The Charlotte News
Tuesday, September 9, 1958
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Newport, R.I., that the President had sized up the Democratic sweep in Maine elections as a beating of the Republican Party which there was no use in trying to disguise. White House press secretary James Hagerty had told newsmen at the summer White House that the President had been disappointed in the outcomes. The RNC in Washington had supplied the President with final returns in the Maine contests wherein Democrats had won a Senate seat for the first time in 47 years, as Governor Edmund Muskie, future vice-presidential candidate with Vice-President Hubert Humphrey in 1968, and Secretary of State under President Carter, had defeated Republican incumbent Senator Frederick Payne by a 3 to 2 margin in a contest in which the controversy between White House chief of staff Sherman Adams and Bernard Goldfine had played an underlying role. Mr. Adams was the former Governor of neighboring New Hampshire. Emphasizing their triumph, the Democrats had picked up a seat in the House and retained the Governor's office being vacated by Governor Muskie, giving them four of the five major offices at stake in the races. The one Republican success had come in another House race, in which the Republican was an incumbent.
Secretary of State Dulles had hinted this date that the U.S. was prepared to offer concessions in the Formosa Strait situation, provided Communist China would renounce the use of force there.
In Hong Kong, it was reported that Cambodian Prime Minister, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, had said this date that Communist China's top leaders had told him in Peiping recently that they were going to seize the Nationalist offshore islands of Quemoy and Matsu.
In Amman, Jordan, U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold had held his final round of talks with King Hussein and Prime Minister Samir Rifai this date, reported to be optimistic about the success of his peacemaking mission in the Middle East. He would leave later this date for Beirut.
In Tunis, it was reported that the Algerian National Liberation Front had claimed this date that 1,916 French troops had been killed and 1,040 wounded in 314 combat operations between August 5 and 31.
In Moscow, it was reported that five Russians, described as traitors who had collaborated with the Nazis during World War II, had been sentenced to death by a military tribunal in southern Russia, with a sixth defendant receiving a 25-year prison term.
Before the Senate Select Committee investigating misconduct of unions and management, George Fitzgerald, who worked for the Teamsters Union, said that he had been an unpaid lawyer for the union welfare fund when he received a fee from real estate promoters who had borrowed a million dollars from the fund and never paid it back. Mr. Fitzgerald, a Detroit attorney and former Democratic national committeeman from Michigan, had told the Committee that the $35,000 fee which previous witnesses had said that he received in connection with the loan was "an adequate but not an oppressive fee." He had said that he had split it with others and received $15,750 for himself for the legal work. The fee had come from the Winchester Village Land Development Co. of Detroit, which obtained the loan in 1955-56. Mr. Fitzgerald said that he had no financial interest "as such" in that company. The previous week, witnesses had testified to the Committee that the welfare fund might be left holding the bag for a loss of as much as $650,000 on the loan, but Mr. Fitzgerald contended that there was no loss. He had first testified that he wanted to clear up what he regarded as inaccuracy in statements naming him as counsel for the welfare fund, but later said that he was the attorney for the fund on an unpaid basis, indicating that his fees had come from the Detroit Teamster Union Council and not from the fund. Regarding the propriety of the fee, he said that the borrower had paid it, which was standard practice in Michigan. He contended that witnesses had erred in telling the Committee the previous week that the Winchester firm's assets might fall $650,000 short of covering the loan, indicating that the welfare fund was foreclosing on the mortgage. Committee counsel Robert F. Kennedy said that Abe Green, Winchester's chief backer, also was under subpoena, indicating that the testimony would then shift to circumstances which had impelled Federal court-appointed monitors to block a scheduled election earlier in the year by Springfield, Mo., Teamsters Local No. 245. John Rogers, a member of that local who was active in seeking monitor intervention, would be a major witness, according to Mr. Kennedy.
On the editorial page, Drew Pearson again turns over his column to his assistant, Jack Anderson, who had just returned from a news-gathering trip through the Far East, writing from New Delhi that India's Prime Minister Nehru had described Soviet dictator Nikita Khrushchev recently as "an emotional man" and had compared Chinese Communist Chairman Mao Tse-tung to "a friendly uncle". From personal association, Prime Minister Nehru had sized up for Mr. Anderson the men whose personalities might determine world peace.
He had given insight, for example, into the mentality of Mao, who was presently toying with world tensions in the Formosa Strait. The latter's military strategy, according to Nehru, was not taken from Lenin or Stalin but rather from "Chinese lore 1,000 years old." He had said, "Mao is always quoting ancient Chinese proverbs every 20 minutes." He said that Mao's military ancestors would not meet an enemy head-on but would withdraw, pulling the enemy in after them, and then the Chinese force would dissolve into the civilian population and reappear later at a weak spot in the enemy's lines. The ancient strategy was to avoid a clash with enemy strength and to watch and wait for signs of weakness. The Prime Minister said, "Mao used the same ancient tactics to dislodge Chiang Kai-shek," and suggested that Mao might still be drawing out his enemy and probing for a weak spot in the area of Formosa.
