The Charlotte News
Friday, November 30, 1951
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via Robert B. Tuckman, that allied ceasefire negotiators this date had flatly refused to discuss withdrawal of troops from Korea until an armistice was signed, after the Communists, the previous day, had invited such an agreement. The allies also made clear that they would not modify the demands for joint inspection teams behind the battle lines to ensure compliance with the ceasefire buffer zone, and for an ironclad ban on strengthening front line troops. In response, the Communists called the allied proposals "unreasonable and impractical" and that joint inspection teams would cause interference with the internal affairs of the other side. Vice-Admiral C. Turner Joy, the chief negotiator for the U.N., responded that only the side objecting to such joint inspection could have any ulterior motive. At the end of the day, the U.N. negotiators reported that there had been no progress made and that they would meet again the following day.
There was no mention at the meeting of the relative quiet which had settled over the battlefield since the 30-day agreement on the buffer zone, pending resolution during that period of the final terms of armistice.
In Key West, the White House quoted from the previously unpublished secret document which had set forth the orders Monday from the Eighth Army directing the continuance of hostilities "until the signing of the armistice agreement". The document had been misinterpreted by the Associated Press and by lower echelon officers, believing it to be an order not to fire unless fired upon. Joseph Short, White House press secretary, said that the Associated Press statement had been designed to confuse the American people.
After clarification of the orders issued Monday, responsible authorities in Washington made it clear that the fighting could be expected to continue but not, for the time being, with the same intensity as it had previously, and that ground action presumably would be limited to artillery pressure on the enemy, reconnaissance patrols to check enemy troop dispositions and limited attacks as needed to knock out any suspicious enemy concentrations. It was not expected that the U.N. ground forces would advance their positions during the 30-day interval. Naval and air action, however, would continue as before, and air combat might even be increased. The truce negotiations were expected to be successful if the enemy command agreed to prompt and complete release of all allied troops held as prisoners and to some type of inspection of forces during the armistice. It was also indicated that there would be an extension of the 30-day period should it appear that there was a good chance of completing the negotiations shortly thereafter. The misinterpretation of the orders had occurred because there was an attempt on the part of Eighth Army commander General James Van Fleet to adjust the fighting to the ongoing ceasefire negotiations and avoid taking new territory, which would only have to be returned in the event of finalization of the armistice terms within the 30-day period.
In the air war, American Sabre jet pilots had won the greatest air battle of the war this date, reporting a total result of ten enemy planes shot down, four damaged and one more probably destroyed. No allied planes were lost. One American pilot bagged four of the enemy planes and thereby became America's fifth jet ace of the war, as his total rose to one more than the five needed to qualify. In all, 31 American Sabre jets engaged 16 MIG-15 jets plus 30 propeller-driven Russian-type planes.
In Paris, the U.N. political committee voted unanimously to suspend debate on the opposing East-West disarmament plans, pending efforts by the Big Four to seek agreement in secret talks, expected to begin immediately. The committee asked that the four nations report back on their progress by December 10. Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Vishinsky had agreed to participate in the talks with the foreign ministers of the U.S., Britain, and France. U.S. Ambassador Philip Jessup said it was a hopeful development, but added the reservation that the belligerent tone of Mr. Vishinsky's acceptance speech indicated that the task ahead would be difficult, a view echoed by spokesmen for France and Britain.
Members of the House Ways & Means subcommittee investigating tax fraud cases recessed their hearings unexpectedly this date until Monday to allow more time to examine Justice Department files, at which time the examination of former Assistant Attorney General Lamar Caudle, in charge of the tax division, would continue for the fifth day.
In Miami, Florida, a dynamite explosion badly damaged an apartment building in Carver Village, a controversial black housing project within a white housing development, where another building had been dynamited 69 days earlier. No one was injured in the blast, caused by 20 to 25 sticks of dynamite and destroying two apartment units while causing structural damage to the rest of the building.
In Essex, N.C., the post office was robbed early this date and the entire building and its contents destroyed by fire, following an explosion believed to have been the means used to open the safe in the rear of the store which housed the post office. The robbers made off with approximately $3,500 worth of cash, bonds, stamps and money orders.
In Evansville, Indiana, a year earlier it had appeared that a nine-year old boy probably would not live through the winter and so had his Christmas early. His continued survival was interrupted the previous week by a relapse and so his mother again brought out the presents early and set up a Christmas tree, prompting the boy to say, "Tie them up again until Christmas." The previous day, however, he told his mother that he was prepared to leave, and two hours later, died.
Tom Fesperman of The News tells of a two-pound baby born the previous year in Charlotte now weighing 25.5 pounds. The male infant had struggled to live a year earlier but had increased his weight by 13 times in the first year of life, whereas most infants only tripled their initial weight. Premature babies usually gained weight at a faster rate, sometimes by as much as five times, but it was rare, according to the doctors, for the multiplier to be as high as 13. Doctors said that two pounds was about the minimum size that a premature baby could weigh and have any chance of survival.
