The Charlotte News

Saturday, May 22, 1954

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that in Geneva, South Korea had finally agreed this date to elections throughout the country, but had proposed conditions which the Communists were sure to reject. South Korea proposed, through its Foreign Minister Pyun Yung-tai, a 14-point plan for unification of Korea, but stipulated that any elections would have to be supervised by the U.N. and then the results also certified by the U.N., the Communists having already ruled out any U.N. role in Korean peace plans. The South Korean proposal also provided that Chinese Communist troops would have to be withdrawn from North Korea at least a month before the elections, while some U.N. forces would remain in Korea until a unified government achieved effective control over the entire peninsula, another condition which the Communists were sure to reject. Another provision proposed that representation in the all-Korean legislature would be in direct proportion to the population of all of Korea, ensuring control by the South, which at present had about 20 million people, whereas the North had only four million. The proposal rejected that of North Korean Foreign Minister Nam Il, which called for Communist-type elections to be carried out by an all-Korean commission on which North and South Korea would have equal representation. The South also rejected the North's proposal for it not having named a particular date for the elections, only calling for withdrawal of all foreign forces from Korea.

From Hanoi, it was reported that French fighter aircraft and bombers this date had heavily pounded Vietminh bases in the vital Red River Delta, following the fall of one of three French defense outposts. The French planes, both from land and carrier bases, attacked the Vietminh's main highway communications leading to the delta and Hanoi, while fighter planes blasted truck convoys. A French high command spokesman said that he could not estimate how heavy the Vietminh movements were from the fallen French fortress at Dien Bien Phu into the delta area, which protected Hanoi and Haiphong. The spokesman said that the Vietminh were not marching on Hanoi. The fallen outpost which had been taken by the Vietminh the previous day had held out for nearly three weeks. Two other outposts were encircled and still holding out in the southeastern part of the delta, on the fringes of the strategic rice bowl area where Communist activity had been increased since the fall of Dien Bien Phu.

General Curtis LeMay, chief of the Air Force Strategic Air Command, in an address to the Armed Forces Chemical Association in Washington, said the previous day that "the readiness of our strategic bombers to strike back on a global scale is a considerable factor … in discouraging the spread of a limited war." He said that SAC planes could take off in any type of weather and fly directly to within a few hundred feet above any designated target on the globe, hitting the target when they got there. He said that the Administration's military policy was based on the concept of "massive retaliatory power", as a deterrent to Soviet aggression, and that his command had the mission of "swift and certain retaliation", that in the event of a total war, his strategic bombers would have the task of striking at enemy airbases and atomic installations, destroying the enemy's striking power at its source, as well as wrecking the enemy's industrial capacity and seeking to prevent the advance of enemy ground forces. In another speech before the same group, Civil Defense director Val Peterson said that 22 million Americans could be killed or wounded by an all-out Russian atomic, chemical and germ weapons attack, and that between 40 and 100 of the country's major cities could be struck at the outset of such an attack. He said that the American people could "dig, die or get out of their cities" in the event of such an attack, and he urged civil defense drills, such as those conducted in Indianapolis and Columbus, O.

Senator McCarthy said this date that he would not criticize the President for "pulling down the Iron Curtain" over Administration discussions affecting his dispute with the Army, referring to an executive order to all executive branch personnel not to provide Congressional committees with statements regarding private executive department conversations and related documentation. The Senator was set to deliver a major address at Fort Atkinson in Wisconsin this night. He said that if the Senate hearings continued, he would like to have five newsmen subpoenaed, Homer Bigart of the New York Herald-Tribune, columnist Joseph Alsop, Phil Potter of the Baltimore Sun, and Murrey Marder and Al Friendly of the Washington Post, on the basis that testimony before the subcommittee had revealed that Army general counsel John G. Adams had discussed with those journalists Army announcements released in connection with the dispute between the Senator and the Army. He said that he would review the course of the dispute in his address before a Chamber of Commerce dinner, at which time he would announce whether he would continue with the hearings despite the President's order, the hearings set to resume on Monday after a week-long recess. He said that he would testify in the matter but that the appearance of his assistants, usual chief counsel for the subcommittee, Roy Cohn, and staff assistant Francis Carr, would be up to each of them, in view of the Army's "stacked deck", as he described the situation in the wake of the President's order. In Chicago the previous day, the Senator had said that the Republican Party was "committing slow and painful suicide before the television cameras". He said that the demand of Senator Stuart Symington, one of three Democrats on the Investigations subcommittee, that the transcripts of conversations relating to the case monitored by the Army should be made public, represented a change in the subcommittee rules on which the Democrats had agreed prior to the start of the hearings, under which, he said, none of those transcripts would be made public until they had been submitted to subcommittee counsel and opposing counsel and the Attorney General had reviewed them and removed irrelevant material. The Senator found it to be a test of the good faith of the Democrats on the subcommittee.

