The Charlotte News
Friday, February 3, 1950
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that in London, Scotland Yard had arrested a high-ranking British atomic physicist, Dr. Klaus Fuchs, for giving away official atomic secrets. The information leading to the arrest was produced by FBI agents investigating atomic spying by Russia and involved two specific atomic leaks to Russia, one in the U.S. in 1945, and the other in England in 1947. In the charges, the recipients of the information and the information, itself, were described as "unknown". His trial was set for the following Friday. The maximum penalty he faced on each count was seven years at hard labor.
Dr. Fuchs was head of theoretical physics at Harwell, the heart of British research into atomic fission, a position comparable to that of Dr. Robert Oppenheimer on the Manhattan Project during the war, and, according to Atomic Energy Commission officials, while in the U.S., had access to the most vital weapons information.
A previous case had been brought in Britain against Dr. Alan Nunn May, who pleaded guilty to violation of the British official secrets act in May, 1946 and was sentenced to ten years in prison for passing atomic secrets to the Russians in 1945. His attorney had stated that Dr. May acted on the basis that he believed that the sharing of the secrets would add to the safety of mankind because the more who knew of the destructive potential of atomic energy, the more would take it seriously.
The Joint Congressional Atomic Energy Committee summoned Lt. General Leslie Groves, military head of the Manhattan Project during the war, to testify on Saturday regarding Dr. Fuchs.
In Berlin, the Russians imposed a new regulation on Berlin-bound truck traffic, that the Russians would not accept a new type of cargo papers until February 15, but then reversed themselves later in the day. Customs officials said that continued imposition of the restriction would have resulted in a virtual blockade of cargo traffic at Helmstedt, as only trucks with the new papers would be at the checkpoint the following day. Currently, trucks were being processed at the rate of five to six per hour, backing up between 125 and 150 trucks at a time. A report was being prepared on the matter for presentation to John J. McCloy, U.S. high commissioner of the American zone of occupation, when he returned from Washington.
The Russians demanded that Emperor Hirohito of Japan be tried as a war criminal for use of germ warfare during the war. Washington attorney Joseph B. Keenan, who had been chief prosecutor at the Japanese war crimes trials, said in response that investigations showed that the Emperor had no real power in prewar or wartime Japan and that he had sought to dissuade his ministers from participation in action leading to war. In addition, Mr. Keenan pointed out that the chief Soviet prosecutor at the trials had agreed with ten other prosecutors not to try Hirohito for war crimes.
Treasury Secretary John W. Snyder proposed to the House Ways & Means Committee that Congress impose a ten percent tax on television sets and increase taxes on the top bracket of business income from 38 to 42 percent, as well as cutting sales or excise taxes. The cuts would amount to lost revenue of 695 million dollars while the proposed taxes and increases would add 715 million, plus an additional 400 million from increased estate and gift taxes.
In London, King George VI was set this date to dissolve the Labor Parliament which had served since July, 1945, to make way for the general elections scheduled for later in the month.
In Bridgeport, Conn., a State psychiatrist testified, in rebuttal to the defense, that the woman accused of second degree murder in the euthanasia of her father, dying of cancer, was sane at the time of the act when she shot him in the head the previous September 23. He said that she suffered genuine amnesia regarding the event.
More than 46,000 persons were homeless from flood waters besetting seven Central and Southern states. But the rains which had caused the floods had ceased and skies were clear, such that the flood danger likely was set to diminish over the weekend absent further rain. The homeless were in Arkansas, with 22,000, southeast Missouri, with 12,000, and Kentucky, also with 12,000. Three had drowned in West Virginia from flooding.
Must build the wall
In Rome, actress Ingrid Bergman gave birth to a baby boy. Her divorce from her current husband was pending in Juarez, Mexico, after which she planned to marry Italian director Roberto Rossellini, the presumed father of the child. A large number of telegrams of congratulations, most of them from the U.S., were received at the clinic. Ms. Bergman also had an eleven-year old daughter by the husband from whom she was seeking divorce.
On the editorial page, "Mr. Boyd on Revaluation" finds unsustainable the objections of Basil Boyd to the City Council anent its approved study of revaluation of property to raise additional revenue for needed future projects. He distrusted the hiring of experts for the purpose and believed the cost was too much, that revaluation could ruin small business and homeowners. It debunks each claim and supports the scientific approach to revaluation, finds it superior to reliance on "such cracker-barrel, moss-back, homespun theories as those voiced by Mr. Boyd."
