The Charlotte News
Saturday, November 29, 1952
ONE EDITORIAL
Site Ed. Note: The front page, via Sam Summerlin, reports that 49 U.S. B-29s had hit Communist airfields close to Manchuria and struck at other targets further south the previous night in their third biggest night raid of the war, with 34 of them being subjected to heavy enemy anti-aircraft fire. Low-flying B-26 bombers had flown over the targets ahead of the B-29s to knock out searchlights and anti-aircraft guns, but searchlights from across the Yalu River had nevertheless projected into the skies at the allied bombers. A small number of Communist night fighters rose from their base in Manchuria, and at least one of them had opened fire on the B-29s, while the others made passes but did not fire. Allied losses would not be announced until the weekly report.
During the week, 930 Communist trucks had been destroyed by night-flying B-26s, the largest number thus far in the year for one week.
On the battlefront, Communist artillery and mortar barrages hit allied positions on the central front, as 90 Chinese infantrymen attacked "Sniper Ridge", repulsed before dawn.
At the U.N. in New York, the major powers were reported to be engaged in a closed-door struggle to determine the successor to Secretary-General Trygve Lie, who had recently tendered his resignation in the hope of encouraging a peace resolution for Korea. The Russians were reported to be anxious to get Mr. Lie out of the way as soon as possible, while the Western powers were not in such a hurry, but believed that the issue of whether to accept the resignation had to be broached soon.
In Saarbruecken, in The Saar, voters would cast their ballots the following day in parliamentary elections, which had caused French-German relations to reach their nadir since the end of World War II. The West German Parliament the previous week had condemned the election as illegal and urged voters, who were tied economically to France but had strong language and cultural links to Germany, to boycott the election or turn in blank ballots. West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer warned that the West German Government would not recognize the results of the election. The Premier of the French-supported Government, however, predicted the previous day that a heavy vote would be cast. The underlying issue in the vote was whether the once-German state should be returned to Germany. The balloting the next day would not determine that directly but would have an effect on the final outcome by determining how much support the existing Government, committed to separation from Germany, would have.
President-elect Eisenhower announced this date, through Secretary of State-designate John Foster Dulles, that he would appoint Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., to head the U.S. mission to the U.N., to succeed former Senator Warren Austin. Senator Lodge had been defeated in the election by Congressman John F. Kennedy. It was also announced that the President-elect had appointed Emmet Hughes, an editor of Life Magazine, as an administrative assistant.
Attorney General James McGranery said this date that he intended to find out whether bribery had figured in the famous case of three paroled former gangsters of the Al Capone gang. He ordered FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to open a new investigation into the circumstances of the paroles, which had been granted in 1947. The three parolees were Paul (The Waiter) Ricca, Louis (Little New York) Compagna, and Charles (Cherry Nose) Gioe. The three, along with a fourth defendant who had since died, had been convicted of extorting more than a million dollars from the motion picture industry. A House committee had investigated the paroles in 1948 and demanded that the three be returned to prison, but found no evidence of bribery, although expressing that "big money" from an unknown source had been spent to obtain the release of the men. The men had been represented in the parole hearings by two lawyers, one from St. Louis and one from Dallas, who were described as personal friends, respectively, of President Truman and then-Attorney General Tom Clark, who, in 1949, had been appointed to the Supreme Court.
Senator Joseph McCarthy indicated this date that the Federal Communications Commission would come under scrutiny of the Senate investigations subcommittee in the new 83rd Congress, a committee which Senator McCarthy would chair. He said that he had received requests from two Republican Senators and one Democratic Senator, none of whom he named, for an inquiry into the FCC, to determine whether there was incompetence and waste, as well as favoritism in granting licenses to radio and television stations. He said that he had no opinion as to the merit of the complaints.
In Vatican City, Pope Pius XII this date announced the names of 24 new Cardinals, who would be elevated to the Sacred College in a consistory to be held January 12. The only American was James Francis McIntyre, Archbishop of Los Angeles. The consistory would bring the death-depleted ranks of the Sacred College to its full complement of 70 Cardinals. It would be the first consistory since that of 1946, in which 32 Cardinals had been named. The new Cardinals were from 12 countries. Eleven of them were Italian and, in all, there would be 27 Italian Cardinals.
