The Charlotte News
Thursday, January 15, 1959
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Montgomery, Ala., that U.S. District Court Judge Frank Johnson had this date ordered Alabama Circuit Judge George Wallace cited for criminal contempt of court for failure to comply with an order to produce voter registration records to the Civil Rights Commission. Justice Department attorneys had been directed by Judge Johnson to institute contempt proceedings as soon as possible. The action came after the Commission reported that it was able to inspect registration records in Barbour and Bullock Counties despite what it called "dilatory" tactics used by Judge Wallace in turning the records over to grand juries in the two counties instead of directly to the Commission, as ordered. Judge Johnson had ruled that although the purpose of his order to Judge Wallace, to produce the records, had been carried out when the grand juries allowed Federal agents to look at them, the latter had nevertheless to answer for his defiant action. Judge Wallace had not been in the courtroom when the ruling was announced and was represented instead by his attorneys. After the Justice Department contempt complaint was filed, Judge Johnson was expected to set a hearing to provide Judge Wallace a chance to show cause why he should not be punished for his failure to comply with the Federal court order. He could be sentenced to jail. The Commission notified Judge Johnson that it had otherwise finished inspecting the records in both counties and needed no further orders from the court to carry out its purpose. It said it needed no testimony from the three voter registrars because they had cooperated with Commission agents in answering questions during the inspection of the records. The Federal judge dismissed an earlier order which had directed the registration officials to be available for questioning by the Commission agents if needed. The agents had checked the registration files in an effort to prove or disprove complaints which had arisen from prospective black voters that they were denied the right to register because of their race.
In Atlanta, it was reported that a six-bill package "designed to strengthen our position in the fight to preserve segregated schools in Georgia" had been placed before the General Assembly this date by Governor Ernest Vandiver. In his debut speech to the Legislature, he said that he had "no intention of turning Georgia schools and colleges over to the Federal Government for any purpose, anywhere, at any time during the next four years." The six segregation proposals would authorize the governor to close a single public school if it was ordered to be integrated and to close the school attended by the pupil seeking integration; would prohibit any political subdivision having an independent school system from levying ad valorem taxes, that is sales taxes, to support mixed schools, to keep such systems from attempting to operate their schools with local funding if state funding were cut off; would permit the governor to designate legal counsel in school cases and pay fees and expenses of that counsel and court costs; would set age limits on prospective University System students except where special dispensation was made—intended as a bar to one of the three black women who had successfully brought suit against the Georgia State College of Business Administration, claiming discrimination against her based on race when she had applied for admission, as she was more than 40 years old; would authorize the governor to close any unit of the University System to preserve the peace; and would allow taxpayers credit on their state income taxes for contributions to private schools, facilitating the setting up of segregated schools such as were now operating in Little Rock, Ark.
In Havana, it was reported that fresh dispatches had told this date of the execution of ten additional men by order of revolutionary courts, boosting the reported total executed to 195. Fidel Castro said that the executions would continue, regardless of world opinion about the summary justice accorded captive followers of former dictator Fulgencio Batista who were adjudged major "war criminals". Sr. Castro declared the previous night, "We have given orders to shoot every one of these murderers." Not all of the convicted prisoners were being sent before the firing squads, some obtaining prison terms and a few being freed. The tribunal at Santiago the previous day had provisionally freed five, three civilians and two military men. Reports reaching Havana said that 19 persons had been put to death in Camaguey, 320 miles east of Havana, for political murders and tortures during the regime of El Presidente Batista. Five additional executions had been reported from Manzanillo, in Oriente Province, where eight others had been shot on Monday. Three former Batista soldiers had been condemned to death at Colon, in west Cuba's Matanzas Province. Advices from Oriente said that five former military men had been executed by a firing squad at Bayamo and that five other followers of Sr. Batista had been executed at Holguin. Criticism had mounted abroad regarding the hurried military trials and firing squad deaths. But Sr. Castro, when asked by newsmen whether the executions would be stopped, had replied: "No. To the contrary, we have given orders to shoot every one of these murderers. And if we have to battle world opinion to mete out justice, we are prepared to do it." He had scheduled a press conference later in the evening, but had called it off on the basis that he was ill. The nature of his illness had not been disclosed, but the strenuous life he had been leading during the previous two weeks since the ouster of Sr. Batista had probably started to take a toll on him.
