The Charlotte News
Thursday, November 8, 1951
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via Nate Polowetzky, that allied negotiators rejected this date the Communist counter-proposal for establishing a ceasefire zone based on current battle lines but requiring, contrary to allied demands, that any adjustments thereto would have to be done by mutual consent. The allies insisted that subsequent adjustments of the battle lines would necessitate adjustments of the buffer zone, placing temporal pressure on resolution of the other remaining issues, and that the Communist proposal would result in a de facto ceasefire, allowing resolution of the other issues to drag on indefinitely.
In the air war, American Sabre jets battled thrice with a record number 190 Soviet-built MIG-15 jets on the anniversary of the first jet battle of the war, with the Sabres outnumbered in each engagement. One MIG was shot down and two others, damaged, with no American losses reported.
In the ground war, U.N. troops attacked enemy lines but did not gain ground.
The Soviets rejected the U.S. proposal made by the President the previous night for easing tensions between East and West, the central part of which was to conduct a continuing census of armaments to be taken by non-nationals of each nation. Secretary of State Acheson had presented the plan to the U.N. General Assembly meeting in Paris this date, prompting the immediate rejection by Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Vishinsky before the Assembly, ridiculing the proposal as "laughable" and proposing instead a world disarmament conference on June 1, conditioned on cessation of the hostilities in Korea within 10 days and withdrawal of troops to the 38th parallel and withdrawal of all foreign troops within 30 days, as well as a peace pact between the Big Five powers, including Communist China. The terms of the rejection left little chance of a meeting of the minds.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Omar Bradley, speaking before the American Petroleum Institute in Chicago, stated that the Chiefs had agreed that the country had greatly to expand its combat air power, both strategically and tactically, and in both the Navy and Marines, and that the expansion had to be undertaken immediately. He said that the airplane continued to be the most effective method of delivery of an atomic bomb to the battlefield or to the heart of any large land-mass nation.
The President said to reporters that there was no truth in an article by Arthur Krock of the New York Times that he had offered to support General Eisenhower as a Democratic presidential candidate in 1952, as he had in 1948. Mr. Krock, quoting from a "reliable and informed" source, had said that the General had "strongly implied" his rejection of the offer because of difficulties presented by his fundamental disagreement with the Administration on labor policies and other issues and programs in the domestic area.
House investigators regarding the IRB irregularities stated that they had not yet reached an accord with the Justice Department whereby its tax fraud files would be turned over for examination.
The Government imposed a virtual freeze, effective February 1, on introduction of new models by the automobile industry and manufacturers of other major consumer durable goods, by placing orders reserving machine tools almost completely for military and defense production, thus preventing retooling for civilian products.
The Agriculture Department estimated the year's cotton crop would be 15.7 million bales of 500 pounds each, 1.1 million less than the previous month's estimate, and substantially higher than the ten million bales of 1950 and the ten-year average of twelve million.
In Spencer, W. Va., a cashier at the First National Bank, after having cleared out safe deposit boxes of a merged bank for more than a year, was left with one box which had not yet been claimed, and upon opening it, discovered that it was his own.
In Philadelphia, Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner were married the previous night in a small civil ceremony conducted at a home in suburban West Germantown, refusing photographers' requests to allow them to take pictures of the couple, summoning police to clear an escape route, after which a wild auto chase ensued to throw the photographers off the trail. The couple had hired a commercial photographer to take pictures and hand them out to the press, giving rise to a dispute during which Mr. Sinatra threatened to punch a photographer. Bobbysoxers gathered outside the home were disappointed when police would not allow them close enough for a peek. At least, none of them were punched.
On the editorial page, "The Peace Campaign Gets Underway" addresses the President's foreign policy broadcast speech the previous night proposing a plan to end the cold war, and then Secretary of State Acheson's echo of the proposal at the U.N. General Assembly meeting in Paris. The heart of the proposal was to conduct on a continuing basis a census of all military forces and armaments of countries having substantial military power. In the meantime, the nations would be working out specific arrangements for reduction of armaments.
It finds it unlikely that the Russians would accept the proposal but it would put them on the defensive, a necessary step in a war of propaganda, at which the Soviets had been winning. The President had directed part of his speech to the Russian people, stating that the people behind the Iron Curtain were "crushed down by the burden of armaments and production for war" and hoped for a release from these burdens.
