The Charlotte News
Thursday, June 19, 1958
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Congressional Republicans had bowed this date to the President's decision to keep Sherman Adams on the job as his White House chief of staff, but many members made it plain that they were not happy about it. Republican state chairmen had split over the question, with some still insisting that he should leave while others had supported the President's position. Many had declined comment, but could agree with Ray Bliss of Ohio, who had said, "I'm certain I'd rather it hadn't happened." In New York, DNC chairman Paul Butler left no doubt that Democrats would make a major political issue of the Adams case in the coming midterm campaigns. He said, "the President's own conduct makes him as morally responsible for this improper conduct as Mr. Adams is himself." Mr. Adams had testified to the House subcommittee investigating the matter that he had accepted gifts and favors from Bernard Goldfine, a family friend and wealthy textile industrialist, and had also contacted two Federal agencies, the Federal Trade Commission and Justice Department, studying complaints against Mr. Goldfine's companies regarding the mislabeling of woolen products, including a blocked effort to prosecute him by the Justice Department after he had first agreed to comply with a civil complaint from the FTC and then continued to violate the labeling law thereafter. But Mr. Adams said that there was no connection between his receipt of gifts and favors from Mr. Goldfine and his contacts with those agencies, that he had no intent to obtain favored treatment for Mr. Goldfine, that the latter could have received the same treatment by going to the agencies himself. Almost the only members of Congress volunteering positive remarks on the President's decision to retain Mr. Adams were not up for re-election in the current year. Senator Homer Capehart of Indiana said that the President had all of the facts on Mr. Adams "and I'm going along with the President." Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois, the assistant Republican leader, said in a separate interview that it was "the President's determination to make." Neither was facing re-election in 1958. Among Republicans state chairmen calling for the resignation of Mr. Adams or his firing, were Richard Shaw of Colorado, Daniel Louchery of West Virginia, William Cobb of North Carolina and Thomas Judd of Utah.
In Vienna, it was reported that the Communist press and radio of Eastern Europe were making strong anti-American propaganda out of the case of Mr. Adams.
In Raleigh, political repercussions regarding the Adams matter could help North Carolina Democrats in their efforts to regain the 10th District Congressional seat occupied by Charles Jonas, according to Governor Luther Hodges this date. He predicted at his press conference that the controversy would affect every Republican candidate in the country in the fall campaign. The Governor had been asked if he felt that the case would help Democrats in the 10th District, where David Clark of Lincolnton was running against Mr. Jonas, the only Republican in the state's Congressional delegation, and the Governor responded, "Mr. Eisenhower couldn't have rendered the Democrats a greater service." The Governor also said at the press conference that he was keeping his hands off the race for the House speakership in the next State Legislature, that he had telephoned both leading candidates and assured them that he would not take any part, indicating that each candidate had expressed confidence that the Governor was not playing favorites. He said that after the initial primary of May 31, the General Assembly of 1959 appeared to be shaping up as a good one, but that he would not comment on any particular legislative race, that he felt all right about the total outcome. He said he did not plan to appear at a public hearing on June 25 regarding a proposal for a new legislative office building, stating that it was generally known that he favored such a new building—one which would be opened in 1963.
In Washington, the D.C. Court of Appeals had held this date that six civilian employees of the Army Signal Corps at Fort Monmouth, N.J., who had been fired as "security risks" in 1954, amid the charges leveled at the facility by the late Senator Joseph McCarthy, were entitled to bring their complaints seeking to be reinstated, based on the fact that the required notification of the findings supporting the administrative decision had been recited only in conclusory language instead of factual findings supporting the decision. The District Court had held that the plaintiffs had been properly notified and dismissed their complaints.
In London, the Foreign Office reported this date that nearly 3,000 British subjects and their families had been advised officially to consider leaving Lebanon because that country's trouble showed no signs of subsiding.
Also in London, it was reported that Prime Minister Harold Macmillan had announced this date a seven-year plan for the future of Cyprus, which provided for participation of Greek and Turkish governments in the administration of the island.
In Tokyo, it was reported this date that severe drought had gripped South Korea and parts of Japan, threatening crops and water supplies, the water bureau indicating that rationing might be necessary in Tokyo, which consumed 1.8 million tons of water per day.
