The Charlotte News

Wednesday, July 29, 1953

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via Robert B. Tuckman, that the withdrawal of the two opposing armies from the demilitarized zone in Korea had continued smoothly this date as the Thursday night deadline for the completion of withdrawal approached. The allied and Communist troops, who, a few days earlier, had been fighting each other, now worked within shouting distance of each other salvaging material and dismantling fortifications which took months or even years to build. The U.S. Eighth Army had warned allied troops not to fraternize with the Communist soldiers, but there were reports of friendly contacts all along the front. One American officer remarked that it had taken two years to build the line and now they were expected to tear it down within 72 hours, including millions of dollars worth of fortifications. The allied forces were under orders to salvage as much equipment as they could. One of the toughest tasks was the removal of 12-inch wooden beams used in the bunkers, with all efforts being expended toward salvaging the lumber, which was scarce in Korea. The Communist soldiers had a less arduous task as most of their defensive fortifications had been underground, thus only necessitating caving in the entrances to render them useless. Both sides sent out work parties to search for bodies and graves within the 2.5 mile wide zone. According to Michael Rougier, a photographer for Life, bodies of six Americans and 100 Chinese had been recovered at a western front outpost where one of the battles of the war had been fought. He said that the Communists wanted the Marines to remove the Chinese bodies from bunkers and trenches at the outpost, known as "Boulder City", but the Marines had refused and told the Chinese to retrieve them. Initially the Chinese had been reluctant to come over to the allied side, but after one had done so, the others followed when they saw the Marines pointing to the places where there were bodies. Mr. Rougier said that the Chinese had assisted the Marines in locating American bodies.

The Communists this date charged the allies with eight violations of the Armistice, violations labeled by the U.N. as minor and on which there was inadequate information. The Communists made the charges at the second meeting of the joint Korean Armistice Commission, asserting that three aircraft had flown over the demilitarized zone and that four artillery rounds and a single burst of three machine-gun bullets had been fired following the cease-fire becoming effective. The four-nation neutral inspection team, from Poland, Czechoslovakia, Switzerland and Sweden, assigned the task of policing the armistice, was expected to begin its work soon, once all the teams arrived in Panmunjom. (India had originally been designated by the U.N. Command and Communists as a fifth member of the neutral nations commission, but because of objections by South Korea to India's participation, indicating it would not allow Indian representatives to enter South Korea, on the notion that it was too sympathetic to Communist China, India had been dropped in the final negotiations.)

In East Germany, Communist police arrested scores of East Germans who had accepted gifts of Western food this date, but did not stop the throngs of East Germans passing into West Berlin to receive the food. Those who had been arrested had been released a short time later. Their food was not confiscated but in many cases, their vital identity cards had been. The largest crowds yet jammed West Berlin's food relief centers during this, the third day of the American-financed relief program. The Communists harassed but did not prevent the movement of food to West Berlin via truck. Other food had arrived by plane. Officials estimated that 150,000 food packages had been given away this date, in addition to the 250,000 already handed out during the first two days. The Eastern Zone radio implied this date that East Germans obtaining the food would face arrest as spies, and it broadcast hourly the names and addresses of the food recipients, charging that they had been recruited as future agents by Western espionage experts. Nevertheless, the hungry East Germans continued to flow into West Berlin on a massive scale.

In Rome, Italian President Luigi Einaudi began anew a search for a man who could form a new government, following a vote of no-confidence in the Chamber of Deputies, forcing the Government of Premier Alcide de Gasperi to resign, just 50 days after elections which had put it in office narrowly, the eighth Government formed by Premier De Gasperi since the war.

In Indo-China, French forces battled fiercely resisting Communist-led Vietminh guerrillas along the "street without joy" this date, as the French tightened their armed noose around a string of rebel-held villages along the central Indo-Chinese coast. According to a French spokesman, the 10,000-man French force, which had launched a surprise assault the previous day, had captured 20 of the villages spread out side by side along the shore. The "street without joy" joined the coastal towns "like the string of a necklace". The villages had been used as a base by a 3,000-man Vietminh regiment harassing for several months communications between Hue, the capital of Annam Province, central Viet Nam, and Quan Tri, 40 miles to the north. The French spokesman said that 70 rebel troops had been killed and 130 taken prisoner thus far in the continuing battle. French losses, he said, had been much smaller. Some 400 villagers suspected of being Vietminh sympathizers had been rounded up.

