The Charlotte News

Friday, October 31, 1958

TWO EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Geneva that Russia this date had reiterated its demand for an immediate suspension of nuclear weapons testing on a permanent basis. Soviet delegate Semyon Tsarapkin had made the demand at the start of negotiations with the U.S. and Britain for a joint suspension of testing under international control. He said that a permanent undertaking by the three powers to cease testing should precede negotiation of the control system to detect violations. The West had consistently refused to agree to a permanent cessation of testing unless the control system were first in place. Meanwhile, voluntary British and American cessation of testing for a one-year period had gone into effect this date. But both countries had given notice that they would resume testing if the Russian tests continued. Russia had voluntarily suspended its nuclear testing program the prior March, but in September, Premier Nikita Khrushchev had indicated that Russia's tests would resume because Britain and the U.S. had not suspended their testing. The negotiations in Geneva, expected to continue for at least a month, would be conducted in private. The two Western governments hoped that the Soviet Union would join them in an informal suspension of testing for the time being during the negotiations. All three nations professed to favor banning the tests permanently, but a continuing East-West split was underscored by the fact that the Soviet Union had insisted that the talks had to lead to an agreement outlawing tests immediately and forever, regardless of whether a control system was approved, and that the U.S. and Britain had announced a conditional one-year suspension effective at midnight on October 30, contingent upon Russia ceasing its testing program. A Western delegate to the talks had said that the West would not resume testing unless the Russians did so first.

In Rangoon, it was reported that Burma's new military Premier, General Ne Win, in his first speech to Parliament this date, had said that Communists and other insurgents fighting the Government would be put down relentlessly as criminals. (Zounds very much like His Highness, King Don the Crazy.)

In Nicosia, Cyprus, a 17-year old British youth had been shot through the head and killed in Famagusta this date while walking to work. He had been the youngest of 131 Britons killed in Cyprus in the 3 1/2 years of terrorist activity by the EOKA, the Greek Cypriot underground.

In Jakarta, the Indonesian Government said this date that it would shortly put a bill before Parliament to nationalize all Dutch enterprises in the island republic.

In Amman, Jordan, the United Arab Republic's ban on Jordanian planes flying over UAR territory, that of Egypt and Syria, was lifted this date. The UAR blockade on all kinds of Jordan-bound highway transport, including trucks carrying oil across Syria from Lebanon, had also been lifted. In the previous few days, all of the U.S. troops had been withdrawn from Lebanon and the British paratroopers, from Jordan, deployed in those countries in the wake of the coup in Iraq, which was believed to have possibly spread to those two countries as sponsored by the UAR in conjunction with the Soviets, but it had been subsequently determined that the new Iraqi regime intended to remain neutral and so the U.N. had been able to negotiate the withdrawals.

The Associated Press reports that at least three young people had been wounded the previous night in two separate pre-Halloween incidents sparked by irate homeowners and boisterous youths. The most seriously hurt had been a 13-year old boy who was shot in the throat in Bicknell, Ind. The boy's art teacher was charged with the shooting, with police quoting her as saying that she intended to fire a warning shot over the heads of a group of youngsters who had been pulling pranks. The .22-caliber bullet entered the boy's cheek and lodged just a quarter of an inch from his jugular vein. (Whether she was consciously trying to teach him something about art is not indicated.) In Birmingham, Mo., an elderly man fired his shotgun into a group of young people and two of them had been hit by pellets. The incident stemmed from a threat made to overturn the man's outhouse, and he fired both barrels from about 200 feet. The group of six boys and four girls had gathered near the 85-year old man's home and had been singing before the shooting. It is not indicated what they were singing. An 18-year old boy had been struck by a pellet in the lip and a 17-year old married girl had suffered a minor laceration of her nose. The elderly man was not arrested.

In Bonn, West Germany, it was reported that the average German car was presently equipped with 500 different rubber parts weighing 107 pounds, or about 10 percent of the car's total weight, whereas five years earlier, only 300 rubber parts were used.

In Rome, an appellate court this date heard arguments behind closed doors in the state's appeal against annulment of the marriage of actress Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini. Following a two-hour session, the court had adjourned the case until December 5.

On the editorial page, Doris Fleeson suggests that more than campaign nerves was behind Vice-President Nixon's outburst against the press accompanying him on his final effort to stem the Democratic tide in the midterm elections, to occur the following Tuesday. Everywhere he looked, the political situation was working against his ambitions and was out of his control. He had not had any training for that type of adversity, for he had made his meteoric rise largely on the coattails of two quite popular men, former Governor Earl Warren, now-Chief Justice, in his home state of California, and the President on a national basis. The then-Governor had maintained in power in California a Republican dynasty which appeared invincible while he headed it, but had begun to quarrel and divide when he became Chief Justice, and now it appeared that it might have shattered completely under the impact of a combination of circumstances which Mr. Nixon was powerless to influence.