The Charlotte News

Friday, June 1, 1951

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via Olen Clements, that the Chinese Communists were bolstering their ridge lines guarding their massing area in North Korea. An allied tank patrol returned to Yanggu at the eastern end of the Hwachon reservoir this date at noon, for the second straight day, after fighting its way into the area on Thursday to reconnoiter, but meeting no opposition this date. Except at the two ends of the Hwachon reservoir, the enemy opposed allied patrols all along the 125-mile front.

On the western front, the Chinese appeared to be digging in to resist further allied advance toward the enemy's Chorwon-Kumhwa-Pyonggang supply area.

One purpose of the allied counter-offensive was to trigger prematurely the enemy's apparently planned new attack before they had a chance to build up supplies, equipment and fresh troops.

South of the 38th parallel, South Korean troops were driven back about a mile by North Koreans on the Hyon-Inje road.

F-86 Sabre jets shot down three more Russian-built MIGs. Two American planes, an F-86 and P-51 Mustang, crashed and burned behind enemy lines and the pilots did not escape.

The Defense Department reported that through May 30 in Korea, the enemy had suffered an estimated 1,133,410 casualties, an increase of 108,006 in the prior week. The total was comprised of 682,238 battle casualties, 138,880 non-battle losses and 149,417 prisoners of war through May 16. According to General Omar Bradley, U.S. battle casualties were about 69,000, plus another 72,000 non-battle casualties.

Secretary of State Acheson testified this date before the joint Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees, but the morning session encompassed only debate over whether to make public a December, 1949 State Department report on Formosa, a matter raised by Senator William Knowland of California. Senator Charles Tobey of New Hampshire said that he would vote against making public the report, which supposedly contained information that Formosa was vulnerable to Communist attack at that time and questioned the island's strategic value. Senator Joseph McCarthy, however, who revealed the basic contents of the report, said that he saw no reason to maintain the report secret, that it would not endanger the security of the country though it might endanger the security of Secretary Acheson. The Secretary would return to testify in the afternoon.

In London, a spokesman for the British Foreign Office said, in response to a statement to the Senate committees by U.S. chief of naval operations, Admiral Forrest Sherman, that Britain was the only country which had not supported a naval blockade of China, that the U.S. had never formally asked Britain to join in a general naval blockade of China and knew of no country which had expressed approval of such a blockade.

The second article on Formosa, this one by correspondents Frank H. King and Fred Hampson writing from Taipei, tells of Chiang Kai-Shek's half-million man army being a potentially formidable force for defense of Formosa and possibly even for an invasion of the Chinese mainland, but the latter only at a later time when they had become better trained and equipped for such a mission. It had improved significantly, however, since the force fled from the mainland in December, 1949 to take refuge on Formosa.

The President sent a letter to Premier of Iran Mohammed Mossadegh, regarding nationalization of the British oil interests, urging negotiations with the British to settle the matter. Reports said that the Premier had summoned an emergency Cabinet meeting and would read the letter to a session of Parliament the following day. The President had acted unilaterally on the matter without consulting the diplomats in Iran.

Surprisingly, it began: "Dear S.O.B.'s: If you do not want to start wearing a supporter below, you had better meet these Limey S.O.B.'s halfway..."

The Senate this date passed the compromise draft bill which lowered the draft age to 18 and a half, laying the foundation for universal military training in the future. The House was expected to pass the bill the following week. The bill had been worked out in conference between the House and Senate to eliminate differences in the two versions of the bill.

In Bowling Green, O., the Sheriff said that a prominent veterinarian of the town had admitted assaults on three teenage couples parked in lonely country lanes during the previous two weeks. Chemicals, consisting of ammonia, water and mineral powder, thrown at two of the girls had impaired their vision. In the most recent attack, the man had knocked out the boy and torn the underclothing of the girl before she ran away. Doctors feared that she would lose sight in one eye.

On the editorial page, "Sure Road to National Suicide" finds that Secretary of Defense Marshall had been correct in telling the Senate committees that ending Government controls on prices and wages would be as if the loss from resultant inflation of tanks and guns and planes had come at the hands of the enemy, and that defense production would only get into high gear the following year, creating more pressure on inflation by putting more money in consumers' pockets and making civilian goods the more scarce. Since the start of the Korean war the prior June 25, inflation had cost the taxpayers seven billion dollars more in defense items of the 35 billion authorized, and that was the same amount by which the Congress was proposing to raise taxes. Orders for defense would double from 19 to 38 billion the following fiscal year.

Inflation since the start of the war had been primarily the result of a run on goods by consumers rather than military spending. With military spending just now starting to affect the economy, inflationary pressures were only just beginning. Without controls, the fixed-salary workers and the millions of Americans dependent on investments for their livelihoods would suffer greatly.

