The Charlotte News
Wednesday, June 18, 1958
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the President at his press conference this date had said that White House chief of staff Sherman Adams had been imprudent in his relations with his friend, industrialist Bernard Goldfine, but that he needed him to continue as his top presidential aide. The President made it plain that he had no intention of firing Mr. Adams, although he did not say so in those words. He read at the outset of the press conference a prepared statement indicating that despite the imprudence of Mr. Adams, he had reached his personal conclusions that he believed that the presentation made by the latter to the Congressional committee the previous day truthfully represented the pertinent facts, that he personally liked Mr. Adams, admired his abilities, respected him because of his personal and official integrity, and that he needed him. He regarded him as "an invaluable public servant, doing a difficult job efficiently, honestly and tirelessly." After reading the statement, the President said that he would have nothing more to say regarding the matter. He did, however, reply to several questions concerning the matter either directly or regarding general principles related to it. On one related matter, the President declined comment, when he was told that some Republicans running for re-election in the midterms in the fall had said that they were going to have difficulty facing the voters regarding the Adams-Goldfine issue. The President said that he did not care to say anything on that topic, that he had already made his general statement. At one point, the President was asked whether in light of the matter, it would be proper for other Government employees to do what Mr. Adams had done and win the President's approval, replying that he always had striven for the highest, implacable standards for White House staff, and that the goal was the same regarding employees of all other agencies, but that he did not have as close contact with the latter group as with members of his own staff. Otherwise at the press conference, the President denounced the execution in Hungary of former Hungarian Premier Imre Nagy and his colleague, Maj. General Pal Maleter, reported the previous day. Regarding Lebanon, he said that he could not answer a question posed as to the conditions under which the U.S. might undertake military action in the Lebanon crisis and did not wish to make predictions. He added that the situation in Lebanon was being studied by U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold and by a U.N. armistice team, and what the U.S. would do in the situation would depend on their findings.
The President's position on Mr. Adams left little room for Republican campaigners to criticize Mr. Adams without publicly aligning themselves against the President. The President had made it clear that he believed that the acceptance of expensive favors by Mr. Adams from Mr. Goldfine represented "a tangible expression of friendship" and not a bribe for intervention with public agencies before which Mr. Goldfine was having issues. Several Congressional Republicans running for re-election had been critical of Mr. Adams, and while some of them had opposed a few of the President's major legislative recommendations, not many were likely to want to challenge the President's operation of his own office.
In Beirut, insurgents had captured a woman's prison in the city this date and had started shooting at nearby houses from the prison walls. Fighting had broken out in the area the previous night when insurgents had assailed the prison. The insurgents were Moslems opposed to President Camille Chamoun's pro-Western regime in the half-Christian, half-Moslem nation. The prison was on the top of a hill overlooking the Christian quarter and Moslems were shooting down into that section. The Army had earlier during the morning removed the women from the prison. The outbreaks had occurred as three leaders of a U.N. observation team, rushed in to try to pacify the nation, had held their first meeting, soon to be joined by Secretary-General Hammarskjold.
