The Charlotte News

Friday, June 5, 1953

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that in Panmunjom, truce negotiators again met, as Communist loudspeakers along the battle front in Korea told of a "truce in a few days". The delegates to the negotiations would discuss the remaining question, which had been in stalemate for more than a year, that of disposition of prisoners who rejected repatriation. Both sides reportedly had submitted plans which were very close together at this point. There remained some opposition from South Korean officials, who still talked of resistance should any settlement leave Korea divided, despite President Syngman Rhee having already assured that he would cooperate "at any cost" with the U.S in the truce, following defiant statements since May 26. U.N. supreme commander General Mark Clark had flown to Seoul to confer with President Rhee this date, along with U.S. Ambassador to Korea Ellis Briggs, but there was no report on what specifically the conference concerned. Speculation ran high that an armistice could be effected by the following week or at least, at the latest, by the June 25 third anniversary of the start of the war. A high U.S. official in Tokyo said that an agreement to exchange prisoners probably would be signed this date, but that enough details remained to delay the signing until the following week. After that, the remaining question would be establishing the final cease-fire line along the front. The total number of casualties during the war, both Communist and U.N., had been 2.3 million.

In the air war in Korea, U.S. Sabre jets shot down eight enemy MIG-15s, probably destroyed one more, and damaged five this date, the second engagement of the month thus far.

In ground action, South Korean infantrymen had fought with bayonets and grenades to recapture allied outposts taken by the enemy, which could have been claimed were there to be an early armistice which would halt the war at the existing battle lines. The South Korean troops were fighting hand-to-hand with Chinese and North Korean troops at some points along the east-central and eastern fronts where bitter battles had raged all week.

In November, 1951, the truce negotiators had agreed that the cease-fire line would be established along a line of contact across Korea, a line which had changed little since that time, but in recent weeks, the enemy had grabbed important outposts in the west and a number of advance allied positions in the center and at the eastern end of the line. Observers indicated that the enemy could be expected to claim the line of contact as being south of allied outposts which they had seized, outposts which in many cases guarded the main U.N. line.

Senator Taft called this date for a military alliance with the British in the Pacific to bypass the U.N. veto in that area. He issued a statement clarifying his views expressed the prior week in a speech read by his son while the Senator was in the hospital in Cincinnati, in which he had indicated that the U.S. should forget about the U.N. insofar as the Korean War was concerned, if efforts to effect a truce did not soon come to fruition. He denied having said that the U.S. should "go it alone", saying that he was resigned to the U.N. participation in the peace decisions which would follow a Korean truce. He said that the U.N. had proved itself unable to halt aggression and that it was "ridiculous" to have nations such as India, which had said it was not on the side of the U.N. but was neutral, participating in truce and peace decisions. He said that if the U.S. was able to "disentangle" itself from the U.N., it already had treaties with Australia, New Zealand, Japan and the Philippines, with a very “definite understanding" with the French in Indo-China.

General George C. Marshall appealed this date to British leaders in London to foster a generous understanding of U.S. aims and problems in Korea, telling a luncheon of the English Speaking Union that it was important that the British public resist Soviet propaganda that the U.S. was engaged in a warlike course. He said that Americans were intent on seeing that nothing was permitted to lend aid to the Chinese Communist forces. He also said that he believed the British public only partially realized the size of U.S. casualties in Korea. He said that when he had been Secretary of State and subsequently Secretary of Defense, a great amount of attention had been paid to the views of allies, especially those of the British Government. He urged a "generous understanding between the American people and the peoples of the British Commonwealth" as the most important influence in the world presently for establishing the peace. He praised Prime Minister Churchill, saying that he best understood politically and historically the people living on both sides of the Atlantic. The aim of the Union was betterment of relations among English-speaking peoples.

