The Charlotte News
Monday, July 6, 1953
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that, according to an authoritative South Korean source, the U.S. had offered South Korean President Syngman Rhee a face-saving two-point compromise to obtain his approval for the Korean truce, but that President Rhee had rejected it and continued to insist on renewing the fighting if a post-armistice political conference could not obtain unity for Korea within 90 days. The compromise supposedly stated, according to the source, that the U.S. would agree to join South Korea in walking out of the conference if it had made no progress within the 90 days toward peaceful unification, and that after such a walkout, would discuss on a diplomatic level resumption of the war, with the understanding that such an action would have to be ratified by the U.S. Senate. A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in South Korea, however, denied that such an offer had been made. President Eisenhower's personal envoy, Assistant Secretary of State Walter Robertson, had finished his ninth secret session with President Rhee this date, lasting an hour and 40 minutes. Mr. Robertson declined to state whether he had made any progress in obtaining the cooperation of President Rhee. He said that there would be another conference and that the atmosphere had been friendly and cordial in the talks.
Britain served notice this date that it favored recalling the U.N. General Assembly into session if President Rhee rejected the terms of the truce, with acting Cabinet boss R. A. Butler having responded to questions in Commons that it would be "premature" to reconvene the Assembly while negotiations with President Rhee continued. Chancellor of the Exchequer Butler was speaking on behalf of Prime Minister Churchill, who had responded to doctor's orders to take a month of rest. Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden was also recovering from a recent surgery. Indian Prime Minister Nehru had already called for a special session of the Assembly, but Britain, thus far, had not supported it on the ground that the discussions were continuing between Mr. Robertson and President Rhee. Acting Foreign Secretary Lord Salisbury, who was scheduled to fly to Washington on Wednesday for a Big Three foreign ministers meeting, was expected to discuss the next steps in the Korean truce negotiations with Secretary of State Dulles and French Foreign Minister Georges Bidault.
In the war, allied planes remained grounded this date and battlefront action was limited to brief patrol skirmishes, as rainstorms hit all of Korea with up to 5.5 inches falling since early Sunday from storms sweeping in from the China Sea. The Fifth Air Force said that the downpour would continue for an additional two hours. It was the first time in more than a year that all allied planes, even weather reconnaissance flights, had been grounded. Bunkers had collapsed in the downpour across the front.
Senator William Knowland of California, acting floor leader for the Republicans while Senator Taft was tending to his health problem, stated in a television interview that he did not believe the breach with South Korea would have developed with President Rhee, had he been consulted more, earlier, during the Truman and Eisenhower Administrations, praising Mr. Robertson for his efforts.
Senator Taft was back in a New York hospital for a checkup regarding his hip ailment. The hospital did not indicate how long he would be there. The Senator would die of cancer at the end of the month.
Representative Robert Condon of Walnut Creek, California, said this date that he was banned from witnessing an atomic test on the basis of security, and that although he had since been cleared, he wanted to know how far liberals were being banned in the present political climate. All members of Congress had been invited to witness one of the atomic detonations in the Nevada desert the prior May, and nearly 100, including Representative Condon, had accepted and gone to Nevada via special plane. Mr. Condon said that two men in Las Vegas had told him, however, that he could not witness the test because of security reasons and could tell him nothing further. He had then gone to see Gordon Dean, then-chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, whom Mr. Condon quoted as saying that it had been a mistake and that he was cleared to witness the test. He also quoted Mr. Dean as saying that the FBI had a report on Congressman Condon, which Mr. Condon said he assumed was "a rehash of state political charges" raised during his campaign for the State Legislature in 1948 and 1950, as well as when he had run for Congress in 1952. Mr. Condon said that he intended to raise the question on the House floor as he was concerned regarding whether any executive agency could control the actions of members of Congress. Members of the AEC said that they had no knowledge of the incident and Mr. Dean, since retired from the AEC, could not be reached for comment. Mr. Condon had been employed by the NLRB and the Office of Price Administration prior to his becoming a member of the California State Legislature in 1949. He had served in the Army as a private in 1942, serving until 1946, by which point he had become a staff sergeant, and had seen action in Germany, being awarded the Silver Star during World War II.
Congress was embarking this date on a stepped-up work schedule, which Republican leaders hoped would bring final adjournment within four weeks, meaning for the Senate longer working days and some nights, plus some Saturdays, although the House was not so far behind schedule.
In Berlin, it was reported that Communist leaders in Rumania, fearful of anti-Communist revolts, had ordered additional rations of bread, flour products, potatoes, vegetables, sugar and oil to be distributed to the people, while in East Germany, the Justice Minister announced that 50,000 persons had been arrested for rebelling against the Communist Government in the wake of the June 17 riots. In an open letter to the Eastern Zone farmers, Prime Minister Otto Grotewohl conceded that many were still dissatisfied with mere promises. The East German Government was reported to be gradually releasing many of the arrested persons. There were also reports of new industrial strikes and fresh unrest among farmers in the Eastern Zone.
