The Charlotte News
Thursday, July 12, 1951
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via Jim Becker, that Vice-Admiral C. Turner Joy had broken off peace negotiations at Kaesong because Communist guards had refused to allow trucks bearing twenty press correspondents to pass to the conference site along with the U.N. negotiators. He left the next move up to the Communists. He said that until the Communists recognized that he was to have the personnel of his choosing accompany the convoy, there would be no further negotiations, and ordered the entire 17-vehicle convoy to return to Munsan. U.N. supreme commander General Matthew Ridgway said that the ultimatum was "all or nothing". General Ridgway had informed the Communists the prior day that henceforth a contingent of press representatives would be an integral part of the U.N. delegation.
Peiping radio confirmed that the peace negotiations had been broken off, contending that the U.N. negotiators had "arbitrarily" brought their press representatives with them.
General Omar Bradley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, was reported to have told Senators that he was hopeful of a settlement in Korea and remained optimistic despite the interruption in negotiations.
Senator Styles Bridges of New Hampshire supported the action of Admiral Joy and General Ridgway in standing firm against the Communists' attempt to exclude the press.
An air of pessimism regarding the talks pervaded official Washington, especially at the State Department, where there was concern over Communist radio broadcasting three demands for peace, that the ceasefire line be established at the 38th parallel, that all foreign troops be withdrawn from Korea and that conditions just prior to the war be re-established. While two of those points were subject to negotiation, there was no intention to withdraw foreign troops out of concern that the Communists would then again overrun the 38th parallel. Pessimism also concerned the continuing Communist argument over procedures at the start of the conference.
Ambassador John Foster Dulles announced that the U.S. and Britain would co-sponsor a treaty with Japan formally to end the state of war. It would be signed by an estimated 50 nations in San Francisco on September 3. It would strip Japan of pre-World War II overseas holdings but permit the former enemy to rearm and restore it to sovereign status. He said that he hoped Russia would join in the treaty but said that notwithstanding its non-participation, the treaty would be formed. The treaty would be followed by a bilateral pact between the U.S. and Japan permitting U.S. retention of bases in and near Japan, pending creation of a collective security organization in the Pacific. A commercial treaty with Japan was also part of the settlement.
The Ambassador also announced that a mutual defense pact had been concluded between the U.S., Australia and New Zealand.
The President asked Congress to pass a seven percent pay increase for Government postal and civil service workers, based on the current national emergency. Federal workers had received a general average pay raise of $140.50 per year in 1949, with greater raises for the lower paid workers.
William Green, president of the AFL, told Democratic House members that labor unions would not submit to wage ceilings without effective price control. James Carey, CIO secretary-treasurer, said that the whole labor movement supported the position.
In Kansas, flood waters over the eastern and central sections of the state had caused the greatest floods in the state's history and lapped over into parts of Missouri, leaving seven dead and five to eight missing. The Kansas River valley was hardest hit, with many sections of Topeka under water, along with portions of Lawrence, Manhattan, Abilene, and Kansas City, Kans., where the Blue River was overflowing in the Argentine section, threatening many plants in the city's industrial district. The University of Kansas in Lawrence, on a high hill, was not flooded.
In New York, recently retired Judge Learned Hand of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the bail of 15 mid-level Communists accused of violation of the Smith Act after the District Court the previous day had revoked the bail posted by the Civil Rights Congress for that organization being "unworthy of trust". Judge Hand also set appellate bond of $10,000 each for author Dashiell Hammett and Dr. W. Alphaeus Hunton of the Congress on their convictions for contempt for refusing to reveal the names of the persons who had funded the $80,000 bail posted by the Congress for the four missing convicted top Communists who had failed to surrender to begin serving their sentences a couple of weeks earlier when the other seven convicted defendants had done so.
Capus Waynick of North Carolina, Ambassador to Nicaragua since 1949, had been tapped to become Ambassador to Colombia.
Near Indianapolis, seven men were believed to have died in an explosion at a G.M. military jet engine plant. The FBI and Air Force were investigating for possible sabotage.
The Twin City Sentinel in Winston-Salem reported that J. Van B. Metts had asked to be relieved as adjutant general of the North Carolina National Guard after 31 years in the post because he was past retirement age as he would turn 75 later in the year.
