The Charlotte News
Friday, August 1, 1958
FOUR EDITORIALS
Sire Ed. Note: The front page reports that the President this date had sent a new letter to Premier Nikita Khrushchev proposing a summit conference on the Middle East at the U.N. on about August 12, for the first time committing himself to the idea of a top-level meeting, calling on the Soviet Premier to join him. At the same time, the President said that the threat of "further indirect aggression" in the Middle East was the real issue for a meeting of the heads of state, rejecting the Soviet contention that the trouble stemmed from "aggression" by the U.S. in Lebanon. He turned down in sharp language the idea of any such session outside the U.N., telling Mr. Khrushchev that it would amount to an effort to set up big-power dictation such as Mr. Khrushchev had "imposed in Eastern Europe." The President advised Mr. Khrushchev that he was seeking arrangement of a special Security Council session for the summit meeting through U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., and that it could be held in New York or some other city, but not in Moscow.
In Baghdad, two U.S. Marines from the U.S. Embassy guard had been arrested the previous day by Iraqi troops, caught up in a roundup after a fire had broken out at the Government-owned Baghdad petroleum depot.
Also in Baghdad, it was reported that the roaring oil fire at the depot had burned for the third day as the Government announced it had arrested several persons in connection with that blaze.
In Naples, Italy, the first Marines to be pulled out of Lebanon had passed through the city this date on their way back to the U.S. The movement did not signal the beginning of a general withdrawal. The 21 Marines returning to the U.S. were two months overdue for discharge at the end of their enlistments.
In Honolulu, it was reported that a missile with an atomic warhead had been fired into the Pacific skies from Johnston Island this date, the test shot illuminating the skies such that it was observable by thousands in Hawaii, 700 miles to the northeast. A Waikiki vacationer from Daly City, Calif., said that she had been able to see the ball of fire from Waikiki Beach and asked, "Would you advise me to leave?" She was told not to be alarmed. Two airline pilots on a flight from Honolulu had seen the explosion, which may have occurred at an altitude of 100 miles. The captain and copilot said that the sky appeared to erupt, as a bright flash cut through the darkness in the southwest, appearing to them as a towering kind of cloud which climbed swiftly and was topped by a mushroom cloud which increased in height and width. Honolulu police said that they received telephone calls about the blast shortly after it had occurred and from that moment on, they were swamped. One Honolulu resident said that she and her family had filled bathtubs with water in accordance with Civil Defense instructions. All shipping and air traffic had been warned the previous day to stay away from Johnston Island, embracing an area within a radius of 550 miles from the island. Several hours after the test shot, the Atomic Energy Commission in Honolulu had announced that a nuclear warhead missile had been fired from the island. There was speculation in Washington that the nuclear warhead was carried aloft by an Army Redstone ballistic missile.
In Akron, O., a planned Arctic flight by a Navy blimp, already six days behind schedule, was delayed again this date by unfavorable weather, with officers of the blimp concerned with a low pressure system over Hudson Bay, the first stop on its polar expedition.
In Atlanta, it was reported that racial agitator John Kasper had emerged from Federal prison this date and said he would return at once to the fight for segregation which had brought him a year of prison time the previous year for contempt of a Federal court order because of his rabble-rousing activities in Clinton, Tenn., in connection with the desegregation ongoing there in the fall of 1956. He had received four months off of his original sentence for good behavior. He had been transferred to Atlanta from Tallahassee the previous day after some Klan leaders and others had announced plans for a "welcome out" party at the Federal reformatory in Tallahassee. He told newsmen that a phone call to Tallahassee would determine whether he would return there for a belated reunion with his followers and that if he did not go there, he would likely go to Knoxville where he received the contempt sentence and which he now claimed as his home. He still faced trial in September in Nashville on a state charge of inciting to riot in connection with his activities there regarding school desegregation the previous fall. He said that he looked forward to that trial and that his appearance would be "a sounding board to expose the real integrationists there." The New Jersey-born agitator said that the real issue there was "exposure of political leadership that is dependent on the Negro for political power."
