The Charlotte News

Monday, August 14, 1950

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that North Korean troops, pushing underwater bridges across the Naktong River, had probed for an imminent drive on Taegu by an estimated 60,000 men, on this fifth anniversary of Korea's liberation from Japan. The threat was placed near Waegwan, twelve miles northwest of Taegu, the principal base on the central front of the defense arc around Pusan. The mounting offensive appeared to be the largest yet thrown at the allied defense line and far outnumbering the U.N. forces. The underwater bridges were sunk about a foot below the surface to avoid detection by air and still permit crossing of men and vehicles.

The U.S. 24th Division, operating behind Pershing tanks, attacked the enemy at dawn on Monday about 23 miles south of Taegu and pushed the North Korean Fourth Division a thousand yards to a mile rearward. MacArthur headquarters, however, reported that the enemy was still delivering reinforcements to the river's east bank in that sector.

American troops recaptured some of the muddy slopes on the eastern side of the river from some of the 19,000 enemy troops who had crossed the Naktong at Changnyong, south of Taegu. Those troops had been trying to break out of the trap for eight days, to proceed to their ultimate objective at Pusan.

A number of American casualties were recorded in the fighting, especially in the Changnyong area.

Don Whitehead reported of a U.S. strafing attack on a thousand North Korean troops in an open plain seven miles southwest of Hohang on the east coast on Sunday. At least 300 of the enemy reportedly were wounded.

The Marines took up positions just outside and on the high ground above destroyed Chinju. At the northern end of the arc, U.S. infantry and tanks still held the airstrip six miles south of Red-occupied Pohang, but planes could no longer use the field. South Korean troops were challenging the enemy in the area of Pohang.

With the rain clearing, Navy carrier-based Corsairs were able to fire a new 11.75-inch rocket, dubbed the "Tiny Tim", at the enemy for the first time, destroying a bridge at Chinju and hitting tanks, locomotives, troop transport rail cars, and gun emplacements. The Tiny Tim had been tested in July, 1948 in the sinking of the U.S.S. Nevada after it had survived two atomic bombs in the Bikini Atoll test of July, 1946.

B-29's bombed targets in North Korea and B-26 light bombers struck at targets in Seoul, silencing a North Korean broadcast station.

Elton C. Fay reports of the B-29 attack which had been reported Saturday, striking within 17 miles of Siberia at Najin, about five minutes flying time from Soviet territory. There had been question preceding the attack whether the Soviets might respond as they had in April in the Baltic, shooting down a U.S. Navy patrol plane 30 miles from the nearest Soviet territory. The Soviets had then warned against other flights in the vicinity of Russian territory.

Five years earlier had been V-J Day, the date of unofficial surrender of the Japanese, formalized on September 2. After short recitation of the reaction at the time to the surrender, the piece remarks at its end: "It was peace, wasn't it? It was the real McCoy."

Senator Joseph O'Mahoney of Wyoming asked members of Congress to refrain from partisan politics in dealing with home front mobilization.

Congressional leaders, after meeting with the President, said that they expected no further immediate requests for more military funding, to add to the 16.5 billion sought by the President for both increased defense and foreign military aid spending since the fighting in Korea had begun June 25, which would bring total defense spending to 31 billion.

The seventh and next available article in the ten-part series by Robert S. Bird and Ogden R. Reid of the New York Herald Tribune, regarding the nation's defenses, may be read in full here, discussing how politics had intervened to hamper mobilization of the country on the home front. The worst shortage in the country, they report, complicating mobilization, was in manpower because the birth rate had subsided during the Depression, meaning that 120,000 fewer males reached age eighteen in 1949 than in 1942. Further complicating available labor was the fact that women had been giving birth at a much higher rate since the end of the Depression and the war, causing many women to be withdrawn from the available labor force.

The House voted to reverse its previous determination to cut from two postal deliveries per day to only one for residential service.

