The Charlotte News

Monday, July 5, 1954

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Guatemala City that the new military Government had gone to work this date on a program to root out Communists and punish "criminals" responsible for atrocities alleged to have occurred during the ousted regime of President Jacobo Arbenz Guzman, with more than 1,000 Communists and fellow-travelers reportedly already under arrest in the capital city. Most of the country's top Communists, however, had reportedly already escaped into exile. Col. Carlos Castillo Armas, the leader of the rebel insurgents and second in command of the new five-man ruling junta, stated in an interview the previous day that his forces were collecting information on police torture killings of anti-Communists during the weeks just prior to the overthrow which the rebel insurgents had accomplished, that the information thus collected would be submitted to the U.N. Officials had already blamed 60 deaths on the previous police force under President Arbenz and stated that the final death toll would likely be much higher. Colonel Castillo disclaimed any desire to assume the presidency in the upcoming election of July 17, but his followers were openly upset about his secondary position in the new Government. He had been welcomed to Guatemala City on Saturday by a crowd of more than 100,000 persons and appeared to be the country's new public idol. He told newsmen the previous day that the new junta's most urgent task was to rid the Communist influence from the country.

Democrats were upset with statements made by Vice-President Nixon during the previous week regarding the handling of international affairs by the Truman Administration, having blamed the loss of Communist China, and hence the war in Korea and the trouble in Indo-China on the Truman policies. Senator Walter George of Georgia, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, stated this date in an interview that he was afraid that the Vice-President was destroying himself as a presidential candidate, referring to the speculation that he would take the place of President Eisenhower in 1956, conventional wisdom being that the President would step aside from the nomination for a second term. Mr. Nixon had taken the lead recently in accusing the Truman Administration of pursuing a "policy of weakness" in dealing with Communism, particularly in Asia. Many Midwestern Republicans liked the approach, believing that the President had not sufficiently criticized the past Administration, apparently believing that the "20 years of treason" theme, which had been stressed by Senator McCarthy, would have appeal in many states during the midterm elections. Democrats had been fairly uniform in their support of the decision of the Truman Administration to enter the Korean war in mid-1950 and the Administration's moves to bolster the free nations of Europe, were thus not likely to support the Republican criticism in that regard.

During a press conference in Portland, Ore., Adlai Stevenson on Saturday said that the Vice-President's reasoning on foreign policy demonstrated an irresponsibility which he was sure had to be a source of anxiety and discomfort to the President. Senator John Sparkman of Alabama, who had run as the vice-presidential candidate with Governor Stevenson on the 1952 Democratic ticket, said in an interview this date that the Republicans under the President had picked up the Democratic foreign policies and were following them without major alteration, yet without the success of the Truman Administration.

In Dacca, East Pakistan, the new Government this date outlawed the Communist Party which had supported the ousted regime.

In Dallas, Tex., Dr. Ralph Bunche, U.N. diplomat, said, in an address at the annual convention of the NAACP the previous day, that the Southern social attitude toward blacks was "more reflex than prejudice", predicting that the attitude could be changed. He admitted that Southern whites might be shocked when they first saw blacks on public conveyances sitting next to them or eating in public dining areas but also found comfort in the "ease with which so many white citizens of the South" accepted blacks without prejudice or qualification outside of the South and increasingly within the region. He said that the South had always been in the forefront in patriotism and battle courage, that "the black sons of the South have always been there fighting and dying shoulder to shoulder with their Southern white brothers." He believed, therefore, that the white Southerner could understand well the burning desire of blacks to become Americans in full, to win acceptance and be permitted to make the maximum contribution to their nation. He stated that there had never been more than a handful of black Communists, that there had never been a black traitor against the country, though there had been more than enough against their own race. He said in reference to the Brown v. Board of Education decision of May 17 that he had never imagined that legal phraseology could be so beautiful, that a court's decision could read "like poetry". Walter White, the NAACP executive secretary, had earlier chastised officials of Texas State University and Prairie View College, both black institutions of higher learning, for saying that blacks preferred segregated schools, asking how "low can men sink to hold their jobs?"

