The Charlotte News
Friday, June 20, 1958
SIX EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that a Republican member of a House investigation subcommittee, Representative John Bennett of Michigan, had called this date for an inquiry into all of Bernard Goldfine's contacts with Federal officials during the previous ten years. He said that it was his opinion that Sherman Adams, White House chief of staff, was not the only official of the Federal Government who had enjoyed the hospitality of Mr. Goldfine, an old friend of Mr. Adams. Mr. Adams had testified that he had accepted gifts and favors from Mr. Goldfine, a wealthy Boston textile industrialist, on the basis of their longtime friendship, and had admitted that he had gotten in touch with two Federal agencies on matters relating to Mr. Goldfine, but denied that he sought any special treatment for his old friend. Mr. Bennett spoke in an interview, as the Pentagon had disclosed that more than a quarter of a million dollars worth of textile contracts had been awarded to Mr. Goldfine's companies since the beginning of the Eisenhower Administration in 1953. The Pentagon had supplied the figures on request, with no implication of influence or wrongdoing. In a separate development, the Securities & Exchange Commission had unanimously denied that it had dropped a case against one of Mr. Goldfine's firms after an inquiry regarding the matter by Mr. Adams.
In Prague, Czech authorities notified the U.S. Embassy this date that they were holding in custody an American soldier who had been missing since June 10. The soldier, 34, had disappeared while fishing with a relative of his Austrian-born wife in a river which formed part of the Austrian-Czech border. The acknowledgment confirmed suspicions of Austrian police that the soldier had been seized by Communist border guards. There was no indication to the Embassy as to the charges against the soldier, but it was believed that they would charge him with espionage, customary in such cases. The Embassy said that the Czechs did not say where they were holding the sergeant, but said that he was in good health. U.S. officials said that his release might take some time.
In Lyallpur, West Pakistan, police had opened fire on striking textile workers this date and informed sources said that 16 persons had been killed and 20 injured, but the police claimed that there were only five dead and seven injured.
Secretary of State Dulles told Congress this date that it would be reckless to take lightly Russia's threat of economic warfare against the U.S.
A million Government white-collar workers had received a ten percent pay raise this date, retroactive to the previous January, totaling 250 million dollars in back pay.
In Tokyo, Hisako Nagata, 21-year old survivor of the U.S. atomic bombing of Nagasaki in August, 1945, had left for Moscow this date for a year of free medical treatment which she hoped might remove her scars and restore her voice.
In Wadesboro, N.C., it was reported that Lamar Caudle had received word this date at noon that he would not have to begin serving a two-year Federal prison sentence the following day, as it had been stayed by the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington. Mr. Caudle had refused to talk to the press during the morning before word of the action had arrived. The News had told Mrs. Caudle of the action and she had said that her husband would be relieved to hear it. A few minutes later, Mr. Caudle had told the newspaper that he did not feel anything at present but relief. He said he had never lost faith that the court would consider the new evidence so important to his case. Mr. Caudle, former head of the Justice Department's tax division, along with Matthew Connelly, the former appointments secretary for President Truman, had both been convicted of conspiracy in fixing an income tax case of Irving Sachs, a St. Louis shoe company executive, resulting in no jail time for Mr. Sachs after his plea of guilty to income tax evasion in 1951 and being fined $40,000, because the court found him too ill to serve a jail sentence. In seeking a new trial, the pair had cited sworn statements by Harry Schwimmer, formerly an attorney for Mr. Sachs and a co-defendant with Mr. Connelly and Mr. Caudle until he had become ill during the trial and his case had been dismissed. Mr. Schwimmer reportedly said in his sworn statement that he had bought oil royalties, in question in the case, in Mr. Caudle's name without the knowledge of Mr. Caudle. Mr. Caudle explained that Mr. Schwimmer had not been able to talk until two months earlier because of his stroke during the trial. The Government had charged that Mr. Caudle had received the oil royalties for using his influence in the Sachs case, a charge which Mr. Caudle had denied and said that he had recommended probation for Mr. Sachs because the latter had suffered a heart attack. Mr. Connelly had testified that he had received a coat from Mr. Schwimmer at a Kansas City hotel, but said that the gift had nothing to do with the Sachs case. The court order allowed time for both men to have a hearing on the new evidence in their effort to obtain a new trial. The stay of the prison sentence would be effective until a decision was made on the motion for new trial.