Conditions for the proposal were a Korean ceasefire, settlement of the major political issues between East and West and armament inspection by non-nationals of each nation, the latter condition unlikely of acceptance by the Soviets, as they had been reluctant to allow any non-Communist even to visit the Soviet Union, let alone conduct inspections.
It finds on balance that the President's speech was necessary, not only for propaganda purposes, but also because it was better to proclaim peace than shout war and that while the proposal was subject to the response of hypocrisy by the U.S. because of continual rearmament of the West, perhaps, eventually, the peace talk might become productive.
As the front page reports, the Soviets had promptly rejected the proposal of the President and Secretary Acheson, counter-proposing conditions which were known to be unacceptable to the U.S. regarding the ceasefire conditions in Korea.
"The GOP in North Carolina" tells of North Carolina Republicans having heard from the RNC executive director in Greensboro that citizens of the state were tired of "war and inflation, of Communism and socialism, of high taxes and threatened bankruptcy" and that under a two-party system, they would have a choice at the polls.
The piece agrees that there would be salutary results from a viable two-party system, but finds that the GOP in North Carolina did not have the courage of their convictions, as exemplified by an anecdote related by Drew Pearson below, in which a North Carolina Republican had balked at support of General Eisenhower after hearing the General say during the week that he had not spoken recently to Senator James Duff, leader of the move to draft the General for the Republican presidential nomination. The Republican had thus decided to get in touch with Senator Taft's supporters for self-protection.
The piece finds the sentiment typical of the state's Republicans, that they were not so interested in who the party nominee would be but whether they would be onboard the winning team.
"No Trends" finds no trend in the off-year mayoral and four House elections, with, for instance, the four House districts all going to the Republicans, but in three districts traditionally Republican and one which had vacillated back and forth.
"'See It Through in '52'" tells of the first session of the 82nd Congress having failed to pass the remaining recommendations of the Hoover Commission regarding efficiency in Government and elimination of waste. It hopes that in the second session, it would become a priority, as the recommendations had bipartisan support from everyone from Senator Joseph McCarthy to Senator Hubert Humphrey, but realizes that in an election year, it appeared unlikely of occurrence.
Bill Sharpe, in his weekly "Turpentine Drippings", snippets from newspapers around the state, provides one from the Waynesville Mountaineer relating of two men complaining of the commercialization of college football and how so many people turned out for high school games, and then, at the conclusion of the conversation, agreeing to meet that night at the game.
Sam Ragan of the Raleigh News & Observer tells of an editor telling a young female reporter who had produced a report with some inaccuracies, that Joseph Pulitzer had said that "accuracy is to a newspaper what virtue is to a woman", to which the reporter responded that the statement was not entirely accurate as a newspaper could always print a retraction.
The Zebulon Record
asks how many brands of cigarettes were manufactured in the state,
and prints eighteen as the answer, supplying the brands. The list
does not include Winstons and Salems, as those had not yet been
introduced, but does include one named Johnnie Walker, which
presumably supplied two vices
Another from the Waynesville Mountaineer tells of life being a "constant process of keeping your finger to the pulse, your eye on the ball, your nose to the grindstone, your ear to the ground, your tongue in your cheek. And once in a while it's necessary to get your dander up and put your foot down."
That sounds about right, but one must make sure, dandered-up Trumpie, that the foot does not come down on someone else.
And so and so on, so, forth and so.
Drew Pearson tells of the Republican backers of General Eisenhower for the GOP nomination in 1952 having breathed a sigh of relief when he departed again for Paris after his two-day visit with the President in Washington early in the week, as they estimated that he had helped Senator Taft pick up about 100 additional delegates during his visit by cutting the ground out from under Senator James Duff of Pennsylvania by saying he had not heard from him "directly or indirectly for a long, long time". The statement by the General was untrue, as earlier in the day his own aide had phoned Senator Duff from Louisville and the General had sent word to the Senator two weeks before the visit that he was coming and that space on the Senator's schedule should be kept open during the three-day period. The Senator had been organizing district leaders throughout the country and taking delegates away from Senator Taft, that work having recently been done in North Carolina. The job was to convince delegates that the General was a Republican and when the General said he had not talked to Senator Duff in some time, that tended to undercut the effort, leading many to jump ship in favor of Senator Taft, including a particular North Carolina Republican, as stated in the editorial above.
