1960-04-01

The Awesome power of Jack Paar

By PETER EVANS

name is Jack Paar,

Hand the chances

arc

you've never heard of him.

Yet this men, this one-time mall-time American radio an- nouncer who arrived in Londen almusi unnoticed Inst week, is now probably one of the most powerful, influential men in the United States,

Yet he in't a politician or big business tycoon or iven

แ

ព

union boss. No, Mr Paar as a far mare potent power in this

modern age than rich men,

For Jack Paar is a TV per- sonality. His nightly two-hour watched programme is avidly

by on audience estimated ut viewers 19,000,000

throughout American and Canada over network of 150 stations,

The show, called "Tonight,"

is packed with interviews

and

THE CHINA MAIL, FRIDAY, APRIL 1, 1960.

Don Iddon's Diary

THE SHORN SAMSON IN THE

WHITE HOUSE

conversations with famous and Again the four-yearly flat season clamps down on the U.S. Administration. sometimes not-so-famous peo-

ple. Puar, relaxed as spaghetti, adds his own comments

potted philosophies and mentaries

CHARMING

com-

Wost is looking for leadership it should look to Macmillan

If the

WARNING for the West from Washington: Do not expect leadership from the self-named Capital of the Free World for nine months at least, if then. This is a caretaker capital headed by the amiable Dwight Sometimes there is a political Eisenhower, now unkindly called in the American phrase, "a lameduek edge to Paar's comments. Re-President." cently, as he told me, he

han

been defending Cuba's Fidel Castro-"I'm

Castro's Jast

These are the dying months

stronghold in America," he said.of his administration and he can

Ап

Now this man, remember, is entertaler, Ye nighty. with charm and humour and warmth, he is imposing his own nil- on many personal views lions of people.

It could,

It needs Just one men

ness

with

never run again.

Mr Eisenhower sald Fest week in answer to a quest(cn

No che wi about his plans;

or what I do

care about me alter July."

WASHINGTON WEDNESDAY

**Kennedy

ore

الله

Yel any more. The Presidential a year every four years. only a few people in the capital candidates are mediocre and

entire cumber- ininor. They urge that the

"too" some archale system of primary emdidates. contests, midsummer conven- tions, November elections, rud

maugurations are stil January

streamlined and modernised. shorn

The whole process could well be done in three months or Instead, we have the under. long, cold winter and the long. hot summer and the autumn of paralysis.

July, Is the month of the Presidential conventions. when This, to me. Is a phenomenon the candidates will be choren, which needs a sober examina- but after July there tion ...

before it happens in

six imonths with ke sitting in Britain. Because, let's face the White House, the

Samson.

This means that the West goes the awesome talents of Mr Paar. teaderless unless Mr Macmillan

discan exert his persuasive But perhaps even more

Der turbing is the apparent readisonality to, replace the retiring

with which millions of

Eisenhower new dreaming of a Americans now necept the Par

green twight of golf courses.

urmland, and poker games. patter.

I am perturbed by the, atti- of mind of Washington. tude The Senators, the Congressmen, the White House and State De- partment officials shrug their shoulders and say "What can we do? This is election year." So the illness which comes every four years and effectively Only six Seniors WOTS paralyses the United States their places, and

"My show can make a 50-50 elling book into a best seller," he told me.

"I make personalities on my Nobody show, Peter Ustinov,

Poor until he appeared on the

her show. Gingold, I made name in the States having her on the show."

POPULAR

Just too too...

I have rarely known this city on the Potomac go listless, tack- ing life and energy

I took a trem lowards the Capitol and then to the Senate to watch

"the what is called

exclusive club" world's most

but only by itself) in action.

DAT GOL OG MOL...

JULIE ANDREWS: The first Lady stopped down, but the show gaas on and on and an and on...

IT SPELLS

MONEY FOR

MR MANEY

WHAT, I wonder, would

Bernard Shaw have enid if he had had the slightest idea how much money he would be making after ho Was dead?

In itz first four years. (It started (1st fifth- year the other day) My Fair Lady has paid £380,000 to the

Shaw estate. That, under tho musical'e original contract, is 3 p.c. of the gross-over £12,000,000~~~ it has poured into the box- .offees of New, Yrak, touring American cities. London, Stockholm. Helsinki, Oslo. Copenhagen, Mexico City, and Melbourne. And there's no sign yet that the show's run will ever end. To- day's theatregoers may be old... men, before they get around to Alming My Fair Ladly.