In Detroit, General Motors said that sabotage of painted car bodies had again interfered with production this date at its Fisher Body Division plant in Kansas City, the company indicating that it had to close its Chevrolet and Fisher Body plants in that city the previous day because of sabotage. What about at the Dodge plants? Or was it Doge? (Remember that old canard, Trumpy-Dumpy-Doer? C'est la vie...)
In New York, a four-day strike of marine engineers against Atlantic and Gulf Coast operators of cargo and passenger ships was spreading to the West Coast, according to management sources this date.
In Boston, John F. (Fats) Buccelli, an accessory in the 1950 Brinks robbery, had been found shot in the head early this date behind the wheel of a flashy sedan and pronounced dead at City Hospital. It had been first believed that he had been hurt when the car he was driving crashed into the rear of a parked truck in the south end. The medical examiner told police, however, that he had been shot in the head and that it was a case of murder, not a crash in the south end. The window in the door near the driver's seat had been smashed. The victim had been given a five-year Federal jail sentence in New York the prior April 25 in connection with a multi-million-dollar narcotics ring, a case which he had appealed. The U.S. Attorney had said that he was a power on the Boston waterfront and had received ten percent of the profits on all narcotics he managed to smuggle into the country. Mr. Buccelli and Edward (Wimpy) Bennett of Weymouth had pleaded guilty to accepting $60,000 of the 1.219 million dollars stolen from Brinks Boston headquarters in January, 1950, and the deceased had been sentenced and served two years in prison, while his co-defendant, Mr. Wimpy, had served one year. Eleven men had been involved in that robbery, the biggest to that time in U.S. history. Eight had been sentenced to life imprisonment. One, who had pleaded guilty and had turned State's evidence, had not yet been sentenced and two others had died before they had gone to trial. In New York, meanwhile, police had noted a link of odd coincidence between the murder of Mr. Buccelli and another gangland hoodlum, John Michael Earle, who had died this date after being shot the previous day in a west side cafeteria during an argument with another man. It was probably better than being shot in the head in the south end.
John Kilgo of The News reports that a local bondsman ordered into City Court this date to be examined about an old case which had apparently been illegally handled, had walked out at noon this date without having to answer any questions. A reporter had asked Judge Basil Boyd of the City Recorder's Court whether he had authority to question the bondsman, and the judge had replied that he supposed he had the authority to question anyone regarding irregularities of the court, and when asked why he had not questioned the bondsman, answered that it was because the matter had not come up this date. A man had been arrested on October 20, 1956 for drunk driving, and the judge had said during the morning that the bond had been ordered forfeited on October 22, 1956, but that there was no record in the docket book of the forfeiture. Neither was there any record of a notice being sent out to the bondsman or to the defendant. A relative of the defendant had told City police that she had paid a bondsman $250 on the matter. The defendant's attorney had said the previous day that he had the solicitor issue a subpoena to bring the bondsman into court this date for questioning about the mysterious $250 payoff which was allegedly made. The latter had appeared in court during the morning and the trial of the defendant had been called about three hours later, at which he was found not guilty of drunk driving. The attorney, the defendant and all other witnesses in the case had then left the courtroom, without the bondsman ever having been called to the stand to answer any questions. A reporter for the newspaper had asked the attorney why he had subpoenaed the bondsman if he did not intend to question him, which the attorney said would come up at a later date. He later said that he was not sure who had paid the $250 or to whom it had been paid.
Judge Boyd said this date that he had absolutely no intention of resigning his post, making the statement in open court in answer to an editorial in the newspaper the previous day calling for his immediate resignation. He said that the newspapers in the community had done a service to the court itself and to the community by helping to clear up what appeared to be quite a few irregularities in the office of the clerk of the court. He said that some of the irregularities had been discovered by the court, itself, after investigation had begun, and that others had been discovered by auditors and newspaper reporters. He indicated that those matters had been cleared up by the court just as fast as the procedure would allow, that the only principal issue regarding the matter with which the court was concerned was the failure of the press to appreciate, understand and recognize the difference between the court, itself, and the office of the clerk of court. He said that the difference between the functions of the two were distinct under the present set-up, as it had been for several years. He said that he would make another statement about the matter, perhaps the following day.
