Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the U.S., Britain,
and France had demanded that Russia lift the blockade of Berlin. The
statement occurred in the wake of the French discovery of a document
confirming the belief that the Russians were seeking to drive the
Western powers from Berlin and occupy all four zones with the Red
Army. The evidence revealed that the Russians had instructed
Communists in Berlin to cause incidents which would provoke
intervention by Russian forces in all four zones of the city.
Israel formally and overwhelmingly rejected the proposal
offered by Count Folke Bernadotte, U.N. mediator, to effect a peace
in Palestine. The Israelis were wounded by the proposal to have
Jerusalem placed under Arab administration and opposed any restriction to
immigration, which the proposal left to the U.N. The Israelis asked
Count Bernadotte to reconsider his approach to the problem. Neither
the Arabs nor the Israelis gave a reply to the invitation to extend
the four-week truce, set to run out on Friday. It was expected that
the Arabs would resume fighting when the truce expired. Count
Bernadotte vowed to continue seeking a peace settlement even if the
truce were not extended.
A parade in Prague cheered resigned President Eduard Benes
while his successor, Klement Gottwald, a Communist, received the
silent treatment. The crowd also cheered Yugoslavia and Marshal
Tito. The 80,000 marchers in the parade were of the Sokol Congress,
a national apolitical cultural and physical training organization,
oriented toward anti-Communism.
About 50,000 of the 400,000 bituminous coal miners in the
U.S. were on strike this date following the failure of the captive
mine owners to meet the demands of UMW members, though the rest of
the industry had formed a new contract. The strike affected the
steel industry immediately. The miners wanted a union shop provision
in the contract, rejected by the captive mine owners.
Goodrich and Goodyear announced an increase in tire prices
from five to seven and a half percent, both following the lead of
U.S. Rubber.
Kaiser-Frazer raised its car prices from $23 to $169,
bringing prices to between $2,091 and $2,321, the latter on Frazers,
and up for the deluxe models.
The Democratic platform committee, chaired by Pennsylvania
Senator Francis Myers, was considering having a states' rights plank
to offset the civil rights plank, probably to be a duplicate of the
1944 plank. Meanwhile, Mayor Hubert Humphrey of Minneapolis led 50
other Democrats in an effort to write a plank which would include
all of the President's program, sure to anger Southerners.
General Eisenhower gave a final negative response to the
effort to draft him for the Democratic nomination and refused
identification with any political party. Several Democratic backers
of the General nevertheless persisted in their draft efforts. Boss
Frank Hague of Jersey City wanted the President to ask the General
to become the nominee. Governor Strom Thurmond of South Carolina and
Senator Olin Johnston of that state both supported General
Eisenhower for the nomination and believed that he would not refuse
a draft.
In Los Angeles, actress Carole Landis, 29, died of an
overdose of sleeping pills. She left a suicide note for her mother,
expressing her love and sorrow for taking her own life. Actor Rex
Harrison found her body after being unsuccessful in reaching her by
telephone.
The death toll for the three-day holiday weekend rose to 555
across the nation, nine more than the previous year, including 297
in traffic accidents, the latter being the highest total since 1941.
In 1947, 264 had died in traffic mishaps. The toll exceeded the
estimate of the National Safety Council which had predicted the loss of 235 lives in traffic accidents.
Remember: Whether there are 60 cents injected to the curb bandit or only 50, it's the fortuitous loose cipher which finds its aim in the blurred pandit swiftly, that kills the Oyster's irritated grain with a ruse riper than that used upon Abel by Cain, a crooked stick shifted, become the Garden's viper.
On the editorial page, "What's Ahead in the 'Cold
War?'" finds that the apparent split of Yugoslavia from the
Soviet bloc was not necessarily ground for celebration yet, that it
was too soon and the split too tentative to view it as a victory.
It finds that the developments in recent years had done more
to vindicate the Soviet policy of expansion than the State
Department's containment theory. America had been forced to
undertake the expense of the Marshall Plan, giving the Russians a
freer hand in other spheres and enabling Russia to improve its
industry and agriculture while the West was preoccupied with
military expansion.
America could take a middle course between force and
appeasement of Russia, to engage in diplomatic efforts to formulate
a lasting peace. It favors forming a world federation and and atomic
peacetime production.
"Why We're Dumb in Politics" elaborates on the
University of Virginia commencement address of David Lilienthal, AEC
chairman, published in part on the page the previous day. He had
said that the reason government often failed to solve problems was
that the same type of dedication of mind which characterized science had not been applied to municipal and state
affairs in the
political and social realms. The piece thinks that he did not go too
far in attributing the depression and two world wars, plus the
threat of a third, to lack of sufficient public interest in politics
and government.
The view held by President Harding that politics and
government were simple and could take care of themselves was an
extension of the me-first generation which led to isolationism.
Albert Einstein had said that politics was more difficult than
physics.
It recommends following the course urged by Mr. Lilienthal,
to take an active interest in politics and to engage in public
service.
Sumner Welles, former Undersecretary of State until August,
1943, finds the prospects for Russo-German cooperation greater than
at any time since war's end. To control Europe, Russia had to
control Germany. Russia had been inflexible in its policy while the
West had wavered and still had no fixed policy on Germany.
The French opposed any German policy by the West which might
hasten war with Russia, and the British were also hesitant to engage
in any such program.