Assistant Secretary of State Roy Rubottom had been summoned before the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee to face a demand for U.S. action to halt Cuba's post-revolution wave of killings. The subcommittee's chairman, Wayne Hays of Ohio, said that he wanted to know what the State Department was going to do to calm Fidel Castro down before "he depopulates Cuba". The latter had led the revolution which had deposed Sr. Batista in the wee hours on New Year's Day, forcing him to flee to the Dominican Republic where he had taken up exile under the protection of dictator Rafael Trujillo. Mr. Hays had suggested tough U.S. economic measures against Cuba, short of sending in troops, indicating that they might include cutting off credit to the nation or barring imports of sugar from it. He said: "The United States cannot ignore mass murder now no matter where it is committed. This guy Castro is starting off in the same direction [as Batista], only worse."
The U.S. had reassured West Germany this date that it was standing pat, for the time being at least, on the policy of seeking German reunification through free, all-German elections. Official statements, however, had not ruled out the possibility of future revision of the policy. The West German Government of Chancellor Konrad Adenauer had sought more information after Secretary of State Dulles told a press conference that free elections were the "natural method" but not the only possible way of merging the two parts of Germany into a single nation again. It had been interpreted as meaning that the stand for free elections might be modified if some other practical avenue for reunification presented itself in prospective negotiations with the Soviets. It was understood that various new ideas relating to the German problem were under discussion at the State Department, even though all in the end could be discarded. Since the summit meeting of July, 1955, the Soviet Union had opposed the election plan and had insisted on direct negotiations between the Eastern regime and the West German Government anent reunification. State Department press officer Lincoln White had also issued a statement saying, "There is no change in the United States position of support for free elections as the best and most logical method of achieving a true and workable reunification of Germany." The Soviets were advocating a German settlement which would demilitarize and isolate the nation as a buffer zone in Central Europe.
The President and top Republican spokesmen appeared ready this date with a fighting defense of the Administration's space, missile and security programs. Key leaders in the new and heavily Democratic Congress already had promised searching and critical investigation into all phases of the President's defense policies and programs. Vice-President Nixon had indirectly invited such an investigation, and expressed a fellow Republican's confidence that the programs would stand up under the scrutiny. Both the President and the new Republican Senate leader, Everett Dirksen of Illinois, defended the programs publicly on Wednesday. The President told a National Press Club luncheon that the country had "made remarkable progress" in the field of long-range missiles. Regarding the Soviet accomplishments in that field, he said, "If we did not believe that they were somewhat ahead in certain phases, we would indeed be a little stupid, because they have been working at it for many years, and our urgent work in this field on the long-range missile has started only something like four years ago." The President commented that he thought it showed a lack of sense of balance "to disturb ourselves too much that we have not yet caught up with another great power and people with great technical skill in a particular item." He said that the country had to have a balanced military program ready to beat any attack without knowing when, where or how it could start, and ready to respond instantly. He said: "I think we are [ready]. We have made very remarkable progress." About the time the President had been speaking, Senator Dirksen had replied in the Senate to Senator Stuart Symington of Missouri, who had said on Monday that the Administration was trying "to lull people into a state of complacency not justified by the facts." The former Secretary of the Air Force under former President Truman had been a frequent critic of defense policies of the Administration. Senator Dirksen suggested that Senator Symington or some other Truman Administration spokesmen ought admit publicly that for six years, "while our missile programs were virtually nonexistent, the Soviet program was going forward full tilt," claiming that it accounted for any lag behind the Soviets.
In Pinehurst, N.C., General George C. Marshall, 78, had been stricken with an illness and taken to the General Hospital at Fort Bragg early this date. He had been in poor health and confined to bed at his home for several months. The nature of the illness had not been disclosed but it was not believed to have been a stroke. The chief surgeon at the hospital said that he was preparing a news release on the General's condition. Fort Bragg sources said that he was resting comfortably after his arrival there. General Marshall had been Army chief of staff during World War II and later had been Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense under President Truman. He felt ill upon wakening at his winter home in Pinehurst during the morning. A Fort Bragg medical officer had been summoned and decided to remove the General to the Army hospital for observation. Shortly afterward, the Army's Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington and Maj. General Howard Snyder, the President's personal physician, had been notified. General Marshall's seizure was informally described as a "spasm of the sort sometimes associated with a mild stroke." The General and Mrs. Marshall had returned to Pinehurst the previous fall where they had owned a cottage since 1941. They also had a home in Leesburg, Va. He had celebrated his 78th birthday on December 31.
