The Charlotte News

Friday, August 4, 1950

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that a sharp American counter-attack, newly reinforced by the First Marine and Second Infantry divisions, had taken place to check the enemy advance in the southwest corner of the front, eight miles west of Masan, 35 miles from Pusan. Meanwhile, the North Koreans were reported to be bringing up two fresh divisions for their intended final push to Pusan. Within the arc of the new front, 600 enemy dead had been counted, according to MacArthur headquarters, following the previous day's four-hour battle near Masan. The fight continued along that front with the Communists unable to advance.

In the vicinity of Yongdok, in the northeastern part of the line, heavy enemy mortar and artillery fire was reported. Elsewhere along the line, in the central sectors, the enemy was said to be disengaged, with the Americans dug in along the east bank of the Naktong River, described by officers as the best defense line yet achieved. Forty-five tanks previously believed advancing toward Chinju turned out to be burned-out hulks previously hit by American aerial attacks.

Correspondent O. H. P. King, with the 24th Division, reports of a medical officer imparting that North Korean soldiers had murdered two wounded and bound American prisoners on the battlefield the previous day. One was shot through the head and the other bayoneted to death. On July 15, frontline reports stated that at least 18 Americans had been murdered in the same manner. Correspondent William R. Moore, missing—in fact killed during action the previous Sunday—, had reported on July 18 that thirty wounded American soldiers had been shot by the enemy while on their litters on the Kum River line.

A large North Korean refinery at Wonsan was hit for the second time by U.S. Navy B-29's, hit previously on July 18. Heavy damage was also inflicted on Wonsan's railway yards.

It was announced by the Far Eastern Air Force that the B-29's bombing North Korea were now based on Okinawa, 700 miles away from Korea and equidistant to Amoy on the coast of China, logical staging area for any attack on Formosa.

The first six American jets had arrived to defend Formosa, along with experts from MacArthur headquarters to survey Formosa's defenses. According to Nationalist reports, shelling by the Communist Chinese of Quemoy, 100 miles from Formosa, continued.

At the U.N., the Security Council the previous day had voted 8 to 1 to consider as the first order of business on the revised agenda the issue of the U.S. resolution condemning North Korea for not respecting the U.N.-ordered ceasefire, and inviting all member nations to assist in localizing the action to Korea. The heated exchanges over the previous three days between the Russian chief delegate, Jakob Malik, and the U.S. chief delegate, Warren Austin, were the most combative to have occurred thus far in the five-year history of the organization. Mr. Malik suggested that Mr. Austin was trying to blackmail him, as Mr. Austin charged Mr. Malik with slanderous charges against the U.S. for "aggression" in Korea when the real villain had been Russia. The British delegate, Sir Gladwyn Jebb, said that Mr. Malik's remarks made it clear that Russia intended to maintain a stance which was the opposite of truth. The French delegate, Jean Chauvel, added that Mr. Malik's charge of U.S. aggression was false.

Russia was reported by reliable sources to be ready to demand that North Korea be invited to participate in the U.N. debate on the conflict. Western diplomats were expected to oppose vigorously the effort.

Senator William Knowland of California told the press that he had brought a special appeal from Syngman Rhee, president of South Korea, seven months before the June 25 attack for additional arms and defense equipment. Brig. General William L. Roberts, former head of the U.S. military mission in South Korea, stated in executive session to the Senate that Washington officials had refused requests for additional tanks, planes and heavy guns, that the North Koreans had, before the invasion, evacuated all civilians from an area ten miles above the 38th parallel, that there was no assigned intelligence officer to the military mission, and that some persons had believed that the South Koreans might attack North Korea if provided heavy equipment.

The Army announced that it would call to 21 months active duty 62,000 reservists during September and October. Those called first would be between 19 and 25, with priority based on number of dependents. They would come from a pool of 185,000 reservists and would be used primarily to bring the organized reserve units and National Guard to full strength, as well as for specialists, such as radio and radar operators, in the regular Army. About 700 reservists in the Charlotte area would be among the call-up.

The House had started anew writing its mandatory wage and price control bill after junking the previous bill. The new bill would make hoarders subject to prison sentences and fines and provide the allocation and credit controls requested by the President, to which wage-price control amendments would be added. The previous bill was denounced by the President the previous day for providing for automatic implementation of controls if the cost of living rose by five percent over the June 15 level, taking away the discretion of the President to implement the controls. He described it as an invitation to such an increase in the cost of living.