In Memphis, Tenn., police had needed a five-ton truck the previous day to haul to headquarters about $8,000 worth of goods which a woman was accused of shoplifting. The merchandise included eight fur coats, three of which were minks, 153 dresses, 80 skirts, 50 handbags, 76 sweaters, 43 pairs of curtains, 88 silk blouses and stacks of men's clothing, sheets, towels, radios and clocks. The chief detective said that the goods had been found in the woman's home. She was charged with grand larceny.
In Durham, N.C., in the talkathon ongoing at a local furniture store during the morning, the current leader had stopped talking after 72 hours and three minutes, taking the title as the world's champion talker the previous afternoon when she surpassed the 53-hour mark, but kept gabbing until the current morning, saying that she had finally quit because she had surpassed her personal goal of 72 hours and was beginning to feel a little tired. She said that she was going home and go to bed. Her closest rival in the competition had dropped out only four hours short of the 72-hour mark, in the wee hours of the morning. Observers said that the latter had just gone to sleep while talking. As a precautionary measure, she had been taken to a hospital where a doctor said that she was all right except for loss of sleep. Meanwhile, in Fayetteville, men had gotten into the act. A traveling salesman and a used car dealer, representing two fields not known for tongue-tied practitioners, were well past the 60-hour mark during the morning. The two Durham women had each received a congratulatory telegram the previous night from Governor Hodges, who told them that he was proud of their efforts. Both women had surpassed the old world mark of 53 hours and 11 minutes, established by an Army wife from Jacksonville, N.C. The winner in the competition had held forth about subjects ranging from apple sauce to the City of Durham, but by morning, fatigue was creeping up on her rapidly.
In Inglewood, Calif., it was reported that a scientist at the California Institute of Technology had said goodbye six years earlier to his wife, patted his son's head and had left home, disappearing. The FBI, police, family and friends had been baffled by the disappearance, the trail having led 50 miles east to San Bernardino, where it grew cold. His wife had never given up hope that he would return, and the previous day, he had been discovered working as a groom at Hollywood Park racetrack. He said to newsmen that he did not know why he had left, that he remained hazy and confused about it. The day he had left, he said, he sold his car, had taken a bus and had gone to Phoenix, obtaining a job handling freight. Later he had gotten a job handling horses and had returned to California, working at various tracks. His identity had been discovered through a routine fingerprint check, while he used an assumed name. He said that he was still stunned, but was beginning to feel a gradual relief that he would no longer have to live with the secret. He said that he and his wife had quarreled occasionally but that had not been the reason he had left. He said he could remember every detail of everything he had done for the previous six years, but could not say for sure why he had left his wife and child. A graduate of Cal Tech and a World War II test pilot, he had been working as an aeronautical consultant on a secret project when he had disappeared. Police said that there were no charges against him. He said he did not know whether he would return to scientific work, that he loved horses, found them "wonderful, intelligent, sensible creatures" and enjoyed working with them. He was told that his 12-year old son had been adopted by a couple, the male of whom was his wife's cousin. He had chatted with the boy the previous night by telephone and later had a tearful reunion with his mother of nearby Glendale. But his homecoming had also been marked by sadness, as he learned that his wife had died in December, 1955 of cancer.
In New York, a luxurious comfort
station
Only six of ten $10 prize winners had recognized their Social Security numbers in the newspaper's Social Security game in the first two weeks of it. The newspaper awarded one $50 prize and five $10 prizes in the game each week. The winners' Social Security numbers were listed in the Saturday newspapers and winners could claim their prizes by showing their Social Security cards prior to close of business the following Tuesday. Be sure to send them your Social Security number so that others might see it and do with it what they want. Perhaps there is a new Chuck Starkweather out there thinking of a murderous rampage or a new Brinks robber in New York who might wish to have your identity for a short time and produce a Social Security number somewhere hundreds of miles away to the cops when they stop him for having a tail light out. The newspaper was always trying mindfully to provide a public service to everyone.
On the editorial page, "City Council Must Go All the Way" finds that twinges of conscience had been discernible the previous day as the City Council had owned up publicly to its responsibility for laundering the dirty linen of the City Recorder's Court. Mayor James Smith's request of the Institute of Government in Chapel Hill to provide expert advice had been timely and proper. Aside from any wrongdoing which might or might not have occurred, the Council had a duty to provide the people of Charlotte with a court which would administer justice efficiently and exactly.