In El Cajon, Calif., a homemade bomb lay in the post office for 17 days because its intended victim had not left a forwarding address, according to the police chief, who said that if the intended recipient, a 33-year old woman, had received the Christmas package, she undoubtedly would have been killed. The woman had gone into hiding after an earlier bomb had exploded outside her window on November 4, injuring a small neighbor boy. Police would not say where she was located. They had arrested a 42-year old San Diego pharmacist, who had dated the woman several times early the previous year when she had moved from Chicago, the pharmacist having been charged with attempted murder and held in lieu of $10,000 bond. The police chief said that the bomb had been discovered in the post office on Sunday and consisted of two sticks of dynamite connected to batteries and a switch, contained in a flat box. The switch was set to detonate the dynamite when the lid of the box was opened. News of the discovery of the bomb had been withheld while police investigated.
In London, it was reported that a female doctor had talked for 15 terrifying minutes the previous night with a maniac pointing a pistol at her head. The wild-eyed young gunman had told her, "I have got to kill—you will do." The 42-year old mother of three children had a number of patients waiting to see her at her home office in southeast London, and the third to be called in had been a man of about 24, whom she motioned to a chair. He then told her that he had a problem, whipping out a pistol and making the statement that he had to kill someone, that he was not joking. The doctor had smoothed her white surgical gown, had gone to the door and called to her 12-year old son playing upstairs to tell him to stay where he was and on no account come downstairs. The man had tightened his grip on the trigger. The doctor asked him not to pull it and instead to talk it over, talking about anything which came to her mind. She said that she knew that he was desperate and her only hope was to talk him out of it. At first, he had not wanted to listen and reiterated that he had to kill someone. The doctor continued to talk and finally the man had gotten up and gone to the door, saying: "I shall be back. I must kill." Then he vanished into the London fog.
In Springfield, Mass., an 80-year old grandmother who had 39 windows broken in her home during the previous nine days had complained to police, who had investigated, but found no evidence of lawbreaking and had withdrawn from the mysterious case. John Parker, a self-styled authority on poltergeists, had stepped in where the police had found no evidence of foul play. A local architect, Mr. Parker said that he was "pretty sure poltergeists are to blame." Being an architect, he said that he wanted first to eliminate any possible scientific explanation and said that he would try to set a scientific trap for the mischievous spirits by installing a recording thermometer in the bathroom of the 2 1/2 story frame home. Three windows, including two new ones of heavy glass, had been broken in the bathroom. Mr. Parker said that he was going to establish that there was no logical scientific explanation for it, that he would rule out the possibility that sudden temperature changes in the home might have shattered the windows. He also planned to install a heavy plastic window to stop the mysterious force. The grandmother and her 13-year old grandson, who lived upstairs, had both said that they heard strange thumping noises just before the windows had crashed. A window glazier, who had replaced the first batch of broken windows, reported that all appeared to have been shattered by a force from outside. All of the broken glass had fallen inside and the way the glass had fallen, according to the glazier, seemed to indicate that it had been pushed in from the center with considerable force. The grandmother called in an insurance agent to try to collect the $93 she had spent in having the windows repaired, but the agent was stumped and wanted to know how he could tell his office that the windows had been broken by poltergeists, for which there was no place on the damage claim forms. He had told the grandmother that he would ask his office for further instructions. A man of Seaford, N.Y., whose home on Long Island had experienced some unexplained bottle-top poppings about a year earlier, had told the Springfield Union: "The only thing to do is put your faith in God and try to go on. Don't be frightened that the things that are happening may not be explainable. Try as much as possible to control yourself and accept what is happening. Accept it as something being visited upon you." No windows had been broken on Wednesday, the last having occurred in the morning on Tuesday.
