The Charlotte News

Saturday, October 10, 1953

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that a Chinese Communist radio broadcast, heard in Tokyo, had proposed this night that the allies and Communists send delegations to Panmunjom to discuss when and where to hold the Korean political conference and what nations would participate in it. It quoted Premier and Foreign Minister Chou En-lai as saying that he wanted a reply from the U.S. and the U.N. The broadcast indicated that it was Chou's reply to four allied diplomatic notes which had been sent to the Communists recently outlining plans for the conference and insisting on setting a date and place for it to occur, in accordance with the Armistice terms, the most recent note of Thursday having said that the allies were ready to negotiate and that the U.N. was standing by the plan which the Assembly had approved August 28, limiting the peace conference to the belligerents in the war, plus Russia if invited by the Communists, and that there was no point in rehashing that plan.

At Panmunjom, U.S. troops and tanks moved this date to block South Korean threats of armed attack against the 5,500 Indian troops in the demilitarized zone guarding the prisoners resisting repatriation. The Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission asked the Communists to start interviewing the reluctant war prisoners the following Tuesday, seeking to convince them to return to their homelands. It expressed dissatisfaction with the allied timetable for building the facilities to conduct the interviews and asked for the second time that the Communists be allowed to take over the job. It also said that it had received two letters containing "unconcealed threats" from a South Korean Government leader, and that it would not acknowledge the letters or meet with South Korean representatives, turning the letters over to the U.N. Command. South Korea's Foreign Office said the letters had protested Indian troops firing on prisoners during two recent escape attempts, in which three prisoners had been killed and ten wounded by the Indian guards.

In Belgrade, President Tito sent troops into the Yugoslav southern zone of Trieste this date and threatened to use them if Italian forces moved into the northern zone, pursuant to the joint British-American statement issued the prior day that their occupation troops would soon be vacating that zone in favor of the Italians. He offered a solution which would turn both zones of the free port city into separate autonomous units, with the northern zone under Italian sovereignty and the southern zone under Yugoslav sovereignty for ten or more years. That latest proposal appeared to differ little, if any, from the proposal by the U.S. and Britain.

In Trieste, the pro-Italian Istrian Liberation Committee claimed that violent anti-Italian riots had broken out in the southern zone, controlled by Yugoslavia. An official of that refugee organization had said that 55 Italians, driven from their homes in the Yugoslav zone, had fled into the Anglo-American zone in the north, and that many of their homes had been destroyed. Territorial police headquarters, however, said that they had no confirmation of those reports. Meanwhile, U.S. and British troops were working to prepare for their withdrawal from the northern zone. Reliable sources indicated that the withdrawal would occur by the end of November, though no official time line had yet been announced.

In Margate, England, Prime Minister Churchill, addressing a Conservative Party conference, said this date that he had a "sure hope" that an American-backed East-West non-aggression pact would prevent a third world war, and renewed his call for a secret, informal meeting of the Big Four heads of state, including Russia. He indicated that if the U.S. had, before World War I or between the wars, taken the same interest to preserve peace and uphold freedom which it was presently taking, there might never have been a first world war, and there would certainly never have been a second. He indicated that with the "mighty aid" of the U.S., he was certain there would be no third. The Prime Minister had made no public statement on the matter since May 11, at which time he had first proposed such a Big Four meeting, but since had been ordered by his doctors to take a rest from public life. He commented at the meeting that it was the first time in his political life that he had kept quiet for so long.

In St. Louis, the cabbie who had provided the initial tip to police which led to the location of the body of six-year old kidnap and murder victim Bobby Greenlease, and the apprehension of his apparent abductors and killers, said that at first, he thought he had picked up a "good-time Charley" when his fare had tipped him lavishly during two days he spent drinking with him and driving for him. When he realized he was "hot", he thought he might be a bank robber and then tipped off the St. Louis police, who investigated, found half the $600,000 in ransom money stuffed in two suitcases in the man's possession, and arrested him, leading to the arrest also of his girlfriend, for the kidnaping and murder of the boy. The cabbie was set to receive a $1,500 reward in the matter, $500 from the cab company, $500 from his Teamsters local and $500 from Teamsters president, Dave Beck.