James McGlincy, in the first of a series of three articles from cities across the country on various aspects of urban juvenile delinquency, examines New York for the New York Daily News, indicating that the Children's Court of New York City had become a joke to budding criminals, a sore spot for policemen across the city, a problem to citizens interested in youth welfare, and a perpetual headache to the judges of the court who were genuinely interested in their jobs. According to the annual report, there had been 6,610 juvenile defendants in the court in 1953, compared to 5,762 in 1952, and of the 1953 total, 1,069 had been committed to institutions. The cops, he reports, probably would have sent all of them away and the judges would have likely institutionalized about half of the number, but there was simply no room for that many. In consequence, Children's Court made hardly a dent in juvenile delinquency. Regardless of their crime, most of the defendants had gotten off with a fatherly lecture from the judge, that bad boys came to no good end and that they must abide by the Ten Commandments. Social workers believed that delinquents should be weaned from criminal careers and nursed back to useful roles in society. The presiding justice of the court for the previous 20 years said that the police wanted the delinquent found guilty of a serious offense to be remanded to the youth house, while the court saw that only as a last resort for the purpose of studying the child's background and attitude, for the protection of both the child and society, when the situation called for it. When a child was remanded for the first time, the case history, family background, psychiatric diagnosis and school record were compiled, after which a second hearing was conducted before a judge to determine whether the juvenile should be remanded further, paroled or placed on probation. But there was rarely room available in the youth house, as anyone arrested during the night was sent there, with only 145 beds available and on any given day, only about five vacancies, whereas each day, ten judges in five boroughs heard about 15 cases each.

In Newport News, Va., according to the Charlotte FBI office, an 18-year old female suspect had surrendered on a Federal warrant for bank robbery regarding the $3,287 robbery of the Bank of Mt. Olive of Calypso, N.C., on June 14, and would be arraigned the following day before a U.S. Commissioner. The FBI agent said that there was no sign yet of her alleged accomplice in the robbery, a named 23-year old suspect. Both had worn dark glasses during the robbery. The report does not indicate where they are from, but both are probably Yankees.

In Minneapolis, twelve Army enlisted men and one officer were guinea pigs for a 24-day search for an emergency survival ration which would sustain a body of men for two weeks under the most arduous conditions, the experiment to begin at the University of Minnesota the following Friday, with conditions planned to simulate being stranded in Alaska and having to walk home with only jelly bars for food, washed down with a little Coca-Cola. The men had begun the experiment on June 15 by undergoing a three-week diet of "C" rations, consisting of canned meats, desserts, cookies, crackers and powdered milk, coffee and cocoa, and following the 24-day survival rations, would return for a three-week stint on "C" rations, which provided 3,800 calories per day, nutritionally adequate, according to the doctor conducting the experiment. During the experiment with only survival rations, the men would receive only 1,000 calories per day, limited to carbohydrates, without proteins or fats. The doctor said that they would lose approximately 15 to 20 pounds during the test. They would also lose protein and have a negative nitrogen balance, of interest in treatment of sick or injured persons because a similar deficiency occurred during any illness when the patient ceased eating.

Elizabeth Blair of The News urges readers not to underestimate the power of Sol, as sunburn was not funny, distinguishing suntan from sunburn, the latter caused by ultraviolet rays burning the second layer of skin, while suntan obtained from moderate doses of sun, according to a local dermatologist, was good, helping to produce vitamin A and bolstering morale. But, he had warned, constant exposure to the sun over a period of years could have serious effects, causing skin cancer, and too much sunburn over too long a period of time could also cause a fatal type of "butterfly disease", lupus erythematosus, so named because it formed a red butterfly shape on the face, with the area beneath the eyes forming the wings and the nose, the body. It could also aggravate pellagra, caused by vitamin deficiencies, with the patient sensitive to light. Simple precautions could reduce the danger of excessive sunburn, such as veiling through perspiration or a light application of cream, cutting down the penetration of the ultraviolet rays. There were also substances which enhanced the penetration of the rays, causing more sunburn, such as lipstick, containing eosin. In a man with a spot of sunburn on his lip, chances were that he smoked a pipe or cigarettes through a holder, as the tar which dripped from the stem onto the lip was another substance similar to eosin. Women with two round patches of darker skin behind the ears probably had the habit of using perfume or cologne before sunning, as those substances also acted as eosin. Ms. Blair indicates that wind on the beach burned no more than wind from an electric fan, that the wind only dried perspiration which acted as a veil from the sunburn and enabled the sun's ultraviolet rays to penetrate, explaining why when one went fishing, one side of the face might receive more sunburn than the other, even though the sun was squarely facing the fisherman. Sunburn was more likely at the seashore or at high altitudes than in the piedmont areas, for at the seashore, in addition to the breeze drying perspiration, the reflection from the sand and the rays from overhead enhanced the effect of the sun, and at higher altitudes, there was less atmosphere to filter the burning rays. Brunettes burned less easily than blondes, and blondes less easily than redheads because of pigmentation. Ancestry also played a role, with descendants of the Scotch-Irish burning more easily than those deriving, for instance, from southern Italy.

