The Charlotte News
Tuesday, July 28, 1959
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Novosibirsk in the Soviet Union that about 20,000 friendly, applauding Russians had given Vice-President Nixon the warmest welcome of his Soviet tour when he had arrived in the Siberian city this date for a goodwill visit. He arrived amid solid signs that he was considering with increasing favor a recommendation that the President invite Premier Nikita Khrushchev to the U.S. for a visit. Persons close to the Vice-President were understood to be making some impact on him with arguments that Mr. Khrushchev had to see for himself the strength and vigor of the U.S. economy and the unity of its people, to rid the Soviet Premier of misconceptions. Thousands of men and women had lined the streets in the city, in some places four and five deep, to wave greetings to Mr. Nixon and his wife, Pat. Communist leaders of the developing Siberian industrial area had ridden through the town with the Nixons. A bus carrying American correspondents traveling with Mr. Nixon was nearly mobbed by several thousand excited Russians, with hands outstretched in greeting, when they arrived in Stalin Square in the city. Soviet authorities were understood to have agreed finally to allow Mr. Nixon to tour the Siberian branch of the Academy of Scientists, which would be a big scientific research center for the entire Siberian-Ural area. Mr. Nixon had insisted on the visit during his 4.5-hour, one-stop flight to Leningrad. Meanwhile, authorities familiar with Mr. Nixon's views reported that he believed his tour thus far had surpassed his expectations after a slow, rather cool reception in Moscow.
In New York, it was reported that a major strike in the aluminum industry had been threatened for this date, as negotiations in the two-week old steel strike remained deadlocked. David McDonald, president of the United Steelworkers Union, said that he expected no agreement in the aluminum industry before contracts with the major firms would expire at midnight on Friday. The Steelworkers Union represented workers in the aluminum industry and Mr. McDonald said that the same "no contract, no work" policy covered both industries. The copper industry also faced the threat of a possible strike. Officials of the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers Union were reported to be considering a strike against the nation's copper mills the following month, with the union's contracts having expired on June 30 while its members continued to work as negotiations continued. The steel industry and union representatives had met jointly the previous day for the first time since the nationwide steel strike had begun. Joseph Finnegan, director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, had met reporters after the two-hour session, saying: "There was an exchange of viewpoints by the parties, but I can't say anything beyond that. I don't think there was any substantial change in the position of either party." He scheduled separate meetings with both sides this date, but there was no immediate plan for additional joint talks. He said that the situation did not look good. The strike threat in the aluminum industry was against the Big Three, Alcoa, Reynolds Metals Co. and the Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corp. Contract negotiations in the aluminum industry were continuing with the help of Federal mediators, but no progress had been reported. The Big Three aluminum producers, as with the major steel companies, had rejected a United Steelworkers demand for a wage increase of 15 cents per hour in each year of the new contract. The aluminum companies, as had the steel companies, had proposed a one-year wage freeze.
In Badin, N.C., it was reported that operations continued in the regular routine this date at the Badin Works of Alcoa, which employed 625 production workers. Management of the plant had been alerted of the possibility of a strike of production workers of the Alcoa organization unless current negotiations for a new working agreement were successful prior to the July 31 deadline.
In Newport, Ky., it was reported that seven men, five of whom were Federal prisoners, had sawn their way out of a jail this date and made their getaway despite traffic-jamming roadblocks. Newport was directly across the Ohio River from Cincinnati and traffic had been backed up for long distances as police checked every automobile crossing into Cincinnati. Two of the escapees were under 20-year sentences for bank robbery and were considered to be dangerous. The pair had been sentenced to prison earlier in the month for the robbery the prior January 30 of a bank at Glencoe, Ky., and were awaiting transfer to a Federal prison. Of the other five, one had been awaiting trial on a charge of violating the Mann Act, another was under a four-year sentence for auto theft, a third was charged with a postal law violation, and a fourth and fifth were both charged with breaking and entering. The men had gotten out of their cells by sawing the bars and then crawling to an upper runway, from there forcing open heavy screening and dropping to the ground—the detail provided for those who might be planning their own escapes. Police said that four other prisoners had told them that the men had been sawing the bars for three days and that the escapees had threatened the others with death if they told of the plan. Police said that they had received a tip earlier during the month that an escape plan was being formulated, but officers had searched the jail on July 17 and found nothing to indicate an escape. The escape had been discovered about 4:00 a.m. and police immediately had set up roadblocks at bridges leading to Cincinnati and known highways leading south. Patrol boats also started watching the river this date and Newport police accepted Cincinnati radio station WSAI's offer of its airplane to aid in the hunt for the men. The Newport police chief said that the break was the first at the jail since eight men had escaped ten years earlier. Five of the participants in that earlier escape had been caught as they sought to reach the Ohio side of the river in a boat and the other three had been caught heading out of town by road.
