The Charlotte News

Wednesday, January 9, 1952

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via Don Huth, that the Communist negotiators in Korea had submitted a new counter-proposal agreeing to all allied terms for supervision of the armistice, except a ban on construction of airfields, a proposal which was immediately rejected by the allies. In submitting the counter-proposal, the Communists had accused the U.S. of imperialism and world domination. The U.N. command stated, in a radio broadcast from Tokyo, that the Communist delegates represented "only a small clique of power-mad masters in the Kremlin". Both that subcommittee and the subcommittee on prisoners of war would meet again on Thursday.

In Paris, the U.N. political committee rejected the Russian demand for a high-level Security Council meeting immediately to take up the Korean truce negotiations, but agreed to such a meeting when it would become useful. The vote on rejection was 40 to 6, with 11 abstentions.

In the ground war, South Korean troops killed an estimated thousand Chinese troops near the Panmunjom truce-talks site, in the war's heaviest fighting in six weeks. The South Koreans had to give up two small hills west of Korangpo when the enemy hurled about 4,000 troops into the battle of Sasi Bulge, which had been ongoing since December 28. Since that battle had begun, according to an Eighth Army briefing officer, 3,076 Communists had been killed, 852 wounded and 10 captured, while allied losses had been "much lighter". A new fight had broken out during the early morning darkness near Heartbreak Ridge on the eastern front, as an attacking enemy platoon pushed a U.N. unit out of an advance position, which the allies then recaptured in a counter-attack.

In the air war, fighter-bombers destroyed or damaged ten locomotives and about 150 rail cars during the night. Pilots reported a decrease in enemy truck traffic.

The President addressed a joint session of Congress this date to deliver his State of the Union message, proposing that Congress join him in an election year armistice on "political fights", which could endanger the national interest at a time when the world walked "in the shadow of a third world war". He left open the question of how much, if any, new increase in taxes he would seek in his economic and budget messages yet to be delivered to Congress, but said that the country had to have high taxes over the ensuing few years, "shared among the people as fairly as possible". Since the outbreak of the war in June, 1950, Congress had voted three tax bills totaling 15.6 billion dollars, making the total tax bill 63.7 billion for the current fiscal year. The total was expected to rise another three billion dollars in the ensuing fiscal year. The President asked for only those Fair Deal measures which would "contribute most to defense". He included his civil rights proposals among those essential measures and urged that they be brought to a vote. He also said that he would propose in the coming weeks an increase in the armed forces, which now totaled nearly 3.5 million men. He warned that the military demands for steel, aluminum, copper, nickel and other scarce materials would necessitate sharp cutbacks in civilian goods during the ensuing two years of peak defense production.

The Defense Production Administration announced that production of most household goods, such as televisions, radios, refrigerators, electric irons and other such appliances, would be cut to forty percent of the pre-Korean War levels during the second quarter of the year, ten percent below presently permitted levels. Construction of new houses would be curtailed from the present rate of 850,000 per year to 660,000. Automobile production would be reduced by at least seven percent below the present rate. The agency allowed manufacturers of automobiles enough copper and aluminum to produce 800,000 cars and enough steel to produce 900,000 during the quarter.

A piece on the front page by Drew Pearson provides the results of the first three meetings between the President and Prime Minister Churchill and their staffs, the most important decision on which there had been agreement having been that the U.S. would supply Britain with a million tons of steel during 1952, in return for which, Britain would divert 65,000 tons of tin to the U.S. market. Both had agreed to abandon the feud regarding the British versus the American high-speed automatic rifle, as neither country was in a position to put the gun into production, and so would rely on the war-tested U.S. Garand M-1. Both had agreed to reaffirm their sponsorship of the proposed Middle East defense pact, which would include the U.S., Britain, France and Turkey. They both agreed to seek the additional support of Egypt and other Arab states. No decision had yet been reached on the selection of a naval commander to head the combined Anglo-American forces in the Atlantic and it was doubtful that such a decision would be reached in this conference. Mr. Churchill had told the President that the British did not intend to withdraw their recognition of Communist China, even though they did not approve of the Government of Mao Tse-Tung. The President said that the U.S. did not approve of Chiang Kai-shek's regime in Formosa, but had no intention of withdrawing support for it.

In Egypt, two British soldiers, one an officer, had been killed this date in a fight between British troops and Egyptian guerrillas, six miles west of the Royal Air Force base near the Suez Canal. A British spokesman said that there were several other casualties within the British forces.

Senator Paul Douglas of Illinois, a Democrat, asserted, in an interview following a radio broadcast with Senator Alexander Wiley of Wisconsin on ABC's "America's Town Meeting of the Air", that if the Republicans nominated General Eisenhower for the presidency, the Democrats ought to do likewise, to assure getting a much better Congress. He said that if the Republicans nominated the General and he then won, there would be a danger that he would carry into office a large number of Congressmen who would later oppose him, whereas if both parties nominated him, there would be much more selective voting for members of Congress.

Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., of Massachusetts said that he believed there was still room for General Eisenhower to return to civilian life before the Republican convention the following July. He supposed that the Eisenhower campaign would parallel that of the late Wendell Willkie in 1940 when he garnered the nomination at the convention.

Senator Taft, meanwhile, released an active itinerary for the coming several months preceding the convention.

On Camiguin Island in the Philippines, 20,000 refugees from the Hibok-Hibok volcano eruption of December 6 were reported on the verge of starvation after they had not received rice rations since the prior Sunday.

Off England, high waves threatened to end the towing operation of the stricken American freighter, Flying Enterprise, while its Captain, Kurt Carlsen, continued to defy the high seas after 13 days since the freighter was crippled by the worst storm in the area in 50 years. The freighter had broken loose from its tug and was being smashed by the seas 30 miles from the English coast, as Captain Carlsen and his lone assistant on board attempted to make fast a new line. The Enterprise was sinking a little bit every hour and at times appeared to be in danger of capsizing.

On the editorial page, "Of Straw or Sticks" recalls the story of the three little pigs and the ultimate fate of the big, bad wolf, indicating that brick houses were stronger than houses of straw and sticks, that the four-year-old of the household, upon hearing the story, had brought a new twist to the story by suggesting that the first pig had gone back and built his house of straw again, and, likewise, the second pig, recapitulated with his sticks. The young one had said that the wolf would, nevertheless, not bother those two pigs again because he had learned his lesson. It suggests that he had unwittingly pointed out the basic weakness of U.S. defense preparedness during the Twentieth Century, that after each major crisis, the country had tended to revert to straw and sticks in the naïve hope that the crisis, once met, would not recur.