Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that in Cairo, it was
declared that Egyptian troops moved northward to Hebron and
Bethlehem, linking with Arab Legion troops five miles south of
Jerusalem in what appeared to be a new drive against the city.
Israeli troops who sought under bright moonlight to rescue the
Jewish garrison inside the walls of old Jerusalem were turned back
by the Arab Legion.
Jerusalem was reported approximately split in half between
Arab and Israeli forces.
Haganah reported that Israeli troops launched counterattacks
against Sheik Jarrah at the base of Mount Scopus and at Beit Safafa,
just south of Jerusalem, an Arab village. Haganah also reported that
the Jews were holding the boundaries of Israel despite contrary Arab
contentions.
British headquarters announced that in Haifa, British planes
shot down four Egyptian Spitfires as they raided the Ramit David
Airfield in the British area of Haifa. Three Britons were killed and
six were wounded seriously.
The State Department announced that the American Consul
General, Thomas Wasson, had been seriously wounded in Jerusalem
following a meeting with the U.N. truce commission.
The Lebanese Government replied to the State Department's
objection to the internment of 40 American citizens as possible
bearers of arms for Israel, but the substance of the reply was not yet disclosed.
At the U.N., there would shortly be an announcement that the
organization would undertake action to end the war in Palestine. The Arab-Israeli
conflict had produced bitter feelings between the British and
Americans. The British, for instance, had resented the speed with
which the President gave recognition to the Israeli Government.
Paul Hoffman, ERP administrator, asked the 16 recipient
nations to stop ordering U.S. cotton until detailed financial
arrangements could be made with each government.
The President signed into law the bill providing
appropriation for a 70-group Air Force, the largest in peacetime.
The veto by the President of the bill to require the
Executive branch to turn over confidential reports to Congressional
committees was sustained by the Senate, after 27 Democrats voted to
sustain. Nine Democrats, eight of whom were Southerners, had voted
to override, leaving the bill four short of the necessary two-thirds
majority for override. Several of the Southerners participating in
the revolt against the President on civil rights voted to sustain
the veto, including Senators Lister Hill, John
Sparkman, both of Alabama, Olin Johnston of South Carolina, and John Stennis of Mississippi. Some observers suggested the outcome as
indicative of greater Democratic Party harmony as the convention
approached.
Federal officials with relatives who were known to have
Communist connections were urged by Representative Fred Crawford of
Michigan to resign their posts, as had a Commerce Department
official after disclosure that his daughter worked for the Russian
news agency Tass.
In Oregon, with two-thirds of the vote counted, Governor Dewey
maintained a small lead, 6,600 votes, over Harold Stassen in the all-important Republican primary of the
previous day. It appeared likely that Mr. Dewey would win, but
neither man had proclaimed victory or conceded. The primary had
produced a record turnout of voters.
The ten-week old meatpackers' strike ended, having caused no
serious meat shortages in the country for its duration. The United Packing House
Workers Union accepted the original pay raise package offered by the
companies, nine cents per hour. The strikers had sought 29 cents per
hour.
In Conshohocken, Pa., a World War II veteran who had lost
both legs in the war quit as tax collector because he did not have
the heart to collect the unpaid taxes from the people of the
community, many of whom were his friends.
In Hayneville, Ala.—site of the mistrial and retrial of the
alleged Klan killers of Viola Liuzzo in 1965—a raging fire the
previous night destroyed nine buildings, a third of the town's
business district.
In Philadelphia, Pa., there was a fire in a fire alarm box,
readily extinguished by the Fire Department. The fire started from a
short in the wiring.
From Lawton, Oklahoma, a man claiming to be Jesse James is
shown in a photograph holding a photograph of Jesse, who was shot by
Robert Ford in 1882. The newspaper in Lawton claimed to have proof
that the man shot by Robert Ford was actually Charlie Bigelow.
In truth, the man who shot Charlie Bigelow was John Wilkes
Booth after he made his getaway cleanly following the assassination of
President Lincoln. Everybody knows that.
