Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that before HUAC,
Whittaker Chambers, admitted Communist between 1924 and 1937 and
presently a senior editor for Time Magazine, accused Alger
Hiss, formerly of the State Department, and Nathan Witt, attorney
for the NLRB, among others, of being Communists. Mr. Chambers stated
that Mr. Witt was head of the underground group to which he
belonged, later headed by attorney John Abt, present counsel to the
Progressive Party. According to Mr. Chambers, Lee Pressman, active
also in the Progressive Party, was in the group, as was Mr. Hiss. He
said that the group consisted of seven or so top level Government
men, from among whom Elizabeth Bentley's group was "apparently"
recruited.
Mr. Hiss had organized the Dumbarton Oaks Conference in 1944,
preliminary to the U.N. Charter Conference in San Francisco in
spring, 1945, which he also organized and of which he was secretary-general. Mr. Hiss had been an aide at
the Yalta Conference between President Roosevelt, Prime Minister
Churchill, and Premier Stalin in February, 1945. He was photographed
for Life after carrying the safe from San Francisco to Washington bearing the U.S. duplicate of the U.N. Charter
following the conference. He currently headed the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Mr. Hiss told reporters that he denied the truth of the
Chambers allegations, did not know Mr. Chambers and as far as he
knew, had never met him. He would shortly change that statement
after meeting face to face with Mr. Chambers, examining his teeth
and listening to him speak, concluding that he was a man whom he
knew under another name in 1935 and 1936 while Mr. Chambers sublet
an apartment from Mr. Hiss and his family.
Mr. Chambers did not accuse Mr. Hiss at this juncture of
espionage. That would come later, in November, during a civil suit
Mr. Hiss would file in late September accusing Mr. Chambers of
defamation. That would lead to the December revelation by Mr.
Chambers of his alleged receipt of transcribed State Department
documents from Mr. Hiss which Mr. Chambers claimed to hide, in the
form of microfilm, inside a pumpkin on his Maryland farm, a hidey-hole, he would claim, from Communists who might visit him. Mr. Hiss's
denial before the grand jury on December 15, 1948 that neither he nor his wife, in his presence, had ever turned Government documents over to Mr. Chambers or that he had ever met Mr. Chambers after the beginning of 1937 would form
the basis for the perjury charges of which Mr. Hiss would be
convicted in 1950 and sent to prison.
Congressman Richard Nixon would make his name as a tough
anti-Communist from his persistent chase of Mr. Hiss, personally
urging his prosecution for perjury before the grand jury which
indicted Mr. Hiss—and the rest, as they say, is history.
The Senate Investigating Subcommittee also continued to hear
testimony on Communist infiltration of the Government. The
subcommittee chairman, Senator Homer Ferguson of Michigan, protested
the failure so far to receive from the Commerce Department requested
information on William Remington, implicated by Elizabeth Bentley as
a Communist spy within the Government, allegedly providing through
her reports to the Soviets on American plane production during the
war.
The Atomic Energy Commission announced that two unidentified
atomic scientists suspended in May during a loyalty check had been
cleared.
The Republican Policy Committee, headed by Senator Taft,
called a conference this date to determine what to do about the
civil rights legislation, as well as anti-inflation and housing
legislation. The Committee intended to meet until 9:00 p.m. Senator
Taft stressed that the meeting did not mean that an attempt was
afoot to break the continuing Southern filibuster on the anti-poll
tax measure, which he viewed as impossible under current Senate
rules. The Republican conference would be polled the following day
to determine whether it would back a proposal to submit to the
states a Constitutional amendment banning the poll tax, a move which
the Southerners had indicated they would not seek to block by
filibuster. The amendment proposal would require two-thirds approval
in both chambers.
The Republicans were in agreement on tightening bank credit
but not on installment credit curbs, already approved by the Senate
and pending in the House Banking Committee. The House had approved a
housing bill which would authorize Federal mortgage insurance to 1.6
billion dollars and increase allowable depreciation on rental
properties to afford 2.5 percent return on investment. The Senate
policy committee was considering their position on the legislation,
which constituted the only anti-inflation measures presently on the
skillet.
