The Charlotte News
Wednesday, May 21, 1958
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Miami, Fla., that the Army had disclosed this date that plans for disbanding six National Guard divisions had been abandoned. The disclosure had been made by General Maxwell Taylor, Army chief of staff, in an address prepared for delivery to the Governor's Conference taking place in Miami. The original plan for reduction in size of the ground National Guard had been the result of Federal Government economic economy measures. General Taylor said that many governors had passed along their thoughts on the proposal to Secretary of Defense Neil McElroy and Secretary of the Army Wilber Brucker, and that during the morning, Secretary Brucker and General Taylor had announced a relaxation of the original guidance upon which their plans thus far had been based. Congressman Carl Vinson of Georgia, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said that he had information that the House Appropriations Committee would approve money enough to keep Guard and Reserve forces at full strength. That would amount to an attempt to reverse the Administration's decision to reduce the approved strength of state Guard troops from 400,000 to 360,000 and the Reserves from 300,000 to 270,000. Mr. Vinson had made his report on the economic outlook in an Armed Services Committee discussion of how the civilian components would fare under proposed reorganization legislation. He said that he had been advised that the Appropriations Committee would approve enough funding for 400,000 Guardsmen and 300,000 men in the Reserves. He also said that there was nothing in the reorganization bill approved by the Committee which would put the Guard in jeopardy. The Committee report, he said, would contain language intended to make it clear that the Committee did not intend any change in status for the National Guard or the National Guard Bureau, which represented the state troops at the Pentagon.
Also in Miami Beach, Secretary of the Treasury Robert Anderson told the nation's governors this date that "the private enterprise economy is putting on an impressive performance" in resistance to further economic declines.
At Fort Bragg, N.C., the Army had revealed the existence of a highly trained fighting force composed of four crack divisions ready to wage limited warfare anywhere in the world. Maj. General Robert Sink, commander of the force known as STRAC, standing for Strategic Army Corps, said that his troops were set to move on a moment's notice, provided the Air Force and the Navy gave them transportation. He said that the divisions were "hitchhikers" and that if they did not have the means of getting transportation from the Air Force or the Navy, "why, hell, we stay at home." He said that a joint commander would consider the lack of transportation at his command a fault of the system, although the Defense Department presumably would furnish the planes and ships if and when the troops were needed. The force had furnished 500 paratroopers which had been airlifted to the Caribbean when Vice-President Nixon had been beset by rioters in Venezuela. The existence of the force and the units which composed it had been announced simultaneously in Washington and at a news briefing at Fort Bragg. The organization had resulted partly from the nation's experience some years earlier in Korea. Brig. General Charles Chase, the assistant commander and chief of staff of the force, said that if such a limited war force had been in existence at the time of the Korean War, it probably would have been a much shorter and more satisfactory campaign.
The bid of Harold Stassen for a political comeback in running for governor of Pennsylvania had been shattered this date as he was defeated in the Republican primary by Arthur McGonigle by a margin of nearly 2 to 1, 504,000 to 279,000. In the Democratic primary, Mayor David Lawrence of Pittsburgh had won an overwhelming victory. Representative Hugh Scott had won easily in the Republican primary for the Senate, and Governor George Leader had won easily in the Democratic primary for that office.
Quick passage was predicted as the Senate prepared to take up a compromise bill to raise postal rates and pay. House passage, possibly the following day, would result in the bill going to the President for signature, which would raise the price of postage to four cents for letters and seven cents for airmail, three cents for postcards, and other increases for other types of mail, to become effective on July 1, provided the President would sign the bill before the end of May. The bill would also increase the pay of 500,000 postal workers, retroactive to January 1. The latter provision was one of several which had led to some speculation that the President might veto the bill. A Republican Senator had stated, however, this date that Postmaster General Arthur Summerfield had strongly endorsed the measure at a White House conference of Republican leaders the prior Monday, finding it a strong indication that the President would sign the bill. The bill would cut only about 67 million dollars from the estimated 700 million postal deficit in the ensuing year, with over half of the additional revenue provided by the bill, about 315 million, resulting from raising the letter postage from three cents to four cents. The President had sought an increase to five cents on out-of-town mail, and four cents for local mail. The bill raised second-class rates for newspapers and magazines by 60 percent for the advertising and 30 percent for the editorial portion of a publication, to take effect in three annual 20 and 10 percent incremental increases, the first to occur the following January 1.
