The Charlotte News
Wednesday, July 23, 1958
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from the U.N. in New York that the next step in the Middle East crisis depended on whether Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev would accept the challenge to a summit meeting in the U.N. Security Council. At present, the Premier appeared to be considering the matter, as to whether his own proposal for a five-power summit meeting, including India, apart from the U.N. would be substantially different from agreement to the suggestions of President Eisenhower and British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan for the U.N. meeting. Moscow dispatches had said that many diplomats there believed that Mr. Khrushchev would accept the Eisenhower-Macmillan suggestion, though he might not like it. An article in Izvestia, the Soviet Government newspaper, said, however, that judging by American press reports, the U.S. rulers were seeking a suitable way to avoid Premier Khrushchev's proposal, and had suggested that such a proposal before the Security Council implied that the Americans thought they were dealing with "simpletons". It said that the West was taking an "irresponsible gamble, disregarding the fact that delay in the settlement of the armed conflict in the Middle East may bring about a terrible catastrophe." Western observers in Moscow said that Premier Khrushchev and his aides probably would do some deep soul-searching before reaching a decision, believing that the Premier might find it difficult to reject the U.N. summit proposal given his original offer to go anywhere for such a meeting. The Security Council had adjourned indefinitely the previous night after a second Soviet veto in four days had blocked resolutions aimed at setting up conditions for American troop withdrawal from Lebanon. The adjournment was taken to await the outcome of negotiations for the summit meeting and the implementation of Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold's plan to reinforce the U.N. observer corps in Lebanon. The latter had indicated that he would ask the U.N. membership for more men to build up the observer group so that they might make it possible for the U.S. to withdraw its 10,000 troops from Lebanon. The 85th Soviet veto had defeated a Japanese resolution calling on the U.N. "to make possible the withdrawal of United States forces from Lebanon" by arranging to protect that country's territorial independence, the purpose of the U.S. troop deployment.
The President was said to be reluctant to meet Premier Khrushchev but indicated that the U.S. would attend a U.N. Security Council summit meeting.
In London, Prime Minister Macmillan said that he was ready for a summit conference at the U.N. but suggested that no voting should occur unless all nations agreed in advance on such a resolution.
In Paris, Premier Charles de Gaulle was also willing to attend a summit meeting but said that the U.N. lacked the necessary calm atmosphere conducive to resolution of the crisis.
In Beirut, Lebanon, Speaker Adel Osseiran had postponed for a week the Parliament's election of a new president, apparently to give more time for a search for a candidate acceptable to both the Government and the rebels.
In Jerusalem, Israeli sector, it was reported by the Tel Aviv evening newspaper that more British transport planes en route from Cyprus to Jordan had flown across Israel during the morning.
In Cairo, it was reported that Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser predicted defeat for U.S. troops in Lebanon and the British paratroopers in Jordan, issuing a veiled call for assassination of King Hussein of Jordan.
Also in Cairo, Western travelers arriving this date from Khartoum had said that an Iraqi-type pro-Nasser coup had been attempted in the Sudan during the previous five days, apparently squelched by the Sudanese authorities.
