The Charlotte News
Monday, July 27, 1959
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Geneva that the U.S. and France were, according to sources, holding firm this date against British pressure to reduce Western terms for a Berlin agreement with the Soviet Union and thus clear the way for an early summit conference. As the Big Four foreign ministers conference moved into its ninth week, U.S. and British officials had sought to play down the differences and deny any threat to Western allied unity. Some, however, had privately conceded that the maneuvering had created an appearance of weakness under Soviet hammering on critical Berlin and German issues. Associates said that Secretary of State Christian Herter was still determined to try to obtain an agreement from Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko to protect West Berlin, and was reportedly equally determined not to accept any deal which would place a deadline on Western allied rights in Berlin. British Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd, who had conferred with Prime Minister Harold Macmillan during the weekend, reportedly believed that limited assurances already offered by Mr. Gromyko were the best the West could hope for and ought be accepted on condition that the Soviets, for the time being, would drop their demand for agreement on direct unification negotiations between the West German and Communist East German governments. All three Western powers were reported to have agreed that the price demanded by Mr. Gromyko for a stopgap Berlin settlement was completely unacceptable. Mr. Lloyd had taken the lead this date in sounding out Mr. Gromyko on the possibility of a change in the Soviet position, arranging a luncheon meeting with him to be followed by a meeting of the Western Big Three and West German Foreign Minister Heinrich von Brentano. After returning from London on Sunday night, Mr. Lloyd had dined with Mr. Herter, and diplomats said that the differences within the Western camp had undoubtedly been discussed. The disagreement, centering on the summit conference issue, appeared too deep and persistent to be reconciled quickly. Mr. Lloyd and Prime Minister Macmillan believed that a summit meeting sooner or later was inevitable and they wanted to get it on the basis of some agreement on Berlin in Geneva even though it fell short of what the West was seeking.
In Leningrad, it was reported that Vice-President Nixon had flown to the city this date to begin a five-day swing through parts of the Soviet Union. Soviet Deputy Premier Frol Kozlov and his wife had been among those accompanying Mr. Nixon and his wife. Also along was Georgi Zhukov, chairman of the Soviet Government Committee on Foreign Cultural Relations. Flying ahead had been two planes carrying 88 American and foreign newsmen. The Vice-President's departure from Moscow was preceded by a weekend visit with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, during which they had discussed East-West differences for six hours. Neither side would say whether the long talk had boosted the chances for removal of the Soviet threat to Western allied forces in West Berlin, but Mr. Nixon said that the long talk was helpful "because it provided an opportunity for frank and complete discussions in a calm and objective atmosphere." A crowd of a thousand persons greeted the Vice-President and his party at the Leningrad airport, nearly three times the number who had turned out for the arrival of the party in Moscow the prior Thursday. Two American tourists had joined the airport crowd and held up a hastily scribbled "Welcome Nixon" sign, delighting the Vice-President. Although there was no loudspeaker system, Mr. Nixon said in a brief arrival speech that he and Mr. Khrushchev had a "constructive and full discussion of the many problems that we have between our two countries. I can say that we had some difference with Chairman Khrushchev at the points at issue. I would say it was not a case of his convincing me or me convincing him." Mr. Nixon had gone on to tell the crowd, made up primarily of young men and women, with some sailors in uniform: "The differences between nations in today's world must be settled at the conference table and not on the battlefield. My message to the people of Leningrad, to the American people is this—peace." He had used the Russian word for peace. Most of the crowd had remained silent, perhaps because they could not hear the Vice-President. The Nixons had paid an overnight visit to the Khrushchevs' large country home, or dacha, located in a wooded park about 20 miles outside Moscow. Mr. Nixon had returned to the U.S. Embassy residence on Sunday night and had drafted a detailed report on the conversation for President Eisenhower and Secretary of State Herter. Herbert Klein, Mr. Nixon's press aide, hinted that the talk had done little to solve any of the major differences dividing the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
In Havana, it was reported that Fidel Castro, as expected, had returned to the position of Premier after being swept back in by an enormous popular demonstration, serving notice on Sunday night that he would be friends with the U.S. only if the U.S. did not get in his way. The spectacular crowd, estimated at nearly a million, had cheered wildly as he told them that he would bow to "the will of the people" and resume the office. The demonstration had again underscored that the 32-year old revolutionary leader was Cuba's strongman. The vast sea of humanity sent up reverberating cheers as Sr. Castro by implication told off critics in the U.S. He asserted that Cuba was not a protectorate or colony of any other country but rather was a free sovereign nation and "we have to account to no one." He said that Cuba wanted to be friends with all nations but could not be with those "who offend us, who insult us and who exploit us," nor with any vested interest which tried to "impose itself on the destiny of our people." In a 2.5 hour talk, Sr. Castro failed to mention communism by name, referring to it only obliquely, when hitting at his critics, but apparently had not felt it necessary to deny their charges that he was letting Communists influence his government. Uptown Havana's vast Civic Plaza had been packed with the shouting, cheering throng. Sr. Castro had told them emotionally that henceforth the "symbol of our revolution will be the machete," the long, sharp knife used for cutting sugar cane. He made it clear that such mammoth demonstrations would be held whenever it was considered necessary to demonstrate popular support for his policies.
