The Charlotte News
Saturday, September 27, 1958
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Wilmington, N.C., that winds from Hurricane Helene had come ashore in the southeastern part of the state late in the morning with speeds over 100 mph, with first reports indicating mounting damage but no deaths. City docks at Southport, 30 miles south of Wilmington, had washed away, according to the Weather Bureau. The Highway Patrol said that a few houses at Kure Beach, east of Wilmington, had collapsed in the wind. Streets in Wrightsville and Carolina Beaches, were deep under water as torrential rains hit the coastline. Winds had been recorded at 120 mph at Frying Pan Shoals lightship, off Cape Fear. The Weather Bureau advisory had located the hurricane about 50 miles south of Wilmington, moving northeastward at about ten mph, at 11:00 a.m. It added that unusually high storm tides, high waves and heavy seas would flood coastal lands from Myrtle Beach, S.C., to Hatteras, N.C., reaching heights of between seven and ten feet above normal and probably higher in some places. Island beaches and coastal lowlands were to be evacuated between Cape Fear and Cape Hatteras. Tides north of Hatteras to Norfolk, Va., were expected to rise between three and five feet above normal by this night. The storm was expected to the southeast of North Carolina, passing near Cape Hatteras at midnight. Winds of nearly hurricane force had hit beaches near the coastal village of Shallotte, N.C., and had blown waves across the beaches. Several persons had drowned in that area in Hurricane Hazel in October, 1954. Whiteville, 36 miles inland, had lost power when 60 mph winds had blown down wires. The center of the storm had bypassed Myrtle Beach, and its mayor said that things were looking good there, having observed only inconsequential damage. The Civil Aeronautics Administration said that winds gusting to 63 mph had hit Myrtle Beach. North Carolina Governor Luther Hodges had left his Raleigh office and flown to Wilmington during the morning. The State National Guard had been called out to prevent looting in evacuated areas of Brunswick County. A Red Cross spokesman and the State Highway Patrol reported that all except a few "stubborn persons" had been evacuated from the Wilmington beach area.
The Defense Department said this date that the Navy Vanguard satellite which had been launched the previous day had not gone into orbit but had burned up inside the earth's atmosphere. No help yet with the weather.
The President this date appointed retired Maj. General Wilton Persons as his new White House chief of staff to succeed Sherman Adams, who had resigned the prior Monday in a television and radio nationwide address, based on his problematic relations with his close friend, Boston industrialist Bernard Goldfine, both of whom had been investigated by a House committee based on intervention on behalf of Mr. Goldfine by Mr. Adams with two Federal agencies before whom the companies of Mr. Goldfine had matters pending. Mr. Adams had received several gifts, including expensive hotel lodging and a vicuna coat, from Mr. Goldfine, though the gifts were said to be merely tokens of their longstanding friendship and not as quid pro quo for Mr. Adams having intervened on behalf of Mr. Goldfine. General Persons, 62, had been serving as deputy assistant to the President. The White House said that the President also intended later to appoint a deputy to General Persons. Bryce Harlow was named deputy assistant to the President for Congressional affairs, a new title. He was presently special assistant to General Persons for Congressional affairs. Robert Merriam, former assistant budget director, was appointed deputy assistant to the President for interdepartmental affairs.
In Little Rock, Ark., long lines of voters, possibly indicating a record turnout, had begun casting ballots this date in the local referendum on whether the four high schools which had been closed by Governor Orval Faubus would be reopened on an integrated basis or would remain closed, to be reopened as private schools by the Governor on a segregated basis.
In Charlotte, as the first crusade of evangelist Billy Graham held in his hometown proceeded, it would be broadcast nationwide for an hour this night in his seventh sermon of a four-week planned crusade. The subject of this night's sermon would be "What's Wrong with the World". The previous night a near overflow audience of 14,200 persons, 12,500 in the Coliseum and 1,700 in adjoining Ovens Auditorium, had seen and heard the sermon, which had included Governor Luther Hodges in the audience, until he had to leave early to get back to Raleigh because of the storm.
