The Charlotte News
Friday, April 20, 1951
ONE EDITORIAL
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that rearguard Communists had pressed two counter-attacks against the allies closing in on Chorwon, an enemy base which was a prime objective for the allies in the central front in Korea.
A U.N. tank-infantry column captured
a hill one mile north of the eastern tip of Hwachon reservoir
U.S. Fifth Air Force fighters and light bombers flew 552 sorties, hitting 20 towns and attacking 100 enemy vehicles.
General MacArthur's claim in his speech the previous day that the Joint Chiefs shared at one time his views on the Korean war strategy with respect to bombing Chinese bases, blockading coastal areas of China, and use of Nationalist Chinese troops, with U.N. logistical support, against Communist China sparked demands in Congress from Democrats and Republicans for a policy showdown with the Joint Chiefs.
The Defense Department had responded to the General's speech by saying that General MacArthur had been fired on the unanimous recommendation of the civilian and military advisers to the President, including the Joint Chiefs, and that the President had believed that the General could not give his full support to Administration policy on the Far East.
In Tokyo, at allied headquarters, an unidentified key staff officer said that General MacArthur could provide proof for the contentions of his speech and that he would provide it in testimony before Congress. Other officers said that meetings between the General and the Joint Chiefs in Japan were often private and that therefore only the participants knew what had been said.
General MacArthur, in remarks to the D.A.R. annual meeting in Washington, complained of "regimentation" in the country, suggesting, according to correspondent John Hightower, that the General intended to broaden his dispute with Administration policy into domestic matters as well as foreign policy.
An estimated 7.5 million
In a radio broadcast from Washington, four Senators, Homer Capehart of Indiana, Robert Taft of Ohio, Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, and Herbert Lehman of New York, angrily argued with one another regarding General MacArthur's points in his speech on Far Eastern policy. Wurlitzer King Senator Capehart told reporters afterward that at one point he had pushed Senator Humphrey—future Vice-President and Democratic presidential nominee in 1968—, out of the radio studio after Senator Humphrey had called him a dirty name—probably "Juke Jiver" or something like that—, and that he had also pushed back the other Democrat present, Senator Lehman, when he sought to intervene in the shoving match. Senator Taft said that he heard no epithets and saw no blows exchanged, that he was a peaceful man and had only helped to separate the men.
Rather than that old barrack ballad
they knew so well
The Army estimated that enemy casualties in Korea amounted to 813,873 through the prior Wednesday, with 504,835 being North Korean and 17,143 not yet distinguished between North Korean and Communist Chinese. The total included 145,145 prisoners.
American casualties through the same date totaled 60,775, including 9,195 killed, 40,681 wounded, and 10,899 missing.
In London, British officials reported that the U.S. had agreed that a British admiral, probably Admiral John Edlesten, should be appointed as the Mediterranean naval commander for NATO.
Crikey, why not Australian, man?
The Free China Anti-Atrocity League on Formosa claimed that the Chinese Communists had executed 2,260,000 persons.
Off the coast of Louisiana, the Esso tankers Suez and Greensboro collided in a fog in the Gulf of Mexico, with an unknown death toll, expected to be high, as all aboard the Greensboro appeared to have been killed. The ships were still burning.
In Bombay, India, four gunmen, operating in broad daylight in the heart of the city, robbed the Bombay branch of Lloyds Bank of London of the equivalent of $275,000 in Indian rupees, killing one person and wounding three others.
A Government ban on use of aluminum for civilian products was lifted by the National Production Authority, instead ordering a 50 percent cut in civilian usage during the ensuing two months. The NPA also put plastic nylon, not nylon used in hosiery and other wearing apparel, under allocation starting in June.
Anything goes...
On the editorial page, "The MacArthur Address" praises the General's speech before Congress for being without any hint of bitterness or partisanship and providing a well-organized defense of his Far Eastern policy. It proceeds to analyze in detail the 36-minute speech.
What say we skip that as being essentially, in the final historical analysis, save for its dramatics and emotion of the moment, inconsequential?
Anyone, incidentally, who professes to believe that had General MacArthur's strategy been adopted, anything short of world war would have been the result is not well tuned to history. Sure, the Vietnam war might have been avoided because the world would have been in ashes.
—Well, how would we know unless we tried it?
