The Charlotte News
Wednesday, January 17, 1951
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Peiping radio had reported from China that the Communist regime had rejected the latest U.N. five-point proposal for a ceasefire in Korea, terming it "impossible" of acceptance. In addition to immediate ceasefire and provisions to prevent military advantage taken by either side from the ceasefire, it had called for the withdrawal of all non-Korean troops from Korea and arrangements made for free elections, during which interim there would be a provisional government, with Communist China's participation in the U.N. commission to consider Far East problems including Formosa and China's representation at the U.N. The ceasefire resolution had been approved January 12 by a vote of 50 to 7 in the General Assembly's political committee, with only the Soviet bloc, El Salvador and Nationalist China voting against it.
Secretary of State Acheson said at a news conference that the U.S. had supported the ceasefire resolution to maintain unity among the free nations.
In Korea, in a third day of scouting missions to determine enemy troop strength south of Seoul, allied tank-led infantry raider teams held firmly to three outposts in the western sector, within striking distance from 120,000 Chinese troops. As part of those operations, allied tanks, troops and warplanes had routed a thousand-man enemy force, inflicting 500 casualties in an hour at Suwon on Tuesday, as observed by Army chief of staff General J. Lawton Collins, on a tour of the battlefront along with Air Force chief of staff General Hoyt Vandenberg, and Lt. General Walter Bedell Smith, CIA director.
General Vandenberg told the press that the U.S. Air Force could "probably" strike back quickly against an air assault on the U.S. mainland. As a long-range air attack by an enemy force could not be launched immediately, the country had the ability, he assured, to detect such preparations. He said that the goal of air defense was to achieve the "extraordinary" 20 to 30 percent superiority in loss ratio against an invading enemy air force.
What about us down heya on the ground?
A top Air Force officer, Lt. General Idwal Edwards, deputy chief of staff, told the House Armed Services Committee that the Air Force had plans to expand to between 95 and 100 groups, about double its present complement of 48 groups. He could not provide a target date for the expansion as, he said, the picture was changing too much.
Correspondent John Scali reports of Premier Rene Pleven of France planning to visit Washington on January 29 for two weeks to discuss policy with the President, especially the policy toward Indo-China, seeking higher priority for shipments of military supplies to French and loyal Indo-Chinese forces, and Western European rearmament, regarding plans for arms production in France to make it possible to raise and equip twenty divisions by the end of 1953.
A high Government source indicated that the Government would order a general price and wage freeze within the ensuing five or six days, probably to be based on January 1 levels. He said that the decision had been made by Office of Defense Mobilization director Charles E. Wilson, to be carried out by the Economic Stabilization Administration despite its lack of present adequate staff for enforcement.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that retail food prices had hit a new high on January 2, at 218.9 percent the 1935-39 average, surpassing the previous high of 216.8 percent in mid-July, 1948.
Karl Compton, chairman of MIT
In Rangoon, Burma, a Burmese court found Dr. George Seagrave, the "Burma Surgeon" of World War II, decorated by the U.S. and Britain for his heroism during General Joseph Stilwell's retreat in 1942, guilty of high treason and sentenced him to six years in prison for aiding rebel Kachin hill tribesmen rebelling against the Burmese Government in 1949. The aid consisted of providing surgical instruments and medical supplies as well as because of a letter he sent to a nurse allegedly threatening her to obtain her silence on the rebel activities in the vicinity of the hospital. Most of the nurses from Dr. Seagrave's hospital had expected his acquittal and wept at the verdict. The doctor said that he bore no malice against the Burmese people for the actions of "a few". He had originally been charged with acts carrying the death penalty but those charges had been reduced prior to trial such that the maximum term he faced was ten years or banishment from the country for life.
In Raleigh, the Legislature was asked to ratify the proposed 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to prevent the President from serving more than two elected terms. The amendment, first sent to the states in early 1947, would be ratified finally the following month. It did not apply to President Truman.
The State Board of Elections recommended to Governor Kerr Scott that the absentee ballot be eliminated in general elections except for servicemen and disabled war veterans. The Legislature had abolished absentee ballots several years earlier in primary elections. It also recommended clearer reporting by candidates of campaign contributions during the primaries and that political advertising bear the author's name and imprint of the plant which printed it.
In Madison, N.C., a large fire was reported to be raging in the downtown area, threatening a considerable section of it and some residences. Whatever you do, don't let it reach Mayodan.
The "Our Weather" box tells of the Texas "norther" being one of the most violent winds of the United States, starting in frigid air north of Alberta and sweeping down across the plains, dropping the mercury by as much as fifty degrees in three hours, until, according to local legend, there was "nothing between Texas and the North Pole but fences."
