The Charlotte News

Saturday, November 22, 1958

TWO EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Berlin that the Russians had kept the Western Big Three waiting this date regarding the next Soviet move in the crisis of Berlin. The press in Communist East Germany had continued to plump for the U.S., Britain and France to withdraw from West Berlin, but no note to that effect had come from Moscow, as had been expected. West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer said the previous day that the Western allies would receive notes on the four-power occupation of Berlin from the Kremlin sometime this date, making the statement after a talk with Andrei Smirnov, Soviet Ambassador to West Germany. The official Communist newspaper in East Germany declared that the Western allies were endangering world peace by continuing their occupation in the former German capital. It said that by remaining, they were "playing with fire, and thereby bringing more than Berlin into danger." But West German officials advocated a tough Western policy of using tanks and fighter planes if necessary to maintain the links between Berlin and West Germany. Berlin was 110 miles behind the Iron Curtain and all of its road, rail, water and air routes for supplying the 10,000 American, British and French troops in West Berlin were at the mercy of the Communists. On November 10, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev had said that Russia was ready to withdraw from the four-power control of the city, which had been maintained since the end of World War II. He said that the West ought do likewise and would have to make arrangements with East Germany, which the West did not recognize, if it wanted to maintain links to Berlin. The West German Foreign Minister, Heinrich Van Brentano, had flown into Berlin for talks with Mayor Willy Brandt of West Berlin regarding the threatened squeeze against the Western position in the city. A West Berlin newspaper, Der Abend, said that the four-power negotiations were underway regarding the future of Spandau prison in West Berlin, which still housed Nazi war criminals Rudolf Hess, Albert Speer and Baldur Von Schirach.

At the U.N. in New York, the U.S. and its supporters had abandoned attempts at negotiations with the Russians regarding peaceful uses of outer space, and instead had pushed their own unilateral proposal this date. The 20 associated nations decided to act on their own after talks had broken down between the U.S. and Russia over the constituency of a committee to make recommendations for U.N. supervision of peaceful exploration of outer space. The group, which already had put a space resolution before the General Assembly's Political Committee, decided to submit a new draft without further talks with the Soviets. The revised draft was handed in on Friday night. The Western plan called for an 18-nation study group which would lay the groundwork for a permanent U.N. space committee.

In Amman, Jordan, a Government spokesman claimed this date that Jordanian trucks heading across Syria to Lebanon still were being held at the border, despite United Arab Republic authorities having lifted the ban on road transport.

In Algiers, a major battle between French forces and well-armed Algerian nationalist rebels had continued into its fifth day this date in an area 30 miles southeast of the city.

In Ankara, Turkey, a special press court had ordered the Government newspaper Zafer suspended for one month for insulting an opposition deputy. The publisher of the newspaper and its editor had received prison sentences totaling 20 months.

In Sydney, Australia, the Liberal-Country Party coalition of Prime Minister Robert Menzies had won re-election this date.

In Kansas City, Mo., the worldwide operations of TWA, the nation's fourth largest airline, were at a standstill this date, resulting from a strike by 7,000 union mechanics. The mechanics had walked off the job, some of them reluctantly, on Friday. The company said that it would furlough, without pay, most of its 12,000 other employees. Flights in progress were allowed to continue to their destinations, but no new flights were taking off. As the TWA mechanics left their jobs, there was evidence that some did not have their hearts in the strike. Fourteen of them, employed at the TWA overhaul base in Kansas City, had asked the union to remove the chairman of the union's district, which embraced TWA mechanics. A spokesman said that they had asked the international union to name a trustee to take over TWA negotiations from him, the spokesman indicating that the request had been made in a telephone call to the international president of the union in Washington, Al Hayes. The TWA walkout had begun as other union mechanics voted to end a 37-day strike against Capital Airlines, which operated east of the Mississippi River. Capital said that it would resume its flights on Sunday. It had been the second airline to reach agreement with the International Association of Machinists after Northwest had settled with the union the previous Monday. In addition to TWA, the union was engaged in contract disputes with Eastern and Northeast airlines, the latter two not yet having been struck. American Airlines was also threatened with a strike by the Air Line Pilots Association, according to a spokesman for that union in Chicago, who said that a tentative strike deadline of midnight Tuesday had been set for 1,541 pilots employed by the airline.

