The Charlotte News
Wednesday, January 29, 1958
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Cape Canaveral, Fla., that hurricane-force winds in the upper altitudes had made uncertain this date the time when the Army would be able to fire its Jupiter-C satellite launching vehicle. The Air Force Weather Central had reported high-level winds of 140 mph which could topple the rocket. On the ground, winds of 20 to 30 mph were forecast for the afternoon and there was a chance of higher winds in squalls along the Florida coast in the vicinity of the Cape. Strict secrecy had been maintained in official circles about the Army's launch plans, but it had been generally anticipated that the attempt would be made during the current week. In earlier speculation, this date or the following day had been set as probable dates for the launch. Although there was no official word, the attempt undoubtedly would be delayed until the weather conditions were more favorable. (It is too bad that NASA did not take similar precautions 28 years later, less a day, under icing conditions at the Cape.)
Edmond Le Breton of the Associated Press reports that House leaders had indicated this date agreement on a bill to permit a Vice-President to act as President in the case of a disability of the sitting President. A special subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee had hurriedly been called into session after the draft of the bill was prepared. It had been the subject of high-level, closed-door conferences for about two weeks following a two-year study by the subcommittee. The bill would provide that the Vice-President "shall discharge those powers and duties of the office of President as acting President", when the President, himself, certified in writing to Congress and the Vice-President that he was unable to discharge the powers and duties of the office, or when a commission on presidential inability determined that he was unable to discharge those powers and duties. The legislation would create the commission of eight members, six of whom would have to agree on any determination for it to become effective. Members of the commission would be the Vice-President as the non-voting chairman, the Speaker of the House, the president pro tem of the Senate, the Secretary of State, and the leaders of the two major parties in each of the House and Senate. The chairman or a majority of the members of the commission could convene it if it was thought there was cause for it to act. In the event that there was no Vice-President, the official next in line of presidential succession would replace him on the commission and as temporary successor to the President in case of disability. A finding that a disabled President had become fit to resume his duties would be made by the President or the commission under the same procedures as a finding of disability. (The 25th Amendment would eventually be passed by Congress in 1965 and ratified by the states in 1967, bearing similarity to the concept of the the bill proposed in 1958, but differing in the composition of the "commission", instead comprised of the Cabinet officers and the Vice-President or other composition as the Congress might by law provide.)
In Hong Kong, it was reported that the three American mothers who had spent three weeks in Communist China with their sons, imprisoned for alleged espionage, had left for the U.S. this date. They made no statement prior to their departure. Premier Chou En-lai of Communist China turned down their plea to release their sons, but a spokesman for the Government held out hope for clemency should the prisoners behave themselves well.
FCC chairman John Doerfer faced Congressional questioning this date, with a disputed charge of agency irregularities lurking in the background.
In New York, it was reported that another young girl had been raped the previous night in a Brooklyn school, as authorities sought to curb violence and disorders which had broken out around school premises. A few hours before the latest rape case, two other Brooklyn female students had been slashed with knives when they rebuffed the demands of drunken teenagers for money. More than a score of youths had been arrested. The new outbreak came as the foreman of a special grand jury investigating crime in Brooklyn public schools had suggested that parents have their children boycott schools where crime prevailed. About the same time, unknown to the jury, there were other repercussions of the problem, including a school principal who plunged to his death from the roof of his home, apparently in response to the high amount of violence at his junior high school in Brooklyn. The sexual assault the previous night was the second recently reported against a 13-year old female student, the latest victim having been attacked on a basement stairway of Public School 20 during the evening hours. A patrolman who heard the girl's screams had seized the alleged attacker, 16, a student of Boys High School, also in Brooklyn. The student was charged with rape. The girl had been leaving her school's community center when attacked. The center was a gathering place at night for school-age children who played games and took part in sports. Eight days earlier, another 13-year old girl had been raped by an unidentified boy in the basement of the violence-plagued junior high, the principal of which had committed suicide. Attacks on a patrolman and an athletic director had also occurred at that school. New York City Mayor Robert Wagner expressed shock at the violence and pledged action by City Hall on the issue.
