Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that U.S. deputy delegate Herschel Johnson, speaking before the political committee of the U.N. General Assembly, accused Russia of attempting to distract attention from the Balkans by bringing up collateral issues such as the Truman Doctrine and the composition of the present Greek Government.

The French delegate urged the U.S. to alter its position urging blame on Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and Albania for stimulating the guerrilla activity in northern Greece. He also urged the Soviets to cooperate in peaceful settlement.

The President was reported to have stated to Congressional leaders in a White House conference that emergency funds for Europe could not be appropriated without a special session. Some of the leaders interpreted his advice differently, that he merely wanted the committees on foreign relations to meet and consider the need of a special session.

The State Department demanded that Russia retract a statement carried in the Communist publication The Weekly Gazette, which had compared President Truman to Hitler. V. M. Molotov refused, saying that the American press had made unfavorable statements about Russia and its satellites.

In Haifa, a bomb exploded at police headquarters, killing ten persons, including four British and four Arab policemen, and injuring 77 others, primarily passengers on a passing bus. Also killed were a 16-year old Arab girl and coffee shop proprietor. The Irgun organization claimed responsibility for the bomb, which was delivered by truck. It was the worst violence to date in Palestine, save for the King David Hotel bombing of July 22, 1946, which had killed 91 persons, and the Goldsmith Officers’ Club bombing of March 1, 1947, which had killed 16, both claimed by Irgun.

The operation was labeled by Irgun “Hambaf”, for Hamburg and Afalpi, the latter another ship which had sought to run the British blockade into Palestine. The act was in retaliation for the treatment of Jews earlier in the month in the “Exodus 1947” incident in which passengers of two of the three ships were kicked and beaten by British troops to get them to disembark at Hamburg after they had been returned for placement in displaced persons camps following their unsuccessful attempt to immigrate to Palestine by way of France.

Another bomb had been exploded at the same police headquarters a few months earlier by the Stern Gang.

Eighteen miles outside Trieste, an American destroyer hit a mine, apparently left undetonated from the war, causing an explosion which killed three men and injured twelve others, four critically.

In New York, Pier 57 on the Hudson River was destroyed by fire, injuring 100 firemen, though none seriously, and causing five million dollars in damage.

There was some opposition surfacing on the DNC to the chairmanship of Senator J. Howard McGrath of Rhode Island to replace Robert Hannegan, resigning for his health. The opposition, focusing on the unusual selection of a chairman who was a sitting member of Congress, was in contradiction, however, to the tradition that the President normally selected the chairman and that the Committee merely ratified the choice.

In Painesville, O., a band of twelve masked men bearing machine guns entered a nightclub where Peter Lind Hayes and Mary Healy were performing, ordered the patrons to dish up their valuables, taking a $200,000 haul. The patrons at first thought it was part of the stage show. Ms. Healy had told one of the gunmen that if they were going to misbehave, she would have to ask them to leave. He then fired into the ceiling and floor, while another gunman took the stage and fired more bullets into the ceiling, indicating their seriousness. No injuries were reported.

Where is Batman when you need him?

In Marion, O., a 32-year old man admitted killing a 16-year old high school sophomore by hitting her over the head with a hammer after giving her a ride in his Model A as she walked home from a football game on September 20, having missed the last bus. She knew him and accepted the ride, sitting on the fender. He said that when he passed her home, not knowing where she lived, she jumped off of the fender and was injured. He then planned to give her a ride to the doctor, but she became upset and accused him of kidnapping her. And so he hit her over the head. He claimed not to have made any advances toward her.

In Washington, Admiral William Halsey had no comment in response to the Methodist Board of Temperance taking issue with his statement made in the Saturday Evening Post that, with a few exceptions, he would not trust a fighting man who did not drink or smoke. The Board stated that the Admiral’s admission that he supplied a hundred gallons of whisky to his fliers on the groovy flattop as the only suitable anodyne, for which there was no substitute, following a harrowing mission, displayed gross dereliction of duty in imposing proper discipline, that he thought less of the safety of his men than his own safety, having stated that he had gone on the wagon for a year during his own flight training. The Methodists cited Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Sergeant York, and General Doolittle as examples of men who were abstemious while being excellent fighters. They tended to negate the premise in so saying, however, by also asserting that drinking men tended to fight but not well.