Secretary of Labor James Mitchell said this date that after a conference with the President, he had hopes that the steel strike would end "in the reasonably near future". Mr. Mitchell told reporters that the President was pleased that union and management representatives were negotiating in New York under the auspices of the Federal Mediation Service. Mr. Mitchell described the negotiations as heartening, saying that they indicated that both sides were aware of the importance of a settlement. He said that he was not predicting an end to the strike in the reasonably near future, but had hopes that it would be the outcome. He said that he reported to the President in their 45-minute conference the facts which had been developed by him in his role as a fact-finder for the White House in the steel dispute. He said that both management and labor had expressed a willingness to place before the Secretary all of the facts at their disposal which bore upon the strike. He said that if necessary, he would meet with representatives of both sides, but commented that the Mediation Service was doing its duty in seeking to bring the strike to an end.
Marguerite Higgins of the New York Herald Tribune News Service reports from Washington that at his own insistence, the late John Foster Dulles had been briefed daily on world affairs until four days before he had died. Many had been the times that he had requested a reduction in pain-killing sedation so that his mental faculties would remain bright and active. So distasteful had it been to him for any situation to get out of his personal control that he had cleared virtually every one of the medical bulletins issued about his condition to the press. Toward the end, when the authors of the medical bulletins became tactfully vague, Mr. Dulles had scribbled corrections proclaiming the truth, that his condition was deteriorating. One outstanding thing which emerged in his last days was that he did not fear death but rather deeply and even angrily had resented it. His cancer was not just a dread disease but an enemy to be fought, an intruder getting in the way of numerous tasks yet to be done. A close friend said: "If anything, Foster was angry with his condition, angry that his massive will could not control this thing that was threatening to cut him off from the mission he had set for himself. He wanted very much to see his task through until it was done. By his lights this would have been when President Eisenhower's term was up." Inevitably, despite a monumental and spirited fight, Mr. Dulles had lost his war, but had won the battle to the extent that by exercise of spartan control and a dogged spirit he kept his mind and personality alive almost to within hours of his last breath, the least of what he wanted, but more than his doctors thought possible. Even for an exceptional man, the way he had met his death was extraordinary, as every person interviewed for the series of reports had volunteered at some point in their recollections. The beginning of the end for the 53rd Secretary of State, the chief architect, engineer and subcontractor of American foreign policy, and by all odds the Cabinet member who stood closest officially and personally to the President, had begun in Mexico City in late November and early December, 1958. Mr. Dulles had flown there for the inauguration of Mexico's newly elected President, Adolfo Lopez Mateos. Mr. Dulles had insisted on making the trip despite the fact that five days before his departure he had suffered abdominal pains and with it the worry that the cancer of the intestine for which he had undergone surgery two years earlier might be recurring. In Mexico City, his pain had increased and shortly after the Secretary's arrival, Robert Hill, the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, had gone to the apartment in the Embassy placed at the disposal of Mr. Dulles and found him stretched out on the bed, looking even more gray than at the airport, and with his arms around his stomach. As the two men were old friends and alone, Ambassador Hill spoke frankly, saying: "Mr. Secretary, I have a couple of doctors here who are familiar with your case and they are standing by." Mr. Dulles had looked at the Ambassador contemplatively for a moment and then with a characteristic wry smile, said, "For what I suspect may be wrong with me, Bob, the doctors can't be of any real assistance to me now." Despite the pain, he had managed to get through the arduous official visit, eating nothing other than cereal, resting between official duties and play-acting so successfully that no one knew how ill he was except Ambassador Hill, his special assistant Joseph Greene, Jr., and his secretary, Phyllis Bernau. In fact, the conversation between Mr. Dulles and Mr. Hill was one of the rare occasions when the Secretary of State had given an overt sign that he suspected cancer might be bringing his life to an end. But his spartan reluctance to discuss or even admit his deteriorating condition until the very end had been based on far more than reasons of state, reflecting in part a life-long aversion to permitting such a personal matter as his health to impinge on others.
