The Charlotte News
Monday, July 9, 1951
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that General Matthew Ridgway, supreme commander of U.N. forces in Korea, warned in a press conference that there was no guarantee that peace would come from the talks to begin the next day in Kaesong in South Korea on "the performance stage". He said that the press would not be allowed to attend the first session but that they might in subsequent sessions. The talks were set to start at 10:00 the next morning Korean time, 7:00 p.m. on Monday, EST. The five U.N. representatives would be Admiral C. Turner Joy, Maj. General L.C. Craigie, Maj. General Henry I. Hodes, Rear Admiral Arleigh Burke, and Maj. General Paik Suh Yup, the latter of the South Korean Army. The Communists would be represented by two Chinese and two North Korean military commanders.
The lead U.N. representative at the preliminary meeting on Sunday, Col. Andrew J. Kinney, said that it had been a "100 percent success". Another envoy reported, however, some disagreements which had to be worked out and that there were several times when he thought the talks would collapse.
Meanwhile, as reported by correspondent Stan Carter, allied troops stormed Mount Taeu in a pincers attack starting Sunday morning on the east-central front and, having neared their objective at Yanggu twelve hours later, were then driven back by enemy counter-attacks. It accounted for the only major action on an otherwise quiet day along the front. Scattered skirmishes were reported in the central and east-central fronts. No ground action was reported from the area of Kaesong.
Allied F-86 Sabre jets shot down one Russian-built MIG-15 in the northwestern sector, the third hit for the pilot, Captain Milton Nelson, making him the leading MIG-killer still flying in Korea. Three other MIGs were destroyed and two damaged in air fighting on Sunday.
The President recommended a fourth star be awarded to Lt. General James Van Fleet, commander of U.N. ground forces in Korea. Among other promotions of generals, he recommended that a third star be awarded to Maj. General Anthony McAuliffe, the commander in World War II who had succinctly replied to the demand of surrender by the Germans at Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge in December, 1944, "nuts".
Governor Thomas Dewey of New York visited the Korean front, visiting some locations north of the 38th parallel. He sat in on the regular daily briefing of General Van Fleet. The Army band played "Sidewalks of New York" for him. The Governor said that he was not allowed to fly over Kaesong.
The President offered the services of foreign affairs adviser Averell Harriman to mediate the settlement between Iran and the British regarding the oil nationalization dispute.
The President asked the Congress to grant him authority to end the state of war with Germany at his discretion, blaming Russia for the failure to form a final peace treaty with Germany. Britain and France formally declared the end of the war with Germany as part of a coordinated move by the Big Three Allies to put pressure on Russia to conform. Australia, New Zealand and South Africa also followed suit.
In Moscow, the Soviets showed off their new jet planes, which American military observers said appeared capable of supersonic speeds. The British had reported that the Soviets had developed a new long-range fighter, the LA-17, which rendered the MIG-15s being used in Korea obsolete, capable of going 650 mph, equipped with the Russian version of a Rolls Royce turbojet engine with rocket-powered auxiliary motors.
The U.S. Navy had announced on July 3 that its experimental D-558-2 Douglas Skyrocket had surpassed all previous altitude and air speed records, implying that it could go faster than 1,000 mph and fly higher than twelve miles.
The Senate Preparedness Committee, chaired by Senator Lyndon Johnson, issued a report saying that it had found rent gouging of servicemen's families around six Army camps. The report also found instances of gambling and prostitution in the vicinity of some camps and would investigate the reports in conjunction with the crime investigating committee. Slot machine operators had moved into some of the camp areas.
The House was getting set to vote on economic controls but probably not until the end of the week, after it disposed of about 80 proposals for amendments.
The Agriculture Department reported that cotton cultivation was estimated as of July 1 to be 29.5 million acres, compared to 18.6 million acres a year earlier. The Department predicted an annual yield of 16.52 million 500-lb. bales, compared to 10 million the year before, the fourth smallest crop in the prior 25 years. The Government had set a goal for the year of 16 million. The crop was being grown free of Government controls on production and marketing, which, along with insect infestation and unfavorable weather, had limited the prior year's crop.