In Charlotte, a vagrant from Milwaukee had been arrested for the shooting murder of the night watchman two nights earlier during the course of a break-in at a warehouse. On the vagrant's person was found a gold watch identified as belonging to the victim and a small good luck token bearing the name of the victim's brother. At the scene, fingerprints on a flashlight used to bludgeon the victim matched those of the man arrested, and a laundry claim check belonging to the man had been found beside the victim. A tip from a man saying that the vagrant had admitted killing a man but claimed the police would have a tough time proving it, had led to the arrest. Chief of Police Frank Littlejohn said that the case appeared "airtight".
On the editorial page, "Ridgway Gets Tough" supports General Ridgway in breaking off the ceasefire negotiations for refusal of the Communists to allow Western press attendance at the sessions. He was defending the right of the free world to have free flow of information on the negotiations.
It finds that his firm actions would be applauded in the West, especially after General Ridgway had acquiesced to the location of the conference set by the Communists and their dates for a preliminary meeting and the start of the conference. It predicts that the Communist representatives would agree to the demand.
"We Shall Not Forget" discusses the mass deportations of undesirable persons from Hungary to villages in the eastern sector for eventual transport to Soviet slave camps.
Bela Fabian, member of the executive Department of the Hungarian National Council, had said in the New York Times that there was no difference between Auschwitz or Buchenwald and Karaganda, one of the destination camps for the deported Hungarians, along with the gold mines of Kolyma and the cotton fields of Tashkent and Alma-Ata, where there were brutal conditions alternating between extreme cold and heat.
The Times had said that the President should take the same attitude as FDR regarding the Nazi concentration camps, that the acts of savagery would not be forgotten and would not go unpunished. It recommended naming names of the men responsible so that when circumstances permitted they could be held accountable.
The piece thinks that such treatment as violators of human rights would do more to deter Communist criminals from similar atrocities than a hundred diplomatic protests.
"A Reasonable Request" finds that Superior Court Judge W. H. S. Burgwyn had made a reasonable request in asking the people of the state to reserve judgment until his trial on his arrest for drunk driving. He claimed that he had not been drinking when arrested on July 1 near Franklin, Va., but rather had been ill for six months and that the heat of the day combined with low blood pressure had made him weak and dizzy. He said that the additional charge of hit and run resulted from his striking a funeral procession sign.
Governor Kerr Scott had deferred judgment on the matter until after the facts were adduced at trial.
It hopes the people would do likewise but that also there would be no delay in bringing the matter to trial.
"Mickey Cohen—Personable Punk" tells of Federal District Court Judge Benjamin Harrison, in fining Mr. Cohen $10,000 and sentencing him to five years for income tax evasion, had described him as "very personable" and a "good salesman", "lucky" and not as bad as pictured, somewhat at variance with the description of him by Senator Estes Kefauver, that he was a "contemptible punk" with a career "surrounded by violence and bloodshed".
The Judge had found that Mr. Cohen was able to conduct his gambling operations with the practical connivance of law enforcement in Los Angeles. But the piece finds that while perhaps that was some mitigation, it could not justify such a light fine and sentence for evading over $150,000 in taxes, enabling him to be eligible for parole in 20 months. It offered little incentive to the IRB agents to gather evidence on big-time gamblers.
A piece from the Raleigh News & Observer, titled "Wonderful Mistake", finds that perhaps greater caution on the part of drivers had caused the July Fourth holiday traffic toll to be less than that predicted by the National Safety Council, not just the fact, as many had speculated, that the weather was cooler than usual for the time of year. It hopes the trend would continue during the Labor Day weekend.
Bob Sain of The News reviews Crime in America by Senator Estes Kefauver, who had chaired the original itinerant crime investigating committee sessions the prior summer through spring. Many believed that the Senator should become President, while others perceived his pursuit as chasing roulette wheels or, as Senator Tom Connally had suggested during a radio program, "crap shooters". Mr. Sain likens him to a "Confederate combination of Tom Dewey and Melvin Purvis".
He questions how such a mild-mannered family man could produce such admiration among the righteous and, by like strokes, fear among the "guys and dolls of crime's shadowland". He suggests that it might have been timing and personality.
In the book, the Senator had related some unknown facts about the subject of crime in the country. There was no thrill of the chase conveyed by his writing, but rather an almost boring, methodical account of the investigation. He also had included 22 recommendations for smashing the national crime syndicates, which included continuing the committee's work, organizing a racket squad within the Justice Department and appointing a Federal commission on crime.