In Short Hills, N.J., it was reported that detectives had returned to the home of Jacqueline Gay Hart this date to question the socialite some more about her sudden flight to Chicago and her claims to police, subsequently recanted, that she had been kidnaped and taken there from the Newark airport. A detective of the Newark police and a lieutenant of the Essex County prosecutor's staff wanted to talk to her alone without her fiancé or her father present. The chief of police for Millburn township, where Short Hills was located, said that the conference with detectives was aimed at giving New Jersey law enforcement agencies an opportunity to hear in detail the explanation of her disappearance, which she had provided to the FBI. The chief of police said that he hoped that the questioning would clear up some of the mystery sill surrounding the case. The 21-year old woman had flown back from Chicago on Saturday night, four days after she had disappeared without a trace for about 50 hours. She was a 1955 debutante and was the daughter of the vice-president of the Colgate-Palmolive Co. She was set to marry her fiancé, 25, on August 29, but her fiancé's brother said the previous day that there had been some discussion of changing the wedding date. Her father said that they had ruled out immediate comment about the wedding, except to say that as far as he knew, they would still be married. Her father had been quoted on Saturday as saying that he attributed the story that she told perhaps to an automobile accident she had in 1957 which had previously caused her to imagine things which had not occurred.
The Associated Press reports that five Charlotte area residents had been among 27 persons killed on highways in the Carolinas in the bloodiest traffic weekend in nearly a year. The 20 persons killed had topped tolls over such busy weekends as Christmas, New Year's and the Fourth of July. Not since the prior November 17, when 22 persons had died during a single weekend, had the toll been so high. Three of the five killed Charlotte area residents were Navy men killed in a two-car crash near Pittsboro the previous night. Another man had died after being struck by a car in Charlotte on Saturday night and a Charlotte truck driver had been killed when his truck had hit a bank near Salisbury. In addition, a 14-year old Charlotte youth had drowned the previous day at Windy Hill Beach in South Carolina, with that accident and three others accounting for 15 deaths and 18 injuries. Three Catawba County youths had died in a wreck in Newton, which had also injured four persons. Five persons had died and three had been injured in a two-car crash near Myrtle Beach, S.C.
In Blue Mountain, Miss., strange doings had been reported at the Tippah County home of a black preacher, Willis Booth, and scores of curious neighbors had swarmed to his house to see for themselves, finding overturned furniture, shattered mirrors and general disorder. Mr. Booth had said: "About 10 o'clock I heard a little rattle and a piece of gravel fell down near me. I thought it was a rat in the rafters. Then some gravel flew and knocked out a piece of the window. Then we began to know it wasn't no rat." He said that a mirror over the fireplace had shattered and that large pieces of furniture had begun turning over. "One of the dressers fell and the drawers fell out, then another dresser fell and broke all them glasses," referring to several glasses on the mantel which had been smashed. The disturbance had interrupted the preacher's preparation for his sermon. When he sat down to read the Bible, he said, "The Book just lifted itself up, flew around the room, and landed on the bed." He said that the pages had fluttered over and stopped at a chapter of Revelations. He also said that two other Bibles had behaved in the same manner and that still another had fallen open to a chapter in Isaiah. He said that his wife had said that she was in the kitchen and the stove had "raised up and let down" several times and that his young grandson had trouble with a washbasin, the boy reportedly having filled the basin twice, but on each occasion the receptacle had overturned and spilled the water. The world is coming to an end.
