The Charlotte News

Wednesday, December 12, 1951

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via Robert B. Tuckman, that the U.N. command expressed fears this date for the first time that the Communists might not exchange all the prisoners they had, as they turned down a five-point prisoner exchange plan put forward by the Communist negotiators, calling for release of all prisoners at once, whereas the U.N. negotiators insisted on a man-for-man orderly exchange. The U.N. statement criticized the Communists for not letting the Red Cross observe how prisoners were being treated and for refusing to say how many prisoners they held and where they were. The Communists had said that they would supply this information only after the allies agreed on a blanket exchange. The U.N. asserted that the prisoner exchange issue was being used to obtain an undesirable solution of the truce-supervision issue as well as the prisoner-exchange issue, and that the U.N. had already made several concessions in an effort to break the 16-day deadlock on the supervision issue. The Allied proposal had tentatively accepted the Communist demand that neutral nations supervise the truce and had also agreed to withdraw from some of the islands off the North Korean coast as an attempted compromise, provided the Communists agreed to military armistice commission control of the truce supervision teams and freedom of movement over principal lines of communication throughout Korea.

In the air war, F-86 Sabre jets sighted no enemy jets over northwest Korea this date. One U.S. F-80 Shooting Star jet crashed and burned in enemy territory with no chance that the pilot survived.

In the ground war, little action took place, with one enemy probing force of about two platoons having been repulsed after a brief skirmish with U.N. troops. Temperatures dropped to between five and forty degrees along the front.

The Defense Department announced that U.S. battle casualties in Korea had reached 102,576, an increase of 888 since the previous week. The total included 15,590 killed in action, 74,191 wounded and 12,795 missing. There was no breakdown provided for the newest casualties.

News editor Pete McKnight reports, via a former Charlotte FBI agent who now was a juvenile court judge in Richmond, that former Attorney General Tom Clark, now Supreme Court Justice, had been informed by the FBI that Lamar Caudle had committed "indiscretions" while U.S. Attorney of the Western District of North Carolina, before Mr. Caudle was named Assistant Attorney General in July, 1945, heading the criminal division. The House subcommittee investigating the tax prosecution scandals had known previously about this FBI report, through the same former agent who was Mr. McKnight's source, but had not made it public until the prior day, when an Assistant Attorney General testified vaguely to "derogatory" information about Mr. Caudle having been known by the Justice Department at the time of the appointment. A subcommittee source had informed The News that "the committee seems to be getting weary of Caudle, and wants to pass on to other things", and did not wish to "embarrass" Justice Clark with the information.

The indiscretions disclosed by the FBI report were that Mr. Caudle had admittedly received presents periodically left in his automobile while it was parked in a Charlotte parking lot and had occasionally used a hotel room when Federal court was in session in Charlotte, reserved by an old friend, one of the two Charlotte businessmen under investigation for tax fraud, and had performed a few small favors for this same person. The former agent said that there were other things in the report but that he did not want to trust his memory without seeing the report again. He said that he and Ed Scheidt, then head of the Charlotte FBI office, had flown to Washington to discuss the report with then-Attorney General Clark. Before the meeting, however, Mr. Scheidt was contacted by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and informed that Mr. Caudle's appointment was already on the President's desk. Mr. Clark had asked them whether it was likely Mr. Caudle would embarrass him and whether he knew his way around, to which Mr. Scheidt had responded that he thought Mr. Caudle knew his way around and that he made friends very easily. The appointment of Mr. Caudle was confirmed.

Congressman John W. Byrnes of Wisconsin, a Republican member of the House subcommittee investigating the tax scandals—and, presumably, not the personage on whom the lead character in "Lonely Are the Brave" was based—, demanded the resignation of Attorney General J. Howard McGrath, based on his testimony to the subcommittee which, according to Mr. Byrnes, indicated that he was either "unwilling or incapable of providing the kind of leadership necessary to restore the confidence of the American people" in the Justice Department. The complaint centered around Mr. McGrath's testimony the previous day that he had approved Mr. Caudle's receipt of a $5,000 commission on the sale of a $30,000 airplane to a representative of two New York businessmen who had tax difficulties, and his approval of a trip to Europe by Mr. Caudle, the expenses for which had been paid by a New Jersey wine merchant. Mr. Byrnes believed that the Attorney General had revealed no concrete plans for preventing such indiscretions in the future.

The President reportedly met this date with the Attorney General and FBI director Hoover amid indications that the President would act soon to counter the tax scandal testimony. White House press secretary Joseph Short said at a news conference that he would not make any prediction of when "drastic action" might come at the Justice Department and the IRB.

