The Charlotte News
Wednesday, March 27, 1946
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the U.N. Security Council had adjourned after meeting for an hour and a half without reaching a resolution of the Iranian case. Russia still adamantly opposed presentation of the case before the Council and threatened to boycott the meeting if the Iranian representative was allowed to make his presentation.
Iran's Political Undersecretary and Director of Propaganda stated that the evacuation of Russian troops from Kazvin, 80 miles northwest of Tehran, was proceeding and would be completed in a few days. He denied that there was an agreement with Iran on the evacuation as contended by Prime Minister Stalin.
There were conflicting reports as to whether Russian troops were actually leaving Iran.
In Portland, Oregon, the FBI had arrested an alleged Russian spy, 29-year old Russian naval officer Lt. Nicholai Gregorovich Redin. He was accused of trying to obtain plans and information on the U.S.S. Yellowstone, a destroyer tender and one of the Navy's newest ships. The Navy denied a report that it was scheduled to participate in the Bikini Atoll atomic bomb tests during the summer and stated that it was instead scheduled to join the Atlantic fleet.
Congressman John Wood of Georgia, chair of HUAC, stated that his committee had been briefed on the arrest and would soon hold hearings on the matter, with emphasis on whether there was any interconnection with the 22 arrested Government officials in Canada accused of providing atomic and radar data to the Russians.
In Chungking, Russia agreed to release to the Chinese the former Japanese puppet governor of Manchuria, Henry Pu-Yi. It was assumed that he would be tried by the Chinese as a war criminal.
China had accepted Russia's offer to withdraw its troops from Manchuria by April 30.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted in favor of confirmation of Averell Harriman to be the new Ambassador to the Court of St. James, replacing John Winant who had held the position since early 1941 following the departure of Joseph P. Kennedy from the post. Mr. Winant, meanwhile, was approved for membership on the Economic and Social Council of the U.N.
Halfway through the UAW balloting for its presidency, reports Max Hall, Walter Reuther was ahead of his opponent, incumbent president R. J. Thomas, by 24 votes. A total of 8,830 votes were to be cast by 2,000 delegates to the meeting in Atlantic City, some delegates having more votes than others. A demonstration for Mr. Reuther had occurred involving about two-thirds of the delegates present, 5,900 of the 2,000.
Hal Boyle, now in Athens, Greece, again writes to his wife Frances in the United States, saying that Greece had about the same population as New York City and, with the following Sunday being election day, everyone seemed to be running for political office. Politics was at the forefront of every conversation among the people. All the buildings were plastered with signs advocating different candidates.
The Parthenon, which he could view from his hotel room, had thus far escaped being turned into a billboard, but its turn, he suggests, might yet come. When lit at night the ancient ruin was a thing of beauty, but by day appeared more dilapidated than the pictures in his schoolbooks had led him to expect.
Los Angeles discovered 64,000 missing persons in an interim census count and jumped ahead of Detroit as the fourth largest city in the country, with a population count standing at 1.73 million. New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia had larger populations. At stake was apportionment of highway funds, which were based on population.
Where the 64,000 persons were hiding was likely the $64,000 question. Probably in the underground tunnels which honeycomb the Los Angeles subterranean world as the catacombs.
On the editorial page, "The Legal Travesty at Nuernberg" finds the horrors being revealed at Nuremberg to have found a jaded American audience, admissions by a commander that he had supervised the execution of 2.3 million persons, most of whom were Jews, having barely caused a ripple in the American press.
One of the more interesting stories had come during an exchange between the Russian prosecutor, R.A. Rudenko, and the lawyer for Rudolph Hess. The lawyer had sought to introduce a document purportedly showing an agreement between the Soviets and Germany to establish spheres of influence prior to the war. The Russian prosecutor objected to the document as hearsay and the tribunal sustained the objection. The German lawyer then indicated his intention to call V. M. Molotov to testify, a request ignored by the tribunal. Laughter was heard from the galleries.
The piece suggests that the rulings of the tribunal appeared contrary to the Western concept of justice. The victors seemed to be demonstrating bias in the trial and it did not bode well for international law forming a safeguard to peace.
The trial was simply a prelude to a foregone conclusion and, says the piece, had become a travesty of justice. The final verdict would not be handed down by the tribunal itself, as it had already been heard in the laughter emanating from the galleries.
confesses some sympathy with the Republican notion that Henry Wallace was attempting to entangle American foreign policy in partisan politics. Senator Joseph Ball of Minnesota, a liberal member of the G.O.P., had accused Mr. Wallace of raising a false issue when he remarked that Republican isolationism would lead to world disaster.While it was true that a good many Republicans had favored isolationism during the twenty years prior to Pearl Harbor, there was no official party line on the subject. Many Republicans, such as former Minnesota Governor Harold Stassen, Senator Arthur Vandenburg of Michigan, and John Foster Dulles were at the forefront of the fight to make the U.N. work.
