The Charlotte News
Monday, December 15, 1947
THREE EDITORIALS
McHUGH: I will tell you something that will amuse you to no end about LeMay. When [President Kennedy] named LeMay the [Air Force] chief of staff [in 1961], he came to me, and the President asked me, “You like LeMay?” I said, “Sir, I’ve know him for many, many years, but you’re not the first one who has named him chief of staff.” He looked at me and said, “What do you mean?” I said, “There’s an interesting story [from spring, 1950] that is on record in the Pentagon, but nobody knows.”
When General [Hoyt] Vandenberg was chief of staff and I was with him on a trip to Germany and looking over the troops that were there, when we came back, suddenly General Vandenberg was told that General LeMay [following the death of Air Force Vice-Chief General Muir Fairchild] had been named his vice-chief, which means he’s chief the next time. General Vandenberg said, “LeMay is the head of the SAC, and that’s where he should be. He’s a very good commander, brilliant commander. I don’t want him as vice-chief or chief.” I said, “What are you going to do, General?” He said, “Get hold of the [Air Force] Secretary, Mr. [Thomas K.] Finletter. I will go and see him.”
So we walked together and we saw Mr. Finletter, and he explained to Mr. Finletter. Finletter said, “I’m the one who selected him and I thought I could do that.”
That was illegal actually because you were supposed to talk to the chief to select his vice-chief. You can impose a man on him, but you first have to talk to him. That’s the normal thing.
And [Mr. Finletter] said, “Not only that, the President, President Truman, has accepted and is delighted, and has signed the papers on it.”
“Do you mind if I can go and see President Truman?”
“No,” he said, “You go and see President Truman.”
General Vandenberg and I went to see him. I knew Truman very well, you see. I called and I said, “Mr. President, the Chief of Staff would like to see you.” I called his secretary and made an appointment. We walked in and [General Vandenberg] explained that he did not want General LeMay as his vice-chief or the next chief of staff. Truman said, “I did not know your point of view on that. It was told to me by Mr. Finletter who apparently did not know either. I withdraw my recommendation. As of now he is no longer the vice-chief of staff.”
We walked
out of there. Now LeMay was furious. He was already selling his house, he was already
moving his furniture, and when we came back to Fort Myer, to the house that Vandenberg
had, Mrs. LeMay was measuring curtains
STERN: Isn’t that fascinating
McHUGH: It’s amazing. So then he took a man called General [Nathan F.] Twining, who was a two-star general, who was the head of the Alaskan
command, made him a four-star general overnight, and named him as vice-chief
of staff which Mr. Finletter signed and agreed. Truman signed and agreed
A letter writer thinks that if a political party could control primary and secondary schools of a state, it could perpetuate itself in power for twenty years. He thinks the North Carolina schools were being controlled by Democratic propaganda.
He points out that in Mississippi, 77,000 votes determined the destiny of the state, of which the population was nearly 2.2 million.
North Carolina had been dominated by the Democratic Party since after the Civil War, with the exception of a four-year period in the mid-1890's, during which the Fusion Party held sway. And only half as many citizens took part in elections as in states where viable two-party systems existed.
A
letter writer urges less emphasis on the material world and
more on the spiritual being, resting on the "solid rock
A
Quote of the Day: "We are thankful to be sound of limb
and alive. Our longevity we attribute to the grace of God and the
fact we never go hunting