In Knoxville, Tenn., Knox County police were investigating whether a man with an alias might have been hired to kill an ex-convict café manager the previous day, both of whom had died in a duel started by the other man, who had entered the café after having been ejected for causing a disturbance, saying, after apologizing for his earlier behavior, that the café manager was the man who he had been looking for, proceeding then to open fire, at which point the café manager returned fire, both then dying. Before he died, the café manager had imparted at the hospital that he had been shot to avenge the death of a man whom he told his wife he had killed 12 years earlier in Columbia, S.C.

Any intersection between reality and fiction, we are certain, is purely coincidental.

Near Newark, N.J., 13 cars piled up in a collision on a foggy stretch of the New Jersey Turnpike the previous night, injuring 16 persons. State Police closed down the turnpike's northbound lane so that the injured could be removed and the wreck scene cleared, and a 35 mph speed limit was put into effect.

In Raleigh, the North Carolina Young Democratic Clubs unanimously elected Horace Kornegay of Greensboro as its president for the coming year, naming him by acclamation.

In Charlotte, a woman was found dead early in the morning this date in a workshop and storeroom of the family apartment, and her husband was being questioned as a suspect in the death. The woman died, according to the county coroner, from blows to the head administered by a blunt instrument at around 2:00 a.m. The murder weapon had not been found, but trousers which the husband identified as his own, had been discovered clogging the plumbing of the apartment when one of the investigating officers flushed a downstairs toilet. The trousers retrieved from the pipe had been cut into small strips. When shown the remnants of the pants, the husband admitted that he had worn them the previous day, but claimed that his wife had told him she never wanted to see him wear those particular pants again. He claimed to have been asleep since around 1:30, at which point his wife had placed eyedrops in his eyes and he went to sleep, had awakened at around 7:00 to find his wife not present in bed, went downstairs through the company office and discovered her body in the middle of the floor in the storeroom.

The tropical storm which had lashed Florida with gale-force winds and rain the previous day had regained its strength over the Atlantic this date, but was pointed toward open water, apparently with no other land areas in its path. Florida Senator George Smathers had wired the President that many believed the state was facing its worst flood conditions in 50 years in the wake of the storm. A photo shows the flood waters in Jacksonville.

Speaking of Florida, the clown in the White House was saying today in Georgia that in the 2020 election, he won not only Georgia—which, of course, he did not—but also Florida and Ohio, which he did, and that it is mute testimony to the fact that he actually won the election nationwide because of the "fact" that no one has won the Presidency without winning Florida and Ohio—a "fact" which he apparently culled from the brilliant historical scholars populating the Onionized Asinine News, which Trumpy-Dumpie-D'oeuvre finds oh so informative. The "fact" in question would come, undoubtedly, as a shock to President Clinton and the late President Kennedy, as Governor Clinton, in his first run in 1992, lost Florida to incumbent President George H. W. Bush, and Senator Kennedy, in 1960, lost both Florida and Ohio to former Vice-President Nixon. The "fact" which Trump and his D'oeuvres are bandying about fecklessly is that no Republican in modern times has won the White House without winning both Florida and Ohio, the last time the Republican split them and still won having been in 1924, when President Coolidge beat John W. Davis, losing Florida but carrying Ohio. So, just how that suggests any anomaly which makes it therefore improbable that President-elect Biden actually won the election is not readily discernible, as he is a Democrat. Perhaps, the Asininities would wish to favor us all with further explanation of their point. Moreover, even if the "fact" as uttered had been correct, it would mean exactly nothing. Until three months ago, as we have pointed out, we had never gone through an entire day cloaked in darkness, save for a dim orange glow peeking through the smoke-clogged atmosphere at around noon, but that does not mean it did not occur. In the instance at hand, however, there is nothing at all anomalous about President-elect Biden's victory. All of the reputable polls predicted his victory for a year prior to the election, and, of course, Trump lost the popular vote by 2.9 million to former Secretary of State Clinton in 2016. Why should there be such a surprise at his thorough defeat this time, given his utter failure for four years, culminating in his complete incompetence evident in the handling of the pandemic for the past nine months and its physical, psychological and economic consequences to the country? And since his loss, he has only been concerned about saving face for himself and raising money for 2024 from the fools continuing to believe his lies, as he has abandoned all effort at even the pretense of attempting to remedy the pandemic and its harsh effects, save trying to take credit for what science has hopefully achieved in developing a vaccine, as he heads ingloriously out the exit, whining and kicking about having lost the election by 7.1 million votes, 4.4 percentage points, and by 74 electors, based on the delusional claim of "fraud at the polls". All of the other Asininely supposed anomalies claimed by the Onionized are readily attributable to the unprecedented conditions under which the 2020 election was held, stimulative of use of unprecedented numbers of mail-in ballots, at least by Democrats and the few sensible Republicans among us, for reasons obvious to all except the Trumpie-Dumpy-D'oeuvres who still insist that 280,000 deaths in nine months, 45,000 since election day 32 days ago, are no greater than the number of deaths occasioned by any ordinary flu or pneumonia season, that it is all a mere "hoax", just like the polls, just like the election results, just like the basis for last fall's impeachment, just like the "mainstream media", all false, a figment conjured by the globalist-leftist-socialist-Communist conspiracy against them. There comes a point where mass denial of reality tracks completely into mass clinical insanity, and we fear that the diehard Trumpies have finally, and perhaps even permanently, crossed that threshold in the last month.