In Nashville, a Federal District Court judge had approved a plan to desegregate the city's school system on a grade-a-year basis, indicating that the gradual plan would be in the best interests of all concerned. The judge provided his ruling the previous day on the school board's gradual plan, which would mean that the second grade would have integration the following fall, the third grade, the fall after that, and so on through the 12th grade. The first grade was desegregated the previous fall amid sporadic violence, and 11 back pupils had remained enrolled in five previously all-white schools throughout the school year. The judge said that full desegregation was not denied but merely postponed. He said that the gradual plan was supported by the preponderance of the evidence as a just solution, that it would be an unwarranted invasion of the lawful prerogatives of the legally constituted school authorities should the court undertake to set the board's judgment aside and substitute some other plan. Nashville had become the third city in Tennessee to begin school desegregation since Brown v. Board of Education had been decided in 1954. The Federally financed high school and one junior high school at the atomic city of Oak Ridge had been integrated in 1955, and the high school at Clinton had admitted black students the previous fall, the latter having occurred also amid violence. Both schools were in Anderson County and both remained desegregated. Regarding the Nashville situation, when the first grade students had been desegregated the prior fall, someone had blown up the Hattie Cotton Grammar School, the perpetrator of the explosion still not having been identified.
In St. Louis, it was reported that rioting blacks shouting "Little Little Rock" had battled St. Louis County police early this date after an officer had arrested a 17-year old youth on a traffic charge. About 35 blacks from the village of Meacham Park near suburban Kirkwood had been involved in the hour-long riot. County police said that seven of them had been arrested after four patrol cars had been called to the scene to quell the riot. Bricks and stones had been hurled at the patrol car of one patrolman who had stopped a car driven by the 17-year old based on a careless driving charge. The patrolman said that he had ordered the teenager from the car for a search and that he had come out fighting. The other men came from nearby houses and taverns as the patrolman sought to subdue the motorist and his 17-year old companion. The patrolman said that it seemed that "there were a thousand, but I guess there weren't more than 35 or 40." He said that he battled his way back to his patrol car and radioed for help and then a brick had crashed through the window of the car and struck the patrolman on the arm, as the group chanted "Little Little Rock". Four one-man patrol cars had quickly arrived at the scene and another 10 or 15 minutes had been needed to quell the riot, according to officers. The motorist and his passenger, as well as five others, had been taken to county police headquarters and booked on charges of assaulting an officer, inciting a riot and resisting arrest. The officer was treated at a hospital for cuts and bruises.
In Boston, it was reported that a blonde nightclub hostess, friend of John F. (Fats) Buccelli, 44, slain gangster, had walked into police headquarters during the night with her lawyer and the police had announced that they would question her this date. A police captain had told newsmen that he intended to interrogate the 25-year old woman, in whose name the expensive sedan was registered in which the pudgy, 290-pound hoodlum had been found murdered early the previous day. The deceased's widow had returned from New York the previous night upon learning of her husband's death. Police planned to question her also in their determination of who had killed the man, who had served time in prison as an accessory in the 1950 Brinks 1.219 million dollar robbery. Two .38-caliber slugs had been shot into the head of the man while he was behind the wheel of the shiny, new automobile in the South End. The car was only a short distance from the office where Mr. Buccelli and Edward (Wimpy) Bennett, 29, had hidden about $50,000 of the loot from the Brinks robbery in a picnic cooler between wall partitions. Mr. Buccelli had pleaded guilty to being an accessory to the robbery. Eleven men had been named in the case as the robbers, eight of whom were serving life sentences, two had died before trial, and one had pleaded guilty and, after cooperating with the prosecution, was still awaiting sentence.
In Erie, Pa., three men waving snub-nosed pistols had grabbed $35,000 in a bank hold-up this date after warning employees to "obey orders if you don't want your throats cut."
Ann Sawyer of The News reports that a woman who said that she had paid a bail bondsman $250 to handle a case for her nephew had not been called into court this date but that her sworn statement was expected to go before the grand jury. City Recorder's Court Judge Basil Boyd said that he would not ask that the statement taken by detectives on Tuesday be brought into court. Earlier in the morning, the judge had asked an investigating officer if he had a statement from the woman about the bond having been paid and he said that he did. The judge did not ask for it. When questioned by reporters following court, the judge said that he would naturally assume that the statement would go to the grand jury, that he had no reason to ask for it. He said he had nothing else to say, when asked about his statement the previous day that he would not resign from his position. He had indicated the previous day that he might have more to say on the subject this date.
