The Charlotte News
Wednesday, December 19, 1951
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via George A. McArthur, that Communist news correspondents had labeled the U.N. list of 132,472 enemy prisoners useless, in that it was impossible to distinguish between the Chinese and North Korean troops as the names of the prisoners had been written in English. The U.N. command complained informally that the Communist list of 11,559 prisoners left too much of a discrepancy from the more than 100,000 prisoners believed to be in enemy custody, with most of the discrepancy being in South Korean troops. There was no formal protest by the truce negotiators on the prisoner of war issue, as that subcommittee stood in recess this date. The U.N. had promised to supply a list written in Chinese and Korean within a few days. A U.N. spokesman said that the U.N. had given the enemy exactly what the U.N. had requested from them, and that the list was only a confirmation of information already given the Communists by the Red Cross, communicated in the original language.
U.N. delegates of a second subcommittee indicated to the Communists that they would not proceed to a determination of how to supervise the truce until the Communists agreed to rotation of troops and inspections behind the lines to prevent secret military buildup in violation of terms of an armistice.
The Defense Department, meanwhile, was checking the Communist list and sending out telegrams as quickly as possible to next of kin of those named, with the advice that there was no assurance of the accuracy of the list at that time. There remained a discrepancy of 7,853 between the Americans officially listed as missing in action and those named on the list. Some of the names on the list were so garbled that a check of all three services had to be made to verify who was actually named.
In Charlotte, two wives who heard via radio that their husbands' names were on the list were not too surprised at the news as both had received letters from their husbands since they had been reported missing, one so reported in November, 1950, with two letters having arrived in August, 1951, one dated the previous January and the other the previous March, with a third having arrived the prior November, dated in September. Her husband had written that they were sleeping in a warm building and were being fed sufficiently, and during the peace negotiations had been allowed to listen to the radio and to receive one English magazine and newspaper per week. He had mentioned another prisoner, a major, in the same camp from Charlotte, and the wife had called this prisoner's wife and informed her of the fact, discovering that she also was receiving letters from her husband.
A partial list of the North Carolina prisoners contained on the Communist list is printed on the page.
In ground fighting in Korea, allied infantry repulsed several light enemy attacks at scattered points along the front, most of the small amount of action taking place in the western section. U.S. Eighth Army headquarters indicated that no American soldiers had been reported killed in the previous 24 hours ending at 6 p.m. on Tuesday. Other U.N. and South Korean units had reported some casualties, but they had been very light.
Far East Air Forces had flown 950 sorties the previous day, in attacks against rear area supply and transportation networks, as well as against front-line troop positions.
In Paris, the 60-member U.N. political committee overwhelmingly adopted the Western disarmament plan, by a vote of 44 to 5, this date and rejected the Soviet plan for an immediate ban on atomic weapons, a ban which would have taken effect before any system of inspection was established. The vote followed the longest debate on a single issue in the history of the organization. It would be formalized by a vote of the General Assembly consisting of the same members. Only the Soviet bloc members voted against the Western plan, which would set up a new rearmament commission designed to work for a step-by-step reduction of arms and establishment of a system of international inspection before any ban of atomic weapons.
Also in Paris, Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Vishinsky stated that he hoped that the four American fliers forced down in Hungary would receive "due attention from military justice authorities" within Hungary. He did not elaborate on what he meant by "military justice". The previous day, a Budapest dispatch had quoted a Hungarian weekly newspaper as referring to "testimony" of the detained fliers, possibly suggesting that the Communists were attempting to extract confessions from them. Immediately following Mr. Vishinski's speech, Representative Mike Mansfield of Montana, a member of the U.S. delegation to the General Assembly, demanded from Mr. Vishinski to know if he meant that there would be a trial for the fliers, and he responded that he was speaking in general terms and not for the Hungarian Government. The plane had been forced down November 19 during a flight from West Germany to Belgrade.
The White House had indicated the previous day that the President would not like it if any Federal employee accepted a Christmas present or any other kind of present from anyone who might have an axe to grind with the Government. The President, however, did not issue any specific orders. The President had sent a letter to Raymond Foley, head of the Federal Housing and Home Finance Agency, stating that his agency's no-gift policy, long in place, was wise and that he believed it to be the correct course for all Government employees—a matter covered further in a piece on the editorial page by James Marlow.
Another snowstorm and cold wave struck again across wide areas of the nation, already hit by nearly a week of cold weather. The new storm centered in the northern and central Rockies and snow fell in the mountain regions and the northern plains states, with sub-zero temperatures again recorded in the snow-covered Midwest. Snow had reached 50 inches in upstate New York and 19 persons had died in that state since the previous weekend. Some parts of Vermont had 18 inches of snowfall, and icy conditions beset much of the rest of New England. Pennsylvania expected up to 15 inches in some areas. Chicago had received 31.7 inches of snow already, nearly its entire winter average of 33.4 inches.