Air Force chief of staff, General Hoyt Vandenberg, again testifying for the third day before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee, stated that the proposed Air Force budget cuts would reduce the Strategic Air Command below the limits of an acceptable "calculated risk". He read from a top-secret cable prepared by General Curtis LeMay, commander of SAC, saying that a proposed reduction below 57 wings would be "an extension of the calculated risk to a point where it made it no longer acceptable to the security" of the nation and its allies. The cuts in the budget from the original goal by mid-1955 of 143 air wings, established during the Truman Administration, would reduce that target to 120 wings, and would reduce SAC to 52 wings. The General, who was retiring as Air Force chief of staff on August 1, had criticized the budget cuts, contending that the 143-wing goal was the absolute minimum for the nation's security, despite assurances from President Eisenhower that the nation's actual air power would be maintained as needed.

Undersecretary of the Treasury Marion Folsom said this date to members of the House Ways & Means Committee that a truce in Korea would make no difference in the Administration's plea for continued high taxes to avoid substantial deficit spending. Several members of the Committee demanded that the excess profits tax, set to expire June 30, not be extended, in light of the prospect of the truce. Mr. Folsom also said that Treasury officials had placed no pressure on business friends to line up behind the President's request for a six-month extension of the tax, and saw no possible violation of lobbying laws, as warned might be the case by Committee chairman Daniel Reed to Secretary of the Treasury George Humphrey and other Treasury officials, after the Secretary had admitted to the Committee that they had engaged in efforts to gain support for the extension.

At Fairford Air Base in England, three U.S. B-47 Stratojet bombers broke the U.S.-to-England land speed record this date, crossing the Atlantic, a distance of 3,120 miles, in slightly more than 5 1/2 hours. The previous record had been one minute slower, set the previous April 7, also by two B-47s. This date's flight averaged 566 mph.

Frank Coe, former secretary of the International Monetary Fund, whose whereabouts had been a mystery since the previous fall when he resigned the position after refusing to tell a Congressional committee whether he had ever been a member of the Communist Party, this date appeared before the Senate Investigating subcommittee, chaired by Senator Joseph McCarthy, but continued to refuse to say whether he had ever been a member of the Communist Party, or whether he was a Communist spy while serving in his IMF post, indicating that responses to either question would tend to incriminate him. He denied, however, that he had any hand in intrigue aimed at blocking a 1949 revaluation of Austrian currency, opposed by the Communist Government of Czechoslovakia. Senator McCarthy indicated that the State Department ought immediately close the borders to Mr. Coe, indicating that he should not be allowed to leave the country because the Senator believed him "an extremely dangerous man."

In New York, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit denied a stay of execution to convicted and condemned atomic spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, scheduled to be electrocuted on June 18. Their defense counsel said that he would apply again for a stay of execution to the Supreme Court, which had already three times refused review of the case. He had said several days earlier that if all else failed, he would, for the second time, seek clemency from the President. The Rosenbergs had steadfastly maintained their innocence, and the prior Tuesday had, through their lawyer, issued a statement saying that they had rejected a Government offer to spare their lives in exchange for admitting that they were spies.

Also in New York, Frank Erickson, once a kingpin bookmaker, pleaded no contest to an income tax evasion charge and was scheduled to be sentenced on June 16, potentially to receive up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

In Sewanee, Tenn., a racial segregation issue which had been simmering since June, 1952, had apparently been resolved with a vote by the Board of Trustees of the University of the South, whereby all applications to the School of Theology would be considered without regard to race, a resolution passed 78 to 6. The previous year, the Fourth Province Synod had recommended that black candidates for the ministry be admitted to the seminary, but the Board had refused to adopt the recommendation, prompting several members of the faculty to issue a statement against the Board. Eventually, on November 5, the dean of the seminary, the chaplain and seven professors resigned over the matter. In February, 1953, the Very Rt. Rev. Dr. James Pike, dean of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, had withdrawn as the baccalaureate speaker and also declined a Doctor of Divinity degree from the school, saying that it was "hiding behind the Tennessee law" which mandated segregation of schools.

In Montreat, N.C., at the meeting of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of the United States, a 5.7 million dollar budget for 1954 was being considered, an increase of ten percent over church spending for the previous year. The previous night, the Assembly had elected Dr. Frank Price, veteran missionary to China, as the moderator of the Assembly. It was regarded in some quarters as a victory for forces favoring the reunion of the Southern church with the Presbyterian Church in the North and the United Presbyterian Church.