With some 18 hours left during the three-day holiday weekend, at least 240 persons had died across the nation in traffic accidents, with the total number of persons killed in accidents having reached 404, including 115 drownings and 49 in miscellaneous accidents. The latter category included a 12-year old girl in Chicago, who had been struck by a fireworks rocket, which shot along the ground instead of into the air, the only fireworks-related fatality reported thus far. The previous year, only one fireworks-related death had been reported, and there had been two in 1952. There was a good chance that the death toll would be an improvement on that of Memorial Day five weeks earlier, when 362 had died in traffic accidents and a total of 539 had died in accidents, but was likely to meet or exceed the previous year's July Fourth totals, 262 killed in traffic accidents and a total of 434 accidental deaths. It was unlikely, however, that the record for a three-day July Fourth weekend would be reached, 366 traffic deaths in 1952 and 676 accidental deaths in 1949. By comparison, the total number of accidents for a non-holiday weekend of the previous June 18-21 had been 430, with 225 traffic deaths. It provides the number of traffic deaths, drownings and miscellaneous deaths for each state, with North Carolina having reported 13 traffic deaths, and six drownings. California and Michigan reported the most accidental deaths, with the former reporting 17 traffic deaths, seven drownings and one miscellaneous death, and the latter, 19 traffic deaths, four drownings and two miscellaneous deaths.

As indicated, nothing appeared in The News regarding the murder of the wife of Dr. Sam Sheppard, occurring in a suburb of Cleveland at between 3:00 and 4:00 a.m. on the morning of July 4. Demonstrating very sporadic coverage initially of the murder, other newspapers in the state and various other newspapers around the country carried stories this date on the murder. Dr. Sheppard had stated to investigators that he had awakened, after falling asleep on the living room couch while neighbors visited the Sheppards during the evening of July 3, being especially tired as he had been on call at the hospital that day and into the evening, heard a sudden scream during the wee hours from his wife, Marilyn, emanating from their upstairs bedroom, then ascended the stairs and saw a dark figure at the foot of the bed, whereupon he was immediately hit from behind, blacked out momentarily, and after recovering consciousness, chased after the dark figure as the man, or perhaps two persons, exited the house through the rear, scuffled with the man on the lakefront beach, again was knocked unconscious, eventually coming to and returned to the house, checked on his wife, ascertained that she was dead, then telephoned a friend, the Mayor, indicating that he thought "they" had killed his wife. As the doctor's medical bag had been ransacked, detectives speculated that the motive might have been related to narcotics. They doubted theft, other than narcotics, was the motive and there was no evidence of any sexual attack on Mrs. Sheppard. The doctor's face was swollen, with one eye swollen shut, had deep cuts and bruises about the head, suffered from a concussion and had internal chest and abdominal injuries.

It might be noted at this point, for instructional purposes, that a key difference between the first trial in 1954 and the ultimately granted second trial in 1966, after reversal of the 1954 conviction in 1966 by the Supreme Court on habeas corpus based on the violation of due process and the right to a fair trial for the prejudicial publicity prior to and during the trial, especially by the Cleveland Press, in the face of non-sequestration of the jury, was the far more extensive examination by defense counsel F. Lee Bailey in 1966 of a neurosurgeon who performed a neurological examination of Dr. Sheppard and X-rays of him during the period July 4-7 after he was admitted to the hospital for his injuries which he contended were suffered in the scuffle with the bushy-haired killer of his wife, first inside the bedroom when he was hit from behind, causing, according to the subjective determinations of the neurological exam, a bruise to the 2nd cervical vertebra, thought by the neurosurgeon in examining the initial X-ray of July 4 to indicate a chip fracture of the vertebra, but determined after viewing three days later a subsequent X-ray not to be present, apparently having been the result of an anomaly in the X-ray film caused by the neck brace the doctor had been wearing at the time the first X-ray was made. Aside from the absence of the carnival-like atmosphere at the time of the second trial, the far more thorough 1966 examination of the neurosurgeon, developing more extensively the inability of Dr. Sheppard to have self-inflicted his injuries, when compared to that during his 1954 testimony, reveals, perhaps, why the second jury reached a not guilty verdict, whereas the 1954 jury had found the defendant guilty of second degree murder, that is murder without premeditation.