John Kilgo of The News reports that five agents from the SBI had met this date with Charlotte Police Chief Frank Littlejohn and Solicitor Grady Stott to discuss irregularities in the City Recorder's Court. When the men had finished the meeting, all of them refused to say what had been discussed.
In San Francisco, a four-year old boy had fallen 20 feet when he tumbled off a fire escape outside the apartment of his parents, breaking his chin. He was reported, however, to be doing all right at a San Francisco hospital. His surname happened to be Chinn, and thus the notoriety on the wires.
In Fayetteville, N.C., it was reported that a traveling salesman had ended a talkathon stint early this date after 90 hours. The 36-year old man of Fayetteville had uttered his final words at 6:00 a.m. His 38-year old opponent, a used-car salesman, had stopped talking about three hours later after 85 hours and 35 minutes. A 16-year old Fayetteville high school junior had started what she hoped would be a record-breaking talkathon soon after both men had ended their efforts. In Durham, a woman had talked for 72 hours and three minutes to establish the record for at least a short time. The Fayetteville contest permitted the talkers a five-minute break every two hours. They ate and drank while talking and could discourse on anything except sex, religion, communism or any controversial subject. Well, everything becomes controversial if you talk about it long enough. Thus, silence seems to be the key.
On the editorial page, "The Judge Must Face the Music" indicates that City Recorder's Court Judge Basil Boyd's attempt to disassociate himself from his own court was preposterous, that if there had been a difference, as he put it, between the court itself and the clerk of court's office, it was because he personally had permitted that difference to exist.
It finds that as judge, he was responsible for the manner in which the court operated, and could not separate out functions of the court.
When he said that the matters were being cleared up by the court as fast as the procedure would allow, it wonders why the procedure had not been available for the previous three years during which the matters had occurred, before they had been brought to the public's attention by Charlotte newspapers.
It finds that the judge had his chance previously and had fumbled it, that by his own utterances, he had been unable to take full charge of the court and maintain it above suspicion, and now was attempting to join the spectators and point, with them, at the mess. "It simply will not do."
"The SBI Offers a Helping Hand" indicates that the assistance of SBI agents in investigating conditions in the City Recorder's Court ought be welcomed by all concerned. It had a staff of able, well-trained investigators and the supervisor and three agents assigned in Charlotte at the request of the Superior Court solicitor could be of great help in untangling the affairs of the court and ferreting out the trail of any wrongdoers.
It posits that, gauged by the proportions of the present confusion in court records, the grand jury would need all of the expert help available to it to determine what had occurred and why. The call for the assistance of the SBI spoke well for the determination of local investigators to clean up the mess.
"The Monster Impulse Always Returns" indicates that Premier Nikita Khrushchev had denounced the evil of Joseph Stalin, despite he and other current rulers of the Soviet Union having been raised up under him. Mr. Khrushchev had sought persistently to conceal with his smile and jollity the terrible bloodiness of the Stalin regime. World statesmen, including Secretary of State Dulles, had professed to see at work within the Soviet forces and efforts leading toward gradual liberalization of the regime. No one wanted to admit that an enemy which one could not destroy without destroying oneself was incapable of reform.
But the monster impulse always returned to the Communist apparatus. Mr. Khrushchev had previously gone to Belgrade with his hat in hand to beg the pardon of Marshal Tito for Stalin's assaults on him, assuring Yugoslavia that Moscow would tolerate differences of opinion. But now, he was assaulting Tito, himself. Mao Tse Tung, the previous year, had said that the Chinese Communists wanted to "let 100 flowers (opinions) bloom." But as soon as the buds of dissent had appeared, the hangman had gotten busy. For an unknown but considerable time, the leaders of the Hungarian revolt of 1956 had been allowed to keep their lives, and from the Kremlin down, the regime momentarily overthrown had been condemned for mistakes. But in the end, former Premier Imre Nagy, leader of the revolt, a Communist who wanted only a little freedom for his country, had been executed in recent days, along with three associates, with the orders for it having come undoubtedly from the Kremlin.
It thus concludes that Communism's barbaric reflexes had been made apparent even as Mr. Khrushchev's "peace" drives had been reaching a peak. But if there had been any comfort in the fact that the Kremlin had dealt itself a tremendous propaganda defeat, there could be nothing but sadness in the fact that Stalin's evil still lived in his heirs, and still thirsted for blood.