Senator Taft continued to assert that the session would end
by Saturday night.
Representative John Dingell of Michigan said that he would
introduce the following day a bill urged by the President, to return
to the excess profits tax of the war, to put a brake on inflation.
The tax would be lower and the exemptions greater than that during
the war. Representative Harold Knutson of Minnesota, Ways &
Means chairman, said that there would be no tax legislation during
the special session.
Three states, Kansas, Missouri, and Virginia, held primaries
this date. President Truman voted in Independence, then flew back to
Washington. Republicans in the Virginia Eighth District chose a
candidate for the House race, believed to be the first GOP primary
in state history.
Governor Dewey's press secretary, James C. Hagerty, later
press secretary to President Eisenhower, denied that the Governor
had attacked the teachers' lobby as had been reported. Governor
Ernest Gruening of Alaska stated the previous night that Governor
Dewey had urged the Governors' Conference to launch a campaign
against the lobby, which he had described as the worst of the lot.
Governor Herbert Maw of Utah confirmed the statement.
The results of the two-hour conference between the Big Three
ambassadors to Moscow and Premier Stalin the previous evening were
being maintained in strictest secrecy.
In Athens, Greece, the Greek Army, having been restructured
in its command, announced capture of Kerossovon, the southern anchor
of Communist guerrilla forces in northern Greece. The Army had also
captured the Kamenic heights at the north end of the guerrilla
defense line, on the Albanian border. It was forecast that the
entire Communist Western front in the Grammos Mountains was on the
verge of collapse.
As expected, the Hungarian Parliament elected Arpad Szakasits
as President, replacing Zoltan Tildy who had resigned after his
son-in-law was accused of treason.
Draftees to the Mexican Army were learning how to plow to
make them better farmers.
At the opening of the Carolinas flue-cured tobacco market,
growers received about $55 per hundred pounds, a bit less than that
in the Georgia-Florida markets. The range ran from $5 to $70
depending on the quality of the leaf. Better quality lugs and
cutters were in "best demand", with the good and fine
cutters bringing between $64 and $68, while choice and fine lugs
fetched $59 to $65. The sales supervisor at Lumberton said that the
range there was between $56 and $58, probably to exceed the all-time
high of $56.71 in 1946. Other warehouses reported even higher
prices. The early average at Dillon, S.C., was $60. Whether that was
for a cutter or lug, however, you'd have to consult with Chester to
find out. The average the previous year was $41.84 in the Carolinas.
In Charlotte, enforcement began of the City's Standard
Housing ordinance, with inspections to provide owners 90 days to
comply or face condemnation for want of indoor plumbing, electrical
wiring, running water and other such basic deficiencies. The
ordinance had been passed in 1943 but not implemented because of
scarcity of building materials during and after the war.
Ray Howe of The News tells on the sports page of
Charlotte's Chunk Simmons when he first obtained track and field
notice locally in 1940. Now, he was a U.S. decathlon athlete in the
Summer Olympics in London, the first held since 1936 in Berlin. Bob Mathias of the United States, just 17, would win the decathlon and Chunk Simmons would finish third.
On the editorial page, "Rays of Hope for World Peace" contemplates the idea that the country and the world had become so
accustomed to war that it would take some time to realize that the
danger of war and revolutionary upheaval was past, even after there
was no longer any danger. The thought had arisen many times during
the cold war period of the previous two years. It recurred in
connection with the diplomatic exchanges regarding the Berlin
crisis.
Even as the diplomatic talks were taking place to find a
resolution of the German situation, the Berlin blockade continued
and Congress heard testimony anent a Communist spy ring in the
Government during and prior to the war. The divide between East and West had
grown so wide that the citizenry could not envision agreement for
many years into the future.
But both sides had suffered setbacks causing re-evaluation of
policy and plans. Both sides had been forced to realize that a
shooting war could not be won and that neither was prepared for such
a war. The blockade had stopped the West in proceeding with plans to
form a separate West German government as long as Russia refused to
cooperate in German unification except on Soviet terms. If
settlement was not forthcoming, then force would likely be the only
resort left open to the West. And Russia could not press the West in
Berlin without causing war, which it could ill afford. Russia, also,
was experiencing difficulties, as resistance to Communist movements
increased within their Eastern European satellites.