Isn't it odd?

I have been chatting about It

to Dick Mimey, the Irish- American Frers ngent who is so much of a character that he ought to be in the show. In his rich baritone he song "Dat gol og mol I sölen en Espanjol, "That's how

The Rain In

Spain came out in Danish," he said

"Dld you realise that My Fair Lady is the only theatre show President Elsenhower has ever gone to see since he entered the White House? "There was a night when the Liza Doolittle understudy was felled by virus, and Karen

Que Sheperd, stroll

understudy's understudy, went on for three bewitching hours.

violent, but from the lassitude there is the or even Mcmie's him become more is too young and the Summit,

In Д too Catholle; Humphrey is too latest beauty treatment. Incl anyone who says he doesn't like Hcentiousness.

the through the entertainment area Johnson talkative:

is too dentally, the

of the is liable to get what consumption

a string of G-string I found here is the horse gave Senator Morse. Texan: Symington ton Southern alcohol per capita

striptease joints and nude im Truman and Adlal highest in the country, and too

traps. "Best nudist film ever," Stevenson is too often, having

Mrs Eisenhower. the First

sold the posters, Nude in A returned to the capital been besilen twice before, and Lady.

the other

White Car. Battle of the Bur- her two day after Nixen too opportunist."

leaque

Maling Queens. The weeks at the Phoenix, Arizona,

1724 wealth farm.

the lonely

Urge. Most Amazing Female Impersonators in the World, ike, after being snowed up al

"Steamy French Stav." his farm in Gettysburg, was back at his White House desic

I said. "What about the out- Ride: Wayne Morse of Oregan?" She told me he had been hurt again, this time being rushed by u sow. You will recall that Morse was kleked in the face by a horse

and then unkindly

Just too... The President's endorsement fichard Nixon for President has not caused much of a stir. Mr Nixon's Washington friends are urging him to stari cam- palening instead of acting as umpire, referee. and prizegiver sports, events all over the

country. Their huge personal popu- remains undiminished.

What on earth is the proud and lovely capital coming to when it puts on shows that New York and even New Jersey

1 am finding Washington

Apart band long ago? upon changed in other ways.

kicked again by Clare Boothe Iarlty Luce, the wife of the publisher The power of the President may

the attacks and beautiful. it temperamental, huve gone, Ambassadress to Rome.

The lovely daughters of Chlef Justice Earl Wurren were on display with a squad of Wash-

e hugton correspondents and per-

Government has come again. Southerner. of course, carrying laps a dozen Senators, a score on the interminable filibuster of Congressmen and their wives,

against negroes' civil rights had the floor.

and various generals, admirals, colonels, majors, and captains The live others were reading and their ladies. magazines or dezing.

It was quite party, the drink General ren in rivers and no one, appar-

This jail is TOO

Hobart.

It will last until next January, when the next Presideal is in- augurated,

Unti then all plans, bine- prints and bets are off,

The rest of the Western world

Joseph Bailey asked me to, the ently, except myself seemed to cord as saying that a had will just have to sweat it out.

country that It gives up almost "There aren't any giants here year of paralysis, the last no to jail built at Riedon, about basin,

con du The great man wrong, it seems. A few weeks 200,000-a-year star ago, the walled out in the middle of his show in front of millions of viewers after a row with his borses over a juke they censored,

Lyes brimming with tears, the handsome, 42-year-old, balding Mr Paar told his great public: "Goodbye. You have peachy to me always."

bren

Let Mr public The

What happenert?

explain: "The Taur reaction was tremendous. switchboard was junimed, you know. And, er, 40,000 letters of protest poured in. That's the figure was told. 40,000 I usually get 1,000 leiters a day, I'm told. But 40,000."

Then milestly: "So the net- work. NBC, you know, asked me to think things over. So decided to stick with them."

Mr Paar forgot to mention that such was the public hysteria at his walk-out that in the streets buttons with the legend "Come back, Jack," were being sold.

