The Charlotte News
Thursday, July 5, 1951
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the allies and Communists were set to begin preliminary negotiations on Sunday, in preparation for the start of formal ceasefire talks the following Tuesday at Kaesong in Korea, as General Matthew Ridgway formally agreed to the Sunday preliminary meeting. He asked the Communist commanders to guarantee safe conduct of his representatives, who would include three officers no higher in rank than colonel and two interpreters. He had already guaranteed the safe conduct of the Communist emissaries, provided they would give their route to Kaesong, three miles south of the 38th parallel.
Only routine patrols roamed the front. One U.N. patrol entered Kaesong and found it deserted while a second patrol ran into enemy troops two miles east. Two allied task forces on the central front began a slow withdrawal from the northern end of the "iron triangle". Another allied patrol pushed up the east coast to a point 40 miles north of the parallel, under protection of allied Naval guns.
Allied airplanes knocked out 16 bridges in 625 sorties on Wednesday and again targeted bridges this date.
An Associated Press correspondent drove over the road the U.N. emissaries would travel to Kaesong and saw no enemy soldiers. He saw only Koreans working in the fields amid undamaged mud houses.
The Defense Department said that U.S. casualties in Korea rose by 1,361 during the prior week, to a total of 78,110.
The President had said in his July Fourth address the previous night from the Washington Monument, televised and broadcast by radio nationally, that it was still too early to tell whether the Communists were sincere in their willingness to enter ceasefire negotiations. He said that the country could not dare to relax, even if the fighting in Korea ended. A crowd of around 200,000 listened to the speech in person.
Chief Justice Fred Vinson of the Supreme Court also delivered an address, saying that the country could not afford to relax its preparedness program without dire consequences.
Defense Mobilizer Charles E. Wilson also delivered an address urging that the three-year defense program had to continue.
The President presented the Medal of Honor to four Korean war heroes who were still living, albeit all wounded. Each of the four had been engaged in hand-to-hand combat against the enemy. Of 27 Army soldiers who had received the Medal in action in Korea during the prior year, only seven were living when it was awarded.
The President said that the conviction in Czechoslovakia of Associated Press correspondent William Oatis for espionage was an attempt to intimidate the free world press. The President endorsed the State Department statement of the prior day concerning the conviction, which called it a "hoax" based on a "coerced" confession and said it would do all it could to effect Mr. Oatis's freedom.
In Budapest, the Hungarian Government ordered two U.S. diplomats to leave the country within 24 hours, labeling them personae non gratae. It also said that a third employee of the legation was "undesirable". The Government accused the three of actively cooperating with the spying activities of which Archbishop Jozsef Groesz had been convicted recently.
A ship carrying 120 children exploded in the Spree River in East Germany, with many killed and injured. The Communist authorities would not release precise figures, saying that the children were from an East Berlin "people's school".
Economic Stabilizer Eric Johnston said at a press conference that the economic controls bill pending in Congress would likely boost the cost of living for a family by a dollar per day. He said that it would be necessary to educate the American people to the need for extended controls.
In New York, the Federal District Court issued a warning to Frederick Vanderbilt Field, secretary of the Civil Rights Congress, that unless he produced by the afternoon the names of contributors of an $80,000 bail fund posted for the appellate bond of four missing Communist leaders who had not surrendered to begin serving their sentences, he would be held in contempt. Seven of the eleven leaders convicted under the Smith Act had surrendered, following the Supreme Court having recently upheld the Act as Constitutional and affirmed their convictions. Mr. Field had declined to answer the inquiry, asserting the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.
A tanker and a tug had collided on the Mississippi River near Avondale, La., and seven of eleven crew members of the tug were reported missing.
In Greenock, Scotland, Lord Inverchapel, Sir Archibald Clark Kerr, former Ambassador to the U.S. and one of Britain's top diplomats, died at age 69. He had played a prominent role in several Big Three conferences during the war, as Ambassador to Russia.
According to reliable sources in London, Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip would visit the U.S. if they were invited, following their coast-to-coast tour of Canada in October. It would be the first visit to North America for the Princess. The President, at his press conference, said that the royal couple were welcome to visit the U.S.
A cold prevented Princess Margaret from attending a royal agricultural show at Cambridge.