In Caracas, Venezuela, demonstration by some 100,000 people had forced the resignation this date of Defense Minister Jesus Maria Castro Leon after he had sought to assert political power for the Army. He had served an ultimatum on Rear Admiral Wolfgang Larrazabal, president of Venezuela's five-man ruling junta, in what appeared to be the first step in a plan to oust the Government. Venezuelans had regarded the plan as a showdown between the people and the military, which traditionally had ruled the oil-rich nation. Students, professional people and workers had assembled in front of the Government palace until after midnight in support of the junta, which had overthrown the military dictatorship of Marcos Perez Jimenez exactly 6 months earlier. The Navy had also backed Admiral Larrazabal, its former chief. To prevent reinforcement of Army units in Caracas, it blocked the old road from the Caribbean coast and posted destroyers and cruisers within artillery range of the new superhighway. After he had resigned, Sr. Castro Leon told the tense armed forces in a nationwide broadcast that he had quit because of "constant worry for the unity of the country." Admiral Larrazabal followed Sr. Castro Leon on the radio with a call for the nation to avoid violence and move with the junta toward elected government. The armed forces were not returning to their traditional despotism, according to Admiral Larrazabal, expressing confidence that military men would join in the march toward democracy. The National Labor Union committee had called a general strike for this date to support the Government and hours after Sr. Castro Leon had resigned, the call had not been withdrawn. While the junta was considering the demands of Sr. Castro Leon, a second political faction had also sought political changes. The Junta Patriotica, which had led civilian forces in the January revolt which had ousted dictator Perez Jimenez, had in turn demanded political party representation in the Government and a ban on members of the Government junta or the cabinet running for president. Radio reports from Venezuela heard in Colombia said that the ruling junta had broken a plot by military supporters of Sr. Perez Jimenez. The broadcast said that 37 persons had been arrested in Caracas and ten in Valencia.
The Government this date reported that the cost of living had risen in June by less than one-tenth of a percent to another record, with a decline predicted for later in the summer or in the early fall. The Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics said that its index had risen to 123.7 percent of the 1947-49 average, meaning that it cost about 24 cents more to purchase what could be purchased for a dollar a decade earlier. The June living cost level had been 2.9 percent higher than the same month a year earlier, the 20th time the official index had risen to new records during the previous 22 months, with no decline since August, 1956. The commissioner of labor statistics said that the June increase was only fractional, "about as small as you can get and still have an increase in the index." He said that all signs pointed to a modest cost of living decline in the ensuing few months, particularly as food items had become more plentiful, but could not guess whether it would be only temporary or would represent a lasting price decline. Food prices normally declined during the summer, when local vegetable crops came in and temporarily cheapened grocery costs for households, but other costs had been mounting steadily, despite the recession. In 2025, we have no idea what the cost of living or the status of jobs creation is currently because El Presidente fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics simply because he did not like her objective report, despite the fact that the report was compiled, as it has been since the Bureau came into being in 1884 during the Administration of Chester A. Arthur, by professional statisticians and given to her only two days before being made public and that she had nothing to do with its objective statement, not complimentary in outcome of El Presidente's job on the economy. El Presidente wants to control every facet of American life, including his interpretation of what is constitutional and not, including what constitutes a constitutional arrest, detention and search, as evidenced most recently in the completely unconstitutional raid of an entire apartment house in Chicago on the supposed pretext of there being inside some illegal immigrant gang members—just as does any tinpot dictator. Next, in keeping with his murder of civilians in international waters in at least two instances recently, he will have his Storm Troopers line up people against a wall and shoot them unless they can prove they are not members of an Administration-declared "terrorist organization", such as the Democratic Party. Another Lidice is, no doubt, just around the corner.
The House Labor Committee this date had given formal approval, by a vote of 20 to 8, to a bill requiring public reports by unions on employee welfare and pension benefit plans.
In Washington, witnesses this date showed Senators some deadly looking switchblade and gravity knives, urging Congress to bar such weapons from interstate commerce.
In Fort Leavenworth, Kans., a 29-year old soldier, who had been convicted of killing four persons in West Germany had been hanged this date at the U.S. Army Disciplinary Barracks.
John Kilgo of The News reports of a man whose name had been in the newspaper recently regarding three charges to which he had pleaded guilty in City Recorder's Court recently without being in court himself or having to hire a lawyer to appear for him, and not authorizing the entry of the pleas. He had told the newspaper that he had paid $360 since April 25 to a bail bondsman so that he would not have to go to court. He said that his family had to sacrifice every time he made his weekly payment of $15, after having paid $220 down initially, having to pay a total of $440, $400 of which was the actual bond, plus a $40 surcharge for the bondsman. He said he had followed the advice of the bondsman in doing so and believed he was being told the correct thing, until a policeman had told him not to pay another cent to the bondsman. The man waxed floors for a living and had a sore ankle which his wife had to bathe in alcohol, kerosene or something else every night. They had four children, two of whom were somewhat ill, the oldest being so sick that he was unable to do any work, while another had been hit by a bulldozer when he was six years old and had his lungs smashed. The man said he did not have enough money to hire a lawyer and still did not and had not pleaded guilty himself, had wondered who had entered the plea of guilty for him.