"Farmer Bob Doughton" praises the fact that Mr. Doughton, at 86, would run again for Congress. As head of the House Ways & Means Committee, he wrote the tax laws, but despite carping about them from the public, he always was able to whittle down the budget and so was urged consistently by his constituents to run again, a desire which he reluctantly accommodated.
"New Jersey Medicaal Plan" finds that in promulgating this plan, the AMA was trying to work out an alternative to the President's compulsory health insurance plan. The New Jersey plan provided that the Government would pay insurance costs for its own employees and provide those with incomes of less than $5,000 per year income tax deductions on paid premiums. How about a credit? since at that income level, there is likely little tax paid in the first instance.
The plan did not take into account that existing hospitalization coverage did not provide full coverage or provide for medical expenses not requiring hospitalization. And even if the partial payment were afforded through deductions, illness would be too expensive for most families. There was also no provision for catastrophic and chronic illness. So it was not the final answer but at least was a step, it opines, in the right direction.
A piece from the Charleston News & Courier, titled "Considering a Source", finds that the recent Raleigh meeting of regional Democrats, urging unity with the national party, to be an attempt to revive the Reconstruction party of 1876, finally dashed in North Carolina in 1898 amid the Wilmington race riots.
Don't worry. You have Strom
Drew Pearson tells of former Attorney General Tom Clark having earned a high reputation during his first six months on the Supreme Court, having written five opinions when most newcomers wrote only a couple. One unnamed Justice had said that he was the easiest to get along with and a hard worker, doing more than his share, while turning out sound product.
Democrat Walter Huber of Ohio made no objection to the proposal by House Minority Leader Joe Martin that the House suspend business on February 13 for the Lincoln Day dinners, saying that inasmuch as Mr. Lincoln would have been a Fair Dealer were he alive, there was no reason to object. Mr. Martin expressed reservation on that opinion.
Intelligence reports indicated that Russia had developed a contingent of heavy long-range bombers and jet fighters for defense against attack by the atomic bomb, to replace the reliance on large land armies as during World War II. The Russian Air Force now totaled 15,500 planes, whereas the U.S. Air Force had 17,800 planes, many of them in mothballs.
Democratic Congressman Ray Madden had sent a letter to RNC chairman Guy Gabrielson, urging Republican opponents of civil rights to get onboard with the Republican civil rights convention plank, reminding that three Republicans had teamed with Southern Democrats to vote on the Rules Committee for revival of the rule to enable pigeonholing of the FEPC bill. Mr. Madden had not yet received a reply.
A Catholic priest from Los Angeles had sent a letter objecting to confirmation of Karl Bendetsen as Assistant Secretary of the Army for his having behaved as "a little Hitler" in rounding up persons of Japanese ancestry for internment in relocation camps inland in 1942. He was determined to send anyone with even a drop of Japanese blood to the camps. Several Senators were opposed to his confirmation, especially after a strong opinion in Acheson v. Murakami, 176 F.2d 953, a 1949 decision out of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, written by Judge William Denman of San Francisco, condemning the Army's treatment of Japanese-Americans during the internment. (But see the opinion in Murakami v. Dulles, 221 F.2d 558, decided in 1955, also from the Ninth Circuit, and also written by Chief Judge Denman, rejecting the appellant's claim that the District Court had erred in denying reversal of his renunciation of citizenship on the ground that he had, before being committed to the Tule Lake relocation camp, refused to swear allegiance to the United States as part of the Selective Service requirements, a distinction from the facts of the 1949 case involving three Tule Lake internees, including a female of the same surname, who had their renunciations of citizenship reversed, as those renunciations had occurred under conditions which amounted to threats and coercion and without first having refused such an oath of loyalty. Judge Denman, it should be noted, had voted in 1943 in his partial dissent in Korematsu v. U.S., 140 F.2d 289 at 291, while concurring in the result which upheld the validity of the relocation order, for further consideration of the Constitutional questions raised by Mr. Korematsu with respect to that order, its validity subsequently upheld in 1944 by the Supreme Court at 323 U.S. 214. He argued for a distinction from the Hirabayashi case in which Mr. Hirabayashi had contested the validity of a curfew order, already then upheld by the Supreme Court in that case. The majority had found the two orders analogous and thus the relocation order in no need of further, separate consideration. Judge Denman had dissented to the Ninth Circuit majority opinion in Hirabayashi, as attached to the Korematsu decision of the Ninth Circuit as "Exhibit A", the majority having avoided decision on the questions raised by Mr. Hirabayashi and certified some of them to the Supreme Court for determination, Judge Denman favoring decision on the questions and finding, in any event, that certain omitted facts ought be included in the record which supported Mr. Hirabayashi's claims of additional Constitutional violations beyond the Fifth Amendment right of due process.)
