The Charlotte News
Friday, January 18, 1952
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via Olen Clements, that one Communist Chinese delegate to the truce negotiations in Korea had called America's allies "running dogs" during this day's negotiations, but that otherwise, tempers were calmer on both sides than in recent days. No progress was made in the talks regarding truce supervision, as the Communists continued to insist that their promise not to send combat planes into Korea during an armistice was a sufficient guarantee against increase of air strength, and that they did not therefore need to agree not to build or maintain airfields. Likewise, no progress was made in the other subcommittee regarding prisoner of war exchange, as allied negotiators sought in vain to convince the Communists to agree to voluntary repatriation of war prisoners, such that those who did not want repatriation could remain on the side where they were captured.
U.N. investigators made another trip to the Kaesong area to examine a bomb crater, which the Communists contended had been produced by an allied aerial bomb the previous day.
In the air war, U.S. Sabre jets, screening for Thunderjet strikes against enemy rail lines and supplies, fought briefly with part of a formation of 120 enemy MIG-15 jets, resulting in no damage. Three enemy jets had been downed and seven damaged in three previous days of engagements. Allied losses were now only being reported weekly.
In the ground war, action was limited to patrol engagements along the eastern front, where an allied patrol fought with an entrenched group of the enemy west of Heartbreak Ridge for 1.5 hours before withdrawing.
Prime Minister Churchill met this date with Secretary of Defense Robert Lovett, preliminary to his final conference with the President, before departing Washington the next day. He was escorted to the Air Force command center at the Pentagon, accompanied by Air Force chief of staff, General Hoyt Vandenberg. Also present were Secretary of the Air Force Thomas Finletter, Secretary of the Army Frank Pace and Secretary of the Navy Dan Kimball. It was hypothesized that the Prime Minister might be talking to Mr. Lovett regarding American aid to Communist-threatened Southeast Asia as well as anent British objections to the plan to have an American admiral as supreme naval commander for NATO.
In Tunis, French-led police arrested some twenty top Tunisian Nationalist and Communist leaders in pre-dawn raids this date and took them to secret rural detention areas. A large labor federation had ordered an immediate and unlimited general strike in Tunis in protest of the arrests and the previous day's bloodshed, in which three Tunisians had been killed and at least 50 seriously injured when police fired into mobs at Ferryville and Bizerte. The French rulers of the dependency had banned a two-day national congress to be held this date and the following day by the Neo-Destour Party, dedicated to independence from France for Tunisia, and set up police blockades across all roads to the city to prevent delegates from entering. One of those arrested was the leader of the party.
In San Francisco, at a meeting of
the RNC, David Ingalls, campaign manager for Senator Taft, stated the
previous night that the party should not "select a good-looking
mortician to preside over its death as a political organization"
and ought not "buy a pig
In Los Angeles, 2,000 families were ordered evacuated this day after rain caused flooding into flat lands south of the city. Emergency centers were set up in Norwalk, Artesia and Hawaiian Gardens, and the Coast Guard moved up vessels from its bases at Long Beach and San Pedro. Through much of Southern California there were rushing torrents, mud-closed highways and stalled cars. By early morning, 4.17 inches of rain had fallen in the city during the previous 18 hours. Larger amounts had fallen in foothill communities which ringed the city. In most areas, churches and schools were closed and were being used as evacuation centers. Heavy snows were falling in the mountains and U.S. Highway 99 to San Francisco had been closed because of two feet of snow between San Fernando and Bakersfield.
In the vicinity of Deal, England, a four-masted German bark, one of the world's last cargo-carrying windjammers, the Pamir, sent an urgent distress call from 20 miles off the coast of England in the North Sea. Forty-five boy sea cadets and 46 crewmen were aboard the vessel, suffering through a howling snowstorm packing gale-force winds, as rescue vessels approached. The ship had left Hamburg for Rio de Janeiro on January 10, carrying a cargo of 4,000 tons of cement, and the boys on board were in training for the Merchant Marine.
This is the second dateline from Deal during the week, the first having been on Monday, regarding the rescue of the 37 crewmen and then the captain of the wrecked French steamer Agen.
The losers sat around saying, "Shut up, and keep pushing."
The Office of Price Stabilization, pursuant to new price control laws, authorized increases in wholesale prices for GM automobiles, ranging from about $60 on Chevrolets to $103 on Cadillacs, based on increased expenses.
Comptroller General Lindsay Warren told the Senate Agriculture Committee this date that he had ordered a full and complete investigation of shortages of commodities in the Agriculture Department's grain storage program, after GAO auditors had discovered shortages of more than 3.8 million dollars worth of grains in a single office in Dallas, Texas.