An attorney in Charlotte had threatened to strike Mr. Kilgo during an argument during the morning about the same man's case, the incident having occurred in the office of the solicitor just before court had convened. The attorney had told Mr. Kilgo that "people are getting tired of reading the same old thing." On Monday and Tuesday, Mr. Kilgo had written stories about the man and the entry of his plea to the three charges without his knowledge. The attorney had told him that he should get out among the people and he would find out that they were getting tired of it. Mr. Kilgo had responded that he got out more than the attorney. At that point, the solicitor told the two men that they were acting like kids, and Mr. Kilgo told the attorney, "You run your law practice and we'll run our newspaper." The attorney had then approached Mr. Kilgo, showed him the palm of his hand and stated angrily: "Do you see this? I'll slap your face if you fool with me." Mr. Kilgo said he intended to continue reporting on the case, and the attorney eventually cooled off and shook hands with him. At no time during the argument had the attorney explained his interest in the stories.
Jerry Reece of The News reports that a Charlotte woman, accused of lying in a sworn statement that she had voted for the incumbent constable in a disputed election, had told the newspaper this date that she was never asked if she had voted for the man. She said that a minister and a white man had come to her house sometime after the election and the minister had called her outside and asked her if she had ever voted, and when she said that she had, he directed her to sign a paper. She said she had not voted in the May 31 primary when the constable was defeated by another candidate and said that she had never said that she had. She admitted that she had gone to the polls of the precinct on election day but did not vote because she was not registered at that precinct. She said she had registered several years earlier at another precinct, at a time when President Roosevelt was running. The Board of Elections record showed that the woman was registered on April 16, 1949. The woman was angry about the incident, saying that she might go to jail, not for voting but for fighting. The minister and the other man were unavailable for comment. The constable said that he knew nothing about the woman's statement, that he had gone to the precinct with the minister and the other man but that they had not found some of the people at home, but heard the minister and the other man tell one person that if that person did not vote for the constable, they did not want the person to sign the document.
A Texas music fan during the week
had given the reason "street fighting reports", for
canceling his ticket to the Wagner Opera Festival scheduled in
Bayreuth, West Germany. Puzzled festival officials had finally
realized that the man might be confusing Bayreuth with Beirut,
Lebanon, and hastily cabled that the cities were not the same,
although many Americans pronounced both the same way. Now, you can venture
A 53-year old man had dropped his pipe in St. Louis the previous night and the fire department had to be called despite there being no fire. When the man sought to retrieve his pipe, his head had become jammed between two iron bars in his porch railing.
In Sturgis, Mich., a number of women attending a rummage sale had placed their purses in an empty safe for safekeeping and the son of one of the women had slammed the safe door shut. Police were called to try to open it, but were unable to do so and the purses remained locked in the safe.
In Eagle City, Okla., a man reported that his mother, sister, daughter, grandson and great-grandson had all been born on May 30. That is amazing that they could all be born on the same day in 1958.
On the editorial page, "The Short, Happy Route to Prohibition" indicates that the massive hypocrisy of Alcoholic Beverage Control policies was no longer hard news, but that the latest example was strangely appealing. Recognizing that the old "legal limit" rule of a gallon of liquor per purchaser was a bother to those planning a party, Mecklenburg's ABC Board had arranged for a bulk-buying system whereby a person could apply at the central ABC office for a purchase memorandum which would then be presented to a local store manager so that bottles could be packaged and ready when the customer arrived. The prospective party-giver could only receive in hand a gallon at a time, receiving multiple quantities only by making one trip per gallon to his vehicle. The ABC officials did not insist that it be a different customer each time, as it would be a tiresome charade to have different people enter the store. That all of the bottles were placed in the same car was not a problem.
