The Charlotte News
Tuesday, July 18, 1950
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the North Korean invasion was at a standstill north and west of Taejon, apparently halted by the fierce opposition by American fighters of the outnumbered 24th Division. General MacArthur said that there was nothing new to report and little enemy activity since late Monday. American lines were holding firm above Taejon. Only four enemy tanks were reported south of the Kum River. The Communists were sending reinforcements to the division which had crossed the river.
At Yechon, American artillery had halted the Communist forces and north of Yongdok, American fighter planes and a South Korean counter-attack had forced the Communists to retreat.
American and Australian planes reported destroying three enemy tanks and 28 trucks, added to Monday's bag of 21 tanks and 143 trucks. B-29's again struck targets in North Korea, as well as at Kimpo airfield in the vicinity of Seoul and Chungju southeast of Seoul.
Three unidentified submarines were spotted off Kyushu, southernmost of Japan's main islands, as well as off Formosa and the China mainland.
General MacArthur estimated North Korean casualties at 11,000 thus far in the war but said accurate figures were not possible.
Dr. William Moore reports from South Korea that, as confirmed by men of the Nineteenth Regiment, thirty wounded American soldiers had been shot and killed by the North Koreans as they lay on their litters at a location across the Kum River on the previous Sunday night. Two had been mortar men who held their mortar tubes in place and loaded them by hand until their hands were burned and their arms broken. One had been a Catholic chaplain who was killed while in the midst of benediction. The witnesses said that the North Korean soldiers were gleeful during the killing. A medical officer had been shot in the leg by a North Korean officer and the officer was then called away before he could finish him off. After nightfall, the wounded officer then crawled back to American lines.
Maj. General William Dean, commander of the 24th Division, had personally led an attack on Saturday which enabled extraction of some of the front line troops from the heavy fighting at a roadblock created by the enemy from American vehicles near the Kum River along the American supply road. The position was being covered by enemy mortar fire and men of a supply caravan had left their vehicles to join the fighting, believing erroneously that enemy tanks had crossed the Kum. He said, confirming the reports from MacArthur headquarters, that the North Koreans had not dented the new American lines north of Taejon.
The U.S. raised the U.N. flag over South Korean field headquarters, as Lt. General Walton Walker, commander of the ground forces, vowed it would stand until the last invader was driven from the country.
In Managua, Nicaragua, President Anastasio Somoza told a press conference that his country was ready to supply armed troops to help the U.N. forces in Korea and would provide air and naval bases if needed.
Secretary of State Acheson was believed ready to respond to Prime Minister Nehru of India, whose proposal to mediate the Korean crisis between the U.S. and Russia had resulted in a Soviet reply demanding seating of Communist China on the U.N. Security Council, that while the U.S. wanted peace, it was not prepared to accept it at the cost of bowing to Communist aggression in Korea. Prime Minister Nehru had urged the seating of Communist China so that Russia could end its boycott of the Security Council. It was expected that the U.S. and most other members of the U.N. backing the resolution to end the fighting, would insist on the North Koreans removing to behind the 38th parallel.
Britain had stopped all oil shipments from its services operating in the Far East to Communist China, based on Britain's military need in support of the U.N resolution. Only one British company, Shell, had been selling oil to China during the first six months of the year, amounting to less than a tenth of China's civilian needs.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 11 to 0 to end the investigation of Senator Joseph McCarthy's allegations of Communists in the Government, following a subcommittee having issued a majority report which said the charges were a "fraud and a hoax". The Committee voted to send the subcommittee report to the full Senate. Senator McCarthy said that the Democrats' report had given the "green light to the Red fifth column" in the country.
We think it was rather giving the red light to a green fifth column in the country—the McCarthons or McNixies, as the case may be.
The Senate Banking Committee commenced an investigation into the sudden rising cost of food with plenty of food on hand in the country since the outbreak of war.
Senator Millard Tydings, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said that he might name a seven-member military investigating committee, similar to the committee headed by then-Senator Truman during the war, to guard against waste in the services.