These circumstances provided assurance that the diplomats
would undertake every possible means to effect a settlement without
resort to war.
"Late Afternoon Tea Party" finds that ordinarily
reactionary Dave Clark, editor and publisher of the Textile
Bulletin, was apparently exercised over the failure of the
liberal Progressive Party to make the North Carolina ballot. He
railed against the Board of Elections for totalitarian tactics
resemblant to those of Hitler in disqualifying the party for not
obtaining the requisite 10,000 qualified signatures of registered
voters who had not voted in the party primaries. He invoked the
Boston Tea Party as having been staged to end such despotic
governmental action.
The piece then checks itself and realizes that Mr. Clark was
actually inveighing against the disqualification of the Dixiecrats
from the ballot. It finds, however, that what was good for one party
was good for another and it should have made no difference to Mr.
Clark whether the Progressives or the Dixiecrats were disqualified.
It finds that his tea party reference thus had come late in the
afternoon.
"Chumps for the Communists" comments on the
testimony of Louis Budenz the previous day to a Senate committee
that Hollywood had contributed large sums to the American
Communists. He said that he had left the American Communist Party
after realizing that it was a fifth column for Russia.
The persons who had been named by Elizabeth Bentley before
the Senate Investigating Subcommittee, the HUAC hearings of Saturday
not yet having hit the news, violated, it opines, the constitutional
rights of the "defendants" on trial, as they had not
been heard or had the opportunity to confront their accusers. It was
likely that a good many people who were not Communists and others
who were merely idealistic dupes who had been roped in by the
propaganda would be hurt by the exposure.
The justification of Congress was the belief in the presence
of an active Communist fifth column in the country, and the evidence
adduced thus far, it concludes, would convince most in the country
that the Congress had a good case.
Drew Pearson provides business predictions from summer, 1946,
regarding what would occur when OPA was ended, suggesting that
increased competition would benefit consumers, especially with
respect to food prices, rents, and automobile prices, the converse
of that which had transpired in the previous two years.
Young Thomas Dewey, as a college student at the University of
Michigan, was black-balled for membership in the Chi Phi fraternity.
Two members recounted that the reason for the sole negative veto of
membership was that he was considered poor material who would not
develop. That individual now sold real estate in Florida, his name
not even remembered by his fellow students recounting the story.
Mr. Dewey, he notes, started out to be a concert singer
before settling on the law as a profession. Presumably, he could
have had a lucrative career singing at weddings.
The President was mad at Secretary of War Kenneth Royall,
Army chief of staff General Omar Bradley, and Undersecretary of the
Army William Draper for sabotaging Administration policies,
especially Undersecretary Draper's rebuilding Germany at the expense
of its neighbors and Secretary Royall's and General Bradley's inept
handling of racial discrimination in the Army. Just a day after the
President issued an executive order curbing Army segregation,
General Bradley had reaffirmed the segregation policy. The President
was genuinely hurt by the apparent disobedience, until he discovered
that General Bradley had not learned of the President's order until
after he had made a remark at a press conference asserting that
segregation would continue. His remark was taken out of context,
however, as the conference dealt with improving relations between
black and white soldiers in the 3rd Armored Division at Fort Knox,
where General Bradley was visiting.
General Lewis Hershey, head of Selective Service, said that
the first draft call would likely occur by October 15 but that the
second call would likely not take place before the beginning of the
year. The 24 and 25-year olds would be first up. Out of the nine
million available for the draft, only 1.386 million were likely to
be deemed fit and eligible, most under 22, comprising over 1.3
million.
Joseph & Stewart Alsop find that bipartisanship in
foreign policy was, notwithstanding the partisan politics
domestically, going "from strength to strength". When
one crypto-isolationist Republican leader at a caucus suggested that
they make an issue of the Berlin crisis, Senator Vandenberg said
that it would be treason. Governor Dewey supported the Senator in
that view. The previous Friday, John Foster Dulles, Mr. Dewey's
foreign policy adviser, visited Undersecretary of State Robert
Lovett and agreed to a bipartisan foreign policy through the
campaign. And that had been the rule even during the two national
conventions.
