The Charlotte News

Thursday, April 19, 1951

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via Olen Clements, that allied troops had launched a limited attack north of newly-captured Hwachon dam and reservoir on the east-central front in Korea. The dam was seized on the previous day. The enemy pulled back suddenly all along the central front west of the reservoir and U.N. commanders had no explanation for the withdrawal.

Rain, smoke, and haze made air observation impossible, but U.N. ground troops patrolled aggressively without opposition far ahead of their lines in the craggy heights.

On the western front, heavy rains slowed allied progress.

Engineers and road crews worked to make the roads behind the lines weather-proof, in anticipation of the rainy season.

Correspondent Belman Morin tells of General MacArthur's arrival in Washington at 12:31 a.m. for the first time since 1935 when he had ended his tenure as chief of staff of the Army. Even at that early hour, he was greeted by a crowd of 12,000, many having waited for more than two hours to see him.

At 12:30 p.m. this date, the General addressed a joint session of Congress, in which he restated his four points of strategic policy for the Far East, an economic blockade of China, a naval blockade of the China coast, removal of the restriction on aerial reconnaissance over China, and use of Chinese Nationalist ground forces with U.S. logistical support. He complained that when the Chinese joined the fight in Korea, it had called for a readjustment of strategy in Washington but that such was not forthcoming. He said he had sought more troops but that, too, was denied him. He also said that Russia would not necessarily intervene if the war were carried to Communist China. He stated at the outset of the speech that there could be no appeasement of Communism in Asia without simultaneously undermining the effort to halt Communism in Europe. He also said that the Communist effort was global and the effort to stop it could not be divided. He concluded his 36-minute speech with his career closing remark from the old ballad, that "old soldiers never die, they just fade away."

The speech had not been cleared by the State Department per the President's directive to all military personnel. The Department had not asked that the General submit the speech and he made no offer to do so.

The White House said that the President had not planned to watch the televised speech and that no one from the White House was going to the Capitol to hear it in person. Maj. General Harry Vaughan, the President's military aide, had been his representative in greeting General MacArthur upon his arrival in Washington. The President gave Federal workers authority to leave their jobs to watch the parade for the General in the afternoon.

Hundreds of thousands of American took a "television holiday" to watch the speech of the General, as schools recessed, businessmen stayed home, and factories set up tv showrooms. CBS estimated 50 percent of the tv sets on the coaxial cable system from the East Coast to Omaha were operating. The probable audience for the speech was estimated at 30 million. In Kansas City, a seventh-grade teacher took her class to her home to watch the speech on tv. In Paterson, N.J., the Rotary Club canceled its usual luncheon speaker to watch the speech. Many other clubs rented tv sets for the purpose.

That was the way it was when each of the first three American astronauts were launched into space.

Turn the channel. We don't want to miss "Howdy Doody".

Winston Churchill appealed to the U.S. to permit a British admiral rather than an American to head the NATO navies in the Atlantic. He spoke in opposition to the Labor Government accepting American Admiral William Fechteler in the post.

Senator Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan, in ill health for more than two years, died in Grand Rapids at age 67. His family disclosed that he had a heart ailment for the prior 25 years and had postponed an operation to remove a tumor from his lung for nearly a year between fall, 1948 and fall, 1949 so that he could help NATO be ratified. He was the principal Republican exponent of bipartisan foreign policy.

The Democratic majority in the Senate was increased to 49 to 46 by the Senator's death, and Democratic Governor G. Mennen Williams was expected to appoint a Democrat to replace Senator Vandenberg.

On the editorial page, "Architect of Unity" praises Senator Vandenberg for being the chief GOP proponent of bipartisan foreign policy. He had swayed his fellow Republicans on many occasions, lending his efforts in favor of the U.N. Charter in 1945, the Marshall Plan in 1947, NATO in 1949, and the Inter-American treaty. He was often at odds with other Republicans but his prestige and trusted patriotism enabled him to sway them. It finds him to have been one of the great Senators, always with the national welfare in mind on domestic and foreign policies, placing it above partisan politics.

He had died at a time when the country needed him most, to keep the world structure he had helped to design from being destroyed. There was no one in the Republican ranks to take his place.

"Stalin May Decide the Debate" discusses Herblock's cartoon on the page, suggesting the title regarding the debate on whether the Far East or Western Europe should be the primary battle front against Communism. Stalin could discredit the President and prove General MacArthur correct by attacking Japan or Formosa or pushing Communist China to attack Indo-China or by sending his submarines to attack U.N. ships in Korean waters. Any one of those acts would precipitate a general war.

Or, he could move on West Berlin or Yugoslavia or invade the Middle East, causing public opinion to favor bolstering of Western Europe.

It concludes that it was a sad state of affairs that Stalin was in the position to determine the final verdict in this "Greater Debate" between the Administration and General MacArthur.

"A Victory for the People" congratulates the City Council for having passed a revised zoning ordinance to update the four-year old ordinance, which had been unclear in some of its language.

