The Charlotte News

Friday, July 14, 1950

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that intense fighting had erupted on the American Kum River front late the previous night following the crossing of a small Communist guerrilla force of a little over a hundred men at Kongju, 20 miles northwest of the provisional capital at Taejon, in spite of U.S. artillery and plane attacks. The guerrillas, covered by artillery fire, wore green fatigues similar to the American troops, probably taken from American dead or prisoners, causing confusion. The infiltration behind American lines had been taking place for several days and had built to significant strength. The enemy had two to three divisions along the Kum River line facing the American position. The Americans had been resting for two days when the sudden guerrilla assault took place. American resolve, however, appeared undeterred and morale remained high. It was the first enemy crossing of the Kum in force at the point where the American lines linked with the South Korean army.

The prospect of the bridgehead being reinforced this night was of concern. North Korean tanks moved from the area of Chochiwon provided the artillery cover for the crossing, which had been undertaken in small boats. The enemy appeared to be flanking and encircling the Americans.

An Army spokesman said that American troops were dying but not being slaughtered in Korea, as some reports had suggested, and that there was no Dunkerque amphibious evacuation in prospect. He said that the situation was not hopeless as on Bataan in 1942, and expressed no doubt that the U.N. forces would hold the line once the offensive effort was built up, that originally only a battalion of Americans had met the enemy. During the previous day, one American had been killed and 20 wounded, with none missing. One B-29 had been lost because of mechanical failure en route to a target. It was the third such plane thus far lost in action, one having been shot down near Seoul while on a reconnaissance mission, not part of the 50-plane bombing raid of the North the previous day, and another ditched in the sea.

A decision by the President whether to call into action National Guard units and reservists would likely be made soon upon the return of two members of the Joint Chiefs from the Far East after conferring with General MacArthur.

The President explored with his Cabinet the prospect of mobilization on the home front, but no decisions had been reached. Joint Chiefs chairman General Omar Bradley had briefed the group.

The President said the previous day that he did not have any plans to ask for wartime controls regarding allocation of materials, conversion of industry, or price and wage controls.

Evangelist Billy Graham prayed with the President for divine guidance for the nation and the President during the war. Reverend Graham proposed to the President that he call a nationwide day of prayer.

The State Department said that the minimum condition for resolving the crisis in Korea was for the Communists to withdraw behind the 38th parallel and that the proper forum for resolution was the U.N., not direct negotiations between Moscow and Washington. India had offered through Prime Minister Nehru to mediate the crisis between Russia and the U.S. The State Department message appeared to close the door, however, on such strictly bilateral negotiation.

U.N. Secretary-General Trygve Lie appealed to 52 of the 53 members, excluding the U.S. for its present commitment, who had backed the resolution to halt the aggressive action in Korea, to lend ground troops and other assistance to the U.N. forces. He expressed the hope that the action would take no longer than six months to complete. Six members of the organization, Russia and the Soviet-bloc plus Yugoslavia, had opposed the resolution. Egypt received such an appeal though there was some skepticism as to whether it was supporting the resolution. Mr. Lie expressed the view that it was.

Senate Democrats gave a cold shoulder to a suggestion by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., that Congress investigate the state of American preparedness and Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson's activities in that regard.

Congressional leaders said that an 89-million dollar "Campaign for Truth" proposed by the President would get quick action, despite rejection the previous day of a proposed increase in the budget of the Voice of America by four million dollars.

In Belgrade, Yugoslavia accused Bulgaria of sending patrols across the frontier the previous day in four separate incidents in which shots were exchanged and one Bulgarian soldier was killed. Yugoslavia demanded a halt to such activities.

In Dayton, O., the crash of an Air Force B-50 from Wright-Patterson Air Force base claimed the lives of all sixteen aboard. Only a hole in the ground measuring about 18 by 75 feet, shattered pieces of metal, bodies and body parts remained from the crash of the plane carrying bombs when it hit in a rural field. One witness said that he thought he saw fire coming from the plane before it disappeared behind some trees and exploded. It had been on a routine practice mission.

Senator Guy Gillette informed the press that his subcommittee investigating campaign financing irregularities in the Florida and Illinois Senate primaries had decided to drop those probes for lack of specific and substantial information. He said that the probes of the North Carolina, South Carolina, and Pennsylvania primaries had been completed and were under study by the subcommittee members.

On the editorial page, "A Bad Security Measure" tells of the action by the House on the "security risk" bill having reminded of Charles Lamb's essay, "A Dissertation upon Roast Pig", as the House would burn down the whole structure of Federal job security just to get at "security risks". The measure provided that the heads of the eleven Federal departments closely associated with national security could suspend any employee found to be a "security risk", those who talked too much or were sexual perverts or the like. There was no right of review from the decision.

Thus, the bill would destroy all job security in those departments, giving the heads of the departments virtually dictatorial power. No longer would anyone have to be charged with disloyalty and go through a review process. They could simply be termed a bad security risk and fired.

The piece finds such a program too subject to abuse and hopes the Senate would restore sanity and at least incorporate some form of review to the process.

"A Compromise Which Settles Nothing" tells of the compromise between the City and County regarding sharing in the cost of indigent maternity health care, whereby it would continue to be split evenly by the entities, though the whole burden properly belonged to the County. The compromise restored harmony but settled nothing. The people expected further consolidation of the health services for maximum efficiency and reduction of waste and excessive expense.