Emery Wister of The News reports that Charles Crutchfield, vice-president and general manager of Jefferson Standard Broadcasting Co. and manager of Jefferson-owned WBT radio station and WBTV in Charlotte, was being considered for appointment by the President to the Federal censorship and information commission, to supervise the dissemination of all press, radio, television and other media information for the duration of the war. The commission would consist of 25 persons.

As pictured, a man in Dallas, Texas, paraded a live hog, labeled "Hoarder", through the streets while wearing a sign reading, "Piggism isn't Americanism—Don't Overbuy While Americans Die".

On the editorial page, "Mr. Malik Tastes Defeat" recaps the prior three days during which Jakob Malik, chief Russian delegate to the U.N., had sought unsuccessfully, first, to oust Nationalist China from the Security Council and then, as rotating Council president, to structure the agenda to fit Soviet desires, with the Chinese seating question to be settled ahead of discussion of Korea. The eight to three loss on unseating Nationalist China plus the loss the previous day on the agenda question, with the Korean issue having been placed first and the item regarding recognition of Communist China deleted, had followed hours of lengthy debate during which Mr. Malik charged the U.S. with "aggression" in Korea and elsewhere, causing many delegates to believe that the Russians had returned from their seven-month boycott over the Chinese question for the sole purpose of stirring propaganda and might again walk out. Thus far, Mr. Malik was staying.

Russia, for the time being, appeared ready to use its position on the Security Council as a means to block through veto further U.N. action on Korea. It was now in the untenable position whereby it could not prevent the resolution already passed from continuing in effect but if it left the Council again, could not continue to use the platform for propaganda, and if it remained, could not continue to press the line that the U.N. action was illegal because of the Chinese issue.

It concludes that the world would not be fooled by Russian propaganda into believing that the North Korean aggression was anything but Russian-backed and equipped. The debates of the previous three days had made that clear. The U.N. had met its second major test and done so in such a way as to rekindle the previously waning hopes that it could be effective as an instrument of peace in the world.

"Progress of the Battle" tells of the U.N. forces now being firmly entrenched behind the Naktong River, thought to be a safe line finally capable of defense until the necessary reinforcements could be landed at Pusan to begin the offensive part of the operations. The Communist troops now had longer supply lines while the U.N. forces had shorter lines and a smaller arc to defend, protected by the river. The Communists remained dangerous and fierce fighting had erupted this date in the southern sector despite their supply lines being repeatedly hammered by the Air Force.

It concludes that upon the resistance to this new attack by the enemy would depend the entire U.N. venture in Korea.

"The Farm Bloc Wins Again" finds that once again, as usual, the farm bloc had managed to achieve its desired ends by enabling farm goods to be exempted from the House bill on wartime controls. In effect, the Congress was cracking down on profiteering from the war in every economic sector except farming. It concludes that the weakest link in the Federal Government was neither the Supreme Court nor the President but rather the Congress, increasingly becoming beholden to the special interests.

"Road Damage" finds that the Durham Sun's exception to a study by Maryland, with the cooperation of eleven other states and the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads, to determine the effect of heavy trucks on roads to have been properly taken, as the study only looked at damage by trucks weighing between 18,000 and 44,800 tons, when in North Carolina the weight limit was 58,000, below many states. In addition, many truckers regularly exceeded that limit.

So, it does not object to the study but, like The Sun, believes that the conditions of the test ought fairly replicate actual conditions on the roads of the nation to achieve a fair result.

Drew Pearson tells of Congressional leaders meeting with the President regarding his request for four billion dollars in further foreign military aid, with Senator Tom Connally favoring diverting some of it from the Marshall Plan aid already appropriated, as the nations would need to understand that everyone had to tighten their belts during this war. But Secretary of State Acheson balked at cutting off food to the European allies, to which Senator Connally objected that there was no need to feed them for five years when some Americans needed feeding. Secretary Acheson agreed but said that Europeans needed hydroelectric plants provided by the aid also, as those plants were necessary to produce munitions. But Senator Connally responded that it would take two to three years to construct such plants while the present situation was an emergency.

Congressman Dewey Short complained to the President about bypassing the Foreign Affairs and Armed Services Committees and going straight to the Appropriations Committees with the bill, thought it unconstitutional to do so, but the President, disdainful of the only House Republican from Missouri, brushed off the protestation as making an issue of nothing. House Minority Leader Joe Martin finally intervened on the President's side.