Mr. Sain ventures that readers would be most troubled by the intimate connection between organized gambling and politics, including collusion by law enforcement officers to protect the rackets, and contributions by the gangsters to at least one governor's re-election campaign—presumably referring to Governor Fuller Warren of Florida.
Senator Kefauver had concluded that if the country did not relax its vigor, it could put out of business "the Frank Costellos, the Joe Adonises, the Swillmans, the Anastasias, the Marcellos, the Guziks and Accardos, the Tony Gizzos, the Mickey Cohens, the smug Jimmy Carrolls and Kleinmans and Rothkopfs".
Drew Pearson tells of the White House deciding not to send Justice William O. Douglas as mediator in the Iranian oil dispute primarily because of the fact that his recent Life article on his prior visit to Iran had angered the Shah by portraying the country as full of crooks and grafters, prompting a warning to the State Department that he would not be safe in Iran. Another reason was that Walter Winchell, of whom the White House was not fond, had said facetiously in a column that Justice Douglas would file copies of reports from Yugoslavia and India, where he was currently visiting, with Mr. Winchell. No one at the White House believed the statement but the connection with Walter Winchell was enough to dispel any further thought of sending him to Iran.
King Farouk of Egypt had cut short his honeymoon in Sicily because the press got wind of his gallivanting around with another woman. When the Egyptian press got the story, the King suppressed three Cairo newspapers.
Former Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes and his successor, Oscar Chapman, had managed to get through one plank of the President's civil rights platform, the transfer of the former Japanese mandate islands from the Navy to civilian control.
Senator Hubert Humphrey sought to have Congress remain in session year-round because of the tremendous load of business, rather than returning to the old system of six-month recesses.
Senator Paul Douglas proposed that the demilitarized zone in Korea extend 100 miles above the 38th parallel and be policed by the U.N.
Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery of Britain had informed General Eisenhower that Britain would invoke NATO in case of fighting in Iran, a surprise to General Eisenhower who viewed the NATO alliance as a means of warding off Soviet attack, not for preserving British oil.
Secretary of State Acheson said that after the MacArthur hearings he felt like a drunk who had been tossed from a bar by a bouncer and then turned around and said that he could lick ten of those guys.
The Italian Government had uncovered shipments of two million dollars worth of arms to the Italian Communists in Northern Italy via four yachts.
Joseph Alsop, writing from Avon, Conn., tells of gleaning from his recent trip to Western Europe that the Western allies had become increasingly reluctant to accept America as an ally given the increased burden of NATO on Britain, France's weak government making it hard to raise men for more divisions and German rearmament pleasing no one.
Yet, even these problems would matter little were it not for the fact of failure of American leadership since the election of 1948, with a year and a half of disarmament preceding the outbreak of the Korean war. Added to that was the complacency after the victory following the mid-September allied Inchon landings, followed by the defeat in November-December after the Chinese entered the war, all of which had combined to produce in Britain and France a perception of U.S. unpredictability. That, coupled with the fear in Western Europe, the Middle and Far East of continuing military predominance of the Soviet Union, had eroded confidence in the U.S., producing a natural tendency to appease. These countries did not intend to surrender to the Communists but were fearful that the U.S. would plunge them into a war. Furthermore, the Kremlin had recognized the vulnerability and could therefore exploit it.
If America could lead as it ought, while there could be tricky times ahead, there would be no catastrophe provided NATO held firm. "The knowledge that he is skirting a precipice makes the mountaineer step more carefully but also more firmly, and this must be the American rule today."
Robert C. Ruark tells of being
susceptible to inanimate objects and machines striking him on
occasion. Singer Peggy Lee suffered from the same problem. Rugs
leaped at her from the floor and tripped her, chairs collapsed under
her, and she had stumbled into the feet of her husband when they
first met. She was the opium to the jukebox fanatics with her
"Mañana"
He recounts some of her tripping and machine attacks.
Ruth Borden had the same problem. When she cooked, a devil threw hamburger from the grill into the sand, burned the corn and set the house on fire. She had been attacked by a gin rummy table and proceeded to toss it into the Gulf of Mexico.
Mr. Ruark was saving up to build a round room without chairs, tables or doorsteps, where he would spend most of his time alone so that he could be safe on the cold, hard floor.
He may or not be still on safari
Framed Edition
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