John Scali of the Associated Press reports that a money-conscious Congress had bestowed an estimated 350 million dollars per year in funding for the CIA, an agency so secret that only a handful of the highest officials knew how the money was being spent. The expenditures were charged off to the high cost of spying. The Agency operated a vast American espionage network in the atomic-space age when the merest scrap of information could mean the difference between survival and annihilation. So rigid was the secrecy that when Congress grumbled over failures, real or imagined, the CIA took it in silence, saying simply that it never provided an alibi and never explained. For to alibi or explain might reveal a source and endanger the undercover status of men and women who gathered its information around the world. The CIA was unique among governmental agencies, in that its estimated budget of 350 million dollars was only a reasonably good guess and no one outside the highest official circles actually knew the true budget. If the estimate was correct, it was 130 million dollars more than the State Department spent on its 282 diplomatic posts around the world. Only a handful of top executives in the Government knew exactly how many people worked for the Agency. The State Department had about 16,000 American employees and it had been estimated that the CIA had almost as many, though it was not known for certain. The Soviet Union was believed to be spending six times as much as the CIA on espionage and had up to 45,000 agents directly engaged in spying. Mr. Scali indicates that comparisons between the CIA and the State Department were particularly apt because Allen Dulles, brother of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, was the director of the CIA. At 65, Mr. Dulles was a heavy-set man with a bushy, white walrus-type mustache. He told friends that his sole ambition in government was to stay on as intelligence chief until he died. He had headed the Agency for 5 1/2 of its nearly 11 years of existence. His job was unique in at least one respect in that he could write a check for a million dollars without telling even the Government Accounting Office exactly where he was spending the money. Most members of Congress, who watched financial matters like a detective eyeing a pickpocket, had only a vague idea of how much the CIA spent and what it spent it for, and yet each year the Agency's budget was appropriated promptly. The exact figure was known to six Senators and Representatives who formed a special subcommittee which handled CIA finances. They alone among members of Congress saw the detailed budget for the Agency. Only a small percentage of CIA funding went to pay the salaries of its thousands of men and women employees, stateside and overseas. A big chunk went for maintenance of its Washington nerve center housed in 35 buildings, with its headquarters positioned on a hilltop in the "Foggy Bottom" area of Washington. Armed guards stood before each building entrance and privileged visitors were escorted through the buildings to keep appointments. The essence of CIA intelligence reports were placed on the President's desk each morning, covering the high spots of the previous 24 hours in the world's trouble spots. Each report came to the President as a terse 500-word summary, written in short, punchy sentences. It could be digested by a busy President in about two minutes. The summary had replaced a more lengthy summary previously provided the President, the change having been made shortly after the Soviet Union had beat the U.S. to the punch in launching a satellite the prior fall. Mr. Dulles said that the timing was only a coincidence, but Administration foes said that it was more than that, that the Administration did not heed previous CIA warnings about Soviet advancements and so the Agency was now resorting to simple ABC language in its reports. A newsman seeking to know the type of record which the CIA compiled in forecasting cold war events ran into tight secrecy surrounding the heart of the operation. But from other sources, including those in Congress, it was possible to estimate the CIA record on nine important world developments of the previous three years. Its record in predicting Soviet satellites had been excellent, the Agency having warned for a year that the Soviets were capable of launching the first Sputnik in 1957. Its intelligence regarding missiles had been good, but the Agency had been conservative in forecasting the size and thrust of Soviet rockets. Regarding the anti-Nixon riots in Latin America, the intelligence had been very good, but the CIA apparently had failed to foresee the dangerous disorganization of the new Venezuelan police force. Regarding the Indonesian revolt, intelligence had been excellent, as had been that regarding the Soviet nuclear test ban. Its intelligence regarding the reshuffling of the Russian hierarchy and the elevation of Nikita Khrushchev to Premier had been very good, with the Agency not only having forecast the shakeup three months before it occurred but had also pointed to Frol Kozlov as a fast-rising Kremlin newcomer. Regarding the Hungarian revolt in 1956, the intelligence had been fair, with the CIA reporting signs of mounting unrest in Hungary. But the Agency had been surprised when the people actually had revolted. Regarding the Suez crisis of November, 1956, the intelligence had been good, with the CIA having predicted British and French troops would invade Egypt a few days before it had occurred. Regarding the Suez Canal seizure by Egyptian Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser earlier, in the summer of 1956, the intelligence had not been good, with the Agency failing to estimate fully the Premier's reaction to withdrawal of a proposed U.S. loan for construction of the Aswan Dam.
The second radio transmitter on the U.S. Explorer III satellite had gone out and no signals had been picked up from it since the previous Monday, the other transmitter having died out on June 5.
In Vienna, it was reported that a Communist court in Sofia, Bulgaria, had sentenced five Bulgarians to prison terms of between one and 15 years for alleged espionage for American and Turkish intelligence services. Sofia Radio said that the defendants were "criminal and depraved elements".
In Taipei, Formosa, the Nationalist Chinese Defense Ministry claimed this date the probable sinking of two Communist gunboats off Matsu Island before dawn on Monday.