In Bennet, Neb., it was reported that haggard, heavily armed law enforcement officers had begun a fresh farm-by-farm search of the area this date seeking clues which would help them find a missing pair of teenagers suspected of killing six persons between the ages of two and 70. On Monday night, the bodies of three victims, a father, his wife and their two-year old daughter, had been found murdered in sheds in back of the family home, where 14-year old Caril Fugate had lived. She was being sought, along with her 19-year old friend, Charles Starkweather, for questioning in those murders. It was believed by law enforcement that Mr. Starkweather might have even killed his girlfriend. Mr. Starkweather had been linked to the unsolved murder of Robert Colbert, a 21-year old Lincoln service station operator whose body had been found on December 1 on a gravel road near the city, having been shot in the head with a shotgun, the same wounds inflicted on the mother and step-father of Caril. Police were investigating reports that Mr. Starkweather had loitered around the service station. The latter weighed 140 pounds and stood 5 feet, 5 inches tall, walked with a swagger, had green eyes and red hair. He had no police record other than traffic violations, but was known to be an expert hunter and a crack shot. Caril was about 5 feet, 1 inch tall, and looked about 18. She had dark hair and sometimes wore glasses. The Lancaster County prosecutor formally charged the pair with first-degree murder this date and said the FBI had entered the case because of believed interstate flight to avoid prosecution, and a Federal warrant would be issued on that basis. The complaint charged the two specifically with the slaying of Carol King, 16, one of two Bennet High School students found dead in an old storm cellar on Tuesday afternoon, the other having been her boyfriend, Robert Jensen, 17, though his murder had not yet been charged in the complaint. Traveling in pairs through the night, officers had made a house-by-house check of farms in the Bennet area without finding a trace of either of the two youngsters. Armed farmers had joined the search as farm families spent a sleepless night behind locked doors. Bennet was 16 miles southeast of Lincoln and only about 50 miles from the Kansas, Iowa and Missouri borders. Officers in those states had been on the alert for the two teenagers. In Mount Vernon, Ia., two truckers involved in an accident had reported flagging down a car the occupants of which fit the description of the pair. A 70-year old farmer, August Meyer, had also been found murdered in his farmhouse near an abandoned Ford which had belonged to Mr. Starkweather, located about a mile from the storm cellar where the two teenagers were found murdered. He had also been shot in the head with a shotgun. The two teenagers had been shot in the head with a rifle. Young Charles may not be well. It is best to stay away, should you see a short fellow of slight build with red hair and green eyes. He may not be just another friendly young teenager.
In Frankfurt, West Germany, the U.S. Army had accused a lieutenant of disrespect and conduct unbecoming an officer "by continuously refusing to shake hands" with a black captain.
In Wister, Okla., a 14-month old boy was stabbed to death and his 10-year old brother was injured at their home during the morning, with their mother, 45, a widow, having been arrested for investigation.
In Ephrata, Pa., a bus driver had been killed and 13 persons injured this date when an eastbound bus collided with a steel-laden tractor-trailer truck on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
In Boston, the flood peril in Massachusetts had eased this date as the weather bureau forecast an end to six straight days of rain and snow.
In New York, two robbers had gotten away with about $100,000 in jewelry from a Madison Avenue jewelry shop just after it had opened this date, the loot consisting mainly of diamonds. They may have been watching the "Maverick" episode of the prior Sunday night.
In Smithfield, N.C., a black school teacher was being held without bond on a murder charge this date, following the slaying of a school librarian at a black high school the previous day.
Emery Wister of The News reports that the present main office of the Wachovia Bank & Trust Co. on S. Tryon and 4th Streets would be purchased by Paul Younts, a Charlotte real estate man and developer, for $500,000. The building was soon to be vacated by Wachovia. Contacted during the morning, Mr. Younts had said that he could not reveal his plans for the building. The building had been constructed in 1918 and 1919 for the Charlotte National Bank and was occupied on August 20, 1919 by that bank, with Wachovia having taken possession of the building when it acquired National through a merger on June 17, 1939. If you wish to know details of the building's interior, the piece provides them.
