The Charlotte News

Tuesday, August 14, 1951

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via Robert B. Tuckman, that U.N. forces supreme commander General Matthew Ridgway and ground commander Lt. General James Van Fleet had said that should the ceasefire talks in Korea break down, the U.N. troops would be able to deliver a decisive blow to the Communist forces in the event they resumed their attack, after having built up their forces again during the respite afforded by the talks.

At Kaesong, Lt. General Nam Il, the chief Communist negotiator in the talks, ended this date's two hour and forty minute session by announcing that the Communists continued to demand that the 38th parallel be deemed the ceasefire line, reaffirmed as not acceptable by the U.N. forces. Chief U.N. negotiator Vice-Admiral C. Turner Joy stated that allied planes and warships were prosecuting the war behind enemy front lines, operations not duplicated by the enemy behind allied lines, thus justifying drawing the ceasefire zone along present battle lines.

In ground fighting, U.N. troops seized a strategic hill north of Hwachon on the central front and successfully resisted a small enemy counter-attack. To the east, the allies were pushed back northeast of Kumhwa by day-long attacks from three enemy platoons.

Allied bombers and fighters hit Pyongyang supply depots this date in one of the heaviest air raids in weeks.

Unofficial estimates by unnamed allied military sources indicated that of the 10,624 Americans officially listed as missing in action in Korea, as many as 4,500 probably were being held in Communist prisoner-of-war camps. The prisoners were said to be confined near Kanggye, deep inside North Korea, about 20 air miles from the Manchurian frontier.

The House authorized the largest single military construction program ever presented to Congress in wartime or peace, 5.7 billion dollars, 3.5 billion of which was allotted to the Air Force. The vote was 352 to 5.

The House unanimously passed a resolution expressing the sense of the Congress that commercial relations with Czechoslovakia be severed until Associated Press correspondent William Oatis was freed from a Czechoslovakian jail following his conviction for espionage. The resolution eliminated a provision which would have also recommended severance of diplomatic relations unless Mr. Oatis were freed within 90 days. The resolution referred to Mr. Oatis's "sham trial and unjust conviction" and urged the Government to undertake all possible action to effect his release.

Before the Senate Internal Security subcommittee, Elizabeth Bentley, an admitted former Communist spy, who had testified two years earlier before a Senate committee and before HUAC regarding Communists in the Government, stated that she and fellow spies had known that the Institute of Pacific Relations was "Red as a rose", openly tied to Communism. She further testified that the late Harry Dexter White, former Undersecretary of Treasury, and Lauchlin Curry, a key adviser to FDR during the war, were two of the most valuable Government officials to the Communist spy network. She also named John P. Davies, an employee of the State Department, as someone who had been identified to her by fellow Soviet agents as "sympathetic".

Defense Mobilizer Charles E. Wilson said in a speech before the National Institute for Chamber of Commerce and Trade Association Executives, that the danger of a third world war was "greater than ever" but could be averted through building of America's defense strength.

In Oak Ridge, Tenn., the Atomic Energy Commission, according to commissioner Sumner Pike in a conversation the previous night with newsmen at a two-day atomic energy press seminar, was not yet aware whether it would be able to develop a hydrogen bomb.

Senator Paul Douglas of Illinois said that he would not be a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the presidency in 1952.

In Beverly Hills, publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst died at age 88, succumbing while in a coma at his home after he had been in ill health for some time. Present when he died were his five sons, three of whom, William, Randolph, and David, were also publishers of major newspapers, in New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, respectively. He had been one of the most controversial figures in newspaper circles, described as both a genius and a "yellow journalist". He had been a great campaigner for or against various causes, fighting the utilities, battling governments, and being an uncompromising foe to Communism. He usually championed Americanism and had fought for both the eight-hour day and women's suffrage. His San Simeon ranch on the coast of California had been a site of lavish entertainment for celebrity guests through the years. He also owned a 67,000-acre estate, Wyntoon, on the McCloud River in Northern California. He had a 15 million dollar art collection, ranch holdings in Mexico, magazine and motion picture ventures.

You may simply address your roses, "c/o Xanadu, GD". They will get there.