In Greensboro, a Guilford County
Grand Jury this date charged Greensboro City officials with
dereliction of duty in their handling of police bribery cases,
declaring that "public morality has reached a new low in
connection with the delayed release of the police officers."
This brief story does not make clear to what the word "release"
refers, whether to termination, identification or otherwise
On page 11-A, a new Gallup poll showed that respondents favored a meeting between the President, Prime Minister Churchill and Premier Stalin. The Prime Minister was already set to visit with the President in Washington during January.
On the editorial page, "Why All the Secrecy?" questions why the Mecklenburg County Commissioners had held its December 3 meeting regarding the airport runway expansion in private, concluding with a vote to reject the proposal, and then held its December 17 meeting, at which proponents, including the National Guard representatives, and opponents, including residents nearby the proposed expansion, were heard again, this time with press allowed but still in executive session otherwise, also resulting in a negative vote on the proposal. For the North Carolina General Statutes, it points out, provided that all boards of county commissioner meetings had to be in public. Thus, the Mecklenburg Commissioners were in violation of the law.
It suggests that the Commissioners be cognizant of the fact, lest some alert citizen seek to set aside their action as having been taken under illegal circumstances.
"Dealing with a Champ" indicates that American negotiators needed to be on their toes when Prime Minister Churchill arrived in Washington the following month. He would likely ask for financial aid or allocation of needed material, such as steel, so that Britain could meet its severe economic crisis and contribute to the NATO alliance, while participating in the Western European Schuman Plan for a coal-steel pooling of resources and in the European army, both of which were desired by the U.S.
Mr. Churchill was a champion of personal diplomacy and would uphold British interests during his visit to Washington. The bad results from divergence in Anglo-American policy in Iran was evident and it was imperative for the two countries to have a common policy in Western Europe.
"How Are We Doing?" tells of Senator Lyndon Johnson, head of the Defense Preparedness subcommittee, having recently declared that production of war materiel was way behind schedule, while Senator Burnet Maybank, head of the joint Defense Production Committee, had reported that everything was fine in terms of production of both guns and butter, as stated by Defense Mobilizer Charles E. Wilson. Then, the previous week, the Harriman Committee, which was surveying NATO rearmament, issued criticism of nine of the twelve NATO nations, excluding the U.S., for falling behind in their commitments of rearmament of NATO. Belgium had incurred the greatest criticism for doing less than its capabilities. Then, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., with considerable stature in the fields of foreign policy and defense, had stated that the U.S. had delivered only about a fifth of the materiel promised to NATO, because of slipping defense production.
It concludes that it was no wonder that the public might be confused as to the actual status after such diverging opinions had been expressed on production.
"Divergent Dialectics" tells of Russia debating at the U.N. that the U.S., with its great prosperity, ought shoulder the burden of 38.92 percent of the costs of the organization. The U.N. had scaled down the contribution to be made by the U.S.
But at the Politburo, the argument had been put forward that the U.S. was on the verge of economic collapse, and so the piece recommends that the State Department save that report for the ensuing year's debate at the U.N. on the U.S. contribution and then submit it as evidence of the need to reduce its proportionate share of U.N. expenses.
A piece from the Wall Street
Journal, titled "Nice Bargain in Easy Chairs
A piece from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch takes issue with the President's criticism of the newspaper in his recent press conference, at which he said the Post-Dispatch had engaged in partisan politics by going after a Democratic IRB tax collector in St. Louis, James Finnegan. The President had taken a defiant stance in saying that he would not seek the resignation of either Attorney General J. Howard McGrath or newly installed DNC chairman Frank McKinney.
The piece responds that the newspaper had taken on Republican mayors and state representatives and had taken an active part in exposing the Teapot Dome scandal of the Harding Administration, as well as the newspaper's single-handed work in bringing to light the record of the Green Administration in Illinois, the latter leading directly to the election of Governor Adlai Stevenson, whose large majority of over a half million votes had arguably been responsible for the President carrying Illinois in 1948 with a plurality of only 33,000 votes.
It concludes, therefore, that the President had been "more than a little partisan in his approach to the current scandals". His advisers had counseled him to sit tight until the storm blew over, that it would not be very big, but the President had concluded that it called for some action, and so he had ordered the discharges of Lamar Caudle as head of the Justice Department's tax division, and had claimed a hand in the removal of Mr. Finnegan as tax collector.
He might take further action, it suggests, but it all had come slowly and under pressure. It finds that his recent statement that "wrongdoers have no house with me" would have been more impressive had it been made earlier and accompanied by an announcement of specific, drastic measures for ferreting out wrongdoers in the Government and bringing them to justice.
An editorial from the Greensboro Daily News finds no fault in the mockish characterization of Lamar Caudle during his testimony before the House Ways & Means subcommitee, as portrayed ruefully in Life, and to which the Monroe Journal had taken offense. It says, to the contrary: "The former 'Sistant 'Torney Gen'al fairly drooled cawn-pone, 'you-all' stuff; he dropped consonants and vowels with abandon; it was as if he purposely set out to satirize the rolling sweetness of the Southern drawl. The average Southerner, hearing his voice by radio, might reasonably ask: 'Is somebody pulling my leg?'"