On the editorial page, "Byrnes to the Rescue" remarks on the inaugural address of Governor James Byrnes of South Carolina, one time Supreme Court Justice for one term in 1941-42 before being named by FDR as War Mobilizer during World War II, and Secretary of State between mid-1945 and early 1947. In it, Governor Byrnes asserted that the U.S. should consider withdrawal of its forces from Korea unless the U.N. declared China an aggressor and authorized bombing of their supply lines and a blockade, and concentration of the country's military attention instead on Western Europe, where the most serious battle lines against Communism had to be drawn. He urged treating West Germany on equal terms with the other NATO nations in terms of receipt of military supplies and also sending of military aid to Spain and Yugoslavia, made controversial by their respective Fascist and Communist regimes. He also asserted the need for an immediate wage and price freeze.
It finds that the prestige of Governor Byrnes with both the American people and the Congress would cause his address to resonate and help quiet some of the controversy of late caused by the remarks of Senator Taft, former President Hoover, and former Ambassador to Great Britain Joseph P. Kennedy, advocating a form of isolationism, withdrawing gradually American defenses from Asia and Europe to the insularity of the two oceans.
"New Policy in Korea" finds that the announcement of Army chief of staff General J. Lawton Collins, that the U.N. troops would remain in Korea and would soon be reinforced, to be the most dramatic development of the new military policy toward the war, made against a backdrop of calls in Congress and the press for withdrawal from Korea in the face of the heavy odds against the continuing commitment of hordes of Chinese troops.
The News thinks any such determination needed to be made on a calculated basis, assessing the military factors as against the global diplomatic and military situation. And, it admits, the newspapers simply lacked the basis to make such a determination.
To stay the course would make the Communists pay for their aggression, would pin them down from waging aggression elsewhere, such as against Formosa or Indo-China, and would strengthen the U.N.'s position in dealing with the Communist Chinese. Withdrawal would also leave Japan vulnerable at a critical time when a new policy was being worked out via the war treaty. The reputations of the U.S. and the U.N. as formidable military powers were also at stake.
While, it finds, none of those reasons would justify a suicidal course, General Collins believed that there was a good chance of success, and he and General MacArthur and the other military leaders were in a better position to determine that prospect than the American people.
"Weapon Against Character Assassins" finds that perjury charges, if grounds therefor existed, should be filed against the accusers of Assistant Secretary of Defense Anna Rosenberg for the assassination of her character during her confirmation hearings before the Senate Armed Services Committee, which had asked the Justice Department to determine whether there were grounds for perjury against her principal accusers who had claimed falsely that she had been a member of a Communist organization fifteen years earlier.
It finds perjury to be usable as a weapon against such scurrilous and defamatory accusations as surely as against such persons as Alger Hiss, convicted in early 1950 for perjury for his denial to a Grand Jury that he had ever been a Communist or that he had met with Whittaker Chambers in 1938 when the latter claimed he passed to him secret State Department documents for transfer to the Soviets.
Hey, Tricky Dick isn't after Ralph De Sola, Gerald L. K. Smith or Fulton Lewis. You need him on your side if you're going to get someone for perjury.
Query why Mr. Hiss, rather than Whittaker Chambers, was prosecuted for perjury. Neither the Woodstock typewriter nor the Venona files answer the query
A piece from the Asheville Citizen, titled "Signifying Nothing", finds that the State Judicial Council had been dragging its feet in appointment of additional Superior Court judges as authorized by a State Constitutional amendment ratified by the voters the prior November. The amendment had been passed on the advice that the need for the judges was nothing short of an emergency. And yet nothing had been done and the Council had apparently determined that no new judgeships were presently needed. The people, it asserts, deserved an explanation so that they could make more rational judgments on future amendments touted as necessary.
Drew Pearson, stating that Senator McCarthy had called him on the carpet for publishing secret dispatches to and from the Pentagon, indicating that the Chinese troop strengths were only about a quarter of the million men estimated publicly, publishes another document which he says the Senator would not like, the income tax story of gangster Charles Fischetti, cousin of Ralph Capone, a one-time political booster of Senator McCarthy in Wisconsin. Mr. Fischetti had taken over much of the underworld operations of his other cousin, Al Capone, extending from Chicago to Miami, Kansas City, St. Louis, Wisconsin and Arizona. Yet, Mr. Fischetti reported an income of only about $23,000 in 1949, which he reported as "self-speculation", that is, gambling, and on which he paid about $5,000 in taxes. Tony Accardo, one of the top mob men of Chicago, reported an income of $110,000. Mr. Fischetti had reported even less income in 1940-46, less than $10,000 per year in 1940-43, despite lavish living at the time.
The gangsters operated on a strictly cash basis to avoid the trouble which sent Al Capone to prison. And the IRB did not keep track of gambling profits too well, despite the casinos having their own watchers to assure that no money was stolen by their employees. One particular agent, who he refuses to name for fear of a libel action, had shied away from going after gangsters.
He finds this area to be one of the quickest avenues for new revenue to the Government at a time when the rest of the country was facing substantially higher taxes to finance the defense build-up.