"Time for Censorship" welcomes Secretary of Defense Johnson's order for imposition of censorship on the military during the Korean war regarding troop and supply movements. The relatively open news reporting from the Korean front had produced an awareness in Americans of the trouble encountered in Korea, absent in the days of Bataan in 1942. But the lack of censorship on movement of men and supplies in the early going had been beneficial to the enemy. It finds therefore that, on balance, the American people and press were ready for some limited military censorship.

A piece from the Greensboro Daily News, titled "N. (North) C. (Carolina)", tells of the resignation after 37 years of service of Dr. N. C. Newbold as director of black education within the State Department of Education. He had received little public recognition for his dedicated work during those years, except among black educators of the state who held him in high esteem. He was not good ground for controversy by either side of the political spectrum as he had simply done his job and done it well.

The piece notes that regardless of what his initials actually stood for, "North Carolina" was good enough.

Drew Pearson tells of an exchange of curt letters between the President and Civil Aeronautics Board chairman Joe O'Connell the previous week. Pan Am and American Overseas Airlines had engaged in wire-pulling to effect a merger while TWA had provided a $50,000 fee to former Presidential adviser Clark Clifford to prevent the merger. Mr. O'Connell was initially puzzled by the fact that the President, while supporting the CAB decision by a vote of 3 to 2 to nix the merger because Pan Am had been providing sub-par service on routes to which it was granted a monopoly, had added to his approval the note that CAB should leave the door open for further consideration of overseas routes.

Then, one of the minority members appealed directly to the President who then reversed his decision and approved the merger, causing Mr. O'Connell to hit the ceiling and send the President the abrupt letter. He objected to the President's meeting with the vice-chairman of the Board without inviting him to participate. Mr. O'Connell had wanted to resign in mid-June for financial reasons but the President had refused the resignation. Following the letter, however, the President promptly announced acceptance of the resignation, and told Mr. O'Connell that he had been invited to the meeting but apparently had not received the message from his staff.

The President also gave Pan Am a new route to Paris for which it had not asked, and another route to Rome, both cutting in on TWA's routes. TWA was given the right to stop in London and in Frankfurt.

Pan Am, he notes, was involved in the wiretapping of Howard Hughes at his hotel during the hearings on TWA's war contracts in 1947, a wiretap undertaken at the behest of Senators Homer Ferguson and Owen Brewster. The law firm of Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson had been retained by Pan Am for a large fee, and in early July, Secretary Johnson had visited the President on his yacht and argued that the fee paid to Mr. Clifford by TWA would make it look as if influence was being exerted to block the merger.

He notes further that American Overseas Airlines retained the law firm of Secretary of State Acheson.

Marquis Childs tells of the need for American propaganda in Germany, where the Russians were seeking to identify Communism with peace and the U.S. with war-mongering. If the U.S. were to use the atom bomb, the foundation would be prepared for worldwide hatred of the U.S.

The Russians had produced a film titled "The Fall of Berlin" in which the Russians were portrayed as noble liberators of Germany from Nazism while the U.S. was shown to be intent on reducing Germany again to bondage of the type Hitler had produced. It was aimed at Germans too young to remember the barbarism of Soviet troops practiced right after the fall of Berlin.

The number of East German Communists infiltrating into the West had grown substantially, and many were espionage agents while others were propaganda agents, the latter urging West Germans to make a contribution to the Communist cause so that when Communism triumphed in the Western sector, they would have protection. The object was to create fear and hopelessness to prevent effective resistance to an invading East German army and to check possible plans of the Western allies to build a paramilitary police force in the Western sectors.

American High Commissioner John J. McCloy had sought from Congress the prior March an increase of the budget for information and education. Senator William Benton wanted to expand the Voice of America. The situation was growing worse in terms of the disparity in dissemination of such information and time was short. But there were still American leaders in Congress who believed that ideas were of little importance in the struggle between Communism and democracy.

Robert C. Ruark hopes that along with a new set of place names to learn in the Korean war would not come a new jargon to supplement that of the previous war. He had enough trouble learning the former terms, as "sack" to refer to a couch for a military man, V.I.P., SNAFU, standing for "situation normal, all fouled up", FUBAR, "fouled up beyond all recognition", and SAPFU, "surpassing all previous foulups". There was drinking jargon and military equipment jargon. A lovely woman became a "beast". "That's for dam sure" became popular. "Rugged" referred to any rough operation.

He hopes that the "dogfaces" would stick to the existing language as the names such as Yak for the Russian fighters and Seoul and Suwon for the places would present quite enough difficulty to learn. "And that's for damn sure."

One question, Mr. Ruark: If you should encounter a situation which would by ordinary be a standard FUBAR or SAPFU, requiring, however, special emphasis on the foul-up, what would you then say?

A letter writer from Pinehurst examines the segment of a recent Drew Pearson column regarding the outside money coming into the state to produce anti-Red and race-baiting propaganda in the campaign for the Senate on behalf of Willis Smith in his race against Senator Frank Porter Graham, won by the former. He thinks that the mill workers ignored the propaganda and voted their interests.

A letter writer from McBee, S.C., tells of there being a place called the Big Springs Hotel not far from the town, along the road from Charlotte to Myrtle Beach, and that the spring nearby was reputed to be the original fountain of youth sought by Ponce de Leon. The Indians had believed in early times that to bathe in its waters provided perpetual youth and beauty. He recommends the place therefore to visitors on their way to summer vacations on the coast.

What if you get into a FUBAR along the way and can't make it?

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