The Charlotte News
Wednesday, July 16, 1958
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Beirut that the Marines landing in Lebanon had occupied the port area in force this date as their numbers had risen to 3,600 men with the landing of another battalion. The move into the city from the beach area had been made with tanks, half-tracks and amphibious vehicles. Weapons and equipment had come from ships offshore and more men were on the way, after about 2,000 had occupied the port area. Leaders of the rebellion against the pro-Western Government of President Camille Chamoun had denounced the American landing, but had not mounted any opposition to it. The movement of the Marines indicated that they were guarding vital points but would not come into contact with the rebels unless there was a major rebel attack, leaving the Lebanese security forces to deal with the opposing forces. The port area was a stronghold of the Falange irregulars who had taken up arms for the Government. Crowds frequently cheered the Marines. Rebel leader Saed Salam, holed up in the Moslem quarter of Beirut, had issued a statement urging the Lebanese "to defend your country and safeguard your freedom." American civilians were leaving the country in greater numbers, and of about 3,200 Americans, 220 private citizens and 168 dependents of Embassy personnel had left since the revolt had begun 68 days earlier. A band of rebels moving up to the area around the Associated Press office in Beirut had withdrawn after about 90 minutes. The U.S., which had sent in the Marines at the request of President Chamoun, described the intervention as the creation of a beachhead to assure peace and stability in the region. The first Marine unit to enter the city had been headed by Ambassador Robert McClintock, Admiral James Holloway, commander of the U.S. forces, and General Guad Shehab, commander of the Lebanese Army, including a tank and two troop carriers with 30 men aboard.
In Cherry Point, N.C., it was reported that combat-ready Marines continued to depart this date for the Middle East to back up those who had landed in Lebanon, with the first contingent having begun the long flight the previous night and others leaving at irregular intervals throughout the night. The Marine Base public information office said that the airlifts were to continue during the current afternoon. It could not provide the number of men, their specific destinations or the number of Flying Boxcars which would carry the men of the 2nd Marine Division at nearby Camp Lejeune. Other units of that division had landed in Lebanon the previous day. The Defense Department would only say that they were bound "for an intermediate destination in the Mediterranean area where they will be in support of the 6th Fleet landings in Lebanon." Increased activity had also been reported at the Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base near Norfolk. Earlier the previous day, the Defense Department said that a movement of troop carrier planes from Donaldson Air Force Base in South Carolina to an undisclosed European destination had been completed. At Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina, an Air Force spokesman had said that a composite force of the Tactical Air Command was deploying overseas, declining to say whether any planes of the Command at Shaw were taking part.
At the U.N. in New York, Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold said in effect this date that no international military force was needed to stop the flow of outside aid to the Lebanese rebels. He addressed the 11-nation Security Council briefly, just before U.S. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., had formally called for the establishment of a security force to supplement the U.N. observer group presently in Lebanon. The Secretary-General said that he had been informed by the observation group that it had successfully completed arrangements for inspection of the entire Lebanese border, indicating that it was his feeling that with the result thus achieved, the observation group was "fully equipped to play the part envisaged for it in the U.N. total effort, with its general purpose of ensuring against infiltration and smuggling of arms." One of the reasons provided by the U.S. for the landing of the Marines and proposing a new security force was the inability of the U.N. observers to stop the flow of aid from the United Arab Republic to the Lebanese rebels. In a speech during the morning, Ambassador Lodge had commended the work of the observer group, but said that the proposed international force would give it added strength. He said that the means available to the observer group were insufficient to meet all aspects of the situation, particularly in light of the recent events of the military coup in Iraq and efforts to overthrow the lawful Government of Jordan.
Secretary of Defense Neil McElroy said this date that he believed the American people could be assured that U.S. forces were ready for any assignment.
A 386.7 million dollar atomic energy authorization bill, double the size sought by the President, was assured this date of final Congressional approval.