A piece from the Christian Science Monitor, titled "Golomyanka", tells of a fish story out of Russia that such fish were so transparent that a newspaper could be read through them. It finds the stories related by many Soviet diplomats and propagandists to have been quite transparent since North Korea had invaded South Korea under the inspiration of the Stockholm Peace Appeal.
Drew Pearson tells of Senator Taft, during a recent GOP policy committee conference, warning his fellow Republicans not to tie their prospects too closely to General MacArthur as it was unknown what he would say when he returned to the U.S. Senator Eugene Millikin reminded that other conquering heroes had put their foot in their mouths when they returned home, as had Admiral Dewey and Charles Lindbergh. The harshest blame was cast on Senator Harry Cain for having put the party on the spot with his resolution to declare war on China. Senator Cain said that he was seeking to pin the blame for the war on the President.
Senator William Jenner of Indiana took offense at the Taft remark that no responsible Republican Senator would advocate impeachment, saying he was entitled to his own opinion. Senator Jenner then demanded immediate impeachment and used profanity in so doing.
The Norfolk shore patrol had been accused by a Rear Admiral of kicking and beating servicemen and throwing them into the brig without shoes.
The Associated Press collects reaction from editorials of various newspapers around the country anent General MacArthur's speech to the joint session of Congress the previous day. Most had praised the General's attitude and manner while questioning his arguments.
The New York Times suggests that if the general were wrong in his claim that the Soviets would not attack in the event of U.N. action directly against Communist China's supply bases and coastal areas, as he had been wrong about the Chinese entering the war in force in the fall after advance by the allies to the Yalu River, then it could lead to a world war.
The New Orleans Times-Picayune finds that the Joint Chiefs would wonder at the General's statement that the country should undertake action to stop Communism on both the Far Eastern and European fronts, when most in the military-political command had wondered how the country could undertake the task with respect to one of those areas.
The Chicago Tribune urges that the General had shown to Congress its duty to abandon the U.N. and Acheson program of "drift and delay".
The Rocky Mountain News declares that the General was "fit to stand with Lincoln."
The Minneapolis Tribune finds that the proof had not been shown that the General was right.
The Los Angeles Times opines that it was one of the greatest speeches ever delivered in the Capitol.
The New Orleans Item says that the General had not satisfied most Americans that if the war were expanded outside Korea, Russia would not necessarily join it.
The St. Louis Globe-Democrat predicts that when the aura of adulation over General MacArthur abated, there would be a calmer assessment of the military-foreign policy.
The New York Daily News believes the General to have laid every card on the table he had for the "little Harry Truman and his military and political yes-men to top if they" could.
The New York Daily Mirror found the General to be a "perfect soldier" and therefore incapable of disobedience.
The Kansas City Star says that it was not clear why the Soviets would not honor their mutual assistance treaty with China and enter the war should the U.N. bomb Chinese bases.
The New York Herald Tribune finds the General to have defined the matter in terms of military strategy rather than policy or patriotism.
The San Francisco Chronicle says that the issue was to decide which among the alternative policies offered was the course best calculated to preserve an honorable peace, or, failing that, to win a decisive victory which could form the foundation later for an honorable peace.
The Jacksonville (Fla.) Times-Union finds the General to have attacked the policy extant since prior to World War II, to have Europe take precedence over the Far East.
The Newark Star-Ledger wants to examine the issues raised by the General and establish the true facts.
The Portland Oregonian states that while supporting the General's fundamental logic, it did not have to subscribe to his global policies.
The Oakland Tribune finds that many lives might have been saved had Congress invited the General to speak to it much earlier.
Actually, they did and he did not deign to grace them with his royal presence.
The Chicago Sun-Times doubts that the General would "fade away". He had done nothing to abate the controversy between him and the President.
The Providence Journal believes the General to have emerged from the speech as a genuine hero.
A letter writer who had been a Republican all of his life finds Senator Paul Douglas of Illinois an interesting Democrat, as he was honest and could set a good example for others.
A letter writer from St. Pauls, N.C., finds the Great Debate in Washington to be no more than the "Big Lie" that the future existence of the U.S. depended on recognition of Communist China.
Where on earth are you getting your information, your lucky-mood watch?
A letter from a minister in Durham finds that the people of North Carolina did not run the state and that lobbyists needed to be curbed, that all dogs should be encouraged to chase them day or night to pluck their feathers.
Framed Edition
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