Some measure of reasonable doubt may also have been raised by the brief testimony presented by the defense in 1966 of a window washer employed by Mrs. Sheppard for a couple of years, who testified that he was present alone at the Sheppard home on July 1, 1954 to change out the seasonal storm windows and screens and, in that process, had cut his finger, bled inside the kitchen sink and possibly in the basement of the house, as well as having gone upstairs for an unstated reason after cutting his finger, though not knowing whether he was bleeding at that time and not recalling where he had gone in the upstairs area, that he had also encountered the family dog on more than one occasion inside the Sheppard residence and that the dog had been unperturbed by his presence, on one occasion not awakening from sleep as he entered. This witness, who was interviewed by the police on July 5, 1954 regarding his cut finger and prior familiarity with the layout of the home but did not testify in the first trial, has become a focal point of accusation through the years, especially as he was subsequently convicted for another murder in 1984, sentenced to life imprisonment and died in prison in 1998, though the murder of which he was convicted bore no resemblance to the Sheppard death scene, having developed from suspicion arising three years after the 1984 death was originally determined to be the result of an accidental fall. One has to wonder, if he was in fact guilty of the murder of Mrs. Sheppard, why he would have voluntarily testified in the case in 1966 and not taken the Fifth Amendment. Speculation on his guilt is further complicated by the fact that in 1959, he was found in possession of two rings belonging to Mrs. Sheppard, which he claimed he had stolen from a box of her possessions while washing windows for Dr. Sheppard's brother in 1958, a fact not adduced in the 1966 trial despite the prosecutor who had taken the 1959 statement having testified in both trials as one of the lead original police detectives assigned to investigate the case in 1954. Aside from remote, amateur psychological evaluations regarding the operations of the human conscience and the ultimate desire, consciously or unconsciously, to be caught for such a heinous crime and to exonerate someone falsely accused thereof, why, if the window-washer had been guilty, would he have taken such a risk that he might subsequently be found in possession of Mrs. Sheppard's personal property? Mr. Bailey in 1966 did not believe him guilty of the crime because he had passed a credible polygraph examination, indeed had his associate conduct the brief examination at trial, the window-washer's primary significance in 1966 apparently having been to show that someone casually and occasionally known to the household would not have excited the family dog, regarding the silence of which, during the claimed surreptitious entry and murder by an intruder, the prosecutor had sought in summation in 1954 to raise question with the jury.

On the editorial page, "City Needs New Filter Plant Now" indicates that Charlotte needed a new water filtration plant, explaining at length the reasons and the costs—should you have an interest.

"Legislation Requires Leadership" indicates that the Administration could obtain substantially the type of laws it wanted, provided it would work for their passage, and that conversely, Congress would not pass part of the Administration's program unless the White House provided the leadership and pressure to do so, that those facts had been demonstrated the previous week in the tax bill and farm bill, the former passed by a vote of 63 to 9 in the Senate, after having already passed the House, the most comprehensive tax reform bill since 1873. The two versions of the bill would now go to conference to reconcile the differences, most of which were only technical. In addition, the House, by vote of 228 to 170, had passed a farm bill acceptable to the Administration, allowing the Agriculture Department to adjust price supports on a varying scale between 82.5 and 90 percent of parity, a compromise with the 75 to 90 percent flexible supports which the Administration had sought, a sharp break from the 90 percent fixed supports. That bill would now go before the Senate.

The Administration had fought hard for those two programs against a determined opposition. The opposition to the farm program had been as well-organized as the opponents of the trade program favored by the Administration, but the Administration had not fought for the reduction of tariffs for its "trade not aid" program, in the face of the high-tariff advocates, and so the President had signed into law an extension of the Reciprocal Trade Act for only one year, a considerably weaker program than that for which he had asked.

It indicates that when the Administration had taken office, it had refrained from trying to push Congress, in the belief that the Republican-controlled body would take responsibility for passing the President's program, the piece regarding the strategy as commendable but unsound, as borne out by the previous week's events, showing the necessity of Administration leadership in legislative matters.