Improvements in the system, it finds, were necessary, but improvements in the personnel operating the system were more than a little necessary also. It thus again reiterates that Judge Basil Boyd of the court ought immediately resign.
The grand jury investigating the matter had an independent task, but the City Council had the responsibility to provide a local judicial system which could do an effective job. It was not able to transfer the whole load of responsibility to the grand jury, the solicitor or the police chief.
The statement by former Mayor Herbert Baxter, member of the City Council, that nothing could or ought be done until the grand jury determined if there was evidence of possible criminal acts, it finds to have been ridiculous. A grand jury could not perform a system or select the people to run it properly. It could not mend the community's confidence in the manner in which justice was being administered. A grand jury's contributions were at best negative in character and to remedy the mess in the court, some positive contributions were needed, which only the Council could initiate. The Council appeared slowly to be coming to that recognition. Yet, the needed urgency appeared to be lacking and sooner or later, the Council would have to "man the mops and do its duty", better sooner than later.
The same might be said of the Republican Congress vis-à-vis the current mess of the Administration in Washington in 2025—not, really now, the Big, Beautiful Show which Mr. Barnum proclaims it regularly to be on FPTV before his ringleader, Shown N. Sanity, his Deck Swab.
"For Adams, Ike Drops the Standard" indicates that the President was going to keep beside him a man who ought be fired because he could not run the Government without him, at least according to what the President appeared to say in his press conference the previous day. It finds that nothing other than the "indispensable man" theory, an epithet in Republican phraseology during the Roosevelt years, could lend any logic to what the President had to say.
It finds that judged by ethical standards set forth by the President, Mr. Adams would have been fired as other men of ability, such as Air Force Secretary Harold Talbott, had been fired, in whose ousters Mr. Adams, no doubt, had an approving hand. Judged by standards which Mr. Adams had preached on the stump and enforced against lesser officials, he would have been fired, but he did not want to be judged by those standards, despite the fact that by reason of his position and prestige, he was amply equipped to live up to those standards.
Mr. Adams had asked investigating Congressmen to judge him by standards they might apply to themselves, which, it finds, had no bearing on his case. The Administration was responsible for its own ethics and had made a point of setting its standards high, inviting public attention to the fact. It had cast out high and capable officials who had protested that their indiscretions amounted to nothing more than small favors for old friends. But when it came to judging the President's highest aide, the President was reduced to saying: "I need him."
It finds that he doubtless did need him, an official confirmation that Mr. Adams was the operating head of the Government and that without him, the whole force and momentum of the Government would suffer. The force and momentum might be maintained by the continued presence in the White House of Mr. Adams, but at the moment, the President had decided to keep him as the core of Administration virtue collapsed. It finds it to be "pathetic". "Old, unhorsed crusaders don't even fade away."
"Far Too Many Prophets of Doom" indicates that it was distressing to learn that most 1958 commencement speakers had emphasized the suffocating cares and tribulations which the present year's crop of graduates would have to bear during the present tortured times, without communicating the hope and optimism traditional in the commencement season. It wonders where the traditional invitations to ride forth to triumph and greater glory were.
From Michigan State, where Adlai Stevenson had provided the commencement, to DePauw University, where Prime Minister Harold Macmillan had spoken, the subject eventually had gotten around to global woes and the era of peril. The consensus on many platforms seemed to be that the human race were prisoners of history and the despair that there really was no point in trying to escape it.
It indicates that if in 1959, they would have their choice of commencement clichés, it would choose the happy, hopeful ones. Youngsters, since the Lower Paleolithic epoch, had been challenging the hosts of darkness, doing so merrily, confidently and with considerable derring-do, the way it ought to be "until the last ding-dong of doom". Every generation lived within history, but every generation had to try to transcend it also. History became, as James Joyce had put it, a nightmare from which we must try to awaken. It concludes that perhaps the new generation could pull it off, provided it was sufficiently encouraged. "Anyway, let's let them try."
A piece from the New York Times, titled "The Whippoorwill", indicates that few birds were more seldom seen or better known by call and reputation than the whippoorwill in the Northeast. It had a recognizable and persistent call which could disrupt sleep for hours, but was quite memorable and one might travel miles to hear it again.