In New York, a 21-month old toddler who six months earlier had been separated from his brother, joined by their heads, the first successful such cranial-separation operation on Siamese twins, appeared the previous night on a television show, looking healthy and happy. His twin brother had died 34 days after the operation.

In Santa Monica, Calif., singer Ginny Simms received a divorce decree from her second husband, oilman Robert Calhoun, after she had charged cruelty, claiming in testimony that her husband of less than a year had told her that he was "just a bachelor at heart and didn't think he should have assumed the responsibility of marriage".

In Dallas, presumably N.C. rather than Texas, a woman had mistaken her gas pedal for the brake pedal, causing her car to enter the sidewalk where pedestrians had to dodge to get out of the way. The car knocked down a parking meter, shattered a plate glass window and chased a blonde woman 20 feet into rush-hour traffic before smashing head-on into another car. Three persons were hurt, albeit not seriously, including a patrolman who had tried to wrestle the car, cowboy fashion, and turn off the ignition. No one was steering the car at the time, as the female operator had stopped near the curb to pick up her husband and had scooted over to the passenger seat as she opened the driver's side door, leaving the automatic transmission in "Drive", whereupon the car began to roll and she reached back toward the brake pedal with her left foot and inadvertently stepped on the accelerator, apparently hitting it harder each time the car hit something. The woman was cited for negligent operation of the vehicle.

On the editorial page, "In the Hands of the Voters" urges voters to approve the following day the additional one million dollar bond issue required to complete the presently planned coliseum and auditorium, to replace the Armory-Auditorium built hurriedly in 1929 for a convention of Confederate veterans. It indicates that it would be too costly to scale down the project and substantial investment had already been made under the first bond issue toward its realization, including purchase of a parcel and architectural plans. Thus, it recommends that the people supplement their 1950 vote for a three million dollar bond, because of inflation resulting from the Korean War having increased the costs of the project in the meantime by an additional million dollars. The complex was necessary for the growth of Charlotte, attracting business and visitors to the city, while supplying its cultural needs.

"Same Old Bricker Amendment" indicates that Senator John W. Bricker of Ohio had altered his proposed constitutional amendment regarding limitation of the presidential power to make treaties. The original language had included in the ratification requirement presidential executive agreements, not previously requiring two-thirds ratification by the Senate, as well as requiring for implementation majority approval by both houses. The new language which he proposed, though it was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee the previous day, had done nothing to eliminate the objections to the original proposal, the only change made being the deletion of a section which forbade the U.S. from vesting in an international body or foreign government rights which the U.S. had found desirable to grant.

It recommends to readers a letter from a local attorney on the issue, appearing in this day's prints.

"The Paradox of the New Era" comments on the stories regarding the atomic bomb detonation in the Nevada desert the previous day, the largest bomb yet detonated at the Yucca Flat proving ground, while in Atlantic City Atomic Energy Commission chairman Gordon Dean, speaking to the Edison Electric Institute, had revealed the breeding of atomic fuel, which he regarded as the most revolutionary development yet in the atomic program, ushering in the potential for a great era of atomic power for peacetime uses.

It finds the two reports on the same day to have been an ironic paradox of the atomic era, with a weapon of unmatched horror and destructiveness on the one hand, while on the other, a development which had the potential for peacetime use of atomic energy. It finds therefore that atomic power could bring death or make existence richer and fuller, and yet, for security concerns and because the whole subject matter was beyond the comprehension of most Americans, it could only be read in the headlines and seen through bulletins, requiring trust that "Providence will show a way to eliminate wars and turn this awesome power of nature to good and peaceful uses."

"Order out of Chaos, Hoose Style" congratulates City traffic engineer Herman Hoose for having won the award from the Institute of Traffic Engineers for the most outstanding traffic engineering achievement among U.S. cities of 100,000 to 200,000 population during the prior year. In part because of Mr. Hoose's work, the city had also recently tied Rochester, N.Y., for the National Pedestrian Protection Contest award for cities of greater than 100,000 population.