Marguerite Higgins of the New York Herald Tribune News Service, in the second of a series of articles on the late John Foster Dulles, indicates that on the May morning when Winston Churchill and President Eisenhower had been due to visit Mr. Dulles at Walter Reed Army Hospital, where he was confined with his spreading cancer, Mrs. Dulles had received a pleasant surprise in the form of an unusual burst of energy on the part of the Secretary of State, whom she found about his hospital suite supervising the arrangement of flowers, furniture and mementoes. He had ordered a portrait of Mr. Churchill to be moved to within closer range of the easy chairs where the conversation between the three men would take place. Then, after a final walk around, Mr. Dulles had turned to a hospital aide and called for a wheelchair. Astonished, Mrs. Douglas had wanted to know why a wheelchair at that time and place was necessary as her husband had demonstrated that he did not need one. Furthermore, photographs of the historic visit would be taken, she had reminded her husband, and wondered about the press reaction to a photo showing him in a wheelchair. Mr. Dulles looked quizzically at her and remarked with a characteristic half-squint and half-twinkle that he had given the subject due thought, concluding: "You know how Winston is. He sometimes gets into those wonderful, but lengthy, reminiscences and forgets the pressures on the President's time. Now, ordinarily, there just wouldn't be any political way of my bringing the conversation to a close. But if I'm in the wheelchair, I can be wheeled out at my own signal and nobody's feelings will be hurt because the shortness of time can be blamed on medical reasons and the doctors." Ms. Higgins indicates that the stratagem was but one example of the unusually warm human relationship which existed between the President and Mr. Dulles, two men who were very different and, perhaps for that reason, complemented each other very well. She finds that it would be completely misleading to pretend that Mr. Dulles had not wanted to make a comeback for his own sake, as he thrived on the arduous duties of Secretary of State, loved the job as few men did. Crucial to understanding the hesitations on the question of resigning which had attended the middle period of the Secretary's last days was the fact that for awhile he and his family and the President had truly hoped that he would be able to make it back to his desk and to the international conference table for at least a little while. There was only one time in that middle period when Mr. Dulles had given way and then only slightly, to despondency, that having been after the weekend of February 22 when a number of Senators, including Stuart Symington of Missouri, had called for the resignation of Mr. Dulles on the ground that the world situation, and Berlin in particular, was too grave to place direction of the foreign policy in the hands of a sick man. The Secretary had brought up the question on the occasion of the President's fourth visit with him at Walter Reed on Monday, February 23. The President had replied with mock sternness that he knew exactly what Mr. Dulles was going through because of his own illnesses in 1955 and 1956.
John Kilgo of The News indicates that the Charlotte City police now had a plan they could put into operation when disasters, such as the recent chemical explosion, occurred. The detailed, 29-page plan was designed to make sure that police got the most out of their available manpower and equipment, listing other agencies on which they could depend in times of emergency. A police lieutenant had written the report and presented it to Police Chief Jesse James the previous day, who ordered the plan after the Charlotte Chemical Laboratories building had exploded on July 9, injuring 11 firemen. The plan listed procedures for police and disasters, ranging from the first magnitude, such as minor traffic accidents, to the seventh magnitude, which included floods, tornadoes or race riots. Chief James said that the officers would be briefed on the details of the plan in special training classes which would be held in the near future. The recent chemical explosion would be classified as a fifth magnitude disaster under the categorization, according to the Chief. In such an event, most on-duty policemen would be called to work overtime at the disaster scene and a field commander would take charge of the scene. A disaster unit would be set up at police headquarters and the Chief would be kept informed at all times. All supervisory officers would be available for duty. An information center at headquarters would work with interested agencies, such as the hospitals, to coordinate activities.