In Berlin, it was reported that the U.S. had run into a deadlock with Communist East Germany this date in negotiations to obtain the release of nine imprisoned U.S. Army soldiers. The U.S. Mission in Berlin had announced that the third round of talks had been unsuccessful.
In Nicosia, Cyprus, another Greek property had been burned this date and the British Government had again blamed Turkish Cypriots opposing union of the island colony with Greece.
Republican state chairmen from throughout the nation would begin this date a three-day campaign school aimed at strengthening Republican organization for the November midterm elections.
In Quincy, Mass., a group of 19 Greater Boston businessmen had purchased Quoddy Village at Eastport, Maine, for $250,000, the sale having been announced by the president of a group which had owned the community since 1950.
In Vancouver, British Columbia, frogmen had probed Burrard Inlet and investigators checked wreckage above this date to determine the exact toll and cause of a mysterious bridge collapse during the mid-afternoon the previous day. Sixteen workmen helping to build the new six-lane, 16 million dollar second Narrows Bridge over the inlet were known to be dead and two were listed as missing, with 22 others injured. The two end sections of the nearly completed bridge had given way without warning, on a windless, sunny afternoon the previous day. Forty construction workers were on the steel framework of the pier-supported sections when suddenly, with a muted rumble, the foremost section had crumbled and dropped the jutting end of the bridge 200 feet into the churning inlet separating Vancouver and North Vancouver. The strain had jerked forward the concrete pier holding the section behind and it had nosed downward into the water. An eyewitness said that the "frightening roar of the collapse sounded like a continuous peal of thunder lasting about 15 seconds." A huge crane which had been lifting steel girders to the top of the bridge had toppled and plummeted into the massive tangled wreckage in the water below. Some workmen had been caught and killed in the twisted beamwork and others had been crushed beneath tons of steel and concrete after they dropped into the 40-foot deep inlet.
In Oxford, N.C., it was reported that a man had admitted to police that he had hit a woman with a hammer, choked her, tossed her in a well and pulled up the bucket chain before putting boards back over the top of the well, and that he had thought she was dead. The woman was not dead and despite the ordeal, had scaled the stone sides of the well, torn away the boards and contacted the sheriff. The man was confronted by the woman the previous night in the State Bureau of Investigation office in Raleigh, and appearing shocked, he had muttered, "Ohh ... my God." The woman said that he had tried to kill her because "she knew too much" about an unsolved Granville County murder occurring six years earlier, the victim of which had been the man's father-in-law. The man denied vigorously any connection with that murder. The SBI continued its investigation of the latter murder, the victim in that case having been found axed to death in a bedroom of his home, a converted church building where he lived alone. After a preliminary hearing, the defendant was charged with felonious assault with intent to kill and bound over for trial in Superior Court on July 21. He had been freed on a $5,000 bond the previous day. The woman's statement to police said that she had run into the man, an employee of the Oxford Street Department, at a grocery store near Oxford the previous Thursday. He had known her for some time and offered to drive her home. An apparently angry conversation ensued and in a moment of boastfulness, the woman said, the man had hinted that he knew who had killed his father-in-law. She said that he had been drinking. When he apparently realized that she then "knew too much" about the murder, he grabbed the hammer and started hitting her with it. She said that she regained consciousness in the well with water up to her neck.
Donald MacDonald of The News reports that the Institute of Government in Chapel Hill would be called on to recommend improvements in future operations of Charlotte's scandal-ridden City Recorder's Court, as the City Council had voted this date to ask the Institute's director, Albert Coates, to begin a survey immediately, even while a grand jury in Charlotte was conducting its investigation. The motion had been suggested by Mayor James Smith, with opposition coming from two members of the Council, one of whom, former Mayor Herbert Baxter, calling it "bad timing", as he wanted it to await the conclusion of the grand jury investigation. A motion by Council member Martha Evans to have Recorder's Court Judge Basil Boyd "temporarily relieved" during the course of the grand jury investigation, was voted down. The City Attorney had advised the Council that it could take action against Judge Boyd only based on "malfeasance of office", pursuant to a 1909 law.