Secretary of State Dulles had appealed to the Senate this date to restore 6.5 million dollars which had been cut from the State Department's budget by the House.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee had voted this date to restore 220 million dollars of the 339 million cut by the House from the President's 3.9 billion dollar foreign aid program.
In Detroit, UAW president Walter Reuther this date implored the NLRB to deny, in the national interest, the request of craft units to bargain separately with the automobile industry.
In Chicago, it was reported that Health Department inspectors and meat wholesalers had worked quickly this date to salvage an estimated 7 to 10 million pounds of refrigerated meat imperiled by an extra-alarm fire in the Fulton Street Market.
In Moscow, it was reported that the leaders of the Soviet bloc were gathering in the city for their first summit conference in seven months. Communist Party chiefs of all the Warsaw Pact nations and their Asian Communist allies had begun a meeting of the Council of Mutual Economic Assistance the previous day.
In Panama, student disorders had spread the previous night to the city of Colon, where rioters had stormed National Guard headquarters with stones and bottles, six Guardsmen and a boy and girl having been injured.
In Calcutta, it was reported that police had fired on a mob of Communist-led steel strikers this date at Jamshedpur, killing one and wounding 77. The workers had been trying to rescue an arrested Communist leader of their five-day strike against India's largest steel plant.
In Bombay, it was reported that a crowded express train had jumped the track at high speed, 400 miles northwest of the city early this date, killing 20 persons and injuring 50.
In Taipei, Formosa, it was reported that Mme. Chiang Kai-shek was on her way to the U.S. for her first visit in four years. A Government announcement said that she had left this date for a medical checkup and to receive an honorary degree from the University of Michigan. Whether she was bound for the White House to seek the President to cash her check was not indicated.
In Brunswick, Md., it was reported that the sole survivor of a military plane which had collided with a passenger plane, killing 12 persons, the previous day, said that he had never seen the other aircraft, that they had been cruising at about 8,000 feet in clear air, and the next thing he knew, there seemed to be an explosion, with flames and wreckage all around him. The 34-year old Air National Guard captain, with his hands bandaged and his face red, black and blue from second-degree burns, had been the only person surviving the collision. His condition was not serious. A Capital Airlines plane had collided with the T-33 jet trainer over the Potomac River Valley, eight miles west of Brunswick and about 50 miles northwest of Washington. The four crewmen and seven passengers aboard the turbo-prop airliner had been killed, along with the only passenger in the trainer, a private. The captain had been blown from the jet plane by the explosion and his parachute had somehow opened, carrying him to safety. He said he did not know how he got out of the plane or how his chute had opened, that he only remembered being in the plane with flames all around him and did not know whether he was alive, but that in desperation, he thought he would give it one try. The next thing he knew, he was flying through the air with flames and debris all around him. His chute had opened and he drifted down onto a tree about 20 feet above the ground. The first he had become aware that another plane had been involved was when the sheriff had suggested it to him in the hospital. Until that point, he had believed there had only been an explosion.
In Evansville, Ind., a 13-year old boy had been charged with first-degree murder this date for the fatal shooting of his two-year old brother, who had made him mad by throwing sticks. The boy was described as a poor student with above-average intelligence. He had first told police that he shot his brother accidentally at the family farm on May 8. After a brief appearance in court, the boy had been returned to the Evansville State Hospital, where the sheriff had placed him the previous weekend. The sheriff said that the boy had admitted killing his brother with a .22-caliber rifle while the parents were away from home bowling. The sheriff said that the boy had told him that he resented his younger brother because he had become the center of his parents' attention and that he was often asked to care for him. A judge had asked the county grand jury to meet on June 4 to consider the case.
