Word: houdini
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Like a Retired Houdini. For more than two years, O'Dwyer, popular as ever with the Mexicans, airily refused to pay any attention. Harry Truman as airily refused to fire him. But last week, with the Eisenhower Administration on its way in, Bill O'Dwyer gravely notified the President that having "done everything in my power to serve my country well" he was withdrawing from the diplomatic service. The President, in a letter of praise, "reluctantly" accepted his resignation...
Like his friend and fellow fake-hunter, Magician Harry Houdini, Rinn spent a long time looking for evidence of psychic power he could believe in. As a youngster, he was bowled over when a medium ordered him to place the spout of a kettle to his ear and thus receive the words of a "spirit voice." Only after he himself became a magician did Rinn realize that he had been duped (out of $5) by a double-bottomed kettle equipped like a telephone receiver and in contact with a "spirit" hidden behind a panel...
...asks: "If other magicians can do it, why don't they copy me? You can steal anything a man possesses but you can't steal his personality. Am I right or wrong?" Walter Gibson, who has ghostwritten for Dunninger as well as for such other "greats" as Houdini, Blackstone and Thurston, thinks Dunninger is right. "All magicians mix showmanship with their magic," says Gibson. "Dun ninger's on top because he uses only 5% magic and 95% showmanship...
...Thirteen magicians seated themselves in a dimly lighted hotel room in Springfield, Mass., held hands, made one last attempt to communicate with the spirit of the late Harry Houdini. When the lights were turned on they knew they had failed again. Two sets of locked handcuffs (which Houdini had promised to unlock if he could get back from the "world beyond") were undisturbed...
Last week formal glories crowned her behind-scenes power. Opportunist George Tatarescu, who could turn his coat faster than Houdini, had outlived his usefulness to the Communists as Foreign Minister. The Communists kicked him out. On the anniversary of the Russian Revolution, on the eve of St. Michael's Day (his own "name" day), King Michael named Ana Pauker, who was not even one of his subjects, to be his Foreign Minister...