The Charlotte News

Saturday, November 29, 1958

ONE EDITORIAL

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Berlin that a Soviet spokesman had said this date that the Kremlin's plan to make West Berlin a free, demilitarized city might be "expanded and changed" during negotiations with the Big Three Western powers, the U.S., Britain and France. The statement had come amid Western suggestions that the Soviet drive to get the Western allies out of West Berlin would be used as the basis for broad discussions of German reunification, the problem at the heart of the current Berlin crisis. A spokesman for the Soviet Embassy in East Berlin had indicated that the Russians might take a flexible attitude during the six months of negotiation which they had proclaimed before seeking unilaterally to end the four-power occupation agreement regarding Berlin. He said that he did not regard initial Western reaction to Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev's plan as a rejection. West Berlin Mayor Willy Brandt advised the allies to deal with the problem of uniting Communist East Germany with free West Germany rather than just reacting to the Moscow plan. British diplomats in London had also suggested another round of reunification talks, possibly through foreign ministers of the West and Russia or even by heads of state. The subject probably had been discussed in Bonn, where the three Western ambassadors were called to the West German Foreign Office. David K. E. Bruce of the U.S., Sir Christopher Steel of Britain and Francois Seydoux of France had conferred with West German Deputy Foreign Minister Hilger Van Scherpenberg, though no details had been revealed.

In Washington, the Defense Department announced during the morning that an Atlas ICBM had traveled 6,325 miles from Florida to a target in the South Atlantic the previous night, demonstrating to the world that the U.S. had a fully operational ICBM. It placed the U.S. on par with Russia, which had claimed possession of an ICBM. The Atlas had traveled the distance in only about 30 minutes after being launched from Cape Canaveral. Announcement said that the missile was "successfully test-fired for the first time over the full intercontinental range", the announcement having occurred after a check of data from observers and recording devices along the missile's path. Later, an Air Force spokesman said that the missile had hit a designated target area after its flight across the ocean, adding that "all test objectives were achieved essentially 100 percent." The size of the target area was not disclosed. The dummy nosecone had dropped into the South Atlantic near Ascension Island. The announcement said that the missile had been powered for its flight by its three-engine cluster, and that prior successful firings, all for less than the full range, but also employing all three engines, had occurred on August 2, August 28, September 14 and November 17. The launch had taken place at 9:27 the previous night. It indicated that the first successful flight of the Atlas had been made the previous December 17 when the test vehicle had gone slightly more than 500 miles. December 17, 1903 had been the date of the first successful flight by the Wright brothers at Kill Devil Hills, N.C.

The airlines of the nation, with their carrying capacity cut by strikes, had braced themselves this date for an expected surge of passengers homeward bound after the long Thanksgiving weekend. Eastern and TWA, the third and fourth largest in the nation in terms of annual passenger miles, had been grounded by strikes. The nation's largest airline, American, was still flying, though threatened with a strike which had been delayed by court order. Some 6,700 members of the International Association of Machinists had struck TWA a week earlier and its 200 passenger planes had been grounded since Monday. Also on Monday, 550 members of the Flight Engineers International Association and 5,500 IAM mechanics had struck Eastern, grounding its 188 planes. The two strikes had idled about 35,000 employees. On Wednesday night, the twin strikes had snarled holiday travel and diverted thousands of airline passengers to bus and rail lines. But on Thanksgiving Day, a lull had settled in and the airlines still operating were easily able to take up the slack. American on Friday night had offered to sit down "anywhere and anytime" with the Air Line Pilots Association to try to settle their differences without a strike. The union spokesman said that the company offer, however, sounded like "a public relations maneuver." The offer had occurred after a U.S. District Court judge had given a tongue-lashing to both the Association and the airline as he issued an extension of a temporary restraining order against the strike, which otherwise would have expired at midnight on Friday, now lasting through Monday. The judge had become angry when he learned that neither side had met on Wednesday as he had instructed them to do, the two sides instead having become involved in a dispute over where the meeting would take place. The judge said: "The attitude of neither party commends itself to the court. Both have failed morally in the matter."

In Boston, it was reported that a calm United Air Lines captain had landed a large DC-6 plane on a blanket of foam on Friday night after circling Logan International Airport for an hour while the flight engineer manipulated the wheels into landing position, after the plane, en route from Chicago, had skipped its schedule landing at Hartford, Conn., when the hydraulic system which operated the landing gear failed to function. There were 41 persons aboard, including a crew of four. The captain had brought the four-engine plane down smoothly in a three-inch thick blanket of foam spread by emergency crews to act as a slide in case the plane made a belly landing. Passengers agreed that there had been no panic or obvious fright among them. Airport crews covered the 1,700 feet of runway with the foam as the plane circled before the landing. Inside the plane, the flight engineer from Chicago had moved the large amount of baggage and ripped up the floorboards to get to the hydraulic pit where the wheel machinery was located, found the faulty wiring which had caused the problem, but discovered that he did not have the equipment to make the necessary repairs. He said that he then had switched the gear into manual operation and as they circled the airfield, lowered the wheels by using his hands and feet.