On the editorial page, "Forward in Slum Clearance" finds it good news that private enterprise in Charlotte had taken on
the responsibility of slum clearance, pursuant to a plan to build
2,000 to 3,000 low-cost housing units in the ensuing five years,
developed by the Board of Realtors and the Home Builders
Association. Four duplexes for black families were about to be
started. These would serve as model housing to show that the plan
was workable.
The plan would open the door to enforcement of the Standard
Housing Ordinance, as the City did not condemn substandard existing
housing for fear that it would leave the occupants homeless. But as
the former slums were vacated, the City could condemn them.
"Arab League in Power Race" finds the Arab League
to be a new world power arising out of the war in Palestine. The
League was composed of seven Arab states, Trans-Jordan, Syria,
Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen. The League was
effectively formed in 1943 in Alexandria. Palestine was deemed a
great prize for the League for its strategic significance to the
Middle East. Possession of it would give the Arabs leverage to
bargain with the major powers, playing the Soviet bloc against the
Western bloc.
There was, however, an intense rivalry between the seven
constituent nations of the League, each headed by an ambitious
ruler.
The impotence of the U.N. in the face of Soviet recalcitrance
had provided the opening for the League to expand its power. The
piece finds therefore that nationalism and imperialism were causing
disaster abroad while the U.S. and the West delayed in
strengthening the U.N. and creating world government.
"Do You Need Illuminating?" tells of a new X-ray
machine which could make X-rays 500 times brighter than before.
Developed by Westinghouse, the machine permitted transmission by
closed circuit television of the images between doctors.
But it finds problems in the new device in that it removed
individual privacy. It says it would not wish to become a
"transparent Christmas tree", as everyone should retain
some secrets.
A piece from the Carolina Israelite, titled "Civil
Rights—FEPC", finds that one of the worst habits of
Americans, including Jewish Americans, was to think in terms of
minorities, strangers within their native land. If the concept were
carried to its logical end, then minorities should ask for a
separate state within the state. Otherwise, all energies ought be
directed toward strengthening civil liberties.
There was no blinking the fact that the Constitution and its
amendments had not been fully realized.
It finds instructive the advice of Dr. Joshua Loth Liebman,
author of Peace of Mind, that American Jewry should reject
minority group classification, rather being a religious community,
able by its rich and unique history to teach hope. Dr. Liebman had
suggested, "Not minority status but equality status in the
religious symphony of humanity must be our first contemporary Jewish
'declaration of independence'."
Drew Pearson again looks at the murder of CBS correspondent
George Polk in Greece, probably killed by the rightwing extremists
whom he had regularly criticized for corruption within the
Government.
But despite Mr. Polk having been silenced, his last letters
to various people, including Mr. Pearson, revealed much information.
He publishes more of the letter, which he began publishing two days
earlier.
Mr. Polk had opined that the U.S. should either get in or out
of Greece and not take halfway measures. He said that the propaganda
of both the Communists and rightwing in the country were identical,
both charging the U.S. with interference in internal Greek affairs
and using Greece to form an American empire. The same royalists who
so carped had surrendered Greece to the Nazis during the war.
He had found that Constantine Tsaldaris, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary, and his followers
were soft-peddling these notions of late so as not to upset the
munificence of ERP. But once included in ERP, the coalition
government, he predicted, would be dissolved along with the
Parliament, in favor of a dictatorial form of government.
Mr. Polk found no appreciation for the 876 million dollars
worth of aid, including UNRRA aid, which had been provided by
America thus far to Greece since war's end.
He found the rightwing to be engaging in severe criticism
regularly of the U.S. on the notion that no matter what occurred in
Athens, the U.S. would continue to provide aid. The Government was
"shell-shocking" the American aid mission and determined
to discredit many American correspondents reporting of the graft,
corruption and inefficiency in administering the aid program.
He concluded that the rightwing were tough guys, "some
of the most calculating, unscrupulous, able politicians" he
had ever seen.