In Tulsa, Okla., a man who only wanted a water well had complained as oil oozed over his backyard after drillers had hit oil, albeit not very much, prompting the man to indicate that he could not wash his dishes in oil. The workers drilled deeper and water had been found at 200 feet.
In Chicago, the birthday cake was a hamburger patty, favors were bones and prizes were rubber squeaking mice. All of the guests barked. It was Thistle's four-month anniversary party the previous day, the scotty being owned by a five-year old girl, who, according to her mother, had thought of the idea for the party herself. She had sent invitations to Thistle's playmates in the neighborhood, ten of whom had accepted and shown up. Thistle received candy, lollipops, a one dollar bill and an insulated travel bag. The girl's mother said that Thistle had made no comment, that she was "dog-tired".
On the editorial page, "Judge Boyd Should Quit Immediately" asserts that Judge Basil Boyd of the City Recorder's Court would render a service to the people of the city by resigning forthwith so that the process of restoring public confidence in the court could begin.
Regardless of the outcome of the current investigations of the court, there had to be a new judge to remove the cloud of suspicion under which the court was now operating. It finds that the usefulness of Judge Boyd had ended when the public learned that he was not the master of his court. It was his job to know, order and direct the affairs of the court in a manner serving the requirements of the dignity of law and justice, making it merit public respect, a job which he had not done in three years on the bench.
It indicates that for all it knew, Judge Boyd was an innocent bystander in the mess involving the court, but that there was no room for bystanders, innocent or otherwise, in the administration of the courts.
The City Council could not remove a judge except by an unanimous finding of malfeasance in office, but that if he was reluctant to resign voluntarily, it could urge him to leave for the good of the court and the community. As the court had lost the public's confidence, so had the judge, and the sooner he departed, the sooner the reputation of the court could be restored
"Faubus Can Have the Brooklyn Bridge" wonders what made Governor Averell Harriman of New York and Governor Orval Faubus of Arkansas so friendly to one another, indicating that Governor Harriman's description of Governor Faubus as a "quisling" to American traditions must have made the latter weep from laughter. Governor Faubus was running for another term and getting a little denunciation from New York was just like having ballots in the box in Arkansas. It finds it reminiscent of the question which an old politician had asked when requested to stump another state in support of a friend's campaign: "Do you want me to damn you or praise you?"
But the millions whose daily lives were touched by racial tension could not battle as the two governors, without bleeding. It suggests that had Governor Harriman considered the matter of responsibility for a moment, he would have confined his remarks to platitudes. He had been speaking at New York ceremonies honoring the nine black students enrolled at Little Rock's Central High School the prior fall, and what he said to them about their Governor could not have helped but pour salt into the wounds caused by their enrollment. Governor Harriman did not have to return to a hostile community and the social storm surrounding it. He had only to ponder the Harlem demagoguery of Representative Adam Clayton Powell, who had implied that Mr. Harriman's Tammany Hall was a haven of Uncle Tomism, and to outdo Mr. Powell if he could.
Governor Faubus could afford to be amused by Governor Harriman's heroics. It indicates that it had a perverse wish that Governor Faubus would go to New York and speak for his fellow Democrat, that if so, it was a good bet that Governor Harriman would give him the Brooklyn Bridge to keep him quiet. If Governor Faubus threatened to endorse Governor Harriman's hopes for reaching the White House, he might come away with the Empire State Building and the subway system also.
"Life in America" indicates that, according to the New York Times of May 26, the State Department the prior week had revealed a 1953 directive cautioning its intelligence operatives against speaking to reporters, that they should avoid newsmen always and refuse to answer even the most innocuous questions. If a reporter, for instance, were to ask the capital of Paraguay, the intelligence personnel should not reply because a shrewd reporter might use the most innocent question to betray the intelligence person into a discussion of policy questions.
It indicates that the capital of Paraguay was Asuncion.