In Winston-Salem, it was reported that the Army, at the request of the AFL, canceled the appointment of Dr. Ralph Brimley, Forsyth County superintendent of schools, to its educational mission to Japan. A letter from the Army to Dr. Brimley explained that when he had been appointed, it was not known that he had been involved in "controversial labor issues". Dr. Brimley said that he did not know of any such controversy, but that it appeared to arise from one talk he had given the prior May to teachers who had formed the Forsyth County Federation of Teachers and sought a charter from the AFL. He had urged them to use the North Carolina Education Association to deal with grievances and said that he did not believe he could recommend a teacher to another school district after the teacher had been involved in a union in Forsyth County. A representative of the North Carolina Federation of Labor called the speech "undemocratic, un-American, uncivilized and non-Christian." Dr. Brimley had been one of 15 educators across the nation to be invited to take part in the mission.
On page 13-A appears the story of the Vagabond Players at the Lake Summit Playhouse in Hendersonville.
On the editorial page, "New Use of the Smear" finds a new use of smear tactics in business mocking the businessmen, as Defense Mobilizer Charles E. Wilson and Economic Stabilizer Eric Johnston, who had taken an emergency job with the Government to control the economy in wartime. The effort was to undermine public confidence in these men by insinuating that a sudden transformation took hold of them when they arrived in Washington, a charge by businessmen recently chronicled by Stewart Alsop.
Both Mr. Wilson and Mr. Johnston had made their way in life through private enterprise, working their way up, the former becoming president of G.E. after starting as a shipping clerk, and the latter becoming head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce after serving ten years as a director.
It finds that nothing got into them when they came to Washington. Rather, they began to see the whole picture and not just the small part of it over which they had formerly held responsibility. They knew that their duties were to protect the people from the selfish greed of a few.
Those who disagreed with them, it urges, ought seek to disprove the logic of controls rather than engaging in smear.
"A Historical Parallel" tells of Editorial Research Reports finding that one would have to go back to 1905 to the Russo-Japanese war to find a rough parallel with the peace talks between equals on the military level, as about to begin in Korea. Japan had scored a string of victories at that time, but its economic and military resources had been drained and so it responded positively to President Theodore Roosevelt's entreaty to negotiate, and in the following conference at Portsmouth, N.H., both sides made concessions, resulting in mutually acceptable peace terms.
Many had criticized the concept of unconditional surrender as demanded by the Allies of the Germans and Japanese in World War II, for prolonging war unnecessarily.
It finds that it would be interesting to watch the forthcoming peace talks to see if the negotiators could agree on a better way to conclude wars.
"Dr. Graham vs. Mr. Nehru" tells of the State Department regarding Frank Graham's mission to Kashmir as "hopeless", in trying to effect a settlement of the dispute between Pakistan and India over control of Kashmir. The Manchester Guardian in England had predicted that the dispute would get caught up in pre-election politics in India, rendering the parties intransigent.
But Mr. Graham was undaunted, pointed out that the Indonesian situation which he had successfully negotiated, likewise had appeared at the outset hopeless. He said on arrival in India that he believed his mission would prove of assistance to India and Pakistan. He had paid a visit the previous day to Prime Minister Nehru of India and the latter had said that India would discuss the matter of Kashmir but that the resolution passed by the U.N. Security Council was not acceptable and India would not implement it. The conference had been cordial.
The piece suggests that if the atmosphere could be maintained, Mr. Graham might be able to make the impossible mission possible and mediate a settlement of a dispute which threatened to plunge the Asia subcontinent into war.
"Freedom of (Jungle) Photography" tells of Denver M. Wright of Ladue, Mo., who had recently returned from the South American jungles where he narrowly had escaped an 18-foot anaconda, bagged a jaguar, and photographed five primitive hostile tribes. The firm to which he sent the film for processing sent it to Eastman Kodak, which, seeing the tribesman naked, refused to process the film or return it to him for it being "objectionable". Mr. Wright was preparing to go to court on the matter as he had shot 8,000 feet of film and he deemed the South American tribesman essential to continuity of the work.
The piece applauds Mr. Wright, as Kodak, it says, had developed too many films of scantily clad women to become suddenly so chaste. They needed a lesson in freedom of photography.
A piece from the Louisville Journal, titled "All Seventh Sons Are Hereby Urged", tells of author P. G. Wodehouse always having longed to pen a letter to the editor but having his inspiration evaporate as soon as he set down the salutation. He had advice for would-be writers of letters to the editor, that they first begin with the cuckoo as a subject.
The piece thinks it probably apt advice for British letter writers but not for their American counterparts.