In Paris, it was reported that Premier Charles de Gaulle had prepared this date to call up more officers to fight the 31-month nationalist rebellion in Algeria. A decree appearing in the official Government gazette said that 600 reserve officers between 27 and 32 years old would be called up for service for one year or more.
Bernard Goldfine testified this date before the House subcommittee examining the Goldfine-Adams matter, saying that he had made 43 telephone calls to White House chief of staff Sherman Adams during a recent six-month period. He said that Mr. Adams was one of his best friends and a friend he could call whenever he saw fit. He said that the calls were sometimes about such matters as tariff regulations which were of interest to his textile firms. The calls had been placed between November 20, 1957 and May 11, 1958. It was Mr. Goldfine's seventh day of testimony before the subcommittee, which was investigating charges that his business interests had received favored treatment from Federal regulatory agencies because of his friendship with Mr. Adams, who had admitted intervening on his behalf with the Federal Trade Commission and, indirectly, with the Securities & Exchange Commission. Both Mr. Goldfine and Mr. Adams had denied that any preferential treatment had occurred but had admitted that Mr. Goldfine had provided to Mr. Adams free hotel accommodations, a vicuna coat, and other gifts. Mr. Goldfine had refused to say whether he had treated such gifts to other personal friends as business expenses on his income tax returns, having already acknowledged that he had so treated the gifts to Mr. Adams. Mr. Goldfine blamed that treatment on his accountants, with both men swearing that they had exchanged gifts just as friends. Mr. Goldfine had testified that the 43 telephone calls to Mr. Adams had been made both to the White House and to the private number of Mr. Adams. Representative Oren Harris of Arkansas, chairman of the subcommittee, indicated that once the subcommittee finished with Mr. Goldfine, it would investigate a textile contract which the Army had with a mill in New Hampshire, where Mr. Adams had, prior to entering the Federal Government in 1953, been Governor. Mr. Harris said that Mr. Goldfine was not connected with that latter matter.
In Grand Lake, Ark., it was reported that three gasoline barges were still burning at an Esso Standard Oil Co. terminal on the Mississippi River this date, resulting from an explosion the prior Monday, with one barge worker having died as a result.
In New York, it was reported that a gas explosion had blown a $30,000 Queens home to bits in the wee hours of the morning this date and had critically burned a family of four. The home had been demolished as a couple and their two small daughters had huddled in the living room. The four apparently had been blown out into the yard. The explosion had scattered parts of the house over a radius of 50 yards, with pieces being found in nearby trees. A police officer said that it had been a miracle that anyone had escaped alive. Fire had erupted from the debris. A neighbor had heard a child screaming for its "mommy" and that it was horrible. The smell of gas had awakened the family and as the father had nestled the two girls in his arms, the mother had telephoned Consolidated Edison Co. and told an operator of the odor and asked what they should do, but before the operator could reply, the blast was heard over the telephone. Next time, get the hell out of Dodge first, and be aware of where the gas shut-off valves are located.
In Troy, Pa., a father reported missing, shortly after his three small daughters had been found shot to death in their farm home the previous night, had been picked up this date in a wooded area about 4 miles from the home. A State policeman and a farm hand had apprehended the 19-year old father without a struggle and took him to the county jail. The farm hand, who worked with the father on the same estate, noticed a horse missing from a barn, and he and the State policeman had followed the tracks up a dirt road and through a patch of woods where they spotted the father lying on the ground, with his arms folded over his head. The trooper had found in his saddle a .22-caliber rifle, which was said by police to be the type of weapon used to shoot the three little girls. He also had two other rifles and a set of knives. He remained silent as the trooper had handcuffed him and did not say anything during the trip to the jail. The mother of the children found her children dead, indicating that she had returned to the house after a visit, seeing the two-year old girl slumped in her stroller, believing at first that she was asleep, until she noticed that she had been shot. She then ran into the bedroom and found the three-year old on the bed, and a five-month old girl in a basket, both of whom were dead. She said that she later ran to the garage where her own father had just parked the car and yelled hysterically that the children were all dead. The father had driven his daughter to a hospital earlier in the evening for a visit with her twin brother who was critically ill from an asthmatic attack. They had been gone from the home for about four hours. She said that she put the children to bed and just before leaving for the hospital, her husband had said: "You stay at the hospital as long as you want to and I will watch the children."