Julian Scheer of The News reports that Addison Hewlett had come west from New Hanover County this date, finding it friendly on one hand and "wild, man, wild" on another. He was another of the "potential" gubernatorial candidates for 1960 who were making Charlotte a stopping-off place on their field trips across the state. Mr. Hewlett said: "A lot of folks have been urging me to run, most for governor, and I'm seriously considering it." He said that it amazed him how many nice people had come to him. He had ridden into the city the previous night with Dan Cameron, former Mayor of Wilmington, saying: "When I was elected [State] Speaker of the House, I thought that was the end of the line for me. I don't understand all this, but people have been mighty nice to me." The Wilmington attorney was in Charlotte under the "sponsorship" of State Representatives Frank Snepp and Ike Belk, both conservatives, who would give a dinner for him this evening. Charlotte tended to vote conservatively and had supported fellow Wilmingtonian Alton Lennon, and was also friendly toward Governor Luther Hodges. Mr. Hewlett was considered a mild anti-Hodges candidate in the House speakership race, but had not worked against the Governor's legislative program after he had won. John Larkins and eventual successful gubernatorial candidate Terry Sanford were other hopefuls who had made inroads in Charlotte and in other places across the state. Mr. Hewlett said he had not made up his mind on whether to enter the race, which included, in addition to Mr. Larkins and Mr. Sanford, Mel Broughton, Jr., C. V. Henkel, Lt. Governor Luther Barnhart, I. Beverly Lake, and State Attorney General Malcolm Seawell. Eventually, the Democratic nomination would come down to a race between Mr. Sanford and Mr. Lake, the latter being a pro-segregationist who was a law professor at Wake Forest and had argued unsuccessfully before the Supreme Court for delay in implementation of Brown v. Board of Education in 1955.
Bob Slough of The News reports that 96 Fairview-Greenville children had worked for a long time hauling scrap paper and selling it to a junk dealer, having sold tickets and dished out fish to hungry people willing to help, with their goal being a two-week trip to Mill Creek Camp near Sumter, S.C. Two girls had sold $22 worth of popcorn. But they would not be able to go to the camp in the current year, as the elderly woman who had been taking the children to the camp for the previous 20 years was laid up at her apartment in Fairview homes with a broken leg. She had planned the camping trip for the second and third weeks of August and had paid a deposit on the campgrounds. Six weeks earlier, she had left her apartment to go to work one morning and had taken only two or three steps when she decided to return and pick some flowers for her employer, turning too quickly and snapping a bone just above her ankle. She said they had to cancel the whole trip because of that incident and that none of the children would be able to go to the camp, breaking their hearts. She had planned to take them from the cradle to 17 years of age, indicating, "Seventeen is too large but when you've worked with the children so long and they worked so hard you just can't turn them out." Baptist churches in Charlotte also helped with the project, sending clothing for the children who could not afford swimming trunks and camping clothes. The elderly woman taught Sunday School at Friendship Baptist Church and held a weekly story hour every Thursday at Second Calvary Church, but even that project had been stopped since she had broken her leg. On the following Thursday, however, she would return to her story-telling, indicating that they would fit as many children as possible in her backyard. The following year, the children would get a real camping trip and, she said, maybe they could stay two or three days extra.
In Chapel Hill, it was reported that a tourist had bought tickets for a performance of "A Trip to the Moon" at the Morehead Planetarium and had instructed the seller: "Two adults and three children, one way for the kids."
On the sports page, an introduction is presented to the new head coach at UNC, Jim Hickey, replacing recently deceased coach Jim Tatum, who had died the prior Thursday of a rampant virus, subsequently determined to be a rickettsia disease similar to Rocky Mountain spotted fever or typhus. The piece indicates that Mr. Hickey was guided to UNC by the recommendation of a former All-American player at the school. Sports editor Bob Quincy also provides some unusual and little-known anecdotes concerning Mr. Tatum. As indicated, Mr. Hickey would not enjoy very much success in his eight seasons as head coach, having only one winning season, that in 1963, when the team finished with a record of 9-2, being ACC co-champions with N.C. State and winning impressively the Gator Bowl, 35-0, over the Air Force. Otherwise, the best coach Hickey's teams would do would be to break even on three occasions. His coaching tenure thus would come to an end in 1966. Save the one, it was a long eight seasons. We suffered, game by game, through the last four of five of them, the witchcraft spell having been broken only in that one winning season, though considerably dampened and placed in perspective, offically and personally, as only a diversionary pastime by what occurred on November 22. The witches, having worked their craft on that latter occasion, apparently had expended all of their energy and had little to spare to taint football.
On another inside page, Wynn Moseley of the Herald Tribune News Service provides a comprehensive analysis of the situation regarding the new compact cars to be introduced by the Big Three automakers in the fall, analyzing the likelihood of whether the U.S. standard-sized models or foreign imports would bear the brunt of the competition. The Ford entry to the field, the Falcon, had been pushed by Robert McNamara, the following year to be named the new president of the company, the first outside the Ford family, and, shortly thereafter, nominated by President Kennedy as Secretary of Defense.
And, don't forget on a hot day that you can escape into the air-conditioned world at the Center Theater, or The-ater, as you please, and catch "The Legend of Tom Dooley"
Incidentally, you can also go see the entry showing at the Manor without fear of being dragged inexorably into corruption or moral decadence.
