The Charlotte News
Wednesday, September 20, 1950
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that thousands of Marines had crossed the Han River Wednesday under furious enemy fire and two columns were reported by MacArthur headquarters to be at the gates of Seoul, encountering stiffening resistance, with enemy casualties heavy. The Marines, in their first crossings, drove ahead four miles, half way from the river to Seoul. Five hours later, the first tanks were ferried across the Han, then leading the van of 40,000 troops on the march to the former South Korean capital.
According to correspondent Bill Ross, the Marines suffered their heaviest casualties of the operation, since the landing the previous Friday on Inchon.
Correspondent Don Whitehead, with the first assault wave of Marines, recounts the predawn crossing of the Han River in detail. The first reconnaissance unit of Marines had landed safely on the other side of the Han but had to pull back after encountering enemy resistance.
South Korean troops had landed at Samchok, on the east coast opposite Seoul, either as a trap to forces in that area or for a lateral movement from the east toward the capital, 118 miles away by rail.
The Navy big guns, joined at Inchon by the U.S.S. Missouri, were lobbing shells inland 22 miles in support of the advance on Seoul.
Secretary of State Acheson set before the U.N. General Assembly the American program to combat aggression anywhere in the world, including a provision for a peace patrol and military forces to enforce U.N. decisions. He also urged that the U.N. organize itself so that on quick notice it could respond with emergency action in a way that the veto-bound Security Council could not. He proposed that the Formosa question should be urgently considered by the Assembly. He did not mention whether the U.S. favored pursuit of the North Korean troops beyond the 38th parallel. He concluded that the question whether the U.N. would survive had been answered by the concerted effort in Korea, that "blood is thicker than ink."
Senate confirmation of General Marshall as the new Secretary of Defense appeared certain this date after the Senate Armed Services Committee approved it 9 to 2, with the only dissents coming from Senators William Knowland of California and Harry Cain of Washington.
The House passed the McCarran subversive-control bill 312 to 20, agreeing to the Senate-House compromise measure which had included a provision for internment of subversives in time of emergency, in addition to the main thrust of the bill which required registration of Communists and front organizations. The President had vowed to veto the bill but the votes appeared present in both the House and Senate to afford the two-thirds override. A White House aide reported that of 6,000 telegrams received on the bill in the previous few days, only 200 had favored it.
The AF of L, according to its resolution passed in convention in Houston, was planning to launch a new drive for unionization in the South and might try to move into the coal fields dominated by UMW.
Over Western Kentucky about 3:00 a.m., a meteor flashed through the skies, visible from Paducah to Memphis, Tenn. The meteor trail culminated, according to reports from eyewitnesses, in an explosion somewhere in the semi-swamp between Memphis and Millington Navy Base about 20 miles away. One farmer produced a large, head-sized piece of the meteor which had fallen onto his land.
Upon further investigation, it turned out, however, to be just another flying saucer with little green men aboard.
In London, thousands of bees attacked the airport but there were no casualties. The bees were drunk, after having descended on the remains of a broken bottle of cognac dropped by a passenger.
On the editorial page, "Second Ultimatum to Russia" tells of the Big Three occupying powers in West Germany, the U.S., Britain, and France, having issued an ultimatum to Russia, that any attack on West Germany or Berlin would be deemed an attack on all of the occupying powers. It was the second Western ultimatum issued to Russia in three months, the first having been in the defense of Korea, warning that any further aggressive move in Asia would be considered aggression against the West.
But the real recipient of the ultimatum was not Russia, as they had long understood the resolve to resist in Western Europe. It was aimed at the people of Western Europe, who recently had come to doubt whether the U.S. would stand behind the NATO commitment with arms. But aside from atomic strength, the U.S. was not yet prepared militarily to issue such ultimata. The country was now forced to mobilize to add strength to the words.
The industrial wheels were beginning to turn again in support of the "arsenal of democracy" and they had to turn even more rapidly, it urges, were they to produce the strength necessary to support these diplomatic decisions.
"Another Test for the UN" reminds that the U.N. Security Council was able to act decisively in Korea on June 25 because the Russian delegate, Jakob Malik, had at the time boycotted the session since the prior January because of the refusal of the Council to seat Communist China in lieu of the Nationalist delegate. Mr. Malik, as president of the Council in August, had frustrated further attempts to condemn North Korea for refusing to heed the ceasefire declaration of June 25. He had then vetoed the matter when it came to a Council vote recently. Now, it was up to the General Assembly to override that veto.
The other major decision before the Assembly would be whether the U.N. forces should cross the 38th parallel into North Korea and secure that area. The piece favors the move as the only way to assure peace into the future.
It finds the session to be the most important Assembly meeting of the organization thus far in its five year history. It would be the U.N.'s second major test in three months, the first having been to issue the resolution of June 25, condemning the aggression of North Korea, authorizing U.N. resistance to it, and ordering the ceasefire.
