The Charlotte News

Monday, September 1, 1952

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via Sam Summerlin, that three U.S. Navy carriers, staging the greatest Naval airstrike of the Korean War, had struck within sight of Soviet Siberia this date, in an attack by 164 naval bombers and fighters from the U.S.S. Boxer, Essex and Princeton, hitting an oil refinery and an iron works in extreme northeast Korea. Pilots had reported that the enemy had been caught by such surprise that they did not fire any flak at them. The Navy reported that 70 percent of the iron mine works had been destroyed and that the synthetic oil refinery had been left burning. Air Force Sabre jets had flown north through central Korea to draw out enemy MIG-15s, away from the Navy aircraft. Thirty enemy jets were engaged, but no results of the fights were announced. The only other allied raid which had come so close to Siberia had been one involving B-29s against Rashin, 18 miles from the Soviet border. A Navy officer indicated that the raid would virtually eliminate industry in that part of Korea and make a definite dent in the Communist war economy. He said that the raid was part of the massive campaign of destruction against previously untouched North Korean targets, begun with the hydroelectric plant raids of June 23.

The Fifth Air Force reported that August had been the best month of the war in terms of destruction of enemy jets, with 32 MIGs shot down, three others probably destroyed, and 42 damaged, with only one U.S. jet lost in air fighting, 11 other U.N. planes shot down by anti-aircraft fire, and 13 lost to other causes.

Ground action continued light along the battlefront, which was soggy from recent rains.

Governor Stevenson, speaking in Detroit on Labor Day at a rally sponsored jointly by the CIO and AFL, stated his support for repeal of Taft-Hartley and replacing it with a new law. He said that he did not consider Taft-Hartley to be a "slave labor" law and that not everything in it was wrong, but called it "a tangled snarl of legal barbed wire filled with ugly sneers at labor unions and built around the discredited labor injunction." He said that it was politically inspired and biased, and had not improved labor relations in a single plant. He also indicated that the country could not tolerate plant shutdowns which threatened national security and even the free world, and that a new replacement law had to accept labor unions as the responsible representatives of their members' interests, had to mandate their conformance with the standards of fair conduct and equal protection in the exercise of their stewardship, had to outlaw unfair bargaining practices by companies and unions, such as jurisdictional strikes and strikes or boycotts attempting to force an employer to deal with one union when another had been certified as the representative of the employees, that the labor injunction had to be rejected, and that new methods had to be found for settling national emergency labor disputes.

The President began campaigning for Governor Stevenson this date, with a whistle-stop speech in Pittsburgh before an estimated crowd of 3,000, in which he stated that Republicans had no issue but to accuse Democrats and throw mud. He was greeted by a band playing "We're Just Wild about Harry", and some in the crowd shouted, "Give 'em hell, Harry". He said that the Republicans had nothing on which to stand, that they faced East, then West, and had no principles of their own, only wanting "to beat the other fellow". He stated that the Democrats had a candidate who could and would win. He urged everyone to vote. The train departed as the band played "The Missouri Waltz". He was en route to Milwaukee where he would deliver a major speech this night on behalf of Governor Stevenson.

In New York, General Eisenhower this date assured Government workers, in an address to the National Association of Letter Carriers, that if he were to become President, he would neither authorize nor condone any firings of Civil Service employees, indicating that he was upset about a report of a Kansas case in which Senator Frank Carlson had charged that a Democratic leader allegedly had sought $100 campaign contributions from mail carriers with the admonition that they might lose their jobs should the Republicans win the Congress and Presidency. He also said that if elected, he would work to provide more efficient mail delivery service, with more frequent deliveries. He stated that he was a friend of mail carriers, that during his time in the Army, he had placed mail call above any other call that a bugle might blow. He received loud applause before, during and after the brief 7.5-minute speech.

Meanwhile, the Democratic leader in question, the national committeeman for Kansas, said that he had sent out letters to more than 2,000 Kansas postmasters and rural mail carriers, requesting contributions, that the practice was not illegal, and was followed by Republicans as well.