"Here We Go Again with Flying Saucers" indicates that the flying saucer season was back, according to the Air Force, as Desmond Leslie, a friendly Englishman, had developed a theory that interplanetary visitors were arriving every day and that California had an ideal environment for viewing them, thus planning to make his headquarters there.

It suggests that saucer sighting was largely the result of viewing planets such as Venus, as had been the case for several sightings in 1953, or birds, weather balloons, light reflections and refractions, and aircraft phenomena. It views the typical saucer viewer as a sad case, that every "lonely, nondescript plodder who has never drawn a second look from anyone in his whole uneventful life" would suddenly discover a saucer sighting and enter the neighborhood pub, announce the fact, thereby attracting much attention, until the "mysterious objects" were explained away and the limelight faded.

A piece from the Florida Times-Union, titled "What Next?" indicates that a news item out of Des Moines, Iowa, had indicated that a woman reported to police that thieves had stolen her kitchen sink, leading it to think that because such ordinarily fixed objects were now subject to theft, the only things the yeggs might not touch were those items for which they had no use, suggests that it would likely be the bookcase.

The Enka (N.C.) Voice  tells all about how to make sassafras tea, and if you have an interest, you may read it. "After you've boiled [the roots] once, they're sort of pinkish all over. And the tea is downright red". The piece claims that the tea is medicinal and easy to make.

Drew Pearson indicates that RNC chairman Leonard Hall had received a letter from former Vice-President Henry Wallace effectively supporting the flexible farm price support program championed by Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson and the President. Because no one had been kicked around quite so much as a pinko and dreamer as had Mr. Wallace, Mr. Hall did not know quite what to make of the letter. Mr. Wallace, during the 1930's, had been FDR's first Secretary of Agriculture, as had been his father under President Warren Harding during the early 1920's. The former Vice-President had written to Mr. Hall regarding his idea of an ever-normal granary, recalling that price supports of between 52 and 75 percent had been what he had advocated while Secretary of Agriculture and believed that they were still applicable, finding that the problem was how the farmer could get the greatest net income after a war when the abnormal demand for his product ended, explaining that the demand for wheat and cotton was fairly stable in times of peace while the demand for corn should increase because of the growing demand for pork and beef. The cost of raising corn had been decreased and the necessary man-hours per acre had also been decreased through the use of machinery, that within a few years, there would be double the amount of synthetic nitrogen, such that a 15-cent pound of nitrogen would produce 20 pounds of grain, thus rendering corn a lot cheaper to produce, reducing its price on the market. Wheat, said Mr. Wallace, was different and lowering its price would not increase its consumption as it was consumed by humans and not animals. He said that the ever-normal granary for corn would be about a billion bushels per year, that the amount should be maintained every year as a holdover to ensure a steady supply of animal food and a steady price. Since the Eisenhower Administration had come pretty close to his advocated farm program, he said he could not help but support it.

Presently, Mr. Wallace was living north of New York City and developing a new type of strawberry which would be both large and sweet, a new type of gladiolas which would resist disease, and a new type of chicken which would lay eggs while putting on weight. Before joining the Roosevelt Administration, he had achieved fame by developing a revolutionary type of hybrid corn on his Iowa farm.

Mr. Pearson notes that what made Midwestern Congressmen upset with the Administration was General Eisenhower's promises during the 1952 campaign that he would support rigid farm price supports, Mr. Pearson citing two such instances of that promise.

Marquis Childs indicates that the Administration had become very sensitive to the negative press coverage, as shown by four members of the Cabinet having stated at the National War College in off-the-record talks in mid-June, that the press was placing the Administration under a major handicap. Mr. Childs indicates that it was reminiscent of the resentment toward the press exhibited by former President Truman and Secretary of State Acheson during the last 18 months to two years of the Truman Administration. He suggests that the strong reaction in the Eisenhower Administration was possibly because of the great contrast with the way the press had treated General Eisenhower as a candidate and during the first year of the Administration, when most newspapers treated him with extraordinary kindness in both the news and editorial columns.

The belief within the Administration that the press was adding to the burdens of the Administration was especially acute in the area of secrecy. The Alsop brothers had, sometime earlier, published information based on a National Security Council document relating to the relative military strength of Russia versus the U.S., providing the number of the "top secret" document, causing Government officials to believe that they had seen the document, though they denied having done so. They had indicated that the information contained within it was more or less common knowledge within the Pentagon and the State Department, but top officials were trying to determine whether or not a violation had occurred of the Espionage Act. Administration officials familiar with the investigation believed that for a member of the press to advertise providing secret information to the public because of belief that it was in the national interest was equivalent to the attitude displayed by Senator McCarthy in his appeal to Government employees to provide him secret documents, in each instance placing themselves above the law in determining what was in the national interest.