It was believed that the Grand Jury probe of wiretapping in Washington, conducted at the behest of Senator Owen Brewster by a Washington police lieutenant against Howard Hughes and others in 1947, would end in a whitewash. Senator Brewster was being given a pass because the police lieutenant said that he had never shared the information with the Senator or anyone else. Moreover, there was only a week left before the statute of limitations would expire on the matter.

Mr. Pearson regards the record of wiretapping by the FBI to be good, employing the practice only in limited cases of espionage, kidnapping or otherwise where national security was involved. Thus, the Justice Department response to the Metropolitan Police wiretapping case was being watched carefully.

Stewart Alsop finds that the Korean crisis had initially cut labor support for Senator Taft in Ohio from 40 percent to only 24 percent, but that as the crisis had dragged on and losses of Americans had mounted the Administration had lost support, spelling potential trouble in the midterm elections. Louis H. Bean's The Mid-Term Battle, as the only forecaster who correctly predicted the 1948 outcome, had forecast as much.

A heavy turnout in the midterm elections would help Democrats, but traditionally midterm elections had light turnouts and it was likely to be even lighter than usual in time of war.

Prior to the war, the Democrats had counted on a growing approbatory trend toward the Fair Deal following the "do-nothing" 80th Congress, the Truman technique of cross-country touring to muster support, plus continued prosperity to carry them to victory. But with the war, the President could not afford politically to undertake a junket, support for the Fair Deal was faltering, and prosperity was giving way to rising prices, the primary problem for the Democrats in 1946 when they had lost the Congress.

Yet the initial labor response to Senator Taft signaled a turn to the President's leadership in contrast to the traditional isolationist approach of one of the two leading Republican candidates, along with General Eisenhower, thought viable for the presidency in 1952. For the President to continue to exert bold, disinterested leadership, however, he could not continue to rely on those who advised him so disastrously in the recent past. Mr. Alsop regards that continued reliance as the reason for the lessening of popular response as the weeks of the war had dragged on without more than retreat to show for the time and losses.

Robert C. Ruark finds that the intimate side of the war had not yet been fathomed or reported, for instance what the soldiers were eating in Korea. In Africa during 1942-43, eggs and oranges, chickens and melons were obtained locally by the American soldiers. In the Pacific, breadfruit, mango and papaya were consumed. In Italy, fowl and cows were the delicacy of choice. Cows also fell to the Marines on Guam. In one instance, a Marine lieutenant commander cracked down on his troops for killing cows on that island, and when a sentry subsequently shot one, he claimed that he thought it was two Japanese trying to run off with the water bag. The commander gave up and shortly afterward rejoined the Navy.

Likewise, there was no indication of what the soldiers were drinking in Korea. In Africa, it had been native wine, which ranged from turpentine to laghbi made from date juice. In the Marianas, tuba, made from coconut palm sap, along with a more potent version, aggi, were the drinks of choice. In the Pacific, kaya, made from a plant chewed by the native women and then spit out, was consumed until the thirst for it abated from discovery of its peculiar derivation.

Nothing had either been learned of the people of Korea or the G.I. slang being developed, if any. The songs had also remained a secret. He suggests that "Yongdong" had to rhyme with something.

The whole conflict had seemed unreal to date, as the reporters apparently had not yet had enough break from the fighting to provide a picture of the soldiers.

A letter from the president of the League of Women Voters includes a letter sent to the Charlotte City Council regarding the League's support of the million dollar bond issue of 1949 re recreation facilities in the city. It says that the League had not worked to have the money spent "haphazardly" and wants the authority of the Parks & Recreation Commission respected by the Council.

A letter from the chairman of the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce thanks the newspaper and various other organs of dissemination in the community, plus the League of Women Voters, for support in the successful bond elections of the previous Saturday.

A letter writer from Pinehurst thanks the newspaper for its editorial, "Senatorial Grab-Bag", regarding the failure of the Senate to reduce the rivers, harbors and navigation bill to eliminate pork. He thinks the Senate had become a "Bandit's Retreat". Russia had cleverly plotted the country's economic ruin. He warns that unless the country succeeded in raising the standard of intelligence and decency in Congress, "Vigilance Committees" would need be formed to "weed out" those ready to sell the country down the river.

Just how do you propose to do that? That sounds like a call to arms, a Kong Op. You must be kin to those people on the radio in Texas.

There is no Saturday edition of The News this week on the microfilm. In the meantime, you may keep track of the daily events here and here.

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