A cash appellate bond of $10,000 had been raised for jailed millionaire Frederick Vanderbilt Field, locked up for contempt for refusing to reveal the names of those who had raised $80,000 in appellate bail for the four missing top Communist leaders of the eleven convicted under the Smith Act, seven of whom had surrendered to begin serving their sentences following affirmance of the convictions by the Supreme Court. The release of Mr. Field, however, was delayed further so that the prosecutor could ask for a guarantor acceptable to the prosecution, having already been delayed during the weekend until the banks opened.
In Chicago, a thief who stole a bag of groceries from a store also took, unexpectedly, $2,000 in cash receipts contained at the bottom of the bag.
In Norfolk, Mississippi State College senior Dick Johnson set a new gliding record of 370 miles, from Elmira N.Y., in eight hours and nine minutes, averaging 70 mph and reaching an altitude of 7,000 feet.
On the editorial page, "Ridgway's Great Assignment" tells of General Ridgway having conveyed the message that there was no assurance of peace coming from the negotiations for a ceasefire, set to begin the following day in Kaesong. It had not yet been determined whether the Communists were coming to the table in good faith or for ulterior motives.
Yet, the preliminary negotiations the previous day had been successful, according to the three-man U.N. delegation, and so there was additional reason for cautious optimism.
The five-man U.N. delegation, headed by Admiral C. Turner Joy, would begin the task of negotiation the next day, but the final decision, it posits, on whether there would come from it peace would be in the hands of Moscow. There were indications that the Russians now believed the Korean aggression had been a mistake and that its continuation would harm international Communism more than an armistice. If it turned out to be the case, peace might result.
"About American GIs" tells of the Army finding the term "GI" to be undignified and demeaning, that a soldier was a soldier, and therefore having ordered information officers to cease use of the term.
It disagrees, says that U.S. Army troops were "minute men", descended from those at Lexington, a citizens' army, not a professional "austere, stiff-backed, goose-stepping" force out of the tradition of the Nazi Wehrmacht. No one would have thought to call the individual soldiers comprising the latter force an "RH", standing for the German for "Government Issue".
"Doughboy" or "GI" meant a lot more to Americans than "soldier". The English had their Tommies, the Australians, their Diggers, the French, their poilus. Those terms were not considered derogatory. So, it decides that it will stick to "GI".
"A New 'March of Time'" tells of the "March of Time" newsreel series, which had
played in theaters since 1935, making the most ordinary movements
It finds it likely, should the
quality of the latter equal that of the former, to be a much needed
addition to the "uncomic comics, unmusical musicians and
inexpert experts on everything from animal life to atomic fission"
now populating television
"Aftermath of the Fourth" provides some incidents of fireworks tragedies across the nation occurring on the Fourth of July. Four children had died in a fireworks-related flash fire in North Chicago; a 45-year old man in New Haven, Conn., died from a "mortar salute" exploding in his face; a defective "helicopter" firecracker went off in a rowboat in Akron, O., causing two of the three occupants to drown; and a skyrocket had exploded and killed a 54-year old attendant of a fireworks exhibition in Brighton, Mich.
A piece from the Wall Street Journal, titled "Those Stiff-Necked New Englanders", tells of a committee of New England economists having issued a report urging that the people of New England were too self-reliant and should look more to Washington for help, exploiting Federal Government programs wherever possible. It concludes that the committee no longer subscribed to the notion that God helps those who help themselves but rather urged New Englanders to "become fellow travelers of the Washington all-powerful central government school."
Drew Pearson tells of the House Judiciary Committee having voted eighteen to seven in executive session to turn the nation's Federal tidelands oil properties over to three states, California, Texas, and Louisiana, and the oil companies to which those states awarded concessions, effectively overturning, if passed by Congress, the Supreme Court rulings which had declared ownership of the tidelands to be in the Federal Government because of the oil reserves being within navigable waters.