SINCERE

I asked: "Why do you think you're so successful?"

allence. A small

Then, "I

It is a phenomenon of this

A dinner-dance

wife

(1 Senator told me: he curing too much about the

Potato

it's going

THAT

'knows' when

to rain

HAT earthy object, the potato, is a first-rate weather forecaster. It can breathe. And it reacts, in advance, to changes in barometric pressure. Who says so? The Russians.

While their colleagues have been firing off Sputnike, a group of Moscow scientists, led by blologist Albert Emme, has been

of dozens of experimenting spuds.

a basement

Inboratury.

guess because I'm sincere. And they sliced them hito chips, people can spot a phoney as popped them Into glass quick on hell."

bottles. and hitched them to sensitive apparatus to their "breathing."

I said: "Your programme is reputed to be entirely upon taneous Sure it so why do you employ four writers?"

Another

A potato has

The World

of Science

by Peter şi minsan

com-

smaller Smaller and record

pufers are promised following the distinctive discovery of a device called the rhythm in its breathing. they micro-module. It is a tiny wafer report.

rhythm And this

is ut ceramic, on which compicte circuits can bu noticeably by alr eles.rical

"printed." Twenty dvr stacked lcgether are no bigger than a So, already, the rugar cube. transister is obsolescent.

slightly disturbed silence, longer than the first. Then, pressure changes, radiation "Well, that's a good qucation. cosmic rays. Uhhua. You see, they boye to think up ideas:

They claim they were not only able to judge barometric pres-

at the time, but could Spring-loaded

"They may work a whole day cure tidalding up oue idea. Like, uh, forecast, from the potato's be me wearing a bowler hat andhaviour, pressures for a day or carrying an umbrella because two ahead. I'm in London, Sco?"

But before the spud can be is a miniature 9ation, Emme hundreds of thousands more

1 sald: "The American public relied upon seems to have a great deal of tuet,

carry is lond at exactly the same height for 20 years.

Another, used in the fuel con- trol jet engine, must not vary in Į Its work by one thousandth of an Inch. One hundred thousandth of an inch thick, it stands only an inch high.

Space trails

Millions of meteors enter our ainuosphere every day, and burn up. In doing so, they Icavo trails of Electrically charged particles behind them, often 15 miles long.

Scientists believe it may be possible to use these trails to reflect radio signals for world- wide communications. They est:- male that several meteors per minute would be available for ure between any two stations on

motor the earth's surface.

What have a watch, a light switch. an escalator, a cir, a pistol and a washing machine in common? Answer: opitars.

Promising

love for you. What do you think experiments are fieċded." He Ollen, they are only try, but experimental

of them?"

"I'm an entertainer, not adde: "Nonetheless, It is a roost father Agure. My ambition in to tractive project," retire, Get the hell out of 1.

Go fish some place. And when Midget "brains"

I've saved enough money, that's Just what I aim to do."

Watch out for the man with a sallesse he may be carrying Around a computer,

The U.S. National Burdau of row bullt un We take them for granted. Standards has

zystem. and they are vital. Emciency may be succeeded in bouncing messages the difference between 11te and the "shooting star" Itails. Because the system only works death. So a brand-new £47,000 intermittently, messages are fixt spring Tescărcil Inborntory, which will be cpened in Sheffield recorded on tape. has an important role to play in Britain's relentine research programe,

One of these midget "bralns" It will test sorings ranging will be demonstrated in London from four-thousandths of an inch

NOKI

A continuou probing anal nearches for a suitable trail, then nulomatfenlly switches on the transmitter when one is found, The taped message in fached at

a speol of 4,000 words a minute

AL £200,000 A year-o various gifts from his sponsors such na earn and other trinkets I imagise Mr Juck Panr will

Although portable, to thige' inchp" thick, Fontle to the receiving station hundreds soon be thing. I hope so. For Mr Paar is a pleasant, sincere it can be used to build simple recurney in calod for. One glant of miles away.

electrical models of car suspen- Burled, to go under a power conlenber weighing sion systene or heat exchanger et

everal tabs; enist be miške to Fin a nuclear power station.

man who just happens to have inherited power with his fame. (Landon Express Horvlov},

THE Tasmanian Legisla-

ture

has gone

on to-

now

comfortable

comfortable best,

table better conditions than they had seven miles from Hobart, is and chair and even the jams in their own homes," TOO comfortable for have attractive shades on then. prisonors.

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