Governor Dewey had already enunciated his negative attitude
toward the crypto-isolationist plans to make the special session
more of a Walpurgis Night than it already was. The meeting between
Mr. Dulles and Undersecretary Lovett was simply to make everything
"perfectly clear".
At the wish of Senator Vandenberg, Mr. Dulles would assume
the role of spokesman for the GOP on foreign policy regarding
matters of urgency.
Those who were monstrous enough to believe that the President
would start a war to win the election were thus proved wrong in the
premises. Secretary of State Marshall, Mr. Lovett, and Secretary of
Defense James Forrestal were provided full control of foreign policy
by the President. He had consistently accepted their
recommendations. If the President had dealt on occasion with
Palestine with politics in mind, so had the Republicans.
Governor Dewey, Mr. Dulles, and Senator Vandenberg had
agreed, moreover, that bipartisanship on foreign policy would
continue after the election should, as appeared probably the case 90
days from election day, Governor Dewey win.
James Marlow remarks on the approaching third anniversary of
the dropping of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The worry then
persisted that the door had opened to place the secret in other
hands, perhaps not so responsible as the U.S.
The people feared an atomic war which might be the doom of
civilization. They also were buoyed with optimism regarding the
beneficial uses of atomic energy, in science, medicine, and power
production.
Now, the bombs were still being produced and relations with
Russia had deteriorated to a nadir. People spoke of a crisis at
hand. While Russia had the big land force, the U.S. had the bomb and
hopefully sole possession of it, such that it could, if necessary,
bring Russia to surrender quickly in the case of a military
confrontation in Europe. Yet, if this crisis passed, and the
Russians obtained the bomb and another crisis occurred...
Ka-boom.
The U.N. appeared unable thus far to bridge the gap and
effect control of weapons of war. The Atomic Energy Commission at
home was busy exerting control of atomic energy to harness it to
useful purposes.
While the future of plenty opened by the beneficial uses of
atomic energy lay ahead, the "ugly figure of tragedy"
was there as well, "hiding behind the door with an ax in his
hand." Unless the country "could find a way to skip past
him, he'll split us from head to toe."
Sumner Welles, former Undersecretary of State until August,
1943, finds it impossible to ignore that the American Communist
Party had taken control of the platform and machinery of the
Progressive Party. It was alarming that so many people believed that
peace and freedom could be won by policies set forth from Moscow,
proving that Soviet indoctrination had reached far into the social
fabric of the United States.
Outside the black community, the results of Soviet
indoctrination could be seen mainly among the "soggy-minded"
peace-seekers and those groups of liberals who concentrated
exclusively on materialistic objectives. They were so indoctrinated
that they minimized the worth of the Bill of Rights.
An advance copy of a book by a professor who had written of
his experiences in Eastern Europe served as example. The professor
had relished propaganda questioning why America had intervened in
Greece with force and why the U.S. at the same time did not oppose
the Fascists in Argentina. He did not go on to explain that without
U.S. aid, Greece would be overrun by the Communist guerrillas. Nor
did he explain that the Argentine Government of Juan Peron was
freely elected and that, under the Inter-American treaty, the U.S.
could not interfere with the government of a nation unless it
endangered hemispheric peace.
A second example was supplied by a correspondent who wrote
that he was a member of an honest group of citizens in Los Angeles
and was upset by Mr. Welles having disapproved of the dictatorship
established in Costa Rica. He gave approbation to the various
dictatorial policies imposed in that country, found that they would
root out its problems and replace them eventually with democracy. It
was similar to the thesis advanced by the Communists as rationale
for the takeover earlier in the year in Czechoslovakia.
Mr. Welles concludes that when those he had referenced and
those supporting the Progressive Party gave so little heed to the
safeguards of individual freedom, there was reason to wonder whether
democracy was being properly taught regarding the value of human
liberties.
