The Charlotte News

Friday, November 21, 1952

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that allied infantrymen had destroyed about 750 fanatical Chinese during an assault on "Sniper Ridge" on the central front in Korea, and stopped lesser attacks elsewhere along the battle line. The allies had lost no ground in the attacks, some of which involved hand-to-hand combat. After an hour-long enemy attack the previous night on "Pinpoint Hill", the dominating height of "Sniper", the enemy had withdrawn, leaving two companies to forge ahead, a drive eventually blunted by the South Korean defenders, with allied artillery also having driven off four enemy armored vehicles, probably tanks, which had rained 50-caliber machine gun fire on the South Korean positions on "Sniper".

In the air war, U.S. Sabre jets had engaged MIG-15s for the fifth successive day the prior day and it was reported that one had been destroyed and another damaged.

At the U.N. in New York, the U.S. and seven other countries, Australia, Britain, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, France, and Turkey, were reliably reported to have determined this date to accept India's compromise plan for settling the Korean prisoner of war issue, the remaining deadlock to a truce in the war, recommending that it be given priority over other proposals before the General Assembly. The proposal was that both the U.N. and the Communists turn over their prisoners, approximately 132,000, to a four-nation commission, comprised of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Switzerland and Sweden, and that if there were a deadlock in the commission's subsequent recommendations regarding return of the prisoners, the commission would either elect or ask the Assembly to choose an impartial umpire. The eight assenting nations recommended that the resolution be amended, as proposed by British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, to provide that if four of the nations did not agree on an umpire within three weeks, the matter would be turned over to the Assembly. The plan provided that if prisoners remained under the control of the commission at the end of 90 days after an armistice, they would have their fate determined by a political convention called on Far Eastern problems under terms provided for in the draft armistice agreement.

The announcement the previous day that John Foster Dulles would be the new Secretary of State in the Eisenhower Administration appeared to assure that a super council would be formed to provide a master plan for the cold war offensive against Russia, as Mr. Dulles had made clear that the initial foreign policy goal would be to take the initiative away from Russia and that one way to do that would be to create a Cabinet-level council, including Cabinet members and ministers without portfolio, charged with Cold War planning. State Department officials had generally received the news of Mr. Dulles's appointment with approbation, despite some bitterness toward him from his attacks on Truman Administration foreign policies during the campaign. They believed that he would readily accommodate himself to the work of the Department and that because of his experience in the field, the transfer of control would be smooth between the Administrations. Officials expected him to establish soon an office close to that of Secretary of State Acheson, to enable him to observe and be ready to hit the ground running after the inauguration. Mr. Dulles had 45 years of experience in foreign policy, having been secretary of an international conference when his grandfather was Secretary of State under President Theodore Roosevelt in 1907. He had also played an important role in the development of national policies during recent years, as the Republican adviser to the State Department and as a member of the United Nations delegation. He had also been a close associate of the late Senator Arthur Vandenberg, a prime Republican advocate of bipartisan foreign policy, as well as of Governor Dewey, and had taken a hand in the formation of the U.N. and obtaining bipartisan support for it in Congress. He had also served on many missions abroad and had helped to gain passage of the Marshall Plan and in the formation of NATO.

Charles E. Wilson, president of G.M., named the previous day as the new Secretary of Defense, said that he would give the job the "darndest whirl it ever had". A story reminds that the first Secretary of Defense, James Forrestal, had committed suicide, that the second, Louis Johnson, had been fired by President Truman, and the third, General Marshall, had served for a year and then resigned. The present Secretary, Robert Lovett, had let it be known some months earlier, prior to the election, that he intended to leave the Government, regardless of who won. It indicates that even General Motors was dwarfed in size by the proportions of the defense establishment which the Defense Secretary would have to manage. It was believed that Mr. Wilson had received in 1951 over $626,000 in salary, and would receive $22,500 in his new position, with no bonus.

A piece distinguishes G.M.'s Charles E. Wilson from the Charles E. Wilson, former president of G.E., who had recently resigned as director of the Office of Defense Mobilization, and a third Charles E. Wilson, former vice-president of the Worthington Pump and Machinery Corp., none of whom were related.

It might be noted that President Kennedy, in 1961, named Robert McNamara as Secretary of Defense, who had recently been named president of the Ford Motor Co., the first such president outside the Ford family. Perhaps the association during the Cold War between the large automakers and defense derived from the contributions made by the auto manufacturers to defense during World War II and thereafter. And perhaps, subconsciously, the match game had to do with the word "mobilization".