Another Gallup poll appears, tapping opinion in the upcoming presidential election in the Middle-Atlantic states, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware and West Virginia, the largest northern bloc of electoral votes in the nation. It showed that 52 percent of the voters of those states preferred or were leaning toward the Republican, while 42 percent favored the Democrat, with 6 percent undecided. The poll was taken in mid-August. Five of the states had provided Governor Dewey with his largest bloc of electoral votes in 1948, and the results showed that General Eisenhower had five percent greater support than provided Governor Dewey in that year, with the Governor having received 48.4 percent, to the President's 46.9 percent, followed by Henry Wallace at 4.7 percent. West Virginia had been the only state in the grouping which did not vote Republican in 1948. The Middle Atlantic region had been the area of the country strongest for General Eisenhower's nomination by the Republicans prior to the convention. In all, the six states had 113 electoral votes and political observers were agreed that it would be virtually impossible for the General to win the election without carrying a majority of the six states, with New York and Pennsylvania crucial. Governor Dewey had won New York with 46.3 percent to the President's 45.4 percent, with former Vice-President Wallace polling 8.3 percent. The Governor had won Pennsylvania with 51.3 percent of the vote, to the President's 41.2 percent and Mr. Wallace's 1.5 percent.

Another poll, the results of which had been published the prior Friday, had shown that in the East North Central section, including Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and Illinois, the home territory of Governor Stevenson, 49 percent of respondents had stated that they would vote for the Republican, 49 percent, for the Democrat, with two percent remaining undecided. In that section, the General had not received any greater support than that given Governor Dewey in 1948.

In Baltimore, prosecutors had charged a quiet New York office manager with the "perfect murder" of his wife, a Sunday school teacher. Police stated that the husband had engineered the plan so that it appeared that his wife had died in a traffic accident, which had been witnessed by two Baltimore city policemen. In fact, according to investigators, he had beaten her to death. She was described by neighbors as a sweet, nice person who had no enemy in the world. Her husband had sometimes served as an usher in the Methodist church which they attended, and was described as a quiet man by his neighbors. Her body had been discovered in an overturned car after two policemen had seen it careening out of control down a hill, proceeding full throttle. But the woman's battered body did not appear to the police to match the moderately damaged condition of the car and bloodstains found in the car did not run the way they should have, given the accident. There were also no bruises on her body, as would have been expected in such an accident, the chief medical examiner having indicated that dead bodies did not bruise. Nor was there anything in the car which could caused the deep cuts and gashes on her forehead. The police also found a pebble which had been used to force the accelerator down, as well an iron pipe, though not indicating its location.

Didn't we see this scenario in one of those tv shows, maybe "Dragnet", maybe "Highway Patrol"? It definitely appeared somewhere and we shall hunt it down for you, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but one of these days and sooner than later, as we know you are dying to see it.

It was reported from Charleston, S.C., that remnants of "Able", the season's first hurricane, moved up the coast into the Virginia-Washington area this date, while a second hurricane was brewing about 500 miles east of San Juan, Puerto Rico. Able had moved into the South Carolina coastal area on Saturday night and then roared through Charleston and Beaufort, with winds up to 100 mph, leaving wreckage and downed trees and communication lines in its wake. In some places, rain-swept highways were several inches deep in water, and two persons had died in Hardeeville, south of Beaufort, and a third in Beaufort. Property damage, however, had been relatively light in the coastal area, as persons had taken emergency precautions and battened down their hatches in anticipation of the storm. On Sunday, the storm impacted as far inland as Orangeburg and Columbia, before turning in a northwesterly direction, with diminishing winds and violent rains hitting Greensboro, N.C., the storm then moving into Danville, Va., by that latter stage, having diminished, according to the Weather Bureau, to an active low pressure system, with winds at 25 mph. Precautions taken at the Parris Island Marine Corps Recruit Depot had protected the base from serious damage, although it had been isolated briefly after a swing-bridge blew open. Many Labor Day vacationers, who had withdrawn inland from the South Carolina beaches with the approach of the storm, had returned to the coastal areas the previous day after the danger had passed.

Several Eastern North Carolina rivers were expected to reach flood stage this date in the wake of the rains from the hurricane, which had hit much of the state the prior day, with some areas receiving as much as 3.5 inches, washing out many bridges on county roads and flooding main highways for short periods. Some businesses in Durham were flooded, and one Durham resident reported that his children had been swimming around the house just before they had moved out.