"Let the GOP Shear Its Own Vicunas" finds the vicuna, cousin to the llama in the High Andes, never to have dreamed of such national importance now given it. It suggests that to resolve future difficulties presently surrounding Mr. Adams, "a vicuna wearer of some proportions", Latin diplomats ought corral a pair of vicunas for presentation to the President's farm in Gettysburg, and by using House budget-shearing methods, the wool and cloth of the vicunas could be produced on that farm to avoid further entanglements with ambitious mill owners.
To make the animals feel at home in Gettysburg, a tall platform, such as a forest ranger's tower, could be erected to house them, to take the place of their usual mountain habitat. It posits that it would also make an ideal hideout for Mr. Adams, at least until the heat was off, if, indeed, it would go off.
Incidentally, there is today, as there was in 1958, a tall observation tower—not the controversial tourist tower imploded 25 years ago—overlooking the farm and the nearby battlefield, the so-called "Eisenhower Tower" along the rear of the Confederate lines, though actually erected originally by the War Department in the late Nineteenth Century. But the last time we visited there 23 years ago, there were no vicunas or vicuna coats in the tower, not even any "good Republican cloth coat" or llamas of Lima, only the California Memorial visible across the way at the Bloody Angle, just the other side of the stone wall which stood as the last line of defense against Pickett's charge that fateful day in July, 1863, when the "high water mark of the Confederacy" was both achieved and all was lost in the final, futile attempt to establish the mindless impossibility of a separate nation in the South—one which, if by chance had it been achieved, had the field been won in 1863, would have lasted for only a short time until it would have disintegrated for want of the trade with the North on which it depended for sustenance, that with France and Britain requiring transit far too distant in those times, and at risk of perfidy at any moment, to have enabled its system to survive. It is a destination which we recommend to all Republican fatcats, including El Presidente, to climb the many steps to the top for the panoramic view of both the geography of the field and surrounds and the perspective
A piece from the Greensboro Daily News, titled "How New Is New?" indicates that the urbane Charlotte News placed the Daily News among "guardians of the status quo" who "are already erecting their barricades against Change", as symbolized by a new constitution for the state. The News had cited how Maj. General Capus Waynick, "who fought a good fight for a brand new document in 1933, told the newspaper gathering at Chapel Hill … 'I really cannot say that the state urgently needs a new constitution.'"
It goes on to quote from the piece that the Daily News had said that unless an extremely good case could be made for the proposition that the state needed a completely new constitution, the Daily News was inclined to agree with General Waynick that change merely to improve the language and eliminate clutter was not desirable.
It thanks The News but says it was still "a chronic complainer about constitutional deficiencies." Nevertheless, it still believed there might be better ways of curing the problem than by providing for a new constitution, such as by a series of amendments to the old document. In conclusion, it wants to know the difference between a hornets' nest and a Love feast.
The editors note: "Humph!"
Drew Pearson indicates that California Governor Goodwin Knight was feeling no great pain regarding the political setback of Senator William Knowland, who had caused Governor Knight to move out of the re-election race so that the Senator could run for the job. Governor Knight now wanted to be Senator to replace Senator Knowland, but needed, counsels Mr. Pearson, to be more discreet in talking over the telephone, for in gossiping with his office in Sacramento from a restaurant in Los Angeles recently, he was reported to have said: "Things are looking good. J. D. Reilly, vice-president of the Todd Shipyard, came in to see me this morning with a big wad of dough and said 'we're giving this to you because we think you're going to win.'" He had gone on to say that Clint Mosher, an astute political editor of the San Francisco Examiner, had also called to tell him not to worry about San Francisco Mayor George Christopher, the Republican who had garnered a lot of votes against Governor Knight in the primary race for the Senate, that unless he gave his support to Governor Knight, they would knock him out in San Francisco.
The Governor's office told him that he had an invitation to the annual encampment at Bohemian Grove, the exclusive California club which invited leaders from all over the nation to relax in a rustic mountain retreat every summer. The Governor had been there several times and had always seemed to be a joyous guest, but on this occasion, he had other ideas about the members, some of whom had departed from supporting him the previous fall in favor of Senator Knowland. He told his office that he did not want to be around a lot of millionaires acting like tramps. "All you have at the Bohemian Grove is dirty food and dirty beds. I won't go unless it'll serve some political purpose." The Governor's Sacramento office had then told him that his public relations counsel which had withdrawn from his campaign, had issued a statement that the reason for their withdrawal was because the Governor would not take their advice. He said that their statement was against the spirit of their understanding. He then ended the conversation and returned to his lunch.