In Seattle, at least 11 persons died in a gasoline-fed fire caused by a B-50 Air Force bomber which had crashed into an apartment house. Six of the dead were among the crew of the plane and the other five had been residents at the apartments.

In Texas, a heat wave stretching across the state had taken 26 lives from heat prostration and at least five more from drowning the previous day. Most of Texas recorded temperatures over 100 degrees the prior day, with Corsicana in central Texas recording 109. Dallas and Waco hit 104 and Fort Worth and College Station, 105. The Dallas City Council met to switch its water rationing program from voluntary to compulsory.

It does not happen only in California, Mr. Moron, El Presidente.

In Riddlesden, England, an innkeeper, spotting a fire in a bedroom of his inn, retrieved a case of soda water siphons from the bar and proceeded to extinguish the blaze.

On page 5-B, a new serial began, Never Let Him Go by Rob Eden, the story of a young romance threatened by an older woman and by a sinister figure out of the past.

That sounds novel. Don't miss a single scintillating word of its sizzlingly sinistral sensuality.

On the editorial page, "Remember the Pee Dee Crash" tells of a two-car collision near Albemarle late the prior Sunday afternoon being a vivid illustration of the law-abiding motorist being made a victim by a reckless driver. One of the cars had been occupied by five New York women, proceeding safely and at a normal speed around a curve approaching the Pee Dee River bridge, while traveling to visit a Sister at Sacred Heart Convent in Belmont. Meanwhile, two men, one from West Virginia and the other from North Carolina, were proceeding well in excess of the speed limit around the same curve and collided head-on with the other vehicle, killing all five women as well as the two men in the speeding car. The Sister lost her mother and three sisters, her entire family.

It finds that while the death of the two men was also a tragedy, there was mixed feeling associated with the fact because of the recklessness of the driver of that car. When drivers broke traffic laws, they often got their just deserts, but also sometimes, as in this accident, took others with them.

The effort to make highway safety rule enforcement stricter in North Carolina had failed to materialize in the 1951 General Assembly, primarily because there was no great or overriding public outcry for it.

It hopes that this particular accident might awaken enough ardor in the public to lock in the memory when the 1953 Legislature convened.

"If the Truce Talks Break Down" discusses the possibilities in the event of the contingency of the title, finds three alternatives. The first was that, given the Communist military buildup during the talks, they might try another offensive with the goal of pushing the U.N. forces completely from Korea. If that were to occur, then U.S. public opinion would demand bombing of China and Manchuria, as had been favored by General MacArthur before his dismissal. The second possibility was a long military stalemate with continuing artillery bombardments, raids and limited local drives, with high casualties being inevitable. The third possibility would be a major U.N. offensive which might conceivably include another Inchon-type landing in an effort to cut the Communist supply lines from the rear. The difficulty was that the U.N. supply problem increased and the Communist supply problem decreased as the battle lines moved north.

It concludes that neither of these three alternatives was pleasant but that they had to be faced realistically. If the Korean war was, as supposed, merely an episode in a larger world struggle between the free nations and Communism, then the leadership of the U.N. should forthwith impart to the people frankly what was in store should the truce talks fail.

"Electoral Reform Needed" tells of another effort to reform the electoral college being made in Congress, introduced by Representative Ed Gossett of Texas before he had retired. The joint resolution would not alter the present system of allocation of electoral votes but would change the method of tallying them, whereby instead of giving all of a state's electoral votes to the candidate who won the popular vote of that state, it would divide them proportionately to the popular vote.

The piece finds the present system unrepresentative, effectively disenfranchising a large minority of the population of a given state, who voted for the losing candidate, and detrimental to a strong two-party system, discouraging Republicans from moving to Democratic strongholds and vice versa.

To become part of the Constitution, the proposed amendment had to be approved by both houses of Congress and then win approval by three quarters of the states. It had passed the Senate the previous year but lost by 76 votes in the House. A strange coalition of Fair Deal Democrats from large cities and Republicans had been key to its defeat. The Republicans feared that the South would gain greater control over national politics while the big-city Democrats feared that the urban machines would be impaired. It posits that neither such selfish group should be permitted to block the long-needed revision. The resolution of Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., would restore popular representation and cancel out the influence of minority blocs to which both parties pandered. And it would encourage the development of a two-party system in the otherwise one-party South.

