The Charlotte News
Thursday, August 10, 1950
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that U.S. troops drove nearly thirteen miles this date to the outskirts of Chinju, the object of the new, first offensive drive of the war. The drive had climaxed with the snapping of two U.N. forces' pincers around a thousand enemy troops and represented the biggest single-day gain of the war.
In the northern part of the defense arc, the U.S. stopped an enemy drive eight miles west of Pohang, 63 miles north of Pusan, after the enemy had retaken Yongdok and then driven four miles south. A North Korean patrol of 30 men commanded the Yongchon-Pohang highway with machineguns. The Eighth Army took steps to protect the fighter base nearby. Four U.S. Mustang fighters, which had taken off to deliver fire against the enemy, were shot down by anti-aircraft fire, with one of the pilots lost.
The enemy also placed new pressure on Taegu, 55 miles northwest of Pusan, advancing on a front against south Korean troops, 30 miles north of Taegu. The enemy still held a Naktong River bridgehead 29 miles southwest of Taegu, despite fierce American attacks. Another bridgehead northwest of Taegu, however, was wiped out.
Seventy B-29's struck the railyards of Wonsan in North Korea with the biggest bombing raid of the war.
Leif Erickson reports that the gamble of Lt. General Walton Walker, ground commander of the Eighth Army, in ordering the offensive on the southern front, leaving only a thin line to defend Taegu, appeared to be paying off, securing the supply port of Pusan. Had the enemy reached Pusan, according to one staff officer, the war would have been over. General Walker had been criticized for leaving Taegu exposed but it was only an outpost compared to the crucial strategic importance of Pusan.
In East Berlin, Communist Gerhart Eisler, East German propaganda chief, announced delivery of a formal protest to Moscow re alleged "incendiary bombing" by U.S. planes of East German farms in July, but then withdrew the announcement four hours later without explanation. The U.S. Air Force denied that American planes were involved. Initially, before the story was killed, there had been a call to blockade American airplanes from Berlin to protect the crops, a resolution for which had been passed by the East German Cabinet. The report followed by three months the claim that American planes had dropped Colorado potato beetles over East Germany.
At the U.N., Security Council members planned this date to hold a closed-session meeting with president of the Council Jakob Malik of Russia, to persuade him to break the procedural blockade in the Council caused by his filibuster of the attempt to consider the U.S.-sponsored resolution to condemn North Korea for not heeding the June 25 resolution ordering a ceasefire. Otherwise, there would likely be a flood of anti-Soviet statements for the remainder of August to counter Mr. Malik's statements against the Western democracies over Korea. On September 1, the British would take over the revolving chair of the Council. The members, other than Russia and Yugoslavia, had met in closed-session the day before to plan strategy to counter Mr. Malik's filibuster.
Robert S. Bird and Ogden R. Reid of the New York Herald Tribune, in the fourth in their series of articles on U.S. defense, discuss the defense of American cities from atomic bombs. Civil defense preparedness would cost billions of dollars, so expensive that the estimated cost was classified information, and would entail granting of emergency powers which would curtail individual liberty in the event of an attack. Not less than 200 railroad carloads of medical supplies would be necessary for every 80,000 casualties. Casualties could run into the millions should a series of bombs hit various cities at one time. To store such supplies in advance would mean huge warehouses stretching over many acres, poised alongside railroad sidings, air strips and arterial highways, all with special interior conditioning to preserve the supplies, and placed well out of harm's way of target cities.
The homeless population would have to be accommodated in temporary housing, perhaps for long periods, away from the blast areas. Authority would need be given to an agency to provide compulsory housing.
Which is why the gentleman with the
pig in Dallas last week had the right idea in his anti-piggism slogan
against hoarders
The Senate Finance Committee unanimously approved the President's proposed 1.5 billion dollar per year increase in corporate taxes, increasing the top level from 38 to 45 percent, to apply as of July 1, 1950. It was part of the President's proposed five billion dollar increase in taxes for financing the war and increased foreign military aid.
A bill to provide the President with discretionary power to invoke price and wage controls plus rationing appeared close to final approval by the House, with debate still ongoing about the extent of credit controls. The discretionary wage-price controls, rationing, and allocation controls, had already passed.
The President urged Congress to postpone to the next session any action on an excess profits tax.
A reporter asked the President about a statement attributed to General MacArthur that "defeatists and appeasers" were working against him, to which the President responded that he was not aware of any such thing and that he and General MacArthur were in complete accord. He rejected the idea of a meeting of the heads of state to discuss peace, that a high-level meeting after the war would need take place to discuss a solution.
Rear Admiral H. A. Houser told the Senate Armed Services Committee that legislation being drafted by the Department of Defense regarding universal military training for youths would reach Congress soon, to apply to males 18 and 19 years old.