In Chicago, the death of a ten-year old boy on December 17, 1948 had been solved after a man admitted the crime during a lie detector test on Sunday, prompted by investigation of sex offenses against two young girls.

At Lone Pine, California, the search continued on Mt. Whitney for Christopher Smith Reynolds, tobacco heir and son of Libby Holman and the late Zachary Smith Reynolds. The frozen body of his companion on the hike had been discovered in a snowy crevasse at the 11,500-foot level of the mountain, at the base of a 3,000-foot sheer granite cliff. The two had sought to climb the toughest face of the mountain on its eastern side. The parents of the boy whose body had been found had flown from the East Coast and were present at the eastern portal leading to the mountain when the body was discovered. Ms. Holman was preparing to fly from Paris. Both boys, who had been missing since the prior Tuesday, were 17 years old but had been experienced hikers, having climbed the Matterhorn in the Swiss Alps. An experienced climber in the area, however, said that the east face of Mt. Whitney made the Matterhorn appear as a molehill in comparison and that it was a job for a team of at least five climbers operating together. The camping equipment of the two boys was found at the base of the cliff. Hope was dimming for finding young Mr. Reynolds alive. He had in fact died.

On the editorial page, "Again the Senate" tells of four nominees for Federal office, as also discussed in Drew Pearson's column, having not been confirmed, for reasons of home state politics. Two were Federal District Court judicial nominations, one in Iowa and one in Georgia, a third was a nominee to the Motor Carrier Claims Commission, and the fourth, a nominee to be a Federal Trade commissioner. While they might have been incompetent, the piece ventures, no question along those lines had been raised against them. But in each case, a home state Senator opposed the nomination purely for political reasons.

It urges that Senators lay aside politics, at least for the moment during the Korean crisis.

"Memo to Fast Drivers" provides the quoted story from the Winston-Salem Journal of a car crash involving a 1949 convertible the prior Saturday on Highway 311, as a woman pulled onto that road from a side road, right in front of a truck, weaving wildly and speeding as she went, according to the truck driver. The car left a curve shortly thereafter and struck a sign warning of the curve, careering then over an embankment some 60 feet, landing on its top, striking a tree and crashing through four smaller trees before coming to rest against a house in an upright position. All three occupants had been thrown from the car. It had skidded 543 feet before leaving the road. The driver had a fractured skull and was in serious condition. A 15-year old was dead and another the same age, critically injured.

What kind of a car was it? If it had been a Porsche, it never would have happened—provided you know how to tickle it.

"Radios for Russia" tells of the longstanding proposal to have mail-order catalogues from America sent to Russia to allow the people to become enamored of capitalism. David Sarnoff of RCA had come up with another idea along the same lines, that small $2 radios could be manufactured for receipt of Voice of America and distributed to the Russians. The piece does not know how feasible the plan was, but suggests that it would be worth the money if practicable....

As with every invention, however, there would be a downside.

"Operation Protocol" tells of Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson having drafted a letter to Secretary of State Acheson complaining of the Joint Chiefs being seated at state functions too far from the hostess and urging that they be treated with greater dignity. The change had occurred, relegating some to greater distances down the table. The piece finds it appropriate but also recommends as an alternative that the rule of pele-mele be recognized, that is, open the doors and let every man fend for himself to grab a seat.

A piece from the Greenville (S.C.) News, titled "Freezing in August", recommends stocking the home freezer with home grown fruits and vegetables during the month, adding to the nation's food supply, the antithesis of hoarding.

Drew Pearson, still on vacation, had his column this date written by Fred Blumenthal and Jack Anderson. They tell of the American Embassy in Moscow reporting that the Kremlin was delighted by the news of the Senate's approval of a 100 million dollar loan to Francisco Franco's Spain, as they would use it for anti-American propaganda, serving up quotes from Señor Franco, probable examples of which they provide, praising Hitler in 1937, 1938, and 1941, even expressing the hope in that latter year that one day the German bombers would punish "the insolence of the skyscrapers of New York City."

