the election hubbub Is quieting down, we have to face the ! cold and unpleasant fact that the ' Berlin airlift is in danger of buck-; buck-; ling. Top military strategists are still hanging on to a grim hope that , the airlift will hold out until spring, but it will take cold cash and sheer . guts and American lives to do it. Here is what the airlift it up against: 1. MOST SERIOUS, the air force is desperately short of cargo planes. More than half of j Its elephant-bellied C-54s now I .are flying the Berlin run. Else-! Else-! where the air force has been forced to cut its normal trans-I trans-I port service. But the worst fear is that all these cargo planes, flying right under Russia's nose, might be the target for a Pearl I Harbor of the air in case Russia Rus-sia decides to strike. As the i U. S. navy was paralyzed at Pearl Harbor, so the U. S air force could be paralyzed at Berlin. Ber-lin. 2. THE AIR FORCE is out of i money. Its budget experts already al-ready are working on a deficiency deficien-cy appropriation. The air force also has no money to build new cargo planes, has committed every available dollar to build bombers and fighters. 3. WINTER IS sure to harass the airlift more than the Russians. Rus-sians. In the past Germany's severe weather has grounded better planes than those now flying the airlift. The air force already has alerted its public-relations public-relations officers to prepare for an increase in accidents. 4. THE PROBLEM of maintenance mainte-nance is still serious, though not critical. One-fourth of the planes assigned to the- Berlin airlift are constantly in the pipeline pipe-line between Germany and the United States for repairs. This policy of rotation has been working work-ing better than expected, is one cf the factors that has encour-..ged encour-..ged air force chiefs to predict lat the airlift will finally squeak through the winter despite de-spite everything. NOTE: In spite of the urgent need for cargo planes, Senator Owen Brewster of Maine has been doing his best to block the building of a civilian "Merchant Marina of the air." He has mapped out a legislative legisla-tive program for next year that will wipe out the struggling young airfreight air-freight lines, built up after the war by veterans. The Brewster program pro-gram appears to have been influenced influ-enced by Pan American Airwnys, but it has less chance of getting past congress now that the Demo crats have moved into control. Hoover Discusses Dewey Herbert Hoover was talking to friends in New York Just before the election, and got off some pungent para-graphs about the Republican I sandier; for president. "Dewey." quoth the ex-president or the United States, "will never appoint MacArthur or Taft or anyone any-one who ran against him. He doesn't like opposition. "I can't forgive Dewey for not helping Revercomb or Reese," continued Hoover, referring to the Republican candidates for the senate In West Virginia and Tennessee. "He needs their votes in the senate, but he won't help them because Vicy previously previ-ously opposed him." Reese, it will be recalled, was Taft's appointee a6 chairman of the Republican National committu- and, I as such, worked against Dewey's I nomination. Revercomb had I posed Dewey's request to modify th j displaced persons bill when it was before the senate. Someone asked Hoover whom he would have liked to see nominated by the Republicans for president "Personally I was for Taft." replied re-plied the ex-president, "but, practically, prac-tically, for Stassen He would have been a great vote-getter." Anna Roosevelt's Newspaper Last summer when Anna Roosevelt Roose-velt Boettiger's Phoenix (Arizona) Times ran into rough going, a group of Republican businessmen got a big vision. They saw a chance to swing the state to Dewey. By buying buy-ing Anna's paper, they would eliminate elimi-nate a Truman organ and make it a third Republican paper in a three-paper three-paper town. In a fast deal Involving financing financ-ing by the comparatively unknown un-known California speculator, Fred Tuerk, and his movie, theater the-ater and stock-brokerage partners, part-ners, the paper was picked op for peanuts. With a great fanfare, the paper's New Deal critic, Columbus Geragi. was made publisher and the editorial edi-torial policy switched to Dewey. Result: Arizona headed the parade for Truman. Chagrined and burdened with a paper losing $0,500 a week, the Tuerk forces are now seeking a buyer to take over the headache of being the third Republican paper in Democratic surroundings. Only consolation is that the Arizona Ari-zona climate drew Dewe after defeat |