When is keeping a secret more trouble than it’s worth? Above, a rather nice uncredited cover for Akeus Edwards’ Echec au F.B.I., number twelve in ERC’s series FBI Fichiers Secrets, aka Secret FBI Files, published in 1962. The series was originally published in Italy and, according to our friend over at Muller-Fokker, who helped us with info on this piece, "badly translated, like something out of Google translation." No surprise, then, that Akeus Edwards was a pseudonym for an Italian author named Rino Pele. Many pulp/sleaze authors used pen names, but the passage of time raises a question about such subterfuges. We get that they wanted to distance themselves from what they perceived to be low rent literature, but since the pen name thing makes it nearly impossible today to attribute certain books to their real authors, we wonder if any of them, if they were alive, would feel the entire practice was a bit self defeating. Just wondering.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1985—Theodore Sturgeon Dies
American science fiction and pulp writer Theodore Sturgeon, who pioneered a technique known as rhythmic prose, in which his text would drop into a standard poetic meter, dies from lung fibrosis, which may have been caused by his smoking, but also might have been caused by his exposure to asbestos during his years as a Merchant Marine. 1945—World War II Ends
At Reims, France, German General Alfred Jodl signs unconditional surrender terms, thus ending Germany's participation in World War II. Jodl is then arrested and transferred to the German POW camp Flensburg, and later he is made to stand before the International Military Tribunal at the Nuremberg Trials. At the conclusion of the trial, Jodl is sentenced to death and hanged as a war criminal. 1954—French Are Defeated at Dien Bien Phu
In Vietnam, the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, which had begun two months earlier, ends in a French defeat. The United States, as per the Mutual Defense Assistance Act, gave material aid to the French, but were only minimally involved in the actual battle. By 1961, however, American troops would begin arriving in droves, and within several years the U.S. would be fully embroiled in war. 1937—The Hindenburg Explodes
In the U.S, at Lakehurst, New Jersey, the German zeppelin LZ 129 Hindenburg catches fire and is incinerated within a minute while attempting to dock in windy conditions after a trans-Atlantic crossing. The disaster, which kills thirty-six people, becomes the subject of spectacular newsreel coverage, photographs, and most famously, Herbert Morrison's recorded radio eyewitness report from the landing field. But for all the witnesses and speculation, the actual cause of the fire remains unknown.
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