The Charlotte News

Monday, January 7, 1952

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the U.N. chief negotiator, Vice-Admiral C. Turner Joy, stated that there was a growing indication that the Communists did not want a stable armistice in Korea. No progress had been accomplished in the meetings of the two subcommittees this date. Admiral Joy indicated that if the Communists were sincere, there would be no reason for them to desire construction of military airfields during the armistice, as they were demanding, that such was an indication of bad faith, that they intended to conduct military preparation during the armistice. At the end of the day's session, the Chinese lead negotiator indicated that the allies were "intentionally delaying the negotiations" and trying to wreck the truce talks by insisting on prohibition of the construction of airfields. The Communist delegates also again rejected the six-point allied plan for exchange of prisoners and civilians, after the allies had submitted the plan again, explaining it in detail.

In Paris, Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Vishinsky stated to the U.N. political committee that the truce talks at Panmunjom had reached a deadlock, urged therefore a high level U.N. Security Council meeting to help break it. In meeting the Western objection, he said that the proposal would not break up the talks being conducted at the front but would only seek to assist them out of the rut in which they had been stuck for six months.

In the air war, American jets destroyed seven Russian-built MIG-15s in two days of renewed air fighting over northwest Korea, shooting down two enemy jets and damaging two others on Monday. In addition to the previous day's bag of five were 10 others damaged. There were no U.S. losses reported, but according to a new Air Force policy, allied losses would be reported only once per week.

On the western front, allied ground forces fought hard in sub-freezing weather for a prize outpost, Christmas Hill, lost to the enemy on December 28.

In Washington, talks continued between the President and Prime Minister Churchill in their second day of meetings, with two sessions scheduled for this date following a series of acquaintance-renewal talks on Saturday aboard the Presidential yacht Williamsburg. On Sunday, the Prime Minister and members of his entourage had lunch with Defense Secretary Robert Lovett at the Pentagon, along with other American officials and military leaders.

In Paris, General Eisenhower effectively declared himself willing to accept the Republican presidential nomination, by stating that if he were nominated, he would consider acceptance a "duty that would transcend" his present responsibilities as supreme commander of NATO. During the weekend, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., of Massachusetts had announced that the General's name would be entered in the New Hampshire primary in March. The General's statement said further that the Lodge announcement had been correct in stating his political convictions and Republican voting record, as well as the fact that he would not actively seek the nomination or seek relief from his current responsibilities to do so. Presently, there were three announced Republican candidates, Senator Taft, Governor Earl Warren, and former Governor Harold Stassen. President Truman had yet to declare whether he would run again, and so no one had yet announced for the Democratic nomination.

Congressman Wayne Hays of Ohio announced this date that a complete slate of delegates would be entered in the Ohio Democratic primary for Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee. He said that he did not yet have Senator Kefauver's written consent for the entry, as required by Ohio law, but said that he knew what he was doing. Mr. Hays had stated earlier, after meeting with the President, that the President would issue a statement by February 6, the deadline for entry of delegates to the Democratic primary in Ohio, as to whether he would run for re-election. Mr. Hays stated that, while the President had not expressed his intent, other developments in Ohio politics indicated that the President would not be a candidate in that state.

Clarence Streit, in the fifth of his series of articles on his observations gleaned from attendance of the NATO Council meeting in Rome and from discussions with Western diplomatic and military leaders in Europe, discusses the European army plan, dubbed the "Pleven Plan", which the U.S. presently favored, having split each of the five principal countries it concerned, with France, its chief sponsor, West Germany and Italy weakly favoring it as it faced powerful domestic opposition. The Netherlands and Belgium were basically officially opposed to the plan. The controversy stemmed from the U.S. motivation for favoring the plan, that being the rearmament of West Germany. The American officials who favored it believed that the Germans would rush to rearm, but, Mr. Streit indicates, there was great German reluctance to do so based on the lesson that war did not pay and that arming had only brought the country crushing defeat twice within a generation, leaving behind economic ruin as well as physical rubble. The teachers of this lesson did not appear to realize how well that lesson had been driven home. It would take years to rebuild West Germany, but NATO needed its soldiers presently. The result was that the Germans stressed, more than other Westerners, the present disparity in forces between the 175 divisions of the Red Army and the 24 which General Eisenhower presently had under his command.

In Paris, the five-month old Cabinet of Premier Rene Pleven collapsed after the National Assembly rejected a final plea from the Premier for a freer hand in dealing with the hard-pressed French economy.

The Wage Stabilization Board began its consideration of the dispute between the steel companies and the United Steelworkers, who were seeking an 18.5-cent per hour increase in wages plus other concessions, the Steelworkers having the prior week voted in convention to postpone their strike until mid-February to give the Board time to issue its recommendations.