In Upper Marlboro, Md., a lame robber had made off with a reported $40,000 to $50,000 from a branch bank this date.
John Kilgo of The News reports that Police Chief Frank Littlejohn had testified this date at the Civil Service hearing regarding Capt. Lloyd Henkel that the latter's usefulness as a police officer was "beyond repair". He said that he would help the captain obtain a new job. He said that the statement that the City Recorder's Court investigation had been directed at the captain was "completely untrue". He was put on the stand to corroborate evidence already presented at the hearing, telling of a case where the captain had allegedly been three months late in mailing a check for $40 to the Randolph County Recorder's Court. He said that the captain cashed checks in the traffic division in 1954 after the chief had ordered him not to do so and after the captain had written a letter saying that the practice would stop. He claimed that a check from the captain for over $400 had been held in the traffic office for about three weeks as cash. He also testified about a drunk driving case in which the captain had reportedly changed the charge to reckless driving, with the case having been delayed for about a year in coming to trial. He said that the captain had told one of his patrolmen that he was going "to let the case rest for awhile." The chief said that the captain had given bad checks to radio personality Grady Cole and Charles Lowe, and was delinquent in paying his account with Ivey's Department Store. The defense had called Mr. Lowe back to the hearing during the afternoon, after he had testified the previous day that he thought the chief had told him that the chief had paid one of the captain's notes. The chief had denied that statement and said he would have to be a "stupid, asinine fool" to say he had pay the note when the captain still had it in his possession.
Another report indicates that one of the chief's attorneys had been a law partner of the captain's attorney for four years, having dissolved the partnership at the beginning of 1956. The chief's attorney had said he was tired of having his former partner bring his name into the matter, that he was not on trial. Other notes on the hearing also appear, akin to random notes appearing on the sports page after a basketball tournement at the Coliseum, in case you have an abiding interest.
On the editorial page, "U.S. Finds Policy in Ruins of Disaster" finds that the U.S. had made up its mind about United Arab Republic Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser, considering him a threat to the country's national interests and whose expansionist designs had to be thwarted by force of arms, if necessary. It finds it about the only fact which stood out of the confusion and ignorance attending the crisis in the Middle East.
The challenge to Premier Nasser was implicit in the dispatch of the Marines to Lebanon to shore up the pro-Western Government of President Camille Chamoun, whose downfall Premier Nasser wanted. The challenge had been explicit in the statement of U.N. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., in referring to the U.A.R. before the U.N. as a ruthless aggressor.
Thus, with friendly governments fallen or under fire in Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan, and with the Baghdad Pact exploded overnight, the U.S. had finally arrived at the rudiments of a Middle Eastern policy. Whether or not the U.N. forces would supplant the Marines, the U.S. action had struck directly at the prestige and ambitions of Premier Nasser, and there would be grave consequences.
The first such consequence would be the risk of general warfare, left solely to the decision of the Soviets, with the U.S. gambling that they would not stimulate any direct confrontation with the U.S. Aside from the hope that the Soviets would not intervene, there was the assumption that the U.N. would provide the landing of U.S. troops with a kind of retroactive respectability. But Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold's failure to find that there was significant outside aid for the rebels threatening the Chamoun Government, made that prospect questionable. The U.N. would likely ponder the implications involved in attempting to shield a nation against "indirect aggression", with no precedent for that kind of action, even though there was on Cairo radio blatant attempts to inflame the people of Lebanon and Jordan against their governments.
It finds that assuming the Marines could be withdrawn quickly and that President Chamoun and King Hussein of Jordan were saved, there would remain the matter of coping with the rage of Premier Nasser, the most powerful man in the Middle East, and with ample evidence that he was the most popular.
