The Charlotte News
Saturday, December 1, 1951
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via Robert B. Tuckman, that the U.N. command this date expressed concern over mounting Communist air power in Korea by insisting in the ceasefire talks that construction or repair of airbases in North Korea be banned during an armistice. The Communists responded that the U.N. was trying to deprive it forever of the right to defend itself. Vice-Admiral C. Turner Joy, head of the U.N. negotiating team, stated that airfields were the only type of military facilities which the allies believed had to be restricted to prevent military buildup by either side during the truce.
In the ground war, U.N. infantrymen fought off the bitterest cold wave yet of the winter and, for the most part, fired at the enemy only when the enemy probed close to their positions in foxholes. The temperature along the front reached five degrees in the eastern sector on the previous day, when no activity had been reported in the eastern or western sectors, and no U.S. Third Division soldier had been killed or wounded, the first day of such a report from the division since late in the summer. One U.N. unit this date had forfeited advance positions northwest of Yonchon on the western front to grenade-tossing enemy troops. Other U.N. forces resisted a platoon-sized enemy probing attack after a three-hour fight southeast of Kumsong. Other action along the front by noon on Saturday had been insignificant.
After heavy enemy truck traffic had been spotted by air reconnaissance on the roads on Friday, traffic had returned to normal this date.
Senator William Knowland of California stated in a television interview from San Francisco the previous night that he believed the Senate Armed Services Committee should investigate the claimed misinterpretation of Eighth Army orders issued the previous Monday which had resulted in a ceasefire for one day along the front lines in Korea. The Senator said that he was convinced that a ceasefire order had been issued by General James Van Fleet, Eighth Army commander, and done with the knowledge of General Matthew Ridgway, U.N. supreme commander. He added that he believed that General Ridgway would not have approved such an order without approval from Washington.
Earlier the previous day, the White House stated that no high source had issued any such order and that U.N. forces had been instructed that hostilities would continue until the signing of the armistice agreement.
In Paris, the Big Four foreign ministry representatives, including Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Vishinsky, met for an hour this date in a cordial atmosphere, beginning their secret conference to try to reach agreement between the conflicting proposals for disarmament presented by the Soviets and the U.S. No statement was issued and they planned to meet again on Monday morning.
In other U.N. business, the 60-member political committee approved overwhelmingly a Yugoslav resolution calling for Russia and its satellites to settle their differences with Yugoslavia by peaceful means, with only the Russian bloc dissenting.
A Moscow radio broadcast this date warned Turkey that joining NATO would cause serious harm to its relations with the Soviet Union, echoing a note from Deputy Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko to the Turkish Ambassador in Moscow the previous day. A previous note of November 3 had issued a similar warning, with the most recent communication rejecting Turkey's November 12 reply which had stated that its intention in aligning with the West was to defend itself, especially in the Dardanelles and in some Turkish provinces along the border with Russia regarding which the Soviets had made threatening statements, and entailed no aggressive aims.
In Paris, France announced that it had received a promise from Secretary of State Acheson and Averell Harriman, aid coordinator, of aid in the amount of 600 million dollars for the present fiscal year. It was believed that Congress would have to approve the additional appropriation in January.
In Key West, the President planned during the afternoon to conduct a full-scale review of military production in a meeting with Defense Mobilizer Charles E. Wilson, following complaints by the Senate Preparedness subcommittee, chaired by Senator Lyndon Johnson, that rearmament was lagging dangerously behind schedule because arms had not received priority over civilian needs. Mr. Wilson had recently said that U.S. arms production was presently proceeding at a rate of two billion dollars per month and would be increased to twice that rate when the program hit its full stride in 1953. After that point, volume would taper off and the stress would be placed on quality, invention and improvement in weaponry. He expressed confidence that the country could maintain its military strength for up to a century hence if needed and absorb the economic strain in the process. The Preparedness subcommittee had disputed the Defense Department's contentions that delivery of U.S. arms to Western Europe was on schedule.
The President had gone fishing with a group, including CIA director, General Walter Bedell Smith, the latter catching seven of the total 30 fish caught by the group, while the President, who fished for only about twenty minutes, caught a small red snapper, then took a nap for about an hour, the report indicating that he had never been an enthusiastic fisherman.
The red snapper was the only fish he needed to catch.