Admiral Halsey said that his favorite toast was: “I’ve drunk your health in company; I’ve drunk your health alone; I’ve drunk your health so many times, I’ve—near ruined my own.”

It seems to skip a beat and thus ought have at least another line: “And so, my friend, it is the time, before we must to roam, for everyone, before they go, must a’ once to nerve get stoned.”

Anyway, if you were a cross between a martini and a Scotch, you would not need to drink.

Ray Howe and Furman Bisher provide a look at the weekend football results on the sports page.

On the editorial page, “British Puzzle in Palestine” does not agree with David Ben-Gurion’s statement that the conditional offer of Britain to withdraw from its Mandate in Palestine was without meaning because it specified no definite time. The piece thinks it significant that the British had essentially agreed to go along with the recommendations of the Assembly on any reasonable settlement of Palestine, though avoiding a definite commitment to a plan of partition.

It would be up to the U.S. to take the lead on the issue at the U.N. It appeared that the British believed that no resolution would avoid infuriating the Moslem world and so the British wanted the U.S. to bear the brunt of the resentment. The British were probably bluffing when they said they would quit the Holy Land if the U.N. did not reach a resolution.

The British made clear that they would not be able to police Palestine but would participate in an international police force.

The statement stood as warning that British imperialism was still a large part of the problem preventing resolution of the Palestine issue.

“Vishinsky’s Scowl, Tito’s Smile” tells of Marshal Tito inviting former Secretary of State James Byrnes and five others to come to Yugoslavia to see for themselves whether Yugoslavia was an aggressor in the Balkans. It was timed to coincide with the bitter attacks by Andrei Vishinsky on Americans as warmongers. It placed the Americans on the spot, as to refuse the invitation would be interpreted as rejection of a friendly offer without guile.

But Mr. Byrnes and the five other recipients of the invitations would be foolhardy to accept it as nothing would come of such a tour by private individuals and would present itself as an affront to the U.N.

The purpose of the invitation was to try to discredit the Balkan commission which had accused Yugoslavia, Albania, and Bulgaria of aiding the guerrillas in northern Greece. While the propaganda effort was childish, it was nevertheless effective within the targeted area, to generate sympathy for Yugoslavia against U.N. intervention in the Balkans.

“Where Everybody Is to Blame” discusses the passing of the buck on the causes for high prices. No one wanted the blame and so everyone got the blame. Meanwhile, nothing constructive was being done to retard the cycle of inflation.

A Gallup poll showed that 36 percent of respondents did not blame anyone for the high prices and another 14 percent had no opinion. But the other half of the respondents were leaping to too many conclusions. Among them, seven percent blamed everyone for inflation.

The poll showed that the people needed to take more time for reflection on the issues and pay less attention to propagandists.

A piece from the Greensboro Daily News, titled “What North Carolina Needs”, tells of there having been, according to American Banker, a drop in bank deposits during 1946. North Carolina, however, had an increase of 12 percent, the second highest in the nation behind South Dakota. It was four times the deposits in 1935. North Carolina’s manufacturing was concentrated in only three major industries, with only 191 industries overall, compared to 446 in the U.S., behind Virginia with half as many factory workers.

Using the available resources sensibly, natural and human, good things would result.

Drew Pearson tells of the British Secret Service having provided to the Foreign Office a report on the Politburo meetings regarding Soviet foreign policy determinations. It revealed that the 14-man ruling body had overruled Josef Stalin’s reluctance to change policy toward the U.S. to a hard line, that the Politburo had determined that Russia would woo the Arabs, using the partition of Palestine to strengthen its position in the Middle East, and that it intended to defeat the Marshall Plan and create as much chaos as possible. Mr. Pearson had a copy of the report and summarizes its salient points.