The assistant Economic Stabilizer, Edward Phelps, suggested the previous day to Economic Stabilizer Roger Putnam that wage and price controls be lifted within 90 days, an action which Mr. Putnam opposed.
In Atlantic City, CIO leaders remained deadlocked in their attempt to select a new president to replace recently deceased Philip Murray, but the forces backing Walter Reuther, president of the UAW, appeared to be gaining ground. The labor organization's annual convention would open Monday.
In Alaska, the snow-covered wreckage of a C-124 Globemaster which had carried 52 passengers, all of whom had been killed on November 22 when the plane had crashed, was found by an educator-flier high on the icy slopes of an Alaskan mountain. It was one of nine military planes, with a total of 209 persons aboard, which had crashed or disappeared in the previous three weeks between Korea and Montana.
Cold, wet weather appeared to be the forecast for the Southwest and Midwest through the weekend, including snow, rain and sleet.
In London, British Post Office officials announced that a stamp celebrating the new Elizabethan reign would go on sale the following week, bearing an unprecedented glamour portrait of Queen Elizabeth.
In North Adams, Mass., a five-point deer antler was on display in a café, after it was bagged by a rabbit hunter who had not fired a shot. The man had been hunting the previous Thursday when the buck appeared suddenly and charged. Knowing that his shotgun was not suitable for deer and that deer season would not begin until December 1, he instinctively dropped his gun and seized one of the antlers, which then came out of the deer's head and was left in the hunter's hands.
That's called grabbing the deer
On the editorial page, "Foreign Policy under the GOP" indicates that in January, 1933, Adolf Hitler had become Chancellor of the Third Reich, at a time when Russia was celebrating the completion of its first Five-Year Plan, under which, with the aid of American and German engineers, it had built a foundation for its future industrial and military capacity. There were at the time ten million unemployed in the U.S. and taxes were consuming a third of the national income. There had been a recent Limitation of Armaments Conference at Geneva, which had accomplished nothing. The U.S. was concerning itself with external affairs to the extent of sending a representative to the League Council when it discussed Japanese aggression in Manchuria. Senator William Borah and his like-minded colleagues had kept the country out of the World Court. The Republican Party at the time, which had guided the nation since 1921, was relinquishing power to the Democrats.
Now, 20 years later, the Republicans were returning to power in the executive branch and in both houses of Congress. It predicts what might be expected from them in the area of foreign policy. It indicates that their most important and immediate concern would be Korea, and then other areas which might develop into such wars, in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Latin America, which had been shoved into the background, needed attention, and relations with the country's Atlantic allies had stagnated. The Truman Administration's containment policy with respect to Communism, which had been criticized heavily during the campaign, would be re-examined and possibly revised. A corollary to that issue would be the determination of policy toward nations presently under Communist rule. Reciprocal trade agreements would need to be renewed within a few months, raising trade and tariff policy. In addition, the role of the U.N. and regional pacts, foreign aid, propaganda and psychological welfare, and organization of the nation's international agencies would also need to be examined.
It points out that no Republican Senator presently in the Senate had ever served under a Republican President, the late Senator Arthur Vandenberg having been the last to do so. Thus, the Republicans would have the advantage of a fresh approach, but the disadvantage of lack of prior majority responsibility.
Senator Alexander Wiley of Wisconsin would be the new chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, and he had, following a period of vacillation, apparently adopted the internationalism of Senator Vandenberg. In the House, Representative Robert Chiperfield of Illinois would chair that chamber's Foreign Relations Committee, and he reflected the isolationism popular around Chicago.