Marquis Childs tells of the late former President William Howard Taft having said in a 1915 lecture that the President, as commander in chief of the armed forces, could order the Army and Navy anywhere he wanted, leaving the Congress, under certain circumstances, though having the exclusive power to declare war, with no option but to follow suit. He said that the Supreme Court, in the "Prize cases", had determined that war in the abstract, or the "necessity for national defence or offense" under exigent circumstances, could exist without a formal declaration, either by invasion of the country by a foreign power or domestic insurrection, such as the Civil War, and that only in the case of a war of aggression was a formal declaration by Congress required.
He had provided the example of Nicaragua during his own Presidency, growing out of the trouble he had inherited from his predecessor Theodore Roosevelt and arising from the Spanish-American War during President William McKinley's first term. In Nicaragua, an insurrection took place during which American citizens had been interned by the insurrectionists, and the President of Nicaragua called on the U.S. to protect American citizens and property as his forces were insufficient to do so. President Taft had sent in the Marines, restoring law and order and eliminating the insurrection. He regarded that action as not an act of war, as it had been done with the consent of the lawful authorities in the locus of the action.
Mr. Childs finds the similarity of the Nicaraguan action to the Korean action to be significant, and, while the argument could be made that the U.S. was taking on commitments around the world beyond its capacity to enforce effectively, former President Taft's statements had served to justify President Truman's actions in sending American troops to defend against the Communist aggression in Korea, notwithstanding Senator Robert Taft's Constitutional objections to the contrary.
Mr. Childs does not address the additional key aspect giving the President the authority to send troops to Korea, that being the ratification by the Senate of the U.N. Charter, under which the action in Korea had proceeded by way of U.N. resolution against military aggression deemed to threaten world peace. Senator Taft had also objected to the right of the President to send troops to Western Europe without Congressional approval, but that, too, was in furtherance of NATO, operating pursuant to the treaty which the Senate had also ratified. The President had responded in both instances that his power was circumscribed only by the authority of Congress to appropriate money for the military.
One has to ask, however, whether it was any fairer to constrict the position of Senator Taft by the words of his father than it was ten years subsequent to consign to President Kennedy the label of "appeaser" for his father's positions, whether unfairly ascribed to the elder Kennedy or not, at Munich in September, 1938 and upon his retirement as Ambassador in November, 1940. There is one key difference in that the argument by Senator Taft was Constitutional in nature and thus subject to some definition by former President Taft, not only for his position as President between 1909 and 1913 but also for his subsequent position as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from 1921 until just shortly before his death in 1930, whereas the criticism of President Kennedy versus that of his father was poised on supposed parallels in fact rather than law, not to mention it being patently absurd in a 1960's world resting on nuclear tenterhooks to equate negotiation with "appeasement".
Robert C. Ruark thinks that the American public was due an apology from the policymakers in Washington, who, for instance, while Louis Johnson had been Secretary of Defense, had nixed the Navy's supercarrier after its hull had been laid, but had now restored the 235 million dollar appropriation, which was, for inflation, now 46 million more than the one torpedoed by Secretary Johnson the prior year.
Instead, the military chieftains were freezing the hands and feet off men in Korea as they remained dependent on Navy firepower in an "orderly withdrawal" wherein the word "retreat" was censored as verboten to the press.
He suggests that General William F. Dean had just been decorated "posthumously" with the Congressional Medal of Honor—though General Dean was only missing and would be released at the end of the war—for his having taken on tanks at pointblank range with a bazooka to defend his men when he had last been observed. He finds such action not the usual role of a general in an age of push-button warfare.
There had been no apology from the White House or its aides for its many mistakes in policy regarding disarmament after World War II and the need currently to rearm. Nor had there been apology from the semi-isolationists, President Hoover, Senator Taft, and others. He thinks the President was behaving as if the draft, rearmament, heavy taxation and economic controls were things he had initiated on his own.
That which rankled him most was the notion that the people were being treated as children who would believe anything father told them. Instead, he proposes, the children would be happy to have papa admit his mistakes and promise to do better in the future.
A letter writer from McBee, S.C., finds former President Hoover's remarks advocating withdrawal of defenses gradually to the two oceans to have been tantamount to the stench occasioned by an old, dirty sock. The world was one, and too small any longer for a policy of isolationism. He regards the speech as a boost to the Communists.
A letter writer finds that since Senator Taft, as leader of the Republicans, had said bipartisan foreign policy was out, his foreign policy represented the Republican policy, and that of President Truman, the Democratic policy—which he assumes to be sending of American troops onto foreign soil and sending of aid to foreign countries. He thinks that this latter policy would ultimately make enemies for the country.
He likes the Republican policy. "So it is."
A letter from the Chief of the Fire Department thanks The News for its support during the year in helping, through dissemination of fire prevention information, to stem the losses from fire in Charlotte in 1950, having the lowest valued loss in five years at $340,000, $122,000 less than in 1949.
Framed Edition
Links-Date — Links-Subj.