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Militarism and Industry by Victor

Perlo. Price $1.80. <
e

HE sub-title of this important

book is—‘‘Arms profiteering

in the Missile Age.’ This is an

accurate description of the 200-

Page expose of who is benefitting

‘trom the colossal military pro-

gram of the United States.

Perlo puts the finger on the
of big corporations in
the aircraft, missiles, shipbuild-

ing and electronics industries
Which have largely replaced the
former munitions makers in
Steel, auto, rubber and chem-

icals, at the government arms-
Spending trough.

But the latter group, and es-
pecially the oil and base me-
tals industries, are benefitting
Sreatly from the foreign invest-
Ment and :overseas business di-
rectly related to the militarized
economy.

The author breaks new ground
in exposing the tie-up of foreign
investment with the military
Program, the extra high profit
Yates and lush opportunities for

business expansion outside the
USA,

® * *
Foreign investment _ positions

depend on the military power of
the investor’s country. Develop-
Ment of that power is necessary
to secure the internal policies,
production costs and. tax
Concessions for realization of
high profits in the countries

where investments are made.
We might add that there is

Pere “ -
reciprocal strengthening of the

WSs military machine by the
U.S. investment giving control of
raw material sources in countries
like Canada.

_Perlo estimates that the ag-

definitely upward.
All this means that the tradi-

tional function of great power
armed forces as instruments of
empire building remains valid

for the U.S. today — although in
‘neo colonialist”? form, which is

almost as effective a source of

gregate profits from U.S. foreign
businesses are significantly larger
than those from military busi-
ness directly. He concludes that
for big business as a _ whole,
foreign and military business
provided 40 to 50 percent of total
profits (including unreported pro-
fits) in 1959-60, with the trend

profit as the more blatant type of
colonialism possible in the past.
* * *

The book contains a wealth of
useful information on the mili-
tary and foreign profits of lead-
ing U.S. corporations. It is some-
thing for Canadians to ponder
deeply that many of the corpor-

ations at the top of the list of

munitions makers in the USA.

have subsidiary companies in
about the same position in the
Canadian list of military con-
tractors.

The only unsatisfactory  ele-
ment in this otherwise excellent
book is Chapter 8, in which the
author attempts a financial bal-
ance of military costs and bene-
fits between labor and capital.
There is no discussions of the
real incidence of the corporate
tax, so it is blandly assumed
that this tax is borne by the
owners of capital.

Under modern monopolistic
conditions, and especially in the
munitions business, it is quite
apparent that. most of the cor-
porate tax is passed on in the
price of the product. There is
no doubt that the big munitions
contractors arrange their costs so
as to produce the desired profit
after tax. In other words, they
pass the tax back on the govern-
ment.

bo * *

Similarly, on civilian-type goods
produced by big corporations,
where prices are administered,
demand, manipulated and costs
tailored (under “‘price-minus-
costing’’), is not the incidence of
the corporate tax almost wholly
placed on the final buyer of the
product, just like a sales tax?

“. . Trends suggest that the
largest owners of big financial
and industrial corporations may

‘Defence’ profits and industry...

become more active, and more

united, in the promotion of mili-

tarism and international tension.”’

Then he says: ‘The battle lines
are drawn — between the arms
makers, foreign investors, and
their financial institutions and
multi-millionaire owners on the
side of doom; and the tens of
thousands of Americans who in

various ways demonstrate their

support for peace.”

In a preface written last Sep-
tember, Professor J. D. Bernal
gives the author unstinted praise
with the comment: “I am sure
that it (the book) will influence

thousands of people throughout _

the world in the direction of dis-
armament and peace.”

There is evidence also that the’
positions of some important in-
dividuals and groups is shifting.
It is precisely in throwing light
on these developments and in
spotlighting the hard core of very
big munitions profiteers that Per-
lo’s new book is so valuable to-
day. :
* * *

In his last chapter, Perlo ex-
presses a sombre note of warn-
ing:

“Certainly developments during
the first year of the Kennedy ad-
ministration were predominantly
toward an increase in interna-
tional tension, and especially to-
ward an intensification of the
armaments race. . .

—U.E. Research Bulletin

The girl who defied Hollywood

oe Garland’s personal bat-
tle against incredible odds
has highlighted the vicious-
hess of the Hollywood dream
factory which imposes a
Nightmare world on the
“stars” it conjures into exist-
€nce. It has shown how quick-
ly the buildup publicity boys
Can slip into reverse when
they get the ‘thumbs down”
Sign from the moneymakers,
how precarious is life at film-
dom’s top.

For Hollywood, the town
Which murdered Marilyn
Monroe, almost destroy ed
Judy Garland, when in 1950
—rejected by the industry for
whom her films had brought
Mm $300 million in box office
Teceipts—she slashed at her
throat with a broken tooth-
Blass, :

“TI was fired—and I couldn’t
8et a job. I was broke. I was
Marked as undependable,
Which was odd after almost

20 years of hard work,” Judy

Says. But it was those 20 years
of hard, slogging work (30
films in 13 years, for ex-
ample) that the Hollywood
atchet-men had not reckoned

WORTH
_ READING |

ay Soviet Economy,
Welve questions answered
y P. S. Mstislavsky.
: In this pamphlet, Mstislav-
= has selected the most typi-
questions and statements
Sut the Soviet Union that
me has encountered in his
Reeenstic experience with
Nigel statesmen, scientists
cultural people.
miheecer that his. efforts
fia lelp toward a_ better
erstanding of the Soviet
Ry of life and how the
Ndard of living of the So-

Vi 2
'et people is improving.

