The Charlotte News

Tuesday, February 12, 1952

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via William Jorden, that the Communist negotiators promised this date to develop a new plan for correcting the latest truce issue, the recommendations to belligerent governments, the Communists having not indicated when such a proposal would be ready. The negotiators adjourned their meetings on this part of the truce negotiations until that plan was ready. The sticking points were that the Communist three-point proposal for a meeting to take place 90 days after the armistice would allow for talking about all the problems of Asia, would omit South Korea, which was not a member of the U.N., and would include Communist China, even though the Communists had repeatedly stated that China was not officially involved in the war but had only contributed "volunteers" to the action. The Communists had indicated that they would include South Korea but had not stated any other possible modifications of their proposal.

In the staff officers meeting regarding truce supervision, the Communists made two concessions this date, offering to increase the limits on monthly rotation of troops to 30,000 and to establish four points of entry for incoming troops and war materials to be inspected by neutral teams, but the allies indicated that these figures were still not high enough, as they were demanding a 40,000-troop rotation limit and eight points of entry. Previously, the Communists had proposed 25,000 troops as the rotation and three ports of entry for inspection.

In the other staff officers meeting working on the prisoner of war issue, two issues remained unsettled regarding "minor places and wording" in relation to voluntary repatriation of prisoners and the scope of work to be performed by joint Red Cross teams interviewing prisoners to determine whether they wished to be repatriated.

In the ground war, U.N. soldiers this date killed 96 enemy troops and wounded 130 in an hour-long fight near the Mundung Valley, just west of "Heartbreak Ridge" on the eastern front, the heaviest single action in several weeks. There was no indication by headquarters whether the allies had suffered any casualties. Other enemy probing attacks were reported all along the 155-mile front, and in one, on the central front, 12 enemy soldiers of one platoon were killed, while in all the other probes, the repulsed enemy had withdrawn.

The Eighth Army had inflicted 2,272 casualties on the enemy during the week ending the previous Thursday, including 981 killed, 1,260 wounded and 31 captured. Allied casualties were not announced.

In the air war, overcast skies kept fighter-bomber attacks to a minimum, such that by noon only 80 planes had attacked enemy supply lines. The Fifth Air Force flew 585 sorties the previous day, cutting rail lines in 87 places and destroying 56 supply buildings, a bridge, 20 boxcars, two locomotives, eight warehouses, 50 trucks and one gun position.

At U.S. Fifth Air Force headquarters in Korea, a spokesman defended the policy of keeping all jet pilots, including aces, in Korea until they had finished their normal tour of 100 combat missions. The issue had arisen since the death the previous Sunday of Major George Davis, Jr., top jet ace in the Air Force, who had been shot down over Korea after destroying 11 enemy jets and three enemy bombers in 59 missions. The first three American jet aces in the war had been returned to the U.S. after their fifth kills, the minimum for becoming an ace, so that they could instruct other pilots preparing for combat in Korea. Two of the pilots had returned to Korea, one having completed the 100 missions and the other having flown 70. The spokesman said that the Army did not send soldiers home after killing a certain number of Communists and the principle likewise applied to pilots. The spokesman said that, in reality, the jet battles were not as important to the air mission in Korea as the strikes of the fighter-bombers against supply targets.

The wife of Major Davis had contended that her husband should have likewise been sent home after his fifth kill, but that he had written her that the Communist MIGs were so much better than the Sabres that something had to be done. She said that the Air Force public information officer's contention that her husband did not wish to come home after his fifth kill was "an outright lie", that he had expected to be home by the previous Christmas after he had shot down his fifth plane in late November. She stated that it was a war without reason and desired a full-scale investigation of why her husband had been left in Korea. Air Force officers had promised an investigation into the circumstances surrounding his death.

The Senate Banking Committee this date unanimously approved former Governor Ellis Arnall of Georgia as the new head of the Office of Price Stabilization. The Committee chairman, Senator Burnet Maybank of South Carolina, said that he would ask for a vote in the full Senate on Monday.

Congressman Adolph Sabath of Illinois, speaking to the press after meeting with the President this date, quoted the President as saying that he might be willing to make the "sacrifice" and seek re-election if he felt it necessary to accelerate the peace. He had also said that it was a "killing job" which had killed President Roosevelt and that he believed he had had enough. Mr. Sabath said that he had told the President that he owed it to the country to run again. He said that he had been among those who had urged FDR to run for a third term in 1940 and indicated that President Roosevelt had made some of the same arguments which President Truman had offered to him this date.

Stuart Symington, recently resigned as head of the RFC, after meeting with the President this date, said that he was more interested in running for the Senate from Missouri than he had been before the meeting.

A Gallup poll, appearing on page 6-A, showed that the popularity of the Democrats remained strong despite the unpopularity of the President.

In Chicago, Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee said this date, in an address to a meeting of the Inland Daily Press Association, representing Midwestern and Western newspapers, that "the corrupt politician threatens our democratic system on one front just as Communism threatens it on another front." He urged American newspapers to continue to expose and fight corruption wherever it might appear and whomever it might involve. He suggested that it would be useful were emphasis placed on the guilt of the person who bribed public officials as well as the official who took the bribe. During the talk, he made no mention of his presidential campaign.

Also in Chicago, the killing of a Republican ward leader six days earlier had resulted in the discharge from their jobs of 44 persons on the public payrolls, but the police appeared no closer to solution of the crime. The murder had brought the police commissioner under fire, as five unnamed aldermen had demanded his removal and replacement by a civilian of national repute. The candidacy of the ward leader for Republican Party committeeman in the upcoming primary had been considered part of organized crime's attempt to muscle into Chicago politics. In Springfield, Governor Adlai Stevenson said that he would do his firing selectively, as it was results which were important.

In Rock Hill, S.C., police stated that they believed the medical history of a 56-year old Methodist minister, who had suffered with extreme and prolonged headaches and had been discharged from a hospital the previous week, was involved in the slayings of four persons, including himself, with a shotgun the previous day, that it was "likely" that before committing suicide, the minister had killed his wife, their neighbor, and her infant daughter, while "mentally unbalanced". The police regarded it as a "clear-cut case of murder and suicide".

In Charlotte, one man had died and three men had been injured when a truck crashed into an ambulance at Graham and 11th Streets. It was not clear whether the man had died before the accident or resulting from injuries sustained aboard the ambulance in the wreck. The driver of the truck said that he did not hear the siren until he had already entered the intersection.

In London, in Westminster Hall, the people of Britain silently filed past the coffin bearing the remains of King George IV, who had died the previous Wednesday, paying their last respects.

In Philadelphia, police found an abandoned car during the weekend and towed it, having placed 37 traffic citations on it during the previous 10 months without ever hearing from the owner, who eventually appeared the previous day at the police station and was arrested, whereupon the chief magistrate fined him over $373, which the boy's father paid, freeing his car.

In Los Angeles, a woman was arrested on a drunk driving charge and she was taken into custody along with the live lobsters which were found by the arresting officers in the back seat of her car, pursuant to a city ordinance which required that live animals be impounded if found in the company of a vehicle owner who was arrested.

This is the case of The Big Lobster.

On the editorial page, "The Lesson of Elizabeth, N.J." remarks on the three successive airline tragedies at the Newark Airport during the previous two months, resulting in the deaths in each case of persons on the ground in Elizabeth, reaching a total in the three crashes of 117 dead.