The Charlotte News
Tuesday, July 8, 1958
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the House subcommittee investigating the Goldfine-Adams matter had granted Bernard Goldfine a one-day postponement in his testimony this date but warned that it would expect his cooperation. Mr. Goldfine's attorney, Roger Robb, said that his client had come to Washington on Sunday to prepare to answer the subcommittee's questions again but had gone into a state of physical and mental exhaustion after a chain of spectacular events the previous day, the discovery of a hidden microphone near a hotel suite occupied by Mr. Goldfine's aides and theft of some of Mr. Goldfine's papers the previous day, leaving him with little sleep and affording him no time to prepare for the subcommittee's questions. The attorney said that he expected to appear before the subcommittee the following day to answer those questions. The subcommittee, meanwhile, had fired its chief investigator, Baron Shacklette, who had rigged up the microphone and recording equipment in a room next door to Mr. Goldfine's aides. He had denied any connection with the reported removal of Mr. Goldfine's papers. Representative Oren Harris of Arkansas, the subcommittee chairman, made it plain that he expected full cooperation from Mr. Goldfine, that despite having received, himself, calls at midnight on Sunday, he had still come to work the previous day and this date, recounting difficulties he had with Mr. Goldfine since the subcommittee had first started checking on whether he received favored Federal treatment because of his friendship to White House chief of staff Sherman Adams, who admitted making phone calls on behalf of his old friend when he was having problems with the Federal Trade Commission and the Securities & Exchange Commission. Mr. Goldfine had testified for two days the previous week.
In Guantánamo, Cuba, it was reported that poor communications had delayed the release of North Americans still being held captive by Fidel Castro's rebels, with 33 Americans and one Canadian still being held. The commander of the Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay, Rear Admiral R. B. Ellis, said that he had been told that there had been no hitch in the release arrangements, but that the men were scattered among rebel camps in the east Cuban mountains and jungles and so it was taking time to collect them to be picked up at a single point. He said that he had been dispatching a helicopter to make the pickup when a Navy plane saw white cloth marker panels laid out in jungle clearings. Three Americans had been taken out the previous day, bringing to 16 the number of men thus far released. One of the released men, an official of United Fruit Co., said that there had been no one else at the loading point when he had left. He said that there had been rumors in the rebel camps that after the other four civilians were released, Sr. Castro would free the 30 U.S. sailors and Marines he was holding. Some servicemen at the Navy base were angry that none of their buddies had been released. Informed sources in Havana said that the rebels were still holding the 30 servicemen to bargain for U.S. recognition as belligerents, entitling them to equal treatment with the regime of El Presidente Fulgencio Batista, which they were seeking to overthrow.
In New York, it was reported that 37 alleged members of a
Mafia international narcotics racket ring had been indicted by a Federal District Court grand jury. Among the defendants was Vito Genovese
In Beirut, Lebanon, it was reported that an incendiary bomb had wrecked the city's leading dime store this date, killing or wounding at least 30 persons. Flames quickly whipped through the building, evidently trapping some of its occupants. At least 100 salesgirls were usually employed in the store, which was doing a heavy business when the bomb hit at mid-morning. The bomb was in a soft drink delivery truck parked in front of the building. The truck had been demolished and the blast had shaken buildings throughout the area and shattered glass for blocks. It was the worst act of terrorism in Beirut since a bomb had exploded in a crowded streetcar on May 26, killing six and wounding 20 persons. The bombings were the work of extremists among the Lebanese rebels trying to enforce a general strike called in an effort to paralyze the pro-Western Government of President Camille Chamoun. The explosion had occurred after several days of relative quiet in downtown Beirut as shopkeepers had begun to ignore the general strike order. The bombing probably had been intended as a warning to them. The fire had spread quickly through the dime store and within half an hour, the ground floor had burned out and flames had roared up to the top floor of the four-story building. The fire still raged an hour after the explosion, although firemen by then appeared to be getting it under control.
In Algiers, the Algerian Public Safety Committee this date appealed to Jacques Soustelle, newly named by French Premier Charles de Gaulle as information minister, to help put into effect the Committee's plans for integration of Algeria into France.