While he found Mao to be "like a friendly uncle", he found Communist China's Premier Chou En-lai to be "clever, charming and calculating", the last word in the description having been suggested by Mr. Anderson, to which Nehru had agreed. But if Chou seldom reacted out of emotion, Premier Khrushchev, according to Nehru, was exactly the opposite, typical of his people, "highly emotional", that he would "react according to the way he is treated". He said that he had once asked the Soviet leader why he indulged in such provocative diplomacy when he had expressed the desire for friendship with England and the West, and Mr. Khrushchev had replied: "We have been living in a state of siege for 40 years. We have been worried that the Western world would topple us. We are just coming out of this state of siege, but we are still fearful…" Nehru had corrected his last word and substituted "suspicious" of the West. He found that it might account for Mr. Khrushchev's hasty, off-the-hip shots at the West. He added hopefully that because he was an emotional man, he would respond to the emotions of his people. He said that Mr. Khrushchev was not the complete master of the Kremlin but was restricted in his actions by internal Kremlin politics. He stated that within that framework, the Soviet Premier would respond to the strong feelings of the Russian people for peace.
Prime Minister Nehru had also talked about other leaders, including Egyptian Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser, whom he did not consider a "dangerous dictator", pointing out that the Hitler-type did not wish to learn but only to harangue, whereas Premier Nasser was eager to learn, not true of a real dictator. He said that the latter had learned a great deal since the two had first met following the 1952 Egyptian revolution, and he had also been impressed with Premier Nasser's personal charm and Spartan habits, saying, "He lives very modestly, you know, in the same house his military commandant used to occupy in Cairo."
Joseph Alsop indicates that four men had the primary responsibility for the decision to use U.S. troops, if necessary, to defend Quemoy and the Matsus in the Formosa Strait crisis, that at least half of the responsibility and perhaps as much as two-thirds or three-quarters fell to Secretary of State Dulles, with practically all of the remaining responsibility in the hands of three of the four Joint Chiefs, the chairman, General Nathan Twining, the chief of the Air Force, General Thomas White, and the chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Arleigh Burke, the primary supporters of Mr. Dulles at the council table. The Pentagon civilians had likely approved the decision, but had not joined in the policy-making process in any active and influential way customary in the past when the Defense Department had been headed by James Forrestal or George Marshall or Robert Lovett. Secretary of Defense Neil McElroy had actually been on vacation during the critical time, from mid-August through Labor Day, and had returned to Washington for a day or two more than once during his vacation. A highly tentative decision in principle to join in the defense of the offshore islands if necessary had been made on one of those occasions, while Mr. McElroy was in Washington and before Secretary Dulles had gone to his lake retreat and the President had departed for his golf course.
Yet, the earlier decision in principle was still relatively meaningless, having been reached, according to the reporting, when many of the leaders of the Government had been clinging to the belief that the Chinese Communists had not really meant business. Such a decision, taken in the belief that it would not have to be implemented, was always relatively meaningless. It was the same type of attitude taken by the U.S. regarding Korea, that it had no interest in it, theoretically remaining in force until the Communist aggression there in mid-1950.
The crucial moment of truth had been when Secretary Dulles returned from his lake retreat on September 1, by which point even the most complacent had begun to admit that the Chinese Communists might mean business after all, a point when it was necessary either to fish or cut bait. Mr. Dulles had therefore flown to Newport to visit the President and secure the latter's assent to the eight-point statement of U.S. policy. The statement which the President had approved contained several loopholes and escape clauses. Speaking partially in his own name and partially through the transparent mask of a "high government official", Mr. Dulles had closed the loopholes and eliminated the escape clauses.
Mr. Alsop indicates that whoever had watched the President in action during the previous five years had to conclude that he had taken his position on Quemoy and the Matsus with great reluctance and distaste. The fact that the escape clauses and loopholes had been included in the statement which the President approved at the behest of Mr. Dulles, were strong evidence of the President's actual state of mind. But Secretary Dulles had three major assets in his task of persuading the President to take the grave step. The President long earlier had assigned to his Secretary of State an unprecedented share of the decision-making power in foreign policy. The Secretary had the strong support of three of the four Joint Chiefs, with only General Maxwell Taylor, chief of staff of the Army, making the kind of hesitant objections which General Omar Bradley had also made when the decision on Korea had been made in June, 1950. Mr. Dulles was further in the position of asking the President to say that he would carry out in practice a previously sketched decision in principle.
Mr. Alsop thus finds it clear that the die was cast, unless it would be hastily picked up at the last moment and the U.S. would again take the suicidal course of backing down, after yet another round of bold talk. Mr. Dulles had clearly dominated the whole process by which the die had been cast. He had long wished to make a stand against the Communist advance. The previous year, he and British Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd had wanted to send the Turks and the Iraqis into Syria to forestall the left-wing coup there. A stand had now been made after enormous prior losses, and at almost the worst possible time. But there was no good answer to the argument of Mr. Dulles that all would be lost if a firm stand was not taken at present. He concludes that one had to be thankful for Mr. Dulles in that instance.
As we have fallen behind, there will be no further summaries of the front page or the editorial page for this date, with the notes to be sporadic until we catch up.
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