The Charlotte News

Monday, December 4, 1950

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that U.N. forces had erected a rearguard shield ten miles north of Pyongyang this date to protect their retreat south, as little fighting was reported in the northwest sector. The Chinese Communists had positioned five armies of fifteen divisions, up to 150,000 men, south of the Chongchon River, within striking distance of the former North Korean capital.

Correspondent Tom Lambert tells of Pyongyang being doomed to fall again to the Communists, causing thousands of city residents to evacuate. Some refugees, seeking escape across the Taedong River via a bridge which had been partially destroyed by the retreating Communists in October, walked along the undestroyed portion and then crawled the rest of the way over bent and broken girders.

General MacArthur had estimated that more than a million Chinese troops, a fourth of its total armed strength, were either in Korea or heading to the fronts from Manchuria and Central China, with 818,000 in North Korea or along the Yalu River, with 268,000 in the combat areas. He said that preparations had to have been made long ago for this type of mass intervention.

Correspondent Leif Erickson reported that the new allied defense line might center around Seoul and Inchon, that it was unlikely it could link up with the Tenth Corps in the northeast sector.

In the northeast sector, the enemy were mounting a more immediate threat to the U.S. Marines and four other U.N. divisions, threatening Hamhung and Hungnam. Marines and infantry battled desperately to escape traps in the Changjin reservoir area, though enemy pressure on their positions was reported eased this date.

Chinese forces were moving toward Wonsan on the east coast, threatening to cut off that supply port from the Tenth Corps.

The Chinese released another 27 wounded Americans in the Changjin area, bringing the total to 84 such released wounded American prisoners during the previous two weeks.

Allied bombers and fighters hit the Chinese and North Korean remnant forces throughout the North. But the numbers of enemy troops were so great that it appeared they could move into South Korea at will if ordered to do so.

The Nationalist Chinese reported that more than 30 Communist Chinese junks were blown up at the South China port of Wuchow while being loaded with supplies consigned to the Indo-Chinese guerrillas of Ho Chi Minh.

At the U.N., the U.S. and five other nations formally asked the General Assembly to consider the resolution condemning Communist Chinese intervention in Korea and ordering withdrawal. It was believed that the 14-nation steering committee might consider the matter by the following day. The resolution had been vetoed by Russia in the Security Council the prior week. It was not clear whether the resolution might be revised before the Assembly, possibly to be decided after the consultation the next day between British Prime Minister Clement Attlee and the President. Prime Minister Attlee had arrived in Washington this date to discuss a variety of issues, primarily centering on defenses of Western Europe and the German question.

Three scientists who worked on the atomic bomb and two men identified as veteran Communist organizers, Steve Nelson and Marcel Scherer, were indicted for contempt of Congress for refusing to answer questions of HUAC regarding whether they had ever been Communists. HUAC said that the five were engaged in a Communist cell to infiltrate the University of California radiation laboratory, developing the atomic bomb during the war.

The top eleven American Communists, convicted under the Smith Act and sentenced to five years each in prison, had submitted their briefs on review before the Supreme Court, seeking to have the 1940 Act, making it a crime to advocate or teach the violent overthrow of the Government, declared unconstitutional. They claimed the Act violated free speech and also Due Process for being vague and overbroad in its reach such that it criminalized protected speech and activity. Oral arguments were to take place this date.

Following a White House conference, Congressional leaders said that the President had urged the same benefits for G.I.'s of the Korean war as those received by veterans of World War II. He also urged creation of a civil defense administration with broader powers than the one he had created by executive order. He also sought Federal aid for training of additional doctors and other medical personnel.

Secretary of the Treasury John W. Snyder told the Senate Finance Committee that total Federal spending might reach 67.5 billion dollars in the coming fiscal year and that the currently proposed 3.4 billion dollar excess profits tax pending before the House would not be big enough.

The stock market was adversely affected by news of the retreat of U.N. forces in Korea, with stock prices falling from one to three dollars per share.