The U.S. Air Force said this date that two Russian jet fighters had shot down the American transport plane which had crash-landed in Soviet Armenia on June 27, with five of the nine airmen aboard having parachuted to safety as four others had ridden the plane down and escaped to safety before it had exploded. The Air Force said that the Russian fighters had made another firing attack on the crippled transport as it was heading in for the crash-landing. The nine men had been released by Russian authorities to American officials the previous day, returning to their home station in Tehran. The Russian version of the incident was that the transport had been compelled to land after it had flown into Russian territory and that the plane had burned up on the ground. The Air Force announcement this date said that the American airmen had reported that they were intercepted by the Russian fighters and set afire at 15,000 feet. The statement said that a combination of extensive thunderstorms, instrument flight conditions and unreported high winds had caused inadvertent crossing of the Soviet frontier, that five crew members had been forced to parachute to safety and that the remaining four had attempted to make an emergency landing at a crude airstrip 75 miles east southeast of Lake Sevan, that with five parachutes in the air and the aircraft in flames, the Soviet fighters had made another firing pass on the crippled plane while it was on its final approach for the forced landing. The burning plane had exploded on the ground after the four crew members who had ridden it down had been able to reach safety. All members of the crew were suffering from extreme fatigue and exhaustion, and one crew member had suffered second-degree burns. The Air Force said that a scheduled press conference with the airmen at Tehran was postponed on the advice of medical authorities. The nine had flown to Wiesbaden, Germany, this date from Iran after being held captive for ten days. Hugs, kisses and tears from members of their families had greeted them as they stepped from the four-engine plane which brought them from Tehran to the U.S. airbase. Air Force officers shielded them from reporters and hustled them off to hot meals. A press conference would be held the following day.
The Administration had told Congress this date that unless it restored a House cut of 325 million dollars and money for overseas economic development loans, the country "could lose the cold war by default."
The Senate Finance Committee this date approved the President's nomination of Arthur Flemming to be the new Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare.
The Agriculture Department this date estimated that the cotton in cultivation on July 1 was 12,402,000 acres or 12 percent less than the previous year.
Off Boulogne, France, two tankers had collided in the English Channel early this date, with one sailor known to have died and two others injured.
In Lewiston, Me., a frail teenage girl was accused this date of killing a policeman who had tried to talk her into going home and patching up a family argument. The 32-year old officer had died from a bullet between his eyes. The 14-year old girl who was in custody had taken a .22-caliber rifle and run away from home the previous day, hiding in nearby woods. Authorities said that she had argued with her mother about the location of their rented home, wanting to move closer to town. As a dozen city police and sheriff's deputies had looked for her in the woods, she fired several shots from the rifle. The dead officer had apparently found her crouched in some bushes near the side of the road and as he talked to her, she fired two shots, one of which had struck the officer. Her mother who had joined the search reportedly had helped take her into custody. She said, "The only way I got her to stop shooting was when I told her I had another rent." The assistant county attorney said that the girl would be arraigned on a charge of murder.
In New York, it was reported that five boys, the oldest of whom was 15, had been accused this date of causing $25,000 worth of damage in a three-day routine of vandalism at a garage on Manhattan's West Side. Police said that the teenagers had broken into an equipment company garage on July 4 and, using powerful forklifts as battering rams, had spread devastation among five panel trucks, two automobiles and 31 cargo loaders. They had rammed the loaders repeatedly into each other, with the forks ripping apart every obstacle. One new, specially built $8,000 forklift had been knocked over and damaged beyond repair. Police said that the boys had so much fun that they returned to the garage for the next two days. All five had been picked up and booked on juvenile delinquency charges and released to their parents' custody for children's court appearances.
In Malone, New York, some 500 searchers had looked through the Adirondack wilderness this date for a five-year old girl who had vanished from her parents' camp on Sunday.
In Antonito, Colorado, two men trapped since Friday in a rugged southern Colorado canyon had been reported rescued early this date, one of them believed to be seriously injured.
In Augusta, Ga., it was reported that a retired sergeant making a 1,000-mile trek from Little Rock, Ark., had reached Augusta during the morning and was headed for Florence, S.C.
In Bremen, Ind., it was reported that a man who weighed half a ton and claimed to be the world's biggest man, was sick this date in a semi-trailer truck, too large to pass through a hospital door. He had become seriously ill with measles, complicated by a heart condition while appearing with an amusement company carnival in Indiana. The carnival listed his weight as 1,065 pounds. The 32-year old man had been brought on Sunday to a hospital in Bremen, 16 miles south of South Bend, but could not be taken through the doors. The hospital also did not have a bed large enough for him. Oxygen tanks had been taken into the man's house built on the truck bed and nurses attended him by climbing a ladder. His condition was reported this date still to be serious. The carnival listed his home as being in Missouri, but he had become famous as a boy growing up in Baylis, Ill., where he had weighed 375 pounds at the age of ten. Doctors said that an attack of whooping cough when he was three months old had upset his glandular balance.