The President's request to lower the voting age from 21 to 18 was doomed by 24 Democratic Senators this date, most of whom were from the South. Supporters of the measure in the Senate were only able to muster 34 votes, when a two-thirds super-majority was required for the constitutional amendment to be passed in each house before being submitted to the states for ratification by three-fourths of them. The measure was still pending in the House, but it was believed futile for the body to consider the amendment, given the Senate outcome. No Republican voted against the measure in the Senate, though Senators Hugh Butler of Nebraska and George Malone of Nevada were paired against it. Only seven of 47 Democrats in the Senate had voted in favor of it, while seven others were paired in favor. The opponents were led by Senator Richard Russell of Georgia, who found it "an implied insult" to the governors and legislatures of all of the states. Georgia was the only state in the union at the time which allowed 18-year olds to vote. Senator Russell said that he was not against extending the voting age to 18, but believed it should be left to each state to make the decision.

Atlanta black political leader Austin Walden, in a press interview in advance of a two-day closed strategy session by NAACP national and regional leaders, advised black leaders to move slowly, but firmly, in planning a program of action in response to the Brown v. Board of Education decision of the Supreme Court, holding continued public school segregation unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection Clause. He advised not bringing to a sudden end segregation but waiting until the Court would hear from the states impacted by the decision regarding their plans for implementing the decision, oral arguments having been scheduled on the matter for mid-October. He advised state NAACP leaders to discourage immediate lawsuits to force admission of black students to public schools, colleges and universities, at least until the fall. He said that they did not wish to add to the emotional instability of those supporting segregation, but also did not want to have to apologize for the Court's decision.

Meanwhile, Attorney General Eugene Cook of Georgia, who had stated earlier in the week that the decision was demoralizing and contrary to legal precedent and social customs, had called for a meeting of state attorneys general to study courses of action, stating that the meeting would not stress defiance of the Court's decision. Governor Thomas Stanley of Virginia had invited other governors to meet in Richmond during the first week of June for an exchange of information on the decision.

In Frankfurt, Germany, the chief U.S. prosecutor abruptly halted further action in a prosecution involving the January 7, 1946 ax and arson murders of three U.S. Army officers, pending full study of the case, after a deputy prosecutor had filed murder charges the previous day against a former Army captain, indicating that he was forwarding extradition papers to the U.S. High Commission in Bonn.

Near Fayetteville, N.C., two Fort Bragg soldiers had been killed this date when their automobile collided with a tractor-trailer truck, with one of the soldiers, a corporal, having been the driver of the automobile, while his passenger was a private. The truck driver was not seriously injured.

In Jacksonville, N.C., the severely lacerated wife of the Marine captain stationed at Camp Lejeune, who had gone berserk the previous day and killed his three children and assaulted his wife with a hatchet before stabbing himself to death in the throat with a butcher knife, had regained consciousness and was showing some improvement, though remaining in serious condition. Police had not been able to establish a motive for the captain slaying the children and stabbing his wife.

In London, evangelist Billy Graham would conclude this night his evangelical crusade in Britain, with two venues, White City Stadium, holding 60,000 people, and Wembley Stadium, holding 100,000, reserved for his final appearances. It was impossible to find a ticket for either meeting, and the BBC had promised to broadcast the evening sermon at Wembley for those who were unable to attend. Railways would run "Billy Graham special trains" and the London Transport had set up expanded service, usually reserved for cup final matches at the climax of each year's soccer season. A disused subway station at White City Stadium was being opened for the day, and extra buses would be placed on five lines. The crusade's services had begun on March 1 at Harringay Arena, attracting considerable skepticism from local churchmen and citizens who wondered whether London was too sophisticated for evangelism. The previous day, however, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Geoffrey Fisher, published a statement saying he regarded the campaign of Dr. Graham to have been, on the whole, "a very humble, sincere and fruitful work of evangelism", noting with approval that he had avoided all "unwise exploitation of the emotions" and had sent people touched by him to their regular Christian life and fellowship in their churches.

In Emeryville, Calif., a female impersonator, replete with makeup and fancy underclothes, played the role of a decoy for a pair of robbers the previous day. The man dressed as a female entered a liquor store and ordered an expensive bottle of scotch, and while the owner was filling the order, two men entered the store and told the owner that it was a stick-up. The owner grabbed the man dressed as a woman and held him as a shield, as he reached for a revolver, whereupon the two robbers fled, at which point the female impersonator broke away and likewise fled. Police officers apprehended the three suspects a few blocks away, and they offered no resistance. You can't blame them. They had gotten their idea from watching "Dragnet".

From New York, Associated Press reporter Roy Kohn—not to be confused with the Investigations subcommittee chief counsel Roy Cohn—, tells of the latest regarding animals in the news, that soft-hearted zoo-men were going for hard-shelled armadillos, that sore-armed dancers picked pythons over pumas, and that duck-billed Cecil was re-wooing Penelope the platypus, in various spots in New York State, Baltimore and Toronto. He provides detail of the happening.

On the editorial page, "The South Respects the Law" indicates that the South's reaction to the Brown decision the previous Monday, holding continued segregation in public schools unconstitutional, had been an admixture of disappointment, surprise, maturity and seriousness. Some shrill voices had been raised, but calmness had characterized the response of most of the press, political leaders and the public. The ruling was being respected, rather than mocked.