Word: breather
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Clare Boothe Luce took a breather in her fight for civilian control of atomic energy, gave her House colleagues a peek at the shape of things to come. Minnesota's Representative Walter H. Judd started it all by observing that radioactive elements might be used to transmute the human species. While they were about it, suggested Mrs. Luce, let's transmute all women into Lana Turners. As for the male prototype: "a very large head, one eye, an ear bent permanently to receive a telephone call, one hand with only a thumb and forefinger so it can sign...
...Breather? In Washington, worried Economic Stabilizer Chester Bowles came up with an idea, tried it out on unenthusiastic Harry Truman, then hurried off to try to sell it to Labor Bosses Phil Murray, Bill Green, et al. The idea: let the C.I.O. and A.F.L. chiefs agree to recommend to their memberships that the U.S. have a year of industrial peace. Bowles asked them to say, in effect: "Brothers, now is the time to keep our feet on the ground and get production going against inflation; let's keep working and lay off any new wage demands except those already...
Chester Bowles' plan for a breather (not a flat no-strike pledge) was two-edged. By it he hoped1) to save for labor some semblance of price controls; 2) to give the President something positive to say to Congress if, as expected, it sends him a tattered OPA bill he might be tempted to veto. The President thus might be able to say: I have a pact for a year's peace, for production's sake. Now give labor the assurance that rising prices will not nullify better wages...
During the war the bones and buildings of Ancient Man slept soundly. With almost every promising digging site out of bounds for one reason or another, the world's archeologists-many of whom were engaged in military intelligence work -had a long breather. Now, having evaluated such new, war-perfected tools as mine detectors, stereoscopic air photography and explosive microcharges, they are on the prowl again...
...Bonds. After a four-year breather, Kirkeby started buying again. He concentrated on class hotels because "it costs no more for maids to clean an $8 room than for a $3 one." He picked up the Nacional in Cuba, the Beverly Wilshire and the Sunset Towers in Los Angeles. Then, backed by Chicago's sewer contractor Steve Healy, he bought Chicago's 3,000-room Stevens from the Army. (The Stevens, too, was subsequently sold.) But Kirkeby's biggest splash was the Hampshire House, ankle-deep in carpeting, knee-deep in income...