In Indianapolis, it was reported that detectives had waited impatiently this date for an attractive divorcee to regain consciousness so they could question her about the fatal shooting of a prosperous pharmaceutical executive, an executive vice-president of Eli Lily & Co., who had been found dead the previous night in the woman's parked car in a lovers' lane in Indianapolis. She was booked on a preliminary charge of murder. A detective said that the physical culture enthusiast had apparently tried to commit suicide by drinking fruit juice containing sleeping pills and she was taken to a hospital in critical condition. A .25-caliber pistol, similar to the one which had killed the wealthy businessman, had been found in the woman's purse. The detective said that four bullets had been fired from the small pistol and three slugs had been found in the body of the victim, with another slug found in his white Cadillac. The detective said that the woman had been seeing the man for some period of time.
In Verdun, France, it was reported that an Army court-martial this date had sentenced Wayne Powers, a GI who had hidden for 14 years with his French common-law wife, to ten years imprisonment after he pleaded guilty to a charge of wartime desertion. The 37-year old father of five shook his head in disbelief as the sentence of the eight-man tribunal was read. The sentence would now go before Brig. General Robert Fleming, the area commander, who could reduce the sentence. It was believed that Mr. Powers had pleaded guilty under a pretrial agreement providing for a light sentence. He had said before trial that if everything went the way it should, he would be back home within a month or two. He was a native of Missouri, but home was now a village near the Belgian border, where he lived with his five children and their French mother. The defense attorneys also expressed the belief before trial that Mr. Powers would receive a light sentence. The maximum penalty was death. In 1944, when he was 21 and a private first-class driving a truck with the Army in France, his truck had disappeared and he faced court-martial. He escaped from the Army stockade and had gone for help and solace to the woman now his common-law wife, whom he had met before. That saga had then continued for 14 years and the couple had settled without marrying, with Mr. Powers having a wife in Missouri who later divorced him on the ground of desertion. His common-law wife in France had gone to work in a textile mill to support their growing family while Mr. Powers stayed home to do the housework, venturing out only at night and running to a cramped hiding place under a stairway with a false step whenever the doorbell rang. Villagers saw almost nothing of him.
In Port-au-Prince, Haiti, President Francois Duvalier had emerged from Haiti's latest political crisis with power to rule as a dictator for the ensuing six months and with his own political position apparently strengthened.
In New York, an industrialist had consented to a permanent injunction to enjoin him from alleged manipulation of American Motors Corp. common stock, according to an announcement this date by the Securities & Exchange Commission.
In Haifa, Israel, it was reported that nearly 200 prisoners had shot their way out of a prison in northern Israel the previous night and 64 were still at large this date. Israeli air and ground forces were pressed into the hunt for those remaining at large.
In Winston-Salem, N.C., it was reported that a heavy equipment operator for the City had been killed during the morning when a rented heavy front-end loader had gone out of control on a steep highway east of town. The man was returning the equipment to the rental company at the time and on a steep grade on the Thomasville Road, a short distance out of town, the machine apparently had gone out of control and left the highway, plunging over an embankment, rolling over the man and apparently killing him instantly.
Ann Sawyer of The News reports that a bondsman this date had admitted in court through his attorney that he paid the $400 bond in the mysterious George White case, but denied having anything to do with its disposition in City Recorder's Court. It did not answer the question of who had pleaded the defendant guilty or who had paid the $39 in court costs for the defendant, who had been charged with drunkenness, assault and resisting arrest, indicating that he had never appeared in court.
The judge of Recorder's Court, Basil Boyd, had spent the morning testifying before the Mecklenburg grand jury currently investigating irregularities in the court. He was the first witness called by the 18-person panel and remained there for at least 2 1/2 hours before the lunch recess. The former clerk of the Recorder's Court, a police officer, was waiting to testify early this date but evidently was told that he would not be needed until later. The solicitor of the court was also told that he would be called later. Two reporters for the News, John Kilgo and Ann Sawyer, had appeared before the grand jury the previous day to tell what they knew, as both had been reporting on the matter.
