The Charlotte News
Friday, September 26, 1958
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Taipei, Formosa, that fresh supplies had been delivered to the Nationalist garrison on Quemoy by air and sea amid heavy Communist Chinese artillery fire this date. The supply build-up had come as the Chinese Nationalists announced another aerial victory which boosted their claimed kills to 29, without any loss by the Nationalists, since the bombardment of the offshore islands had begun in force on August 23. Pilots reported that one MIG-17 had been shot down and that another was possibly damaged in a battle late the previous day off Swatow between four Nationalist American-built Sabrejets and 16 of Communist China's Soviet-supplied MIG's. The first Nationalist ship convoy to cross the Formosa Strait since the prior Monday had sailed through a Communist barrage and sent amphibious vehicles racing to Quemoy's beaches with cargo to replenish the garrison stocks. Four correspondents witnessed the operation on a flight to Taipei. Transport planes had parachuted high-priority supplies to the island overnight through the continued bombardment, the third such operation in three nights. Though the supplies were flowing again, the big questions were how much was getting through and how long the transmission past the blockade could be maintained. The U.S. policy of containing the Formosa Strait war appeared now to hinge on denying the Communists the chance to starve out Quemoy. Warships of the U.S. Seventh Fleet were escorting the convoys, with destroyers having made the run this date with the supply ships. Newsmen had sighted two or three ships flying the American flag, but the warships remained well outside the three-mile international limit, to avoid transgression of the territory which was claimed by the Communist Chinese as well as by the Nationalists.
In Toulouse, France, it was reported that there was a clash between partisans and foes of Premier Charles de Gaulle, resulting in one dead and four injured early this date, the bloodiest clash thus far in the campaign for the following Sunday's referendum on Premier De Gaulle's proposed new French constitution.
In Jakarta, Indonesia, it was reported that five civilians had been killed and four seriously injured by an armed Darul Islam band of 350 men who invaded a village near Bandung the previous night. The raiding party had burned 24 houses and looted 16. The sect sought to make Indonesia a Moslem religious state. (Such are the dangers always of any radical religious-nationalist group of nuts. Beware the religious fanatics, who wear their religion on their sleeves. We think you know to whom we might refer in terms of more recent times here in 2025, and, no, we do not make reference only to Muslim terrorists, as there is a domestic variety of "Christian" nationalists loose in our homeland, who pose a much more dangerous and immediate threat to our freedoms. These hypocritical zealots are about as dedicated to Christianity as are Muslim terrorists to Islam—two sides of the same equation in a zero-sum game. Kudos, incidentally, to those colleges and their student governments who are seeking to stand fast against their campuses being invaded by a bunch of TeePees, seeking to set up tents to indoctrinate the naïve into forms of political violence while staking territory and making pretense to decry any form of political violence, at least as long as it is aimed at themselves and not the opposition, whom they regard as "Satan", as treasonous traitors worthy only of the "death penalty", the same routine which Hitler and the Nazis undertook, which Mussolini and the Fascists undertook, also imbued with religious fervor exerted toward a central personality, the sine qua non for any cult, beginning in the 1920's, leading finally to World War II and countless deaths and slaughter to vindicate the Master Race against the common horde seeking to undermine the superior culture. The TeePees will lead to nothing but war. Make no mistake about it. They are the blind leading the blind directly toward that end, with but a few railroad stops in between to pick up the gullible passengers headed for Megiddo, the cleansing of humanity.)
In Venice, Italy, four Czechs had missed their cruise ship Transylvania this date and were expected to request political asylum. They obviously had teeth in their necks.