News editor Pete McKnight reports that former Attorney General and now Supreme Court Justice Tom Clark had been a passenger along with his assistant at the time, Lamar Caudle, on the private airplane of Troy Whitehead, a Charlotte businessman, on two separate pleasure trips during the time Mr. Whitehead had been under investigation for tax difficulties. The pilot on the trips, in March, 1946 and June, 1947, confirmed the report in an interview. The trips had not yet been disclosed in Mr. Caudle's testimony to the House Ways & Means subcommittee investigating his prosecution of tax fraud cases. The piece provides verbatim the statement of the pilot.
It should be noted that Mr. Caudle did not become assistant in charge of the Justice Department's tax division until 1947 and had been in charge previously of the criminal division since late 1945.
Attorney General J. Howard McGrath stated that he would be delighted to testify before the subcommittee, following demands the previous night by two Republican members of the subcommittee that he be questioned about the Justice Department's policy in prosecuting tax fraud cases. He said that he would provide the committee information on any past case about which it had a complaint.
A dispute between All-American Airways and the Air Line Pilots Association was settled this date, with a reported increase of 12 percent in pilot earnings.
In Phoenix, Ariz., a woman who had killed two girlfriends 20 years earlier and been dubbed in the press "Tiger Woman", was recaptured the previous night and returned to the State hospital for the insane. It was her fourth such escape and she had been on the lam this time for less than a day. She was wearing a fur coat which she had taken from an apartment during her brief time at large and offered no resistance when two Highway Patrolmen stopped her. She said, however, that she believed that she should be freed after having served 20 years. She had shot her roommates in October, 1931 and then shipped their dismembered bodies in a trunk to Los Angeles, was originally sentenced to hang, but within 72 hours of the scheduled execution, was found insane and committed to the State hospital.
What did she do that was so wrong?
On the editorial page, "We're Waiting, Mr. Truman" tells of the President having reportedly stated two weeks earlier, when he had fired Lamar Caudle as Assistant Attorney General in charge of the tax division, that those who had engaged in activities which would leave the Administration open to charges of corruption by Republicans would be fired.
The piece presents a list of military officers who had been suspended or relieved of command based on improper outside activities, but then questions why Maj. General Harry Vaughan, the President's military aide, had been allowed to remain in the Administration, despite having been found by Congress to have aided John Maragon and two officers of a perfume company to obtain Army transport during World War II when transport was strictly limited, for the purpose of bringing back expensive French perfume which Mr. Maragon had concealed from customs officials, as well as giving Mr. Maragon various letters of introduction on White House stationery, among other things which it sets forth.
It concludes that until General Vaughan was relieved of his duties, the President's vow to clean house of those casting a shadow on the Administration could be regarded as "so much hogwash".
"A Sound Business Investment" finds it encouraging that Marion B. Folsom, treasurer of Eastman Kodak Co., had given his support to the Point Four program for providing expertise and investment to underdeveloped countries to advance their agricultural and industrial development. He reasoned, in a report to the Committee for Economic Development, of which he was chair, that the economics of the free world required greater efforts by American businessmen to raise the production and standard of living of underdeveloped countries, thereby expanding world trade and strengthening the NATO nations economically and militarily. The underdeveloped nations were the primary source of raw materials, supplying 73 percent of U.S. imports of strategic materials. Because of lack of incentives and trade restrictions, private investment in these nations was not always attractive and thus it was in the interest of the country and American business to help such underdeveloped nations achieve greater productivity, enabling the U.S. to obtain its raw materials and also securing new trade markets.
Actual appropriations for Point Four the previous year had been only 30 million dollars, and less than 100 million for the current year. It recommends shifting about a billion dollars from the 40 billion earmarked for military defense to Point Four as a strategic expenditure for the economic-psychological war, with collateral benefits, as indicated, to American business.
"Another Scandal Coming Up?" finds that, according to Business Week, another Washington
scandal was in the offing which would produce a new aspect not
previously revealed in the RFC and IRB scandals, that being within
the Office of Alien Property—maintained behind strictest lock
Congress had no power to confirm the appointment of persons under the direction of OAP, such as Jack Frye, who received $72,000 per year to run G.A.F., seized from Germany after the war. Nor did Congress have anything to say about the hiring of legal help by those companies, such as that of the law firm of former Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson, whose firm had made hundreds of thousands of dollars as counsel to G.A.F. and to another corporation, also an OAP holding.