In challenging the latter, the U.S. had put itself in a position of trying to tear down the figurehead of Arab nationalism, thus possibly to become the object of all of the anti-colonialist passions and hatreds of the region, which it finds full of passion and hatred.
The President apparently had decided that the U.S. could not take another backward step in its efforts to accommodate the growth of Arab nationalism, and the piece urges that the action be supported by all Americans, but finds it deceptive to imagine that the act of desperation was anything other than that or that restoring U.S. and Western prestige in a vital area of the world would be anything other than a tortuous and perilous process.
"Who Has the President's Ear Now?" indicates that at the Geneva conference in July, 1955, the President had called upon the nations of the world "to lower the barriers which now impede the opportunities of people to travel anywhere in the world for peaceful, friendly purposes." The prior May, according to an Associated Press dispatch from Washington, the President had sent to Congress a report "recommending liberalization of travel restrictions as one of the best means of improving international relations."
But now, the President was asking Congress to restrict the constitutional right of travel enjoyed by U.S. citizens, specifically wanting legislation which would overcome the effect of the Supreme Court's June decision denying the State Department authority to withhold passports because of an applicant's "beliefs and associations". The bill would validate the high-handed methods which the State Department had been employing without Congressional authority, rendering ineligible those for whom it was determined on "substantial grounds" that their activities abroad would impair foreign relations or security, as determined by the State Department. The burden would be on the applicant to disprove the evidence and yet the applicant would not necessarily be fully informed as to what the evidence was or who had supplied it. The applicant would receive only what the bill had called "a fair resume". The State Department would not be required to produce evidence which was deemed likely to have a "substantially" adverse effect on security or foreign affairs.
It concludes that it might be possible to operate such a system fairly but that the risks involved were too great, that any system permitting undisclosed informants and synopsized evidence lacked the safeguards for a constitutional right to travel.
Justice William O. Douglas had said, speaking for the majority in the decision: "To repeat, we deal here with a constitutional right of the citizen, a right which we must assume Congress will be faithful to respect."
If Congress passed the bill, it concludes, it would not be living up to the assumption made by Justice Douglas and the majority.
"Tripoli, 100 Miles" indicates that the public information office of the Marine Corps had dropped the candy when the Marines had landed during the week in Lebanon, for no one could sing, when the other port was less than 100 miles away: "From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Beirut…"
"Mr. Khrushchev Wants All the Vodka" indicates that Premier Khrushchev had burst onto the stage of world politics carrying a load of vodka, a tiny portion of which had been contained in a glass. Thus, it came as some surprise that the Soviets were prosecuting an intensive campaign against drunkenness and that the chief lecturer was Mr. Khrushchev.
Before a group of Leningrad factory workers, he had urged the fining of people who appeared on the streets drunk or who made a nuisance of themselves by using bad language and insulting others.
It finds the situation somewhat reminiscent of the efforts of former French Premier Pierre Mendes-France, whom it regards as a far better man than Mr. Khrushchev, to get the French to drink more milk and less wine.
The campaign of Mr. Khrushchev it finds to be encouraging, as drunkenness ought be discouraged and public officials who did the discouraging often wound up in limbo, just as no one had heard anymore of M. Mendes-France.
It concludes that Russians would likely find it difficult to swallow the party line when it was opposed to swallowing vodka.
A piece from the Lenoir News-Topic, titled "The Art of Getting Along", indicates that sooner or later, a wise man discovered that life was a mixture of good and bad days, victory and defeat, give-and-take, that it did not pay to be sensitive and that some things should be let go, that a person who lost his temper usually lost out. He learned that all men had burnt toast for breakfast occasionally and that he should not take the other fellow's grouch too seriously. He learned that carrying a chip on the shoulder was the easiest way to get into a fight, that the quickest way to become unpopular was to carry tales and gossip about others. He learned that buck-passing always boomeranged and never paid, coming to realize that the business could run perfectly well without him, that it did not matter so much who got credit as long as the business showed a profit, that even the janitor was human and that it did not do any harm to smile and say, "Good morning," even if it was raining.