On the editorial page, "Is Council's Penny Worth the Pinch?" quotes from a third-party report that the residential communities of the county required utilities, schools, libraries, parks, recreation areas and youth services, the piece indicating that the need was obvious, but that the perimeter area would get no new recreational facilities until the City Council relaxed its pinch-penny policy.
The perimeter areas were already lacking in any kind of recreational development and yet the population was growing rapidly as were the natural recreational needs of both children and adults. In denying the Park and Recreation Commission the eight-cent levy per $100 of property valuation which the Commission had requested, the members of the Council were denying thousands of future residents even the bare minimum of a decent park program, as the Council wanted to stop at seven cents.
The Park Commission chairman had indicated that without the additional penny, there could be no extension of recreational facilities to the perimeter areas. The whole county needed parks and the overall need would have to be met later when residents were ready for a City-County park system. But in the perimeter, where the need was greatest, something could be done almost immediately, as the Council only needed to give the Commission the extra penny it needed to perform a task which had to be performed at once. There was still time in the perimeter areas to save land for a few recreational facilities, but unless the Commission had the means to act quickly, that land would be swallowed up by expanding residential developments.
It urges the Council to act immediately before it was too late.
"Put the Probers on Rayburn's Carpet" indicates that the subcommittee investigating the Goldfine-Adams matter appeared bent on proving John Ringling North's prediction that a circus could thrive indoors, finding that the bugging of Mr. Goldfine's hotel quarters by a subcommittee investigator had been reprehensible, demeaning of Congress and bringing the subcommittee to the same level of shoddy theatrics which the Goldfine entourage had been practicing since it had hit the road in Boston.
"Before the rival gumshoes started peeping under hotel doors at each other, there was a pertinent question before the country, to wit: Had industrialist Goldfine been able to use his wealth to wrest improper or illegal favors from the Federal Trade Commission and, if so, how did he do it?"
It finds there had been little reason to doubt that the White House had taken steps to assist Mr. Goldfine in his effort to obscure the issue, but that it was questionable how much help he had actually needed, as in the hands of his public relations and legal advisors, he apparently had tried to make it appear that he really was a Santa Claus and that his inquisitors were cynical persons who had no faith.
It finds that the staging of the burlesque was Mr. Goldfine's privilege and that he ran the risk of not being believed. The House, however, did not have the privilege of snooping on his living quarters or eavesdropping outside with the aid of machines, and that with a competent investigator, it never would have stooped to such practices. If the telephone wires of the subcommittee or of its members were being tapped, it was a police matter and the police ought be assigned to investigate it.
Subcommittee chairman Oren Harris had been involved in more than one mistake since he had taken office and it suggests that it was time for House Speaker Sam Rayburn to call him and instruct him in the arts of running a fair and responsible investigation. Meanwhile, the question involving Mr. Goldfine and the FTC still awaited an answer.
"Twistertongue" indicates that the Atlanta Journal's Frank Daniel, investigating a local Mrs. Malaprop, had learned that she had on various occasions referred to a bed of cannons (cannas), a whisp (wisp) of tulle, "limping waters", "bounding duty", and "garbling her throat". It had reminded Mr. Daniel and the editors of the menagerie lion running around the world, studied in the "biography jook—er, geography book."
"Come on in, the Fund-Raising's Fine" indicates that the persistent indications that the March of Dimes organization would shift its attention from polio to arthritis and rheumatism had brought fresh hope that it would also shift from its traditional position of independent campaigning. For years, the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis had maintained adamantly its position against joining federated fund-raising efforts, such as Mecklenburg County's United Appeal. Following in that organization's footsteps, several other health causes had adopted the same position.
There had been little or no conflict among the charitable organizations operating in Mecklenburg, but nevertheless there was a widespread local sentiment for pushing further ahead toward the laudable goal of having one completely united campaign for all causes, including polio, heart and cancer organizations.