In Hollywood, it was reported that Warner Brothers Studio had sent an archery expert to Monument Valley, Utah, at the urgent request of director John Ford, who had wired the studio that the person was needed to provide bow and arrow lessons to Indians hired for a movie being filmed on location in Utah, "Sergeant Rutledge". He said that most of the Indians had never pulled a bow.
On the editorial page, "Occasional 'Crackdowns' Are a Bust in the Struggle for Motoring Safety" indicates that the local police crackdown on traffic law violators was quite real and that the facts and figures spoke louder than the official denials. Charlotte had experienced whirlwind "crusades" before.
On December 1, 1955, there had been a crackdown which was part of a nationwide safe-driving campaign, completed in the course of only 24 hours, though successful enough while it had lasted. But reversion to type was immediate and a softness by law enforcement toward erring motorists again prevailed and the carnage continued.
It finds that the battle for safety could not be won by short-lived "crusades", occasional crackdowns or other short-term devices, that it could only be won by continuous pressure. It urges letting the current crackdown continue indefinitely and that it be as firm as the law would allow.
To be able to do so, law enforcement authorities should be equipped with the best and most modern means of detecting traffic law violations which money could buy, including radar, unmarked patrol cars and anything else which would make law enforcement more efficient.
It had heard some Charlotte residents suggest that such devices were not "sporting", but it suggests that police need not be "sporting" about the lives, limbs and property of people who might be killed by speeders. Whammies could not possibly hurt anybody who was not violating the law and unmarked cars were no more unfair than plainclothesmen on the street.
It urges extending the crackdown to the courts. It assures that it was not suggesting ruthlessness, that both arresting officers and the courts had to be fair and the rights of individuals protected, with proof of guilt clearly established. But once established, punishment should fit the offense. The general public could help by supporting their policemen and their courts in doing their jobs and by making sure that law enforcement officials had the proper tools and would use them.
It suggests that a reasonable program of appropriate action would consist of ample police organized and trained to uniform enforcement of the law, impartial enforcement and complete cooperation by the courts, a state motor vehicle inspection law, absolute refusal to license the unfit, strict regulation of pedestrian traffic, and universal application of the principles of modern traffic control, particularly in street and highway design. With that kind of program, it suggests, traffic safety might become a reality rather than an utopian ideal.
"Back to Business, Mr. Summerfield" indicates that now that the Post Office Department's ridiculous ban on Lady Chatterley's Lover had been upset by the courts, it trusts that Postmaster General Arthur Summerfield would devote his full attention to delivering the mail and leave literary criticism to others.
The Federal District Court had said that the Postmaster General possessed special competence "on many questions involving the administration of the Post Office Department, the handling of mails, postal rates and other matters [but] he has no special competence to determine what constitutes obscenity."
It finds that Mr. Summerfield's ban had been an act of pious impertinence and was wholly without justification under the law, involving the interpretation of a statute which imposed criminal penalties, a matter only for the courts to determine. It finds that the decision in the case had been properly based on the principle that a book should not be judged on the basis of individual passages but as a whole. That was consistent with an earlier opinion of the Supreme Court that the test of obscenity was whether "the dominant theme of the material taken as a whole appeals to prurient interest."
The District Court judge had found the D. H. Lawrence novel to be a book of "rare beauty and literary merit," and to exclude it would fashion a rule which would fit "a substantial portion of the classics of our literature". It finds that it had been a just and reasonable decision and one which would long be remembered as an important statement of freedom of expression under the Bill of Rights.
"Hooray for 'Experts'" quotes from a report in the New York Times: "These conclusions were given in an unofficial and preliminary technical study of recent Congressional testimony by a group of experts on fall-out… In regions of heavy fall-out the dose might be three times the permissible. There is no conclusive scientific evidence that this dose would hurt anybody. On the other hand, there is no scientific evidence that it would not."