Emery Wister of The News reports that 3.7 inches of rain had fallen in Charlotte as a result of the storm, the full effects of which had not been felt until Sunday morning when most of the rain had fallen. Winds averaged 22 mph by noon when the storm was at its height, with gusts up to 50 mph. The Weather Bureau had reported that the center of the storm had passed within 10 miles of Charlotte shortly after noon on Sunday. One local resident had been drowned during the storm and another narrowly missed being killed in swift creek currents in the city. Both men had jumped into Sugaw Creek from a bridge at around noon the prior day, one immediately disappearing from sight and not seen again. In addition, two young boys had set out downstream in a makeshift raft, but got caught at a bridge when the water was too high to permit the raft to pass underneath, one of the boys grabbing onto the bridge and the other being swept away, before being rescued by the boy and another person, then provided artificial respiration. An employee of J. A. Jones Construction Co. had been severely shocked and burned at noon the previous day while using an electric pump in the flooded basement of the Methodist Home, but was revived by the Charlotte Life Saving Crew and treated at home for his burns.

In Kyoto, Japan, firemen on lookout duty at four different places reported sighting a tennis ball-shaped flying saucer, giving off a bluish-white glow, early this date, flying southeast at tremendous speed. The firemen reported their certainty that it was not a shooting star or fireworks.

It was just some UNC graduate showing off their extraordinary abilities. And it was not a tennis ball, but rather a basketball, forecasting the success of their new head basketball coach, promoting the sport to the Japanese as a means to relieve tension and pent-up empirical desires.

In Grand Rapids, Mich., a resident had received a circular recently through the mail advertising a book as "sensational, shocking, exotic", with sample chapter headings titled: "Some Girls Know How"; "Since Eve Ate Apples"; and "Bachelor Bait". The circular was accompanied by a picture of a scantily dressed beauty. The resident ordered a copy, but when it arrived, complained to the Better Business Bureau, demanding a return of his money, for what he got was a cookbook.

It must have come from Kansas.

On the editorial page, "No Glib 'Solutions', Please" tells of General Eisenhower having emphasized that he was no "miracle man", having warned that there was no easy way to end the Korean War. It finds it improper, therefore, for a top Eisenhower adviser to suggest that the General could do the miraculous, as Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., had suggested the prior Friday in a press conference, stating that the General "could end the bloody drain on American manpower" if elected. His reasoning had been that the General could use persons who had an equal interest to that of the U.S. in the war, such as two million anti-Communist Slavs in Europe, thereby reducing the burden of the war on the American people.

It indicates that Senator Lodge understood the impracticality of such a plan, as he had sponsored legislation which provided for enlistment of some of those same displaced persons of Europe into the U.S. Army in exchange for U.S. citizenship, resulting in a few hundred persons having joined, but not thousands. It also indicates that it would be a questionable practice to use mercenaries who were not eager to join an army which might one day liberate their homeland to fight an unpleasant war in Asia.

The Senator had also guaranteed that should General Eisenhower be elected and the Republicans given control of the Senate, the Senate would pass a rule within a month to curb filibusters. He indicated that in that event, he would be chairman of the Rules Committee. When a reporter had indicated that General Eisenhower had stated opposition to a Federal FEPC with enforcement power and asked if a compulsory FEPC would be vetoed by a President Eisenhower, the Senator had stated that he did not assume that a veto would occur.

It reminds that Senator Lodge was not only head of the General's campaign advisory committee, but was also standing for re-election, being opposed by a "capable young liberal", Representative John F. Kennedy. It suggests that he was speaking in that latter role for the benefit of his constituents in Massachusetts and urges instead that he speak to his constituents about his many achievements as a Senator, and let the General make his own assumptions and proposals regarding the Korean War.

"A Good Start" tells of the get-out-the-vote campaign in Mecklenburg County having received good initial response from civic organizations. Joe Josephs had been selected as the campaign chairman, which bode well for its success, as he had achieved success in several noteworthy civic tasks. Volunteers were needed and it urges participation.

Suggested campaign slogan: Get back to where you once belonged, exercising your franchise at the polling booth.

"'Outside' Money for Candidates" asks whether it was ethically correct for a candidate to receive campaign contributions from persons outside the constituency. The previous week, conservative columnists Westbrook Pegler and George Sokolsky, who normally saw things the same way, had opined differently on the subject, as appearing in the Charlotte Observer.

Mr. Pegler had inveighed against a "little bund (sic) of self-important Easterners" who had raised funds for candidates opposing Senator Pat McCarran of Nevada, former Senator Curley Brooks of Illinois and that "active anti-Communist" Representative Gene Cox of Georgia. Such outside support of their opponents had irritated Mr. Pegler, considering them "foreigners" who might "use money to frustrate the normal exercise of the franchise by the citizens of the state".