In Little Rock, Ark., it was reported that Governor Orval Faubus had said at a press conference this date that violence could erupt again in Little Rock in the current school year if attempts were made to enroll black students in the high schools when they were reopened. The city was preparing to vote in a referendum, required by law after closure of schools, which would take place the following day regarding whether to reopen the four high schools on an integrated basis or to leave them closed, with the prospect of the Governor reopening them as private schools on a segregated basis. Reporters had asked him whether he expected trouble should anyone attempt to enroll black students again at Central High School, as had occurred the previous school year, and as had been ordered to continue by the Supreme Court in its September 12 decision. He responded that there might be trouble, but he would not say whether he planned again to call out the Arkansas National Guard, as he had done the previous September to prevent black students from attending the high school, resulting in the President then federalizing the Guard and deploying Army paratroopers to ensure that the nine black students could attend classes without violence or harassment. He had said that it would depend on what happened as to whether he would again call out the Guard. He stated that the thing which was keeping the peace at present was that they were "keeping this thing in the legal arena." He said that he would speak on television this night regarding the next day's referendum. Preceding the press conference, five Little Rock clergymen had read a statement which they said was signed by 80 ministers backing the position of the Governor on the schools, indicating in part: "We believe that integration is contrary to the will of God. Our beliefs are not based on prejudice or bias, but on sound Bible interpretation, while integration is based on a false theory of the 'universal fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man.' This statement is not made with any enmity or a hatred in our hearts for the Negro race. We have an abiding love for all people and it is because of this love that we want the best interests of all races, and we believe the best interests of all races are best served by segregation." The group had been led by the Reverend M. L. Moser, Jr., missionary pastor of the Central Baptist Church. They did not believe in the universal brotherhood of man or that their totemic God was the father of all men, that being strictly Commie doctrine.
At Cape Canaveral, Fla., a weather-probing Vanguard satellite was launched into space this date and preliminary data from onboard instrumentation showed the rocket's three engines to be performing normally. It meant that the rocket had gone some 300 miles up, probably reaching a speed of 18,000 mph. An official announcement said, however, that it was not yet known whether orbital height had been achieved, a fact which could be determined probably within about 2.5 hours. The first word on whether the U.S. had placed its fourth satellite into orbit was expected to come from the National Academy of Science in Washington in a couple of hours. The 72-foot, bullet-shaped rocket housed a 20-inch, 2.5 pound satellite which, if it were to orbit successfully, could spot large storm masses such as hurricanes and typhoons, as they built up around the earth. It was the seventh attempt at shooting a composite three-stage Vanguard, with only one success thus far. It was also the first time that a Vanguard had been launched successfully in two months. During the interim, the missile had been checked out from top to bottom and a few minor adjustments made in the first two stages. An attempted launching of the same rocket had been scrubbed the previous week when an electrical breakdown caused automatic engine cut-off a split second before launch. The Vanguard engine had then ignited with a flash, but had shut down just as quickly when the trouble developed. The main mission of the satellite was to measure the movement and disposition of cloud cover around the earth to aid meteorological studies. Two light-sensitive photoelectric cells were carried in the satellite to do the job. The 22,600 pound rocket had begun to accelerate rapidly as it rose into the cloud-filled skies, bucking a brisk westerly wind as it proceeded skyward. After about ten seconds, the olive drab and white missile ended its vertical climb and curved toward the southeast. It was a tiny white dot in the sky as it darted in and out of the clouds. After about 2.5 minutes, burnout was expected from the first-stage engine and the second stage was due to ignite at an altitude of about 28 miles. The liftoff appeared perfect to news observers watching from an observation tower about 1.5 miles away from the launch pad. If all went well, the 50-pound spent third-stage rocket would trail the satellite into an elliptical orbit after attaining a velocity of 18,000 mph. Because the total payload of 71.5 pounds was heavier, the latest satellite was not expected to match the orbit gained by the only previously successful Vanguard, which had begun its 200-year journey through space the previous March 17, that satellite vacillating between an apogee of 2,460 miles and a perigee of 407 miles in its two-hour, 14-minute per orbit mission. Scientists hoped that this date's basketball-sized satellite would identify severe storms as they developed.