In Stratford, Ontario, Princess
Margaret had dozed through a Shakespearean drama of thwarted royal
lovers the previous night, but awakened after the play for a chatty
backstage meeting with the actors. It presumably was not Hamlet
wherein are the lines, "To sleep, perchance to dream/ Ay,
there's the rub," which is in reference to a different level of
sleep. In any event, sleep knits up the raveled sleeve of care. Mayhaps she was dreaming in her sleep of her once betrothed Peter Townsend playing a dual role, uttering: "I am an ass, indeed; you may prove it by my long
ears. I have served him from the hour of my
nativity to this instant, and have nothing at his
hands for my service but blows. When I am cold, he
heats me with beating; when I am warm, he cools me
with beating; I am waked with it when I sleep..." Who
The Associated Press reports from Hillside, N.J., that a magistrate had listened while a defendant had told his side of a careless driving charge, police officers indicating that the man had been snuggling close to his wife while driving. The sympathetic magistrate complimented the couple for being so affectionate after 15 years of marriage and fined the man $15.
In Beaumont, Tex., the Chamber of Commerce would display no flags in the future because somebody had loaned the Chamber's flags to a person who had forgotten to return them.
In Long Beach, Calif., lifeguards were discourteous to a visitor, a 35-foot whale which had swum through the breakwater the previous day and headed for the beach, met by the lifeguards in a speedboat. Every time the whale surfaced to spout, they whizzed by so that the boat's wash would spray the whale. It was finally herded back into the ocean.
In Cologne, West Germany, former
Queen Soraya of Iran was given a royal goodbye as she departed for a
holiday at a French coastal resort. As she entered an automobile at
the Iranian Embassy, a giant wrestler from Iran dashed to her car,
grasped the former Queen's hand and brushed it with his lips. She
acknowledged the compliment with a smile, but the big athlete turned
away and burst into tears. Perhaps, she had just finished having a
hot dog
On the editorial page, "Give a Cheer for Community Progress" finds it good that the City and County School Boards were conscientiously working toward consolidation, with commendable progress having been made toward that goal, including provision for a detailed study of the legal ramifications, which had been released during the week by attorneys for the two systems.
The attorneys had opined that consolidation ought be attempted under existing statewide statutes rather than through passage of a special act. Each system had its own way of doing things and, in all likelihood, preferred it that way. But there ought be a friendly give-and-take on each of the points of contention such that a consolidated system would make possible a better education for all of the children of the community, the purpose of consolidation.
It congratulates the school officials for what they had already accomplished and urges that they perform the remaining steps with appropriate speed, thoroughness and determination.
"Congress Does Right by Ex-Presidents" indicates that the House had now joined the Senate in approval of pensions for former Presidents. The piece finds it a good move, ensuring that former Presidents would not be forced to engage in work which would demean the office. While the Government had no further need of their services, the people did.
Former President Hoover had maintained two offices, employing three secretaries and a research assistant in handling about 100,000 pieces of mail every year. Former President Truman spent between $20,000 and $30,000 annually on his offices and clerical help needed to handle his mail. Both the House and Senate measures provided pensions of $25,000 per year and $10,000 for widows of Presidents.
If the House would agree, the Senate was willing to provide free office space, clerical help and free travel by former Presidents, which it finds more realistic than the House version. It indicates that those members of the House who had objected to pensions for former Presidents ought be ashamed of themselves as it would protect the dignity of the office and there was nothing wrong in ensuring financial security of former Presidents. No President, whether good, bad or indifferent, could escape terrible burdens of responsibility in the White House and those members of the House who had voted themselves pensions but had objected to pensions for particular former Presidents had been something less than charitable.
A minority report of the House Post Office and Civil Service Committee had expressed the fear that a former President might use a free mailing privilege and clerical help to further a political campaign, but no former President had ever had the opportunity to do so, whereas House members did have the opportunity and some of them had used it shamelessly.
"Their Lordships' Finest Hour Is Past" tells of the consternation having been great when the British House of Lords had decided to accept female members. One of Their Lordships, tuning his hearing aid into the debate, had taken the floor to point out that the female mind was hardly the type to consider matters affecting the public weal, saying: "We do not want women in this House."
But four women had been named by Queen Elizabeth and from the U.S. perspective, it appeared that the objecting Lords had been less than gallant about it. It indicates that the ladies were making some sacrifice in undertaking membership, considering a few of the rules governing debate in the House of Lords. Generally, for example, a member could speak only once to any question and could not refer to past debate or to debates in Commons. The female members had accepted those rules, which it finds astonishing.