And it goes on in that vein, concluding that the wise man learned that folks were not any harder to get along with in one place than in another and that the "getting along" depended about 98 percent on the person's own behavior.
Drew Pearson relates more information about the bugging of the room at the Sheraton-Carlton Hotel in the case of Bernard Goldfine and his assistants. After the microphone had been discovered, Lloyd Furr, a private detective hired by Mr. Goldfine's attorney, Roger Robb, had given his card to Mr. Pearson's assistant, Jack Anderson, saying that the next time he wanted a real professional job done, to give Mr. Furr a call. The latter was a skilled professional and both he and Mr. Robb had earlier been involved in an eavesdropping case in a hotel room on behalf of commentator Fulton Lewis, Jr.
Mr. Robb had been indignant recently, when he announced to the press that the subcommittee investigating the Goldfine-Adams matter had placed a microphone next to the door of Mr. Goldfine's public relations man, Jack Lotto, saying: "We're going to show you that the committee has engaged in electronic eavesdropping."
Apparently, Mr. Robb had forgotten the electronic eavesdropping in which he had participated at the Burlington Hotel, just a few blocks from the Carlton, in 1953. Two Maryland Republican leaders, Joe and Abe Weiner, had been lured into a room at the hotel by the same private detective, Mr. Furr, and an associate, Leonard Harrelson. The room had been wired and Mr. Robb had eavesdropped on their conversation from an adjoining room. Mr. Robb had been asked for comment on the bugging of that hotel room compared to the Carlton room, saying that it had been Mr. Furr's own room and that all the latter had been doing was to make a record of what was said in his room. But Mr. Robb had admitted that he was in another room listening.
Mr. Pearson notes that thus three of the Goldfine group who had protested about the Sheraton-Carlton microphone had been involved in the previous instance, with Mr. Lotto, the third, having once boasted of placing a microphone on the outside of the door of Congressman Richard Nixon's room at the Hotel Commodore in New York in August, 1948 when Mr. Nixon was interviewing Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss regarding whether the latter recognized the former after Mr. Chambers, an admitted Communist courier, had identified before HUAC Mr. Hiss as having been a Communist during the late 1930's prior to the start of World War II and having allegedly cooperated in providing to Mr. Chambers information from the State Department which Mr. Chambers was to pass to the Soviets—information which Mr. Nixon had admitted was innocuous. Mr. Pearson says that two wrongs did not make a right and he was against bugging people's rooms at any time. Mr. Anderson had been present when the chief investigator for the Harris subcommittee had bugged the room of Mr. Goldfine's assistants, which he says he regretted. "Unfortunately, this is the kind of atmosphere which pervades Washington."
Another hotel in Washington, near the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, would later be the object of an attempt at bugging amid that continuing atmosphere through at least June, 1972. It would be an attempted bugging to end all bugging, having occurred just a month and a half after the death of the worst of the buggers, Mr. Hoover. But we digress...
Mr. Robb had been mentioned frequently for appointment to the Federal bench and had been selected by the White House to handle various important legal problems, including the purge of Dr. Robert Oppenheimer from the Atomic Energy Commission, acting as counsel for its chairman, Admiral Lewis Strauss. He also had defended Washington police chief Robert Murray during the charges made by the NAACP that the Washington police had beaten black prisoners. He had also defended most of the conflict-of-interest cases involved in the Administration.