The President continued work on his message to Congress and the people regarding mobilization, both set to be delivered Wednesday.
In Torrington, Conn., author and editor Carl Van Doren died in a hospital at age 64 after a month-long illness.
In Cincinnati, Kroger Co. announced price increases of four or five cents per pound on bag-packed coffee, based on higher wholesale prices on green coffee beans.
Buy the red ones out of Nicaragua.
On the editorial page, "How Much Mobilization?" discusses the President's planned message the following day to Congress and his subsequent radio address to the American people regarding mobilization.
At home, it was necessary to preserve security through an adequate radar network, a force of pursuit planes, a mobile ground force, and a Navy capable of conducting anti-submarine warfare, as well as preventing sabotage.
Abroad, the most immediate goal was to push the North Koreans behind the 38th parallel. To do that would require adequate equipment and manpower to avoid a Dunkerque-type evacuation as in 1940.
"Stalin's Peace Terms" finds that Russia's demand that Communist China be admitted to the U.N. Security Council before there could be peace in Korea was unacceptable, that the only acceptable term was that provided by Secretary Acheson the prior week, complete withdrawal of North Korean troops behind the 38th parallel. The country had to be able to defend also the Philippines, Japan, and Formosa, and be prepared to defend Indo-China, Indonesia, Malaya, and India.
The forces in England and on the Continent also had to be bolstered.
The country had to be prepared as well to defend Yugoslavia and Iran against potential attack by the Russians or the Soviet satellites.
It suggests that the probable reason for Russia's insistence on the seating of Communist China was to provide a second veto on the Security Council. Russia, in the meantime, had boycotted the U.N., opening the door to the resolution against the invasion of Korea, which Russia likely would have otherwise vetoed.
The U.N. resolution on Korea and the backing of it by 53 member nations gave new hope that the organization would flourish in the future.
"A Costly Highway Lesson" warns of the lesson from a tragedy near Goldsboro the prior Saturday when a farmer lost his wife and six children in an accident involving a car hitting the rear of a trailer he was pulling behind his tractor down the road a short distance at night, presumably without lights. His wife and children had been seated on the flatbed trailer.
A piece from the Asheville Citizen, titled "A Friend Counsels the South", tells of the Manufacturers' Record for July carrying on its cover a message for the South, that it should learn to sell not only what it had as raw materials but what it manufactured as well. An editorial recommended an increase in steel-making capacity with new plants in the tidewater, more plants to manufacture newsprint, a study of the national market for Southern-made products, and a study of the products the South bought but did not manufacture. It was up to the South, the editorial had concluded, to become economically independent.
Drew Pearson tells of the President considering not only mobilization but also, based on military advice the previous week, what it would take to make a Dunkerque-style evacuation from Korea and whether to issue to North Korea an ultimatum to remove its troops behind the 38th parallel or suffer attack with atomic bombs on limited local targets in North Korea. Some military advisers advanced the latter suggestion, that Russia was too new at atomic bomb development to risk a nuclear war, while others believed it would provoke outright war with Russia and loss of moral support on the world stage and even at home.
The war was being lost for several reasons. The North Korean fighters were veterans of the war with Japan and had fought in China, were well-equipped by Russia. American troops by contrast were outnumbered and green, often not well-trained as they had seen light duty in Japan where living was easy for commanding officers. American tanks had proved no match for the Russian-built 60-ton tanks with 12-inch armor. The largest American tank, the Patton, was only beginning to arrive in Korea. Russian officers had been spotted at the front and there was no doubt that the Russians were directing the effort, but there were no Russian soldiers involved in the action. The Pentagon wondered whether General MacArthur, at age 71, had the vigor necessary for the Korean campaign.
There was grave concern that as the war in Korea dragged on, the Soviets would be tempted to attack elsewhere, in Germany, Yugoslavia, Iran, Indo-China or Formosa. In consequence, backstage criticism of Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson, General MacArthur and the lack of tank planning was growing.