The Congress had about the same degree of internationalism as did the prior two Congresses. But those who controlled the expenditures appeared more zealously protective of the public purse than their predecessors. The new President had, during the campaign, severely criticized many of the foreign policies of the Democrats, for which he had been a leader in implementation during and after the war. The new Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, was perceived as being overly concerned with Asia and not sufficiently concerned with Europe. The piece finds this idea groundless, but also believes that it was good to have a U.S. statesman familiar with Asia. Much of that perception developed from the fact that from 1950 until the previous spring, he had been assigned by the Truman Administration to Asia, where he competently had negotiated the Japanese peace treaty the previous year. His words and actions, however, clearly indicated his belief in closer relations with Europe. He had published a book in 1939, War, Peace and Change, in which he expressed the belief in regional arrangements going far beyond the present scope of NATO. (In the same book, he also identified "dynamic" societies in terms of change to be the totalitarian dictatorships of Germany, Italy, and Japan, "dynamic" by virtue of their acquisitive tendencies, as distinguished from the "static" or status quo societies, with tendencies toward maintaining what they had, protected by codified laws and treaties. In so dichotomizing the world, just prior to the outbreak of World War II, he managed to convince himself that the "dynamic" societies were better equipped than the static societies to confront and defeat or hold in check the encroaching economic threat to capitalism posed by Communism, and consequently went about the country giving lectures, suggesting that the West should leave Hitler and his allies alone to do their business and provide thereby a bulwark against Communism. He left out quite a bit of fact from his systemic analysis, such as concentration camps and systematic genocide, and the affective qualities of humanity generally.) In a speech before the Senate, he had countered the objections of Senator Taft to the country's entry into NATO.
Another persistent perception of Mr. Dulles was that his liberation policy for satellite nations constituted a dangerous invitation to war. He had not advocated violent revolution, but rather the sending of aid for passive resistance, non-cooperation and industrial sabotage. Mr. Dulles had not attached as much significance to that policy as had some in the press and some politicians from regions with a large proportion of Eastern European immigrants. He believed containment to be an inadequate policy, and in Life the previous spring, had said that the free world needed to develop the will and means to retaliate instantly against open aggression by Communist armies so that, if it were to occur, the country could and would be able to strike back.
The piece finds that a tall order, as it would require that if Russia were to invade Kashmir or Afghanistan, for example, the U.S. would retaliate instantly and even bomb Russia, leading inevitably to a third world war at a time of Russia's choosing. If the country did not carry out its threat of instant retaliation under such circumstances, its prestige and leadership would sink to a new low. It finds that the U.S. allies and the majority of the American people would question such a policy, especially as it would require a much greater military and tax expenditure than presently extant. Containment had never been viewed as a long-range policy, but rather as a means to draw the line around Communism as the realities of the country's defenses allowed. And it had been a successful policy. It suggests that if the Republicans could continue to hold that line while keeping alive the hope of subjected peoples, they would merit praise. It finds, however, that Mr. Dulles, fortunately, had not emphasized the notion of instant retaliation and it hopes that it could be passed off as an ill-advised tactic.
It suggests that Korean policy would primarily depend on what President-elect Eisenhower would find in his trip to the battle zone. In terms of trade, both the allies and American taxpayers preferred trade to aid. Agricultural exports, which had multiplied rapidly in recent years, had dropped perceptibly in recent months, but Republicans had usually voted against reciprocal trade agreements. Mr. Dulles would find it hard to change Republican views on that matter, as he would also with regard to decreased appropriations for propaganda and psychological warfare, which he wanted to increase. Fiscally conservative Representative John Taber, the new chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, would scale those programs down considerably.
It concludes that Mr. Dulles and President-elect Eisenhower should remember Democratic Congressmen in their prayers, and if both lived up to their deserved reputation as statesmen and conciliators, Americans would have reason to be thankful that they were the leaders of the Republican Party and the nation.
A piece from the Atlanta Journal, titled "'Hand in Hand We'll Go'", tells of stories appearing in the newspapers every day about failed marriages. But a story had appeared locally on the prior Tuesday, out of Margret, Ga., wherein a couple who had been married for 75 years understood "the open secret of contentment" and the tenderness expressed by an old Scottish woman through Robert Burns, which it quotes, beginning: "John Anderson, my jo, John/ When we first acquaint,/ Your locks were like the raven;/ Your bonnie brow was brent;/ But now your brow is bald, John,/ Your locks are like the snow;/ But blessings on your frosty pow,/ John Anderson, my jo!"