It belonged to the scientific family, Caprimulgidae, from the Latin for "goatsucker". Because members of the family haunted herds of goats at dusk, the birds long earlier had been believed to milk the goats and live off the milk, while later it was learned that they lived on flying insects and followed the goats only because the latter were hosts to such insects. The name, however, persisted, finally outranking the English common name, "nightjar", which had truth to back it up.
There were other members of the family in the South, chuck-will's-widow and poorwill, with the nighthawk being the least vocal. But it recalled best the whippoorwill, which came north in mid-spring, summered in the North, and went south again for the winter, building no nest worthy of the name, hatching two eggs on a pile of dead leaves, sleeping all day, seldom seen.
"But its call, which sometimes is repeated several hundred times almost without pause, is seldom forgotten. Old men who haven't heard a whippoorwill in years smile with remembering at the very name—whippoorwill—and wish to hear it again."
Drew Pearson indicates that as he had incurred former President Truman's wrath during his time in office for focusing attention on his military aide, General Harry Vaughan, and the latter's operations in the White House regarding the enabling of influence-peddling by "fixers" bestowing such gifts as mink coats and freezers, he suggests that he could be forgiven for making some comparison between the free hotel bills in the earlier Administration and those being paid presently in the Republican Administration. Sherman Adams had now been shown to have received hotel accommodations paid by his friend, industrialist Bernard Goldfine, to include a $2,000 bill at the Sheraton-Plaza Hotel in Boston, $265 at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York, and $262 at the Mayflower Hotel in Plymouth, Mass. The total bill at the latter hotel, covering the Goldfines, the Adamses, and another couple of Worcester, had totaled $1,306 for five days, the total having been paid by Mr. Goldfine for the Adamses at the various hotels being over $2,500.
In 1951, the Senate Banking Committee, chaired by Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, investigating the other Democrats, had revealed that Donald Dawson of the staff of then-President Truman had spent 22 days at the Hotel Saxony in Miami Beach in March and April, 1950, and when he had gone to pay the bill, the public relations office had told him that it was already paid, totaling $660.
That hotel had previously borrowed $15,000 from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, and Mr. Dawson had previously handled personnel at the RFC. When the facts had been disclosed, Mr. Dawson had promptly gone before the Senate Banking Committee, testifying that he had never before known the owner of the hotel and had not known that the latter had received an RFC loan, that as personnel director of the agency, he was not in a position to scrutinize or pass on loans.
Mr. Adams had admitted intervening on behalf of Mr. Goldfine, while Mr. Dawson had testified that he did not intervene on behalf of the Hotel Saxony. He suggests that the comparison might be carried one step further to include public reaction. The New York Herald Tribune, on May 12, 1951, had said that Mr. Dawson had "very little notion of what is proper or improper. The best proof of that rests on his own story of staying free in a $30-a-day room at the Saxony Hotel at Miami Beach… The people expect a high official in the White House to know the difference between proper and improper, and the Saxony episode will be remembered."
But on June 13, 1958, the same newspaper said of Mr. Adams: "Whoever knows Sherman Adams knows that he is as honest as the day is long. His personal integrity is as flinty and as incorruptible as a piece of New Hampshire granite. Those who are using the Boston Hotel bills as an attack upon his character will find such tactics will only boomerang against themselves. The accommodations in question had been rented originally on a continuing basis by a longtime personal friend, Bernard Goldfine."
House investigators had been checking rumors that Mr. Goldfine had put up the money for the home of Mr. Adams in Washington, but had found that the latter leased his home and paid the rent by personal check. The worst which the investigators could prove was that Mr. Adams had been slow in paying his $10 per month garage bill to an elderly woman. She had phoned the real estate agency repeatedly and begged it to collect the tardy rent. Mr. Adams had now moved his car to another garage.
Congressional investigators were also looking at stock purchases of a senior Republican on the Securities & Exchange Commission, Andrew Orrick, who had purchased some General Motors stock within 60 days of a new issue, against the law. When it was called to Mr. Orrick's attention, he sold the stock at a loss. The investigators were now checking whether he had profited in stock gains from any of the decisions made while being on the SEC. They also learned that Mr. Orrick had taken free trips to White Sulphur Springs in West Virginia, courtesy of a bankers' association, and to Hot Springs in Virginia, courtesy of the American Society of Corporation Secretaries while he sat on the Commission which regulated banks and corporations.