In Stokesdale, N.C., it was reported that a bank robber with a sawed-off shotgun and about $8,000 in stolen loot was being tracked by law enforcement and bloodhounds in rough terrain near the town this date, after a bank in Stokesdale had been robbed of $17,200 shortly after noon. The FBI said this date that the posse already had tracked the robber 12 miles since he had fled from his getaway car, scattering bank bills wildly as he scrambled through thickets and swamp. Nearly $9,000 had been recovered before nightfall. The FBI said that apparently the unnerved bandit had either dropped or tossed away $2,900 as he fled the bank in a stolen 1950 automobile, while the cashier had fired at him. The getaway car was found abandoned about five miles south of Stokesdale, and as the posse had pressed a search, it found other bills in the brush, apparently dropped or ripped loose from the paper bag in which the bandit had carried the money. One of the search planes circling the woods reported seeing two men waving a white flag, but the ground search party could not locate them. If you see him, let them know. The only description given was that he was black, so be sure and turn in every black man you see wandering around in that area.
Julian Scheer of The News reports that a member of the State Board of Higher Education had told the newspaper this date that a report by a special committee of the UNC board of trustees, charged with studying its relationship with the State Board, had not reflected negotiations between the two groups. Robert Lassiter of Charlotte, an attorney and member of a special committee named to meet with a trustee committee, said that his committee had met only once with the trustees, at which time problems allegedly existing between the two groups had not been identified and that the only conclusion reached was that the two bodies would meet in the future. But since that February 20 meeting, there had been no further meeting between the two groups. A report the previous day had called for drastic reductions in the authority of the State Board, a report written by a special committee of the trustees headed by Thomas Pearsall. The report would be presented to the trustees executive committee the following Monday and was expected to receive full approval. It called for curtailment of influence by the State Board over budget requests under its jurisdiction, prohibiting alleged interference with internal affairs by the State Board in the State's institutions of higher learning, and prohibiting the State Board from controlling assignment functions and activities of the three member units of the Consolidated University.
Members of the Charlotte Exchange Club had sold 4,944 copies of the newspaper in the previous day's effort to raise funds for the Charlotte Life Saving Squad, the street sales having boosted the total raised to well over $3,000, with street sales bringing in $850, added to more than $2,200 raised in advance sales. The News and the Exchange Club had cooperated in the project to buy equipment for the squad, the Club already having provided a Plymouth station wagon as an ambulance. The squad's only other financial aid came from the City, which provided $1,000 per year toward squad operations. It did not receive any money from the United Appeal.
In Los Angeles, Dr. Lydia Sicher, a psychotherapist, said that all men were afraid of all women, including their wives, that it was a matter of male inferiority, the same inadequate feeling which made men seek to be Casanovas and the same impulse which made them gruff toward women when they did not really feel tough. When a man lost his job and then went out and picked up a woman, unconsciously he was identifying his failure to keep the job with the fear that he was not completely masculine. She said: "In our Western culture … the male feels he must constantly prove himself adequate as a man. The result has been that he strives to become a combination of God and Napoleon." Dr. Sicher, a disciple of Vienna's famed Alfred Adler, conceded that women constantly were seeking to get men under their thumbs because women traditionally had been forced to take a backseat in public life and thus needed a chance for self-expression. She said that even men who killed their estranged wives, an increasingly common type of homicide, were basically afraid, that they might not want their former spouse any longer, but were afraid she would get another guy.
In London, it was reported that Moscow radio this date had said that the rocket which had launched Sputnik III was now leading the actual satellite by two-tenths of an orbit as they whirled together around the earth.