Anyone, incidentally, on the far right in America hoping breathlessly for His Highness, the dictator, to end the war between Russia and Ukraine, not because those people care a fig for people being killed "over there", but only because they wish to see Il Duce, the Fuehrer, enhance his power at home so that he can continue to attack liberal Democrats and anyone else who does not support him and his autocratic, oligarchic policies, needs to think again. For Donny does not have authority solely himself to commit this country to anything, whether guarantees of territory or anything else. Every President of the United States must abide by the Constitution and laws of the United States which provide for the Congress to affirm any treaty commitments made by a President by a two-thirds majority vote of the Senate, thus requiring bipartisanship. While reasonable commitments will always attain that type of support, it is highly questionable whether it is present for Donny's unilateral pronouncements currently regarding his attempt to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, as if he is attempting to sell a 1958, slightly used beaut of a car, a Volkswagen, a "people's car", meanwhile hoping for that which his press secretary calls the "Noble" Peace Prize, emblematic of just how callow and dumb the morons populating his Administration are, especially those who have orchestrated the implementation of "Project 2025", which they are singularly intent on implementing, including all of its "unified president" concept, which is the functional equivalent of a dictatorship, reliant entirely on a compliant simple majority in Congress, which he will undoubtedly have, judging by the first seven months of his term, for the next 16 months until the midterms of 2026, "simple" and spare being the operative words for the cowardly Republicans supporting, even if usually quite hypocritically, every move he makes toward authoritarianism. But "NATO-like guarantees", based on the wobbly language of Article 5 of NATO, require the supermajority of Congress to be effective because there is no guarantee at work from the prior commitment of the U.S. to NATO, as neither Ukraine nor Russia are members.
Thus, caveat emptor. Donny's assurances on anything are not worth the tape on which they are recorded or even the paper on which he subscribes his ostentatious signature, any more than the many contracts he routinely broke while a businessman. He will say anything for the sake of harvesting at home the support of dupes and stupes, those ever dwindling numbers of the gullible who genuflect before His Holiness. He is good at only one thing, salesmanship. Leadership is a foreign concept to him, a waste of verbal and mental energy, for he views principle to be the province of weak suckers, following the law, the resort of "deep-state swamp" fuzzy-brained wonks of the anti-democratic bureaucracy, that image is everything, substance, nothing. On the same day he is pretending to broker peace because he only wants to "stop the killing over there", "terrible thing", he has troops deployed in the nation's capital to halt imagined bogeys of the night, deployed to arrest American citizens for throwing a ham sandwich at a cop and other such serious criminality, under authority never before undertaken by a President of the United States in time of war, let alone at a time of peace. That assertion of authority at home by masked goon squads seeking to undo eveything liberal about the country, including its Constitution, may be very appealing to third-world, tinpot dictators abroad and even to some few dupes and stupes in the United States who favor such treatment of selected areas and citizens of the country with whom they disagree. It does not have the approval of the majority of Americans, who do not want the country turned into an autocracy, an armed camp in which all dissent is chilled to provide the appearance of peace when there is none, on the old premise that when you have them by their tenders, their hearts and minds will follow. That majority of Americans still value our historical restraint and genuine desire for peace at home and abroad, not wanting to see reasoned diplomacy and tempered response turned into cheap theater comprised of spur-of-the-moment talking points and continued divisive rhetoric regarding stolen elections through mail-in ballots and the "Russia, Russia, Russia hoax" to provide a Dictator off Fox Prop ground for asserting that he ought receive the "Noble" Peace Prize because he is so noble in intellect, reason and bearing, the paragon of animals.
So, again, we counsel anyone who might rely on El Presidente and his word, to stop and consider the American system and what is currently missing from his varying "assurances", that being the assent of Congress, through a bipartisan resolution giving a supermajority sense of the Congress in advance that any "guarantees" His Highness might utter will ultimately be supported by that bipartisan supermajority, representing thereby a fairly debated and fully understood, principled position of the consensus of the American people. He does not have that support at present, quite the contrary. Do not check your suspicions of this guy at the door for the sake of nice photo-opportunities and instilling of false hope, which, when dashed, will be worse than the present war by the fact of adding to it revolt internally, a phenomenon carefully plotted and prized by the enemy.