This date, Bert Naster, a Florida businessman, told the subcommittee that he had never sought to obtain money from the Chicago lawyer who had claimed that Mr. Naster and gambler Frank Nathan had sought to shake him down for $500,000 to provide "protection" from any "tax problems" which might befall him, through Mr. Nathan's Washington "connections", who allegedly included Jess Larson, head of the GSA, and Charles Oliphant, recently resigned chief counsel for the IRB. Mr. Nathan had also denied the attorney's testimony. Mr. Naster indicated that he had been reluctant to provide testimony out of "physical fear" of the Chicago attorney, who had previously represented the late Al Capone. Mr. Naster also testified that while he was on parole on a Federal conviction, he received a passport to Europe within 48 hours through the help of his friend, Mr. Caudle, whom he had met through Mr. Nathan, who had described Mr. Caudle as a friend.

In Washington, FBI director Hoover announced that two men and a woman had been arrested in connection with shortages exceeding $800,000 at the Thomasville, Ala., Bank & Trust Company.

In Spartanburg, S.C., the body of J. K. Davis, 62, treasurer of Wofford College since 1920, was found asphyxiated by a hose leading from the exhaust of his automobile, discovered in a field at Camp Croft during the morning. He had been reported missing since the previous morning.

In Fribourg, Switzerland, a Swiss chemical manufacturer claimed to have invented a self-lighting cigarette, which had one end saturated in a secret chemical, allowing the tobacco to catch fire when the tip was rubbed gently against the side of the package, making no flame and requiring no puffing to get the cigarette lit. The inventor claimed that the cigarette could be produced with little extra cost and that several European and American tobacco companies were negotiating rights for the formula.

On page 8-B, sports editor Bob Quincy compares attendance records at Charlotte's Memorial Stadium with years past and finds them wanting, a place where, it was said during the football season, one could go during games if one wanted to be alone.

On the editorial page, "The Archbishop and the Lady" finds that the privacy of Eleanor Roosevelt had been intruded upon by Archbishop J. Francis A. McIntyre, head of the Los Angeles Catholic diocese, after the Archbishop had publicly criticized Mrs. Roosevelt for her views on "immorality". She had been quoted by the Archbishop as having said: "I don't know whether I believe in a future life… I came to feel that it didn't really matter very much because whatever the future held you'd have to face it when you came to it…" As a result of the statement, he had questioned her right to serve on the U.N. Human Rights Commission.

The piece ventures that the Archbishop did not have the right to question the fitness of a person to hold public office because of that person's religious beliefs not being in conformance with either his or even that of the majority of Americans. Mrs. Roosevelt, like everyone else, enjoyed freedom of speech and freedom of religious conviction. The Archbishop would only have ground for complaint if she had sought employment in a Catholic school or institution.

It concludes that inquiry into a person's religious beliefs as prerequisite to their holding a public office would end the First Amendment concept of separation of church and state and "would end the whole idea of America."

"A Justifiable Squawk" indicates that it was disposed to take sides with the Asheville Citizen in its squawk over a proposed curtailment of the Southern Railway's Pullman service between Raleigh and western North Carolina. The eastbound service was not to be changed. A spokesman for Southern complained that there were insufficient numbers of passengers on the Raleigh to Asheville sleeping cars, justifying the curtailment.

The piece thinks this light patronage was the result of past scheduling and obsolete equipment, as the railroads had been in a desperate struggle with the airlines and bus lines to retain their passenger revenues. It suggests that the railroads could not do so by curtailing service and retaining old equipment, and that preservation of a close-knit state and economy demanded improvement, not curtailment, of the existing east-west rail transportation routes.

"The World Bank Is Willing" tells of Stewart Alsop having reported the previous day in his column that responsible officials foresaw the potential for Soviet control of Iran within the coming year unless some drastic change in policy toward the country occurred in the meantime. Premier Mohammed Mossadegh was following a strategy of blackmail to obtain aid from the U.S. by allowing the country to drift toward Communism.

It suggests that the best type of government in Iran might be a benevolent dictatorship, along the lines of Kemal Ataturk in Turkey. The State Department, which was hesitant to offend Britain and to offer Iran substantial aid conditioned on internal reform, appeared to be hoping that the Premier would weaken and be displaced.

The World Bank was trying to reach a solution to the crisis, and had indicated that it would examine the Iranian problem if both Britain and Iran so desired. The proposed settlement would entail the World Bank financing, as trustee, the production and refining of Iranian oil, and the oil and refined products would then be sold to the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. at current Persian Gulf rates, with Iran receiving the proceeds of the sale.

As a U.N. organization, the World Bank did not carry in the minds of Iranians the stigma of being imperialist. While the Bank was unlikely to effect either a long-term or even short-term settlement to the oil nationalization issue, it was worth a try at this juncture, and so it wishes the Bank success in the effort.