It suggests that the ABC Board would have the public believe that it was not breaking any law, while bending the spirit of the law "into the shape of German pretzels." It suggests that the next thing would be that the Board would install revolving doors in its stores so that bulk purchasers could register the proper number of entrances and exits in advance, and in accordance with what was described in the law.
The intent of the law was plain and if it was a bad law, the Board should recommend appropriate changes to the Legislature, and if it was not, the Board ought to abide by it. By bending it to favor bulk purchasers, the ABC officials were only risking a return to complete prohibition.
"Desegregation Reaches Crucial Stage" indicates that the assignment of seven judges to hear on appeal the Little Rock school case emphasized again the crucial stage presently reached in the desegregation process.
It finds that the decision of the appellate court regarding the attempt to overturn a U.S. District Court decision to postpone desegregation until the start of 1961 would be inevitably controversial, inflaming both the segregationists and integrationists. But the judges would have to arrive at a constructive conclusion in a case where there were few visible signs that such a conclusion was possible.
In granting the postponement, the Federal District Court judge had dealt with conditions presently extant in Little Rock, finding that absent a cooling-off period, there could be no effective education for any student at Central High School, with ample evidence before the court to sustain that conclusion.
It wonders whether, however, the conditions could be separated from the provocative actions of Governor Orval Faubus which had helped to create those conditions. The actions of the Governor in sending in the Arkansas National Guard the prior September to prevent black students from attending school after registration day had occasioned some violent reaction against the black students, had found no favor in the courts, but the result of those actions had been recognized by the District Court as an acceptable reason for postponement of desegregation to avoid the prospect of federalization of the Guard by the President to protect the black students again in the coming school year. The Court of Appeals would have to consider that point and if it were to go along with the District Court, there was a strong probability that other such situations would occur in the South. But if it reversed the District Court, there would be a strong possibility that Federal troops again would be required to enforce the integration process. It suggests that if that were viewed as winning a battle, it would almost certainly result in losing the war, for nothing was more certain than that a policy of forced integration would fail.
It concludes that the appellate court faced no easy decision and would need all of its wisdom to arrive at a workable solution.
As indicated, in late August, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals would reverse the District Court and order desegregation to proceed forthwith under the original orders of 1956 and 1957, a decision which would be affirmed in late September by the Supreme Court, all premised on Brown v. Board of Education and its implementing decision of 1955, requiring desegregation "with all deliberate speed".
"Mr. Sinclair Weeks Goes to Sea" finds the Secretary of Commerce to have engaged in a "flash flood of his own rhetoric" in his emotional defense of White House chief of staff Sherman Adams, stating that Mr. Adams had been "whiplashed more brutally than any individual in public life in our generation," and "cruelly smeared by vindictive hatemongers", that he was continuing in his belief in "his rugged New England character."
It finds the expressions imprudent because they were not so. Many people had been subject to smears by the late Senator McCarthy, Richard Nixon and others in recent years. There was inevitably a political interest in the investigation of Mr. Adams but also a legitimate public interest. There had been no "whiplashing" of Mr. Adams except for the investigating subcommittee's regrettable decision to offer a public forum to John Fox. Otherwise, there had been a proper exposure of the improper use by Mr. Adams of his office and the maintenance of a double standard of morality in the Administration. Even if Mr. Adams was an innocent victim of political vilification, he would be fortunate in having his honesty, rather than his loyalty, questioned, as had been the case in earlier matters.
It finds the most astonishing part of the statement by Secretary Weeks to have been his reference to his friend's "rugged New England character", wondering what that was.