In the adjoining column, Mr. Sokolsky had rejoiced at the formation of the "Hollywood Committee" for Senator McCarthy. He had written that the Senator had been recovering from surgery and had not had time to raise funds adequately for his campaign for re-election in Wisconsin, thus urged others to contribute, saying that "now is as good a time as any other for those who hate Stalin to assert it by coming to the support of McCarthy … with funds, time, oratory and every type of aid."

It concludes that depending on which candidate received the money, the contributions from outside sources were either a blessing or a curse.

It indicates that all citizens of the country were substantially impacted by the actions of members of Congress, and so it appeared appropriate for a citizen of one state to contribute to the campaign of a candidate for Congress of another state. It draws a line, however, at contributions to a candidate, such as a gubernatorial candidate, who would not legislate for the constituency outside their own state. It suggests that notwithstanding this objection, it was unlikely that most candidates were too concerned about that particular question of ethics, especially as campaign costs rose and ethical standards decreased, "unless limits on campaign contributions by each individual and receipts for each candidate are set."

"Why Not Try It?" tells of Memphis having had a transit problem similar to Charlotte, with the number of fares having decreased, along with the company profits. Memphis was doing something about its problem, using salesmanship to promote bus ridership, by providing free bus rides into town during evening hours rather than riding back to town empty after dropping off workers. The same practice was being followed in Minneapolis and Wichita, and Boston was developing a way to rebate fares on Saturday mornings to customers of downtown department stores.

It urges such merchandising to the Charlotte bus company, in cooperation with the merchants.

A piece from the Washington Post, titled "Verbal Gilding of the Lily", questions whether the war on euphemisms would end when women, pursuant to the fur-labeling act, had to wear plain skunk coats instead of "Black Marten" and plain rabbit instead of "Arctic Seal" or "Mendoza Beaver". It wonders whether a plain fruit cup, even though labeled "supreme", would be as appealing as a fruit "cocktail". It also wonders of the effects should "buttered" have to be removed from carrots, beets, string beans, squash, corn and other vegetables to provide truth in advertising.

And it goes on in that vein, suggesting that ways would be found to keep the illusions of people in spite of laws and inspectors, that those who were forced to wear rabbit coats would likely find that rabbits included Belgian hares and Australian lepis cuniculus.

One could also wear Marilyn Monrodos funicellistprofundismuyabundis.

Charles F. Brannan, the Secretary of Agriculture, substituting for Drew Pearson while he was on vacation, finds that with autumn on the horizon, the minds of city people were most likely to return to rural origins and pleasant times associated with the harvest season, so regards it as a good time to think about what agricultural abundance meant to each person. To the farmer, the harvest was that for which he had worked all year. But it was just as important to the urban dweller, as everyone depended on a share of the produce for their existence. Thus every individual, in that sense, lived on a farm, with 2.25 acres of cropland and about seven acres of grassland necessary to produce the food and clothing which they ate or wore—sometimes both.

He goes on to explain that there were fewer acres available for cultivation than 20 years earlier while there were 30 million more Americans, with the average harvested cropland having shrunk nearly two-thirds of an acre and grassland also having decreased proportionately per person. Twenty years hence, there would be even less acreage for each citizen. Yet, at the same time, crop yields per acre had increased during the previous 20 years more than in the prior 86 years for which records existed. Yields were about 45 percent higher than in 1930, compared with only a five percent increase in the preceding 20 years. Yields from pasture lands, poultry and livestock had also increased substantially. Americans were also consuming more food than in 1932, 11 percent more than in the boom year of 1929. That food included more meat, milk, fruit, vegetables and many other products, all of which constituted the equivalent of many pounds of grain and grass.

The result was that the average American had a better diet than 20 years earlier, consuming 10 percent more meat, 12 percent more fluid milk, almost 30 percent more eggs, and substantially more green vegetables.

Gross farm output, meanwhile, per man hour, had increased 72 percent in the prior 20 years, and less manpower was needed to operate the 10 acres necessary to provide per capita output. One farm worker could now produce enough food and fiber for himself and 14 other persons, whereas 20 years earlier, he could produce only enough for himself and 10 others. As a result, the consumer could purchase more and better food, with about the same percentage of income which had been spent on food in 1932, when food prices were near their record low.

In addition, 20 years earlier, farmland was being seriously damaged by erosion and depletion, whereas presently, while there was still some deterioration, four out of five farms used soil conservation methods and the acreage thereon received 3.5 times as much lime and fertilizer as had been the case 20 years earlier.