On the editorial page, Drew Pearson indicates that actor Robert Montgomery had sat in the Colony Club Restaurant in New York the prior Monday evening when Sherman Adams had announced his intention to retire from his position. Mr. Montgomery went to Washington to coach the President on his television appearances, but had not gone to coach Mr. Adams. Nor were there any of the Hollywood experts who had spent a whole day coaching Vice-President Nixon in September, 1952, when he had gone on television to explain his personal expense fund raised by supporters in the wake of his 1950 Senate campaign to pay off his debt. White House press secretary James Hagerty had come around to help with the stage setting for Mr. Adams, but for the most part, he had been on his own.
He indicates that such had been the
case since the first weekend when the House investigating committee
had begun investigating the relationship between Mr. Adams and Mr.
Goldfine. None of the White House speechwriters had assisted him in
writing his introductory statement to the committee. Charles Willis
and Tex McCrary, the former his former assistant and the latter a
commentator and public relations man, had come to his aid. Mr. Adams
had "played a lone hand in running the White House and played a
lone hand
One reason it had been sad was because his receipt of gifts had been meager compared with those received by the President. Perhaps it was why the latter had never asked for the resignation of Mr. Adams. RNC chairman Meade Alcorn had done the asking, but the President, in his heart, must have felt that his assistant had done nothing more than he had, in fact less.
Eugene Black, president of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, had been traveling in Saudi Arabia when King Saud had presented him with various gifts, including a jeweled ring for Mrs. Black. When he returned to Washington, Mr. Black had realized that the ring was quite valuable and he had written to the Arabian Ambassador, asking whether it would be considered an affront to the King if the ring were returned. The Ambassador said that he was afraid it would be badly received and so Mr. Black went to his bank board, explaining his predicament and asking for its advice, the board having decided that he should keep the picture of King Saud, the curved sword and the Arabian robe, since they were not valuable, but that he should deposit the ring with the bank. That was about to be done when the Arabian Ambassador happened to meet Mr. Black and asked what had happened, and the latter had explained, to which the Ambassador said that he might as well return it, which Mrs. Black had done.
Mr. Pearson points out that none of the many gifts received by the President's family from foreign potentates had been either returned or deposited at the State Department as required by law. Current gift-giving to the White House had begun when one of the President's aides had suggested to American Airlines that the President admired a portrait of "Custer's Last Stand" painted by Harold von Schmidt, which hung in the Admirals Club of the airline. The airline had promptly sent the portrait to the President and for some time it had hung directly facing his desk. The airline, the biggest in the country, did all kinds of business with the Government and had all sorts of problems before the Civil Aeronautics Board and the Civil Aeronautics Administration. When inquiries had been made at the White House by Mr. Pearson's staff regarding the picture, it suddenly had disappeared.
The most expensive gift to the President had been the so-called "Mamie's cottage" at the Augusta Golf Club. Though called a cottage, it was one of the most luxurious establishments at the club and no newspapermen had ever been permitted to inspect anything except the downstairs living quarters. Those who had built the cottage estimated that it cost, including the nearby fishing lake, $250,000. The money had been raised by a group of businessmen who also had important problems constantly before the Administration. Their influence was credited with the Eisenhower-proposed tax law giving special concessions to stock market investors. The primary money-raiser for the cottage had been Cliff Roberts, of the New York investment firm of Reynolds and Co. Helen Worden Erskine, who had made a study of the cottage, reported that although the White House officially had described it as a "six-room cabin", the building permit filed in Augusta showed that it had 18 rooms and six bathrooms, with the seventh added later for $50,000. It had radiant heat, door locks which cost $160 each, two giant television sets, air-conditioning, indirect lighting, a barber's chair, a model kitchen with dishwasher and two stainless steel ranges, and all of the furniture had been paid for by the little group of Wall Street donors.
He notes that when former President Herbert Hoover had built a cottage in Rapidan, Va., for summer fishing, he had paid for the materials himself, though Government labor had been used. President Roosevelt's cottage at Warm Springs, Ga., had been built by the Warm Springs Foundation before he had become President, to enable him to take advantage of the nearby springs, beneficial to his polio.
As we have fallen behind, there will be no further notes on the front page or editorial page of this date, as the notes will be sporadic until we catch up.
Framed Edition
Links-Date — Links-Subj.