Meanwhile, eleven Senators openly introduced a measure whereby the royalties from this oil administered by the Federal Government would go to support the schools and colleges of the nation. The latter risked the wrath of the oil companies in so doing, whereas the former group tried to keep their votes a secret.
He names the Senators, including Republicans Wayne Morse and Charles Tobey, and John Sparkman, Estes Kefauver, and Hubert Humphrey, three of the four ensuing vice-presidential nominees for the Democrats.
He also names the Congressmen on the Judiciary Committee who voted for turning over the tidelands oil to the states, as well as the institutions of higher learning within their districts which would, under the Senate bill, receive the oil royalty money unless the House bill were passed into law. They included Representative Hamilton Jones of Charlotte.
The President had already once vetoed legislation to turn over the tidelands oil to the states.
Marquis Childs tells of John Foster Dulles having formed the basis for the signing finally of a treaty with Japan. The ceremonial signing was set for September 1, just short of six years after the formal surrender of Japan, probably to take place on the West Coast, likely in San Francisco where the United Nations had been formed in June, 1945.
Neither Nationalist nor Communist China would be represented at the treaty table, in accordance with a compromise worked out by Mr. Dulles whereby the Japanese would choose which government they wanted to recognize.
It was believed that rapid progress on the treaty had prompted the Russians to propose peace negotiations in Korea. There was indication that participation in the Japanese peacemaking might be more important to the Russians than admission of Communist China to the U.N. or control of Formosa. But Russian and Communist Chinese participation would likely be rejected by the U.S.
As presently formulated, the treaty would say nothing about preservation of American bases in Japan. That was to be worked out separately in a bilateral agreement between the U.S. and Japan, probably to be signed simultaneously with the treaty. There would also be a three-way pact with Australia and New Zealand.
Mr. Childs finds the fact of the treaty arrangements being made by Mr. Dulles and the credit for it being given him by Secretary of State Acheson to be the hallmark of bipartisan foreign policy. If it could be extended to Congress, he suggests, there would be reason to be hopeful about the trend in the Far East.
Stewart Alsop discusses the prospects for General Eisenhower being nominated for the presidency should the Korean war end, as it would strengthen the President's position and that of General Eisenhower as against the MacArthur-Taft wing of the Republican Party. He views a truce as beneficial to the prospects of General Eisenhower and detrimental to the prospects for Senator Taft obtaining the GOP nomination. The General's supporters were convinced that he would accept the Republican nomination if offered, under certain conditions, those being that there would be no political strings attached, that the Republican platform would conform to his foreign policy views, and that it would not affect his ability to complete his job of being supreme commander of NATO in its formative phase.
A concern for his supporters was that a year hence in the spring, the earliest he would leave his post with NATO, it might be too late to seek the nomination. The General would not wish to compromise his position in Europe by openly indicating in the meantime his desire for the nomination or endorsing Republican policy views.
Some believed the General to be traditionally a Democrat and thus more inclined to the Democratic nomination, but his supporters among Republicans had been assured that he would neither seek nor accept the Democratic nomination.
His primary organizational support came from Governor Thomas Dewey, who, while the titular head of the party after being its nominee in 1944 and 1948, no longer wielded great authority nationally. Senator James Duff of Pennsylvania, who did not get along with Governor Dewey, was another major force behind General Eisenhower, along with former Senator Harry Darby of Kansas, probably to become the leading public organizer. Heavy financial support would be available for his candidacy.
Many GOP professionals were unwilling to support a man for the nomination whose political views were unknown, but were even less eager to see the party go down to defeat for the sixth straight time.
Robert C. Ruark tells of the farmers and oil producers receiving Government subsidies, along with others, and so he sees no reason why the Government should not subsidize the average white-collar worker's purchase of a $1.20 Hamburg. He was getting sick and tired of playing "Forgotten Man in the great gravy train."
A pome appears from the Atlanta Journal, "In Which It Is Revealed That Boldness Is Not Always The Best Approach:
"Gals that are shy
Somehow get by."
While guys overly reticent
Most times get jettisoned.
Yet, too much affront adjudged be his sin,
Thus, how, not becoming a chump, doth one win?
Framed Edition
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