It indicates that on an inside page, the new comic strip, Rick O'Shay and his partner, Deuces Wilde, appeared for the first time this date. You can't fool us. They culled that from a couple of episodes of "Maverick"
Not in the newspaper, in Lincoln, Neb., the defense and prosecution had rested in the Charles Starkweather trial for the first-degree murder of 17-year old Robert Jensen. Facing the death penalty, Charles's defense had been that he was not guilty by reason of insanity, a plea entered and pursued against his will by his attorneys, Charles having stated to a psychiatrist on Monday that he wanted to kill with a hand grenade a defense psychologist who had said he was insane, and also wanted to shoot his defense counsel for entering the plea. The prosecution had also rested during the morning this date after having presented rebuttal testimony of a psychiatrist who said that Charles had a personality disorder but knew the quality and nature of his act and was able to distinguish right from wrong at the time of the murder, the requirements for legal sanity in Nebraska, which followed the McNaughton test. There was no contest over whether Charles had shot Mr. Jensen, only whether he had a mental defect which rendered him incapable at the time of knowing that the act was wrong, as psychiatrists for the defense had testified. Charles had testified that he believed he acted in self-defense because he claimed Mr. Jensen, after Charles had ordered him and his 17-year old girlfriend to go into an abandoned storm cellar on January 27, had begun to charge up the steps toward Charles, when he shot him six times in the head. He had also asserted self-defense with respect to the other nine victims of his killing rampage during an eight-day period in January, at least as to the victims he admitted killing, having alleged at times, in several conflicting statements, that his 14-year old girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate, had killed four of the female victims, including her mother. Mr. Jensen's girlfriend, Carol King, was also murdered at the time, but the prosecution, for strategic reasons, was only charging the death of Mr. Jensen. Meanwhile, Caril was confined to the State Mental Hospital, awaiting the outcome of an appeal to the State Supreme Court on whether she could be charged as an adult for being an accomplice in the murder of Mr. Jensen or was required to be charged as a juvenile. The trial had adjourned at noon until Thursday morning, at which time final arguments would be presented by both sides and the court would instruct the jury, the case then expected to reach the jury by the following afternoon. If only Charles could have rewound the clock to the night of November 17, when the above-linked "Maverick" episode first aired, two weeks before he killed his first victim, a 21-year old service station attendant who refused to extend him credit to purchase a stuffed animal for Caril, he might have changed his course, or, given that he only wanted escape from Lincoln and to have "some fun", as he wrote to relatives after being caught, maybe not.
Some seventy-two years earlier, it turns out, Holly's great-grandfather had been gunned down by the Sheriff in the town
On the editorial page, "Government with a T-Model Chassis" indicates that although the state constitutional commission was not expected to report until late fall, guardians of the status quo were already erecting barricades against change.
Maj. General Capus Waynick, who had fought for a new State Constitution in 1933, had told a newspaper gathering in Chapel Hill four days earlier: "I really cannot say that the state urgently needs a new constitution." The Greensboro Daily News, one of the state's most influential newspapers and a chronic complainer about constitutional deficiencies, said during the week: "Unless an extremely good case can be made for the proposition that North Carolina needs a completely new constitutional document, the Daily News is inclined to agree with General Waynick that change merely to improve the language and eliminate clutter is not desirable."
It indicates that many of the reforms which had been proposed in 1933 had been added to the State Constitution by way of amendment. More amendments were anticipated from the Bell Court Study Committee's proposals, and there was concern about the nature of change and its consequences. General Waynick had said: "The trouble with the business is that when you change the Constitution you discard a great mass of clearly defined law and you impair volumes of interpretation that have accumulated through years and years of the experience of the people."
Both General Waynick and the Daily News conceded that the state's present 1868 Constitution was a defective instrument of government, the General finding a great need for the General Assembly to be relieved of the responsibility for passing on the details of local governments. The Daily News also believed that there might be several areas where improvements were "either desirable or imperative".
It indicates that the 1868 Constitution was a bundle of inadequacies, containing so much legislative adornment and political folderol that it was hardly worth being called a "constitution". It had been amended more than 60 times, causing it to be baffling and full of inconsistencies and contradictions. The recently deceased Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge John J. Parker had once written: "The purpose of a state constitution is two-fold: (1) to protect the rights of the individual from encroachment by the state; and (2) to promote a framework of government for the state and its subdivisions. It is not the function of a constitution to deal with temporary conditions, but to lay down general principles of government which must be observed amid changing conditions."
It finds that the 1868 Constitution did not pass those fundamental tests, being over-encumbered with unnecessary details, lean on principles, and weak and inconsistent in its approach to the general executive authority of the state. North Carolina was the only state which had neglected to give its governor veto power over legislation enacted by the General Assembly. The governor could not even succeed himself in office under normal circumstances, and had limited appointive power, with no direct power of supervision and little power of removal. Those and other deficiencies had been discussed in newspapers, by legislators and political scientists for years. Periodic patchwork had made the Constitution a crazy quilt of mismatched design and self-defeating weaknesses. Additional patchwork could not remedy the defects and it finds the time ripe for a new constitution which would provide the citizens a statement of governing principles and draw proper lines of authority, responsibility and accountability. The commission, it suggests, should not be bamboozled by the guardians of the status quo, as it had a duty to North Carolinians of the present and the future to perform. "Let's get on with the job."