The piece indicates, "Thanks for nothing."
A piece from the Richmond News Leader, titled "'10 Feet, 4 Inches of Books, Please'", indicates that at the recent convention of the American Booksellers Association, a lively panel discussion had arisen on "Books and Culture as Status Symbols", the gist of which had been reported in Publishers' Weekly.
Bookseller Charles B. Anderson, who plied his trade in a high-status suburb of New York City, Larchmont, had offered an especially illuminating anecdote. Observing that some of the newly arrived suburbanites did not have what it took to fill built-in bookshelves, Mr. Anderson had told of a bright young woman's solution, simply measuring the empty shelf space, going to Mr. Anderson's shop and asking for precisely 10 feet, 4 inches of books, as inexpensively as possible, please.
Mr. Anderson had told his colleagues that they were glad to accommodate and so, gathering together a collection of books from their sale table, proceeded to measure them out.
On another occasion, he recalled, a customer had been accompanied by her interior decorator, "who carefully picked out 50-odd books in colors that would harmonize with the decor they planned for the living room."
The piece indicates that such uses of books were not uncommon, that in Richmond, a bookseller of its acquaintance frequently filled orders for so many feet of reds, blues and greens. He reported that it made no difference what was inside the book, as long as the color of the cover was correct.
It indicates that some who might feel a certain reverence toward the printed word could be upset by that turn to falsies, but books were for lots of things in the striving civilization of the present. "But, gentle readers, let us not despair. The good bookmen are actively lobbying among the architects. The ABA convention panelists are unanimous in their determination to see that built-in bookshelves get put in the plans for suburban palaces, right along with a half-bath, the fireplace, and the carport."
The bookmen felt that once bought and carried home, the book was a seductive thing and that on some rainy afternoon, when the television was on the blink and the kids were at the movies, a pang of curiosity might strike the young homemaker. "What, she may ask herself, is inside that darling purple binding? If she finds it to her liking, next time she ventures into a book shop, she may ask for a title, rather than a decorative dimension."
Drew Pearson indicates that in addition to the President's off-the-record dinner for a few chosen reporters, Senator Thruston Morton of Kentucky, chairman of the RNC, had a similar dinner with newsmen and was bawled out for it by the White House. The President was staging a repeat dinner this night, with chosen guests including John O'Brien of the Philadelphia Inquirer, William Stringer of the Christian Science Monitor, Bob Roth of the Philadelphia Bulletin, and Arthur Krock of the New York Times. At the first dinner, the chosen few had repaired immediately afterward to the Statler Hotel, where they had rented a room and prepared a comprehensive memo on everything the President had said. Then they decided what they could and should print. A coin was flipped to see whether the story would be released to morning or afternoon newspapers and the afternoon papers had won. That was how the President had leaked at the private dinner for newsmen.
He next provides how Senator Morton had leaked at his private dinner, indicating that the President had never really taken command of the Republican Party, saying, "The first surrender was at Morningside Heights," referring to General Eisenhower's adoption of the Taft program in the fall campaign of 1952. He went on to say, "After that there were a lot of other surrenders." Those consisted of the budget estimates for 1961, which were shocking, the budget figure, he said, to be "pretty close" to 82 billion dollars and he was terribly worried over the prospect of the Republicans going into the 1960 election with an unbalanced budget. He was also afraid that the President was going to get "veto happy" and slap Congress with so many vetoes that he would give the impression of a "negative Administration". Parenthetically, Mr. Pearson indicates that the latter was what the Senate liberals had been telling Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson, that the President could use his veto too often. Senator Morton also indicated that the President referred to the veto as his "veto pistol".
Vice-President Nixon was pretty sure to get the Republican nomination for the presidency in 1960, according to Senator Morton, as the Vice-President had about 80 percent of the Republican professionals behind him, those who made up the national convention. Governor Nelson Rockefeller, he had gone on, did not have much chance to overtake Mr. Nixon unless the latter made a very poor showing in the polls or in the primaries. Senator Morton further observed that Governor Rockefeller would not attempt to obtain the nomination unless he was convinced that Mr. Nixon could not win. Mr. Pearson indicates parenthetically that the Governor's friends did not agree. The Senator had also indicated that Governor Rockefeller would not quit the governorship to accept a vice-presidential nomination in any event.