On the editorial page, "Charlotte Welcomes a Yankee Trader" indicates that Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts was one of America's "most engaging young political gladiators—and not improbably the next President of the United States." He would certainly be a leading contender for the 1960 Democratic presidential nomination and at present was the brightest prospect the party had. Even if his chances were to dissolve between the present and the 1960 Democratic convention, his presence would be noted and his influence felt.
Senator Kennedy represented the rising new post-Truman generation in the Democratic Party, a generation which had, to a great extent, rejuvenated the party and given it the bounce and buoyancy it needed to overwhelm the Republicans so decisively as it had the prior November in the midterm elections.
Columnist Walter Lippmann had seen that new generation coming as early as 1956 and predicted its success: "The vigor and unity of the Democratic Party come from the influx of young and vigorous men who have been working in their communities on the problems of the present. They do not know and they do not care about the quarrels between Truman and his enemies… The Democratic Party is in one of its periods of revival, as in the early days of Wilson and again of Roosevelt."
It indicates that great problems remained, as the North-South split in the party had not been healed, but that it was not to say that it could not be healed by wise and dedicated party leaders who understood the nature of the quarrels and respected the tender sensibilities of the combatants. It finds that Senator Kennedy might be just such a leader.
He had ample opportunity to become acquainted with the South and its people, having visited every Southern state except one during the previous two years. In fact, according to a scorecard prepared by the Congressional Quarterly a few weeks earlier, he had spoken in 47 of the 49 states during the previous 24 months. Those appearances had immeasurably broadened his base of political support by identifying him with local personalities, issues and sentiments in many parts of the country.
While the local citizenry had been "discovering the Senator", he had an ample opportunity to explore local attitudes and problems. Consequently, he was a wiser and infinitely more sensitive political performer than the "boy wonder" who was barely edged out of the Democratic vice-presidential nomination at the 1956 convention, losing out to Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee.
It indicates that Charlotte would welcome Senator Kennedy with considerably more Southern hospitality than many other Yankee traders had received. "And the senator can be sure that his wares will be thoughtfully examined."
The coincidence should not be missed that the headlines of the day feature a Federal District Court judge holding in contempt a defiant George Wallace, as well as heavy criticism of Fidel Castro and his revolutionary ardor in dealing with the overthrown opposition in Cuba, when different forms of those two sources of news, along with Berlin, also on the front page this date, would greatly plague the Kennedy Administration between 1961 and 1963 in its all too short thousand days. It should also not escape attention that somewhere in the confluence of those sources, along with the primary subject of his speech before the Chamber of Commerce this date, that of the Teamsters and its problematic underworld corrupted president, Jimmy Hoffa, had likely been the font of visceral hatred sufficient to impel forces into action to assassinate the President.
"Napoleon of the Wide Open Spaces" indicates that Texas had held fast to its instinct for the fabulous, the instinct which had given the nation Lyndon Johnson, "the winged senator, the dark entrancer, the 'Texas arranger.' If politicians starred like cowboys and football heroes, boys and girls would play 'filibuster' in the parlor and being the Yankee cloture-monger would be as onerous as being the cattle rustler."
When a politician hit the headlines, he automatically became an "enigma", as was the case with Senator Johnson. But people knew that he was the archetype of the "Senate man", the "world's most exclusive club" man, ardently committed to certain crabbed traditions which made the Senate and its aura so irritating to the raw democrat. The Senator had been described as a "rancher aristocrat", the overt and hearty Southwesterner from under the open skies "with a touch of Napoleon".
It finds that perhaps the kernel of that enigma lay in the apparent contradiction between the open-handed Texan from the Wide Open Spaces, on the one hand, and the darkling manipulator who used political power as deftly as a skilled carpenter used a screwdriver on the other. The enigma was the homely cowboy on the outside and the legislative falconer within, making his mailed forearm the orbit for scores of Senators who "clear it with Lyndon".
His origins gave him half the image and he embodied the new political power which had gravitated westward away from the East and South. In the recent fight over Senate rules regarding cloture of debate, he held the balance. On the Napoleonic side, he belonged to the school of quiet power, courtly but ungloved, save by the Senate's outrageous but indispensable traditions.