"The Wage Bills Never Become Law" indicates that at the state Democratic convention in Raleigh the previous week, there had been primarily backslapping while portions of the party platform had collapsed, in particular a plank avowing traditional friendship to labor, "to a program of humane labor laws, safe and healthful working conditions, and fair compensation for the industrial workers."
It finds, however, that the friendship had failed noticeably for 90,000 workers in the state unprotected by Federal minimum wage legislation. Democrats were not unaware of the problem, having considered bills for a 55-cent minimum wage for workers during both the 1953 and 1955 General Assembly. They had discussed a 75-cent minimum wage in the 1957 Assembly. But doing something about the problem had been another matter, as consideration of the minimum wage had never ended in approval by the Legislature controlled by Democrats.
The State Senate tradition was to whittle minimum wage legislation until it covered about half of the unprotected workers, and the House tradition was to reject what was left of the Senate legislation.
It finds that it proved that political platforms offered risky footing and could not be taken any more seriously by the public than by the politicians, which was often about as serious as a giggle.
"Pass the Humane Slaughter Measure" indicates that demands for humane slaughter of animals produced more letters for members of Congress than any other political issue at present. It suggests that it was only seemingly incongruous with the matters on which Congress was busy, affecting the lives and fortunes of humans, as no civilized people could engage in needless animal cruelty or could sanction it.
No one opposed humane slaughter, not even the meat packers who practiced the opposite, but there had been sufficient opposition to weaken the proposed legislation, such that humane slaughter would be required only of those packers who sold their meat to the Federal Government. The House had passed such a measure, and the Senate was expected to follow suit, thus giving a gentle nudge to wider use of humane slaughtering methods in the packing industry.
One large packing firm had developed and was using, on its own initiative, a system which knocked out animals instantly before the slaughtering process began.
It indicates that if the public was aware of the shockingly cruel methods used in most slaughterhouses at present, stiffer legislation would have been passed long earlier. The Senate Agriculture Committee had recently refused to watch a sound film of that process. It does not blame them for it, but indicates that the Committee ought remember that the sight it avoided existed nevertheless.
A piece from the Goldsboro News-Argus, titled "Missiles and Baseball", indicates that the development of the missile as the great force in the nations weapon system was one of the major news stories of the time. One of the major addresses at a recent meeting of the American Society of Newspaper Editors in Washington had been that of Dr. John Hagen, director of the Navy's successful Vanguard project.
But when it was time for him to deliver his talk, a baseball game between the Washington Senators and Boston Red Sox was occurring at the same time. At their table had been nine people, four of whom had excused themselves and rushed out to the game. And that which had occurred at their table had happened more or less at other tables where 500 had sat down to dine.
It offers no criticism, finding that when the mind of man was so intent upon relaxation and enjoyment, conditions were pretty safe for the country. Sputniks and satellites could not receive for too long top billing in the mind, for if they did, it would just be too bad.
Drew Pearson, in Paris, indicates that one could obtain almost any opinion one wanted of the most important man in France at present, General Charles de Gaulle, but that the fact probably was that no one really knew what he stood for on such important questions as Algeria, least of all the rabble-rousers in Algeria who wanted him to take over. Those who knew the General intimately, however, said that his ideas were so progressive that the Algerian colonialists would be shouting out of the opposite side of their mouths if they really knew those views. General De Gaulle favored a confederation of North Africa, linking Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, with virtual independence for Algeria.
Franklin Roosevelt had once reported that General De Gaulle wanted to be a combination of Jeanne D'Arc and Georges Clemenceau. Winston Churchill, referring to the Cross of the Free French, had once remarked: "The Cross of Lorraine is the heaviest one I have to bear." Cordell Hull, while Secretary of State under President Roosevelt, had referred to General De Gaulle's organization as the "so-called Free French".
But those who knew the General well pointed to his memoirs as evidence of a brilliant idealist, indicating that he had the worst public relations in the world and had a genius for antagonizing people, that he was not hostile to the U.S., would immediately outlaw the Communist Party, would fight any enemy of France, but never against his own countrymen, not even the Communists in France. Those who had known him well during World War II had found him to be temperamental, conceited, strong-willed, but frequently able to put his finger on what was wrong with Allied policy. In the summer of 1943, he had written a letter to the British and U.S. Governments comparing Allied strategy to the beating of a drum. "No one man is beating the drum, but a host of beetles are bouncing up and down on it and they think they are beating it." At the time, a lot of people had thought him correct.