It quotes the old children's rhyme: "Lizzie Borden took an axe/ And gave her mother forty whacks;/ When she saw what she had done,/ She gave her father forty-one." It finds that there was no denying that Ms. Borden, who lived in Fall River, Mass., was a "rugged New England character".
Mr. Weeks seemed to suggest that there was something in New England's rocks and rills which imported to all New Englanders a unique and unquestionable integrity, which the piece finds to be bunk.
A piece from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, titled "Bosh Will Triumph", indicates that Senator Karl Mundt of South Dakota had stated in the Congressional Record that "HFELL is dead, DPP is ailing." HFELL stood for Hope for Effective Labor Legislation and DPP was for Democratic Parliamentary Procedures. The Senator said that the former had met a violent death "between" June 17, when it left the Senate reported by yea-and-nay vote. He had said that there was new hope for it and that in any event DPP would never perish or become incapacitated.
The piece concludes that there would be ultimate survival for another favorite pal of the Senator, Beautiful Oratory Sizzling Hot, "better known to his friends as BOSH."
Drew Pearson tells of Dr. Giuseppe Pella, Foreign Minister of Italy, having come to Washington a year earlier to give Secretary of State Dulles a plan for the Middle East, which Secretary Dulles had rejected. Had it been adopted, he suggests, the Middle Eastern mess would not be ongoing at present, as the plan had foreseen that Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser would sweep all of the Middle East, to be followed by Communism should the West not help conquer the poverty, filth and disease in that region where there was a vast contrast between the kings and the ragged peasants.
Dr. Pella had seen what Premier Nasser had done in dividing up the irrigated land of Egypt, once dominated by only 27 families, and had seen how the new Syria had divided up the land from the old aristocracy as well, both nations having joined in the united land reform law of Israel, which they hated but nevertheless had helped make Premier Nasser popular with the masses.
Thus, Dr. Pella had proposed that a fund for the development of underdeveloped areas be created from the Marshall Plan loans which Western European nations were due to repay the U.S., proposing that the U.S. payments be matched by payments from European nations and that the money be spent for irrigation on the River Jordan, the Nile, the Tigris and Euphrates, and elsewhere, to resettle Palestinian refugees and generally improve the economic-social condition of the Middle East.
That essentially had been the plan of former President Truman on which he was working at the end of his term. He had once told Mr. Pearson: "The solution for the Near East is not arms, but dams and more electric power and more wheat. This area used to hold 60 million people in the days of the Greeks and Romans. Now it holds 25 million because the Mongols knocked out the irrigation works and because these people have been too busy fighting against each other. We've got to teach the Arabs that they need Jewish know-how and that they all need each other. It is not easy, but with patience, leadership and a big public works program, it can be done."
President Eisenhower could use Adlai Stevenson if he wanted to, with the former Democratic presidential nominee presently in Russia. He was a skilled negotiator and could be drafted as a troubleshooter to talk to Premier Nikita Khrushchev regarding a summit conference and the Middle East. Previously, President Eisenhower had turned a cold shoulder on former President Truman and up to the current year, had ignored Mr. Stevenson. By contrast, in wartime, President Roosevelt had sent his 1940 Republican rival, Wendell Wilkie, on a special war mission to Moscow. He had also invited his 1936 opponent, Alf Landon, to serve in his wartime Cabinet, in the end appointing Frank Knox, who had run for the vice-presidency in 1936, as Secretary of the Navy, and Henry Stimson, who had served in both the Cabinets of President William Howard Taft and President Hoover, as his Secretary of War.
He concludes that Mr. Stevenson was an able negotiator who had served during the war in the State Department and with the country in a serious crisis, a good President would use good men regardless of politics.
Speaking of the Secretary of War, it is wise and proper in this time of dumb-dumb-dummyism under Trump—who apparently thinks that by the stroke of his tiny, little pen he can rename the Gulf of Mexico to the "Gulf of America", and the Department of Defense, its name since 1947, to the "Department of War", bypassing any hearings or input in the least from Congress—, to revisit in primer form the history of the Department of Defense.