British historian A. J. P. Taylor could have been speaking of Senator Johnson when he had written recently in the Manchester Guardian: "The great 'politician' in the practical sense does not know what he is doing; this is the source of his strength. Of course, he knows how to win men or to work the machine; but he does not check his acts by referring to the book of general principles… Most academics cannot resist lifting the lid all the time to look at the works; and any cook can tell what happens to a cake if you keep opening the oven door… The true art of politics is to have ideals and to believe in them, but not too much. The politician uses ideals; he is not used by them…"
Senator Johnson, who had conquered the enemies of unlimited debate, might subscribe, it suggests, to that description of himself, but he never looked at the works, staying as far as possible from that oven door.
"Charlotte's Iambic Pentameter Blues" indicates that Charlotte's poetry-and-jazz "experiment" was bizarre enough to be genuinely appealing. The cultural benefits were at least as great as those to be derived from peering at two-headed babies in formaldehyde. To purists, the mixture of recitation and syncopation was a queasy porridge. The literati, with the exception of Kenneth Rexroth, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and a few others, preferred their poetry "neat". The same went for jazz aficionados, some of whom could not even abide singers.
But the search for new sensations and new horizons in art had to go on. Herman Melville had said that each new generation of artists should "set, not follow, precedents". Humorist Mort Sahl was in essential agreement recently in a piece on jazz, stating to an imaginary bandleader: "People don't want to dance. We're going to add tubas and play marches. People want to march: we've got to get them out onto the grass."
It suggests that given enough rope, Charlotte's poetry-jazz soirées might even manage a happy ending. That would be when audiences decided that they were mature enough to appreciate the inexorable truth in each art form, without window dressing. That truth was the music to which all the arts moved "in rage or delight, with proud or dancing step."
A piece from the Franklin Press, titled "A Prayer for Our Times", prays for relief from tension of nerves and muscles "with the soothing music of the singing strains that live in my memory. Teach me the art of taking minute vacations—of slowing down to look at a flower, to chat with a friend, to pat a dog, or read a few lines from a good book. Let me look upward into the branches of the towering oak and know that it grew great and strong because it grew slowly and well. Slow me down, Lord, and inspire me to send my roots deep into the soil of life's enduring values."
Drew Pearson indicates that after he
had begun probing the hushed-up Alabama tax scandal
The case involved payments by large liquor companies to its representatives and front men in Alabama, at least one of whom could not read or write. The money had gone into either political or personal pockets, some of it admittedly to former Governor Gordon Persons, brother of General Wilton Persons, longtime military aide to the President and now chief of staff at the White House.
Governor Persons, while in that position, had appointed one of his close friends, Jimmy Thrower of Dothan, to the ABC liquor board, and Mr. Thrower was one of the men who had handled the untaxed political payments.
Since the President had campaigned vigorously against income tax evasion and pledged his word to clean up the so-called tax scandals of the Truman Administration, the question naturally had arisen as to whether the Alabama tax case had been "closed" on the word of anyone in or near the White House. Former Governor Persons vigorously denied that he had asked his brother to intervene, indicating that there had been pressure on him to get in touch with his brother regarding the case, as he had told Mr. Anderson during the latter's trip to Alabama, but assured that he had never talked to his brother about it. When asked who had brought the pressure, he said it had been mentioned to him, adding that he was frequently asked to try to influence his brother in the White House. He said, when talking to Mr. Anderson, that he had received four letters that same day, all asking him to approach his brother, and if he thought it for the good of the state, he would send it to him without comment, that if not, he would tear it up.
The former Governor claimed that he had not visited Washington for four years and had not seen his brother for two years. The last occasion had been a brief reunion in Florida, but he admitted that he frequently phoned and wrote his brother. When questioned further, he said that he "assumed" that his brother knew about the case because of the individuals involved. "He must know about it, but he hasn't done a damn thing about it." He said he had carefully refrained from involving his brother because it was bound to be embarrassing to him. "I came up in the rough school of politics, and he came up in the pampered school. If I had been in his place, it would have been different." He was reminded that Mr. Thrower and Emery Solomon, another legislative political leader of the former Governor, had claimed that the money received from the liquor companies had been passed on as "political contributions". When he was asked whether he had received any of that money, he said that he got money "from them, but I didn't have any way of knowing where it came from. When a man makes a political contribution, you don't ask where it came from."