"The 'Fleep' Is Here" tells of the new military jargon for a flying jeep. "This airphibian–its civilian counterpart, is already flumping along over highways and flyways–can be converted from aircraft to road vehicle and back to airplane in a matter of minutes, by one man."

It suggests that the fleep, once combined with a boat, would probably be called the "fibeep". (Wouldn't it instead properly be something like "little flobeep"?)

"When it comes jeeping-fleeping-beeping off the production line, we'll know that the services have truly unified."

A piece from the New York Times, titled "The Land", describes a trip taken across America and the memories preserved from it.

A squib from The News quotes from the newspaper's social pages, "low decolletage filled in with illusion", which it finds to be a fancy phrase for falsies.

Drew Pearson, writing from Central Europe, finds the most important answer to the alarming question put before Congress recently by Secretaries Marshall and Frank Pace, whether there would be a war soon with Russia, existing in the barbed wire extending from the Black Sea to the Baltic, that is the Iron Curtain. As long as the curtain existed, there would always be the danger of war with Russia, just as that danger would also be directly proportional to the ability of Moscow radio to tell the Russian people anything they wanted about the U.S. while Russians knew nothing else to be true. If the country were to fight a war with Russia and win, the victory would only be temporary unless the country could convert the Russian people to amicable relations with the U.S.

Russia had never been conquered by force of arms. Napoleon and Hitler had tried and lost. Only propaganda and politics had defeated the Czars.

He stresses that these were the reasons why he had been consistently advocating using all types of propaganda, including weather balloons, to penetrate behind the Iron Curtain and tell the Russian people the truth about America and its allies. The Iron Curtain had been raised by Stalin out of fear of contact between the Russian people and the outside world. American and Soviet troops had consumed vodka and toasted their mutual friendship when they had met on the Elba River at the end of World War II. Even soldiers of the Red Army who had visited Vienna, Warsaw, Prague or Berlin had returned to tell their friends of the cultural and economic progress of the free world. During World War II, when the Nazis had invaded Russia in 1941, some 3.6 million Russians had surrendered. Stalin understood that the German Wehrmacht would never have been able to invade Russia were it not for the fact that so many Russians had welcomed them.

But if weather balloons were used to disseminate propaganda effectively enough, then the Kremlin would start rumors to the effect that they carried bacteriological warfare germs designed to ruin the crops, as in fact had been rumored in Czechoslovakia the prior year regarding beetles. Yet, when such strained feelings as characterized the relationship between the U.S. and Russia had become commonplace, it was not possible to make those relations any worse and sometimes revolutionary methods could improve them.

Thus, again, he urges using such balloons along with the tool of the Voice of America and other propaganda disseminating organs to reach the Russian people, communication which was the greatest fear of the Kremlin and Stalin.

Joseph & Stewart Alsop tell of some of the most brilliant men in the Defense Department taking a hard new look at American strategic planning, wondering if the basic strategic concept for fighting a war should be completely rethought. Since the start of the Korean war in June, 1950, the military situation had been rapidly changing. On July 1, 1950, the country had nine under-strength divisions, a Navy in mothballs, and a 42-group Air Force masquerading as 48 groups. The alliance with Western Europe was a fake alliance, since Western Europe could not be defended. But by July 1, 1952, the country would have the capacity to put about 50 extra-sized, full-strength divisions into the field in the first year of a war, about twice as many as could be shipped overseas in one year. There would be a Navy which should be capable of dominating the seas, with a strong Naval air arm and a powerful Marine Corps. The Air Force would have 95 groups and would grow rapidly larger.

Those increases did not mean that the country could become complacent, however, as the Soviets still had the advantage in conventional arms, while Europe remained indefensible. Yet the planners looked forward to a time when the balance of conventional military power would be partially restored and Western Europe possessed of a serious defense.

In atomic power, great strides had been made, such that by July 1, 1952, the country's atomic potential could be deemed more expendable than the planes which were designed to carry the bombs. Air Force delivery was no longer confined to strategic bombers in the Navy and could deliver the bombs even from light carriers.