U.S. Ambassador to Russia Charles Bohlen indicated that he would leave Moscow by plane for his first trip outside the Soviet Union since he had arrived in April, intending to spend most of his time, along with his family, in France and on the Spanish island of Majorca.
Tom Fesperman of The News reports from Granite Falls, N.C., where four clinics were administering the gamma globulin inoculation for children to ward off for 4 to 5 weeks polio, in the hope of arresting an epidemic in Caldwell County, which had afflicted 82 children, including one death. Pictures accompany the article, showing parents and their children lining up for the children to receive the inoculations, which were expected to be provided to 10,800 children of the county. Some of the children were reluctant recipients of the inoculation.
During the holiday weekend, which had ended at midnight the previous night, at least 260 persons had died in automobile accidents, another 121 had drowned and 49 had died in miscellaneous accidents. There had been one fireworks fatality, a 15-year old boy in California. The highway death toll had been somewhat below that predicted of 290 by the National Safety Council. The total number of accidental deaths, 430, had been substantially smaller than the 643 recorded during the three-day July 4 holiday the prior year, during which 366 had died in traffic accidents, 202 had drowned, and 73 others ahd died in miscellaneous accidents, including three from fireworks.
On the editorial page, "Secondary Road Program Looks Better" indicates that in 1949, when former Governor Kerr Scott was promoting his 200 million dollar secondary road bond program, his office had sent out a mimeographed sheet answering many questions which had been raised by the public and press, including the question of where the State would obtain the money to pay off the bonds, to which the sheet had answered that it would come from gasoline taxes, which the Governor had proposed to increase by 7 million dollars per year. It also said that by mid-1953, the State expected to have enough money in its highway fund to take care of the presently outstanding road bonds at that time.
It indicates that the Governor's estimate had not been accepted everywhere, such as by the North Carolina Petroleum Industries Committee, which believed that an additional 200 million dollars plus interest for roads was more than the people could safely assume in debt, and that trying to pay for it through an increase in the gasoline tax would severely burden agriculture and industry, which were heavily dependent on gasoline. The News, among others, had viewed with concern the potential drain on the highway fund to pay for road bonds.
It indicates that a reporter for the Greensboro Daily News had reported that the State Treasury had accumulated a balance of nearly 6.8 million dollars from the one-cent gas tax after paying off 27.7 million dollars in principal and interest, with the gas tax accumulating 10.8 million dollars annually, above the 7 million dollars estimated by Governor Scott.
It indicates that the former Governor could not have prophesied the Korean War and the resulting inflationary trend, but that since he would have been blamed had the economy gone into a tailspin, it was only fair to give him credit for what had turned out to be a wise investment of State funds at a time when it was still cheap to borrow money.
"War Babies Deserve Better Treatment" indicates that in the American Zone of Germany, it was estimated that there were 50,000 illegitimate children produced by veterans abroad during and since World War II. The number was estimated at 70,000 in Britain, 100,000 in Japan and tens of thousands in other countries where U.S. troops had "lived and loved".
Illegitimacy had always been a fact of war, with hardened GIs having joked during World War II that the solution to the problem would have been to keep them at home and send over uniforms for the thousands of offspring of World War I veterans to wear and let them do the fighting.
A recent Soviet order had decreed that all East German children of Russian fathers had to obtain Soviet citizenship at age 5, whereupon they would be placed in Soviet schools, with the plan to send them to Russia later. The New York Times had reported that East German children of American black soldiers had been transferred to Russia, where, it was assumed, after indoctrination, they would be used in the Soviet psychological warfare effort.
The American attitude had largely been one of indifference to those children living abroad, which appeared callous to the mothers and officials abroad. Some of the fathers and many childless couples had sought to adopt some of the children, many of whom were in orphanages, but were usually unsuccessful because of present immigration laws and bureaucratic procedures. It concludes that those war babies deserved special treatment under the law when Americans were willing to adopt them.
"Mountain View" indicates that all would be a happy ending regarding who had achieved the peak of Mount Everest first, whether Sir Edmund Hillary or "Tiger" Tensing, as Lt. Col. John Hunt, leader of the expedition, had made an announcement upon his return to London that they had reached the peak together. It finds his explanation to be a good philosophy, whether in fighting wars, playing ball games or building community projects, and suggests that more people should spend more time climbing mountains.
"Check Those Tires" indicates that as of the current morning, the National Safety Council's grim prediction for automobile deaths during the two-day holiday weekend had come up short by about 75 persons, prompting it to suggest that maybe motorists were beginning to take seriously the necessity to engage in highway safety. (Apparently by the afternoon reports, by the front page, that difference had reduced to only 30.)