Julian Scheer of The News reports that the previous afternoon, a recording of "Basin Street Blues" had spun on the turntable of FM radio station WMIT at Mount Mitchell in the western part of the state, after ice had thawed sufficiently on the station's antenna to allow it to transmit again without the possibility of a short. The station had been off the air for four days. The chief engineer for the station told the newspaper that two engineer-announcers lived in near isolation in the building which served as living quarters and studio for the station, located at Clingman's Peak on Mount Mitchell, 6,587 feet above sea level and the highest point east of the Mississippi. Late the prior Tuesday, the temperature had dropped just below freezing and rain had begun to fall, continuing on Wednesday and Thursday, with icing occurring as the rain froze, causing the 161-foot tower to become covered with ice 14 to 16 inches thick. By Friday, even the fog was freezing, forming a coat of rime on top of the ice. Snow had also fallen and the tower took on a ghostly white appearance, as shown in an accompanying photograph. On Friday afternoon, the chief engineer decided to take the station off the air, which also meant that Muzak subscribers in the Carolinas would be without melodies as the station fed Muzak to a number of commercial firms. (This may have been Nature's way of suggesting that Muzak was not music to its ears, asking man how he slept with all that crap coming out. That may have been what drove young Mr. Starkweather crazy, too much elevator music, which stuck in his head.) The chief engineer said that there was a "power mismatch" between the tower and transmitter which could cause the reflected power to burn out the transmitter. The ice did not melt and the heaviest snow of the winter continued to fall, reaching a depth of 12 inches the previous day. Late the previous afternoon, when the sun finally broke through the snow, the chief engineer and his companions had gone to work removing the ice from the tower. You will have to turn the page to find out more about this saga, explaining how Muzak was restored to the state. Some might have liked to seek out the chief engineer and give him a good piece of their mind for having done so. But do not tell young Charles about it, as he apparently acts rather impulsively and will not stop to think or weigh options, such as carrying earplugs or one of those little transistor radios with an earphone to block out the crap.
In Albuquerque, N.M., it was reported that it had been the chilliest winter for which anyone could wish, but that despite it, robins were in plentiful evidence, at least in the valleys, thus dispelling the belief that robins were a sign of spring, indicative that they sometimes did not even migrate. The finding had been made by game technicians, who said that robins, generally considered to be a migratory bird, sometimes did not migrate during winter. The National Geographic Society's Book of Birds said: "Robins make their nests and rear their young as far north as the tree limits of Alaska and Labrador." The Wyoming Game and Fish Department said that there were frequent reports of robins wintering in that state. The Albuquerque area and much of the Rio Grande Valley was presently crawling with robins. Children insisted on coming home from school and asking, in an indignant manner, what they were doing on the front lawn when they thought robins would not be back until spring. The game technicians said: "Migration depends a great deal on the individual bird." The piece thinks that a problematic answer to pass on to a five-year old.
In Little Rock, Ark., an eight-year old boy had asked his teacher how to spell the word "sex". Thinking it an odd request, the teacher complied, and later the student read the story he had written, which had concluded: "I like turtles and in-sex." Well, why not, with so much ultra-violence in the news?
On the editorial page, "North Carolina's Indifference Is Deadly" indicates that it had taken a sharp nudge from J. Edgar Kirk, assistant director of the State Department of Conservation & Development, to remind North Carolinians the previous week of the danger of indifference. He had told the 33rd annual North Carolina Press Institute in Chapel Hill that next to the air, water was the most essential material people used. He indicated that while at present, there was enough water in the state, there was a question as to whether there would be in the future.
The citizens, however, did not appear to be concerned. When the State board of water commissioners had attempted a county-by-county inventory of water conditions recently, only 41 of the 100 counties had responded to questionnaires. Mr. Kirk had found that the gross indifference in such a vital matter bordered on being criminal.
The piece agrees and suggests that a harsh awakening might be in store for those who were indifferent. The state had an annual supply of water large enough to meet future needs provided proper precautions were taken, with the problem being largely one of distribution and storage of water when it was available and then releasing it when it was needed. There was also the problem of proper drainage, the confusion over water rights, and the ridiculous duplication of programs at the state level.
