Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the new State of
Israel was invaded this date by Arab Legion forces, both air and
ground, from the north, east, and south. Regular army forces of
Lebanon attacked from the north, Arab Legion forces out of
Trans-Jordan were shelling from the east, taking a large area of the
Judean hills across the Allenby Bridge outside the U.N. territory
demarked for the Jewish state, and Egyptian forces came from the
south into the Negeb desert region and attacked at least one Jewish
settlement therein. Tel Aviv was attacked from the air three times
by Egyptian planes. Other foreign planes without identification
attacked northern and southern sections of Israel, at Samakh and
Rehovot. Leaflets dropped over Urim in the Negeb demanded surrender.
Egyptian forces were attacking Kfar Haderom and Nirim in the western
Negeb.
A map illustrates the entry points.
The President the night before gave recognition to the
provisional Government of Israel as the "de facto authority",
a move approved by Senator Arthur Vandenberg. A source indicated
that the President was studying the possibility of lifting the arms
embargo to the entire Middle East, for both Arabs and Jews. The
proposal had been under study for some time.
The President, in his first political speech of the campaign,
told a $25 per plate dinner before the Young Democrats that he
predicted victory over "Republican obstructionists",
scoffing at the "calamity howlers", whom he found to be
a common enemy to FDR.
Present at the gathering was E. Hoover Taft of Greenville,
N.C.
Governor Dewey and Harold Stassen, campaigning in advance of the May 21
Oregon primary, engaged in that which was labeled the "battle
of the blockade", as each candidate's chartered bus crossed paths in Cascade Locks while the candidates passed as ships
in the night. The bus with Governor Dewey and his entourage got
around a photographers' truck partially blocking the highway and
left the scene, while Mr. Stassen addressed the waiting crowd. Some
in the crowd perceived the maneuver as a rude slight by Governor
Dewey. But his press secretary, James Hagerty—later press
secretary for President Eisenhower—, stated, in
reference to Mr. Stassen's appearance, that it was considered
political discourtesy to interrupt another candidate's meeting.
The two would participate in a radio debate on Monday.
In New York, the greatest buying frenzy took place on the
stock market since 1929, but prices responded only modestly after a
huge advance on Friday.
In South St. Paul, Minn., 600 National Guardsmen swept
through the streets to clear an unruly crowd in front of the
strikebound Swift & Co. packing plant. The crowd, for the most
part, dispersed quietly.
An SOS that a ship had hit a mine 35 miles off Crescent City,
Calif., sent Coast Guard planes out to investigate from San
Francisco and Chord Field, Washington.
An earthquake beneath the Bering Sea produced a tidal wave
which placed the Aleutians and Hawaii on alert the previous day. No
wave materialized, but in Hawaii, memories were fresh regarding the 175
people killed in the 1946 tidal wave.
In Shelby, N.C., yeggs used dynamite to blast open a safe at
the Lutz-Yelton Oil Company and made away with $4,000 the previous
night. There was also an unsuccessful attempt to expose the yolk at
another establishment, a wholesale grocery. Fingerprints were taken
from the safes at both scenes, thought by police possibly to be
related.
On the editorial page, "Israel Carries World's Hopes" finds President Truman's statement the previous night expressing "de
facto" support for the new State of Israel to be
consistent with the country's favor extended toward
self-determination of nations and following logically the original
sponsorship in 1947 of partition of Palestine.
The British Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917
established the movement which had just culminated, with Britain
stating its pledge at that time to use its best efforts to
facilitate creation of a Jewish homeland. Both President Wilson and
Prime Minister David Lloyd George had supported the Declaration.
After Palestine was liberated from Turkish rule in World War
I, the British received the mandate from the League of Nations in
1920 to administer the country.
After the Holocaust, the final determination was made to
establish the homeland in Palestine. The U.N. General Assembly had
approved the partition plan the previous November 29.
The small Jewish army of Haganah was holding off the
outnumbering forces of the Arab League, the latter acting in open defiance of
the U.N. Haganah had to hold back these forces lest a world war
erupt around the conflict.
The effort, it suggests, was in furtherance of banishing war
and bringing peace to all peoples. There would be new hope for the
U.N. should Israel survive. The prompt recognition of the new state
strengthened that hope and the hope for rapprochement generally
between the East and West.
"Something More Than Force" finds the aphorism
that the Russians only understood force to be an errant notion, as
discussed by David Lawrence in the latest issue of U.S. News &
World Report, contending itto be a fallacy often
repeated in high Government circles. It had as a corollary
the notion of a preemptive strike before Russia could obtain nuclear
capability.
The piece agrees that the reasoning was fallacious and that
evidence abounded in contravention of it, that Russia had been so
impressed by the threat of the Marshall Plan that it had resulted in
curbing the reins on Soviet expansion. The atomic bomb was thus not
so much a deterrent as was the threat of rebuilding Europe.
The U.S. was doing much not to pursue the force-first
mentality, but the mentality nevertheless was damaging East-West
relations. When such countervailing efforts ceased, it posits, there
would be left only respect for war on both sides, leading inexorably
to a hot war.
"Another Long Regime Begins" tells of Earl Long
becoming Governor of Louisiana during the week amid fanfare
reminiscent of his deceased brother Huey, former Governor and
Senator. Nearly 50,000 people crammed the LSU stadium to hear and
observe his inauguration speech, with hot dogs, pop, buttermilk, and
wine flowing freely—we hope not all down the same gullet.