The press in Washington had always resented any kind of restriction on the flow of information from the Government, with one of the continuing complaints during the Truman Administration having been that the secrecy label had been used to keep unpleasant facts from public release. The Eisenhower Administration had announced a new policy whereby only certain agencies would be allowed to apply the classification of secret and top-secret documents, but reporters nevertheless complained that it was a policy in form only, as top officials continued to restrict the flow of information to reporters.

There was deep resentment among top policymakers regarding the press having labeled the mission of Secretary Dulles in Geneva to have been a failure in achieving his desired "united action" among the allies regarding Indo-China. President Truman had wanted to prosecute reporters whom he believed guilty of violating secrecy laws, but was restrained by his advisers on the basis that it would only start a feud with the press. Mr. Childs observes that the present attitude in Washington might be only a phase of adjustment to the harsh realities of government in a time of crisis and revolutionary upheaval, and that the policymakers might eventually become accustomed "to the slings and arrows of misfortune" which they believed the press was going out of its way to hurl, but that the present feeling was undeniably sharp and bitter.

A piece without a byline or attribution to any publication or wire service indicates that the Justice Department was investigating paid informants and witnesses for possible perjury after having employed them for the purpose of testifying against suspected Communists and subversives. Since July 1, 1952, approximately 50 persons had been paid for service as political informants or witnesses, of whom 12 had been paid in excess of $1,500 and were regular and professional informants.

The three under investigation were in that latter category, with the top money recipient being Paul Crouch, being investigated for his sharp conflicts in testimony during Federal trials, having received $9,675 from the Justice Department in the previous two years. The second on the list was Manning Johnson, being investigated because of his conflicting testimony in the loyalty case of Dr. Ralph Bunche, the U.S. official of the U.N. and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. Mr. Johnson, during the previous two years, had been paid $9,096 for his information and testimony. The third person on the list was Leonard Patterson, who had received $3,775 during the previous two years, and had also provided testimony regarding Dr. Bunche.

Those men and others like them were employed as "consultants to the Immigration and Naturalization Service", and their pay came out of the INS budget, even though their service was to the criminal division of the Justice Department in most cases. In each of the cases, the men received much less than in their previous walks of life, and so despite the relatively small amount of the payments, it was significant money to the informants.

The practice of paying informants had been considered pernicious and dangerous since the time of the Roman historian Tacitus and was part of the "'Truman mess'" which had been inherited by the Eisenhower Administration, not yet cleaned up. It provided financial interest to the accusers of persons suspected of Communist connections, though of doubtful credibility because each of the informants had been a former Communist, begging the question as to what happened when they had provided all the useful information they had. Mr. Johnson had testified that he would lie under oath if directed to do so by his present employers, explaining why he had falsely denied under oath that he had become a Justice Department informant. Mr. Crouch had testified in the current Smith Act trial in Philadelphia regarding a certain David Davis, whom he had specifically and repeatedly denied ever knowing in 1949 during the second trial of Harry Bridges, the West Coast longshoremen's union leader, against whom the Government had repeatedly sought deportation to his native Australia for suspected Communist connections, based on false swearing in his immigration documents.

At present, the Justice Department was investigating, in effect, itself, and great departmental interests were fighting on the one side against the other, the piece wondering whether that was sound practice.

A letter writer from Davidson comments on the June 11 editorial, "Arms Alone Won't Do the Job", indicates that he was completing his doctoral dissertation on the Institute of Inter-American Affairs, which, since 1942, had carried out cooperative programs in the field of health and sanitation, agriculture and education in Latin America, and after the passage in 1949 during the Truman Administration of the Point Four program to provide technical assistance in agriculture and industry to underdeveloped nations, had administered that program. He finds that the increased emphasis on arms by the Government appeared wholly out of line with the best interests of the country regarding Latin America and with the best interest of Latin America, that economic aid to improve standards of living was better, that the basic causes of instability in government arose from undernourishment, disease, and illiteracy, conditions under which Communism flourished. He thanks the newspaper for giving publicity to the Point Four program, which he believes would eliminate the need for providing military aid, as it would eliminate the basis for populations turning to Communism for remedies of impoverished conditions.

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