Both Mr. Thrower and Mr. Solomon had been regarded as members of the Persons clique and were quite close to the Governor. Inasmuch as he had appointed Mr. Thrower to the ABC liquor board, and the latter could pretty much ban any brand of liquor from coming into the state, it had been a very poorly kept political secret that big Northern liquor companies were most generous, not only with their money, but with their liquor.
Joseph Alsop indicates that at the moment of his first and greatest victory over the Senate liberal bloc, Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson had done nothing commonplace, such as looking like a cat which had swallowed a canary, rather managing to look like "a tiger that had swallowed a peacock." The row about Senate Rule XXII regarding cloture of debate, arising from the cruel civil rights problem, could quite easily have gotten out of control, but by craft and prescience, persuasiveness and brutality, rewards and punishments, above all, unending, indefatigable hard work, Senator Johnson had gotten the row under control at the very outset and then kept it under control to the final vote.
The Senate contained four more or less openly avowed presidential hopefuls, Vice-President Nixon on the Republican side, and Senators John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts, Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, and Stuart Symington of Missouri on the Democratic side. Mr. Nixon had ruled against Senator Johnson and the three Senators had all voted against him as well. Senator Johnson had told one of the Senators, "I'd get your vote if you weren't running so damn hard," saying it with a broad grin, and Mr. Alsop indicates he was quite right. The unanimity of the presidential hopefuls was proof that the political odds against Senator Johnson were fairly heavy.
The efficiency, and possibly the toughness, of the Johnson methods of beating the odds had been revealed by some other peculiarities of the voting pattern. He had won, for instance, support of new Senator from Indiana, Vance Hartke, who had a large bloc of black voters in his state. The two new Alaska Senators, Ernest Gruening and Bob Bartlett, had given their votes to the Majority Leader, although their own entry into the Senate had long been delayed by Southern opposition to Alaskan statehood.
In their usual way, the Senators of the liberal bloc had also helped Senator Johnson to beat the odds by taking their first stand on the proposition that the Senate was not a continuing body from Congress to Congress. A vote against the continuity of the Senate was almost a vote against the Senate, itself. Most Senators, whether liberal or conservative, would rather vote against their mother than vote against the Senate.
The most practical legislative strategist among the liberals, Senator Humphrey, had advocated a straight fight for a better rule on cloture. But Senators Paul Douglas of Illinois and Jacob Javits of New York insisted that the non-continuity of the Senate was a matter of principle, and both had won their argument. Whenever any Congressional liberal took an extreme stand, all of the other liberals always felt compelled to say, "You can't out-liberal us." That, rather than disunity or parliamentary incompetence, was the real vice of the liberals.
Yet, it was still misleading to talk, as everyone presently was, about the rout of the liberals and the brilliance of Senator Johnson's victory. With a better plan of action and without Senator Johnson to lead the other camp, the liberals might have achieved a more drastic change in the Senate rules on filibuster. The change which was finally made was very far from radical. But the fact remained that Senator Johnson was only fighting a rearguard action. His victory had slowed down the retreat, but the retreat would continue nevertheless.
The resigned expectation of continuing retreat was implied by the Southern Senators' decision to accept a change in the Senate rule, just as it had been implied by their failure to filibuster the 1957 Civil Rights Act. When and if the Administration presented another civil rights bill, it would retreat as little as possible and with great reluctance, but would still retreat. He finds that the prediction could be made with greater confidence because the new bill, if offered, appeared likely to be moderate. Vice-President Nixon wanted a strong bill. White House chief of staff Wilton Persons wanted no bill at all. Thus the chance was great for the compromise plan of Attorney General William Rogers, reported to desire a bill which would merely give the Attorney General the power to take state officials to court when they had actively and positively denied the civil rights of any citizen.
Both sides of the civil rights fight would be automatically outraged by such a bill, the South because it was a civil rights bill and the strong civil rights advocates because of the bill's moderation. But there was still a strong case for making great changes in a gradual manner.
Doris Fleeson indicates that the Washington institution of the background press conference might occasionally be noble in purpose, but more often was a shabby victimization of the process by which the public obtained its news about the public business. Most of the time, it produced only a mishmash of that news. Perhaps on one out of ten occasions, it produced a "plant", that is, information which the source wanted disclosed without having to take responsibility for it. The plant was designed not to provide news but to influence the making of a decision which would be news.