Notwithstanding that fact, it suggests that with highways being crowded for the remainder of the summer, it would be wise to follow the suggestions of the New York Automobile Club, to check tire pressures and wheel alignment, avoid prolonged high-speed driving, rotate tires every 4,000 miles, never bleed air from tires when they were hot and inflate them only when they were cool, and not to ride the edge of the pavement, while avoiding sudden starts and stops.
A piece from the Christian Science Monitor, titled "Why the Commotion?" discusses a recent article in Life by Whittaker Chambers, titled "Is Academic Freedom in Danger?" In the article, Mr. Chambers had said things which were pretty much of common knowledge and not in great dispute. He had, however, asked the question whether, since only 150 out of a million or more teachers had been hauled before Congress to answer questions and that most of those 150 had pleaded the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination and refused to testify, anyone should be upset about a so-called "witch hunt".
The piece indicates that the reason was that Congress had often shouted "fire!" in what amounted to a crowded theater, producing panic among the people, and that it was not just the number of persons being placed in the spotlight for suspicion which was causing the problem, producing great harm to academic freedom. Mr. Chambers had said that liberals were afflicted with a neurosis that the hunt for Communism would wind up against them. But, the piece asserts, there was already a move against liberals, as well as against moderates and conservatives who opposed those doing the investigations.
It lists as one such example the attack by Senator McCarthy in the 1950 Senate campaign of Senator Millard Tydings of Maryland, presenting a faked photograph showing the Senator and former Communist Party leader Earl Browder. Another was the unsuccessful campaign against Stuart Symington in the Missouri Senate race, and yet another was Senator McCarthy's October 27, 1952 speech designed to "expose" Democratic presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson's "Red associations", as well as the Senator's grilling of editor James Wechsler for his newspaper's policies opposed to the Senator.
It concludes: "Why bother with rational argument when a little poison might do the job? That's what the commotion is about!"
Drew Pearson tells of retiring Air Force chief of staff General Hoyt Vandenberg having taken an elevator to room 676 of the Mayflower Hotel recently to drop in for a chat with former President Truman, the two discussing politics, specifically regarding the prospects of General Vandenberg running for the Senate against Republican Senator Homer Ferguson of Michigan in 1954, a prospect which the former President received with approval. The General said that he had been a life-long Republican, but that when he saw what the current Administration had done to the Air Force budget, it had almost made him into a Democrat. The former President had expressed publicly and privately that the new Administration's cuts to the Air Force of 5 billion dollars was one of the worst tragedies impacting the security of the nation. The President told General Vandenberg that he would seek the opinion on his running from Governor G. Mennen Williams of Michigan, whose advice would likely determine whether the General ran in the primary as a Republican or in the general election as a Democrat.
An embattled group of Congressmen, led by Robert Jones of Alabama and Tom Steed of Oklahoma, would file a protest during the week against what they referred to as the "billion-dollar giveaway" of the Niagara Falls power rights by the House Public Works Committee, chaired by George Dondero of Michigan. The latter had put a bill through his Committee the previous week, providing 25 private power companies exclusive rights to build and operate hydroelectric plants at Niagara, the nation's mightiest waterfall. The legislation had been written by Republican Congressman—and future vice-presidential nominee with Senator Barry Goldwater in 1964—William Miller of New York. Mr. Pearson lists the five companies. Mr. Dondero had not even allowed debate on the bill before the Committee or even its reading prior to the vote, despite protests against that procedure by Mr. Jones and Representative John Watts of Kentucky, contending that the members should have more time to study the bill. Another bill, sponsored by Senator Herbert Lehman of New York and Representative Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr., also of New York, would provide for Federal development of the Niagara River, while a third bill, sponsored by Senator Irving Ives and Representative Ben Becker of New York, would provide for development of the river by the power authority of the State. Nevertheless, Mr. Dondero had insisted on an immediate vote, which was 14 to 8 in favor of the Miller bill, but without any record of how individual members had voted, Mr. Dondero having only sought a show of hands.
John Gould of the New York Times
writes of the televising of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II
having been a magnificent achievement of the BBC, even surviving "the
tasteless embellishments and outrageous behavior of some of the
American networks." It had been the first video program seen
within the same calendar day from Western Europe to the Pacific Coast
of the United States. To the traditional pageantry of the coronation
and the pomp of the service in Westminster Abbey had been added
"personal and intimate glimpses of the Queen as she appeared
during the day so very young, so very lonely and so charmingly gay."