The older male members might fear that the women would seek to change the rules once they were admitted to membership, and it allows that there might be something in that possibility about which to grouse.
"The Ultimate" quotes a headline, "Thor Explodes after Takeoff", indicating that the Air Force scientists should not be too downhearted as what they had developed could truly be called the ultimate weapon, a missile which destroyed itself.
A piece from the Reporter, titled "Still Life", indicates that recently, Life magazine had taken out a full page ad in the major New York newspapers showing a photo of Marines in Lebanon and the faces of 12 photojournalists, under which was the headline "Mideast Time-Bomb: What Now, What Next?" below which was the statement: "In today's Life the distinguished group of photojournalists shown above sweep confusion from the troubled air." It finds that the remark made Henry Luce's journalists considerably more distinguished than the heads of state.
It finds it to have been the fallacy of reliance on sight instead of insight to suggest that the photojournalists had made "the complicated plain and the puzzling primer-clear" with "their illuminating depth-reports [which] snap a bewildered week into razor-sharp focus".
"Pictures are interesting and can be valuable. But until they can penetrate the circuits and convolutions of minds like Khrushchev's and Dulles's and Tito's and Nasser's, all they can portray is a static image of the act. The motive from which it springs no lens can capture."
Drew Pearson indicates that immediately after the President had made the decision to land U.S. troops in Lebanon, several events had taken place which led to the present frantic attempts to reverse his position and withdraw the troops. One had been the fear of President Camille Chamoun of Lebanon, that after asking for U.S. aid, he had subsequently demanded that U.S. troops remain out of the trouble zone and fire no shots against Lebanese rebels. Later, when Ambassador Robert Murphy had arrived on the scene, he had found President Chamoun jumpy, irrational and at times incoherent, reporting that the latter was a cardiac patient and had taken up smoking against the advice of his doctors, urging President Chamoun to leave Lebanon and take asylum in the U.S. Another discouraging development had been the refusal of Saudi Arabia to cooperate with the U.S. When the U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Don Heath, had asked for permission to use the big U.S. airbase at Dhahran for military planes, he had not received an answer. Crown Prince Faisal, now the ruler of Saudi Arabia, had reported that he had tried to secure landing rights from the Saudi Cabinet, but that they had posed too many questions for him to answer and he complained that he had not been provided enough information by the U.S. to satisfy the conditions of his ministers.
Saudi Arabia was a monarchy where one man's word was law, and so that had just been a stall. Prince Faisal could have given the permission himself. The Eisenhower Administration had given King Saud all kinds of fancy folderol the previous year on the excuse that it was necessary to renew the lease of Dhahran airbase, apparently in vain, as the lease was renewed but the current military use had been denied. As the developments had been cabled back to the President, a secret meeting had taken place in Moscow with Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, though supposedly en route to Syria from a conference with President Tito of Yugoslavia. It remained a mystery as to how he wound up in Moscow. His talks with Premier Khrushchev had kept Washington on tenterhooks. At first, it had been thought that Premier Nasser was receiving Russian support for possible military intervention against the U.S., but sketchy reports presently received stated that he had advised Premier Khrushchev just the opposite, that Russia should remain out of the Middle East except as a last resort in case of an Anglo-American attack on Iraq. Meanwhile, the new Iraqi Government was making diplomatic overtures to the West to stave off any Western attack. It had sent word first through the West German Embassy and later through the U.S. Ambassador that oil would continue to flow and had even sent a work crew to the U.S. Embassy to clean up the "Go Home" posters which had been plastered on Embassy walls during the revolt. The U.S. ambassador reported that the new government seemed to be popular with the Iraqi people.
Offsetting that, the President had received representations both from the Turks and King Hussein of Jordan that the new Iraqi Government was practicing surface appeasement only, aimed at lulling the West into a false sense of security. King Hussein had repeatedly asked for U.S. troops and expressed a desire to take the offensive against that part of his kingdom which had deserted, Iraq.