Sometimes, she indicates, the whole business misfired and then the holder of the press conference was hoist by his own petard and reporters who were not included among the original confidantes were free to tell all.
Vice-President Nixon was the latest in a long line to be thus trapped, having been the direct source of information "relayed" to newsmen that in the Vice-President's opinion, the U.S. was ahead of Russia in developing missiles and was catching up fast in the whole space race. Senator Stuart Symington had publicly challenged the Vice-President to prove that statement by releasing percentage figures on the missile race, the Senator indicating that he would soon release the figures himself if Mr. Nixon did not.
The Vice-President had invited a small coterie of newsmen to lunch on Saturday, ostensibly to meet his new press agent, lawyer Robert Finch of Los Angeles. Several hours of "background" talk had produced a weekend rash of headlines. One had described the "new Eisenhower" as being prepared to fight for his budget. Another said that the Vice-President fully supported the President on both the budget and defense issues. Published accounts that Mr. Nixon was looking for a time and place to break with the President and establish a more progressive line were flatly contradicted in his name. Those were known in the trade as "dope" stories. Far more direct and factual in tone had been the missile story which, by agreement, had been held up for Monday morning release. Senator Symington, former Secretary of the Air Force under President Truman, had pounced on it at the opening of the Senate session, and it would now be part of a running fight about the true posture of U.S. defenses.
She indicates that in the present unique Washington situation, any fair observer had to sympathize with the Vice-President's desire to keep the Administration's side before the public. After delivering his State of the Union message, the President left for a bridge-playing weekend at Camp David. She finds such desultory behavior had long vexed the Vice-President, who had to watch the Congress speaking up early and late in present times. He was also handicapped in his natural desire to tell his own story. The law did not forbid him from holding open press conferences, but it would be extremely risky in his position. He could venture his own points of view without criticism only during a campaign.
Many important reporters boycotted the background type of press conference, the other risks of which were now on display. Mr. Nixon had been especially irked by the Administration failure to reply to the conclusion of a special House space committee that the U.S. was falling behind the Soviets in the missile race. Politicians had agreed he had a point.
Walter Lippmann indicates that the President's first message to Congress had been bound to be rather general in character, but what the President had to say the previous week in his State of the Union message had thrown very little light on the state of the union. He had said, in effect, that the U.S. was "ceaselessly challenged" and that in meeting that challenge all the country could afford to do without raising taxes was all that it needed to do.
He finds it a remarkable coincidence, that the country was able to meet so great a challenge without any additional effort and sacrifice during the coming fiscal year, and that in the following year, the country might be able to relax and even reduce taxes. The President said that the country was confronted with a question which is "as old as history", whether a government based on liberty could endure when it was ceaselessly challenged by a dictatorship with growing economic and military power. He found that the answer to the question was that the nation could indeed endure by doing no more than it was currently doing.
But Mr. Lippmann asks what the use was in asking the tremendous question about whether the nation could endure if the answer was only that it was doing all that was necessary at present. The explanation, he fears, was that the President was trying to ride two horses at once, to be hard when he talked to Moscow and soft when he talked to the American people. The nation was to defy the challenge abroad while reducing taxes at home. It did not sound as if the President expected the nation to take the ceaseless challenge very seriously. For if it were true, as in fact it was, that the Soviets were challenging the U.S. with "an economic and military power of great and growing strength", it appeared inconceivable that the nation could look forward to a tax reduction just before the coming national presidential election of 1960. That was the kind of softness and self-indulgence which was "as old as history" and repeatedly in history had meant the ruin of great states.
He posits that being hard on the outside and soft on the inside was to invite trouble, as it was a changing world in which the power and the influence of the challenger were growing. The U.S. could not long hope to succeed in meeting that challenge by a policy of standing pat in all things, on all positions abroad and efforts at home. He regards the right position as being that of Winston Churchill when he had said, "We arm to parley." Mr. Lippmann advocates arming more strongly and negotiating more readily. The country should not be inflexible but it should be tough, remembering that what was inflexible was usually brittle.
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