During the previous five years, Mr. Hoose had received the benefit of advice and suggestions from hundreds of lay "experts", including the editors of the newspaper, and had weathered that barrage of unsolicited advice fairly well, coming up with answers to knotty traffic problems.

When he had first become traffic engineer in 1948, he found a network of streets which had been planned as early as 1775, designed for horses and an occasional stagecoach, not for the modern automobile. He had gone to work energetically on the maze of narrow streets, railroad crossings and awkward and dangerous intersections to eliminate the hazards and improve traffic flow and pedestrian safety.

A piece from the Christian Science Monitor, titled "'Subversive' Ideas of Mark Twain", indicates that Moscow radio a few days earlier had broadcast news, supposedly carried by U.S. newspapers, that Senator Joseph McCarthy was about to investigate Mark Twain.

The piece finds it about time that the Senator did so, for it found in Joan of Arc that Mark Twain had recounted vividly the injustice and folly of inquisitions regarding what one thought and believed, that in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, he had talked of the operations of the mob mind, that in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, he had explained the historic reasons why the U.S. Constitution forbade compelling a witness to testify against himself, why there was inclusion of the right of a speedy and public trial and why the safeguard of habeas corpus was included. And in The Prince and the Pauper, things were depicted which had once happened to those who voiced opinions contrary to popular beliefs or official interests.

"By all means, let us investigate Mark Twain. It would make salutary reading for Russians and Americans, too."

Drew Pearson discusses the decision by First Lady Mamie Eisenhower not to have a reception for the delegates to the 62nd annual convention of the General Federation of Womens' Clubs, because of her bad experience earlier in the spring with the Daughters of the American Revolution, whose 2,000 members had come to the White House and had to be greeted individually by the First Lady, Second Lady Pat Nixon or the wives of Cabinet members present. But afterward, because Mrs. Eisenhower had to step out to rest for awhile during the reception, some of the DAR delegates felt snubbed because they missed being able to shake her hand. One woman said that she had not stood in line for two hours just to shake a Cabinet wife's hand. Thus, despite repeated appeals which the Federation had made through various female members of the Administration, as detailed by Mr. Pearson, the ultimate decision was not to hold such a formal reception for the Federation members. The final appeal by the Federation, however, to Republican Senators had resulted in such pressure on the White House that there was a limited retreat, allowing the Federation to take a typical tourist tour of the White House in small groups, and included the agreement by Mrs. Eisenhower to make a brief appearance at one of the Federation's sessions at Constitution Hall.

Marquis Childs indicates that the parliamentary crisis in France was so stubborn that the Big Three conference of leaders set for Bermuda in mid-June would probably be postponed until late summer or early fall. By that time, the French might achieve a coalition government somewhat more stable than the 18 governments which had proceeded in succession since the end of World War II, although no one was very hopeful that such could be achieved without constitutional reform of the multi-party system in the country.

But in private, American policymakers were candid in acknowledging a gain from the postponement, in that Congress, with Republican majorities either indifferent or hostile to the main goals of the Administration, would be in recess in the late summer and early fall.

In Europe, there were signs of a new world of cooperation emerging, even as the European Defense Community unified army was having trouble finding support for ratification. It had been ratified by West Germany, but that was thought by pessimists to be only a bargaining chip vis-à-vis the Soviets. The same pessimists doubted that the French National Assembly would ratify the unified army. But Jean Monnet, a Frenchman who headed the High Authority of the European Coal and Steel Community, comprised of the same six nations forming the EDC, had forged ahead with Western unity in the economic arena, and he was convinced that the logic of the situation would eventually be applied to the EDC. The Assembly of the Community, which was comprised of representatives from each country, selected by its parliament, had drawn up a political constitution for Europe, adopted by the foreign ministers of all of the countries the previous month and soon to be considered in a meeting to be held in Rome. One of the drawbacks to the EDC was that the military commanders would not be subject to unified political authority, but M. Monnet believed that the EDC would inevitably bring about political confederation which would grow in strength as it assumed the burden of unification.