Joseph Alsop finds that the Eisenhower Administration was guilty of "gross untruth" regarding national defense, citing the President's statement during the January State of the Union message in which he said: "We have now a broadly based and efficient defensive strength, including a great deterrent power … but unless we act wisely and promptly, we could lose [the] capacity to deter attack or defend ourselves." He had gone on to say: "We intend to assure that our vigilance, power and technical excellence keep abreast of any realistic threat that we face."
He indicates that either the President had been consciously misleading the nation or had silently decided to break his promise subsequently, or had been misinformed about the facts, finding it probable that it was the latter case, but that it did not change the hard facts about which the President had been misinformed.
He finds that the time of deadly danger would soon begin, during the period which the Pentagon called "the gap", the years between 1960 and either 1963 or 1964, requiring that massive orders of hardware be placed immediately, if the nation would make the feeblest pretense of "keeping abreast" during the years within that gap. He states that the prospective results of the present inadequate effort could be summarized by indicating, first, that the nation could retain a modest margin of superiority in manned bombers throughout the years within the gap, unless the Soviets placed their new, very long-range, supersonic jet bomber into early production, as was expected—except by the Administration which was basing its expectations on reading the grim intelligence which experience had repeatedly warned against.
Second, the NATO estimates gave the Soviets a strength in air defense which was at least two times, and possibly three or four times, greater than that of the U.S. air defense, a margin of superiority which would be maintained throughout the time of the gap, requiring that the balance of manned bomber strength be weighted in favor of the Soviets, as the U.S. manned bombers were presently increasingly vulnerable to interception by the more advanced defensive weapons.
Third, the U.S. would be sending a few intermediate range missiles to the NATO allies within the time of the gap and meanwhile, the Soviets would acquire between 1,000 and 2,000 ballistic missiles with suitable ranges to neutralize or destroy all of the overseas airbases of the U.S., on which the striking power of the U.S. manned bomber force heavily depended.
Fourth, the U.S. score in operational intercontinental missiles during the gap years would start at zero in 1959 while the U.S.S.R. would have 100. In 1960, the score would be 30 for the U.S. against 500 for the Soviets, in 1961, 70 versus 1,000, in 1962, 130, plus a few submarine-borne Polaris missiles, versus 1,500 for the Soviets, and in 1963, 130 for the U.S. plus more Polaris missiles, versus 2,000 ICBM's for the Soviets.
Furthermore, only a few score more of the Navy's Polaris missiles would alter the balance in 1964. The first solid-fueled Minuteman missile, on which the Pentagon was gambling the American future, could not possibly be ready for operational use before the end of 1963 or early 1964.
Mr. Alsop posits that if that was "keeping abreast", he would like to know the Administration's definition of "falling behind". He finds that the effect of the present policy would allow the Soviets to gain an overwhelming superiority in overall nuclear striking power.
He indicates that the last time he had charged official untruth by an Administration regarding national defense was during the Truman years when Louis Johnson had been Secretary of Defense, swearing that he was "only cutting fat, not muscle" from the budget, while the cut had resulted in the Korean War, beginning in late June, 1950. He indicates that at that time, at least President Truman and Secretary Johnson had the excuse that the U.S. still possessed a virtual monopoly on nuclear striking power.
"Now we are flaccidly letting the Soviets gain an overwhelming superiority in this crucial area where once we enjoyed a monopoly. We're doing this moreover, after abandoning superiority to the Soviets in almost all other arms areas. Can any sane man suppose that this folly is not immeasurably more dangerous than the follies of Louis Johnson? Or can any sane man seriously suppose that the end result will not be measurably more terrible? At this instant, the last chance to save ourselves is slipping through our hands."
Doris Fleeson indicates that the landslide for the re-election of Governor Orval Faubus of Arkansas had materialized as expected and that in the short run, it would further discourage the Southern moderates whose inability to mobilize as an effective third force in the battle over segregation had been one of the saddest aspects of that struggle. The emotion aroused might spill into the Tennessee Senate race and further impair the renomination of Senator Albert Gore, an able moderate being challenged by former Governor Prentice Cooper on the segregation issue. She finds that if Senator Gore were to be defeated, all political spokesmen for the new South would feel imperiled.