In April, 1931, Mr. Robb had been an assistant U.S. Attorney prosecuting the murder of the cashier at the Garden T Shoppe, alleged to have been killed by Tommy Jordon, who was then sentenced to the electric chair. Later, True Detective magazine had published an account of the trial, alleging that Mr. Robb and his superior, U.S. Attorney Leslie Garnett, had suppressed important evidence. The two men then sued the magazine and its publisher for $400,000 for libel but lost the case on May 15, 1940. The jury had agreed not only that the charges against the two men had been true, but had gone further and signed a petition to President Roosevelt asking for a new trial for Mr. Jordon. They said that they had not the slightest question that if all of the evidence had been presented at the man's trial, it would have raised a reasonable doubt which would have led to his acquittal, and were convinced that he had not received a fair trial, believing it was an illustration of what happened to a poor man when a prosecutor was not solicitous to see that justice was done and when the defendant was not properly defended. The President had commuted Mr. Jordon's death sentence to life imprisonment, but did not order a new trial. When Mr. Robb had been queried about the case, he had emphatically denied that he had suppressed any evidence. (It should be noted that the President cannot order a new trial in a case, in any event, only possessing the power to pardon a conviction or commute a sentence in a Federal case. Only the courts can order a new trial on appeal or, outside the regular appellate process, on habeas corpus, the latter lying when there are justiciable matters outside the trial record, such as newly discovered material evidence not available at trial. The undoubtedly copious 1943 Daily News reportage notwithstanding, it appears quite doubtful that Mr. Jordon would have actually risked being sentenced again to death by obtaining a new trial on habeas corpus as the 1937 commutation by FDR would have virtually, if not legally, precluded that result, even, perchance, had Thomas Dewey won the presidency in 1944. Of course, in 1943, no one knew whether FDR might run for a fourth term and who the Republican nominee might be. Regardless, the commutation made quite unlikely a reimposition of the death penalty in any new trial, indeed, that the prosecution would have even sought same a second time, absent new and damning evidence against the defendant since the commutation. The sticking point, however, was that he had already presented the new evidence on habeas corpus, in 1939, and the relief had been denied on the basis that all of the "new" evidence had been available at trial. He tried again in 1947, but the second habeas corpus petition was also denied, for lack of new grounds asserted except the allegation that the deceased had actually been shot the day after the robbery, which the court ruled, under the governing statutes and rules then prevailing, could only be presented by way of a motion for new trial, by then time barred, and not on habeas corpus, leaving only a potential pardon by the President.)
The way the column was worded, we thought initially that it was the murder of Garden T.
On occasion, we used to look down from out the black-banded windows at this building from a 7th floor cubbyhole behind the showroom across Harris Street, recalling with particularity a very rainy day in July in 1967, and wondering what went on in that building, much older than the moderns surrounding it, one we had passed by, and occasionally looked down upon, several times each of the prior five summers. We never really found out, but there 'twas, a few minutes of musing
Marquis Childs, in Paris, tells of the Russian scientists and engineers being on the verge of another major breakthrough in outer space exploration, having completed preparations for launching Sputnik IV, which would contain another live animal, probably another dog, to be returned to earth along with the recording instruments in the nosecone. The information had come from sources in Moscow believed to be reliable, shortly before Mr. Childs had left the Soviet Union, the type of information which the Russians carefully screened for censorship, as their policy had been to announce the successful orbit of their Sputniks only after the fact.
Those directing the satellite program were confident that they had solved the recovery problem and that a dog such as Laika, of Sputnik II, which had perished while orbiting, would be the first living creature to travel in outer space and return to earth. If that were proved correct, and a number of secret tests had prepared the way for the final experiment, then after a relatively short interval, a manned satellite would be launched. It was possible that the expected triumph of the fourth Sputnik would be timed for National Aviation Day, at the end of the current month.
Soviet citizens were constantly reminding of the edge which Russian Sputniks had over the U.S. satellite program and the demonstration of a successfully recovered nosecone with a living animal inside, to be followed shortly by a manned satellite, would be exploited both at home and abroad.
There was no doubt that satellite launches had failed in Russia, a fact which top specialists had admitted privately. It was believed that there was an intention to send Sputnik III, weighing 1.5 tons, aloft on May 1, a major Communist holiday, but the successful launching had not taken place until two weeks later. But with control of information as complete as it was in the Soviet Union, failures could not be documented. The Soviet citizen and the rest of the world received only the news of the formidable successes since the launch of Sputnik I on October 4, 1957.