Even during the war, the General had ideas about autonomy for the Middle East and North Africa, and had a stormy session with Prime Minister Churchill regarding Egypt and Syria. Being critical of British military leadership, he had offered to take over the entire Allied command in North Africa, but Prime Minister Churchill had turned him down.
During the war, the French had worshiped the General, becoming a symbol of freedom, remaining still as that symbol to many. Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden had recognized that fact in the summer of 1943 when Prime Minister Churchill had wanted to fire General De Gaulle, Mr. Eden having argued that he had become such a symbol that the British could not tear down the man they had built up. Instead, Prime Minister Churchill had called a press conference in which he blasted General De Gaulle as a latent Fascist, accusing him of stirring up the French and Arabs in Syria against the British, and claiming that he leaned toward French-Russian control of Europe. But actually, the General had proved himself strongly anti-Russian and anti-Communist.
FDR had ridiculed General De Gaulle perhaps more than Prime Minister Churchill, delighting in telling a story of how he and Mr. Churchill had sought to get General De Gaulle and General Henri Giraud, the Vichy commander at Casablanca, together. Mr. Pearson indicates that the incident was important because it showed General De Gaulle's unwillingness to compromise with Vichy, which many French believed had sold France out, and because it was the beginning of American coolness toward the General. FDR had said that they had made numerous overtures to both sides, the Free French and Vichy, with no success, that General Giraud was willing, but General De Gaulle had turned them down flatly, until finally, in desperation, President Roosevelt had suggested to Prime Minister Churchill: "Let's have a shotgun wedding." Mr. Churchill had gotten a big laugh out of that, and the President had gone on to explain that he promised to produce the bride, General Giraud, if Mr. Churchill would provide the groom, General De Gaulle. The Prime Minister said that he would carry out his end. Finally, continued President Roosevelt, on the day of the wedding, they had the church, the padre, with FDR pointing to himself, the bride and the gun, but the groom had failed to show. The President said that he then had a bright idea, asking who paid General De Gaulle. Within 24 hours, General De Gaulle had shown up at Casablanca. The wedding, however, had never been consummated, as General De Gaulle had been too stubborn, with FDR indicating that he was constantly striking dramatic attitudes, essentially indicating: "What France needs is a great soul in this hour of peril. I am that soul."
Marquis Childs, in Paris, indicates that on the surface, everything was normal in the city. "The broad sidewalks along the Avenue Champs Elysees that sweeps so magnificently up to the Arc de Triomphe are crowded with strollers who move leisurely in the sun. They accept as a kind of spectacle the security police and gendarmes who mass along the avenue and around the arc where the eternal flame to France's Unknown Soldier is burning at any intimation that a demonstration may be held. The sidewalk cafés are so crowded that it is difficult to find a table at noon or in the early evening."
Meanwhile, sensationalist British newspapers had run absurd stories. The Daily Mirror, having a circulation of 5 million, had run the headline, "Flight from Paris", reporting of a mass exodus, which only consisted of pleasure-bent weekenders jamming the highways out of Paris. There was no apparent sign of any panic in an "abnormally normal" city.
But just below the surface, changes were beginning to occur, and even if France escaped disaster, those changes were bound to occur with increasing celerity. The tough new Minister of the Interior, Jules Moch, had placed a number of restrictions under the emergency powers granted by the National Assembly. No Frenchman could leave France without a special police permit. Mr. Childs suggests that it was a little late, as Jacques Soustelle and other Gaullist and violent anti-Government persons had already escaped to Algiers, where they had joined the secessionists. Newspapers were subject to censorship. Individuals could be arrested and held without trial, a number of arrests having been made in Paris and elsewhere.
But the changes were nothing compared to those which had to come in the economic area if the Government, or any government, whether headed by General De Gaulle or the Cabinet combination under the current Premier Pierre Pflimlin, was to face up to the war against the Moslem rebels in Algeria and what it meant to France's fiscal position.