He notes that Republican Congressman John Heselton of Massachusetts had announced his decision not to run for re-election on the same day the subcommittee of which he was a member, chaired by Representative Oren Harris, had opened its explosive Boston television channel investigation. Congressman Heselton was a close friend of Mr. Adams and had been trying to prevent the Congressional probe of channel 5 in Boston and the operations of Mr. Adams.
Congressman Bob Hale of Maine, also a member of the Harris subcommittee, had been conspicuously absent during several recent hearings. He had been re-elected by a margin of about 30 votes in 1956 and probably would not be re-elected in the fall. He was a 19th Century gentleman, a close friend of Mr. Adams, and had been troubled over the number of French-Canadians presently being elected mayors of cities in Maine. As his district had become industrialized, Mr. Hale, "a Yankee of the old school", had become almost a stranger.
Senator Frederick Payne of Maine had the late former Governor Paul Dever of Massachusetts working for him as a personal favor when Senator Owen Brewster of Maine had been seeking to block Senator Payne from taking his seat. Ironically, former Senator Brewster had recently been Senator Payne's campaign advisor.
Sam Sears, the Boston attorney for the Herald-Traveler in the channel 5 controversy, who accused the Harris subcommittee of "McCarthyism", was the same lawyer who had been considered as the attorney for the Senate committee investigating the Army, but had been turned down because he had been too pro-McCarthy.
Joseph Alsop, in Jessine, Lebanon, tells of the headquarters of the rebels in the country being an old castle at Mukhtara with magnificent views across a valley to the sea. The little hill town from which he writes was the last Government outpost, and the headquarters, accessible by taxi, was approached across a broken bridge a few kilometers beyond it.
In the 16th Century, there had been a brave attempt to throw off the Turkish yoke in Lebanon and the people of the Druse sect who lived in the high hills had joined enthusiastically the fight under the leadership of the Jumblatt Emirs, with the Emir having his stronghold at Mukhtara. The Jumblatt had ruled the Druses from the hilltop castle.
When reaching the castle, there
appeared scores of men-at-arms, Druse tribesmen with bandoliers of
cartridges and well-polished rifles, lounging everywhere. The main
reception room was full of the chief's retainers who never tired of
singing the chief's praises. (Aside from the chickens and children
playing in the courtyard, it sounds rather like Casa Blanca
these days in 2025 amid the Government takeover of El Distrito
Federal by El Presidente and his junta
He says that the impression began to be less romantic when the principal retainer started to sound like a particularly odious cheap recording of the Cairo radio. "Then the chief himself enters, or rather floats into the room, with the motion of a piece of seaweed carried by a gentle tide." Kamal Jumblatt, the present chieftain of the Lebanese Druses, who was the son of the great leader of the Druse tribe who had caused the French long years of war, was a "pale, attenuated, cadaverous man", who had a high voice raised in an almost bat-like squeak in moments of emotion. He had rambled amiably on about Pascal, Henri Bergson, and the early Hindu mystics. He appeared to be a long-time convert to the Hindu doctrine of nonviolence, but said that there were times when "violence becomes a duty." (Again, substituting "Christian nationalism", a totemic religion if any there be to it, for Hinduism, the analogy to Proyecto 2025 Casa Blanca remains apropos.)
Violence was currently a duty, he explained, because it was necessary to drive pro-Western President Camille Chamoun from the presidency. When asked whether the latter's government had not supported Jumblatt's power in his own hills in the last election, the response had been that it was ludicrous and outrageous that the rebellion against the President had been inspired by Egypt's Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser or any other outsider, that the President had to go at once, but only because the people of Lebanon insisted upon his going. When asked about the report that General Shaukh Shukair was with Jumblatt, he answered that naturally the General paid him a visit occasionally, but that it had been very long since he had seen him. At that moment, one could see the General in the courtyard, seemingly giving orders to two of Jumblatt's officers, who were being quite respectful, although the General was wearing civilian clothes. The General had once been chief of staff of the Syrian Army.
The taxi driver who had arranged the pilgrimage subsequently reported that at least half of the castle's men-at-arms were Syrian Druses. It was pretty certain that the other military leader of the Jumblatt forces was the Jordanian General, Ari Hayari, exiled for his role in the previous year's plot by Premier Nasser on the life of King Hussein of Jordan. It was pretty doubtful whether Jumblatt any longer controlled his own revolt in the hills, even if he was not aware of that fact.