In 1947, the armed services were united after troublesome division of command authority between the Department of the Navy and the War Department, which had become especially troublesome at the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, causing confusion in receipt and transmission through the chain of command of separate intelligence reports in advance of the attack and in making and passing coordinated command decisions in its immediate wake, complicating also the subsequent general war effort at times.
Because of the competition which had grown up between the Army and the Navy through time, and the duplication between the services leading to waste in the defense budget, complicated even more by the advent of air defense during World War I, leading to creation of the separate Army Air Corps and the Naval Air Force, the 1947 National Security Act provided for a unification of the armed services under a Defense Department, dubbed at the time the National Military Establishment, administered by a civilian Secretary of Defense, with the Army, Air Force and Navy administered thereunder as separate departments, each with a civilian secretary. The "War Department" thus ceased to exist. It was not renamed the Defense Department; rather, it became the Department of the Army, pursuant to section 205 of the Act. The Act represented a fundamental reorganization of the armed services to eliminate the interbranch competition.
The renaming also served the purpose of providing a less bellicose sounding stance for the country as it entered the cold war with nuclear weapons capable of total annihilation of an enemy, especially problematic when faced with being branded by the Soviets as "war-mongering imperialists". It suggested implicitly more civility, less bellicosity, and thereby tempered the old warrior mentality of the professional soldiers themselves, affording a constant reminder that they were engaged in the nation's defense, not in waging war against perceived enemies, important in such a time after two world wars had erupted overseas 25 years apart, with an emphasis on never allowing such enmities again to become so recalcitrantly entrenched to develop into open conflicts with the stakes never higher in terms of the outcome of any world conflict in a nuclear age, hence the advent in 1945 of the United Nations as an organization through which the worst disputes between nations could be mediated.
And that reorganized Defense Department, operating in conjunction with an active diplomatic service through and in conjunction with the U.N., has managed thus far to avoid any world war since World War II.
Now comes upstart Trump and his entourage of dummies, ignorant of history, ignorant of the Constitution and the laws, ignorant of the country's tradition, wanting to remake everything in their image of what they think the country ought to be, America First, reminiscent of that anachronistic isolationist movement of the late 1930's which stood fast against foreign entanglements in a time when the airplane had shrunk the world and rendered obsolete the quaint 19th century notion of the U.S. that it was insulated from world conflict by two oceans, and which could have cost the U.S. World War II if its tenets had been followed by more than a relatively small, purblind percentage of the population, leaving the U.S., had not Pearl Harbor galvanized immediately the overwhelming mass of the public against the Axis powers, finally alone in a world conquered otherwise by Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and the Empire of Japan.
Trump and his dummies wish to return the status of the United States to that prior to World War II, replete with a "War Department" "because we wage war" and "defense" sounds too weak.
There is no "War Department", even amid the dipsomaniacal conjurings from out of the shot glass of those men insecure in their shortcomings as males, and for good reason historically, until such time as Congress might improvidently act to make it so, after cautious hearings and debate on the subject, in the long legislative tradition of the country which values deliberation over precipitant, emotional response to matters which are merely transitory and moody in nature, mercurially emotional as with a spoiled child.
Parenthetically, were there still a "War Department", it would, historically, have to be the Department of the Army, not the Defense Department, and thus, apparently, dumbbell Trump, trying to sound tough through his 1969 bone-spurs
Had the nation responded in such way in peacetime in the past, we would, no doubt, have been soundly defeated and eliminated from the world stage of leadership—as the country effectively was in and after 1921 through 1932, with the rejection of its membership in the League of Nations and the "return to normalcy" policy of President Warren G. Harding, rejecting the wisdom of President Woodrow Wilson's postwar Fourteen Points, designed to avoid what ultimately became World War II. There is no rule in this country by one man. We are a representative democracy, which means that the people have their say through their elected officials, first in Congress, with the President having the sworn duty to uphold the Constitution and laws of the United States, and the courts acting as arbiter under appropriate circumstances to determine, among other things, any disputes regarding the proper separation of powers under the Constitution and laws.