He is a con-artist from way back, one in whom few believe and most distrust in his own country. He seeks credit abroad only to further his own personal brand for the sake of his vanity, that he can equal his perceived arch-nemesis, former President Barack Obama, and have his "Noble" Prize. In this instance, his sycophants are actually referring to Noble Motors, Inc., home of the cheap deals and steals on wheels in greater Nowheresville, Maga Station, USA, where a sucker is born every second, usually dying before they get two blocks off the lot, not realizing that every car off that lot emulates the owner, "Honest Donny, the Noble Man", humming along just like a little kitten at first until not only found to have a stuck accelerator when revved to its higher range of strained power, but also lacking brakes upon encountering the first stop sign, provided the steering column does not wrench itself loose of its tenuous mooring before that, turning to dust every dream and chance and hope you ever cherished. For the proprietor who so Nobly deigned to sell it you with his "personal guarantee" has just last year been convicted for felony fraud in his business accounting practices and been held liable for millions of dollars for sexual assault, among numerous other civil judgments, not really the sort of character with whom you wish to do business if you truly value peace, prosperity and your life as you seek to sail down the road in the product of one of his sales jobs.
"Dang, ol' buddy. What's goin' on? What's you mean bringin' that thang back in here like 'at? It's all wrecked already, and you just had her for about five minutes, not even long enough to get acquainted real good before you done screwed the pooch. I tried, but that dang Swamp over 'ere, with all their regolations and all that law stuff way over my head and yours, too, now—just admit it—, done made me have to sell it to ye 'as is' without no real guarantee. I may have said 'guarantee' but that was just a figer o' my speech, one of my sales points that they done taught me at the Academy of Salesmanship, where I scored high, high, high. I thought I told you that when I said 'NATO-like', as my business manager instructed me to do so as not to confuse ya'll like 'at. I know I told you that. Look here, it's right in our contract. I tried and so's you cain't deny me now my Noble, just 'cause those people in the Swamp don't go along and you done wrecked it anyway on your own by not payin' attention to the gauges."
We have heard Administration shills suggest in the past few days that the fly-over of Vladimir Putin with U.S. Air Force planes upon his smiling, hand-shaking warm welcome to U.S. soil by El Presidente last Friday, for the first time since Russia's launching unilaterally, unjustifiably of the attack on Ukraine in early 2022, was, in fact, not a salute, as proclaimed by Russian state propaganda, but rather an implied threat of force by the U.S., that subliminally it meant to suggest to Russia that the same thing which occurred with Iran's nascent nuclear program two months ago could occur to Russia. If such intimidation was the true intent, it further shows the stupidity and callowness of the current Administration. For impliedly threatening this nation's longterm Cold War nemesis with preemptive bombing, whether conventionally or by nuclear weaponry, is nothing short of madness, the practicing of old Dulles brinksmanship without a recognized brink by which to gauge the precipice for the blinded old man to see with his ears the point at which to halt and step back, with the ultimate effect inevitably being to prompt a new cold war or even, at worst, a hot war directly between the U.S. and Russia, possibly, short of that, prompting Russia to engage in a preemptive strike carefully masqueraded as a terrorist attack of "unknown origins" on the nation's interests abroad or even on U.S. soil. No one but a complete, short-sighted moron would hold forth publicly, solely for the sake of reassuring Fox Prop viewers, that such a fly-over was an implied threat to the Russians, demonstrating again the Administration's complete lack of any detailed appreciation of history of the post-World War II era or that what little they may have, they have carefully weighed against the dire political consequences of further alienating their ultra-rightwing base and so, on balance, have calculatedly figured that the risk of igniting World War III, in fact, is worth the candle against losing what little political support the Administration has left in the country after only seven months in office, that should such a response occur from Russia, they could always rely on Fox Prop to blame it on former Presidents Biden and B. Hussein Obama, that some "illegal alien" in the country because of "open borders" was the culprit—just as was the case in 2001?
We need not counsel of the continuing "monster impulse" at work in the Kremlin, as it speaks for itself each day, with long-term manifested intent to carry on as before.
The only truly effective longterm peace plan in that region would be the unconditional surrender of Russia, a complete acknowledgement that it started the 2022 war without justification, and submission of itself to the International Criminal Court at The Hague for a determination of just consequences
"Information, Please" tells of one of the newspaper's reporters having asked Representative Charles Jonas whether he thought the President ought fire Sherman Adams, and that after reading the several hundred words of the reply of Mr. Jonas, a question had occurred as to whether Mr. Jonas thought that the President ought fire Mr. Adams.