President-elect Eisenhower named George M. Humphrey of Cleveland to be the new Secretary of Treasury, Herbert Brownell as the new Attorney General, and Harold Stassen, former Governor of Minnesota and president of the University of Pennsylvania, as director of the Mutual Security Agency. Mr. Brownell had been a leader of the Eisenhower campaign for the Republican nomination, and had been campaign manager for Governor Dewey in 1948. Mr. Humphrey was president of the M. A. Hanna Co. of Cleveland, coal and iron ore shippers, and a director of several large corporations. He had also been a former chairman of the industrial advisory committee of the Economic Cooperation Administration, administrative organization for the Marshall Plan. He had also been chairman of the business advisory council of the Commerce Department in 1948. Mr. Stassen, who had run for the nomination, had switched his delegate support to General Eisenhower at the Republican convention, enabling the General to win on the first ballot.

This date, the President-elect was meeting with Republican Senators William Knowland of California, Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., of Massachusetts, Alexander Smith of New Jersey and James Duff of Pennsylvania.

AFL President William Green died at his home this date in Ohio at age 81, from a heart attack. His death came within days of that of Philip Murray, longtime head of the CIO, who had died of a heart attack in San Francisco on November 9.

In Los Angeles, police sought answers to unsolved gangland executions dating from the bootlegging days to the modern Mafia, after the arrest of mobster Leonard C. Moceri, the "most wanted triggerman", who had given the police the slip for 20 years since he had been indicted in four mob killings in Toledo, O., during the period 1931 to 1933. Police believed that clues might arise from his interrogation as to who had killed Bugsy Siegel, Sammy Rommel, the attorney for Mickey Cohen, and regarding the double slaying of Tony Brancato and Tony Trombino in Hollywood a couple of years earlier. Detroit police also wanted to interrogate the suspect concerning the death of hoodlum Jack George, whose body had been found stuffed in the trunk of an automobile. The Los Angeles police were also seeking for questioning Mr. Moceri's wife, a ballet dancer, who had disappeared coincident with her husband's arrest. Mr. Moceri had been initially nabbed by officers of the telephone company who were trying to arrest a person who had been using slugs in a particular payphone, turning out to be Mr. Moceri, who had $1,800 in his wallet and was driving a Cadillac at the time of the arrest. It was only later, through fingerprint analysis, that the police realized who they had arrested. They also had found papers with names, addresses and telephone numbers in the possession of the suspect. The police were also questioning other underworld figures, including Tom Dragna, James (The Weasel) Fratiano, Mike Rizzo and Salvadore Panelli, whom police said were all "associates" of the Mafia. The latter quartet had been released after questioning.

In Tokyo, the "queen bee" of Anatahan, who spent more than five years on the lonely Pacific island with 31 men, said this date that she was through with marriage, admitting that she had married four men while on Anatahan, two of whom had been slain because of her, and that therefore she would remain single and make her living in an Okinawa dress shop. She was slated to appear in one of Tokyo's largest theaters to impart her story of primitive love and peril. Americans had rescued her and the 31 men from the island, returning her to her native Okinawa.

A number of North Carolina counties northeast of Asheville reported snow early this date, but flurries were only reported in Asheville and the surrounding area. Roads were impassable in Watauga and Ashe Counties and in the northern part of Avery County, according to the State Highway Patrol. Heavy snow, up to 10 inches deep, had created hazardous traffic conditions in Eastern Tennessee.

In Raleigh, a man paid off a parking ticket with 107 pennies, stating that he wanted to cause some trouble for authorities. Police said they did not mind the pennies, but objected to him having placed them in iron glue and wrapping each in a separate piece of tough paper before mailing them. The City Attorney advised the Police Chief that the City did not have to accept the pennies in that condition, and so authorities mailed notification that a warrant would issue unless the man paid the parking fine. The man showed up at police headquarters and paid the fine with unglued pennies.

A front-page editorial indicates that the United Appeal drive was about $55,000 short of its $738,000 goal, the campaign having been extended until the next Wednesday, and so urges contributing to meet the goal.

On the editorial page, "Star Players on Ike's New Team" finds the three new Cabinet appointees, John Foster Dulles as Secretary of State, Charles E. Wilson as Secretary of Defense, and Governor Douglas McKay of Oregon as Secretary of the Interior, to be good appointments by President-elect Eisenhower, in keeping with his promise to appoint the best people to Cabinet positions. It summarizes the merits of each appointee, and indicates that the decision by the President-elect to announce them early was wise, especially regarding State and Defense, as the new appointees would need ample opportunity to absorb background information on the urgent diplomatic and defense problems facing the new Administration, enabling them to act swiftly and decisively upon taking office. It hopes that the President-elect would continue to call the signals, as these appointments appeared to indicate he was doing.