When Governor Rockefeller had come to Washington to speak at the Republican Capitol Hill Club, he had a private talk with Senator Morton, at which the latter assured him that he would get the same breaks as Mr. Nixon even though not a candidate and that he would be informed of all key decisions before they were announced. Senator Morton claimed that Mr. Rockefeller's speech before the Club was not supposed to be a campaign kickoff, saying, "Rockefeller was embarrassed by the whole thing, but once the build-up started, he couldn't back out."
The one Republican leader who got on the President's nerves, according to Senator Morton, was Congressman Richard Simpson of Pennsylvania. The Senator said, "When he's in the room, you can feel the chill." Mr. Simpson was a Pennsylvania high-tariff conservative who had fought the President on reciprocal trade and was also chairman of the Republican committee for re-electing Congressmen. That made the President unhappy and he would be glad to see Mr. Simpson relieved of the job. But following the fight to oust former Speaker Joe Martin as minority leader of the House, other Republican leaders had urged caution on another purge.
Joseph Alsop indicates that a story about the President which was presently relevant had been told at the State Department, concerning a meeting between the President and Ambassador to West Germany, David Bruce, which had taken place some months earlier. In that early stage of the Berlin crisis, long before the Geneva talks, Mr. Bruce had come home for policy talks. He was not, perhaps, quite sure what the basic American policy really was. He was not content to let the matter rest when the President had offered assurances such as his famous press conference statement that he "would not give an inch" regarding Berlin. He had bluntly reminded the President that there was only one way to defend the hopelessly vulnerable Berlin position, that being the willingness to fight a nuclear war for it. He added that he thought that there would be no war provided the President made his iron resolution plain to the Kremlin. But he had pointed out that many means were available to the Kremlin for testing and detecting any trace of doubt or hesitation in the President's apparent resolve. Thus, he concluded that the root and essence of the whole problem was the question whether the President truly preferred the risk of a big war to a surrender.
The President had replied that he understood the nature of the choice and had reflected on it long and prayerfully. Quite aside from America's moral obligation to the 2.5 million Berliners, he went on, he had decided that a surrender at Berlin would be a disastrous error for the purely practical reason that it would only prepare the demand for another surrender somewhere else. Thus, the President said grimly, he would fight a nuclear war for Berlin if driven to it.
That had been long earlier, but the President's reported statement to Ambassador Bruce was echoed in large measure by his remarks to the White House reporters the previous week about the sleepless nights he had endured because of the thought of using nuclear weapons to defend Berlin. Mr. Alsop suggests that one must assume that the President's honest intention was exactly as he had stated it, not to give a significant inch and to fight rather than surrender if he had to do so.
As the President was a man who relied heavily on his staff officers, those men and primarily Secretary of State Herter, would define the phrase "not give an inch". Theoretically, their definition could easily turn out to be a concealed surrender, but on the main issue, Mr. Herter was just as firm as the late Secretary of State Dulles ever had been. Under those circumstances, it was bewildering, he suggests, that almost nothing had been done, even at present, to provide the tangible expression to the President's resolution.
With very little plain speaking about the choice which might lie ahead, the President could rally the country behind him in a way no one could mistake. By doing so, he would strengthen Secretary Herter's hand immeasurably. Instead, while making his firm statement for the record, the President had allowed the country to fall into a state of complacency about the Berlin crisis. Thus, Nikita Khrushchev told all that the "workers" of America would not support the President's announced policy.
In the military sphere also, the President had been persuaded with much difficulty by Secretary Herter to order what were officially called "quiet precautions easily noticeable by the Soviet intelligence." But he had steadfastly refused to order the major measures which would convince the Kremlin that he meant business.
Mr. Alsop finds it plain from the way Mr. Khrushchev had been speaking and acting that he did not think that the President meant what he said. That error, if it was that, could needlessly lead to a world tragedy. For just that reason, if the President truly meant business, it was his duty to show it in the most decisive and undeniable way.