Governor Long even provided first-aid to the twenty-odd persons hit
by flying bottles.
Huey Long had also relished such events, attended by his
"little people", to the point of nearly bankrupting
Louisiana.
Earl Long promised absence of graft and favoritism in his
Administration. But the start of it justified the objective observer
in having misgivings.
A piece from the Washington Post, titled "Old-Age
Planning", tells of the National Industrial Conference Board
publishing a study, Financing Old Age, in which it
recommended tax incentives for saving and deferral of retirement to
beyond age 65, with development of more work opportunities for the
middle-aged and elderly. Otherwise, Government costs in paying for
social security would rise as the population rose and people might
become too dependent on the old-age pension system. By 1960, there
would be, it predicted, one in six persons retired, compared to one
in eight in 1948.
It proposed creation of a bureau of research to study the
experiences of the aged in the U.S. and abroad. The editorial thinks
it a good suggestion.
Drew Pearson tells of Ambassador to Moscow, Walter Beedle
Smith, going fishing in France after finally meeting with Foreign
Commissar V. M. Molotov when he delivered the May 4 diplomatic note,
theretofore being avoided. He fished in France because he could.
The reportage in Moscow had noticeably calmed during the
previous three weeks with respect to Scandinavia and Austria, in
consequence of which the West had ratcheted down its rhetoric. But
the Soviets might yet be ready to launch a new propaganda offensive
in Europe. Time would tell.
Definite information had been obtained that Russia had
developed a crude atomic bomb, explaining why American defense
analysts were so concerned about American security and preparation.
There was concern that Russia might launch a first strike before the
Marshall Plan could take effect.
A mystery had formed around the authorship of the Smith
diplomatic note to the Russians, whether the military, the
politicians, or the genuine peacemakers. Whoever it was, the result
of wanting to show both the olive branch and the mailed fist at once
had resulted in a note which meant little. It did not convey the
longing of the American people for peace.
He opines that the note should have been made public
immediately both at home and in Europe. If Stalin were to lift the
iron curtain, he would permit Americans and Russians to get to know
one another so that differences could be ameliorated through amity
rather than in an atmosphere of arm's length enmity.
Joseph Alsop finds little attention being paid to a
resolution introduced recently in the Senate by Senator Vandenberg,
despite it being freighted with the legal foundation for the
political and military organization of the non-Soviet world. It
prepared the way for closer and more formal relationship between the
U.S. and the Western European Union, in preparation for the
formation of the Atlantic community—that which would become,
in a year, NATO. The resolution went beyond the WEU to permit a
loose aggregation of all non-Soviet countries.
Other amendments had been added to his bill, designed to
support amendment of the U.N. Charter.
Regardless, the resolution demonstrated that bipartisan
foreign policy still existed, even in the midst of a partisan
election year. Undersecretary of State Robert Lovett had
participated with Senator Vandenberg in forming the resolution, with
input coming from Secretary Marshall and John Foster Dulles.
He sees it thus as an historic document, organizing foreign
policy lest it become mired in frustration and defeat. The only
drawback was that it had taken so much time for the U.S. to follow
on the creation of the WEU, rather than taking a leading role in its
formation.
The bipartisan foreign policy, by its nature, was a slow
process. Moreover, the House had its own proposal being considered
in committee, which might further delay action.
Marquis Childs reports of the campaign for the Republican
presidential nomination in advance of the May 21 Oregon primary,
with Governor Dewey campaigning actively in a make-or-break effort,
visiting towns of less than a 1,000 population in the process. The residents were
reportedly impressed by the fact. He had done so on the advice of a
political observer in Oregon to counteract the perception of him as
a cold fish, a steel-eyed prosecutor. So he took to the hustings by
visiting coffee shops and hamburger joints, seeing more of the
state, it had been said, than any visitor since Lewis and Clark.
Before he ventured into Oregon, a public opinion poll rated
liberal Senator Wayne Morse with a higher favorable rating than
Senator Guy Cordon, a conservative. Thus, Governor Dewey was
stressing his liberal record as Governor. While viewed as expedient,
he was also fighting the advocacy of Harold Stassen for outlawing
the Communist Party, notwithstanding that the position was popular.
Governor Dewey thought it to curtail freedom of thought.
It was generally perceived that Governor Dewey was gaining
ground on former Governor Stassen.
A letter from A. W. Black responds again to a correspondent
who had responded to him responding to others anent world government
... ad infinitum.
Just state your opposition once and go about your business.
A letter writer from Harriman, Tenn., believes that dubbing
the anti-Truman Democrats "Dixiecrats", as explained in
an A.P. dispatch of May 10 regarding the coinage of Bill Weisner of
The News, would be more accurate as "Republocrats"
or "Renegadecrats". He thinks the Southern leaders dumb
and that President Truman would withstand the revolt.
The editors respond that the Dixiecrats would dub the letter
writer DUMOCRAT.
Protestations of some latter-day REATARDICANS notwithstanding, most of the Dixiecrabs would become either Republocrats or Republicans in fact by the 1960's and early 1970's.
A letter writer favors introduction of card file indexing of
voter registration as a more efficient means than registration
books.
A letter from retiring Charlotte Fire Chief W. H. Palmer
thanks the newspaper for its supportive editorial of May 7.