The entire stress in Russia on their satellite program had been on peaceful purposes in the exploration of outer space, ignoring the fact that a launching device capable of sending a 1.5 ton satellite into orbit was obviously powerful enough to send an intercontinental ballistic missile many thousands of miles. The propaganda of peaceful research fit the main theme of "peace-loving Russia", standing out against the "war-minded Western powers."
He says that the returning visitor had to wonder how people in Russia, living a life which was often harsh, drab and primitive, had been able to get so far ahead in a field so vital to survival both in science and national defense, finding that the answer was, first, the capacity for concentration in a completely controlled society. The Russian people might desire more consumer goods, such as cars and television sets, more food and clothing, rather than Sputniks, but could not make their desires known except in the most limited way, with the technology and money concentrated on what the Communist hierarchy believed to be the essential goal. Second, and probably more important, was the fact that incentives of cash and other material rewards were present in the fields where the hierarchy wanted to concentrate, notably science, technology and national defense. It meant more initiative, resourcefulness and daring in such fields.
The Communist hierarchy cared little about how a restaurant might be run or whether the few people who owned private cars were able to obtain spare parts for them, but the small group in the hierarchy, headed by Premier Nikita Khrushchev, who controlled the country cared much about certain objectives and were concentrating a large proportion of the productivity and resources behind the achievement of those objectives.
He finds it to be the reason why it was unwise, a perilous form of wishful thinking for the West, to discount or dismiss claims which were carefully spelled out by Moscow, whether the claims had to do with Sputniks or future industrial productivity, and it was foolish to be startled each time some new announcement heralded another "first", announcements which would likely be heard increasingly in the near future.
Doris Fleeson indicates that the House inquiry into the intervention by White House chief of staff Sherman Adams with the Federal Trade Commission and the Securities & Exchange Commission on behalf of his old friend Bernard Goldfine, had taken a predictable course. The interests of Mr. Adams and Mr. Goldfine had diverged when the subcommittee counsel, Robert Lishman, had begun to stress the detail of the multifarious Goldfine business operations. The necessity for Mr. Adams was personal and political, requiring Mr. Goldfine to reveal the details and so make their friendship, however imprudent, into a good-humored and tolerable thing.
It was why Mr. Goldfine's Washington attorney, Roger Robb, a friend of Mr. Adams with party connections, had been hired by Mr. Goldfine and placed in general charge of the case. Mr. Robb had arranged for the public relations build-up and had maintained contact with Mr. Adams and the White House. At first, he had been successful, with assists from the subcommittee members and an "imprudent" Jack Anderson and the subcommittee's own chief investigator.
But Mr. Lishman meanwhile had been concentrating on the record of the Goldfine companies and their dismal relations with the regulatory agencies. When he began to dig into Mr. Goldfine's businesses, the latter's Boston attorneys, whose primary mission was protection of his business affairs, had promptly lost interest in the politics of the situation and silenced him regarding the business affairs.
The White House had seen the the handwriting on the wall, which required cutting loose Mr. Adams, with stories leaked from usually reliable sources indicating that after the adjournment of Congress, Mr. Adams would quit. She posits that perhaps Mr. Adams agreed and might have even initiated the stories, which were intended to reassure Republicans everywhere, and especially the Republican members of Congress, that they would not have to enter the midterm elections with Mr. Adams still functioning as the President's principal assistant.
The stories suggested that Mr. Adams would delay resigning until after the adjournment so that Democrats in the Congress would not have a field day, though the Democratic strategy was to let the story carry itself, as it had already done, for their benefit.
It was also true that the Adams-Goldfine friendship was good campaign fodder, however it might turn out. It was possible that Mr. Adams might have to return to testify before the subcommittee as it had been revealed that his hotel bills paid by Mr. Goldfine totaled about $3,000, not the $2,000 to which he had originally testified.
There had also been a change in Mr. Goldfine from his role created by Mr. Robb as a warm and generous friend, with fear now infecting his behavior, perhaps perceiving trouble for his businesses or that he suspected that he was being thought of in Washington as expendable in the interest of bigger things.