In Amman, Jordan was reported to have complained this date that Syrian authorities were creating obstacles to prevent Jordanian oil transports from crossing Syrian territory to Lebanon.

In Cairo, it was reported that an Algerian insurgent government spokesman said this date that Algerian Nationalist fighters had killed 301 French soldiers and wounded 145 others in operations taking place between November 19 and 26.

In Isserbourg, Algeria, it was reported that Moslems in that village had said this date that the French Army, despite its orders, was telling them how to vote for the French National Assembly.

In Taipei, Formosa, it was reported by the Nationalist Defense Ministry that the Chinese Communists this date had resumed their alternate-day warfare against the Quemoy offshore islands, but that up until noon, had fired only 204 shells.

In Tokyo, it was reported via Peiping Radio in Communist China this date that the country had conducted successful experiments in weather control during the previous week over Nanking, the former capital of China.

Snow and ice-covered streets across the country added to traffic hazards this date and increased the death toll in accidents over the Thanksgiving weekend, lasting 102 hours through midnight on Sunday. Thus far, the Associated Press reported that there had been 232 traffic fatalities recorded, 24 fatalities from fires and 46 from miscellaneous causes. The extended Thanksgiving weekend ordinarily was not regarded as a time of extra heavy traffic such as there was on other major holidays. The National Safety Council had not issued its usual prediction for fatalities during the extended weekend.

In Charlotte, as was the case across the western part of the state, temperatures dropped below freezing this date, with a low predicted of 23 this night. The Weather Bureau forecast a "hard freeze" capable of bursting water pipes and vehicle radiators. A rainfall the previous day, mixed with the cold air mass which had drifted down from Canada, had given Charlotte a freezing 30-degree reading at dawn this date. The previous day's high of 46 was forecast to rise to 48 this date and to 50 the following day. Snow flurries were reported in several counties west of Asheville, but it had failed to stick and highways in the mountains were reported still open. Lows around the state ranged from 22 in Asheville to 44 in Wilmington, and 46 in Myrtle Beach, S.C.

Bob Slough of The News reports that thus far in the initial two days of the Empty Stocking Fund Drive, sponsored by the newspaper, a total of $138.95 had been collected from two people. You had better get a move on, Charlotte, or many of the needy will not have much of a Christmas with only 25 days remaining.

In Los Angeles, an eight-year old boy entered a bank the previous day to borrow five dollars to purchase a model aircraft carrier which cost three dollars. He told the banker that the other two dollars was to purchase some Christmas presents for his parents. He stated that he was paid 15 cents per week for helping his father. His only collateral was his baseball and a glove. The banker said that the ball was just about worn out, and the boy agreed that the baseball and glove were not worth more than about three dollars. He said he also had a bat in the car, ran outside and returned with it—whereupon he told the banker to fork over the dough or suffer. Not really. The banker said that he believed he could lend the five dollars based on the collateral tendered. Billy signed a promissory note agreeing to repay the loan at 40 cents per month at 8 percent interest, the bank's normal rate for small loans. He was told that if he did not pay, the bank would have to sell the collateral and perhaps repossess his aircraft carrier. They shook hands and the banker gave the boy five silver dollars. The boy's father, general manager of a knitting mill, had remained outside in the lobby of the Bank of America branch throughout the transaction and had informed the banker of the background of the deal, that his son had asked him for the five-dollar loan, to which he had replied that when he needed money he went to the bank to borrow it, and so his son said, "Let's go to the bank." The banker told a reporter that ordinarily the bank did not make loans to persons under 21, but it was a case of instructing the younger generation "in getting money the way a dad would have to." You had better also tell him about the Sanity Clause in the loan agreement, and how some banks will seek actively to put coal in the borrower's stockings if they do not get every penny of their money precisely on time when due, with all accumulated interest and fees, the "carrying charges", no matter how exorbitant and usurious.

On the editorial page, "Meet the Nation's Greatest Cartoonist", an editorial book review, favorably reviews editorial cartoonist Herbert Block's new book, Herblock's Special for Today, indicating that it intended to do a lot of laughing in the process of writing the review, rather than becoming cosmic or discovering anything Freudian in the work of Mr. Block's draftsmanship, as was the tendency too often of those reviewing editorial cartoonists. It finds him not only the greatest editorial cartoonist in America but also "one of the few 100-proof humorists in the craft. His humor is pointed, partisan and highly seasoned. But if it is not your shirt he happens to be unstuffing at the moment, it can be awfully funny in a drastic sort of way."