The Administration was expected to
argue in response that its custodial direction of alien property had
been profitable and that the assets of many of the seized firms had
increased under its direction. The piece concludes, however, that no
Federal agency should be permitted to provide such lucrative jobs
without Congressional oversight and that if the Senate investigation
A piece from the Greensboro Daily News, titled "Showing What Can Be Done", tells of the 1950 census revealing that of the state's 288,506 farms, 219,417 had electricity, more than double the figure of 107,982 in 1945. It credits the early leaders of the rural electrification movement in the state and its increased emphasis by Governor Kerr Scott since he came into office in early 1949 for progress in the area, as well from cooperation by the power companies. The piece praises the effort as a benefit for the entire state.
But now all 'at good hillbilly music
of the old-time variety is gon' go electric through all the young
'uns a-wantin' to rock it all up. What's the deal, here?
Drew Pearson tells of the Senate hearings investigating the Ohio Senate election of 1950, between Senator Taft and Joe Ferguson, having barely scratched the surface of the scandals, the inside story of which was that Senate investigators had uncovered numerous violations of the law by both campaigns. Mr. Pearson had obtained a copy of the investigators' secret report and believed it should be published as a warning to voters in 1952, and so he proceeds to do so.
Joseph Alsop discusses the influence business in Washington, lucrative to small law firms, as exampled by a position having been offered by a small partnership to John J. McCloy after he had finished his job as Assistant Secretary of War, a position, to have paid him $350,000 per year, which he turned down in favor of an established New York law firm. There was nothing illegal about this type of influence peddling, as it was merely selling information, the ability to navigate through the Washington bureaucracy on behalf of businesses willing to pay the large tab. The particular small law firm in question had grossed one million dollars annually and had very low overhead with only one or two clerks and two or three stenographers.
The other type of influence, which was not proper and sometimes not legal, was buying political influence by contributing to politicians' campaigns or supplying free perquisites in exchange for favorable treatment of legislation beneficial to particular businesses or industries. Sometimes the contributions went to individual politicians and at other times to local political organizations, and every quadrennial, to the campaign war chests of the major parties.
Many of the corporate contributions were made through dummies and written off as business expenses, with the aim of having friends in high places when regulations or legislation favorable to the business was needed. "If you like to think of it that way, the whole process amounts to open corruption openly arrived at, in which the politicians and the businessmen are jointly implicated."
Marquis Childs, in Rome, tells of the NATO Council meeting outlining three principal steps by which progress needed to be made to ensure the Western alliance against potential Russian aggression at the earliest possible time. The first step, which he had already outlined, was reallocation of weapons from the U.S. during the ensuing 12 months, channeling the weapons to Europe rather than for domestic usage, with the goal of establishing 30 ready divisions by the end of 1952. Western Europe was fearful that the rearmament program would not move swiftly enough to combat Russia soon enough and this ready force could provide the necessary reassurance.
The second step was to change the attitude of Western Europe to one of an assurance of security, taking the stress from the buildup of European defenses for a distant target date, to be accomplished relatively soon through the smaller, ready force. To establish Western European defense capability would require putting more dollars into its economy, something which could not be done any longer through the Marshall Plan for the reluctance of Congress to continue to provide aid to Europe in the coming election year, but which could be accomplished through indirect means, as transferring more military orders from American to European factories, such as armaments to France and clothing to other European countries. Such action would help boost the sagging economies of Britain and France.
A letter writer responds to the editorial of the previous Wednesday, "The Airport Must Be Expanded", finding it excellent, but disagreeing with the statement that the County Commissioners were in a dilemma, finding instead that they would be capable of rendering a fair decision in response to the pleas of the Steele Creek residents, of which he was one, complaining of airport noise and resisting therefore the extension of the nearby runways. He explains that the people of Steele Creek were not convinced that a National Air Guard unit should be stationed in Charlotte, as, within a few hours' drive of the city, there were a number of other airfields which had been abandoned after the war and could be restored and reactivated with less Federal funding than required to extend the runways.
A letter writer, vice-president of
Catholic Bible House, Inc., calls attention to an error made by a
News reporter in the November 22 edition of the newspaper
regarding the new Catholic Bible published by his company. It was not
the first Catholic Bible published during the previous 25 years, as
several hundred editions had been published
The editors express regret for any error.
A letter writer was gratified to know that the proposed change of management of the city bus service, following many years of good service provided by Duke Power Co., would provide continued experience and service to the community.
Framed Edition
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