Mr. Alsop finds that it was easy enough not to take Jumblatt seriously, but in his nearly impregnable hills, with about 2,000 tough Syrian and Lebanese Druses fighting under his peculiar command, he was a very serious phenomenon.
The pattern was everywhere approximately the same in Lebanon in terms of the other elements in the civil war, whether it was the addled, idealistic local leaders such as Jumblatt or the unsavory chieftain of the Beirut Basta, Saeb Salam, or Rashid Karami in Tripoli. In each center of revolt, one would find a man enjoying a strong local following for one reason or another, who disliked the President's regime for one personal reason or another, and always that man was resourceful, strong and increasingly controlled by aid from Premier Nasser.
He finds it a drama much more odd and more protracted than the previous year's Jordanian drama, but equally as crucial. The previous year, Premier Nasser had sought to win all of the Middle East by destroying King Hussein, and in the current year, skillfully using all types of internal Lebanese discord and rivalries, the Premier was again seeking to win all of the Middle East by destroying President Chamoun in Lebanon. He indicates that as he wrote the piece, the outlook was far from bright.
Walter Lippmann indicates that on the bill to reorganize the Pentagon, the President had received from the House most, but not all, of that which he had sought, that broadly speaking, the Democratic House had followed him in everything having to do with the command of the armed forces, but opposed and defeated him on certain basic questions regarding strategic planning, fundamentally the question of whether the high and longer-range planning should be centralized in one staff or remain the joint responsibility of the services. During the months since the President had put forth his proposals, it had often been said that on a military question, the country was bound to accept the views of its most famous soldier, the President. But the majority of the House had drawn a line between the President's recommendations which they would accept and those which they rejected.
They followed the President on military questions where, as the former Allied supreme commander during World War II, he could speak with great experience and authority, on the questions relating to command and operation of the complicated forces. But they did not follow him in areas where he lacked great experience and had not earned any special distinction, the area of strategic planning. During the war, the strategic planning had been done by Prime Minister Churchill and President Roosevelt and by the combined chiefs of staff. General Eisenhower had been the leader in the European theater as the supreme operator, but not the supreme planner. When after the war he had been the Pentagon chief of staff of the Army, prior to the Korean War, he had not made a record for strategic insight and foresight. Later, when he had become NATO supreme commander, there was little in the record to show that he grasped the import of nuclear weapons on the strategic planning of NATO forces.
There was, therefore, substantial ground for the House to discriminate between operational matters and strategic planning. The basic issue between the President and the House leadership was provided in a report from Representative Carl Vinson of Georgia on behalf of the Armed Services Committee, which stated: "There are two well-defined systems of strategic planning and direction of military operations. One is the authoritarian system, topped by an all-powerful single military chief of staff, supported by an overall Armed Forces General Staff which he dominates and controls. This system … is superficially effective in arriving at swift decisions—a faculty which it possesses because it is shaped to eliminate from consideration alternative courses of action. The second system for strategical planning is exemplified by the Joint Chiefs of Staff," each of whom "is subject to the civilian authority of the Secretary of Defense…, is free to express and to advocate his views and to prevent and press for the full, proper and effective employment of the particular capabilities of his own service."
The President had not sought reorganization by a General Staff system, but had asked for something close to it in principle, the virtual suppression of the civilian secretaries of the various services and to take away from the chiefs of staff their present right to appeal to Congress. That right of appeal prevented any of the services from being overridden by a combination of the other two and made certain that on any great issue, its views could not be suppressed and had to be debated. It was on that point that the House had opposed the President, a point of great importance.
The President, in his hot-tempered statement of May 28, had described the right of appeal to Congress as "legalized insubordination" in the context of present law. Mr. Lippmann finds it revealing as a phrase, showing that the President was fundamentally opposed to the principle of strategic planning by the Joint Chiefs and in favor of a staff system of planning which would provide quick and uncontested decisions "so that the man at the top has only to approve or disapprove—but not to weigh alternatives."
He concludes that while it was the most effective way to command and operate an army, it would be a dangerously inadequate way to make high military policy, to perform the strategic planning for global commitments and rapidly evolving weapons.
Framed Edition
Links-Date — Links-Subj.