It indicates that steps would have to be taken quickly and firmly to minimize the growing competition for water which was developing among municipal, industrial and agricultural interests. Stream pollution had to be dealt with more effectively and there was an issue of the declining water table. Those matters could not be left to chance or put aside for a distant time in the future. The chairman of the State board of water commissioners had said that action needed to be taken during the ensuing year with regard to the state's water resources to ensure the well-being of future generations, that if the action were imaginative, far reaching and effective, the resources could serve as a springboard to nearly unlimited economic development and prosperity, but if the action were unimaginative and limited in scope, the same resources would become not only a barrier to future progress, but an eroding force capable of eating away at the progress already made.
It concludes that a choice had to be made at present.
Our choice at present in 2025 is to refuse to listen to all of the damnable lies being put out daily by the Trump Administration, top to bottom, from now until we get rid of these damnable creatures. There is nothing worse than a damned liar. Have you heard the new little girl, the idiot appointed as his press secretary? She is the most subserviently sycophantic liar he has appointed to that position yet, and that is saying a lot after an unrelenting stream of such obeisant liars in that position the first time around. The rising price of eggs under Trump, in this instance, may have relationship to China and the tariff policies His Brilliance has enunciated. But the little girl thinks it's all Biden and Obama, 'cause the Boss says so and what he says, goes. If he declares tomorrow to be National No Underwear Day, so be it. El Presidente is omniscient and his supervening wisdom and immanent understanding of things is not to be questioned by any mere mortal, let alone, stupid little girls who think it cute to make jokes about "Biden sleeping upstairs", a real belly-buster that one, little girl. Where on Fox Propaganda did you hear that one? We had not heard anything like that in the last four years. You were right spot-on with interjecting a little joky-woky, weren't you? How cute. The things they get little girls to say these days. The people will ultimately rebel against a lying dictator.
The little girl did not stop to think that if the price of eggs and other price hikes on food under Trump is the result of Biden policies holding over, then, mutatis mutandis, so, too, must have been the price rises under Biden the result of the horrible handling of the pandemic under the reign of Trump I.
"After the Suspense, Belated Prudence" indicates that the County Commission had tabled plans for a new County office building for the time being. It finds it possible that the proposed urban renewal program for the city could provide a proper site for additional office facilities, that when the opportunity would be thoroughly investigated and the commissioners could get their ducks in a row, the time would be at hand to talk about calling for a bond election and increasing the tax burden on the citizens, not before.
"But Will It Ever Get off the Ground?" indicates that the first U.S. satellite was a registered Republican, that once in the air, it might begin campaigning for the election of Republican Congressmen. That was the import of "Bulletin No. 8" issued by the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee.
Not since Vice-President Nixon had characterized the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education as an instrument of Republican policy had the art of party labeling achieved a gamier eminence.
The bulletin not only told Republican legislators what to say when the U.S. satellite was launched but also provided a 3.5 minute animated film for local exhibition, such that "members using it can prepare their openings and closings in advance." The cost of the satellite kit was $14 for color and $5 for black and white.
It indicates that it was seemingly only yesterday when the President had been saying that "our objective—security and a just peace—is not a partisan or political matter at all. Americans must never and will never let the issue of security and peace become anyone's political chess game." In fact, it had been only a week earlier on Monday, and it suggests that somebody was not listening.
A piece from the Washington Post & Times Herald, titled "The Royal Road", tells of Warren Unna's story of how difficult the CIA had been making it for the President to know what was going on in the world, with director Allen Dulles reportedly being hurt and disappointed that the daily digests of information expensively and dangerously collected by the agency were not being read at the White House with studious care. To that complaint, the President was said to have responded angrily that if what the CIA really wanted was readership appeal, it should present its findings in a more attractive format.
It indicates that since it had never been privileged to examine the highly classified material, it could not attempt to exact judgments on the merits of the controversy, not even being sure of the language in which it was presented.
The matter had reminded of a story it had read some years earlier about a designer for a novelty house in New York who had produced a model of a cigarette box of which he was very proud, because at the mere press of a button, the concealed mechanism would not only extend the cigarette to the waiting mouth but also lighted it in the process. But when he had exhibited and demonstrated the model to his employer, it had not elicited the enthusiasm he had anticipated, the employer having regarded it in glum and disapproving silence, until the inventor lost his patience and exclaimed: "Well, what's wrong with it?" Another silence followed, broken at last by the employer who said: "It vants it should also blay some moozic, dot's vat's vrong!"