Off England, Captain Kurt Carlsen and his American freighter, the Flying Enterprise, were half way to its destination, under tow 300 miles to Falmouth, after having been stranded in the Atlantic for nine days following the worst Atlantic storm in the area in 50 years. The sea was moderate with westerly swells and visibility at 3 to 6 miles. The ship was listing almost flat on its port side but was still being towed well, according to the towing ship's radio operator. And Captain Carlsen, determined to save his ship and its valuable cargo, remained on board, the crew, save one member who had died, having been rescued shortly after the storm.

On the editorial page, "U.S. Cities Tackle Parking Problem" provides a list of some of the states which had authorized cities to build municipal parking facilities to provide off-street parking and relieve increasing downtown traffic congestion. A study of off-street parking was ongoing in Charlotte and was likely to show that the city needed such parking facilities, in which case it would be expected that the City Council would meet the exigency, as had hundreds of other American cities.

It does not mention Pennsylvania, wherein at least one town had met the problem with quite a bit of creative ingenuity.

"How Not to Lower Taxes" tells of the Committee for Constitutional Government, the American Taxpayers Association and the Western Tax Council favoring a 25 percent limit on combined Federal income, inheritance and gift taxes. Thus far, 26 state legislatures had petitioned Congress to call a Constitutional convention to consider the proposal, and six other legislatures had repealed their petitions after they discovered what it actually meant. To call such a convention, only one of which had occurred during the country's history, required 32 states, and such a convention could then consider other proposed Constitutional amendments. Such amendments would then have to be ratified by three-quarters of the states before becoming amendments to the Constitution.

The problem with the proposed tax was that it would primarily affect the wealthy, requiring greater taxation of middle and low income groups while forcing a reduction in desired Federal expenditures.

It finds that holding such a convention would likely inform the American people of the lack of reason behind such a tax, and finds the proposal therefore foolhardy.

"NATO's Need" tells of John S. Knight, publisher of the Detroit Free Press and other Knight newspapers, being firmly against pooling of U.S. sovereignty with Western Europe, stating that he wanted neither association with "the flaky Socialists of Britain, the tough Communist bloc in Europe, rightists of the de Gaulle stripe", nor the dollar diluted by "the devalued British pound, the volatile franc and the questionable lira", thus opposed the Atlantic Union resolution, the supporters of which, he said, would "haul down the United States flag and join a new supranational government".

The piece thinks it quite a bit of hyperbole, that the problem which the resolution, sponsored by Senator Kefauver and endorsed by over a hudnred members of Congress, sought to meet was the lack of centralization of authority in NATO, such that all 12 nations effectively had a veto, whereas the Atlantic Union would provide such a central authority over economic, diplomatic and military affairs, while not surrendering any individual sovereignty of the member nations. The resolution only called for the President to call a convention of delegates from the Atlantic countries to consider the formation of an Atlantic federation, and if that convention provided for an agency which would have control over Atlantic defense and foreign policy, that provision would have to be ratified as a Constitutional amendment in the U.S. and by appropriate parliamentary methods in the other participating states. Such a convention might provide an answer to the current problem of finding unitary assent by majority will within NATO.

A piece from the Baltimore Evening Sun, titled "Ladies' Day in 1970", tells of the U.S. census reports showing that while males had a majority of the population by about half a million in 1940, females had gained the lead by 700,000 by 1950.

Moreover, Dr. Harold Dorn of the National Institute of Health had stated that women lived longer and were lengthening their lead in this category faster than men, such that in the previous 22 years the projected lifespan of women had increased by nearly 14 years while that of men had increased by only nine years. Dr. Dorn had determined that by 1970, women would have a life expectancy of 80 years, while men would have only 74 years.

Drew Pearson indicates that two groups would be most interested in the conference between the President and Prime Minister Churchill, those being the master-planners inside the Kremlin and the leaders of Western Europe, especially those in France, Belgium, The Netherlands, and Italy, whose farms and factories had been fought over for centuries. Both groups would be interested in whether the President would be able to convince Mr. Churchill to support European unity or whether an Anglo-American alliance would be superimposed on top of NATO, the latter being the hope of the Kremlin and spelling trouble for Western Europe.

Some Administration advisers had been pushing for a United States of Europe, even urging that the U.S. refuse to provide aid for individual nations and instead place the aid money in a central pool for such an organization to disburse to its members.

Whether or not the President would be able to sell this idea to Mr. Churchill remained to be seen, and Mr. Pearson provides the arguments for and against it.

