The Charlotte News

Tuesday, August 19, 1958

FIVE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from the U.N. in New York that supporters of the Western-backed Middle East peace plan had predicted this date that the General Assembly would approve it despite opposition from some Arab and Asian nations. The resolution, introduced by Norwegian deputy Foreign Minister Hans Engen, along with six other small nations as co-sponsors, possibly would reach a vote the following night or on Thursday, asking Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold to make arrangements which would permit the withdrawal of American troops from Lebanon and British troops from Jordan. Mr. Engen had predicted that the Assembly would approve the resolution, with one Asian diplomat forecasting passage with 56 favorable votes and some abstentions within the 81-nation Assembly. But some Arab and Soviet sources had expressed the belief that it would fail to obtain the necessary two-thirds of those delegates voting. India opposed the resolution because it did not demand immediate troop withdrawals by the U.S. and Britain and because it would lay the groundwork for sending more U.N. troops to the Middle East to replace them. Iraq also found the resolution unacceptable and Yugoslavia disliked it. Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko said that the resolution had to be rejected. Foreign Minister Mahmoud Fawsi of the United Arab Republic, led by Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser, had refused comment, but was expected to oppose it. Both the U.S. and Britain had endorsed the resolution, sponsored by Canada, Colombia, Denmark, Liberia, Norway, Panama and Paraguay. Accompanying the resolution were letters from Secretary of State Dulles and British Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd, indicating that the U.S. and British troops would be withdrawn whenever the Assembly decided that the U.N. action made their presence in Lebanon and Jordan, respectively, unnecessary to peace. Both nations had said earlier that they would withdraw the troops when arrangements had been made to protect the independence of the two nations. The letters thus signaled a change of policy by leaving the decision up to the Assembly. There was no possibility that the Assembly would adopt a rival Soviet resolution, demanding troop withdrawal under supervision of U.N. observers who would stay on to watch the frontiers. Whatever action the Assembly took, diplomats expected Dr. Hammarskjold soon would visit Lebanon and Jordan. The Norwegian resolution asked that he make practical arrangements to maintain the independence of Lebanon and Jordan, presumably by stationing of U.N. observers or other forces in the two countries. The resolution had also asked that he continue the study he was making for the Assembly of the feasibility of establishing a standby U.N. force of troops and to talk with the Arab countries about an economic development program for the area, both having been recommended by President Eisenhower as part of his six-point peace plan for the region.

In Cairo, the newspaper Al Ahram quoted Premier Faisal of Saudi Arabia as saying in an interview that American and British landings in Lebanon and Jordan had been "aggressions", previously having used only such terms as "interference" or "intervention".

In Tokyo, it was reported that the Japanese Government this date formally protested Britain's decision to resume nuclear testing at Christmas Island.

In Bonn, West Germany, it was reported by a U.S. Embassy official this date that a U.S. fighter jet had accidentally strayed over Communist East Germany on one occasion the previous week.

In Little Rock, Ark., it was reported that Governor Orval Faubus had called on the Little Rock School Board this date to let him and the people of Arkansas know immediately what it intended to do to resist the decision of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, handed down the previous day, reversing the U.S. District Court judge's decision to delay integration in Little Rock until the beginning of 1961. The Court had rested its decision on Brown v. Board of Education and ordered that integration proceed immediately, continuing from the previous school year when there had been racial trouble at Central High School, prompting the President to federalize the Arkansas National Guard in late September, which had been initially called out to prevent the admission of black students to the school at the beginning of the school year by Governor Faubus, following racial tensions on registration day the prior early September. The President had also deployed the Army, under the command of General Edwin Walker, to ensure that the admitted black students could get to their classes unmolested. The Governor would be joined in his efforts to keep black students from returning to the high school by the superintendent, Virgil Blossom, a key witness for the Board in its plea for the delay of integration. The latter had said at a press conference the previous day that the Board would exploit every possibility of maintaining the delay as ordered by the District Court. He said that the Board would pursue all legal remedies which it had, including an appeal to the Supreme Court–which the the Court would take up in late September and quickly affirm the Court of Appeals decision. The special legislative session which the Governor was expected to call would handle the issues posed by the appellate court ruling. That ruling had come just 16 days before the scheduled start of the school year. Writing for the six-judge majority, Judge Marion Matthes of St. Louis had said that the issue narrowed down to whether public resistance, including mob violence, was sufficient cause to nullify a Federal court order directing that the school board carry out its plan for gradual integration of the schools in Little Rock. He had written: "We say the time has not yet come in these United States when an order of a federal court must be whittled away, watered down or shamefully withdrawn in the face of violent and unlawful acts…" There was one dissent on the court, from Chief Judge Archibald Gardner of South Dakota, 90, indicating that the School Board had acted in good faith and that the District Court judge had suspended integration based "on realities and conditions rather than theories." But Judge Matthes said that to allow the lower court order to stand would mean an open invitation for other school districts to resort to violence to delay integration.

