Recent Articles

Klaus Grabe (Pathfinder Magazine, 1947)

An article from 1947 that clearly indicated that modern furnishings were a commercial hit in New York City during the immediate period following the war. The furnishings in particular were the product of German modernist named Klaus Grabe. A refugee from Hitler’s Germany, Grabe was a Bauhaus-educated designer who had first settled in Mexico with Josef Albers before moving to New York.

Shortly after this article appeared, Klaus Grabe would write this book: Build Your Own Modern Furniturestyle=border:none.

The Truce of Tangku (The Literary Digest, 1933)

This 1933 news piece concerned the cessation of hostilities that was agreed upon by both the Imperial Empire of Japan and China in the campaign that began two years earlier with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria.

When the withdrawal of Chinese troops is completed, the Japanese agree that their own troops will retire to the Great Wall, which the Japanese claim is the boundary of the state of Manchukuo.

Rudolf Kasztner: Eichman’s Last Victim (Coronet Magazine, 1961)

After reading this article I thought about how deeply Rudolf Israel Kasztner (1906 – 1957) probably longed for a quiet life as an anonymous journalist in his native Bucharest, but the Nazi invasion of Hungary put an end to any possibility of enjoying such a life. Recognizing what the occupying Nazis had in store for the Jews of Bucharest, Kasztner saw that there was no one about who was making any attempt to save them. Rather than close his eyes and hope for the best, Kasztner bravely made the decision to save as many Jews as he could by making deals with the horrible Adolf Eichman. Locating allies at home and abroad, Kasztner managed to save thousands while others died. Today, the descendants of the Jews he had saved number in the hundreds of thousands, but this meant little to the 15 year-old Israeli fanatic who labeled him a collaborator and shot him in 1957.

Early Cold War Events: 1948 – 1956

Attached herein is an essay written during the mid-Fifties that briefly summarizes the primary global events spanning the end of World War II through 1955 which set the stage for that period in Twentieth Century history called the Cold War: the global containment of Soviet expansion.


Click here to read about espionage during the Cold War.

Movie Exhibitors vs Movie Producers (Ken Magazine, 1938)

A 1938 magazine article pertains to a brawl that once existed between movie exhibitors and movie producers involving the Hollywood practice known as block-booking, which required theater owners to commit to movies they have never seen. The article refers to how Hollywood employed their biggest stars to fight legislation in Washington designed to overturn this scheme.


The bill was defeated.


Click here to read about Marilyn Monroe and watch a terrific documentary about her life.


More about the American film business in the 1940s can be read here…

W.W. I Trench Fighting (The New Republic, 1915)

The seasoned war correspondent from THE NEW REPUBLIC filed this essay some five months into the war in order to clarify for his American readers the exact nature of trench warfare. His observations are based upon the trench fighting that he witnessed both in France and during the Russo-Japanese War, some nine years earlier:

There is an illusion that the range and effectiveness of modern arms tend to keep armies far apart. On the contrary, there is more hand-to-hand fighting today than at any time since gunpowder was invented… at this rate the French will not drive out the Germans in months, but on the other hand a frontal attack, and every attack must now be frontal, even if successful would cost several hundred thousand men.


The article was written by Gerald Morgan; by war’s end he would serve as General Pershing’s press chief (ie.censor).


Baseball as a metaphor for war…

Eyes on Chiang Kai-Shek (Ken Magazine, 1938)

Before the war was hours old, Chiang’s most secret plans were known to the Japs. Again and again Jap actions showed foreknowledge of Chiang’s movements and stratagems, as discussed and decided with his most trusted leaders. This explains many mysterious incidents, and makes China’s apparent ‘spy complex’ fully understandable.

Summing Up the Aisne-Marne Offensive (Dept. of the Army, 1956)

This printable page from an R.O.T.C. manual concerns the American military efforts in World War I.
Attached is a useful summation in three paragraphs of the Aisne-Marne offensive. The reader will learn which American and French units participated, the dates on which the battle raged and the German defense strategy.

The battle had numerous and far reaching results. It eliminated the German threat to Paris, upset Ludendorff’s cherished plan to attack the British again in Flanders, gave the Allies important rail communications, demonstrated beyond further doubt the effectiveness of American troops on the offensive, firmly established Allied unity of command…

Comrade Spy (Pathfinder Magazine, 1947)

Fingered as the premier Soviet agent working in the United States by a former communist and editor of THE DAILY WORKER and PEOPLE’S WORLD, Gerhart Eisler (1897 – 1968) – was arrested in the Fall of 1947 and charged with espionage.


Standing before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, Eisler refused to take the oath, preferring instead to read a prepared statement. The committee refused to play along and the Justice Department soon leveled Eisler with additional charges. By 1949 things were looking dark for Eisler; jumping bail he made good his escape and secured passage across the Atlantic. Welcomed in East Germany as a hero, Eisler was soon named director of East German radio and became a prominent voice for the Communist government.

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