Recently, on an issue of taxation, both houses of the West German Bundestag had voted against the decision taken by the Coal and Steel Assembly, but Chancellor Konrad Adenauer's Government had upheld the Assembly's decision, leading Mr. Childs to conclude that perhaps "the new world struggling to be born is nearer than we think."

Robert C. Ruark indicates that for a long time he had inveighed against military leaks in Washington through newspapers and cocktail parties, had for long suggested that, in consequence, the Russians did not really need to waste time and money on spies. In the previous few days, it was reported that a Russian military attaché had been able easily to sit down at a meeting of aeronautical engineers, while the Air Force opened its new testing facility in Tennessee for nonmilitary inspection, where it was said that experiments with turbojets, ramjets and turbo-prop engines under simulated flight conditions at altitudes up to 80,000 feet were ongoing. There was a report of a large robot brain to compute all of the arguments arising over how to power the long-range guided missiles, as well as mention of other vital machinery which cost more than 170 million dollars. He thus found that there was enough in the public domain to make a saboteur's mouth water. The civilians who saw the facility were members of the Society of Automotive Engineers, and, he posits, if a Russian military attaché could infiltrate a group of engineers, he could certainly infiltrate that group as well.

He reminds that the Japanese had learned nothing about the atomic bomb prior to it being dropped on Hiroshima in August, 1945, as had no one else except those who were part of the Manhattan Project and in high positions in the participating Allied governments. Thus, the argument that spies would learn of these projects anyway appeared faulty. He also recalls that Allied raids on Germany during the war had been, to a large extent, based on information in the public domain.

He therefore concludes that the Government ought to maintain things in secret again so that at least the spies would have to hunt for the information.

A letter from a local attorney, as indicated in the above editorial, explains that the Bricker amendment to the Constitution would seriously handicap the conduct of foreign affairs by the President, and that the argument by those urging its adoption, that it would prevent government by treaty, was faulty. He cites the Supreme Court case of Missouri v. Holland from 1920, which held that the regulation of migratory birds was a valid exercise of the treaty power, that because the treaty power had been delegated by the states to the Federal Government, a statute passed by Congress to implement that treaty was Constitutional. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, in announcing the opinion, had pointed out that it did not mean to imply that there were no boundaries to the treaty-making power. Yet, the case had been picked up by the advocates of the Bricker amendment and touted as having held that a treaty could override a provision of the Constitution. But that absurd notion had been ruled upon by the high Court in 1856 in Brown v. Duchesne, holding that a treaty could not provide for the taking of private property without just compensation, as provided by the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, and by the case, decided in 1890, De Geofroy v. Riggs, wherein the Supreme Court said that a treaty could not "authorize what the Constitution forbids; or a change in the character of the government or in that of one of the states."

He concludes, therefore, that there was no basis for the assertions that a treaty could override the Constitution and thereby accomplish through ratification that which was otherwise forbidden, that the advocates of the amendment were the same persons and groups who sought to convince the country that it could "go it alone" without its allies and that freedom could survive without law in the nuclear age. Such an amendment would only hamstring the executive authority of the President to act on the nation's behalf in foreign policy.

A letter writer indicates that the Republican executive committee of Mecklenburg County would shortly meet to recommend several appointees to Federal positions, a list of 35 having been reported, and of the 35 mentioned, probably not one had responsible experience in public service. He indicates that because the leaders of the Taft faction had been the old, experienced convention manipulators of the Republican machine, they had been able to dominate the Republican county convention and form a new organization out of the Taft clique, with the result that the present Republican organization in the county and that clique were now identical. Inevitably, it would, anomalously, be able then to name the appointees under the Eisenhower Administration. He suggests that Senator Taft was beginning to show his hand, a similar situation hearkening back to the feud between President Theodore Roosevelt and his successor, President William Howard Taft, Senator Taft's father.

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.