Well, you had better get about it double-quick, as Hurricane Helene was expected possibly to hit somewhere between Charleston, S.C., and Cape Fear, N.C., by midnight this night, moving northwestward toward the coast at 14 mph, with storm tides and high seas in the storm-watch zone expected to reach heights of between four and six feet above normal levels, with tides possibly higher in some local areas. Stay battened down and don't venture out unless you are crazy. We're inland now, more or less safe from the storm treachery, only now having to worry about a Commie missile striking our immediate vicinity because of the proximity to the plant where they build and design the guidance systems, even if back down yonder in the swamp, there had been the potential threat of same, we suppose in hindsight, by the proximity to Wilmington, Cherry Point and Fort Bragg, though considerably farther away than current range risk assessment. But there, the snakes in the swamp posed a more immediate risk of strike, removing the mind from more distant and less imminent danger. At least we no longer have to face the basilisk in the summertime.
Julian Scheer of The News reports that the Myrtle Beach municipal secretary had said, "We're hoping for a miracle, an act of God," regarding the hurricane track, expressing the emotions of residents of the community this date as they anxiously but calmly awaited word on Helene. He had told the newspaper that everything was calm and quiet at present but that they were ready if they received a warning, while at present, the sun was streaming through the window at City Hall, the breeze was gentle and there were only a few clouds in the sky, with calm seas. Myrtle Beach residents were keeping an eye on the flagpole, just a few hundred yards from the center of town, where storm warnings would be placed if it became necessary. Get you one of those damned air raid sirens, and perhaps make it intermittent to distinguish from any such warning necessary from incoming missiles. That way, no one will miss the warning. Maybe, however, limit the tests to once per month rather than once per week, and only during and immediately in advance of hurricane season.
On the editorial page, "Lebanon Is Not Far from Haw River", after indicating that the late Senator Kerr Scott had once told Senators that Dien Bien Phu, the pivotal battle in 1954 in the French Indochina War, was a long way from his native Haw River, favors removal of all Marines in Lebanon immediately, indicating that they should never have been deployed in the first instance to bolster pro-Western former Lebanese President Camille Chamoun, who had now been succeeded in office by middleman President Fuad Shehab, with the riots by Moslems in Beirut against President Chamoun now having been succeeded by riots by radical Christian nationalist groups.
It finds the decision to send the American troops to have been an ill-timed denial of American interests in the Arab world, as was the "whole irrelevant conception of the so-called 'Eisenhower doctrine' under which they were sent to shore up President Chamoun's Government." The July coup in Iraq had provided jitters apparently to the U.S. Government, with a prevailing feeling in Western capitals that President Chamoun and King Hussein of Jordan would be next on the nationalist agenda of destruction. Thus, the Marines had been sent to Beirut and British paratroopers to Jordan. It regards both moves as having been mistaken from the beginning, and having become increasingly dangerous as time passed.
It indicates that the issue in the Middle East was, and remained, not whether Lebanon and Jordan were to be "lost" to Arab nationalism, but rather the type of nationalism to which they were to be lost, either the militant variety led by United Arab Republic Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser, almost a religion presently in the UAR members, Egypt and Syria, or the more reasonable and accommodating kind of nationalism, such as that which appeared to have occurred in the coup in Iraq.
It finds that both the Eisenhower Doctrine and the Baghdad Pact arranged by Secretary of State Dulles had sought to tell the world that the West, with guns, planes and troops, could conjure away the understandable desire of former colonials to be left to develop their own land for their own benefit and not for that of feudal royalty or Western oil companies alone. Iraq's King Faisal II had been an unfortunate victim of that illusion, and it ventures that King Hussein of Jordan might soon become another such victim.
Under new President Shehab, the issue of the type of nationalism had become more acute as long as U.S. Marines, identified with President Chamoun, remained there. Shooting, kidnaping, the fact that the new Cabinet appeared to be controlled by pro-Nasser Nationalists, all indicated that the pressure on the new President was intense. He was a compromise man, a middleman whom both the pro-Westerners and Christians backing President Chamoun and the pro-Nasser Moslem rebels could support. But even the friendliest Lebanese were tired of the Marines, and the longer they were left there, the greater would be the risks that Lebanon would go by "stupid" default to the Nasser-type nationalism.