Joseph & Stewart Alsop tell of the French Government having formally warned Washington that an invasion of Indo-China by the Communist Chinese was being planned and also having proposed informally direct American military aid, including ground, air and naval intervention, in the event of an invasion. The President and the National Security Council thus faced a dilemma, in that it was necessary to deter such an invasion, but without starting a general war with China and without committing U.S. ground troops to Indo-China, something to which the Joint Chiefs were unanimously opposed as spreading U.S. troops too thin between Korea and another theater in Asia.

To lose Indo-China to the Communists would mean the loss of Southeast Asia. The French could not hold out alone, and the British likewise had no troops to spare.

The solution to this dilemma was to construct an effective deterrent to Chinese aggression in Indo-China by convincing the Communists that an invasion would not pay off. But all U.S. attempts to draft a suitable warning had wound up in failure, as it was determined that a weak statement would be worse than none at all and to provide a flat ultimatum would effectively commit the U.S. to war in advance.

Some advisers wanted to adopt the MacArthur plan, entailing a strict blockade of the Chinese coast, bombing of its industries and lines of communication, and providing assistance to landings by the Chinese Nationalists on the mainland coast. The majority opinion, however, was that such a plan was either too weak to obtain results or, if made sufficiently strong, would lead to a general war with China.

The Alsops conclude, therefore, that the dilemma was that either the U.S. had to bow to the aggression and take the consequences, which would lead probably to final defeat in the cold war, or "prepare to fight in order to avoid those consequences."

Robert C. Ruark hands out his superlatives for 1951. Topping the best-dressed ladies list was Mrs. Merl Young, Lauretta, secretary to the President's personal secretary, whose $9,000 mink coat had caused a stir in the influence-peddling hearings regarding the RFC, for which her husband had been an examiner. She, in Mr. Ruark's opinion, had topped Mrs. Lamar Caudle, whose $4,200 mink coat had been instrumental in getting her husband fired as chief of the tax division in the Justice Department. Another possible runner-up was Lili St. Cyr, a stripper, whose act had become a legal controversy on the West Coast, landing her a spot in Life—"which some girls figure is sufficient coverage."

Incidentally, it would not be the last time a presidential secretary might win a pressman's superlative... As they say, it's the cover-up that gets you.

On the male side of the best-dressed ledger, he suggests Harry Truman as the best-dressed President currently in office, despite some criticism of his sportswear as being too sedate for a President, but finds that his double-breasted blue suit was admirably set off by his white Texas-type sombrero and a cane. In second place was Tallulah Bankhead, who normally wore slacks.

The most likely to succeed was Virginia Hill, whose testimony before the Senate crime investigating committee had been prime news the previous spring, as long as she remained sufficiently mum and did not wind up like name-dropper Willie Moretti, who had the finest funeral likely to be seen in some time.

For interpretive dancing, he gives an award to Samia Gamal of Egypt, who married oil scion of Houston, Sheppard King.

His prettiest name went to "Greasy Thumb" Guzik, also a crime committee witness. The most-willing taxpayer was Frank Costello, "the civic leader". The most-retiring public servant was Mayor William O'Dwyer, who left his mayoral position in New York to become Ambassador to Mexico, to avoid the corruption scandal in the police department which took place while he had been District Attorney for Manhattan and then Mayor. The most-reticent singer was Harry Gross, the bookmaker who refused to testify at trial to send several defendants to prison, resulting in the cases being dismissed. The prettiest convicted spy was Judith Coplon. The most-honest sport was basketball, Mr. Ruark noting that he did not include crapshooting, which was illegal. The most successful government effort was price stabilization. And he provides his man of the year award to General Harry Vaughan, the President's controversial military aide.

A letter writer praises the editorial of December 26, "Depleted Taxpayer Repletes Oil Club", indicating that it had prompted him to write Senator Harry F. Byrd a letter, which he encloses and which is printed in the column, inviting the Senator's response to his inquiry as to why he had favored the oil depletion allowance as part of the recent tax bill, depleting thereby Government revenue, while purporting to favor economy in the Government.

A letter from A. W. Black tells of the grandparents' generation, while perhaps not having the atomic bomb and Communists to worry about, having had nevertheless their share of troubles, including the portent carried by Haley's Comet, the itinerant Medicine Show, and the great number who had constantly been predicting the end of the world. Regardless of these troubles, grandpa had managed to survive, and, therefore, he urges, perhaps the reader could, too.

A letter writer tells of the Bible being more widely read than at any previous time, that it was important to the non-believer and an absolute necessity for the believer.

A letter writer praises the column of Dr. Herbert Spaugh, pastor of the Moravian Little Church on the Lane in Charlotte, for its inspiration and teachings.

Framed Edition
[Return to Links
Page by Subject] [Return to Links-Page by Date] [Return to News<i><i><i>—</i></i></i>Framed Edition]
Links-Date Links-Subj.