Let us hope that the rate slows down in the ensuing year or he will weigh upwards of more than 325 pounds.
In Birmingham, presumably in Alabama, a three-year old girl stopped a bingo game the previous night when she got one of the beans used in the game lodged in her nose and had to visit a hospital to have it removed.
How can you possibly listen to the numbers
On page 16-A, the fifth installment in the 12-part serialization of Senator Taft's recently published, A Foreign Policy for Americans, discusses "the Russian menace and how it was created".
On the editorial page, "Our Share in the Common Effort" again promotes the benefit to the community and nation to be obtained from the proposed extension of the runways at the Charlotte Municipal airport, to accommodate jet training by the North Carolina Air National Guard, which would fund the project, a project which would also help to modernize aviation in the area. It hopes that the County Commissioners would enable this project to go forward, so as not to compromise defense of the country or inhibit progress of the community.
"Celanese and Charlotte" tells of the decision of the Celanese Corporation of America to build a large management and sales center in Mecklenburg County thereby opening up new and limitless possibilities for growth and development of the community, as Celanese, largest producer of acetate fibers, was to industry as Maine had traditionally been to presidential politics, an indicator of the trend. It therefore extends a welcome to the corporation, finds it a good company staffed by good people and likely to add to the civic, religious, social and cultural life of the community.
"Gloomy GOP Senate Outlook" finds the death of Nebraska Senator Kenneth Wherry, Republican floor leader, to spell yet more trouble for Republicans in the 1952 Senate elections, where of the 34 contested seats, 20 were held by Republicans and only 14 by Democrats, meaning that the Republicans would have to take three-fifths of those seats just to maintain their 46 present seats against 50 for the Democrats. Moreover, 12 of the 14 Democratic seats were in the traditionally Democratic South or in other states where both Senators were Democrats. In addition, many of the Republican Senators, such as Joseph McCarthy in Wisconsin, William Jenner in Indiana, Owen Brewster in Maine, and William Knowland in California, were being heavily contested in 1952.
It concludes that if Republican Senators were observed appearing doleful, then it was to be understood why that was.
A piece from the Atlanta Journal, titled "What's So Wrong with a Dog's Life?" tells of the 22 million dogs in the country having a combined upkeep of 500 million dollars per year, more than the combined income of the population of Vermont. Most of the money went for eight million pounds of dog food per year, two and one-third times as much food as consumed annually by humans in Oklahoma. There were also other amenities comprising the doggy budget, as dog deodorizers and dog mouthwash, sweaters, mattresses and cushioned blankets, beauty parlors and dog baths, coiffures and pedicures, swimming, and, finally, for when the dog kicked the bucket, a doggy cemetery, replete with caskets.
It suggests that when a dog owner
threw table scraps to their dog, they should relent as the dog
deserved better, and, in fact, the owner might instead go to the
doghouse and tell the dog to move over
Drew Pearson tells of General Eisenhower, when he had met with the Joint Chiefs in Washington earlier the previous month, having imparted that the greatest danger of war was a potential Soviet satellite attack on Yugoslavia the following spring. For its strategic proximity to Italy, it would inevitably subject the latter, which was one-third Communist, to sabotage, upheaval and eventual revolution. Mr. Pearson says that when he had talked to Marshal Tito earlier in the year, he advised him to cut the red tape and release Archbishop Stepinac from jail to end that symbol of religious persecution, seriously impairing relations between Italy and Yugoslavia. Mr. Pearson relates that during his Quaker relief work after World War I in Yugoslavia, he had discovered that Moslems, Orthodox and Catholics could work together and live together in harmony in Yugoslavia probably better than in the U.S. The continued incarceration of the Archbishop had angered many American Catholics and Yugoslavia was more vital to the military defense of the Vatican than any other country in the world, for the reasons spelled out by General Eisenhower.
When Secretary of State Acheson had
first arrived in Paris for the U.N. General Assembly meeting, he had
discovered that his hotel room was over an entrance where
loudspeakers called chauffeurs and their cars day and night, causing
sleep to be impossible, prompting Mrs. Acheson to purchase some
earplugs, which thereafter she found the Secretary trying to swallow,
as he believed them to be sleeping pills
Mr. Pearson notes that Mr. Acheson, physically tired from the diplomatic debates in Paris, and discouraged over the lack of U.N. progress, and furthermore realizing that every politician in Paris was seeking an audience with General Eisenhower while ignoring the Secretary, was considering anew the possibility of resigning his post, as he believed himself a liability to the coming political campaign.