Near Southport, N.C., 39 children were injured, three of whom seriously, when a school bus was sideswiped by a loaded produce truck. The bus, traveling at about 25 mph at the time of the accident, was carrying between 40 and 45 children to the Brunswick Training School. The truck was traveling at between 35 and 40 mph and the driver reportedly blew his horn as he sought to pass the bus.

It does not do any good to blow your horn if you are going to sideswipe the passed vehicle.

A report by The News, based on a Civil Defense booklet issued by the Government, tells how one could survive the atomic bomb, that persons a half mile from the blast had a 50 percent chance of initial survival. Slightly over half of those in Hiroshima who were a mile from the blast were still alive. Nearly 70 percent of the people the same distance from the blast in Nagasaki had survived. Thousands were housed in new housing where their old ones had stood and the residents were not riddled with cancer. Many who temporarily were rendered unable to have children after the blasts were now able again to reproduce. But being within a half mile of the blast reduced chances of survival to only ten percent.

So, the obvious conclusion is to make sure that you are not within a half mile of ground zero and that the bomb they use is no more powerful than ones no longer being used. Simple. When you see the big light, the new sun in the sky, run like hell in the other direction. And if they throw more than one at your town, good luck. Don't worry, though. If you can't run fast enough, you won't even know what hit you, as you will be vaporized instantly. It's more painful to watch than to endure probably.

A new, intense Southeastern storm, following the same pattern as the one a week earlier, but expected to be much less severe, was developing along the Eastern seaboard this date. Winds were expected to reach 39 mph or higher, with gusts to 50. The storm formed over northern Georgia Sunday. Central New York had heavy, wet snow and New York City, rain with winds expected to reach 40 mph. No atomic blasts, whether originating in the South or nor, were yet projected for the area.

Incidentally, the idea that if Hillary Clinton had been elected, we would now be in a war has to be the winner for the moronic statement of the year. For, maybe it did not dawn on you, we are in one.

On the editorial page, "Peace Hopes Are Fading" tells of the demands of the nine-person Chinese delegation at the U.N. not having made clear its demands for declaring a truce in the Korean war. Informed observers had speculated that these might include withdrawal of U.N. forces from the Manchurian border, either to within a buffer zone or behind the 38th parallel, where the war had begun, the lifting of U.S. naval protection of Formosa, and the admission of Communist China to the U.N.

If those were the only conditions available, chances to avoid a war with China, it offers, were slim. The U.N. decision to cross the 38th parallel had been well-reasoned, that if the North Koreans were permitted to regroup again in the North, the entire war would have been futile, awaiting another incursion in the future once they had again built up there military capability. With Chinese intervention, the same prospect would occur vis-à-vis China with creation of a neutral zone below the Yalu River.

The lifting of protection of Formosa might have occurred but for the intervention in the war by the Chinese Communists, but could not be done in light of the latter exigency.

By its aggressive intervention in Korea, Communist China had also forfeited any right to belong to the U.N., and such an effort would be vetoed in all probability by the U.S.

If there was any way to restore peace, short of withdrawal by the Communist Chinese forces, it was not apparent. It counsels hoping for the best but preparing for the worst.

Duck and cover or run from the new sun.

"UMT and the Congress" discusses the need to maintain an active military, that universal military training would not do the entire job but was necessary to maintain the required trained military force. It urges therefore passage of the enabling legislation immediately. Five years earlier, UMT was deemed unnecessary except by those who were military-minded.

Dr. James B. Conant, president of Harvard, had written in Look that every young man attaining the age of 18 should be enrolled in military service for two years, with that limit maintained except in time of global war.

Congress was generally slower to react to matters than the public and had been so on this issue as well out of fear of its unpopularity. But the people were aware of the global dangers and were prepared to sacrifice to meet them.

"Too Many 'Exclusives'" tells of General MacArthur speaking out four times the prior week on matters of international importance, through the prompting of newspaper or radio correspondents. On Wednesday he had sought to explain his "troops home by Christmas" remark by passing it off as a merely "jocular" exchange with his generals. The prior Friday, U.S. News & World Report issued an exchange with the general, and the New York Times printed a story based on a radiogram which the General had sent to Arthur Krock in response to a query. Hugh Baillie, president of the United Press, wrote a story from a long cablegram sent to him by the General. This day, another cablegram response appeared, from The Freeman.