One of the most dedicated isolationists had been Senator Burton Wheeler, a Democrat. The record of the past six months had proved that the Democrats were hardly above reproach when it came to unified action on foreign policy.
Mr. Stassen wanted to internationalize the atomic bomb, whereas President Truman wanted it under Anglo-American control.
It recommends to Mr. Wallace therefore to stick to criticism of Republican domestic policy, as venturing into the realm of foreign policy was fraught with great difficulty, beset by the inevitability of the charge of the pot calling the kettle black.
"It's Still the Age of Miracles"
tells of a sailor becoming ill aboard the Alexander Doniphan headed north in the rough seas off the coast of North Carolina, and having the fortuity of a plane flying overhead bearing a surgeon, Lt. Commander John C. Grier of Charlotte, who was able to listen via radio to the symptoms of the sailor and make a diagnosis that he had spinal meningitis.A Navy blimp arrived over the ship and lowered a package of penicillin. When the ship reached Ambrose Light at the outskirts of New York Harbor, an air-sea rescue crew met the ship and took the sailor to a hospital.
It demonstrated that there were constructive miracles in the world, affording hope. Perhaps, after all, it concludes, peace might come.
A piece from the Shelby Daily Star, titled "Happy Birthday, Dear Gaston", remarks on the centennial of Gaston County coming in December.
The Gaston Gazette hoped for a Fourth of July type celebration.
tells of Secretary of State Byrnes and Secretary of War Robert Patterson still sticking to their projected need of a million-man Army by July of 1947, the same projection made in January. It sounded of optimism in the face of increasing tension over Russia.He next reports that President Truman had nixed a line from the speech given by Henry Wallace at the Jackson Day Dinner, which had read: "Abraham Lincoln was not a member of our party. But he was certainly a fellow traveler." The President thought it might be misunderstood.
Tories in Britain were pleased with Winston Churchill's speech in Fulton, Mo., because they believed it had doomed the U.S. loan to Britain, which they did not want. They wanted a closed sterling bloc monetary ring for trading, such that the nations of it could only import from England, a strategy which Hjalmer Schacht had devised for Nazi Germany.
The Tories also believed that the speech would help cause war with Russia, something they appeared to desire.
The increase in OPA ceilings on suits did not appear to guarantee an end to the shortage, as hoarding by manufacturers seemed likely until June.
General Walter Bedell Smith was questioned in close session during his confirmation hearings to become Ambassador to Russia regarding whether he had denied that General Eisenhower had reprimanded General Patton in 1943 regarding the August, 1943 incident in Sicily involving the slapping of a soldier. General Smith admitted that he had and was contrite over the matter, and so the Senators did not make much of it.
Mr. Pearson notes that he was not questioned regarding his statement that General Leslie McNair had been killed by enemy fire in in the area of St. Lo in France in 1944, when in fact he had been killed by friendly fire.
Lastly, he relates of John L. Lewis having mentioned to Pittsburgh coal operator Harry Moses that his father, with a bum leg, was a good reason for advocating increased safety standards in the mines. Mr. Moses informed him that his father had suffered the injury to his leg sliding into second base.
tells of a friend who thought President Truman's Jackson Day Dinner speech to have been remindful of Wilkins Micawber, the eternal optimist of Dickens. But since the character came to a bad end, he says, he decided it was not a proper analogue.Next, his friend suggested Candide as the better model, but Mr. Childs also rejected him as too literary.
So, finally, they settled on Pollyanna, with his friend suggesting "Pauleyanna"
The speech had produced the impact of a "feather falling on velvet". It thus appeared unlikely there would be any great Democratic purge of unfaithful Southern members of the party. The President appeared unwilling to take up any cudgels against the men of his party with whom he had served for a decade in Congress, even if they were undermining his program.
suggests that there was a good chance that a Liberal bloc might emerge to challenge the Conservative bloc formed by the Southern Democrats and Republicans.Henry Wallace had stated in his Jackson Day Dinner address that the Democrats would welcome all persons of progress, whether Republican or Democrat. It suggested that Mr. Wallace was making preparations for a liberal coalition. An announcement that 39 Democrats and four Republicans had formed a coalition to fight for the 65-cent minimum wage was another sign in the direction.
FDR would have won all four times even had the South been solidly opposed to him, as they were not. And Southerners and Republicans likely had lost some of their liberal supporters in the latest foray into conservatism. Out of it might come restoration of a vibrant two party system, therefore, built along conservative and liberal lines, rather than congregating in big tents.
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