With so many denials flying around Washington, including the White House, it was interesting to take a close look at the general question of denials, that when issued vigorously, categorically, and righteously, the denial carried weight with the reading public, even if untrue. Later, when the true facts emerged, the public had usually forgotten the denial. He presents a denial issued on January 3, 1955 by Seymour Berkson, the general manager of the International News Service: "The management of International News Service brands as completely irresponsible and false the so-called prediction voiced by radio commentator Drew Pearson to the effect that United Press would be merged with International News Service. Drew Pearson's prediction is as completely irresponsible and false as are many of the other statements Pearson makes—and as everyone knows, this is by no means the first time he has been 100 percent wrong." He indicates that INS had merged with the UP the previous month, becoming UPI.
After White House press secretary James Hagerty had denied that Congressman Adam Clayton Powell of Harlem was in the office of Sherman Adams, as had been stated by the secretary of Mr. Adams, at a time when Congressmen were looking for Mr. Powell to vote on the Hells Canyon dam, newsmen had become inquisitive the previous week regarding the whereabouts of Sherman Adams. Mr. Hagerty had appeared vague, saying he did not know, that he had been calling him everywhere and could not find him. Francis Stephenson of the New York News had asked whether Mr. Hagerty had tried the office of Mr. Powell.
The secretary of Bernard Goldfine, friend of Mr. Adams, drove to work in a Cadillac, had two mink coats and drew a salary of around $300 weekly. She had balked at turning the records of Mr. Goldfine over to Congressional investigators.
It was reported that Mr. Goldfine had charged the $2,400 oriental rug which he gave to Mr. and Mrs. Adams to Strathmere Woolens as a business expense and the vicuna coat given to the Adamses to Northfield Mills as a business expense. If so, he probably would not encounter trouble with the IRS, because in the current Administration, the agency was not going after good Republicans. Nothing had been said about unpaid gift taxes, for instance, which should have been paid on the $18,000 personal expense fund received by Senator Nixon, as exposed during the 1952 presidential campaign.
Doris Fleeson indicates that Mrs. Sherman Adams was probably correct in saying that her husband would be forced to resign as White House chief of staff, but that the actual pressure on the White House was coming from frightened Republicans, not Democrats as Mrs. Adams had suggested. Democrats in Congress had been told by their leaders to let the subcommittee chaired by Representative Oren Harris proceed without help, as it was uncovering plenty of evidence against Mr. Adams, including the payments of hotel bills by his industrialist friend, Mr. Goldfine, the gift of a vicuna coat and an oriental rug also from the same source, and, in apparent return, intercession by Mr. Adams on behalf of Mr. Goldfine with the Federal Trade Commission before which Mr. Goldfine was having difficulties for mislabeling woolen goods in his textile mills, and had even faced a recommendation from the Justice Department of initiating criminal proceedings when Mr. Goldfine did not obey the civil directive to stop the mislabeling, a criminal proceeding which then disappeared, again after the apparent intervention from Mr. Adams.
Meanwhile, the President had taken a wait-and-see approach regarding the fate of Mr. Adams, who was his right-hand man, handling not only access to the President but also domestic policy and the day-to-day operations of the domestic establishment, for which the President had no taste. Veteran observers in Washington believed that if Mr. Adams were to go, the operations of the executive branch and thus the Government generally would likely suffer.
That something like the Adams affair had occurred came as no surprise to the discerning, as it had long been evident that the Administration, which had been initially expert in propaganda, had succumbed to the nemesis of all propagandists, that is that it had begun to believe its own siren song and thus was losing touch with reality.
A prime example was the South American trip by Vice-President Nixon, in which he had run into considerable expression of hatred, especially in Caracas and Lima, leading people to question why the Administration had sent him down there at such a time when what had occurred had been somewhat predictable. Mr. Adams now added to the moral confusion, impeaching the Eisenhower "crusade" and dealing a blow to his already faltering party.