In Raleigh, Governor Luther Hodges of North Carolina said this date that he was disappointed in the appellate decision. He had been chairman of a group of Southern governors whom the previous year had attempted unsuccessfully to negotiate between the President and Governor Faubus so that the Federal troops could be removed from Central High School.

Before the Senate Select Committee investigating misconduct of unions and management had appeared Representative Wint Smith of Kansas, who denied under oath this date that pressure from high places had squelched a 1953 investigation of Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa, at the time a vice-president of the union and head of the Central States Comference of the union. In reply to questions, the Congressman said that he never received anything of value from Mr. Hoffa to influence the inquiry and never had received campaign contributions from him or from organized labor generally, that Mr. Hoffa had received only fair treatment from the House Labor subcommittee, which Mr Smith had co-chaired along with Congressman Clare Hoffman of Michigan, during the 1953 inquiry. Mr. Hoffman had testified before the Committee the previous week, saying that there had been nothing out of order in the conclusion of those hearings. At the time the hearings concluded in Detroit, Mr. Smith had been quoted as saying that he had orders "from way up there", indicating to reporters in an interview the previous week that what he had meant was that he had instructions from then-chairman of the full Labor Committee, former Representative Sam McConnell of Pennsylvania, that the subcommittee had to limit its inquiry strictly to matters of union welfare funds. Mr. Smith read to the Committee a prepared statement in which he repeated that Mr. McConnell had been the "higher authority" to whom he had referred in 1953.

The Kennedy-Ives labor reform bill had died in the House the previous day by a vote of 196 to 190, failing by 69 votes to achieve the necessary two-thirds majority to pass the measure under special procedures. The bill was aimed at curbing corruption in labor union activities by forcing them to reveal publicly their financial statements. Some of the opposition apparently came from the restrictions permitting little debate and prohibiting amendments to the bill, which had passed the Senate two months earlier by a vote of 88 to 1. Senators Kennedy and Ives had denounced the House action, with Senator Kennedy stating, "Only Jimmy Hoffa can rejoice at his continued good luck." He promised a renewed fight in the 1959 session of Congress, to start the following January. He said that constructive labor reform legislation would definitely be brought forward again the following year, and that in the meantime, those who had defeated the bill would bear a heavy responsibility for the labor racketeering which would continue unchecked.

The House completed Congressional action and sent to the President this date a bill increasing Social Security benefits by 7 percent, having, without debate, accepted the Senate-passed revisions in the bill. The major change from the original House version had been a reduction in the amount of Federal public assistance grants from 288 million to 197 million dollars.

On the editorial page, Doris Fleeson regards a Senate floor speech of Senator John F. Kennedy, as referenced the previous day by Joseph Alsop, finding that he had joined the lengthening list of powerful voices warning that the U.S. was in immediate danger because of pursuing worn-out policies based on false premises, based on the best sources of information, demanding changes not only in policies and details of execution but also in the thinking and attitudes which had produced those policies. Those who were voicing that criticism had done so through bypassing the elder statesmen who still dominated the Democratic Congress and had been reluctant to challenge the President's power to determine foreign and defense policy.