At the recent Warsaw conference of the Russians and the
Eastern European satellites, the Soviets had directed Communist
parties to undertake disruptive activities in Western Europe to
decrease the likelihood of Western European government backing of
American action.
America could not continue to feed two million Germans by
air, but yet it could not allow them to starve. The Russians would
not end the blockade for fear of German resentment. The Soviets maintained
that the German problem was caused by the West's refusal to allow
unity of Germany.
The question arose why the Government had allowed a situation
to occur which could only be resolved by force or submission to
Russia's demands to withdraw from Berlin. America could not retreat
as too much was at stake. The recent problems in Soviet-bloc unity,
however, provided hope that the Kremlin would not press the matter
to the point of war.
Drew Pearson tells of Robert Hannegan, former DNC chairman,
having come to the White House to speak with the President recently,
prepared to tell him that he had no chance to win the election. But
he never got to say anything for the intervention of "court
jester" George Allen, who carried the conversation at the
luncheon, echoing the confidence in victory expressed by the
President, who viewed Governor Dewey as a "pushover".
He next provides a cross-section of opinion of key Democrats
as they approached the July 12 convention. Ed Kelly, boss of
Chicago, wanted either General Eisenhower or Justice Douglas as the
nominee. Senator Alben Barkley, to be the vice-presidential nominee,
was unenthusiastically loyal to the President. Former Speaker Sam
Rayburn was worried about the Congressional elections with the
President heading the ticket. Bronx Boss Ed Flynn would sit out the
election. James Roosevelt expressed the belief that a majority of
California delegates should not be bound to a losing candidate. Paul
Fitzpatrick of New York was standing by the President, though most
of the delegation was not. Senator John McClellan of Arkansas
believed it was a matter of saving the nation and the world, not
just the party. Senator Olin Johnston of South Carolina believed
that the President ought realize that no man was bigger than his own
party.
Democratic leaders said that they wished the President would
take a leaf from former Mayor Kelly when he stepped aside for
re-election after it was imparted to him that his strength had
faltered in Chicago. Martin Kennelly was elected in his stead and
was doing a fine job.
Joseph & Stewart Alsop question what the U.S. should do
about the break between Tito in Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, the
first major break in the Soviet bloc. Despite the break and its
suggestion of success of the Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan, Tito
was still a dictator of a revolutionary police state. Recently, a
chief lieutenant of Tito had approached a member of the British
Parliament indicating that Yugoslavia would like aid from the West,
one incident which likely prompted the Cominform criticism. Another
incident involved the impoundment in the U.S. of 50 million dollars
worth of Yugoslav gold, which Yugoslavia demanded, less six million
dollars for seized U.S. property in Yugoslavia. The U.S. wanted 17
million. Suddenly, a couple of weeks earlier, Yugoslavia had offered
20 million, accepted by the U.S.
The Soviets had failed to provide Yugoslavia with badly
needed economic aid and the U.S. had come to the rescue with a
mutually beneficial deal. Tito could not remain free from the
Soviets without U.S. aid.
But Tito had long opposed the U.S. and had recently
reasserted faith in Communism. It was likely that to avoid the
dilemma thus posed, the U.S. would engage in low-level diplomatic
talks with the Yugoslavs through an intermediary, probably the
French or British. The U.S. emissary would likely state that the
U.S. would not hold a grudge against Tito's past statements,
provided he continued his break with the Soviets, in return for
which the U.S. would reach mutually profitable agreements. The
approach was in pursuance of a continuing policy that the internal
affairs of other nations were not the concern of the U.S. as long as
they posed no threat in conjunction externally with other powers,
boiling down to a question of whether they were for the U.S. or
against it.
DeWitt MacKenzie finds the Cominform's castigation of Tito to
have backfired in a way which could produce an upheaval in the
Soviet hierarchy and impact the succession of the Russian
dictatorship. Yugoslavia had appealed directly to Prime Minister
Stalin to reverse the Cominform charges.
The man on the spot was Col. General Andrei Zhdanov, hero of
Leningrad, the right-hand man to Stalin and head of the Cominform.
The Cominform's criticism of Tito was thus attributed to him. The
problem placed Stalin on the spot, either to repudiate the Cominform
and thereby create a Communist internal scandal or to avoid doing so
and allow thereby the rift with Tito to fester.
It also left the question of who placed Stalin in this
position, such that they had to be purged. If it was Zhdanov, was
Stalin willing to purge his right-hand man? He was considered in
line for succession to Stalin, along with V. M. Molotov.
Samuel Grafton, no longer carried by The News, looks at Berlin, finds the crisis
stemming mutually from the U.S. and Russia, from the background of
schoolyard insults being hurled back and forth since the war. Now,
while the Soviets blocked the railroads, the West was flying in
supplies as if to say, “Never touched us.” The decision
by the Western allies to form a West German government, irrespective
of the Soviets in the East, had prompted the reaction by the Soviets
in the form of the blockade and discussions with the Soviet bloc nations anent formation of an East German state. The necessity of such a government in
West Germany, he suggests, had not been a pressing problem and could have awaited more
subtle negotiation with the Russians.
If discussions aimed at peace could not take place, then the
nearly comical situation in Berlin could turn tragic, devolving to war.
Indeed, by October, 1962, it nearly led, in the tit-for-tat struggle, to destruction of
civilization.