Drew Pearson tells of three persons who had disappeared behind the Iron Curtain in the spring of 1949, having their stories slowly divulged in the current spy trials in Czechoslovakia and the prior spy trial in Hungary, and by disclosure of refugees. Noel Field, former State Department official and European relief worker, who had gone to Czechoslovakia in May, 1949, had disappeared without a trace from his Prague hotel room, though later wiring the hotel to keep his clothes, following which a man had collected his belongings and paid the hotel bill. On August 22, 1949, his brother Herman had boarded a plane in Warsaw to fly to Czechoslovakia to look for his brother, and he, also, had disappeared en route. His name had been on the passenger manifest when the plane departed but when it reached Prague, he was not aboard, according to the Communist police. During the current week, an Austrian Communist newspaper had admitted what had long been suspected, that Mr. Field had been arrested. On August 3, 1949, Noel Field's German-born wife had gone to Prague to look for him, but also disappeared on August 17. Mr. Field's adopted daughter flew from Washington to Berlin and was reportedly met by the editor of the Soviet-controlled Berlin radio, but had never been heard from since. For the previous three years, State Department queries had gone without response from the Communists.
In the recent Czechoslovakian spy trials, an explanation had gradually unfolded, that Moscow had to get Noel Field out of the way before it brought charges against the alleged traitors in Czechoslovakia and Hungary. Otherwise, he would have denied the evidence. He had therefore been enticed into Czechoslovakia and arrested four months before the first trial began. Many of the Communists presently on trial were friends of Mr. Field, who knew them when they had been refugees in Western Europe and when he was helping them as a relief worker for the Unitarian Service Committee. He had been a Communist, but whether he had remained one was not known. His Communist connections had been brought out in the perjury trial of Alger Hiss. In 1945, he had arrived in Paris with a letter from Allen Dulles, then OSS chief in Switzerland, addressed to Captain Arthur Schlesinger of the OSS, presently a history professor at Harvard and a speechwriter and adviser for Governor Adlai Stevenson during the recent campaign. Mr. Field had tried to persuade Mr. Schlesinger to make use of his Communist protégés through the OSS to take care of Communist refugees and arrange for their repatriation to Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Russia following the war. Mr. Schelsinger had recently informed Mr. Pearson that at the time he had been suspicious of the request and did not see why the U.S. should subsidize a group of Communist exiles, and so rejected Mr. Field's offer. That had been the basis for the present spy trials in Czechoslovakia and the previous trials in Hungary.
After the war, Mr. Field had been given the job of arranging for the Communist refugees to return to their home countries, and since he was an American, and the U.S. Army controlled much of the transportation, he was the one person who could obtain military passes, travel orders, and the like. The Communist exiles whom Mr. Field befriended went back to Eastern Europe to become bigshots in their local Communist governments. They became the leaders of their countries, and while thoroughly Communist, were not Russian Communists, and to many of them, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, rather than Russia, came first. When Moscow began to call on the satellite countries for more military support, more wheat and more supplies generally, many of those leaders objected. They observed the example of Tito in Yugoslavia who had thrown off the yoke of Moscow, and secretly wondered whether they should do the same. Meanwhile, the Soviets were depressing the satellites' economy to the same low level as that of Russia, simultaneously building up the Russian economy at the expense of the satellites. The more that occurred, the more Titoism spread. It was the chief reason for the spy trials in Prague and Budapest. Another purpose was to smear the U.S. and show it to be plotting against the satellites.
Mr. Pearson suggests that Mr. Field might be asked to become a witness in the present trial in Czechoslovakia or in a future spy trial, but if so, such testimony would probably be given under the same circumstances as the earlier testimony of Robert Vogeler, the American businessman who had been a former captive in Hungary and reported after his release of being subjected to drugs and long periods of terrorist tactics.
Stewart Alsop tells of Washington being a city of ghosts presently, the ghosts of the outgoing Administration and those of the incoming Administration. The most ghostly was the President, who was busy working on his farewell address. No such address during his Presidency had been given such careful attention, as he hoped it would be his lasting legacy for the history books and that by which his Administration would be remembered.
Some at the White House favored delivery of the speech before Congress in January prior to the inauguration, while others believed that a prime time audience would be desirable and therefore urged its delivery as a fireside chat by radio.
It would need to be devoid of the partisanship which had characterized his campaign rhetoric. Advance reports indicated that he would revert to a tone of humility which had been absent since the early stages of his Presidency in 1945. There was word that he would break precedent and admit that there had been mistakes during his term in office, with a plea for national unity and a pledge of loyal cooperation with the new Administration.