Each story overlapped the others but also contained some new nugget of information.

The piece objects to this gradual manner of dissemination of news of world-shaking events. What the supreme commander of the U.N. forces in wartime had to say belonged to the world and should be released to all media at the same time rather than being dribbled out bit by bit to the most enterprising and favored journalists.

A piece from the Franklin Press, titled "Fontana Shows the Way", tells of Fontana Village in North Carolina having set out to become a tourist resort and going a long way toward accomplishing that goal. The conversion, taking advantage of its natural surroundings, was serving year-round.

It suggests that Macon County, site of Franklin, could learn from the example, as it had a tourist business only during the few weeks in mid-summer, producing only a meager income for those who relied on it. Tourism had become generally in the country a year-round industry and it urges making the most of it.

Get them people in there in their automobiles to pollute and use their gas and burn up the planet, to buy some little over-priced trinket as a souvenir, sold in a hundred places, but, by dint of bearing the decal of your place, suddenly embraced of uniqueness in remembrance of the trip, or read about some natural history that could be read at home in a good book from the library in much greater detail and depth, and with more comprehension and retention of the point... There ye go.

But it's fun to get out into them thar hills come a weekend in the fresh air after polluting the city all week, ain't it?

A piece from the Chapel Hill Weekly lays blame on the South for the storm which had ravaged the Northeast the previous week. It had grown, according to the Weather Bureau, out of a low pressure cell in Western North Carolina, moving northward through Virginia, developing gale force winds, reaching hurricane velocity at some points. The New York Herald Tribune and the Times carried stories to that effect. Premeditation by the South was charged and Congressional investigation was contemplated. Governor Dewey said that the North could not accept unprovoked attacks of the type, wanted conciliation and education of the South.

Mayor Impelliteri of New York City, when asked about the Southern origins of the weather front, claimed initially never to have heard of the South, until bringing to mind its mention during one of his trips to Miami, and finally admitting that if they had sent the storm, it was not a friendly act.

The eminent Old West historian and essayist Bernard DeVoto called it another instance of the South's self-concsciousness, the schism in behavior manifested on the one hand by the quintessence of charm, on the other by the tendency to violence, the quick-trigger dander at the perception of insult, and the lack of recognition of responsibility of one section of the nation to the other. (We think that may have actually been W. J. Cash speaking from the grave, but it would not be the first or last time his observations would be culled without attribution or ascription to someone else, sometimes probably to Wilbob Cash.)

Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., counseled forgiveness, realizing it as possibly an isolated instance of vengeance for the midterm elections.

Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, who was in New York at the time, saw it as proof for the need of an FEPC, for if there had been fair employment in place, the people of the South would not have had such idle hands to produce a storm.

Col. Bertie McCormick of the Chicago Tribune found that perhaps, after all, New York deserved no better since it was full of internationalists, but also believed that the South had no business being the agent of the punishment, that teachers ought be sent in, under armed guard if necessary, to educate the Southerners. He then went back to reading about Chicago gangsters and politicians.

What did Leon have to say about it?

Drew Pearson offers impressions of wartime Washington, tells first of structures, intended to be temporary barracks, still surviving in Washington since the Civil War, World War I, and World War II, to serve as housing as the city had steadily grown. Korea would bring more displacement and more Government expansion, broken homes and ruined lives. On the surface, no one seemed to care. The President was a worried man but outwardly did not show it, giving the impression of someone who waited for problems to come to him rather than seeking to anticipate them and providing a solution in advance of their becoming problems.

The President had gone out to dinner on F Street and the people were curious, as they had never seen FDR go out to dinner. A journalist asked what he thought of the war and the President snapped, "I don't think," got into his car.

Secretary of State Acheson looked tired as he prepared to provide his speech via radio and television to the nation the previous week. He read the speech without "oomph" behind the lines. Prior to the speech, he had told Congress that the intention in Korea might be to divert and weaken the U.N. forces so as to weaken the commitment to NATO and enable Russia to make inroads in Western Europe.