"The Worm Turns" tells of a Senate subcommittee studying a resolution introduced by Senator William Benton of Connecticut to determine whether Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin should be expelled from the Senate for his unfounded claims against individuals, and, to that end, investigating the Senator's past. Senator McCarthy had complained to the subcommittee chairman, Senator Guy Gillette of Iowa, that investigators were digging up things on his past, even from a time before he had been old enough to be a candidate for the Senate, i.e., 30 years of age.

The piece suggests that Senator McCarthy's own investigators had spent a great deal of time and money digging into the distant background of the Senator's victims, and so it was quite ironic that this subcommittee was now digging into his past, and something which the piece finds, in light of the object of the investigation, did not pose any concern.

A piece from the Christian Science Monitor, titled "Cultural Offensive", tells of the Soviets trying very hard to present Russia to the people of Europe as a center of culture, presenting performances of the Bolshoi Ballet in Paris, Venice and other such cultural capitals. It was also trying to characterize America, in the meantime, as being too busy producing weapons of war to concern itself with the arts of peace.

In 1950, Russia had sent abroad 39,000 athletes, scientists, writers, artists, musicians, and ballet dancers as part of a cultural offensive, while the U.S. had simply ignored some of the best opportunities to present its own intellectual and aesthetic accomplishments. The piece suggests that both private and governmental action were necessary to take advantage of these opportunities, such as one which would occur in Paris in the spring when the Congress of Cultural Freedom would hold a large festival to show what the free world had achieved in the arts and sciences during the 20th century. It hopes that American life would be represented appropriately there.

Drew Pearson tells of Henry Grunewald, "king of the five-percenters", having arranged more influence deals and known more important people than most other influence peddlers in Washington, yet having managed to remain out of the limelight until recently. He had been involved in income taxes, war surplus, alien property and defense contracts. Two years earlier, he had arranged to tap the telephone of Howard Hughes for Senator Owen Brewster and Pan American Airways when Pan Am wanted to buy TWA from Mr. Hughes. Mr. Pearson at the time had been able to turn over certain evidence to Senator Matt Neely of West Virginia, chairman of the District of Columbia Committee, which had resulted in a Senate investigation of the matter. Obtaining that evidence, he indicates, had been like tracking down a will-o'-the-wisp. He explains how he had gone about it, tracking Mr. Grunewald to a suite on the fourth floor of the Washington Hotel, a suite which he had used as an office, albeit registered under the name of Harry Woodring, former Secretary of War under FDR. Mr. Woodring explained that he and Mr. Grunewald had once used the suite together on a business deal. A bellboy had told Mr. Pearson that Mr. Grunewald was friendly with another guest on the fourth floor, Dan Bolich, the number two man at the IRB. Mr. Bolich had been seen in the company of gambling kingpin Frank Costello. Further research showed that Mr. Grunewald had other addresses as well and owned $75,000 homes in Miami and Spring Lake, N.J. Mr. Bolich also had a summer home at Spring Lake.

Mr. Grunewald visited Senator Brewster once or twice per week and they were on a first-name basis. Senator Brewster had paid the expense Mr. Grunewald incurred in the Howard Hughes wiretapping.

Senator Neely had appointed former Senator Claude Pepper of Florida to head the subcommittee investigating the wiretapping episode. When Mr. Pearson had placed the evidence he had discovered before Senator Pepper, he appeared shortly afterward to lose interest in the investigation and took a round-the-world trip with Senator Brewster.

Mr. Grunewald had also been a friend to recently resigned IRB counsel Charles Oliphant and former IRB commissioner George Schoeneman. Both had spent vacations at Mr. Grunewald's lavish home in Miami Beach. Mr. Oliphant had told Mr. Pearson that he did not know that Mr. Grunewald had been investigated by the Alcohol Tax Unit in connection with a black-market case and did not know that he had a reputation for fixing tax cases, or even what Mr. Grunewald's business was.

Mr. Grunewald also knew Vice-President Alben Barkley and had turned up at dinners with Jess Larson, the former head of the War Assets Administration and now head of General Services. Mr. Larson explained that he had been invited to Fordham University dinners by Mr. Grunewald's lawyer, Ed Martin, and that when he arrived, Mr. Grunewald was present and sat next to him. When Mr. Larson heard a rumor that Mr. Grunewald was the best intermediary to handle surplus property deals, he turned down an invitation to play golf with him and a group of Senators, and sought to steer clear of Mr. Grunewald thereafter.

Mr. Pearson concludes by saying that Mr. Grunewald had started an investigation of Mr. Pearson after he found out that the column was investigating Mr. Grunewald. Mr. Pearson adds that he was still waiting to see what, if anything, he had turned up.