The President abruptly told Senator Alexander Wiley during a conference on the Point Four program that he must assume everyone in the Government was incompetent after the Senator insisted that the program be administered by practical people from the outside. The Senator had displayed a lack of understanding of the program which had at its heart the supply of technical advice on manufacturing and agriculture to underdeveloped nations, supplied from private interests. After being chastised by the President, Senator Wiley had no more to say in the conference.
Russia still had a 230-man mission attached to General MacArthur's headquarters in Tokyo.
The British had shipped steel, machine tools, and electrical equipment to North Korea right up to the time of invasion, and continued to send these items to Communist China.
Intelligence reports showed evidence of Russian activity near Turkey, Trieste, Iran and Iraq, as well as secret aggression between Albania and Bulgaria aimed at causing new trouble in Greece. The hottest spot was in Yugoslavia.
Joseph & Stewart Alsop tell of the Administration having dispatched two additional groups of B-29's to England and a second large carrier to the Mediterranean as precautionary measures against world war. As the Korean crisis worsened, the prospect of a Russian move elsewhere, in Yugoslavia, for instance, grew commensurately. The Soviets appeared, however, content to use the Korean conflict to try to obtain a concession on admission of Communist China to the U.N. Security Council and await further action after building up its nuclear arsenal.
With France and Britain stretched to the limit on their military commitments, and the U.S. committed fully in Korea, the only protection, however, left for Western Europe was the American nuclear stockpile and its strategic bombers.
For a long time, the American military had assumed that Yugoslavia's 30 divisions were enough to hold off any threat from its immediate neighbors, Bulgaria, Rumania, and Hungary. But with the fighting tenacity of the North Koreans having been on surprising display for three weeks, those experts were no longer sure that Yugoslavia could handle a major threat to its borders. Prior optimism had turned to pessimism almost overnight.
Until the West built up its defenses, the danger would continue. They find that the politicians who placed blame for the Korean invasion on Yalta in 1945 or the policy toward China since the war were completely off base, that the reason for the invasion was U.S. military weakness. As long as that condition continued, they warn, the risk of attack and another general war remained real.
Robert C. Ruark tells of the recent suicide of author Guy Gilpatric who had given literary birth in the Saturday Evening Post to one of Mr. Ruark's favorite fictional characters, Colin Glencannon, the anti-hero, a person who stole and was a drunkard, was perpetually thrown in jail for brawling. He was not the usual character presented in a popular magazine. Mr. Ruark was bothered by his admiration for Mr. Glencannon as perhaps reflecting on his own character.
He goes on to tell of the exploits of Mr. Glencannon and his Scottish cousin Dooglas. He finds that he lived vicariously through their wild escapades and that they would be sorely missed. He thinks Mr. Glencannon would have come in handy to remind that "mankind was not essentially noble in all his acts."
All you needed to do, it would seem,
is to study Senator McCarthy, Mr. Nixon, Strom Thurmond, and a few
others of that stripe to come to that conclusion from reality. But,
they were not really swashbuckling brawlers
A letter from W. H. Belk, the founder of Belk's department store, commends the City Council for suggesting that the new black housing project be named "The James Addison Jones Homes", for a prominent builder in the community and around the state. He hopes that the Charlotte Housing Authority would adopt the suggestion.
A letter from Mayor Victor Shaw likewise thanks the Council for the suggestion and underscores Mr. Jones's contributions to the community.
A letter writer finds the country's two major parties so split that they could no longer run the national government. The FEPC Senate cloture vote, which failed of accumulating a two-thirds majority by nine votes, though having simple majority support of 55 Senators, was an example. Republicans and Democrats alike appeared split along liberal-conservative ideological lines. Senator Kenneth Wherry disagreed with Senator Wayne Morse on the reasons for the failure of cloture, Senator Morse complaining about the two-thirds majority rule while Senator Wherry gloated that the Democrats had failed to unite sufficiently to carry out their platform and campaign pledge.
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