A reporter for the Wilmington Star-News in North Carolina had responded to a question by the Duke of Edinburgh during the royal visit the prior week as to why women reporters were the only ones who wrote things down, saying that it was because male reporters carried things in their heads while the women could not remember anything.
Two factors were said to be behind the American disarmament proposal in Paris, the first being a report from U.S. Ambassador to Russia Allan Kirk that both Stalin and the Politburo were suffering a case of war jitters, thought the U.S. was ready for war and that Russia should get the drop on the situation, Ambassador Kirk concluding that Russia might start a war therefore and urging the President to be very careful about all public statements regarding Russia. The second factor was the manner in which Russia had put across the idea that it was the real advocate of peace and the United States, a warmonger.
Richard Spong of Editorial Research Reports tells of the U.N. General Assembly meeting in Paris, possibly to be assigned its toughest assignment yet, resolution of the peace in Korea. Other objectives of the meeting might include, according to the State Department, collective security for Palestine, reduction of armaments, human rights, and land reform, the elimination of cartels and progress for underdeveloped nations, in all the agenda containing more than 60 items and possibly to increase to 80. In addition, the U.S. was planning to submit a plan for ending the cold war. The U.S. was also interested in the bid for membership by Italy, previously vetoed by Russia in the Security Council but now slated to go before the Assembly.
The U.S. was expected to take a stand on two issues to be brought by Egypt, that Libya was no more than a British puppet state and that Morocco ought be given independence from France. These issues also might be brought up before the Assembly.
While the Assembly had been in recess, a special convocation had adopted a resolution the prior January 30 branding Communist China as the aggressor in Korea and had voted an arms embargo against China on May 18. In its regular session, the Assembly had adopted the Acheson plan for Assembly consideration of cases of aggression deadlocked in the Security Council and approved the merger of committee work on atomic weapons and disarmament, among several other decisions which he lists.
Marquis Childs, in Tuscon, Ariz., tells of the drive having begun by Republicans to obtain as many traditionally Democratic states of the South and Southwest as possible for the 1952 election. This drive was being accomplished through speakers sponsored by one organization or another carrying the Communist issue to civic clubs in cities and small towns in the South and especially in electoral-rich Texas. These speakers advocated driving the Communists from the Government and insinuated that practically everyone in Washington was a Communist.
Communism, in their view, was synonymous with "foreign ideology" and anything worthy of disapproval by the professional patriots, winding up as an old America First line, disapproving of everything foreign and, by implication at least, strongly isolationist. They appealed to the South by suggesting that only that region could save the nation.
One such speaker making the rounds of Texas towns was D. R. McDonald, who said that he was part of an organization known as National Republic, a fact-finding group gathering data on subversive activities, Mr. McDonald claiming it to be the organization which set HUAC on its way by providing the Committee with files covering subversives from 1918 to 1938. He criticized the New Deal and Fair Deal as having done such things inimical to the interests of the South as upholding, through the Supreme Court, the right of the Federal Government to tidelands oil and striking down segregation in certain instances.
Some members of local Rotary and Kiwanis clubs had protested for inviting a political speaker, but the usual response was unreserved enthusiasm.
Mr. McDonald had declared that the Army and Navy "as well as many high Government places in Washington", in addition to the State Department, were infiltrated with Communists. He suggested that there were 6.5 million active fellow travelers in the country who, in the event of war with Russia, would sabotage utilities, water systems and the food supply, paralyzing the nation within 30 days. He also claimed that the labor movement was rife with Communists.
It reminded of the kind of anti-foreign sentiment which had been exploited in the past by Southern demagogues such as Alabama's Tom Heflin.
The Republican organizations stood aloof from this effort but Republicans felt they would nevertheless obtain its benefits. Mr. Childs finds this conclusion doubtful as it also would alienate many fair-minded independent voters needed by the GOP to win. There were indications that Senator Taft might be handicapped by the support of extreme rightists within his party, his most passionate backing coming from editorials within the Chicago Tribune.
A pome appears from Ernest Rogers of the Atlanta Journal, though not accompanied by its usual prefatory "in which" statement:
"If your frame is draped with grease
You are what they call 'obese'."
And if you are a lying press
secretary,
You are what they call
lèse-majesté-scary.
Framed Edition
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