He also urged anyone to write who could make claim of being the seventh son of a seventh son, age 47, and having seven Siamese cats. The piece endorses such credentials and says the editors would record such a distinction and bless the writer for any such "interesting, informative, non-libelous and amiable" ketter
Bill Sharpe, in his weekly "Turpentine Drippings", snippets from newspapers around the state, provides one from Mrs. Theo B. Davis of the Zebulon Record, in which she relates of a handbook of a denominational college setting forth the rule that there would be "no loud or boisterous swearing" around the college or at games or on other public occasions, finding it to mean that if the students wanted to cuss, they had to keep their voices low.
Roy Thompson of the Winston-Salem Journal tells of a coed living in Kenan Dormitory, presumably at UNC, who had two boyfriends named Ed, causing her friends to call her "The Two-Eded Girl", to which he feels obliged to add that she obviously lived by the adage, "two Eds are better than one."
James Pou Bailey of the Spring Hope Enterprise tells of medicine having licked communicative diseases and now tackling degenerative ones, because as the average life span increased, there was greater likelihood of dying of such latter type maladies. Uncle Arnie's wife, it informs, had warned Uncle Arnie that he would eat himself to death and so he had another piece of pie, and, sure enough, one day he died, at age 89.
The Twin City Sentinel of Winston-Salem urges the city's residents to try to keep the good executives, managers and directors which the city had.
The Raleigh Spotlight warns of the worst time for auto accidents with injuries being between 4:00 and 5:00 p.m., while 57 percent of fatal accidents occurred after dark, indicating the dangers of driving while tired.
The Black Mountain News tells of the manifestation of a mother's love being that she always ate the back of the chicken, leaving the breast and legs for the children. She always maintained that the back was the best part, probably, it ventures, because she saw in it the "visions of curly heads", the "music of toddling feet, and lisping words", coming back to mind.
And so forth, so, and on so, more so
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Drew Pearson tells of the President being skeptical of the sincerity of the Russians in proposing the truce negotiations in Korea. He likened it to walking through a mine field. The military was equally skeptical, but not the diplomats, as they believed that the Kremlin had been watching the U.S. nuclear tests and that the Chinese had been seriously hurt by their losses, leading to the desire for negotiations of a ceasefire.
As Marquis Childs also discusses, the military was skeptical for the fact of Russian jets having been newly sent to Manchuria, so that the Chinese had accumulated about a thousand such jets, enough to tear U.S. bombers to pieces if an attack were made on the Manchurian bases, as General MacArthur had advocated. The enemy was also building up a mechanized army in Manchuria, comprised of troops from the satellites, with preparations continuing since June 23 when Mr. Malik had first communicated the proposal for ceasefire negotiations.
Senator Guy Gillette of Iowa had resigned as chairman of the Senate Elections Committee because of criticism from Committee members regarding his handling with kid gloves the probe of the 1950 Maryland Senate election in which Senator Millard Tydings was defeated by John Butler in a smear conducted by the Butler campaign at the direction of the Chicago Tribune. Senator Gillette appeared to be taking his orders from The Tribune.
He had also dragged his feet in investigating Governor Thomas Dewey's alleged promise of certain jobs to Lt. Governor Joe Hanley in New York in exchange for his agreement not to run for Governor, in deference to Governor Dewey, who late decided that he would run for a third term in 1950.
Marquis Childs tells of military men being cautious concerning the optimism for a peace settlement in Korea, that it could be a Communist ruse to enable a surprise attack of the type launched at Pearl Harbor and thereby demoralize the U.N. forces, anticipating peace. Indicative of the possibility was the buildup of Russian jets and heavy artillery in Manchuria, enabling much greater striking power than three months earlier, at the outset of the spring offensive. Thus, the question was being asked by the allied command why such a buildup was taking place if peace were genuinely being contemplated by the Communists.
It could possibly be explained by the Communist desire to build strength against any future threat to Manchuria.
General Ridgway had been the Army member of the American Military Commission to the U.N. between 1946 and 1948 when the negotiations were transpiring with the Soviets regarding creation of an international police force, and so understood well the frustration in seeking to negotiate with the Soviets amid delay and double-talk. This experience would come in handy in his negotiations in Kaesong.
Robert C. Ruark tells of being bruised and otherwise hurt by a collection of activities while seeking a couple of days of freedom from the office, mainly the result of horseback riding, football, fireworks, and sampling some stiff punch. He did not know what it was about the country which induced a person as himself, normally resistant to physical activity, suddenly to become so active, and the host to invent booby traps for guests, inflicting medieval tortures, as tennis and hikes in the woods at midnight. But such was the case.
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