Mr. Alsop indicates, however, that the speech would not welcome the Republicans to power and would not magnify the mistakes at the expense of the accomplishments. The President truly believed that the lobbyists and special interests would be able to take advantage of the inexperienced new President, powerless to control their avarice. He believed that the new President would be the captive of Senator Taft on foreign policy, endangering the current Administration's proud legacy in that field. He also believed that all of the ensuing trouble would be blamed unjustly on the Democratic Administrations. Mr. Alsop observes that there was good reason for so believing, as the Democrats had blamed the Republicans for the depression when they came to power in 1933.
The farewell address would be designed to reach voters in the future, in 1954 and 1956, as well as for the history books.
Marquis Childs, in Hollywood, tells
of the new 12 million dollar CBS Television City
The new CBS building was designed so that it could be quickly expanded, with present plans calling for construction up to 50 million dollars. The film industry was nervous about the intruding new medium, as the revenue for big movie companies had dropped as television receivers began increasingly to populate living rooms across the country. Some movie theaters were closing and the multi-million dollar risk of making a movie was a greater gamble than ever before. The biggest gamble was the industry's dependence for its very existence from revenue off foreign sales, equating to 41 percent of gross profits. But those sales were only possible in a world with free-flowing trade and foreign countries able to earn dollars by selling their goods in the U.S.
Consequently, the Motion Picture Producers Association of America had hired Eric Johnston, former head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and former movie censor, to promote the film industry in foreign lands. Inevitably, Mr. Johnston was also an advocate of the Point Four approach for raising industrial and living standards, with the stress on getting private U.S. investment in underdeveloped countries.
He concludes that with the growth of
television, the movies had been seeking a way to enter a new
That will fail. No one but an idiot
wants to pay to see movies on tv, even if in color
A letter writer encloses a postscript to Bill Sharpe's State Magazine story, "Crazy Season on the South Toe", which had been reproduced in part in the newspaper the prior Wednesday. He indicates that Mr. Sharpe had been their guest for the bear hunt, which he had described in the piece, and that most of the bear hunters were friends of several years standing.
The editors note that the letter writer, according to Mr. Sharpe, had written that during the opening hunt, a 516-pound bear was killed, and that it had been the letter writer who had convinced him not to believe all the stories about bears "dressing out" at over 400 pounds.
A letter from the secretary of the Board of Directors of the League of Women Voters of Charlotte thanks the newspaper for leading the Get-Out-The-Vote campaign, resulting in a record turnout in the recent election.
A letter writer from Hamlet tells of the four-star edition of the newspaper on November 27 having printed the small headline, "Floats, Beauties To Feature Event", immediately below a large headline, "Eleven Czechs To Die in Prague Purge Trial". He realized, on second look, that the lower headline referred to the Carolinas Carrousel. He also objects to the fact that there were words and letters missing in a number of items throughout that edition, and wonders whether the editors were sleeping, but excuses them because Earl Wilson was in town. As "an old newspaperman", he thanks them.
A letter from the principal of the Marie G. Davis School thanks the newspaper for its hospitality on B. E. M. Day, finds that the "finest gesture of goodwill" he had observed during the 40 or more years he had lived in Charlotte.
We do not know what "B. E. M." stands for, and he does not enlighten us.
The "Congressional Quiz" of the Congressional Quarterly asks when the 83rd Congress would convene, to which it answers Saturday, January 3, 1953, based on the 20th Amendment to the Constitution.
In answer to the question what was the electoral college, it indicates that it was a body of presidential electors from the various states, as determined by each state as to the manner of their selection—not as it incorrectly states necessarily by the popular vote plurality—, with each state having as many electors as it had Senators and Representatives.
In answer to a question regarding what would occur should President-elect Eisenhower die prior to the meeting of the electoral college, it answers that the Republican National Committee or a convention called by the Committee would have the right to choose the new President, and then the electoral college would vote.
In answer to a question as to whether there had ever been a President elected while not running under the label of a political party, it answers in the affirmative, that George Washington in his first election in 1788, had not adopted a party, but that in 1792, he had run on the Federalist ticket.
Framed Edition
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