Drew Pearson indicates that the revolt which had ousted dictator Marcos Perez Jimenez had been inspired in large part by the newspapers and led by newspaper reporter Fabricio Ojeda, one of the chief revolt leaders, as well as by "Cipano" Gervasi, a newspaper columnist for the same newspaper, El Nacional. The latter had been jailed sometime earlier, having entered weighing 200 pounds and emerged as a thin man. The publisher of the newspaper was Miguel Otero Silva, a poet who had built up one of the "livest news staffs in the Western Hemisphere." The Venezuelan newsmen had more to do with the downfall of the dictator than any other single factor. The Catholic publication, La Religion, with a small circulation but ample courage, had been the first to brave the dictator.
Sr. Otero, though pro-American, was not permitted to enter the U.S. because of the immigration law which barred persons who had once been members of the Communist Party, to which he had admitted. Returning from Paris aboard Air France, he had some time to kill in New York and for some reason, U.S. immigration authorities had let him enter Manhattan. Afterward, he had remarked: "I was surprised at your famed immigration people. They slipped up. They let me go into New York where I dropped in at St. Patrick's Cathedral, lunched at the Ritz, bought a present for my wife at Tiffany's and never even blew up the Brooklyn Bridge."
Mr. Pearson indicates that what had made the Venezuelan political ground ripe for revolt had been the personal behavior of the dictator and the men around him. The Catholic Church had begun turning against them when they took additional wives and mistresses. The richer they got, the more brazen they had been in kicking out old wives and taking new ones. El Presidente had set the precedent by taking up with the winner of a beauty contest, who had produced a male heir with him. The dictator had six different residences and his chief of secret police had bought from Henry Winston, a New York jeweler, a necklace reportedly costing $400,000. Simultaneously, he had filled Venezuelan jails with political prisoners and operated torture rooms which were the scandal of the Western Hemisphere.
The Venezuelan revolt had not been a surprise to the Administration, as CIA director Allen Dulles had privately predicted that it was coming. Earlier, however, Secretary of State Dulles had gone out of his way to praise the Jimenez regime. Testifying before the Senate Finance Committee on March 23, 1955, he had said: "Venezuela is a country that has adopted the kind of policies which provide in Venezuela a climate that is attractive to foreign capital to come in." Six days later, on March 29, the Secretary was telling the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the key to the U.S. role in Western civilization was its "dedication to human liberty and dignity."
Mr. Pearson notes that Secretary Dulles seemed to have a fondness for dictatorships, that the previous Christmas eve, during the Eisenhower-Dulles report to the nation on the NATO conference, the Secretary had said: "Mr. President, I was just saying there are many strands of the free world. NATO does not represent them all." He had gone on to picture Generalissimo Francisco Franco's military political tie-up with the U.S. in Spain as one of those "strands", commenting: "It is ties like these that hold the free world together." Mr. Pearson indicates that Spain had not gotten into NATO because Belgium and Scandinavia had refused to accept the Dulles thesis that Franco's Spain was one of those "strands".
Marquis Childs indicates that able foreign service officers and top scientists had found it impossible in recent years to work in the Government, and now it appeared to be a problem also within the military, as exampled by Lt. General James Gavin, who had recently retired because of disagreement with the Administration regarding economy in the missile program. He had been cited four times for gallantry in action as a paratrooper and during the previous four years had been the director of the Army's research and development program.
There were also many able but less well-known younger men in all three services who were likewise leaving. One reason was pay. In the opinion of General Gavin, the Administration's proposed 6 percent across-the-board pay increase would not remedy that situation, as it ignored capacity and incentive.
For General Gavin, however, pay was only a minor factor. He had said that he had seen the Army go from 1.5 million men in 1954 to 870,000 under the ensuing budget, consisting of only 14 divisions. He had said that the least they should do would be to modernize them, but that they had not done that and he saw no plans to do so. He referred to the Russian display on November 7 at the 40th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, showing off a modern Army with missiles and atomic firepower.