Trump is trying to create a "war" for the "War Department" to fight—as a provocateur in the streets of Democratically run cities and states, branding through his propaganda ministry simple First Amendment protest as "acts of terrorism".
In all likelihood, before Trump is done, he will try to change the name of the country to the "Federated International States of Trump", FIST, unilaterally abrogating the Constitution as outmoded and "terroristic" by executive fiat declaring a spurious "national emergency" in time of peace, unless he is stopped in his effort to stamp his lasting brand on things not intended for one-man rule, rather than merely being a good steward of that which was handed him by his predecessors and trying to continue the long tradition of the country of expansion of liberty and rights for all, not narrowing of those rights as he appears obsessed with leaving as his only lasting legacy.
After the troublesome times internationally and domestically between 1914 and 1945, there was good cause for reflection and change in the way things were done, changes which are subject to being tweaked from time to time within the Constitutional framework to make them better serve humanity. Present conditions in the world and in the nation, however, do not require such sweeping changes. Fifty-two card pick-up is not a game worth playing for anyone other than spoiled, bored losers.
Walter Lippmann tells of a seeming standstill in the Middle East, at least temporarily, as Britain, the U.S and France had agreed that they would not invade Iraq to produce a counter-revolution and would not permit Turkey or Jordan to do so. It likewise appeared clear that Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser and Premier Nikita Khrushchev would not move their military forces against the U.S. Marines in Lebanon and British paratroopers in Jordan. During the momentary balance of power, the statesmen and diplomats would hold sway.
He suggests that a cool assessment of the West's position was the essential basis of a constructive diplomatic policy, determining what had happened in Iraq, the keystone of the Baghdad Pact and supposedly the one firm and reliable pro-Western Arab country, that the Government of King Faisal III had not been the victim of external aggression, as had been the case in Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary, but rather of a conspiracy of Iraqi officers, with the Iraqi Army having supported the revolution immediately, a revolution which was popular in the country, making it significant. Thus, the West would be deluding itself to believe that the friendly Government of Iraq had been subverted by foreign agents acting contrary to the national sentiment of that country. There was thus no reason to hope that there would be a counter-revolution which would restore the old Iraqi regime or that military intervention, for instance, by King Hussein of Jordan backed by the British and Americans, would have any chance of success.
It had been indicated that what restrained the West was the fear of Russian intervention in Iraq, but that was not the only reason, for even if Russian neutrality were guaranteed, which it was not, Western military intervention in Iraq could not succeed in establishing an independent Arab government. It would only be a puppet government dependent on the British and American forces and doomed to destruction if those forces were ever withdrawn. It was another way of saying that the popular revolutionary movement of the Arabs could not be overcome by Western armed force.
The same fundamental truth, he posits, applied to the West's present position in Lebanon, as the U.S. forces could not entrench themselves there in hostile opposition to the Arab movement or assure independence of Lebanon with the forces presently there, that independence only being assured if the civil war was ended and the new Lebanese state was then guaranteed protection.
While the U.S. Marines could protect President Camille Chamoun against a palace revolution such as that in Iraq, the Marines were a liability when it came to making a lasting settlement of the civil war. For any Lebanese government which owed its existence to the Marines was doomed to destruction as soon as the Marines departed. Moreover, the longer the Marines remained, the greater would be the popular opposition to them in Lebanon.