Congressman Harold Hagen of Minnesota explained that the reason for his bill which raised postcard rates from one to two cents had been to prevent the Government from competing with commercial print shops which produced picture postcards, which competition would have caused persons to become unemployed. While picture postcard rates also rose to two cents, there was no penalty for quantity mailing as with regular postcards.
On the editorial page, "Guardian of the Empire" asserts that many members of Congress would likely refrain from criticizing Prime Minister Churchill after his well-received speech to a joint session the previous day. He had been firm with Congress only one time in the speech, demanding that the U.S. maintain control of the atomic bomb until peace was secured. He had complimented General MacArthur for his guidance of the restoration of Japan, while also complimenting Secretary of State Acheson for his diplomacy and General Eisenhower for his military leadership, thus placating both sides of the aisle.
He complimented the U.S. for bearing 90 percent of the burden in Korea, but then suggested that Britain bore the brunt of the military expenditures in the Suez. He believed that the Soviets might render a service to free peoples by bringing them closer together to resist Soviet aggression.
He asserted that the British Empire and the U.S. should help to speed the union of Europe, but refused to cast off the Empire to join the European Union.
The piece suggests that after Mr. Churchill would pass from the scene, it was unlikely that the British Empire would long survive, but finds that as long as he remained as Prime Minister, "the tail of the British Empire is large and will not be wagged", paraphrasing his own statement regarding mainland China.
"A New Label for Dr. Graham" remarks on the denunciation by Jacob Malik, Soviet delegate to the U.N., of Frank Graham in his role as mediator of the dispute between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, having called him a "tool of the Pentagon" rather than serving the U.N. Security Council.
It recalls several quotes from the Soviet press which had denounced Mr. Graham in 1948 at the time when he was serving to mediate the dispute between Holland and the Indonesian nationalists. The Communists had then called him a "tool of Wall Street", using "intimidation, blackmail and bribery" to accomplish his goal, which they claimed was the expansion of American power in Indonesia to make it into an "American colony".
It finds that since his mediation of the Indonesian dispute had been successful, it stood to reason, given the like Soviet criticism presently, that he was achieving more success than had been publicized in the Kashmir dispute. It concludes that no one who knew Mr. Graham believed him to be either a tool of Wall Street or a tool of the Pentagon, or, conversely, a tool of Moscow, as "some of his less principled opponents tried to label him in 1950"—a reference to the race-baiting and Red-baiting smear campaign conducted against him by some Willis Smith supporters in the 1950 Senate race.
"A Fertile Field for Investigation" remarks on the upcoming investigation of corruption in the Department of Agriculture, falling into a familiar pattern, after the charges had first been revealed by a newspaper, in this instance, the Wall Street Journal, prompting members of Congress to call for the investigation. Predictably, also following the pattern, Secretary of Agriculture Charles Brannan had stated in response that the stories regarding commodity shortages held on consignment by the Government as security had given his opponents an excuse to launch a political attack.
The allegations were that about six million dollars worth of the nearly two billion dollars worth of farm produce, held by the Commodity Credit Corporation as security for Federal loans and to maintain commodity prices near parity levels, was missing from the granaries and elevators where it was stored throughout the country. In certain of the more publicized instances, bribes had been allegedly provided to hide the fact of the shortages, leading in two instances to suicides and in a third to an apparently deliberate fatal car accident.
It indicates that in fairness to the Agriculture Department, there were only 74 investigators to look at 12,500 warehouses and the oversight agency had begun prosecuting some of the alleged misconduct before the matter was widely publicized. Moreover, the total loss thus far was relatively small when compared with other scandals or Congressional pork-barrel politics. It also allows, however, for the possibility that the scandal could be broadened during the investigation, as the extent of some of the other scandals in the Government had become worse with scrutiny.
"That French Accent" tells
of Roger Rico
The piece disagrees with Rodgers &
Hammerstein that the character spoke proper English and notes that
the role had previously been played by Ezio Pinza, who spoke with an
Italian accent, therefore finds that they had missed an opportunity
by not casting M. Rico in the role and thinks it remarkable that a
French accent
Drew Pearson tells of the American taxpayers being called upon, without their full knowledge, to pick up the tab for the closing of the Abadan Oil Refinery in Iran, as the U.S. was helping to supply the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company 500,000 barrels of refined oil per day to make up for the loss of production by the refinery, for which the British were paying 600 million dollars annually, thus depleting their treasury of dollar reserves, which in turn would have to be supplanted by American aid to enable the British properly to contribute to NATO defense. Britain had depended heavily on the oil from the refinery for revenue.