It concludes that it could, however, take exception to one commentator who had referred to Mr. Caudle as "a typical Southern gentleman," saying that it resented that, "suh."
But, you fawget how Time and Life ha-ad, faw ye-ahs, mawcked Southe'ne's' ac-cents with reckless abandon and complete indifference to the sensitivities of So'the'n gentlemen and laties, while presentin' it all with fictitious exactoration. So have some pride in yore region o' de c'unt-ry. Defend yowa her'tage against brutal attack from those unrepentant fas'-talkin' Yanquis, who will only brand you, along with the re-est, a cawn-pone hick from the sticks. Don't you sta't pullin' that high-falutin' stuff ova heya, o' we'll make you live up theya with 'em and see how you like it faw 'while. Mista Beasley, as all-ways, has the right i-dea.
Drew Pearson tells of every
Administration, when it first came to office, using a new broom
Following this tax clean-up, the Roosevelt Administration settled into a reasonably honest period of tax collection, albeit with some tax cases having been fixed during that time. Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau had, however, objected so loudly to those exceptions that they remained few in number. His counsel at IRB had been future Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, and the chief of his intelligence unit had been the incorruptible Elmer Irey.
When President Truman acceded to the Presidency in 1945 and appointed John W. Snyder to become Secretary of the Treasury, Charles Oliphant had become the IRB counsel under the mediocre George Schoeneman as IRB commissioner and Dan Bolich as deputy commissioner. All of these appointments had been made at the behest of former DNC chairman Robert Hannegan, who, along with the big-city bosses, had been responsible for placing Senator Truman on the ticket in 1944. It was during this period that the large amount of graft and gift-taking to protect friends began at the IRB.
All of the focus of late which had taken place on the IRB and its corrupt agents had caused a general diminution in morale among the many innocent agents who performed their jobs properly at IRB and the Justice Department. During the Truman Administration, about 60 percent of the tax fraud cases had been stopped in one of three places, Mr. Oliphant's office, the Justice Department's tax division formerly supervised by Lamar Caudle, or at U.S. Attorneys offices in different parts of the country.
Mr. Pearson promises to examine in a
subsequent column how this system operated and had spread frustration
through the ranks of many honest tax collectors and special agents
Marquis Childs, after return from his tour of Europe, discusses the return of the recent visitors from Congress to Europe, amid the general criticism of Congressional junkets during the recess as a waste of money. He finds, to the contrary, that most of the delegation which had visited Strasbourg to attend the European Consultative Assembly and then toured a half dozen countries had impressed most observers as being genuinely concerned with the effort to form Western unity for the common defense. Their speeches had strongly reinforced the attempt of some leaders in Europe to create a unified steel and coal pool under the Schuman Plan and a European army under a common defense minister. The freedom of American parliamentary exchange had surprised European delegates, but on the whole, the Americans were greeted as refreshing and wholesome.
The only exception had been Senator Alexander Wiley of Wisconsin, to become chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee should the Republicans retake the Senate in the 1952 elections. Senator Wiley had proved irritating by indicating, in the face of any European suggestion of divergence from American policy, that they could expect cessation therefore of American aid by Congress. The Europeans were especially startled to find the possibility of Senator Wiley succeeding to the chairmanship of such an important committee.
Mr. Childs nevertheless concludes that the cost of Congressional travel was quite small in relation to military and economic aid expenditures in Europe and Asia and it was only logical, with this great expenditure at work, that members of Congress would feel the need to inspect the results. The real test of such a journey would come the following year when foreign aid expenditures were again proposed by the Administration, and members of Congress would have to vote on them based on what they had observed and concluded from their visit.
James Marlow tells of at least two Government agencies which for years had been proceeding under a policy of its employees being allowed to receive no gifts, not even lunches, and to hold no outside interests which would conflict with their duties, making disclosure of their interests mandatory upon taking the employment. Those two agencies were the Food and Drug Administration, headed by Charles W. Crawford, and the Housing and Home Finance Agency, headed by Raymond M. Foley.
The FDA had about 1,000 employees scattered among 16 field offices around the country, in addition to the main office in Washington, and had initiated during 1951 more than 360 criminal actions against offenders of FDA regulations, while seizing more than 1,400 offending goods. The agency had been founded in 1906, with only three men since that time having been fired for crookedness. The agency had a no-gift policy since its founding.
Mr. Foley, at HHFA, had, years earlier, put forth a similar policy at the agency. An official of the agency in Puerto Rico had recently been fired for failing to list his interests in a housing company when he took the job.
Both of these examples had prompted the President to order a general rule for Government employees that they were to accept no gifts from persons doing business with the Government.
Framed Edition
Links-Date — Links-Subj.