Marquis Childs, in London, tells of American foreign policy needing re-examination in Europe and the Middle East, first, to get rid of unnecessary duplication from the many American diplomatic, military and economic officials present in the countries.

"The American fire department has been called out repeatedly to put out the fires here, there and everywhere. One result is that there is an extraordinary number of firemen in every capital. Some are good professional firefighters; others are bumbling volunteers who have no reason except no job for being where they are."

He offers West Germany and Greece as two examples. In Germany, the State Department policy implemented a year earlier had produced disastrous consequences by proclaiming to the Germans that they were vital to the defense of the West and pleading for their rearmament effort, thus having placed them in a position of extraordinary bargaining power which they were fully exploiting. General Eisenhower had made some corrections in this regard, but the damage had already been done. The Socialists in Germany were exploiting this tactic and counseling the people to demand that America first create a full defense force before the Germans made any contribution, a view which was becoming popular. In the coming elections the following year, the Socialists expected to do well, such that they could then dictate a coalition government.

In Greece, current American aid was 275 million dollars, but would be cut to 170 million in 1952, prompting American officials in Greece to argue against the reduction on the basis that it would stultify progress being made. Absentee Greek shipowners had been compelled to pay 10 million dollars in back taxes, albeit only a fraction of what they owed, yet still constituting progress. The flight of capital from the country had continued, forcing continuation of U.S. aid. An honest re-appraisal of the policy could lead to a tougher and more realistic approach.

Ralph McGill, editor of the Atlanta Constitution, writes from Ayana, India, that 90 percent of India's population lived in the country's villages, the locus of the real life of the Government and the nation. The residents were largely illiterate and provincial. Millions had never known that the British were present in India, but knew that a white man in uniform occasionally came to their village and provided orders in an arrogant manner, earning the villagers' disdain. Still, many of the residents hid from white men.

The villages had no electric lights or other utilities. Only a few had sanitary wells or latrines. India's standard of living was about on par with that of America in 1850. The population was currently 360 million and was expected to balloon to 400 million by 1960. There was also overpopulation of livestock and so the grass was overgrazed; since the division of land had allotted only two to three acres per person, the problem was compounded. Of necessity, cow dung was made into fuel cakes and did not therefore allow for natural fertilization.

There was, however, a future ahead and a growing will to make it better. The administration of American aid, thanks to Horace Holmes and his associates, had been sound and productive. It did not seek to impose American will on India, as had been the case in China where too much of the aid supplied could only be used by the few.

A letter writer complains of high taxes and the attribution to the President of the present abounding plenty in the country. He counsels getting wise to "the old trick of certain elements crying 'Hoover'", tantamount to the pot calling the kettle black. He favors General Eisenhower in 1952.

That is all well and good, but he will bring with him on his sidecar a whole new bag of tricks.

And as for the improper attribution of prosperity to the President, why, he must have inherited it from his predecessor, who, in turn, caused the war to bring about artificial wartime prosperity as relief from the Depression which just happened to occur on the watch of President Hoover, who came to office in 1929 after two previous riproaring Republican Administrations. Why, it was Wilson who caused it all, including both world wars, and the Republicans had only inherited the mess.

A letter writer complains of shows, magazines, newspapers and books depicting "real life" by showing the ugly, seamy side. While he admits that this side of life was real, he also indicates that the other side was likewise real and and much more prevalent.

Parenthetically, he might have been heartened had he gone back and read the piece by Mary Northrop, nine and a half months later to marry W. J. Cash, on the book-page of March 10, 1940, which we referenced yesterday regarding the tenure at The News of Reed Sarratt.

A letter writer from Steele Creek in Mecklenburg County hopes the newspaper would get it straight about who was protesting against extension of the runways at the Municipal airport, that it was not the residents of Steele Creek but rather those of Berryhill. So far as he knew, the residents of Steele Creek were not so concerned about it.

A letter from A. W. Black—who had the previous month spawned the controversy in the letters column regarding hillbilly music—indicates: "The season of rapturous impress and solicitous sentimentalism is upon us. A period of transitory truce in which the scoundrel and reprobate parade in the raiment of benefactor, and temporarily desist from brandishing the rapier of malediction, scourging enemies and skinning friends. A paradox of pretense in which the genius and the quack, the vicious and the vain pay lip service to the virtues of amity and sally forth bearing gifts of compromise and 'tidings of great joy'."

And he goes on in much the same vein, suggesting that perhaps earlier in history there was true meaning to the Christmas season, "lost to the disillusioned millions of this generation", concluding, "Go ahead, enjoy yourselves and a pleasant Yuletide to all."

In sum, he seems to be saying: "Forget Yule", another means, we suppose, of expressing "bah, humbug".

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