In Lincoln, Neb., it was reported that the jury the previous day, after mulling for about 8.5 hours the fate of 15-year old Caril Ann Fugate, accused of first-degree murder of 17-year old Robert Jensen as an aider and abettor to her erstwhile boyfriend, Charles Starkweather, who had been convicted of the murder of Mr. Jensen the prior May and sentenced to death, had reached a verdict of guilty on the charge and prescribed her penalty as life imprisonment, forgoing the available death sentence, which the prosecution during its final argument had elected not to pursue, leaving punishment up to the jury. The court would be required by state law to follow the recommendation of the jury regarding sentencing. Ms. Fugate's trial counsel said that he would make a motion for a new trial within the allowed ten days and would appeal to the State Supreme Court if necessary afterward. Mr. Starkweather, about to turn 20 the following Monday, had been informed of the verdict only via the afternoon newspapers, according to the warden of the prison where he was housed, as the prison staff had elected not to tell him. The Lincoln Star reports further that Mr. Starkweather's attorney, while indicating he had not talked to Charles regarding his reaction to the verdict, stated that he knew what it would be, as he had told the attorney previously that he believed his former girlfriend should get the chair alongside him. Happy birthday, Chuck! Hope you get at least 16 candles on your cake. Caril had sobbed uncontrollably at the announcement of the verdict, ceasing while staring at the jury as they were polled, and then continuing to sob again as she was led from the courtroom back to the Lincoln State Hospital where she had been held since her return to Lincoln from Douglas, Wyo., where she had been arrested after voluntary surrender to a deputy on January 29, shortly after which, following a high-speed automobile chase, Charles had also surrendered after being nicked on the ear by flying glass from a rear window of the automobile, pierced by a bullet fired by pursuing law enforcement. The last of the ten slayings in January had occurred just outside Douglas, that of a traveling salesman who had been taking a nap by the side of the road and was awakened by Charles, who then shot him to steal his car, only then not being able to release the emergency brake. A good Samaritan had stopped to help, and Charles, being the good soul that he was, said to the man that if he did not help him release the emergency brake he would blow his head off. The man, seeing that Charles was armed with a shotgun and seeing the man's body slumped on the floorboard, proceeded to try to wrestle the gun away from Charles and finally succeeded, only to find that the gun had been expended of all of its ammunition. Meanwhile, Charles had gotten into the Packard which had been stolen from the house in Lincoln where a couple and their deaf housemaid had been murdered the day before, and the high-speed pursuit began—which would finally end the following June with the execution of Chuck. He had also admitted responsibility for a killing on December 1, 1957, in Lincoln, that of a young service station attendant, who had denied requested extension of credit to Charles to purchase a large stuffed animal for Caril, who was not present at the time and was not connected in any way with that slaying, his first in the series of 11 killings in all. The judge had said that Caril would likely serve her sentence at the York, Neb., women's reformatory, until she would turn 16, at which point she would be turned over to an adult prison for females. Apart from any possible reversal on appeal, the State Board of Pardons and Paroles would be her only remaining hope for eventual freedom. The Board normally required those serving a life term to serve at least ten years before they were considered for any form of commutation or parole. The Star points out further that, provided a prisoner had a good record in prison, a typical inmate serving a life sentence would serve between 15 and 17 years before parole. An example was provided of a 14-year old inmate who had been convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in 1938, after which, in 1953, his sentence had been commuted to 35 years, and in 1957 had been paroled, discharged from his parole the prior February. Caril would follow that general pattern, and would be paroled in 1976 after serving just over 18 years from the time of her arrest. She is still living and has always maintained her innocence in all of the murders and insisted that she had honestly never known of the death of her three family members until after her arrest, the while having thought that, as Charles had told her, her family was being held in a remote location and would be killed if she did not follow the directions of Charles, which had been why she had done the things she did regarding the murders in Bennet of Mr. Jensen and his 16-year old girlfriend, Carol King, on January 27, which had followed shortly after the killing by Charles of a farmer whom he knew, also in Bennet, and then, the following day, of the Lincoln couple at their home, along with their housekeeper, so that Charles could steal their Packard and get rid of the identified Jensen car. The father of Mr. Jensen was quoted by The Star as accepting of the jury's verdict, saying that he was not bitter that they had not returned the death penalty, that he was of the belief that his son would not have wanted anyone else to die as a result of his death. His mother, however, expressed the belief that Caril should have received the same penalty dealt Charles as she regarded her as equally culpable. While the other murders had been referenced during the course of the presentation of evidence in both cases, the prosecution had elected only to charge each with the murder of Mr. Jensen, reserving, if necessary, charges on the other murders should the jury have returned a not-guilty verdict.

Emery Wister of The News reports that hundreds of thousands of people had lined Charlotte streets this date for the 12th annual Carolinas Carrousel Parade, with crowds overflowing sidewalks, hanging from office building windows, standing on open truck beds and even climbing fire escapes to see the long parade, which observers said had been one of the most colorful ever staged in Charlotte. Several floats had actual missiles or models of missiles on them. Among the luminaries present were singer Betty Johnson, Miss America for the previous year, Marilyn Van Derbur, television's Captain Kangaroo, motion picture actor Fuzzy Knight, and Charlotte Mayor James Smith and his wife. James Harris, an insurance executive and civic leader, had been crowned the ruling monarch of the Royal Society of Knights of Carrousel at a colorful ceremony in the Charlotte Coliseum the previous night, handed the scepter by the retiring King, Thomas L. Robinson, publisher of The News. The Queen was Francis Hambright of Clover, S.C. General Mark Clark, commandant of The Citadel, and North Carolina Senator B. Everett Jordan had also been on hand for the crowning ceremonies. Pictures of the parade abound on the front page.

In the meantime, murder will out...

On the editorial page, Walter Lippmann suggests that it was rather late to begin talking about the midterm elections which had taken place over two weeks earlier, but finds it always of advantage to wait and be able to read what others had written about them. As he had been in Russia and entirely cut off from the campaign during the closing period, he had found it impressive and refreshing to return home to read the accumulated clippings, finding it curiously impressive that there had been an election at all, and likewise regarding the fact that it had been freely and fully reported on in the press. Another reason for writing about them late was that almost certainly, he finds, there would be talk about them for some time to come. "For there is not much doubt that the election returns announced the passing of one political generation and the arrival of another."