The emergency immigration bill which had been urged by the President but resisted by Republicans in Congress would approach a showdown vote in the Senate this date, with Republican leaders stating optimism regarding its passage, albeit by a close vote. The compromise measure was somewhat more restrictive than that passed by the House the previous night by a vote of 321 to 185, admitting 217,000 refugees under special quotas during the ensuing three years, about half of whom would be from behind the Iron Curtain. The Senate measure limited the number to 200,000, whereas the Administration had sought admission of 240,000 during the ensuing two years.

Congressional leaders, seeking to pass all necessary legislation prior to adjournment for the session the following weekend, were planning to obtain quick approval in the House and Senate this date for the largest money bill of the session, providing for a defense budget of 34.4 billion dollars. The figure was a compromise reached late the preceding day by a Senate-House reconciliation committee which had eliminated some 50 differences between the two versions of the bills. The agreed amount was 62.5 million dollars below that originally passed by the House and about 140 million less than that voted by the Senate, rather than the usual compromise between the two figures. The total was about 1.5 billion dollars less than the President had sought and more than six billion below the budget submitted by former President Truman before he had left office the prior January.

The President's staff had been asked to try to time some of the President's news conferences so that morning newspapers would get the first crack at publishing the news coming from them. They complained that the morning newspapers were getting "warmed over news" because of the 12 news conferences held during the morning thus far, compared to only two in the afternoon.

In New York, Senator Taft was reported "somewhat improved" this date, by staff of the New York Hospital, who said that he had spent a restful night and was comfortable. The previous day, the hospital had issued a report that his condition had worsened. The Senator's family was gathering following that announcement.

In Chicago, police said that a 28-year old mother had told them this date that she had tied her three-year old son to a water pipe and then beat him to death with a chair, breaking his arms, legs and nose. The child's body had been found the previous night by police in the family's South Side apartment, when police had responded to a complaint by a neighbor that the mother was trying to conceal an injured child. The mother said that she beat her son because he was disobedient. Police found a note from the mother to her husband saying that "the bum" got up in the morning doing the same thing and she had placed him in a closet, that he could feed him supper if he wanted and then tie him up again, that he could do the same to one of their other three children, a six-year old girl, without feeding her supper. She signed the note, "love. V." The young girl had been beaten and had numerous bruises, according to the police. The mother said that her husband had threatened to call the police if she continued to beat their son. She was held without charge for questioning.

In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania State police, convinced that one person was responsible for two brutal slayings during a three-day period, along the Pennsylvania Turnpike, were hunting this date for a "maniac" armed with a .32-caliber automatic pistol. The body of a second victim, a 39-year old man from Bowling Green, Va., had been found in the latter's parked truck the previous day near Donegal, 50 miles from Pittsburgh, with a bullet in his head. A 30-year old truck driver from Harrisburg had been shot to death under similar circumstances the prior Saturday, with his truck found parked near the Irwin interchange, about 30 miles from Donegal. Both men, according to the coroner, had been shot with .32-caliber bullets, after each had pulled off to the side of the road to sleep. The first victim had been robbed of between $50 and $75, but the second man had money still in his wallet. As a result of the killings, there was a move in the State Legislature to provide increased police protection for the Turnpike.

In Elizabeth City, N.C., spokesmen for a drilling company said this date that its workmen had drilled more than 4,000 feet down in Camden County without striking oil, as drilling had been underway for the Texas firm for nearly two weeks. The drilling was taking place on a farm near the town of Belcross, northeast of Elizabeth City, on the edge of the Dismal Swamp. The person in charge of the tests for the company said that the drills probably could not go below 5,000 feet because of a hard stone layer at that point. An oil company had explored for oil in Washington and Tyrell counties two years earlier and Standard Oil had explored underwater areas of Pamlico Sound and the ocean off Cape Hatteras about seven years earlier, without success.

In Indianapolis, a private detective had been awakened by a telephone call early the previous day, had gone downstairs to answer it, and during his absence, a burglar had entered his room and stole $180, a wristwatch and his private detective's badge.

On the editorial page, "Bricker Supporters Put on the Spot, and Caught with Their Motives Showing" indicates that Senator William Knowland, acting Majority Leader, had put forward a compromise version of Senator John W. Bricker's proposed Constitutional amendment regarding the treaty-making power and its ratification. But because of their opposition to the proposed compromise, their true motives, apart from their claims that the amendment was necessary to avoid the prospect of losing sovereignty to the U.N. or other world bodies, had come to the fore. The supporters of the amendment had claimed that treaties were the supreme law of the land and that the treaty-making power therefore threatened the liberties guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, whereby treaties might be drafted which would compromise such liberties.