"The Mockingbird Gets Bad Reviews" indicates that City Council member Herman Brown had listened very patiently to a woman who did not want to listen to the mockingbird in her yard all night. But at the end of the telephone conversation, the only thing he could offer was the negative advice not to shoot the bird, advising that it was against the law to discharge firearms in the city. The woman had already rejected his positive suggestion that perhaps she could air condition her home and seal out the bird's song, but she had responded that it would be too costly.
It finds that she would likely have the problem for a long time. It advises that there was no law against going after the bird with a slingshot, but that it would be difficult to hold a flashlight in one hand and operate the slingshot with the other. In addition, the neighbors and the Humane Society might look askance at seeking to drive off a mockingbird in the wee hours of the morning in such manner.
It finds that there was no sensible answer other than to sell the property to someone who would not suspect the place was inhabited by a mockingbird, and then to move to a houseboat anchored somewhere east of the Gulf Stream. For it indicates that in the summer in the South, soon or late, every house was equipped with a mockingbird and there were no hiding places from it.
Without doubt, the title to Harper Lee's 1960 novel came from this piece.
"Life in Boston" quotes the New York Times: "So here's to good old Boston,/ The land of the bean and the cod,/ Where the Adamses speak only to Goldfines,/ Under conditions exceedingly odd."
A piece from the Raleigh News & Observer, titled "The Hedge", indicates that when lawns had been larger, there had been many hedgerows or rows of privet, as they had been universally called in small towns. A homeowner could let his roof cave in and his miserable children go without shoes in winter, but the privet would be cut regularly and meticulously, using tremendous shears and running a taut string along the top line to make certain that every cut was in perfect relationship with the one before it. After he completed the job, his neighbor would inevitably drop by to provide an inspection and suddenly pronounce that the pruner was the best he had ever seen at trimming the privet.
Now, one did not see so many hedgerows as earlier, but one saw enough to provide "an idea of what poetic fancies the moon was capable of when playing along the deep, deep green rows. In the old days, there was usually a small orchard on the premises, behind the hedge, and the combination of green and white stuck in your heart and in your throat and brings a quiver today even in contemplation."
The old privet grew to monumental proportions, with subterranean passages providing excellent places for games of hiding, secret club meetings, and spots to which to escape temporarily parental wrath. It had been the habitat of birds and squirrels, but most of all, had been father's "pride and joy, and at night on the porch, along about now, the moon tied ribbons in its green hair and that was all the difference in the world."
Drew Pearson again looks at the matter involving Sherman Adams and the gifts he received from his friend, industrialist Bernard Goldfine, in seeming exchange for his having interceded on the latter's behalf before the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department. Mr. Pearson indicates that the President and the Vice-President both received many gifts and it was not against the law for them to do so as long as they performed no special favors for the donors. But no President in recent history had received so many gifts as had President Eisenhower. Past Presidents had received turkeys on Thanksgiving, and an occasional brace of wild duck, pheasants or hams. Calvin Coolidge had received various gifts of cowboy boots, hats, and fishing boats. When he had moved temporarily into Mr. Pearson's late mother-in-law's home while the White House had been undergoing repair, he had so many wool socks that his wife had swiped a pair and given them to Mr. Pearson as a souvenir. They had been too small and collected moths and he was tempted to give them back to Mr. Coolidge.
The Gettysburg home of the President was virtually furnished with gifts, including a mechanized kitchen presented by a top electrical manufacturer. One donor had given 400 nut trees, another, 48 Norway spruce trees, another, 50 shrubs, another, a putting green plus its maintenance at about $1,000 per year. A total of 55 head of cattle, plus a pony and a stallion had been provided also as gifts. He had been given a $4,000 tractor with FM radio and cigarette lighter, various farm implements, a corn planter, a disk harrow, and a side-delivery rake as well. So many gifts had been received that an extra electric range and grill plus a huge walk-in storage freezer had been stored in the garage because there was no place for them in the house.
But there was no evidence that the President had performed any favors for the donors. The largest gift had been the $200,000 cabin and other improvements built at the Augusta golf course by a group of men who were high in big business and most of whose firms were recipients of Government contracts. A huge chest of silver service for 18 had been provided the President by Sir Peter Roberts, master cutler of England.