Basil O'Connor, the national polio leader, had always viewed federation with disdain. When he had also headed the American Red Cross, that organization had maintained the same type policy which a few national health organizations presently followed. Once he had left the Red Cross, it had shifted its position such that now more than half of its funding was raised in united campaigns. General Alfred Gruenther, the present president of the American Red Cross, had said in Charlotte the previous fall that he was more than happy with that arrangement.
The United Appeal had an "open door" policy, writing each year to the principal organizations conducting separate campaigns and inviting them to participate in the annual fall appeal. One major United Appeal agency, the Rehabilitation and Spastics Hospital, had been one of the better facilities in the South for treatment of the crippled. Other U.S. agencies, such as the Association for the Handicapped, the Medical Emergency Fund and the North Carolina Medical Research Foundation, worked with the problems of crippling diseases. It indicates that there would be no problem from the standpoint of the United Appeal in receiving the March of Dimes under its umbrella. The matter rested with the latter organization.
It urges that it was time for a change and that at present there was an opportunity to restore the right of decision to the local level and apply for membership in the United Appeal.
A piece from the Christian Science Monitor, titled "A Tip for the Tourist", indicates that somewhere in Beersheba a tourist might still have a red face, referring to an American woman who had asked a desert sheik to pose for a photograph, and, after he had courteously obliged, pressed an Israeli pound note, the equivalent of about 50 cents, into his hand. It suggests that she might not have known that he was a sheik, but he had, and before walking away in royal dudgeon, had thrown several ten-pound notes at her feet.
It wonders what had occurred next, whether Communists had exploited the incident as anti-capitalist propaganda, and if so, whom they had called the capitalist, whether the Middle Eastern travel agencies had added a new category to their tipping suggestions for sheiks, whether a local investigating committee might have questioned the propriety of a sheik throwing gifts at a foreigner, as well as how the photograph had turned out.
It resists the temptation to philosophize about the matter and simply hopes that profit-minded tourists did not start making a habit of tipping the nobility of friendly nations. It suggests that it could hear them saying in a Robert Benchley vein, "Never tip a sheik unless you're sure that he is a sheik."
Drew Pearson indicates that both sides in the Goldfine-Adams case had been playing cops and robbers with private detectives and wiretaps. Private sleuths had been checking up on members of the Congressional subcommittee investigating the matter to retaliate for its previous investigation of Mr. Adams and Mr. Goldfine. Members of the subcommittee were certain that their wires were tapped, while one detective imported from New York had been definitely probing Congressman Morgan Moulder, a Missouri Democrat who had first presided over the hearings and quit in disgust after Congressman Oren Harris of Arkansas, the present chair of the subcommittee, insisted on firing the subcommittee counsel Bernard Schwartz. The allegations of the latter and Mr. Moulder had now been substantiated almost completely. One attorney for the subcommittee had also been under private investigation.
Thus far, the private detective work done by the Goldfine forces did not appear to have developed much except for obtaining a copy of the subcommittee's draft report on the Federal Trade Commission. Staff members of the subcommittee had prepared a draft report, later to be issued by it, showing how Mr. Goldfine's company, Northfield Mills, Inc., had received preferential treatment after Mr. Adams had called FTC chairman Ed Howrey. The draft report was seven pages long and the Goldfine forces had been delighted when their detectives smuggled a copy from the subcommittee, but not so delighted when they read it.
The column had taken a look at the copy which the Goldfine detectives had obtained and could state that it showed that Mr. Howrey was charged with a misdemeanor in giving information to Mr. Adams for Mr. Goldfine, and that Mr. Goldfine had received extremely favorable treatment following the phone call by Mr. Adams. It stated: "Northfield Mills got by without giving the information which might have disclosed other violations [of the wool labeling act]." It also said that the commission had taken no steps to follow up on the matter and check on the company's fabrics until the fall of 1954, when it had received a complaint of other violations. The investigations prompted by the subsequent complaint had yielded evidence of numerous and previous violations of the labeling act. Many of the most serious violations, it had continued, involved fabrics alleged to contain high proportions of guanaco fiber which in fact contained very little.
Subsequently, Mr. Goldfine and his son had called at the FTC after Mr. Adams had arranged an appointment, and at the end of the meeting, Mr. Goldfine had called Mr. Adams in front of FTC officials to thank him.
Subsequent investigation, according to the subcommittee's report, had disclosed that the Goldfine mills continued to mislabel fabrics. It disclosed that a member of the FTC had submitted a 37-page memo recommending that because of the magnitude of the deception and the fact that the violation had been premeditated and willful, it should be referred to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution.