But he had not done so. When the foregoing arguments had been outlined to him, he had always replied that "everyone knows" what his policy was because he had explained it at press conferences repeatedly. Mr. Alsop indicates that it apparently had never occurred to the President that the Kremlin was only impressed by acts and never by words. There was also the pull of the curious Eisenhower political technique, which had been described by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., as "whenever clear-cut issues threaten to burst into flame, he douses them with torrents of platitude and piety." Mr. Alsop suggests that while the description might be cruel, the technique was real and it had been pretty effective thus far in American domestic policies, with the only trouble being that it had now become a very dangerous technique.
Robert C. Ruark, in Barcelona, Spain, indicates that it was rough to get an international reservation on all European airlines and to change reservations, and if one did not have a fixed hotel reservation which would be firm, there was no sense in whining to him. He had often been accused of genius, and everybody knew that he had helped Einstein with his famous formula which would one day kill the world, but he could not do a person any good at his favorite hotels in Barcelona, the Costa Brava, Madrid, Paris and London, because even the managing directors were sleeping in the parks.
It had once taken him two weeks and a taxi ride from Lisbon to Madrid to get from Amsterdam to Barcelona by way of London and Paris, but it was nearly that bad at present. He recounts that recently he had been on a six-day standby in Nairobi, East Africa, just to make it to Rome. Also in Nairobi, on a couple of occasions, he had been forced more or less physically to evict the general manager of the New Stanley and Norfolk hotels from his personal quarters. The manager could not get him into the Norfolk and there was not any room at the Stanley and so the manager had to go. Mr. Ruark had loaned him a tent, a blanket and a can of beans.
He says that he had managed to scalp a cheap seat to see one of the worst bullfights ever recorded, even for Barcelona. "How I'll get back home I don't know, but with steady walking, and sleeping under the cork trees, I ought to make it in three or four days."
A letter writer from Matthews indicates that while he had been away on a pilgrimage to Grand Chute, Wisc., the birthplace of "that greatest American patriot our great country has ever produced, Sen. Joseph Raymond McCarthy, you had one of your egghead editorial reviews of that libelous book by Richard Rovere..." Senator Joe McCarthy. He says he trusts that the great fellow patriot, J. R. Cherry, Jr., had raked the editors over the coals in the proper manner already. "If it had not been for Joe McCarthy, we would now be living under the rule of the Kremlin. I believe God sent Joe McCarthy just in time to save us from the millions of domestic Communists as well as the foreign-born Communists within our borders. If it had not been for the great Joe McCarthy, Annie Lee Moss would probably be sitting in the White House right now. People like Mr. Cherry and I would have long since faced a firing squad. Without the warning given us by the late Sen. McCarthy, we might have very well suffered the fate of Hungary." He indicates that he did not indiscriminately call people Communists and doubts that very many members of the Senate who had voted to censure the Senator in 1954 were Communists. Most of those Senators, he suggests, "were just jealous of the power and prestige of Joe. For example, Sen. James O. Eastland may possibly be a Communist, but I do not believe Sen. Harry Byrd is a Communist; a leftist, yes, but not a Communist. Byrd was just jealous of Joe." He says that he had written a song in memory of the Senator, titled "Point of Order in the Heaven", but because of the "leftist influence in the music publishing field", he had been unable to attract a publisher, but had not given up all hope yet. He was also working on another song in memory of the Senator, titled, "When They Crucified Joe". He indicates that November 14, 1959 would be the 50th anniversary of Senator McCarthy's birth and he believes it would be fitting if all patriots were to make a pilgrimage to Grand Chute on that day. "Let's put our time and money where our hearts are." He also favors petitioning the Congress to declare November 14 Patriot's Day in honor of Senator McCarthy. "What better way can we honor the man who single-handedly saved America from Russian domination?"
Anyone who found Senator James Eastland to be possibly a Communist and Senator Harry F. Byrd to be a leftist had betrayed his political stance to be somewhere in the neighborhood of Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler, although the letter writer might have considered them to be somewhat to the left also.
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