Mr. Pearson adds that Mr. Polk could not have known just how tough
they were until he wound up bound and thrown into Salonika Bay after
being shot in the back of the head.
Marquis Childs, for the third day in a row, examines the
Mundt-Nixon bill, focusing on the FBI's request for a 50.1 million
dollar budget and getting 43.9 million instead approved by the
Bureau of the Budget, with little or no disposition in Congress to
increase it, despite the heavy workload associated with the loyalty
tests of Government employees. Director J. Edgar Hoover had told
Congress that the lower budget would require cutting 1,800
positions, possibly requiring the closure of FBI offices in the
territories, including Hawaii and Alaska.
Senator Taft had indicated that the Mundt-Nixon bill would
require further study by the Senate before passage, and Mr. Childs
hopes that it would include an assessment of whether its security
goals could be achieved more efficiently within the bounds of the Constitution.
While HUAC had often misused publicity for purposes inimical
to civil liberties, it might help elucidate the nature of the
Communist conspiracy if some of the FBI files were released. The
FBI was said to have a "Black Book" with the names and
backgrounds of 200 leading Communists and Communist agents in the
country, to which only few were privy.
The people of the country, he suggests, ought appreciate that
there could be no absolute security by law. Communism would fall of its
own weight in a healthy, progressive society, with reasonable
security precautions in place. But to try to outlaw Communism might
end in eradicating freedom along with it.
James Marlow examines the allegations by HUAC against Dr.
Edward Condon, head of the Bureau of Standards, that he was the
greatest security risk within the Government anent atomic energy for
supposed association with a Communist agent. Dr. Condon, himself,
had told the National Academy of Sciences that providing general
information on projects of a secret nature would be easy, but giving away
detailed scientific information would be difficult for the simple
reason of the complexity of the topics involved in nuclear physics.
Dr. Condon believed in security but not to the point of
hamstringing scientists in their work.
After HUAC had demanded the FBI loyalty report on Dr. Condon
and, pursuant to the direction of the President, the Commerce
Department refused to provide it, the House and Senate had passed a
bill requiring the disclosure upon request by a Congressional
committee, with assurances that the information would remain
confidential, providing severe penalties for release of the
information.
The Atomic Energy Commission had stated that Dr. Condon had
no access to sensitive atomic information. The FBI had cleared him
of any taint of disloyalty.
The matter had just been resolved this date by the Senate sustaining
the President's veto of the bill.
Fred Zusy of the Associated Press begins a series of articles
on the presidential candidates, starting with Senator Robert
Taft—scheduled, as the editorial note mentions, to visit
Charlotte on June 4.
He finds that Senator Taft had gained measurably in stature
since coming to the Senate a decade earlier. No longer just the son
of a President, he had developed his own reputation. He had
headed the Republican steering committee since 1945. He had
co-sponsored the Taft-Hartley Act.
Born in Cincinnati, he had been a shy, studious boy who would
go on to finish first in his class at Yale and also at the Harvard
Law School, editing the law review.
He had worked closely with Herbert Hoover on the European
food relief program after World War I.
Senator Taft was not a back-slapper, was friendliest in small
groups, exhibited calm self-control, walked and talked
deliberately.
The Tafts, his wife more ebullient and outgoing than the Senator, mixed in Washington social life but were not
regulars at the parties.
Mr. Taft did not smoke but liked an occasional martini,
played golf some, fished, was a member of the Episcopal Church.
A Quote of the Day: "The other day I heard this—a
woman speaking: 'Oh, look at that beautiful oak! It reminds me of an
elm, it's so willowy.'" —Memphis Press-Scimitar
Another pome from the Atlanta Constitution, this one
"in Which Is Contained Advice for Those Who Do Not Wish to
Earn a Reputation as a Blabbermouth or a Noisy-Boisy:
"Don't revel or roister:
Be as mum as an oyster."
Long as the Walri
Lick not their lips moister,
Desirous of you, shy,
In your shell's cloister.