On the editorial page, "Dick Nixon Comes Face-to-Face with Moscow's New Secret Weapon" indicates that the most ingenious paradox of the big show in Moscow was that it had taken a "squat, porcine" Russian to usher in the triumph of what Sir Harold Nicolson had called "the American Age" in diplomacy. That which President Woodrow Wilson had begun in Paris in 1919, Nikita Khrushchev, together with the Vice-President, had brought to an astounding climax in Moscow.
The great issues of the time had paraded themselves in a model American kitchen at the Trade Fair in Moscow, and the great dénouement of the tendency of 40 years had seen Mr. Nixon, a grocer's son from California, throw Henry Ford at Karl Marx while a self-proclaimed former coal miner, Mr. Khrushchev, stood up for Marx. (But did he have a Big Bruiser manufactured by Marx?)
It finds that it had been enough to "send chills of civilized horror" down the backs of those, both in the U.S. and in Western Europe, who pined for the days of Klemens von Metternich, 19th Century head of the Austrian Empire, and secret negotiations. "Yet only the blandest of antiquarians could doubt any longer, having time after time watched the brilliant successes of Mr. Khrushchev in such affairs, that he has made a revolution. With all his occasional crudity—and, to be sure, with positions that remain obnoxious to the West—he has shown charms and a technique too suitable to today's world to be ignored or shrugged off. He has all the essential ruthlessness of Stalin, but an off-handedness that is even slicker. He has the revolutionary ardor of Lenin, but infinitely greater insight into human beings. If at least the surface of his approach to international affairs looks familiar, it is no accident. He is, in short, a Russian revolutionary who has succeeded in stealing the clothes of a Woodrow Wilson or a William Jennings Bryan and the feeling for the slick touch of Madison Avenue."
It finds that the exchange with Mr. Nixon in front of a washer and dryer at the Trade Fair had been only the reiteration of solid Western and Communist positions. Mr. Khrushchev had made his off-the-cuff asides and when he had taken the Nixons with him on a motorboat cruise in the Moscow River near his country home, he had flashed the wit which was so much a part of his power, punching Mr. Nixon in the ribs and saying, "captive peoples", referring to the casual swimmers and sun-bathers along the river, contrasting with the resolution in Congress which he had condemned, making it "Captive Nations Week", referring to the captive satellite nations of the Soviet Union. Mr. Nixon had no reply. The humor and the challenge had demonstrated how liable to satire much of America's propaganda attempts were. And none had been more liable than the declaration of "Captive Nations Week".
Thus, the Russians had a secret weapon more awesome than their Sputniks or spaceports or ICBM's, more challenging than an 8 percent yearly economic growth and staggering numbers of ground troops, that being Mr. Khrushchev, himself, who seemed to understand more deeply than a Madison Avenue-conscious Administration that the age of international public relations was on the scene. The question facing the West, it finds, was not whether international affairs could or ought be bandied about in the full light of day, or even whether high officials ought hold dialogues on the international stage, as the phenomenon was present and the West could not afford to ignore it. The real question was whether the West could play the new game invented by President Wilson, with the wit and skill of Mr. Khrushchev.
Even Sir Harold Nicolson, who, it finds, had to look on it all with the usual civilized horror, would have to admit that the West had to develop that art of repartee on a world scale. Otherwise, Mr. Khrushchev could hold out indefinitely in a monologue which could, in the end, prove decisive for the Communist position.
"If the Name's the Same, Look Out" indicates that one of the City Council's orneriest political chickens would fly flapping home to roost on August 31, that being the report of a special commission studying street name duplications in metropolitan Mecklenburg County. The study was bound to be controversial because it would have suggestions for changes to eliminate the similarly named streets.
In the past, a few householders had been able to exert enough subtle pressure to prevent sensible alterations and the same techniques, so successful in 1954 and earlier, would undoubtedly be attempted again.
Charlotte had more than 700 streets with duplicated names and nearly 100 instances of continuing streets with different names, not an amusing fact but rather ridiculous and potentially dangerous. They were not only mailing addresses but also guides for the police and fire departments. Confusion over street names could thus lead to the loss of life and was, in any event, an invitation to catastrophe. Realistic changes ought be made, it urges, by the Council on this occasion, as there was no sensible alternative.
"Charlotte Readers Destroy a Myth" finds that local readers had destroyed the myth that books were devoured on dark winter evenings by a flickering fire while the snow whirled windily outside, with the opened volume preferably being one of the Sherlock Holmes stories or one by Edgar Allen Poe or at least Agatha Christie, with a huge dog in the room which groaned restlessly and settled down to sleep on the hearth.
Statistics gathered by the newspaper recently showed that summertime was instead actually the boom-time for Charlotte Public Library books, with June alone accounting for 134,690 books borrowed, and library officials expecting higher tallies for July and August, as in those months the prior year, 220,822 books had been borrowed.