Angus Ward, the former consular-general of Shanghai who had been kicked out by the Communists after a month of imprisonment on bogus charges, now could enter and depart the State Department late at night without showing his passport as his beard was his passport.
Mr. Pearson offers various "snapshots" from Congress, among which was the "old and bent" reactionary Congressman John Rankin "tramping wearily and alone down the hall of the House office building."
Robert C. Ruark discusses the scandal surrounding Ingrid Bergman's affair with Italian director Roberto Rossellini, the birth of a child from the relationship, and the likelihood that the matter would not adversely impact Ms. Bergman's career or her support from moviegoers. Such shenanigans rarely did. He could recall no one since comedic actor Fatty Arbuckle, who suffered career consequences from a major scandal in the news.
Errol Flynn had his dalliance with an underage pair and a consequent trial but did not suffer at the box office. Robert Mitchum had gone to jail over alleged possession of marijuana but had enjoyed a booming career since. Charlie Chaplin was still regarded highly by the public despite his paternity suit, refusal to become a U.S. citizen, and a political record which appeared pink in orientation. Rita Hayworth had enjoyed favorable publicity recently regarding the birth of her princess after belated marriage to Prince Aly Khan, despite the affair having started while she was still married to Orson Welles.
So, he concludes, fans liked their "meat red and dripping raw, on and off the screen", and thus would not impose any new rule with regard to Ms. Bergman. She might not be able, with authenticity, to play roles again as a nun or Joan of Arc, but then, he reflects, the involvement with Lucky Luciano and other "thugs" in Havana had not stopped Frank Sinatra from playing a priest without objection from the public.
Marquis Childs finds a parallel in the refusal of the U.S. thus far to recognize Communist China, with the refusal during the 1920's to recognize Communist Russia. He suggests that Russia, along with an important and articulate part of American opinion, did not want U.S. recognition of China. But the refusal to recognize the new Government could lead to a long stalemate in relations and, in the end, result in a net loss to the U.S.
Ambassador to Moscow during the early FDR years, William C. Bullitt, had been an ardent advocate of Soviet recognition, as shown by the recently revealed reports he had sent to the State Department and FDR in 1933 and 1934. (Mr. Bullitt advocated recognition, provided certain conditions were met in advance, as he believed the Soviets would resist those conditions and repayment of debts and claims after recognition.)
Mr. Childs recounts that Soviet officials at the time had wooed Mr. Bullitt with success, Josef Stalin having met with him personally and assured that FDR was was one of the most popular men in the Soviet Union, offering Mr. Bullitt access at any time.
Mr. Bullitt had worked for recognition of Russia since World War I and then later, as the issue became entangled in politics, became disillusioned and reacted adversely to everything Russian. Such were likely scenarios when recognition of a country became intertwined with politics.
But, he finds, recognition was not the equivalent of a moral blessing on a country, rather only an acknowledgment of a set of facts, which might be pleasing or displeasing, yet, nevertheless, constituting facts.
A letter from the director of the New York Times art & reproduction department congratulates the newspaper for its 52-page special "Business Review and Forecast", packaged with the normal 24-page edition of The News on January 24, finds it a back-breaking task carried off admirably.
A series of letters, one from the field supervisor of Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., one from the assistant to the president of the Southern Railway System, one from the vice-president of American Trust Co., one from the vice-president and traffic manager for the Piedmont & Northern Railway, and one from the president of Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, likewise offer kudos to the newspaper for the same edition.
A letter from the recording secretary of the Interdenominational Missionary Union of Charlotte forwards a resolution of the organization, critical of the Merchants Association for taking Christ out of Christmas in its annual Christmas parade in recent years and for the parade being held before Thanksgiving, thus minimizing the significance of another religious holiday.
We vote for the present "President" in 2017 to resign forthwith before the Idiot provokes a war with Australia
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