In Douglas, Ariz., a woman, age 60 to 70, was choked to death aboard the Southern Pacific Golden State Limited as she resisted an attempted rape. A discharged railroad employee, who at first claimed a stranger had committed the murder and escaped the train, later confessed to the killing.
Perhaps, the detective read current mysteries and was able to interrogate the suspect accordingly. If so, however, the question remained...
On the editorial page, "Our Stand on Formosa" tells of Averell Harriman having reaffirmed the commitment of the U.S. to defend Formosa against attack by the Communists. But it was doubtful that if the attack came soon, the country could defend it successfully. Without being tied down in Korea, there would likely be no problem, but with the commitment there, the Communist Chinese might make quick work of Formosa. It predicts that soon the Communists would invade Formosa. As an island, it meant little strategically. But, psychologically, it was the last bastion against Communism in China, and so had symbolic value, even if Chiang Kai-Shek was unsavory.
It was not clear, however, how such nations as India, which had recognized Communist China, would react if the U.S. were to have to defend Formosa. India might recognize that a fight for Formosa was a fight in the common interest to keep Asia free of further Communist influence.
"Hazards of the Highways" tells of a correspondent who had driven 600 miles on the state's congested highways the previous weekend, spotting numerous violators of traffic laws without seeing a single Highway Patrolman, and reported that the Greensboro Daily News had indited an editorial titled "Safety Notes", in which it recorded its own observations of the traffic safety boxscore, including five incidents which had placed the editor in serious danger. In four, there had been out-of-state cars, which the extended quote proceeds to describe in detail, as well as five observed general hazards. The piece invites the comments of other readers regarding road hazards, the better of which would be published.
We shall add one, which we think we have referenced before, which occurred many years ago on the Malibu highway one early Saturday afternoon in February, the same day the first four Fab Four CD's were released, which was almost our last day on the planet. We were moving along at a brisk clip on that multi-lane highway without a center median, listening to one of the new CD's, possessed of music as much as 24 years old, the replenishment of our vinyl collection, still in fair shape at the time, all things considered, given the passage of nearly 23 years since purchase. The car in question, moving toward us, proceeding also at a high-rate of speed, suddenly crossed the center line, no further from us than about three to four car lengths away, requiring an instant move to our right, which fortunately was made safely into empty space, as the other driver, apparently either in a trance or suicidal, breezed on by in the wrong lane. We were able to hear the remaining tracks. It was too nice a day to die, with sunshine aplenty, even if that album would not be released on CD until the following April.
"Mobilization: Cheesecake Dept." finds cheesecake to have made a comeback with the war, with Betty Grable showing a bare shoulder, Jane Russell back in the haystack, and Lana Turner again in her sweater, all adorning the inside of G.I. footlockers to help boost morale.
One of the newer demands for pin-ups was that of Lassie, reminding the troops of dogs they left behind.
They might need to report for determination under Section 8.
Before the end of the fighting, there would be a new woman in the footlockers, with less adornment than those who had preceded her in that place of safekeeping. She might survive even a nuclear holocaust.
Which brings up the companion
questions of the week, one corollary to the other: What was the
incongruity contained within the third safe at the Woolworth's in
Newark? Was it not the hair of the lassie
A piece from the Charleston News & Courier, titled "Women Traffic Police", finds the City's decision to hire twelve women as part-time traffic directors in and around schools to be worth the trial. They would plug the gap for want of manpower for regular police officers during the Korean war.
Bill Sharpe, in his weekly "Turpentine Drippings", snippets from newspapers across the state, provides one from the Zebulon Record, which tells of a nephew trying to tune his piano, forgetting to drive in the pegs, with the result that when the tuning was done and the piano played, all of the wires collapsed together inside, forcing him to purchase an organ.
The Robesonian of Lumberton tells of a person with a camera passing by the tuberculosis X-ray trailer and offering to photograph a woman's chest, to which she said that since she was positive her chest was not negative, she would stick to the X-rays.
The TB hospital there used to be across from the swamp. We don't know where the trailer was.
The Waynesville Mountaineer tells of a businessman, remarking on a local convention of two thousand Methodists, having said that four thousand Baptists could have easily been accommodated as they were twice as narrow as Methodists.
Pete Ivey, of the Twin City
Sentinel in Winston-Salem, tells of two young girls, learning to spell, discussing
breakfast. One said to the other that she had something good starting
with an "n", to which t'other'n said it must a been a
"norange"
That's not right, it was a nanana, with a circle of ninenapple on the side. We was there and we see never'thing. And we're goin' to tell namama when she gets nome.
The Greensboro Daily News points out that pipe smokers, for the most part, managed to stay out of prison because they could not hold a pipe in one hand, strike a match with the other while holding a knife or firing a pistol.
But then there was John Mitchell.