The Cabinet had pledged an additional 190 million dollars for the military budget, requiring higher taxes, and without stringent controls, perhaps rationing, and, in any event, higher prices. Behind the façade, there was a swift deterioration, and if a showdown with the military which could topple the Fourth Republic was averted, the present Government would face the necessity of imposing measures so unpopular that a second testing time might occur very quickly.
Mr. Childs concludes that it was what lay ahead, behind the pleasantries of Paris in the spring.
Murray Snyder, Assistant Secretary of Defense for public affairs, in an address delivered in Charlotte on Armed Forces Day the previous week, had spoken of the military reorganization plan, of which Mr. Snyder was an advocate. He had said that one of the most provocative topics of conversation was the plan to make certain changes in the Department of Defense, the largest single operation in the country, with a budget of 40 billion dollars. He stated that there was nothing revolutionary or startling in the President's proposal, merely a declaration that some of the traditional methods of the past had become outmoded, as the technique of warfare had undergone drastic changes in the age of thermonuclear weapons so proficient that they had raised the potential of military destructiveness beyond anything ever known in the past. Organizational changes had to conform to the new conditions or the country would find itself unprepared to meet an aggressor's challenge.
He indicated that the President believed that U.S. fighting forces should be organized in truly unified operational commands, whereby the Secretary of Defense would be given full and direct authority over those commands, exercising that authority through the Joint Chiefs, eliminating the military departments as an executive agent or middleman. The concept, he said, had occurred during World War II in Europe and in the Pacific, as well as in the Korean War. Most of the fighting forces at present were assigned to such commands on a geographical or functional basis, but the President's proposal would make explicit the authority of the Secretary of Defense to establish additional unified commands. It would also remove uncertainties concerning the authority of unified commanders to exercise and direct control over military forces assigned to them. It would remove any possibility that Army, Navy or Air Force units might be pulled out of unified command without concurrence of the Secretary of Defense.
The plan called for providing to the Joint Chiefs an expanded central planning group which would develop the strategic plans for the Defense Department and at the same time serve constantly as a "command post" for the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs.
He indicated that the President had stated emphatically that his reorganization plan did not contemplate changing or abolishing the traditional composition of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, or the Air Force, that the services would continue to perform their primary functions of managing the administrative, personnel, training, logistical duties and most of the research of the Defense Department, including furnishing forces to the unified commands.
The President was seeking that the Secretary of Defense be given greater flexibility of action in two important directions, the first of which being the right to transfer, reassign, abolish or consolidate any of the combatant functions presently assigned to a military department, but not until 30 days after all details of the proposed action had been filed with the Armed Services Committees of Congress, and also that Congress provide to the Secretary in the ensuing budget a sufficient amount of money not earmarked for any specific purpose so that unanticipated needs of the unified commands could be met promptly and so that any scientific breakthrough could be financed without delay—though that part was not in the pending legislation.
Mr. Snyder indicated that one of the major objectives of the plan was to further centralize research and development of new weapons under a new director of defense research and engineering, who would be a nationally known leader in the fields of science and technology. The Defense Department, directly or indirectly, used about half of the top scientists in the country, and it was imperative that the large program be guided and controlled in a way which would use those resources with maximum efficiency.
In answer to those who had criticized the plan for potentially turning the country into a military state or a "German General Staff System", he indicated that former Joint Chiefs chairman Admiral Arthur Radford had said a few days earlier that the people who made those dire warnings ignored the basic pattern of civilian control of the military.
A letter writer from Whiteville finds that Judge Chester Morris, in imposing the maximum prison sentence provided by law on a youthful murderer, had contributed greatly to the administration of justice in the state. "The dastardly, cold-blooded, unexplained, and apparently unrepentant killing of the young girl called for the maximum punishment provided by law." The 17-year old high school student had been labeled in the press as an outstanding student, though that had been contested by a teacher during his trial, as well as having been a star athlete, and son of a Highway Patrol officer. The writer finds none of those things to be any defense to the heinous crime of having killed his fellow student, 16. He indicates that there were too many crimes committed against women, young and old, at present, and that the sentence imposed by the judge provided a precedent for punishment for similar crimes committed by men, young and old.
A letter writer indicates he had made a close study of the three candidates for the State Senate from Mecklenburg County and had come to the conclusion that J. Spencer Bell was the best qualified to serve the voters, that his prior record in the State Senate had proved that he was well qualified for the job.
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