"Abuse of Freedom" tells of a father in Chicago who refused to allow a blood transfusion desperately needed by his dying six-day old daughter because he believed that Genesis 9 condemned transfusions as "eating blood". The piece wonders if his religion also forbade murder.

A piece from the Louisville Courier-Journal, titled "Maybe They Invented the 'Fix'", tells of the director of the Kazakhstan Institute of Physical Culture having been caught red-handed fixing a soccer game against Uzbekistan, both Soviet states. It appeared to be contrary to Communist doctrine and akin to the point-shaving scandal in U.S. college basketball. So, it would be doubtful, it suggests, that Pravda would condemn the American scandal when the Soviets had their own variant.

It could be the saga of the Red Shoes again.

Drew Pearson tells of General MacArthur having made a comeback in the public mind, based on his war record and, moreover, the unquestionably sterling record of his being occupation commander in Japan. Things had been different in 1932 when he had, as chief of staff of the Army, taken personal command of the Army troops to root out the veterans who had come to Washington to camp out and demonstrate for a bonus. He had been perceived as a bully in that earlier episode, having made the mistake of taking personal command of a situation which should have been handled by a colonel.

In returning to Washington, the General for the first time saw the Mall, replacing the grove of trees obscuring row houses which had served as the accommodations for the 20,000 Bonus Marchers—and which, beginning in mid-May, 1968, would serve as the locus for the Poor People's Campaign, originally conceived by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., prior to his assassination in Memphis on April 4.

The General also saw for the first time the Mellon Art Gallery, the location of which being where, in 1932, two of his troopers had ridden down a black veteran who dared the cavalry to advance on him as he waved a large American flag.

The General had then blundered again when he held a press conference at which he claimed credit for the "victory" over the marchers.

But now he had made a comeback, and while he shared credit for the victory in the Pacific war with Admirals Nimitz and Halsey, Generals Walter Krueger and Robert Eichelberger, he had, virtually by himself and by the force of his dynamic personality, brought stability to Japan after the war and made a distrustful nation into one of genuine admirers of the United States. No one could ever take from him credit for that remarkable transition.

Joseph Alsop, in Tehran, discusses the unusual strength of the Iranian Tudeh Party, without a nationally known leader and only possessed of a small core of true Communists. Yet, it was a serious threat to Iran's stability, receiving its substantial financing from Russia. Russia, since 1946 when it was putting pressure on Azerbaijan, had been trying to exert control over Iran. It had now, however, substituted a softer approach for its earlier raw aggression, with the Tudeh Party penetrating the weak labor movement in the country. About fifty percent of Iranian university students and recent graduates were said to be Communists or fellow travelers.

He lists four causes for the situation, Iran's leaders having failed to put the national house in order, the Kremlin having changed its tone a year or so earlier to the softer, more subtle approach, taking advantage of internal squabbles to enable Iran to forget its protection from the West, the British having behaved as if it were still prewar times until the recent nationalization of the oil industry, and the U.S. having made plentiful mistakes by arousing hopes of lavish aid which never materialized, neither working with the British nor developing an independent policy, and never intervening sufficiently in local politics to produce any result.

Marquis Childs discusses Special Ambassador John Foster Dulles being sent for the third time in the previous year to Japan to continue his work in developing a treaty with Japan, finally to end the occupation and officially end the war. After the firing of General MacArthur, Mr. Dulles wanted assurance from the President that there would be no change in policy with respect to Japan and the Far East, and the President had given him that assurance. Secretary of State Acheson gave Mr. Dulles virtually full authority regarding the formation of the treaty.

Mr. Dulles did not believe as did the British, that the Communist Chinese should be part of the negotiation of the treaty.

Mr. Childs believes that Mr. Dulles was one of the few men in Government working for the good of the nation and not for partisan gain. Republicans, however, were attacking anyone who sought to work with the Administration, and Mr. Dulles knew that in the wake of the MacArthur firing, those attacks would increase. But he agreed to return to Japan because of his sense of responsibility in a world torn by dissension and threatened with destruction.

A letter from a minister approves of the News editorial regarding the dismissal of General MacArthur, finds the criticism of the action by the President to be from the fact that the Administration was suffering from adverse publicity in the wake of the Kefauver committee hearings on organized crime and the RFC hearings on Government influence. The writer believes that time would show the nonsense of such hysteria stirred by the demagogues.

A letter writer recommends voting for the opponent of Charlotte Mayor Victor Shaw, to send a message of disapproval for the discharge of the Park & Recreation Commission after it had approved the prior year the building of a recreation center in Latta Park despite objections of local residents.

A letter writer praises the editorial of April 17, "A Challenge to Charlotteans", urging citizens to vote and participate in their democracy if they wanted to curb crime, graft, and other societal problems.

A letter writer hopes that former Mayor Herbert Baxter would return to politics and run for the City Council.

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