The appointment of Roger Putnam to the job of Economic Stabilizer was the first sign that the White House was getting fed up with Defense Mobilizer Charles E. Wilson, and that the President was now listening to new DNC chairman Frank McKinney. Mr. Wilson had wanted to name the new Stabilizer after friction between Mr. Wilson and Eric Johnston, the predecessor Stabilizer, had led to the latter's resignation, but the President, in the end, elected to appoint his own man, as recommended by Mr. McKinney. Mr. Putnam was a friend of Mr. McKinney and the two had worked closely together in the Office of War Contract Negotiation and were bank officials. Mr. Wilson had not been able to produce, and military production was so bad that it could hardly be published.
Congressman Sam Yorty of California, later Mayor of Los Angeles, had been making speeches in which he referred to Senator William Knowland of California as the "Senator from Formosa", suggesting that even Republicans in California were not much interested in Formosa.
An editorial from the London Times discusses the Paris U.N. General Assembly meeting and the fact that the Security Council had readily accepted the U.S. proposal that Frank Graham, as U.N. mediator for the India-Pakistan dispute regarding Kashmir, be allowed to continue his efforts to effect a resolution as long as the Assembly remained in session.
The only way to have a fair plebiscite among the people of Kashmir would be to have the military presence of India and Pakistan removed, and Mr. Graham had been seeking an agreement along those lines for many months, had worked out a plan for demilitarization, taking into account the objections put forward by each side, but had, as yet, secured no agreement. He had, however, gained the trust of the leaders of both countries. Although there was a disposition to reach agreement, differences remained relating to the number of Indian troops that would be allowed to remain in Kashmir without influencing the plebiscite, the balance to be preserved between the forces of the National Conference Party and the Free Kashmir administration, and the difficulty of reconciling the claim of the Constituent Assembly as a sovereign body with the Indian pledge that the determination of the allegiance of the people of Kashmir to India or Pakistan would be determined by a fair vote.
The first meetings of the Constituent Assembly showed that it had no representation among those who favored allegiance to Pakistan, and it would, if left to its own devices, opt for India when the time was considered right. While Prime Minister Nehru of India had made it clear that the Assembly was not competent to make a decision on the question, its proceedings were being reported in India as if it was a body which was genuinely representative of the people of Kashmir. The Assembly had been adjourned after appointing two exploratory committees, and, for the time being, would be left in abeyance. The piece suggests that it should remain there if the Indian pledges were to be honored.
Robert C. Ruark finds unduly harsh the sentencing in New York of the basketball game-fixer to 8 to 16 years in prison, and one of the 14 players convicted of fixing games for money, to up to three years, while four others received from six months to a year in jail. Such sentences, he opines, when compared to those received by such notorious defendants as convicted former Justice Department employee Judy Coplon for passing secrets to a Russian spy, or former Congressman Andrew May, convicted of influencing placement of war contracts for his own benefit during time of war, or Serge Rubinstein, a draft dodger, provided a disproportionate amount of time for deterring a relatively innocuous social ill, betting on basketball games. He posits that such athletes had committed no real crime against the state, only against themselves. He finds it no worse to conspire to throw a game than it was to have young players working professionally for amateur colleges and military academies.
"These boys have been taught conspiracy from early participation and I think it's a crime to make a jailbird out of any guy who merely expanded the conspiracy to where he took money from a gambler instead of a rich alumnus. Win or lose, the outcome of the actual game is not important."
So it's not how you play the game in college that's important, it's who gets there firstest with the most dough to rig it? And was not that the same cynical mentality which had gone on at West Point earlier in the year? resulting in the cheating scandal among cadets involving most of the football team, whereby they cribbed their answers from earlier exams.
A letter writer wants a hazardous curve on Oaklawn Avenue in Charlotte straightened so that bus transportation could occur without danger and so that traffic accidents could be reduced and business access enhanced.
A letter writer responds to the continuing controversy surrounding hillbilly music, as spawned by the letter of A. W. Black, specifically responding to the latter's letter of the prior Saturday, which inspired the writer to come to the defense of the custom of preserving folk tunes, many of which had been brought over the sea by the colonists and handed down generationally from the pioneers. He agrees with Mr. Black insofar as his condemnation of modern hillbilly music as "rat poison". But, he says, having been a hillbilly himself some 40 years earlier in the Blue Bridge Mountains, he had heard true hillbilly fiddlers, such as Len Tolbert, playing "The Last Gold Dollar", Ben Miller, playing "Soldier's Joy", Nathan Cazort, playing "Climbing the Golden Stairs", Charlie Taylor, playing "Arkansas Traveler", and Bill Smith, playing "Forked Horn Deer", and therefore knew what real hillbilly music was, so condemned only those who attempted "to make it without any real knowledge of the art." He hopes that the old-timers who he had named, dead for many years, shared a corner in "Glory" where they could make music again, and that if he were fortunate enough to be there, he would be in their audience.
A letter writer from Washington, D.C., says that he would like to hear from any members of the Tarrant family of North Carolina, on whose genealogy he was collecting data. He provides an address to which to write if you happen to be a Tarrant or have any information on them. Give him a whistle, as he has been waiting a long time for response.
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