Thus, it was so much hokum, at least as far as Charlotte residents were concerned, that one had to curl up on a howling winter night to read. By inference, Charlotte residents read with the windows wide open, unless raining, while coldly blasted only by an oscillating electric fan. Portentous dogs were expelled to a lawn which was too hot to mow at 90 degrees. (Phooey on that, as on a recent Sunday in July of this year, while in Shelby, we put shoulder to the plough and proceeded to mow with our grandfather's green manual lawnmower, which we still have, the entirety of their rather substantial lawn. We admit, however, that given our youth at the time, we were simply showing off a bit, in the hope that our papa might see us as being precociously advanced enough, at least in an utilitarian manner, to take us back with him to our digs in Winston-Salem, at least for a short respite from the summer spent in Shelby—which, despite our prodigious efforts that same afternoon, tying each hand with some rope procured from the garage into each of the opposing arm straps of the Studebaker Hawk, which our papa had to borrow because the Lincoln was on the fritz, as it was wont to be, he had to decline in favor of our remaining with our mama, much to our tearful consternation, even if, subsequently, he would arrive in Shelby on Wednesdays, in addition to every weekend. It was not the fact that we did not enjoy the company of our grandparents and our mama, but missed being with our papa and older brother, too, as well as the new friends we had made just in the previous eight months before we were suddenly snatched up again and transported to Shelby to help nurse our grandmother in what would be her final illness. But we digress, as we could not even yet read and so had little to do that summer other than to make up stories in our head while we, daily, weather permitting, strode 'round and 'round the house, always counterclockwise, the Sunday lawn-mowing unilaterally undertaken having been a new adventure in independent task-making. We did, however, learn to impart in print, after much trial and error, our name—the efforts at which we retain to instill proper humility and reminder that success at any task requires repetition and dedicated attention to detail—, while, in our imagination, having adopted a completely different name as one of the characters in our play.)
The piece continues that the only noise heard was that of tinkling ice cubes and that the chosen subject was less likely a bleak story by Poe than something small and snappy such as a July Fourth squib. "We'll leave psychologists and publishers to puzzle over this overthrow of an old myth about reading. It's hot in here and we're hurrying home to a certain short and snappy book."
We should disclose that between mid-April and mid-August, the extent to which we were exposed to the print of the Charlotte News is debatable, as we believe our grandfather subscribed to same, but we do not know and we have no particular memory of having allowed our eyes to roam over the pictures and print of any newspaper or periodical during that four-month period, save perhaps an occasional Life, as we had not learned to read, the foundation for a more precisely catalogued set of memories, for if one cannot read, memory becomes very imprecise, reliant entirely on external factors, such as memory of particular model cars or particular major events outside the context of reading about them, to place into context various retained or recovered memories. A good example is from the prior summer, when we had been visiting Shelby on a Sunday when there was a dramatic thunderstorm, which ripped the roof off the Charlotte Coliseum, and, for whatever reason, the event stuck permanently in our memory banks, though, obviously, at that point also, we could not read. Subsequently, of course, by placing this event in time via the newspaper and Life Magazine, we could define that memory with reference to a date, and thus with other surrounding events.
A piece from the Manchester
The piece indicates that fortunately he had been alone in thinking that and had to write 56 such stories before he retired the hero to keep bees in Sussex.
The literature on Holmes was extensive and still there appeared a great deal more to learn about him. Societies had flourished and learned discussion took place. "The Sherlock Holmes Society in Copenhagen", for instance, was a most exclusive academic club. The number of members could not exceed 12 and at present, it had five members who were professors, two doctors, an author, a warden and a barrister. The society, formed in 1946, held only one meeting per year, at which the members gathered at a strange place to discuss still stranger things. Jorgen Cold, the secretary, was the only member to publish a paper, having written on "What did Sherlock Holmes drink?" being most insistent that he never once had drunk cold water.
Drew Pearson indicates that the off-the-record dinner party could be quite effective, though quite confusing, having the advantage of putting authority for a statement on the reporter and not on the source, and if the source wanted to backtrack, the reporter was left holding the bag. He cites as example when General Eisenhower had called the late Senator Robert Taft "an isolationist" at a private newspaper luncheon in Denver during the presidential campaign of 1952. It had the advantage of criticizing the Senate's top Republican without putting responsibility on the newly picked leader of the Republican Party.
Another example was when former White House chief of staff Sherman Adams had remarked anonymously in an off-the-record newspaper dinner that if "Harold Stassen doesn't get out quietly, he'll be carried out," it having been published without attribution to Mr. Adams. Coming just as Mr. Stassen was about to run for governor in the Pennsylvania primaries, it had something to do with his loss. Ironically, it was less than a year later that many top Republicans were not only vocal but less anonymous in demanding: "If Sherman Adams doesn't go quietly, he'll be carried out."