Robert C. Ruark, in Palamos, Spain, indicates that a likable man had once sent him a beautiful black rug which he was going to place in a nightclub, which had then folded and he had no place to put it except in his home, worth at minimum $2,500. The man had given him the rug out of friendship, not hustling anything, and he had spent a weekend at a hotel in New Jersey as his guest on several occasions. He depended on Mr. Ruark to pick the results of the baseball games for him.
Once he had become quite ill in the hotel in New Jersey and the man had gotten a doctor to provide him with penicillin plus an ambulance on a Sunday when there were not many to be had. Once when he was quite broke, the man had offered him money, though in response he had said he only borrowed money from banks.
Thus he now had his rug, his hospitality and an offer to lend him money.
Then one day, the man told him that he had a large family problem and did not necessarily want a divorce, that the rug market was off and he did not want to cash in any stocks for fear of annoying his wife, and so asked Mr. Ruark to borrow some money. At the time, Mr. Ruark had $3,000 of his own, apart from the joint account with his wife, money he had saved at great personal pain by going on the wagon because of his "lousy liver", paying himself a salary for being so noble. He had thus loaned the money to the friend.
What he did not know was that his friend had done the same thing with several people and there was no girl in trouble for whom the money was necessary. His wife had gotten a divorce anyway and the friend had gone to Miami and made a big show in front of another gentleman's wife, teaching her how to live well off other people's money, including that of Mr. Ruark. He taught her how to invest some $8,000 of the money. The woman was married to a plumber or a veterinarian or an atomic scientist, or someone, and one day, a man had walked into a canasta party and asked which of them was the friend, shooting him neatly through the neck, causing his friend to die immediately. Mr. Ruark then saw the headlines in a foreign newspaper about a New York playboy being killed and he knew he would never see his $3,000 again.
We are moved, in recognition of Mr. Ruark's tribute to his eleemosynary friend, to render an obsequious elegy, as if in the churchyard with the squirrels of yesteryear:
Here was a man who resurrected a Grand Oz Plan,
From that old, venerated organization, the K. K. Klan.
Here was a man who stood up to the Man,
As long as the Man was a chimera shaped of sand.
Here was a man who, to keep cool, had many fans
Blowing on his head when hot as a rustican.
Here was a man with whom G. L. Rockwell's kirk could band,
As he thought lost conceptions worse than the Holocaust brand.
Here was a man who treated all with an even hand
As long as you greeted him with silver for to fill his pan.
Here was a man, who rode off into the West's jacaranda,
As his love waited in rest by the empty swing on the veranda.
Here was a man who was courageous and stood tall as a gander,
But on occasion, when crossed, his blood boiled into his dander.
Here was a man who, when they said, “Et tu, Charlie, can-chan?"
He responded, “No, I can't, 'cause you must be a trans,"
Whose gears don't mesh with Jesus who greases down at the auto dan.
Here was a man who stood like a pillar and fought like a sainted Man,
But, no killer, offered his grounded enemy back his gauntlet tanned.
Refused, as he did, to look back on the salty flats and crannies,
E'en when confronted, lonely, with grandpas dressed as grannies.
Probably disagreed with Soranus on jumps to lose child of Man,
And stood tall in the saddle blazing for reign of Cain again' us, banned.
Here was a man who agreed, "Disagree, but defend to death your banter,"
As long as you don't snatch the tallow from the lantern's last breathof canter ,
In which case, we execute him who refuses our line for Warren's anti-planter.
Here was a man who opened his mouth to the land,
And yelled, “Peace, bro,” as long as you stand,
And deliver your goods to my teepee Plan for some of all kind of Man.
We call it “Ode to Charlie Dan's Hosanna Hey Rosanna Red Band (or, How We Substituted 'We' for 'U' in 'Flour' and Got To Be a Child in a Hamlet Where Loamy Soil Sifted the Sand)” We have no tune yet, for it is not welded
Framed Edition
Links-Date — Links-Subj.