Electricity had also increased the productivity of the acreage, the Rural Electrification Administration having been established in 1935, at a point when one in ten farms had electrical power, whereas presently only ten percent of the farms were without it.

Farm credit programs had increased the farm operator's ability to produce and had helped to reverse the long-time trend toward tenancy. Three quarters of the farms in the country were owner-operated, compared with 58 percent 20 years earlier.

Price-support programs enabled the farmer to produce abundantly without fear that the abundance would produce a price collapse. Farmers had about twice the purchasing power which they had in 1929, enabling farmers to better educate their children and make more consumer purchases.

Research and development of such things as hybrid corn—thanks to Henry Wallace—had increased the efficiency of production on the farm, the latter having boosted output by about seven dollars per year per capita. About $3.50 worth of increased production had come from disease-resistant cereals.

He points out that only two percent of each Federal tax dollar went to support the farm program. Each taxpayer paid that amount to support 2.25 acres of harvested cropland and about seven acres of grassland. The cost of the farm programs in 1952 would be considerably smaller than the gains realized each year from hybrid corn and disease-resistant cereals. Presently, 48 cents of every food dollar went to the farmer, who spent a large part of that money in production costs. The remaining 52 cents went to marketing, including transportation, storage, wholesale and retail handling.

Marquis Childs tells of Governor Stevenson having been accused of being a captive of the political and labor bosses and that he would have to work hard to disprove the charge. In an earlier era, the phenomenon of the boss had been accepted as an individual who took care of all the things that nobody else wanted to do, the boss, himself, not being ashamed of the designation. But now it carried with it unwanted connotations.

Mr. Childs had commented after the Democratic convention in Chicago that it had been said that Chicago boss Jacob Arvey and Pittsburgh boss David Lawrence had helped to engineer the draft of Governor Stevenson. Mayor Lawrence had responded in a letter, saying that the era of the city bosses had long ago ended, with the death of Tom Pendergast of Kansas City and the retirement of Frank Hague of Jersey City. Now, he had pointed out, the mayor and president of the City Council in New York were elected on independent tickets. The Mayor of Chicago was Martin Kennelly, though the tag of boss continued to hang over Mr. Arvey, and the Senator was Paul Douglas and the Governor, Adlai Stevenson, three "conspicuously unbiased people". He indicated that the mayors of large American cities were almost entirely of the "executive 'civic' type". He told of having controlled only a one-half vote at the convention, his own as an at-large delegate. And he had gone on, as quoted in the column.

He had also, indicates Mr. Childs, charged that Republican Governors Dewey of New York, John Lodge of Connecticut, John Fine of Pennsylvania and Alfred Driscoll of New Jersey had "whipped and threatened" their delegates to nominate General Eisenhower.

Mr. Childs suggests that the era in which the bosses had herded voters together and ensured that they got to the polls to vote as a bloc, in return for which they might or might not have been paid or provided small favors, had, undoubtedly, diminished with prosperity and high employment. But whether it meant any greater participation in political life was a question which could not readily be answered.

He also suggests that the charge that the unions were bossed by a handful of men who steered the rank-and-file ought be something that the union should contemplate on Labor Day. In many unions, the same president had held office for many years and union elections were mere formalities in many instances. Strong-arm methods had been used to put down the opposition. That also was bossism, but had little to do with the way labor had voted in recent national elections. UMW president John L. Lewis had tried to push the mine workers into voting for Wendell Willkie in 1940, with very little success. He suggests that self-interest and the secret ballot had ensured a choice beyond that which was dictated by any boss, "no matter how powerful he may be in his own sphere."

Joseph & Stewart Alsop offer a puzzle and a $100 prize on Labor Day regarding the ongoing presidential campaign and the strangeness of American political history.

The first question seeks the identity of the American political leader, who, after having been defeated for the Democratic nomination, had said, "I am a Democrat still—very still."

The second question regarded the President who had said, predicting his own re-election: "They have concluded it is not best to swap horses while crossing the river, and they have further concluded that I am not so poor a horse they might not make a botch of it trying to swap."

We know, we know, on that one. Dick.

Oh. That was later. How about Harding?

Oh.

Truman?

Lincoln?

Alexander Hamilton.

The third question was which former President had advised Harry Truman: "The only thing for an ex-President to do is to get drunk," reportedly having followed his own counsel, having been commonly described as "the hero of many a well-fought bottle".

Must be Grant.

The fourth question seeks to know the identity of the great President who, on retiring from office, had confided to a friend that his only regret had been not having hanged a particular political enemy and not having shot another, also seeking the identity of the enemies.