In the long run, all of the problems attached to effective enforcement of Brown v. Board of Education remained and the latest figures showed the extent of defiance in the Deep South. In seven of the 11 states of the old Confederacy, no schools had been desegregated and in the 17 Southern and border states which had some laws enforcing segregation, 777 schools had obeyed the Court's decree, but all of those except 15 were in border states. The net result was that 2,112 schools were still segregated in the South, which had about 5,500 other schools where the problem did not arise.
The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals would meet en banc the following week to consider the U.S. District Court order postponing school desegregation in Little Rock until the beginning of 1961. (As indicated, the Court would reverse the lower court ruling and hold that desegregation had to resume immediately with the start of the 1958-59 term, a decision which would be affirmed in late September by the Supreme Court.)
She indicates that the Supreme Court had implied that it expected that the Circuit Court of Appeals ought decide the matter prior to the reopening of the schools, which would only be a few weeks away, shortly after Labor Day. At that point, the President would have to make a fresh decision on civil rights. His Civil Rights Commission, created by the 1957 Civil Rights Act which had been signed into law the prior September, was still not in effective operation and its tenure was so short that it could do little anyway to help the situation. In Arlington, Va., the public schools were under a direct court order to desegregate in the coming fall, as they were also in Charlottesville, Newport News and Norfolk. If existing Virginia state laws were invoked, the nation would witness the first actual closing of public schools in preference to desegregation. Virginia moderates were now saying that they would seek an order in the state courts to compel reopening of the schools, presenting a new legal issue.
Aggravating the situation would be the fact that the nation would be in the midst of the midterm elections. Beset by many problems, Republican candidates in particular would be tempted to take extreme positions and make astringent charges. In the industrial states, where the Republicans would confront the recession issue, there would be great allure in the exploitation of civil rights.
Robert C. Ruark, in Palamos, Spain, indicates that General Lewis Hershey, head of Selective Service, had said that many youths beat the military draft by "playing dumb" since there had been a fresh emphasis placed on summoning incipient atomic scientists for the basic business of "hay-foot, straw-foot, and a little kitchen police if you're naughty in the sergeant's presence." He had said that half of those called up were listed as unfit for service and he could not understand why 20 percent of the youth, including high school graduates, failed to pass fourth grade mental ability tests.
Mr. Ruark finds that the draft laws were obsolete and that nobody in their right mind would want to play soldier when there was no war to make the uniform glamorous and the idea of heroism and possible extinction intriguing, that a war was a leveler and that if they yelled at you, maybe you ought to drop everything and go. But from what he had read at present, from a recent study, fathers, worthy athletes, deserving cases and dumb johns could beat the system pretty easily, while the others gave up good jobs to join the service at reduced wages with lack of freedom and privacy.
He says that he had no personal complaint because he had been in the Navy during the war and now could not qualify as a mascot for the Brownie division of a Girl Scout troupe. He says that he did understand the young man playing dumb or pleading dependents to beat what was generally a rewarding experience, a couple of years in the armed forces. In a small community, the term "draft dodger" could ruin a person for the rest of his life, whether he was up for a job in a bank or bucking for the Kiwanis Club. Even in a big city, a record of intentional cowardice could be quite harmful and most companies asked for a record of an applicant's military service. He questions whether one should write on the blank that he was too stupid to be a G.I., in which event, he would lose the job, or that he was a coward, also negating any possibility of a job, or that he had some major physical disability, which would also nix the job. "Young lady says: What did you do in the olive-drab department, lover-boy, and you say: I ducked it. She went thataway."
A letter writer does not understand why the U.N. did not kick Russia out, finding that it had no business being a member, having vetoed about everything the U.N. had proposed. "Russia is a God-hating, Christianity-hating, freedom-hating nation, and our President and Congress ought to know that they will never reach any mutual agreement with Russia, and no one can trust the word of an infidel." He says that one could not do business with the Devil and so there was no sense in trying. "Let's have a United Nations of God-fearing freedom-loving people."
He neglects to understand that the purpose of the U.N. was to serve as a mediator between member nations in the event of conflict, and that to have as members, therefore, only "freedom-loving nations" and to exclude Communist nations would defeat the very purpose of the organization.
Framed Edition
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