The President was upset that the Senate had rejected four nominations, two agency appointees and two Federal judicial nominations, the previous week, but privately admitted that he might have voted the same way. He had been urged by Congressional leaders to withdraw the nominations to avoid an embarrassing defeat, two being opposed by a Senator from the nominees' home states and thus doomed.

The Washington Metropolitan Police lieutenant who had allegedly been directed by Senator Owen Brewster to wiretap Howard Hughes and others in 1947 to benefit Juan Trippe and Pan Am at the expense of TWA, should have directed his assistants to place a tail on Senator Brewster if in fact he had been hired to protect the Senator, as the lieutenant had claimed. So they suggest that Senator Claude Pepper, looking into the matter, ought talk to the lieutenant's aides.

The democracies were focusing on building the first atomic-powered submarine, as Russia was also known to be competing to develop the technology. Such a submarine could stay underwater for days while traveling at close to 30 mph. One sub would be able to destroy a whole fleet.

Stewart Alsop tells of a research program having been started by former Secretary of Defense James Forrestal to produce a satellite which would travel at around 17,000 mph, making 16 revolutions of the earth per day, while assisting in predicting weather, mapping, and photographing territories of countries not readily accessible by ground or conventional aircraft to spot major defense installations. Flying at an altitude of 300 miles, the satellites would burn up in a couple of years, but at 400 miles, though a more difficult orbit to attain, would last indefinitely.

The satellite would be launched into outer space by a multi-stage rocket, probably of three stages, and chemically fueled, with the middle stage being about the size of the German V-1, the first stage far larger, and the third stage, bearing the satellite, far smaller.

The President was facing a decision to go forward with this project, which had a projected cost of only 250 million dollars, about one percent of that currently being expended on defense.

He predicts that the President would order the satellite into production, if not for any other reason, because the Russians would eventually. He sympathizes with the President's belief, however, that the scientists, since the hydrogen bomb development was begun, were going entirely too far. For he finds something odd about a heavenly body made by man orbiting the earth for the purpose of increasing his war-making efficiency.

Marquis Childs discusses the low availability in the West of manganese, necessary for steel production, for the fact that Russia had the world's largest supply, formerly exported to the U.S. until the previous two years when it had dried to a trickle. An alternative source at Deming, New Mexico, had been known for some time, but to mine it would be unduly expensive without Government assurances, as the amount available to be mined was relatively small.

After much hemming and hawing, Senator Clinton Anderson of New Mexico and Secretary of Interior Oscar Chapman had gotten behind the project, urged it to the Munitions Board, and it was likely therefore that the 100,000 tons of available manganese ore would be mined from the Southwest.

A letter writer objects to the mockish attitude displayed by some Americans toward General MacArthur. He hopes and trusts that he would not stop in pushing the North Koreans behind the 38th parallel and would keep on pushing afterward. He finds that such people were falling for Communist propaganda.

A letter writer from Pinehurst praises the jury for having earlier in the year convicted Alger Hiss, after his retrial for perjury before the Grand Jury in 1948. He thinks Whittaker Chambers's conversion to Quakerism had enabled him to endure the "ordeal" of taking the stand to testify against Mr. Hiss. He wonders whether Mr. Hiss would serve his country, as had Mr. Chambers, by telling all he knew regarding Communism. He also thinks that Secretary Acheson ought be replaced for his abiding friendship with Mr. Hiss. He hopes that Mr. Hiss would disclose who among FDR's advisers had recommended that he attend Yalta as an aide and adviser. He thinks it would be better to come clean than go down in history as a traitor. He also finds it interesting that the Roosevelts, including FDR and son Elliott, had referred to Stalin as "Uncle Joe".

You must have taken a crash course at UNB-Pinehurst, the branch in that town of the University of Nixon Brainwashington.

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