When the balance in conventional military power was restored, the planners believed that the basic strategic concept of war had to change also, away from the idea of population bombing. The willingness to use atomic bombs against the large Russian cities had previously been the heart of war planning. But the weakness in this strategy was that it inhibited alliance with the Russian people, which Soviet experts as former State Department chief planner George Kennan, considered to be the real key to victory. A war ending with the great cities of Eurasia in ruins was not a war which could properly be said to have been won.

But population bombing was the most economical use of the bomb, as the bomb so used was most efficiently destructive. The question being asked, as the stockpile of atomic weapons grew, was whether it would be better for the country to take a different tack toward conventional arms balance, holding population bombing in reserve to be used only in the case of atomic attack on U.S. population centers or those of allies.

A war resting entirely on population bombing would not result in a political victory and such was why it was good that these questions were being posed in the Defense Department.

"Pitchmen of the Press", in the eighth in the series of articles from the Providence (R.I.) Journal, concerns radio commentator Fulton Lewis, Jr., whose program aired each weekday evening at 7:00 across 400 radio stations, reaching ten million listeners. The analysis of the 15-minute program during the period January through April, 1951 showed that 70 percent of the news stories he uttered could be regarded as misleading to the public. Yet, he had been described as "probably the most influential man of his profession on Capitol Hill". A former President had called him "lucid, fearless" and "a man of profound importance to all good Americans". Colonel Robert McCormick, publisher of the Chicago Tribune, had said that he was a "great reporter", and a West Coast businessman had said of him, "No man in our time is so fearlessly on the side of truth, so inspired by God's universal justice."

But the War Writer's Board, composed of professionals such as Clifton Fadiman, Carl Carmer, Franklin Pierce Adams, Rex Stout, Russell Crouse, and others, had stated that his wartime news broadcasts were "a shockingly isolationist, intolerant and divisive program". Giraud Chester of the Public Opinion Quarterly had said of Mr. Lewis that he was an example of "irresponsibility on the air".

He used his voice on the radio as a mellifluous instrument, "honey-smooth and confident". He was as decisive as H. V. Kaltenborn but much smoother in delivery, remindful of Cary Grant in his enunciation of words. But occasionally, he made a mistake, such as referring to Alger Hiss as "Alger Hissky".

He earned from his broadcasts $350,000 per year and had no single sponsor, was carried by the Mutual Broadcasting System, partly owned by Colonel McCormick.

During the 15-week period of study, Mr. Lewis attacked by name or made derogatory remarks concerning 15 reporters, writers and radio broadcasters.

Among the 70 percent of misleading statements during his program were the claims that the President had invented some statistics in a Congressional message when those statistics had come from a standard source named by the President; that a libel suit filed by William Remington against Elizabeth Bentley for calling Mr. Remington a Communist was no different from the libel suit filed by Alger Hiss against Whittaker Chambers, when in fact Mr. Remington essentially had won his case whereas Mr. Hiss had not; that Eleanor Roosevelt wished to help Russia to act against the United States, whereas the opposite was evidenced by her statements and acts; that certain persons removed from Government jobs were fired for disloyalty when in fact they had only been labeled as bad risks, distinct from disloyalty; that Senator Millard Tydings was secretly related to Communist programs, when in fact all the known evidence pointed in the opposite direction; that a former Government official had publicly attacked Mr. Lewis when the case was that Mr. Lewis had actually attacked the official; and that certain Government publications were "peculiar" and "anonymous" when in fact independent authorities agreed with the contents and the authors were indicated in the front of the publications.

He also came up with unique literary inventions, using "so-called" and "purported" without further explanation of why those modifiers were applied to the subject. He would also apply compound adjectives such as when he described the agricultural plan of Secretary of Agriculture Charles Brannan, calling it "the same old program of consumer subsidies which the OPA long-haired, left-wing, star-gazing, mouth-hanging-open, fair-haired boys insisted upon all the way through the war." Then some time later he criticized the President for suggesting to a reporter that she should write some sympathetic articles about the Brannan plan, saying that such would be inappropriate, as her job as a reporter was not to take a position for or against the Brannan plan.

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