He finds it much more satisfactory to be absent and therefore free to write the story of what happened. He provides other revealing highlights of the off-the-record dinner held by Senator Thruston Morton of Kentucky, the new RNC chairman, for holding which he had been bawled out by the White House. Senator Morton had indicated that the most influential of officials with the President were Secretary of the Treasury Robert Anderson, budget director Maurice Stans, and the President's economic advisor, Raymond Saulnier. Secretary of State Herter was gaining the President's confidence, "but will never have it like Dulles," according to Senator Morton. The "liberals" in the Cabinet were Secretary of Labor James Mitchell and Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Arthur Flemming, both usually backed by Vice-President Nixon. Secretary of the Interior Fred Seaton was a swing man, sometimes siding with the liberals and sometimes with the conservatives. Senator Morton said that Mr. Flemming was the most courageous in standing up against Secretary Anderson, arguing that the budget ought not be cut across the board but on a selective basis, giving more money for some programs. The nation's health, he had argued, ought not suffer.
Senator Morton had also indicated that Attorney General William Rogers was too puritanical and not sufficiently political when it came to the appointment of Federal judges. The Senator was irked at him because when the Republicans had come into power, the Federal bench consisted of about 87 percent Democratic appointees and he wanted to see at least 55 percent Republicans before the end of President Eisenhower's term. But Mr. Rogers was not playing ball, rather playing ball with the American Bar Association. For instance, the Attorney General claimed that he could not find "one Republican in the whole state of Idaho who was qualified for the Federal bench." Senator Morton found that to be poppycock.
The Senator indicated that the President continued to blame Senator Lyndon Johnson for the defeat of Admiral Lewis Strauss to become secretary of commerce. Apparently, the President thought that Senator Johnson, as Senate Majority Leader, should have sided with him rather than with the Democrats, as he had on some other issues. The President checked the votes regarding the confirmation carefully and kept tabs on Senator Johnson's strategy. After the voting had completed, he remarked to Senator Morton: "Johnson obviously didn't know he had Mrs. Smith's vote, [referring to Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine], or he wouldn't have sent [Senator J. William] Fulbright home." Apparently, the President had been under the illusion that Senator Fulbright of Arkansas wanted to vote for Admiral Strauss but that Senator Johnson thought that he could not afford another Democratic affirmative vote and so told Senator Fulbright to go home and go to bed. Mr. Pearson notes parenthetically that the President had Senator Johnson wrong, that actually he had a pretty good suspicion that Senator Smith might vote against Admiral Strauss, but he knew definitely that if he needed Senator Fulbright's vote against the confirmation, the latter would give it to him. In the end, he had not needed it.
Joseph Alsop indicates that the politicians of both major parties had reached a point where their obsession with public opinion polls was unprecedented, and that unless the trend were reversed, the contest of 1960 was likely to be remembered as the "pollsters' election". (It should be noted that the 1960 presidential election was, to that point in time, one of the closest in U.S. history insofar as the popular vote, decided by about 115,000 votes, even if the electoral college, as it is usually wont to be, provided a solid majority for Senator Kennedy. And for the idiots who fall for everything the current liar-in-chief tries to sell, his supposed "landslide" in 2024 was no more that than his "win" in 2020, the former having been decided by 1.5 percent of the popular vote, the number of counties carried being irrelevant, as many of the Trump counties are sparsely populated and we do not conduct elections by acreage.)
He indicates that the influence of pollsters was by no means a new phenomenon in American politics, that the loss of Governor Thomas Dewey in 1948 to President Truman had been because he had allowed his strategy to be shaped by the Gallup polls rather than by the ordinary rules of politics. In 1952, the late Senator Robert Taft had lost the nomination to General Eisenhower on the "Taft can't win" slogan, a slogan directly derived from the public opinion polls. Yet those had been isolated incidents, each involving the fortunes of a single individual.
At present, the influence of the polls was in every phase of the pre-convention struggles of both major parties. He proceeds to itemize events to show how far it had gone. Among Democrats, Senator John F. Kennedy was the front runner solely because of the public opinion polls. With his youth and Catholicism to alarm the politicians, Senator Kennedy would not even be considered a serious candidate were it not for the evidence from the polls of massive popular support for him. But even an octogenarian, openly anti-Catholic Democratic politician could not laugh off a contender who received the nod by more than 60 percent of the respondents to a poll in New York State conducted by Republicans, as had Senator Kennedy.