It was in the area of gifts from foreign governments that the President and Vice-President could be in hot water. For not even a set of postage stamps could be provided the President by a foreign government. President Roosevelt, a stamp collector, had once looked longingly at the stamps sent to him by foreign governments, but had sent them to the State Department vault to be kept until he left office. Mrs. Roosevelt had once received an aquamarine from President Vargas of Brazil, but had given it to the Roosevelt Library at Hyde Park. When Mrs. Harry Hopkins had received a necklace from Lord Beaverbrook, there was a huge amount of criticism, despite the fact that Lord Beaverbrook was a publisher and had no connection with the British Government.
By contrast, the Vice-President's home was studded with gifts from foreign governments, in flagrant violation of Article I of the Constitution.
We shall not forget the 400 million dollar "gift" of the 747 jet by Qatar to the United States and whether El Presidente will reciprocate with impeachable offenses, hoping that his base, usually unable to remember much beyond what they see on FPTV today by tomorrow, will forget about it. Of course, that now may be the least of his worries regarding chargeable impeachment offenses.
Doris Fleeson indicates that the President had decided that his right-hand man, Sherman Adams, would stay on even at the price of there being therefore a double standard of morality between the White House and the rest of the Government because the President, by his own admission, needed him. She had never heard a President before express a public plea of such personal inadequacy. He had earlier demanded the truth about the case, but during the appearance of Mr. Adams before the subcommittee chaired by Representative Oren Harris, the President had faced up to the idea of performing his job without Mr. Adams and had found that prospect bleak.
He had thus decided that despite the fact that the Harris subcommittee hearings were far from over and would not be stopped, he needed Mr. Adams and his statement of that need had represented his plea to the press and to the American people to say no more about it.
It had occurred to some reporters at the press conference that the duty of the press, in being denied the right to do their job, was to say, "Thank you, Mr. President," the usual finale to a press conference, and leave. But the story was not over.
Mr. Adams, "the unhorsed crusader", might still operate from the White House, but he was operating from the dust, and Republicans were aware that they could not be flicking that dust off the cut-rate vicuna cloth during the fall midterms and in the presidential race of 1960. Only five years earlier, Democrats had learned that lesson the hard way, despite the eloquence and prestige of Adlai Stevenson running for the presidency. President Truman had kept his old friends, who were far less consequential and guilty of lesser misdemeanors than Mr. Adams, but the public had given the verdict "and it murdered the Democrats twice."
The pro-Adams argument of the President, she finds, was not complicated, that in essence he had said that when Democrats accepted something of value, it was a bribe, but when Republicans did so, it was a gift.
Politicians had already raised the question of the President's reliance upon Mr. Adams, valid up to a point. But Mr. Adams had assistants and the President had other smart friends, such as General Alfred Gruenther, currently president of the American Red Cross. She suggests that the latter could be rushed into the current disaster area.
The President's initial strategy had been to give his side a trial heat in the public opinion stakes, sending Mr. Adams into the running with a kindly pat on the head. The strategy of Mr. Adams had clearly the hallmark of Attorney General William Rogers, architect of the Checkers speech of September, 1952, saving the position on the ticket of Senator Nixon following the exposure of his private $18,000 expense account raised by wealthy supporters after his 1950 Senate campaign.
For Checkers, the success story of Russian immigrant Bernard Goldfine had been substituted. The vicuna coat, which was said to cost $700, had been transmuted directly into another "Republican cloth coat", as Mr. Nixon famously had described Mrs. Nixon's attire during the Checkers speech. Only the Adams coat was made of Goldfine material, which Mr. Adams now claimed had cost the Goldfine mill "about $69". It had not been developed what Mr. Goldfine had paid a Boston tailor to make the coat. In that same vein, the $2,400 oriental rug bought by Mr. Goldfine for Mr. Adams at Macy's in New York, had become a "lend-lease" transaction of indeterminate duration, Mr. Adams claiming that the rug had only been loaned to him. Mr. Goldfine complained of "the rather shabby old rug" which Mr. Adams had in his rented house in Washington, but Mr. Adams had said that he could not afford to replace it as he would have no use for a big rug in his modest home in his small New Hampshire town. Mr. Goldfine had produced the replacement but still considered it his property. She notes that there were also two Oriental mats and that no one had inquired into their cost.