It finds it no wonder that millions of television viewers halfway
around the world had sat entranced
But, he indicates, both NBC and CBS
in America had lacked understanding, judgment and common sense in
their coverage of the event, while ABC had wisely relied on the
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to furnish the BBC feed. He relates
of a competition waged between NBC and CBS to outdo one another in
the coverage, having the result of turning the coronation into a
sideshow. Even Edward R. Murrow of CBS had had been guilty of placing
commercials at the most inopportune moments, and the deliberate
association of commercial products with the coronation, even
suggesting in one instance that an automobile was a "queen",
he finds inexcusable. NBC's interruption of the religious portion of
the coronation on its morning program "Today"
He indicates that having received a sampling of British television had prompted the question of why not more such programming, for instance arranging for a series of BBC plays on film to be broadcast on American television.
Don't worry, that day will come
The Chicago Tribune tells of the gamma globulin inoculation, which provided temporary protection from polio for about a month to interrupt epidemics, having effected relief from the dread of infantile paralysis the previous year. But there were 40 million children under age 15 in the U.S., and only a million doses of the inoculation available, as it had been very expensive to produce that number of doses. Armour & Co. had opened a pharmaceutical company recently which would produce 40,000 doses per month at a cost of several million dollars, provided it received 78,000 pints of whole blood per month from which to extract the gamma globulin. To provide the million extant doses, the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis had set aside 11 million dollars and the Red Cross seven million to pay for it.
Gamma globulin was being distributed free through state public health departments and its use would be confined to those under 30 who had family contact with a polio victim, as well as to pregnant mothers who had been exposed to the disease. Records showed that only about 6 percent of polio cases were contracted through contact with a family member and that of those, 60 percent appeared within five days, meaning that the inoculation would not help. Another 30 percent of the cases involving family contact appeared within 13 days after discovery of the first case, and in those instances, inoculation might reduce the chance of paralysis but would not prevent the disease, itself. Only in the remaining 10 percent of those cases contracted through family contact would the inoculation serve as a preventative.
Since the treatment provided immunity to polio only for about five weeks, gamma globulin was not the defense against polio which the world awaited. Effective vaccines providing longer immunity to polio had been developed, but it would be 1955 before they could be released for general usage. The most significant advance had been in the diagnosis of the disease, as developed by Dr. John Enders, an associate professor of bacteriology at Harvard. He had devised a means of growing the polio virus in tissue cultures, which could be treated with antibodies, and the particular strain of the virus then identified according to the antibody which killed it.
Within about four years, we shall take our Salk vaccines mixed into a little cup of red liquid, and go merrily along our way to school—just as you will do in due course with respect to the coronavirus pandemic, though, in that case, everyone will need to partake, not just us children. Don't worry about the Kool-Aid; it's not laced with anything detrimental to your health. If, for his suspicions of the Gov'ment spiking the water supply to make the friggin' frogs gay and other such dire claims, fatso, the nut on the radio out in Texas, doesn't want to take it, fine. The world would be better off without His Fatness anyway.
Marquis Childs tells of former President Truman having the time of his life, enjoying many things which had been denied to him while he lived in the glare of the White House, most of all his return to privacy when he wanted. Meanwhile, President Eisenhower was in conflict with Congress, which was slated to adjourn at the end of July, while privately, talk placed the adjournment at the middle of August.
The President was faced with the difficult situation in finalizing the truce in Korea, trying to obtain the cooperation of the stubborn South Korean President, Syngman Rhee. There were problems within the U.N. and divisions at home regarding the truce and President Rhee.
Former President Truman was remaining mum on issues of foreign policy, recommending a bipartisan approach and standing by the President. That had been his consistent reply to all interviewers seeking to inquire of him regarding the truce. The closest he had come to public comment on it was when he stated that President Rhee was a good old patriot. In private, however, among friends, whom he visited during his recent trip to Washington from Independence, Mo., he had not concealed his feelings, calling the truce another Munich and the biggest sellout in history, "with some Trumanesque denunciatory language thrown in." That was an ironic statement, as a criticism of the President in some parts of his own party was that he was following too closely the foreign policy of the former President and former Secretary of State Acheson.
During the previous fall campaign, General Eisenhower had promised to bring peace to the world, and many Americans had become convinced during the campaign that the Truman Administration could not find a way to end the Korean War, that the peril it posed was a larger conflict in Asia with the possibility of a third world war resulting. Mr. Childs indicates that it might not be possible for the Eisenhower Administration to effect a peace in Korea, and at the point he was writing, he suggests that the chances appeared slim. But, he finds, a Democratic administration, given the background of the prior three years during the war, could not have advanced even as far as had the current Administration. For the suspicion and distrust of motives, thanks in large part to McCarthyistic tactics, had been too great and the commitments of the prior Administration, too far-reaching.
Mr. Childs gives credit to President Eisenhower for the sincerity of his motives in trying to live up to his campaign pledge, that while blunders had been made in the truce effort, it did not negate the fact of his policy being aimed at easing the tensions in Asia.
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