Ne

with.
a * *

For,
song from “A Star is born,”
Judy was “born in a trunk”
—in Grand Rapids, Minneso-
ta, as Frances Gumm, third
daughter of Ethel Milne,
piano player, ang Frank A.
Gumm, singer.

So it was, at the age of 12,
yet with several years of thea-
trical experience behind her,
she appeared with her two
sisters at a Chicago theatre,
mistakenly billed as “The
Glum Sisters.” And it was
only a year later, under con-
tract to M-G-M, she appeared
in a two reel short with an-
other girl singer—Winnipeg-
born Deanna Durbin.

Her film roles followed
thick and fast: with Mickey
Rooney in several “Andy
Hardy films, and in “Babes
in Arms,” Strike Up the
Band,” “Babes on Broadway”;
with Gene Kelly in “For Me
and My Gal”; with Fred As-
taire in “Easter Parade.”’ Not
to forget “The Wizard OF OF:
for which, at the age of 17,

in the words of her

she received an Academy
Award. Her song
“Over the Rainbow”, is, of
course, only one of the many
with which she is always as-

sociated.
* * *

These were her salad years,

JUDY GARLAND

yet 1950 found her broke, in
constant need of psychiatric
treatment, be-devilled by per-
sonal, domestic problems.
What had happened to the

in this,_

money from those years? The
answer was classic in its sim-
plicity: ‘My mother handled
my finances . . . and was tak-
en by every shark in the busi-
ness,” Says: Judy.

Her 1945 marriage to dir-
ector Vincente Minnelli was
on the rocks (they were div-
orced in 1951). “I had to have
money. I had to work. I had
my little girl Liza to sup-
port,’ and so it was, in 1951,
that Judy went to Britain.

Persuaded by her second
husband, producer Sid Luft,
to make a personal appear-
ance at the London Pallaa-
ium, she did so — in the first
stage performance she had
given for 15 years. On that
night, she had a bout of stage
fright —”.. . there were 2,-
500 people out front waiting
to see some kid they remem-
bered from the films.”

She did, in fact, collapse
after the first few moments
on stage, only to recover and
‘give a memorable perform-

~ance to a wildly enthusiastic

audience, Her visit to Britain

seemed the turning point for
Judy Garland, who made a
triumphant return to New
York’s Palace Theatre, where
she smashed box office re-
cords.
* * a

Two years later she return-
ed to the town which had lab-
‘elled her “finished,” to give
a performance in the film “A
Star is Born,’ which put her
in the running for another
Academy Award.

The climb back 'to success

FILMS

‘has not been smooth; separa-

tions from Sid Luft and
threatened divorce, a_ legal
battle over custody of their
children Lorna and Joe.

And, though Judy herself
says: “I have no hatred or
bitterness of Hollywood or the
past,” Hollywood, it should be
borne in mind, reserves a spe-
cial vigilance for those who
have the tenacity and cour-
age to defy it — and get
away with it.

A date to

- PRIL 12, 1961, is a date which
A is indelibly inscribed upon
the memory of mankind. It was
on that date that Yuri Gagarin,
son of a Russian worker and
member of the Communist Paity
of the Soviet Union, broke the
bonds which had tied man to
this planet since time immem-
orial and struck out on the bold

new path of space exploration.

In the two years which have —

subsequently passed, the human
race has progressed even further
in the exploration of the cosmos;
new flights have been launched—_
including the Sovict “heavenly
twins’ saga of last summer, the
U.S. probe of cloud-enshrouded

Venus, and many more.

remember...

Even as these lines are being
written a Soviet space ship is
hurtling through the cosmic void
towards yet another appointment

EARTH: “This ring suits me fine!”

with history — the initial explor-
ation of the red planet Mars; -an-
other Soviet vehicle has been
shot at the-moon, paving the way
for man’s eventual landing on
earth’s satellite.

There remains not the slightest
shadow of. doubt that with each
passing year, man will reach
new heights in the exploration of.
the cosmos, shattering age-old
superstitions and fetishes in the
process. German Titov said he
saw “‘no angels’’ up there in his
17 orbits of Earth.

But it was Gagarin’s flight

_-which made all the others _ pos-

sible. _
And while marking that first
historic breakthrough, it might be

April 11,1963—PACIFIC TRIBUN2i—Page

well to remember that barely
five days later — on April 17,
1961 — the United States also set
out to achieve an objective, for
on that date the infamous Bay of
Pigs attack on Cuba occurred.
Quite a picture! The world sys-
tems — one striving to increase
man’s knowledge and_achieve-
ments, the other struggling, cling-.

SCIENCE

ing tenaciously to the old, out-
worn system and threatening to
destroy everything that man has

achieved through the centuries

in the process.
—J. Ss.

SECS