Retro Raunch Revisit

This month marks the 80th anniversay of the publication debut of SWANK magazine (1941). SWANK started as a men’s lifestyle and pin-up magazine in the style of Esquire. A 2nd more literary series appeared in 1945, and the 3rd (cheesecake moving into eventual hardcore) began in 1955. The mid 1950's relaunch was by Martin Goodman, the founder of Marvel Comics, who oversaw the running of spicy adventure stories and suspense fiction by the likes of Ian Fleming, Graham Greene, Norman Mailer and Arthur C. Clarke. Humorist Bruce Jay Friedman -– father of Josh Alan Friedman, bard of 1970s Times Square -– was an editor by decade's end.


AUGUST 1941 ON THE WORLD STAGE Charles Lindbergh spoke tonight in Oklahoma City saying neither America nor Germany could successfully attack the other across the Atlantic Ocean unless international collapse preceded invasion. His speech was similar to one he gave earlier this month in Cleveland where he declared it would be disastrous for America and Europe to take part in "the present war" with the issue being ever greater than that of war & peace. His conclusion suggested whether the United States would still have a representative government, if its people would still be free, and if the fundamental right of the nation to decide its policies would exist. In his address tonight prepared for an America First Committee rally, the famous aviator said, "It seems clear to me that the quickest way for Germany to lose a war would be to attack America, and the quickest way for America to lose a war would be to attack Germany." Lindbergh's speech along with that of Senator Burton K. Wheeler (D-Mont) was delivered at Sandlot Park, usually the site of semi-pro baseball games. The park was obtained by the AFC after the city council denied use to Lindbergh of the municipal auditorium. He did not refer to the council's action, instead confining them to his topic "Air Power" where he referred to the comparability of air & sea power, commenting that "Aviation has developed as much in a generation as shipping developed over a period of centuries. Germany has used aviation to change the entire technique of warfare, both on land and on the sea. England is using aviation to strike back at a continent she is unable to invade." Lindbergh then bluntly accused the coalitionists who favor entering the war alongside Britian of surreptitiously plotting to create "incidents & situations that would plunge the United States into war under the guise of defending America." He said, "The American interventionists are using aviation to support their claim that the Atlantic Ocean has dwindled to the size of the English Channel. The administration is using aviation to justify the occupation of Iceland, to prepare for the way for an occupation of Africa, and to add to the general hysteria of war. If the British Navy with its bases strung out from Alexandria in Egypt to the Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands off Scotland -- if the Navy with Gibraltar and Malta to assist it cannot remain within bombing range of the European coast, then how can any navy or combination of navies cross the ocean, and without a single base in this hemisphere, land an expeditionary force on American shores..." In summing up, Lindbergh made an unsettling comment when he alarmingly stated, "we should consider the possibility that England may turn against this country before the war ends, as she has turned against Poland, France and Finland."