It led Mr. Lippmann to believe that the Lebanese policy, as presented to the U.N., was too thin, lacking in diplomatic vitality. The U.S. had indicated that the Marines would leave when a U.N. force would replace them, but the chances were not good that the U.N. would set up such a force, leaving the U.S. to continue with the Marines in Lebanon for an indefinite time, without the hope of withdrawal or the hope of accomplishing anything while they remained. He believed, therefore, that the U.S. should present a proposal for the political future of Lebanon, beginning with the settlement of the civil war, perhaps through the good offices of U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold. The settlement would be followed by the neutralization of Lebanon under a guarantee of the U.N., which would include the interested powers. He posits that the U.S. should give Russia and Premier Nasser a political interest and a juridical reason for allowing Lebanon to exist as an independent state, as there was no other way, short of unconditional and unlimited war, to prevent indirect aggression while popular feeling was as it was in the Middle East.
A neutralized Lebanon would not end the Middle Eastern problem, but might be a beginning of a settlement as it would establish the principle that the confederation of the Soviets and Premier Nasser had interests in the region and that the U.S. was prepared to work out an accommodation.
He acknowledges that some might believe that an accommodation of interest was appeasement in the sense of Munich in 1938, but he does not believe it was so as Premier Nasser's part in the Iraqi revolution was quite dissimilar to the dismantlement of Czechoslovakia by Hitler. He does not consider Premier Nasser to be Hitler, despite being difficult and unfriendly to the West. He was not the master of a great military machine and the West did not need to become the victim of old stereotypes, viewing all big international events in terms of "Munich", "Yalta" or "Pearl Harbor", thus never seeing clearly the events themselves as in fact they were.
Marquis Childs, in Paris, indicates that the belief was growing in France that the Soviet Union was likely to intervene directly in the Middle East crisis by landing Russian troops in Syria, the conviction of sources with access to both governmental and private intelligence out of Lebanon and Jordan, where the British and American forces were attempting to sustain an established order against the rising tide of Arab nationalism backed by Communism.
The current crisis was expected to reach a climax in response to appeals from Syria to the Soviets to help protect Syrian independence from "aggression" aimed from neighboring Jordan and the "imperialists" presently entrenched there. Russian paratroops would be flown in and during the previous two days, both the Syrian and Egyptian radio had taken an increasingly violent tone, with charges that the "war-mongering imperialists" intended to launch an attack against Syria, neighboring Jordan. It was believed to be a build-up preparatory to that action. While it would cause a new problem for the West, the same sources were also convinced that, barring an unforeseen incident, it would not lead to open conflict as the Soviet motive would be to obtain a stronger bargaining position by enabling the Soviets to state in any forum that they had come to protect their friends and would remove the troops from Syria if and when the U.S. and Britain removed their troops from Lebanon and Jordan. That would be the basis for negotiation either within the U.N. or possibly in a four-power conference. Such a conference could also take up larger issues, including recognition of the role of the Soviets in the region.
The prospect of resolving the crisis in that way had provided informed officials and those who had to deal with the problem of Middle Eastern oil a greater sense of assurance during the previous day. They did not exclude an incident which could touch off a war which might, at least in its first phase, resemble the Korean War. But they believed that Moscow, despite the demonstrations, was anxious to preserve peace, as was Premier Nasser, making it plain to Premier Khrushchev the importance of avoiding any overt act which would touch off a conflict.
Russia might stop short of actual intervention involving grave risks, but had troops in the area and particularly on the pretext of responding to the Anglo-American "threat", which would give the Soviets bargaining power they did not presently have. At least that was the interpretation of experts in Paris who were following each move in the newest crisis. One thing appeared certain, that the climax had not yet been reached, likely to occur within the ensuing 24 to 36 hours.
A letter writer from Cheraw, S.C., responds to a letter from an insurance company representative regarding Social Security, indicating that he could not understand how anyone could be opposed to Social Security payments to those who were elderly and needed them. He favors passing the bill before Congress to raise the benefits, that many had been promised many deals from large insurance companies, but policies had loopholes which were not consonant with the Social Security Act. He says that insurance companies were opposed to Social Security but had no better plan for the people and until they did, should not criticize it, that regardless of its cost, it was one of the best programs the country had, helping everyone in one way or another.
Framed Edition
Links-Date — Links-Subj.