He indicates that had the State Department taken the advice of Justice William O. Douglas, who had visited Iran two years earlier and warned of the political instability in the country amid impoverished conditions, then the shutdown of the refinery could have been averted. Meanwhile, Premier Mohammed Mossadegh and Iran were being driven into the Soviet sphere, despite the fact that the Premier had for long been resistant to Communism and Russian influence, as he had blocked confirmation of the 1949 treaty with Russia, which would have given Russia power to exploit oil in northern Iran, and had also thrown out the Russian puppet-rulers of Azerbaijan. But with the refinery closed and Iran not receiving oil revenues, the suffering Iranian people were moving closer to Communism. At the same time, U.S. aid to Iran had increased to avoid this result.
American taxpayers were therefore losing part of the U.S. oil reserves, were being forced to bail out Britain and its dwindling dollar reserves, and to bolster Iran's economy. The conference between Prime Minister Churchill and the President had not resolved these issues.
General Eisenhower was being smeared by the opposition, such as the "Partisan Republicans" of California, who were circulating the rumor that the General was a stooge of Stalin. He quotes from the circular, suggesting Communist support and ties with the General. Later, Senator Owen Brewster of Maine, a primary supporter of Senator Taft for the Republican nomination, obtained the circular and began to distribute it in Maine.
Marquis Childs discusses the President's economic message to the Congress and the fact, as per the usual case, that he would not obtain the type of budget or increase in taxes he had sought during an election year. The President well understood that reality, as a glum Cabinet meeting just before Christmas had revealed, considering a paradox suggested by Secretary of State Acheson, indicating that within the first 90 days of 1952, the future of the Western alliance would be determined, based on the notion that the predicted deficit for fiscal year 1952-53 would be ten billion dollars, moving the national debt close to or above the established legal limit of 275 billion dollars, a limit which would not be raised in an election year, just as taxes would not be raised to meet the deficit. The result therefore could be that Congress might begin to cut the defense and foreign aid budget, with some members wishing to eliminate virtually all foreign aid.
The Soviets were not oblivious to these election-year facts and might therefore exploit the situation by undertaking another aggressive move elsewhere.
Robert C. Ruark tells of trying to find a missing button to his one pink shirt to wear with his one gray suit, signifying that he was not being cared for very well by his wife or the three other females within the household. He bemoans the fact that in an age of frozen food, garbage disposers and other electric gadgetry, women were free to go shopping during the day and await the tired husband's arrival from work, drained of his energy, while the wife was boundless in hers, having done little work during the day.
He proposes in response to this neglect of the husband's sartorial needs, that husbands deposit their buttonless shirts and pants and all undarned socks and droopy-waisted drawers onto the living room floor the same day the preacher was scheduled to visit, in which case, he suggests, they might reshape the world.
A letter writer, having read the five-year report of progress of the newspaper under publisher Thomas L. Robinson, as published January 10 on page 10-A, indicates her congratulations, but adds that she was more interested in the favorable impact of the newspaper's broad thinking on local and national issues, and regards the ensuing decade to be important in the growth and development of the community, under the influence of the newspaper.
Another letter writer favorably comments on the same report and congratulates the newspaper.
A letter writer compliments the newspaper's editorial of January 10, "Persecution Works Both Ways" regarding the protests in Bogotá by Catholics against the dedication of a Baptist chapel, resulting in rock-throwing demonstrations at the church, until the intervention of Ambassador Capus Waynick of North Carolina, permitting the dedication ceremony to continue. He agrees with the point made in the editorial, saying that it was not just because he was a Baptist.
A letter writer responds to a letter of January 15, disagreeing with the premise of that letter, that none of the Republican candidates since 1932 had really wanted to become President, and had thus engaged in "me-tooism", endorsing both the domestic and foreign policy of the Democrats, indicating only that they would administer those programs more efficiently and with greater economy. He indicates that Governor Alf Landon had not engaged in any me-too politics in 1936, but rather espoused the ideas of William McKinley from the turn of the century. Wendell Willkie in 1940 and Governor Dewey in both 1944 and 1948, had, by engaging in "me-too" politics, polled increasingly large numbers of voters, and in 1948, it was arguable that Governor Dewey had lost because the President had goaded him into several statements opposing specific social and economic legislation of the previous 20 years. He indicates that he was sure that Democrats would be glad for the Republicans to enter the campaign under the banner of William Howard Taft.
A letter writer from Phillipsburg, N.J., asks for help from the community in locating his father who had lived in Charlotte in 1943. He had never met him, provides a description given by his mother, says that his mother had remarried since that time. He provides an address if you happen to know the gentleman, whose name he provides. He may still be looking.
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