"Footnote to an Earlier Editorial" adds to its editorial praising the City Council's action in making henceforth all of its meetings public and eliminating preliminary executive sessions, by also finding that open meetings would be more conducive to smooth operation of the Council as members were less likely to engage in personal remarks to one another in public sessions.

"Fan Letter from the Editors" praises the Fire Department for its quick action in extinguishing a wrecker fire at Keith's Garage, occurring right below the windows of the newspaper's offices.

A piece from the Baltimore Evening Sun, titled "Allies", praises the U.N. allies for their effort in Korea and finds the public criticism of them for not doing enough unwarranted, cites the recent British Gloucestershire battalion, which lost its entire complement of 600 men, save one, in fighting two Chinese corps during the first wave of the Chinese spring offensive begun April 22, fighting for two days without relief, with 49 escaping the trap. More recently, it had been discovered that the remaining members had fought to the death, until their ammunition was exhausted.

"These are—or were—the allies that some of the more rabid amateur strategists in Congress would write off disdainfully."

Drew Pearson tells of the President holding a series of conferences with Democrats on Capitol Hill, asking for their help in governing the country, especially with respect to foreign policy. The conferences had been suggested by Senate Majority Leader Ernest McFarland. Recently, the President had laid forth in one of these meetings greater detail regarding his Wake Island conference in October with General MacArthur, telling the Democrats that the General had assured him that he had been used by the Republicans during the 1948 campaign without his approval and that he did not intend to allow it to happen again, the more reason that the President was taken by surprise by the General's March letter to House Minority Leader Joe Martin in which he had openly disagreed with Administration policy on Korea. The General had also said that he was not aware that his letter to the VFW the prior August regarding Formosa was in opposition to a White House directive not to make statements on political policy without prior approval of the State Department or on military policy without prior approval by the Defense Department, and that he did not expect it to be disseminated widely in any event. The President said that he regretted not taking the advice of West Virginia Senator Harley Kilgore a year earlier to fire the General. He spoke, however, without any hint of bitterness or anger toward the General, only regarding his disappointment in being forced to make the decision.

He told FDR, Jr., who was present, that his father had entered the World War II conferences with Russia in good faith, accepting Stalin's word, but that Russia had reneged on 33 of 37 commitments reached in those conferences, regarding Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Bulgaria, forcing the hand of the U.S.

He said little of domestic policy but reminded the confreres that they were Democrats and had commitments to the party platform to bring into being promised legislation. He expressed disappointment at cuts in appropriations for the Department of Interior.

He stressed that force was not the only way to resist Communism and build a healthy world, the reason he had proposed the Point Four program to provide technical assistance to underdeveloped nations.

Thomas L. Robinson, publisher of The News, provides the second of his articles on the Atlantic Union concept, the proposed union of the seven North Atlantic democracies, the U.S., Britain, France, Canada and the Benelux countries, for the benefit of all by strengthening mutual economic prosperity and thus the ability to withstand any attack by the Soviet Union and thereby provide a more effective deterrent to attempted aggression. He tells of the seven countries having 80 percent of the world's industrial capacity and 90 percent of the world's naval strength.

It would be superior to NATO, which was only an alliance and likely to be as fleeting as other pacts, the Triple Entente, the Locarno Pact, the Little Entente and the Anglo-French Alliance.

No member state would be surrendering its individual sovereignty, any more than U.S. states surrendered their sovereignty to the U.S. Government. They would only delegate such authority as could be handled more effectively by the central governing body.

It was considered by its advocates to be the only true safeguard against world war three and would fall within the parameters of the U.N. Charter's provisions, would also be the only assurance of the survival of the U.N. It would provide a governing authority for NATO, to which General Eisenhower or any subsequent NATO supreme commander could turn.

Soviet plans for conquest would not wait for counter-action, and so it was incumbent upon the nations to act forthwith in forming such a union.

A letter writer favors the City Council's new policy of holding only open public meetings as it would encourage more informed public debate.

A letter writer urges local leaders to attend prayer services held respectively on Tuesdays and Thursdays at the First Methodist and First Presbyterian Churches in Charlotte.

A letter writer tells of the public being prone to take for granted the birds singing and the flowers blooming, out of concern for such things as paying the bills on time, as reminded during the recent bus strike when the public were left to sink or swim on their own.

Fifty years ago, seventeen years hence from this date, Senators Robert F. Kennedy of New York and Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota would debate each other regarding the issues involved in the upcoming California Democratic presidential primary election three days later, the last of the limited primary season for the election cycle.

During this period in 1951, Mr. Kennedy, then 25, graduated from the University of Virginia Law School and prepared to take the Massachusetts Bar examination later that summer.

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