The Politburo had decided that it was no longer possible to construct friendly relations with the U.S. It would conduct only the “coldest” diplomatic relations with the country, without attempt to influence American public opinion. Propaganda would be directed at presenting the U.S. as an evil imperialist. Threat of atomic war instigated by the U.S. would be used to stimulate fear through the labor movements in Western European nations.

Secret agents of the Soviet Union would seek to strengthen ties in Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq.

There was only slight objection beyond that of Josef Stalin to this new policy. Andrei Vishinsky was not a member of the Politburo and so had no input. V. M. Molotov presented the position on the Marshall Plan, that if the 16 nations submitting requests were left alone, contradictions would arise. If they were joined by the Soviet bloc of nations, then they might put their differences aside and form a unity which could lead to success of the Plan. He believed that the Congress would not appropriate billions for the Plan as the country was on its way back to isolationism.

It was agreed that Josef Stalin would refrain from making optimistic speeches about U.S. relations.

It was hoped that Togliatti in Italy and Thores in France would be able to force Communist re-entry to the present governments to enable some control over the Marshall Plan. It also wanted Belgian Communists to increase propaganda against U.S. and British agreements on uranium in the Belgian Congo whereby the U.S. supposedly had a monopoly on the ore.

The anti-British propaganda would be concentrated on Winston Churchill and Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, while maintaining a show of amity toward the British people.

Joseph Alsop, in Rome, tells of one of the leading American policy-makers in Paris remarking that the only thing which would jolt the United States from its complacency with respect to Europe would be for one of the Western European countries to become Communist. Italy showed signs presently of being the candidate nearest fulfillment of that prospect.

If America were to abandon Italy after it was forced within less than 90 days to remove its troops pursuant to the treaty commitments, it would assuredly become Communist by spring, on the Hungarian model. After that, the neighboring non-Communist regimes would also be pushed over and a Communist tide would sweep across Western Europe.

For its geographic prominence in the region, command of Italy would provide the Soviets command of the Mediterranean. Thus, Greece and Turkey would also be placed at risk, as well as all of the Middle East, nullifying the efforts of the Truman Doctrine. There would be no future for Western Europe outside the Soviet sphere short of a war or other manner of reversal of the tide.

So, at stake in Italy was whether there would be peace or war.

Samuel Grafton again discusses his friend Harry, the one who had cashed early his terminal furlough bond and wound up spending the value of his weekend furlough in Paris on his 15 percent increased rent, thanks to the Republican Congress having allowed the increase on any lease extending through 1948.

Harry currently had $5 left from his bond and did not know what to do with it. In his thirties, he resented the fact that the five dollar bill in his pocket meant so much. There was a pipe he wanted, which would have cost $1.50 before the war but now was $5. Or he could take his wife to the bar at the Astor.

He settled on a tie for $5, a reckless extravagance.

Then he remembered that he had meant to see the doctor about some growths on his shoulder and left leg, and brown splotches on the backs of his hands. He decided he would make the appointment on credit. The doctor was reassuring, telling him that they were just age spots and nothing to worry about.

Victor Riesel tells of a deal between Bill Hutcheson and John L. Lewis whereby the former would set the stages for the movie studios and control thereby Hollywood labor while Mr. Lewis would control the AFL convention and its eight million dues-paying members.

It was a study in arrogance. Mr. Lewis had supported kicking the stage hands union out of AFL after 50 years, to provide Mr. Hutcheson his route to power. The stage hands had reported to the FBI gangsters moving into their union and generally were beneficial to labor. Mr. Hutcheson had kept hundreds of carpenters on a futile strike for a year. He could afford to wait on the movie studios to cooperate, even if the carpenters were without pay for several months.

The deal was secured by mutuality of support at the convention, with each controlling 600,000 votes, enough to dominate.

A letter writer thinks the cooperative idea being promoted by CIO and spreading into North Carolina was a good thing to enable labor union members a break on the high prices of food, to be sold at cost. Large mark-ups on produce had been made by the market chains and the farmers had seen none of it.

A letter from the Mount Holly Junior Chamber of Commerce thanks the newspaper for its support of the recent Durene Festival, lending to its success.

One question: Who’s Durene?