The latter action had been overruled in a two-page memo, however, which made no attempt to discuss the 37-page recommendation for criminal prosecution. Discussing the importance of FTC secrecy, the subcommittee report pointed out that confidential information could be released only after application in writing under oath and that it was the Commission and not a single commissioner who had to consider and act upon such a request. The subcommittee's report then stated facts showing that Mr. Howrey was not only a liar but a violator of the law, first by pointing out that he had said that his memo to Mr. Adams was not official, though it had been written under his letterhead as chairman of the FTC, and second by showing that he had revealed confidential information.
He also relates of the tactics recently disclosed on the part of executives for the giant Freeport Sulphur Co. when it was bidding for renewal of its contract for the U.S.-owned Nicaro Nickel Plant in Cuba. When a representative of the General Services Administration wanted to lower the price of nickel which the Government was paying to the company, the president of the company had sent a former FBI agent to Nebraska to investigate the deputy director of GSA, who had objected to the high price of nickel.
A News Editorial Report from
White Sands, N.M., presumably by editor Cecil Prince who had made a
similar report the prior Thursday, tells of the first public display
The missile was 27 feet long, with a diameter of 31 inches, having a booster 14.5 feet long comprised of a cluster of four booster rockets. It was launched by remote control and received its initial impetus from its solid propellant booster rockets. Once in flight, it was accelerated by a solid fuel sustainer motor.
Its goal was to intercept any enemy aircraft picked up by radar, with the electronic guidance system aboard the missile carrying it to the point of "intercept", where it would destroy the target, all done automatically.
The missile had greater range, velocity, altitude and accuracy than did the Ajax. Its atomic warhead was designed to ensure that detonation would occur only at an altitude sufficiently high to prevent damage to friendly surrounding terrain. The atomic warhead also gave it the ability to engage and destroy either single planes or formations of planes. The Hercules could destroy any known manned aircraft flying at present or likely to become available in the near future. It could also destroy any cruise-type missile presently known.
The Hercules system would make full use of the present Ajax sites. The replacement of the Ajax ground guidance equipment and modifications of launching equipment would make it possible to launch both Ajax and Hercules missiles, with the changes adding to the effectiveness of the Ajax.
Research and development studies on the Hercules had been made by the same Army-industry team which had responsibility for the original Ajax, including the U.S. Army Ordnance Corps, Bell Telephone Laboratories, Western Electric Co. and Douglas Aircraft Co., the latter being the manufacturer in Charlotte. The ground guidance and control equipment and the electronic guidance package were manufactured by Western Electric at plants in Winston-Salem, Burlington and Greensboro.
Although the Ajax was no longer manufactured, the Hercules had entered production months before the last of the more than 10,000 Ajax missiles had been delivered. But since the Hercules was more complex than the Ajax, extensive retooling had been necessary. More than 1.5 million components were used in each Hercules system. The missile itself was only one part of that system, with three radars, a computer, automatic plotting boards, a power generator and much miscellaneous equipment also necessary. Although longer, heavier and more than double the diameter of the Ajax, it had extremely good maneuverability at altitudes in excess of those capable of being reached by the Ajax. Its higher velocity permitted swifter interception. It could carry either a conventional or a nuclear warhead.
There were normally 12 launchers in
each Ajax battery, approximately 100 officers and men per battery and
four lettered batteries in each battalion. The Army had announced that its
organization of Hercules batteries
The Army would not disclose the range of the Hercules, stating that it was "substantially greater than the Nike Ajax." The Army also would not state its exact velocity, only that it was faster than the Ajax. It was presently ready and in the hands of operational Nike batteries in some areas, while others would be on the firing line as fast as the manufacturing plants could turn them out.
A letter writer indicates that every man had a right to earn his own living, when, where and how he wanted, and that each person was entitled to freedom and equality of opportunity, had a right to make a reasonable profit or to fail, depending on ability, and had the right to manage one's own affairs as long as the person was rational. Each person had a right to operate his or her own business in the way they wanted and the right to own property, as well as the right to belong to whatever organizations the person desired and to work where the person wanted to work, to live where they wanted to live and to pursue as much education as the person wanted.
A letter writer addresses the grand jury probe of the City Recorder's Court presently underway, hopeful that something good would come of it. He indicates that presently the judges and solicitors of that court and the Domestic Relations Court were appointive, something with which he disagrees, believing they should be elective.
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