Yet, the President had played golf and sent White House press secretary James Hagerty to sell to the press the inherently absurd thesis that because the regulatory agencies did not respond to the pressures of Mr. Adams, the latter had committed no wrongdoing in merely helping his old friend Mr. Goldfine.
Many of the regulatory agencies had rules of conduct for their employees which apparently exceeded that of the White House, for indiscretions of the type which Mr. Adams had admitted on behalf of Mr. Goldfine would have certainly led to the dismissal of an employee of such agencies. Because those agencies had been largely left to Mr. Adams by the President, both in general and detail, regarding policy and personnel, the question of whether those agencies had standards of ethical conduct which were higher than the White House was all the more compelling. Thus, to use a press agent in an attempt to stifle them was not only vile but not government. "The Presidency is injured by the vacuity of the Hagerty performance; the American people are not foolish even when they would like to be kind."
Republicans privately were quite worried about having to run in the fall through a hard campaign while effectively having to wear the vicuna coat presented to Mr. Adams.
Robert C. Ruark, in Palamos, Spain, finds a curious parallel between Charles Starkweather's killing spree of 11 people, 10 in January and one in December, "in one of the bloodiest sprees since gangs had disputed real estate in Chicago", and that of a British pinup boy, Peter Manuel, 31, who had studied law and recently conducted his own defense magnificently according to his peers. But nevertheless, he was slated to hang the following Thursday after being convicted of six capital murders, one "casual" murder and some other crimes such as burglary and auto theft.
The scene of his motiveless murder had been Scotland, but Mr. Manuel was actually an American citizen, born in Manhattan. He loved attacking women and had started his criminality early, by 15 having been such an accomplished thug that one critic of his talent had said: "If there had been a university for young criminals, he most certainly would have attended it and would have obtained an honors degree."
He defended himself three times, had lost his first case, won his second, but had received the noose in his last case, after a jury had rejected insanity as a defense. The court determined that if he was mad, he was mad in such a smart way that madness could be construed as demoniac intelligence.
He had escaped from reformatories 13 times between the ages of 12 and 16, had robbed poor boxes and regularly had broken into safes, having faced 47 criminal charges since he was 11, apart from the murder charges. He had killed whole families in their homes, battered and murdered pretty young girls, and kicked pregnant women such that they lost their fetuses. It was said that he had done it all for fun to make himself look big, and received tremendous satisfaction from inspiring fear around him.
Mr. Ruark finds that he was certainly not normal, any more than Hitler was normal, as no person was normal who killed callously for fun, as had been the case with Mr. Starkweather, also abnormal, though a jury had rejected his lawyer's plea of not guilty by reason of insanity.
He finds that it took a peculiarly intelligent insanity to engineer the killing of 11 people of different sexes and stations, in different communities, the while stealing cars and coping with the exigencies of daily living. "This brave bucko of the James Dean fetishism school even carried his 14-year-old sweetie along with him to provide creature comforts."
He indicates that no one could say what turned "these creeps" into killers, that it did not appear to be poverty or hope for monetary gain. They were past redemption and rehabilitation and the old Mosaic law was the only answer, except that society had to settle for only one life for the taking of many. He thinks that society had "slobbered" over the young for too long, with the New York police finally having come to the opinion that a few cracked skulls would do more to reform the misguided juveniles than all of the sweet talk in the world, that they would all "chicken" before a show of force.
A letter writer says that she would vote for State Representative Jack Love in the primary runoff for the State Senate against incumbent State Senator J. Spencer Bell, that as a past PTA president, she could appreciate the many times Mr. Love had furnished buses for trips for schoolchildren who would not have been able to go otherwise. She also likes the fact that he had won a fight to increase the pay for school teachers and his efforts to have the minimum wage bill passed for jobs not covered by the Federal minimum wage law, those outside interstate commerce. She urges that working class people should not forget those things and on June 28, ought support Mr. Love who had their welfare at heart.
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