"Chest Campaign Draws Near" tells of the Community Chest campaign drive starting October 8 and urges contribution, as it had fallen $52,000 short of its goal in 1949. The current goal was set at $334,600.
"Frank Graham's 'Offers'" tells of Senator Graham having received numerous offers of positions after his tenure ended as Senator in the coming months. The primary one, which he had turned down as unsuitable, was that of director of the American Red Cross. The piece is glad that he did so as it would have relegated him to relative obscurity. It hopes that he would be tapped for U.N. chief delegate or for a prominent position in the State Department so that his ample diplomatic skills might be utilized.
Drew Pearson discusses the propaganda effort of George Washington against the mercenary Hessian soldiers hired by the British to fight in the Revolution having been effective to turn away one-sixth of the 30,000 men. It had been accomplished through land reform, that is a promise of 50 acres and citizenship in the new nation to any Hessian soldier who refused to fight. Benjamin Franklin had written a false account attributed to a German officer lamenting that more Hessians had not died in the Battle of Trenton. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams also contributed to the propaganda.
But the Congress in the cold war appeared reluctant to adopt George Washington's tactics. The joint reconciliation conference had chopped away 20 million dollars from the propaganda budget after it had been approved by the Senate. The North Koreans had engaged in land reform in the South, delayed by Dr. Syngman Rhee, President of South Korea. Similar Communist tactics had worked to enlist the peasant populations in China and Indo-China, and appeared to be working in the Philippines and Southern Italy, after Northern Italy was already predominantly Communist.
Louis Johnson, just fired as Secretary of Defense, had written his own speech delivered to the Alumni Association of the University of Virginia the prior December, including the line which helped to get him canned: "If Stalin attacks at 4 o'clock, we will knock hell out of him at 5." Mr. Pearson remarks that it would have been better had he followed the advice of his aides, who had given him a canned speech to deliver at the event.
Joseph Alsop, with the Marines on the Seoul front, tells of the approach to Seoul from Inchon, tagging along with a Marine battalion, specifically on the eleven-mile approach from Inchon to the taking of Kimpo airfield. Their first encountered obstacle was at dawn against six Russian T-34 enemy tanks, which were knocked out by American Pershing tanks. The next obstacle was at Bupyong, to be cleared by the South Korean troops. Then came the turning point on the march to Kimpo, at noon, when three tanks going forward with Easy Company reached a bridge which was too rickety to cross the canal over which it spanned. Eventually, the decision was made for the tanks to follow an alternative route with a small contingent of infantry, while the main body split off and followed the planned, more direct route across the canal. The plan had been to reach Kimpo by dusk to avoid allowing the enemy time to reinforce itself. But by that point, it was too late to reach Kimpo before sunset.
The account would be continued on Friday.
Marquis Childs tells of discussions at the U.N. General Assembly meeting for the formation of a permanent peace commission to look after especially troublesome areas of the world, as well as formation of a permanent U.N. military force, formed from either volunteers of member nations or by specialized units contributed by the members, and the revision of the Charter to allow the "little assembly" more power to frustrate the ability of Russia to exercise the veto in the Security Council and obstruct forward progress. The little assembly, which sat regularly, would be able to take up matters blocked in the Council, as a proxy for the General Assembly.
The President also wanted to move forward on the Japanese peace treaty. The Japanese had indicated great willingness to allow American bases and troops under a U.N. peace-keeping provision and the U.S. was going to push for admission of Japan to the U.N. Reparations might prove a block, because of Japan's inability to pay, but Australia had already agreed to waive the claims.
Andrei Vishinsky had been ordered to do everything he could to block these changes, and the question was whether, as in the past, the Russian resolve would be effective in beating back the Western effort to that end.
Robert C. Ruark tells of his affection for the writing of Ernest Hemingway, though finding, as with any writer, he had written his share of mediocre and "goshawful" work.
Mr. Hemingway had established the pattern for "realistic writing", was not afraid of long sentences and the use of "and" to conjoin thoughts. Nor was he reluctant to use the first person pronoun to describe the action. He had learned a lot about dialogue from Gertrude Stein, an early associate, and was possibly the best writer alive at utilization of adjectives.
He had provided two "deathless"
books, A Farewell to Arms and The Sun Also Rises,
one "competent hunk of trade fiction", For
Whom the Bell Tolls, plus many
effective short stories, as "Big Two-Hearted River", "The
Killers", and "The Short Happy Life of Francis
Macomber", the latter two of which had been made into
first-rate movies
He had hit a "clinker" in To Have and Have Not but had written a documentary with all the earmarks of exciting fiction in The Green Hills of Africa.
His latest offering, however, Across the River and Into the Trees, had missed the mark and indicated that the author was getting old. It was too wordy and peddling as fiction discourses, as years earlier in his flopped play, The Fifth Column. He was lecturing as an old man lectures, garrulously and irritably, rather than writing fiction, even as his technical skill remained sound.
"It takes flour to build a fruit cake, and in Papa's latest he dealt mainly in cherries, citron and pecans."
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