Senator Kennedy's whole strategy was keyed to the polls and he was planning to enter the Ohio primary against the wishes of Governor Mike DiSalle's powerful state organization, daring to do so because the pollster patronized by the Kennedy high command, Lou Harris, had provided the Senator favorable results in a careful poll in Ohio. Senator Kennedy was counting on securing the big New York and Illinois delegations, largely based on polls, rightly believing, for instance, that Carmine DiSapio, the boss of Tammany in New York City, was almost sure to end in the Kennedy camp provided the polls of the following May in New York were the same as the results which had found the 60 percent for Senator Kennedy.
Among Republicans, the situation was more complex, but it could even be more poll-influenced in the end. Vice-President Nixon would already be absolutely certain of the Republican nomination were it not for the polls. The Vice-President had always been fearful that the polls would pin the "can't win" label on him and he had lately received something of a body blow in the form of a Gallup poll. In it, the Democratic ticket was headed by Adlai Stevenson with Senator Kennedy running second, though having run more than ten percentage points ahead of Mr. Stevenson in the Republican-financed New York poll. Mr. Nixon's ostensibly impregnable position would gradually become fragile and vulnerable should the Gallup poll produce many more results as that.
As Mr. Nixon's public image was solidly established, there was little he could do regarding the polls except to hope for the best. In the camp of Governor Nelson Rockefeller, in contrast, it was believed that something could be done and there was already much argument about how and when to do it. The problem of Governor Rockefeller was that after riding high at the time of his victory in New York the prior fall, he had dropped behind Mr. Nixon in the Gallup poll and many others when he presented his program to increase New York State taxes. Still running second, he could not exploit the "Nixon can't win" slogan. If he were to wait to make his presidential bid until the following year, as his planned, he might be too late because he was running second in the polls. Thus, he was now being pressed to abandon his ostentatious preoccupation with his own state and to make speaking and baby-kissing forays into other states, with the admitted purpose to raise his standing in the polls. If that plan were adopted and succeeded, and if the Gallup poll results on Mr. Nixon did not improve, the whole Republican picture could be changed overnight.
Mr. Alsop finds that polls had appeared to be a pernicious influence since they only described the current state of opinion, ignoring the influences which could alter the minds of voters, and yet they were also fascinating. "In fact, it may as well be admitted that this reporter is now going off to do a little doorbell ringing himself."
Marquis Childs indicates that it was obvious that day-to-day events might tip the balance between peace and war and that news of those events was coming at second- or third-hand. The map of the world was beginning to show as many black patches, marking unknown territory, as it did before the age of exploration and expansion. That had been pointed out by the struggle ongoing in Iraq between the forces of General Abdul Kassem and the Communists. The news of that struggle, which could have decisive consequences for the Middle East, was being reported from Lebanon. Just a year earlier, with no warning at all and apparently to the complete surprise of Western diplomats, a pro-Western regime in Baghdad had been erased. First-hand reporting since that point had been difficult if not impossible.
On the information map, the blackness was almost total in the vastness of China, in Tibet and in the Chinese dependencies of North Korea and North Vietnam. One or two British correspondents functioned under severe restraints in Peking, and occasionally Canadian, Indian or other free-world journalists were allowed to make carefully guided tours. The press within China was a completely controlled propaganda press.
In Soviet Russia and the satellite nations, the previous few years had seen some improvement insofar as travel and other facilities for Western journalists. But censorship of all outgoing dispatches, an exception having been made for reporters accompanying Vice-President Nixon on his current trip to the Soviet Union, had been rigidly imposed. Access to news sources was difficult and the Soviet press was a disciplined arm of the Government. The satellites, especially Poland, had seen some relaxation, but the pattern was still that of tight Communist Party control.
The shading from dark gray to light gray took in a lot of geography also. Under Turkey's stern press law, editors had been given criminal sentences and criticism had been throttled. The press in Spain, Portugal and most of the Middle East was completely controlled or "guided". Nearer home, in the Caribbean, the Dominican Republic's press was the sycophantic servant of the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo. In Formosa, South Korea and South Vietnam, freedom of information was relative. Troubled and uncertain governments used persuasion or coercion to guide the press, and, as in other areas, if a reporter or newspaper wanted to survive, they accepted the guidance.
Especially disturbing to those directly concerned with the free flow of information were the signs in the West of doubt and distrust. In France, the National Assembly had before it several bills to curb the press. Since the upheaval of May, 1958 which had brought General Charles de Gaulle to power, the tone had been subdued if not muted. Weeklies, such as L'Express and L'Observateur, which continued to be critical of aspects of the Algerian war, were occasionally suppressed. A book, La Gangrene, purporting to provide the details of torture of Algerians imprisoned in France, had been seized on orders of Premier Michel Debre.