The Army had been pushing for 75,000 new rifles of a superior design, but at present there were only a few prototypes available. The General had asked what they would do when the Soviets had an Army and the U.S. had none, suggesting that the Soviets would then take North Africa, potentially leading to nuclear war, prompting the question, however, whether the U.S. would respond to save Ethiopia.
With the lead the Russians had in satellite technology, they could put dozens of satellites into orbit, with the more capable of them able to direct nuclear missiles to any target on earth. General Gavin wondered what chance the U.S. would have at a conference table when the Russians were moving forward with that type of mastery. He was convinced that the two Sputniks of the previous fall were only rudimentary examples of what the Soviets were capable of doing, as they would demonstrate in the near future.
The General was aggressive and determined, believing passionately in what he asserted. Many times before his decision to retire he wanted to speak his mind and once or twice had succeeded. Former Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson had done his best to shut the General up, aided by cautious Undersecretary Donald Quarles. As with others in the Defense Department in recent years, the General had come up against the layer of assistant secretaries who floated around the Pentagon "like barrage balloons." The General had said that when one got before one of those political assistant secretaries, hearing him waffle the answers, one asked oneself what one's real responsibility was.
The General had asked himself whether he should leave the Army and believed that that now that he could do more good outside than inside, he would. But he had lived for the service since age 17 and thus he had reached an unhappy answer.
Doris Fleeson indicates that the Soviet Ambassador to the U.S., Georgi Zaroubin, had paid his official farewell call on Vice-President Nixon the prior Friday by deliberate choice, not because of a White House rebuff but because he was aware of the President's "heavy schedule". The prior Friday, however, the President had one appointment, with the Cabinet in the early morning, and the day before likewise had only one, to say farewell to the Australian ambassador to the U.S., also leaving his post soon. There had been no Thursday press conference and the Eisenhowers had entertained that night at dinner House Speaker Sam Rayburn.
She indicates that it was improbable that those facts would have caused embarrassment to the Soviet Ambassador, as if he could be embarrassed, he would not be a Communist. When he met with Mr. Nixon, he had said he did not know him and arranged the meeting through an intermediary, Representative Patrick Hillings of California. He had also disclosed that he had discussed substantive matters with Mr. Nixon and provided clues as to what they had been.
She indicates that Mr. Zaroubin should have known Mr. Nixon, as any ambassador who did not was not getting around enough. The Soviet Ambassador appeared to realize that the political dynamism at present was in Congress and that what the White House was attempting was largely a holding operation.
The Administration programs of international importance to friend and foe were mutual aid and reciprocal trade. Only a bipartisan political operation of the most delicate and skillful type would save them in anything like the form in which they were proposed. Mr. Nixon had to play a key role in that operation. The Russians, who liked to see American international operations fail, were naturally interested in the Vice-President's capabilities. She suggests that it was possible that the Soviet Ambassador had thought he would do some probing in that area or attempt to dull Mr. Nixon's zeal by his "peaceful purposes" act.
The new Soviet Ambassador would be Mikhail Menshikov, a Soviet expert on trade, suggesting Soviet plans for increased economic penetration of the uncommitted areas of the world. The Vice-President had sought to achieve an air of modesty about the visit with the outgoing Soviet Ambassador, difficult, as he was naturally elated at any development tending to strengthen him in the area of his greatest weakness as a candidate for the presidency in 1960, that being his lack of international experience. He had conceded that it was his first official farewell from an ambassador.
Robert C. Ruark, in Palamos, Spain, says that he had been brooding about the first coeducational flight to the moon ever since he had read a piece about the difficulties of choosing a crew from a psychological standpoint, feeling so depressed that he had decided to let the moon shine bright without his input.
Dr. Donald Michael had said that finding the right crew would be more difficult than actually building the missile, suggesting that Buddhist monks or Eskimos might be more temperamentally suited to the trip than pampered Caucasians because the monks and the Eskimos were used to living with hardship. Mr. Ruark believes he had a point.
But he did not know how one could build a large enough spaceship to have a coeducational mission. He indicates that when one considered that even a weekend house party in Westchester turned solid friendships into boxing matches and razor blades, he shuddered to think of an excursion to the moon in terms of strife. "Enough of this sort of safari, and we won't need the atom to knock off the world. The people will do it without mechanical aid."
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