Dick, the guy left twisting slowly, slowly in the wind, and himself, in that order.

Oh.

Lincoln, Johnson and Booth?

No, didn't retire. Right.

Hmmm. Still stuck on Dick. Must be him.

Oh, we got it. It's a trick question. Harry, Tom and Dick.

The fifth question seeks the identity of the "all-powerful leader" of New York State, a lawyer, who, when asked whether he would support the party's candidate, charged with being corrupt, had replied, "I do not engage in criminal practice."

Mitchell. Joe Mitchell.

The sixth question indicates that the nicknames for the Presidents and presidential candidates had been growing less racy in recent years and seeks the former Presidents or candidates who held the following sobriquets with the public: "His Fraudulency"; "The Stuffed Prophet"; "Old Iniquity"; "The Superb"; "Old Fuss and Feathers"; "Plate of Soup"; "The Mill Boy of the Slashes"; "The Plumed Knight"; "Old Man Eloquent"; "The Schoolmaster"; and "The Great Commoner".

Dick, WJB, Dick, Dick, General Taylor, Soupy, Dick, Feathers, George Washington, Lincoln, WJB.

The seventh question seeks the time of the speech and identity of the famous speaker who had declared: "The Democratic Party is the party of famine; it is a good friend of an early frost, it believes in the Colorado beetle, and the weevil." They hint that the claim had superseded anti-slavery and the bloody shirt.

Dick, in a pre-Mitchell Trio reference to John Denver, whom he must have seen in an early folk club appearance, circa 1960.

The eighth question seeks to know several things, the seven occupants of the White House born subjects of a foreign power, the President who had been an ordained minister, the five Presidents and presidential aspirants who had been the victims of either an accomplished or attempted assassination, and the five Presidents who had sought to be re-elected to the White House after their retirement from office.

The first one includes Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, J. Q. Adams, and Jackson—left out William Henry Harrison. The second subpart... We have to think about that, reverentially, probably Calvin Coolidge. The third includes Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, TR and FDR, but would also have to include President Truman, given the Blair House attack of November 1, 1950. So that is six. Maybe they forgot about TR and his bullet-blocking eyeglasses case. And, actually, the Booth co-conspirators had also planned to assassinate Vice-President Johnson, but the plotter assigned the task, George Atzerodt, had gotten drunk and lost his nerve, though the Vice-President had not yet acceded to the Presidency, so that would not count probably. The fourth subpart includes Millard Fillmore, Grover Cleveland, TR, Old Stumpy and Dumpety.

The ninth question seeks to know the identity and party affiliation, neither Democrat nor Republican, of the man who claimed that his party "came from the grassroots", originating the latter phrase in the "fairly distant past".

Buchanan, in reference to the then-incipient Tea Party.

The tenth question seeks to know the name of the member of Congress who had proposed to call the President "His High Mightiness", and also from whence the title had come.

Some doper. Mexico.

They give the address to which to send the answers, so gum up your envelopes and stamp them away.

Do we get $10 for a few correct answers?

Robert C. Ruark tells of having had recently a cocktail with Marilyn Monroe, reporting that she had drunk a Dubonnet. He had not asked her whether she wore pants, which she had been asked previously. Nor did he inquire about the status of her romance with Joe DiMaggio or whether she had once posed nude for a calendar or the attire in which she slept, the latter being, he believed, Chanel Number Five.

He thought she was nice to look at, "equipped with more than the average appurtenances", and peered at her company "deceptively with a large set of eyes". She listened well, had a reputation as an enfant terrible, stuttered, especially when surprised. She had been in various institutions while growing up because of a parental problem, resulting in insecurity, which might have explained her stutter. She was hot in the movies, her next picture being "Monkey Business". She was in love with Mr. DiMaggio, had told a journalist that they had not talked about baseball yet.

He tells of Somerset Maugham having once written a piece about "a dame named Jane" who was not "overendowed with anything" and had made a great reputation in the sophisticated circles of London, speaking the truth with a straight face. Ms. Monroe, who had been "billed for the shape of her body and the shape of her wisecracks", he finds to be much as the Jane of Mr. Maugham. She gave the interviewer an honest answer, which sounded so funny coming out of Hollywood that she made a great name for herself as a wit. She was not the smartest, "just the honestest".

When asked by others whether she really had anything on while posing nude for the calendar, she had answered, "Sure, I had the radio on."

To what station was it tuned?

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