And so, so, and so forth, so.
Drew Pearson, on vacation for two weeks, was having his column written by members of his staff. It tells of the President warning Stalin, by way of U.N. Secretary-General Trygve Lie, that he would not put up with any more Soviet shenanigans in Korea or anywhere else. The warning had been conveyed shortly before the June 25 invasion. Mr. Lie wanted to work out a proposal for peace whereby the U.S. would recognize Communist China as a member of the U.N., provided Stalin would end the cold war. The President had rejected this suggestion before Mr. Lie had gone to Moscow, said that he would meet Russia halfway but not as an appeaser. At that point, the President conveyed his message to be transmitted by Mr. Lie to Stalin.
John R. Steelman would head the economic controls program rather than National Security Resources Board chairman Stuart Symington, as had been assumed. Both Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson and Secretary of Commerce Charles Sawyer objected to Mr. Symington in the post. The President had gone along to avoid dissension.
The President would not touch tobacco but did not object to smoking in his presence. He insisted on being on time for all appointments. He had three television sets at Blair House and one aboard his yacht. He took a swim every morning in the White House pool. He did not like air conditioning. And he showed no signs of stress on the job, remained always open and friendly.
Should an assassin break through his
Secret Service protection, they would be in for a rude shock from the
President, but what that shock was could not be revealed
When the First Lady was in town, the President quit work at 5:00 sharp and headed to Blair House. Otherwise, the staff never knew when he would depart work.
It would be another year before large, heavy tanks, which could do battle with the Russian 60-ton tanks in Korea, would be produced. The smallest of them would soon start rolling off the Cadillac assembly lines in Detroit, still no match for the Russian behemoth. The Army had five grades of tanks and the smallest, the "X" tanks, had been the first to arrive in Korea, but had crumpled "like eggshells" before the firepower of the big Russian tanks. The next in line were Sherman I and Sherman II tanks, which were presently arriving in Korea. The Marines were led by the Pershing. The largest existing tank, the Patton, had not yet arrived on the battlefront. Even that, however, was a "tin can" by comparison to the Russian Stalin tank.
The President had assured baseball commissioner Happy Chandler that the Government planned no ban or controls on baseball during the war. Mr. Chandler had offered to the President the services of baseball in any manner it could help during the crisis. The President said that he would place the former Senator at the the top of the list of reservists if he were needed. Mr. Chandler said that no Major League players were seeking draft deferments other than for justifiable reasons applying to all men of draft age.
What else would they be seeking, a deferment for a base on balls?
Marquis Childs tells of cautious optimism being expressed at the Pentagon, that the race to bring up reinforcements in time to prevent the U.N. troops from being pushed off the South Korean peninsula had been won. The continued reverses had led to a negative public reaction which it was believed would be expressed by rejection of the Democrats in the midterm elections. More people were now calling for the ouster of Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson and Secretary of State Acheson, in result of the problems being faced in Korea. If there were to be a breathing spell while the invaders were pushed northward, the chorus would likely grow louder.
The President, however, was not likely to acquiesce in that call, as it was contrary to his character to admit failure, and to fire the two Secretaries would be tantamount to such an admission.
The average citizen wanted to know why it was suddenly apparent that the West was virtually defenseless after repeated assurances to the contrary by the economy-minded Mr. Johnson and by the President, who had said, prior to the crisis, that peace was nearer than at any time in the five years since the war.
Meanwhile, the late Secretary of Defense James Forrestal appeared as the noble patriot who had sought a stronger defense before his resignation in March, 1949 and subsequent suicide. It was believed that his diary, which the Secretary had left in safekeeping of the White House and was then turned over at his death to the executor of his estate, might contain the secret. A partner of Dillon, Read, the law firm acting as executor, was about to collaborate with Mr. Forrestal's family to make a decision on whether to open the diary, which Mr. Childs views as a public obligation. For those who had read it claimed that it did expose how the country had reached its current plight. But it was not a chronological diary and thus would take time to sort through for substance. He favors having historian Douglas Southall Freeman do that job.
Robert C. Ruark says that while many people were heading for the hills, fleeing the target zones of the cities out of fear that a nuclear apocalypse was at hand, he was staying put in his highrise in Manhattan, in the comfort that they would aim high or low and bag the fellow who had fled the inner city to take up residence in a cave in the Catskills. Having ridden ammunition ships during the war and seen his fellow sailors blown up, he had resigned himself not to lose sleep over things which had not occurred. For should they occur, he would not be aware of it anyway. So he was sleeping well.
Some of his ancestors had been killed by arrows and he would, in time, be no deader than they or than the man who died when a kid shot a pistol into the air recently at a baseball game and the bullet landed in the man's skull, or than General Patton who survived the war only to be killed at the end of 1945 in an automobile accident.
Framed Edition
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