The Pentagon was working overtime, burning the midnight oil these days.

Senators Kenneth Wherry and Joseph McCarthy were insistent that General MacArthur was not to be fired. Whispers circulated about the General at the State Department for defying instructions to respect the 40-mile neutral zone below the Yalu River and that failing to do so had led to the present crisis with the Chinese. "But how can you fire a prominent General in wartime?" was a question put by one diplomat. A Frenchman had replied that Marshal Joffre had been fired in World War I and Lord Kitchener by the British. An American suggested that President Lincoln had fired several generals in succession, McClelland, Hooker, Burnside, Pope, and Mead. But, the same person also admitted that when a general had a block of Senate votes behind him, as did General MacArthur, he could probably thumb his nose at Washington at will.

Secretary of Defense Marshall also looked tired when he spoke to the Women's Press Club. He said that the Chinese intervention had to have been planned for some time, implicitly suggesting that General MacArthur—who, according to the front page, had said the same thing this date—had missed the call. But he paid tribute to the courage and understanding of the American people, and their ability to work together, that they had saved the country when the Nazis were threatening.

Joseph & Stewart Alsop tell of the allocations for military and other aid to allies reaching 20 to 24 billion dollars for the coming fiscal year, underscoring the concern in Washington that a third world war was in the making. It was even doubted that this huge amount of aid would suffice for rebuilding defenses of the West in time. The former estimate of four years to meet the Soviet rearmament program had been shortened, in the wake of the Chinese intervention in the Korean war since October, to 18 months. The proposed outlays had been increased to meet that timetable.

They again discuss, as the prior Tuesday, National Security Council directive No. 68 of the prior April, initiated by Secretary of State Acheson, expressing the concern over the imbalance between the free world military preparedness versus that of the Soviet bloc and counseling the need for a massive Western defense effort at rebuilding. It had been ignored, however, by the President and then-Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson, who had inaugurated his defense economy program in spring, 1949. Along with its inevitable tax cutting, the program appealed to the American people and to Congress.

Then came Korea on June 25 and the President finally fired Mr. Johnson and appointed in his stead General Marshall the prior August. NSC directive 68 then took on new meaning.

Yet, there was still bickering with the British and French regarding how much military strength should be allotted to West Germany in defense of Western Europe. The British wanted to accede to the wishes of the French to keep Germany relatively weak militarily. And until recently, the response by the U.S. had been to continue to try to mollify these interests, delaying the appointment of a supreme commander of NATO until the differences could be settled. Now, the State Department was trying to light a fire under these negotiations, asking Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., to fly to Paris to warn the National Assembly in France that its attitude toward Germany could endanger military aid for Europe in the coming Congress.

Increasingly, the American attitude was to threaten cessation of aid to Germany and France if they did not become more fully involved in defense of Europe. There was even talk of promoting a Franco-German union. In the meantime, however, the crisis in Korea had paralyzed the allies, as it implied a threat also to Western Europe, to the point where it was questionable whether the new urgency in Washington would result in any action abroad.

They conclude that the weak leadership demonstrated in Washington, appealing to national self-indulgence, had led to deadly peril for the country, leaving only the recourse of offering strong, selfless world leadership, in the hope that it might yet win the day.

Robert C. Ruark, in Port au Prince, Haiti, discusses voodoo and its importance as both a religion and a pastime to the natives. Haiti had no television and few psychiatrists. He could hear the sound of drums from his hotel room each night. He respected the drums, a principal component, along with rum, of voodoo, and those who played them. He also respected voodoo, itself, including Papa Damballah, the snake god, and Papa Legba, the immoral god, and their rites, as he did not want a voodoo practitioner to place a hex on him after he indecorously imparted some of the secret rituals.

He had become involved in a craps game and asked the voodoo gods for help, but after invoking Papa Damballah, threw snake eyes twice and lost, teaching him not to take the names of gods of other religions in vain.

"Hit those drums, boys, and blow those flutes. I sit right here in the hotel and listen to the juke box playing 'Room Full of Roses'. Everybody to his own sorcery."

Was it a red room or red rum?

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