Mr. Adams had told the subcommittee repeatedly that members of Congress did daily for their constituents the same thing of which he was accused, that is, favors on behalf of an old friend, in going to the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department, regarding the trouble which Mr. Adams faced in mislabeling the woolen goods produced by his mills. Ms. Fleeson points out, however, that Mr. Adams was an appointed official operating in the privileged sanctuary of the White House, whereas members of Congress went before the public for judgment at the ballot box at regular intervals. In that effort, Mr. Adams had depicted himself humbly as both accessible and courteous, a claim completely at odds with Congressional and press experience.
But the subcommittee had treated his entire effort to create the best possible emotional climate for himself with great indulgence, being polite and patient, not interrupting him. She finds that it was very sporting and unlike their dealings with ordinary witnesses who came before them.
Regarding the findings of fact as seen by Mr. Adams, both the members and the counsel of the subcommittee had dealt him lethal blows. Mr. Adams contended he did not do anything special for Mr. Goldfine and obtained no unusual results for him. But chief counsel for the subcommittee, Robert Lishman, had shown that the telephone calls made by Mr. Adams to the Federal Trade Commission chairman, Edward Howrey, had scored instant action, as the latter had given Mr. Adams information forbidden by law either to Mr. Goldfine or to his lawyer. Mr. Adams had replied weakly that he did not know that the provision of such information was forbidden and that he had "no present recollection" of passing it on to Mr. Goldfine. Mr. Lishman had also shown that, although Mr. Goldfine's violations of FTC regulations had been persistent and had elicited from an examiner recommendations for "vigorous prosecution", they were all settled by consent.
Mr. Harris and Representative John Moss of California had recalled a case in Boston which had found Mr. Goldfine complaining about the actions of the Securities & Exchange Commission, in which Mr. Adams had admitted that in 1956, he had asked White House counsel Gerald Morgan to "find out what this is all about." Subcommittee sources said that the case would be developed later and that it was a sordid story.
A letter writer from Kannapolis indicates that for the previous several months, there had appeared in the daily newspapers a costly ad which sought the signature of Southern workers on a petition which seemed on the surface plausible. The advertising was paid by the National Committee on Right-To-Work, out of Washington. He counsels that Southern workers ought first find out who would be impacted by such legislation. He asserts that the right to work was a God-given right which belonged to everyone desiring employment. The Committee wanted to deny the individual the right to safeguard his or her work and wages by asking the individual to help them enact a law which would prohibit the workers from enjoying that right. He finds that the Committee was playing on the sympathies of people by using a subterfuge regarding their intent, wanting the individual to have the right to work without belonging to a union, not wanting to enable the individual to have the right to join a union and bargain collectively with the employer. They did not propose that the law be applied to the employer. They would not protect the individual's rights on any issue except regarding wages because they owned the industries which operated in the South. They had not been successful in the North because the workers there were largely organized and voted regularly in all elections. So, the group of Northern millionaires had turned to the South in their effort to use the Southern worker to destroy the benefits of the Northern workers. If successful, the North would be reduced to the level of the present Southern worker, whose level would be reduced even lower. He thus finds that the Committee had no intention of aiding any Southern worker to get a job at better wages or to get a job at any wage, that its main interest was in the huge money savings which would accrue to them in reduced wages, when and if they were successful in their campaign.
A letter writer responds to a letter writer from Rock Hill, S.C., who had asserted that Mayor Johnston of Anderson, S.C., had obtained most of the black votes in the recent South Carolina gubernatorial primary and that the fight would now develop between candidates Lt. Governor Ernest Hollings and Mr. Russell to secure those votes. He finds that the writer was not certain of those facts, as there was no evidence that black voters voted as a bloc in South Carolina, except in a few wards located in Columbia, Charleston and Florence, and even there, there was variation in the vote. In the black ward in Columbia, Mayor Johnston had received more votes than either of the other two candidates, and in the Charleston ward, the Lt. Governor had received more votes, with neither candidate receiving all of the vote to demonstrate any bloc voting. He finds that only about two-thirds as many voters would vote in the runoff primary and that the greatest problem for the candidates was not to try to obtain the votes of Mr. Johnston but to obtain their former supporters' votes, a fact which gave the advantage to Mr. Hollings, as his greatest support had come from the rural counties, over Mr. Russell, whose main support came from urban areas, the voters in which were more prone to remain at home in runoff primaries when there was no hot local issue at stake.
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