The cold war had produced a blighting effect, with the tendency to ask not what was news but what was good news for the reporter's own side. America's allies were to be treated tenderly and to expose their mistakes was less than good form. Too often, the West had shown itself ready to accept the barriers which had been placed on them. Far too little effort had been on what was going on inside China. Third-hand reports out of Tokyo were no substitute for what persistent analysis at second-hand might show. Reporting in many areas was inadequate.
At home, critics had pointed to the way in which the news was increasingly molded by shrewd manipulators who considered it a commodity for political or financial advancement. With the techniques of Madison Avenue transposed to government, information became a matter for reward or punishment to those who were for you or against you.
"It is only because there is still a vigorous free press—in Japan, India, the West—that this catalog of sins of omission and commission has a significance. But no one aware of what freedom of information means to the survival of all the freedoms—perhaps to survival itself—can be in the least complacent after looking at today's somber information map."
No one in the press in 1959 would have dared imagine that a future White House would attempt to control dissemination of the news by actively banning certain news organizations whose reporting it finds unflattering, not following in lockstep with the propaganda organs which enjoy in the current White House in 2026 favored-organ status. While the White House of Richard Nixon, primarily through Vice-President Spiro Agnew, regularly sought to marginalize certain press organs and individual reporters, compiling the notorious "enemies list", even targeting certain reporters for tax audits and other harassing government intrusion to their lives to try to manipulate what they wrote, there was never any attempt to ban them from covering the White House, not only contrary to the First Amendment freedom of the press but also self-negating, especially for an El Presidente who, more than any other, is vain and values his image being before the public on a daily, if not hourly, basis, finding, obsessively so, that if he is not the center of attention, something must be rotten in the State of Denmark.
It is quite emblematic this date that reportedly, last night, at a function welcoming the President of China, the tightly restrained Chinese press was in attendance, but CNN, MSNOW, and Politico reporters were absent because of the ban, despite a Federal District Court order earlier the previous day which invalidated the ban insofar as those news organizations being able to cover events at the White House which were generally open to press coverage.
The Man of Vanity simply cannot control himself, and will, as with all dictators, eventually fall on his own sword. While Mr. Nixon was reeled in from the precipice of dictatorship by an ever-vigilant Democratic Congress, with substantial bipartisan support in the end, assuring his impeachment and removal from office were he to continue in office, had it not been for that regulation of his conduct, there is no telling where his "Ends of Power" would have led him, just as there is no telling where it had led him in the past, especially in Dallas on November 22, 1963, where he was present without any significant need to be there, in a city where it was known that high tensions prevailed between the Kennedy Administration and those who claimed to voice a more "conservative" viewpoint, even if most of those viewpoints were stimulated by John Birch Society literature and the like, in other words, extreme right-wing propaganda.
There is no telling, but for vigilance by the upcoming Congress, hopefully to be of the majority of the opposing party in both houses, where this current occupant of the White House will wind up with his obsession with power-mongering and vain enterprises solely serving himself and his close family members. Any voter who still supports him needs to go check themselves in the mirror and ask themselves the question as to whether or not they bear close resemblance to those fascists and Nazis of the 1920's and 1930's who served Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler, respectively, with unquestioning loyalty. The cult of personality, relinquishing all of one's individuality and thinking to another who becomes thereby the cult's superego or collective conscience, the exemplar and fulcrum point for determining all moral decisions, thus susceptible of being easily ascribed not to the individual but to the cult Leader, is a deadly thing, leading to the killing without guilt not only of others who become the cult's scapegoated repository for supposed relief from all of society's sins and interpersonal tensions and fears, but also inevitably in the process, of one's own soul, the heart of which is individuality. One cannot ever be free in any sense while participating in a cult of personality. It is the selling of one's soul, the seat of individual moral responsibility, to the devil.
A letter from E. F. Hutton of New York, presumably the financier, indicates that the time had come to find out if the general public would favor a National Government Lottery. He suggests that if inflation were to be stopped it would be necessary to balance the Federal budget and reduce the national debt, presently approaching 290 billion dollars. He asserts that a nationwide lottery, authorized by Congress, and conducted through the banks, would yield 5 billion dollars or more annually to the Treasury. "Nothing would do more to restore confidence in the dollar than to reduce the debt." He indicates that no one would be obliged to participate, but that everyone would benefit, as the debt would be reduced through tax savings on their own earnings. The prizes would be tax-free and with that added incentive, the lottery would divert huge sums of money presently being lost in all kinds of "shady rackets". He indicates that a Government lottery had helped build the first Capitol in Washington, with the blessing of President Washington. He urges that the press would do a great public service by presenting the proposal to the people.
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