Thus, it concludes that the Marines had to be removed immediately, especially as there was no shooting war involved. In the phrase of a group of CBS correspondents, the U.S. was in a "Ruble war" in which the issue in the future would be whether the West or the Russians would prove the most helpful to Arab aspirations to build their countries and usher them to the types of comforts and freedoms monopolized in Europe and America since the Industrial Revolution of the 19th Century.
It finds Premier Nasser to be dangerous only insofar as he was ready to deal with the best bargainer, that, contrary to the illusion Mr. Dulles had sought to foist on Americans, he was no more interested in Russian or Communist domination than he was in discredited European rule, for he had ideals and was not a greedy despot, but had power and knew how to use it ruthlessly, if necessary.
It finds that there were other sides to the complex problem, such as the future role of Israel in the region and the necessity for the European allies that oil continue to flow from the region freely. But the signs were that in an age of Arab nationalism, the U.S. would ensure its own interests and that of the allies more securely by economic aid and sympathy for the new revolutionary tradition along the Nile, rather than deploying military forces in an apparent threat of force if needed to preserve American lives and property.
Walter Lippmann indicates that while the Warsaw diplomatic talks were proceeding to try to effect a cease-fire in the Formosa Strait crisis, the concerned parties, the U.S., Russia, Communist China and Nationalist China, were loudly denouncing any basis for compromise.
On the Communist side, there were demands which sounded as if the Chinese Communists wanted the whole of Formosa to be evacuated immediately by the Nationalist Chinese and the Americans, while on the U.S. side, there was a demand for a cease-fire at Quemoy before there was any understanding regarding the future of the offshore islands. Meanwhile, the Nationalists and Chiang Kai-shek were plain in their indications that they did not want a cease-fire because Chiang was bent on using the affair to entrap the U.S. in a full-scale war against the Chinese mainland.
It appeared that there was a central and controlling fact on each side, that on the Communist side it was that the blockade of Quemoy by artillery fire, though not absolutely tight, was tight enough to strangle the island within a fairly short time, as the blockade could not be broken except by an air offensive against the Chinese mainland, which would mean war. Holding the military advantage, the Communist Chinese had no need to agree to a cease-fire, which would in fact lift the blockade of Quemoy. They might trade a cease-fire for a substantial concession, but that was the most which could be expected, as they knew that President Eisenhower would think twice before ordering an attack on the artillery positions on the mainland.
On the U.S. side, the controlling fact was that, having allowed Chiang to exercise a veto on any political arrangement in the area, the U.S. had nothing with which to negotiate, as it could not trade Quemoy and Matsu for a cease-fire because Chiang had the power to determine what might be offered in any negotiation. The U.S. emissary in Warsaw was controlled not by Washington, but by Chiang. For the U.S., the crucial fact was that the President and Secretary of State Dulles were not free agents regarding U.S. foreign policy, as they had mortgaged their diplomacy to China.
Mr. Lippmann indicates that close attention had to be paid to Chiang, for it had become plain that he thought that he had the opportunity, and was determined to seize it, to embroil the U.S. in a war with the Communist Chinese on the mainland. That had always been his ultimate purpose, as only in such a war could he conceivably realize his ambition to return to the mainland. The device which he was employing to entangle the U.S. was to insist that the blockade of Quemoy could be broken only by bombarding the mainland, a true fact. But the snare for the gullible was to pretend that the Formosa Air Force could silence the shore batteries. The U.S. was being told that it should allow Chiang to attack the mainland and that he could do the job, but it was not what Chiang meant and the U.S., he urges, could not allow itself to be so deceived, for what he actually meant was that if the U.S. allowed Chiang's planes to begin the attack, U.S. planes would have to continue what he had begun. He urges the U.S. not to be taken for that ride.
"The situation is in a bad deadlock and it looks very much as if it cannot be resolved without mediation from several of the less entangled powers."
As we have fallen behind, there will be no further notes on the front page or the editorial page of this date, with the notes to be sporadic until we catch up.
Framed Edition
Links-Date — Links-Subj.