On the editorial page, "President Eisenhower Clears the Air" finds that the President had taken the correct course when he asked members of the Administration to stop popping off about the Russian hydrogen bomb threat until they could deliver a consistent, coherent message to the public. The President had said at his recent press conference that the Russians had a backlog of conventional atomic bombs, had tested the explosive force of the hydrogen bomb, and were capable of carrying out an atomic attack on the U.S. He said that he did not yet know whether the U.S. would need to increase its defense spending or whether a shift of priorities would afford a reasonable degree of protection, that the threat was not imminent and there was time to consider it.

It views the Administration's problem as the assessment accurately of the enemy's potential and how best to meet it within the confines of an acceptable budget, while it continued patiently, working through the U.N. and regular diplomatic channels, to try to effect a reduction in international tension.

Some of the armchair experts believed that the U.S. needed to build immediately a string of warning and interceptor stations across the northern reaches of Canada, while others indicated that such an approach would not work, arguing instead that the retaliatory striking force needed to be expanded. It indicates that the President and his advisers had all of the information needed to make such decisions and that until the public were admitted to those secrets, it would not try to tell him how to run his preparedness program. It concludes that the American people wanted to be told the truth, and if done, and they had confidence in their leadership, they would rise to the occasion, as they had so often in the past.

"Take These Vets off Uncle's Back" urges again that the Veterans Administration do one of two things with respect to veterans with non-service related disabilities, currently able to use VA hospitals and medical services for free: either admit the veteran, when space was available, and then have him pay for the treatment at rates comparable to those charged in private practice, discouraging the freeloader, while making the facilities available to veterans who lived in communities with inadequate hospital facilities; or, for those who were destitute or chronically ill, provide the services in communities where there was no local government support for such services, but then charge the bill to those local governments and the state.

"A Tip for the Weekend" indicates that about five weeks earlier, the "first small splotches of riotous color" had begun dotting the hills of the state at the higher elevations, occurring early because of the severe drought of the summer, and that the annual change in color had proceeded from that point on schedule. The peak of the color had past on the highest mountains of the state, but down below, the scenery had never been more gorgeous, and it suggests that a trip into the hills for a few unforgettable hours would be a good prospect for weekend pleasure.

"Error Compounded" indicates that it was bad enough that the President had passed over Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Judge John J. Parker in his nomination of the Chief Justice, but then Time had rubbed salt in the wound when it said that Judge Parker was from Virginia.

A piece from the Martha's Vineyard Gazette, titled "Ornithological Terminology", discusses the nomenclature of birds, indicating that, for instance, the yellowed-bellied sapsucker did not actually have a yellow belly and the purple finch was not really purple. It suggests that the "little blue heron" was probably large, and, as one person had found its conspicuous characteristic to be its "pure white plumage shining against the sandy shore and the green marsh grasses", it guesses that it probably had little blue, accounting for its name. It finally indicates that it had heard of least flycatchers but never of most flycatchers, suggests that the problem from such disparagement had led to an evolutionary impediment.

Speaking of birds and blues, we neglected yesterday, perhaps because of the persimmon distraction, to mention the coincidence of the 13th birthday of a singer-songwriter and the "Walrus" piece on the page, now duly noted...

Fairfield Osborn, in an excerpt from his book, The Limits of the Earth, which had recently been published, discusses the country's population problem versus the future ability to feed the population and provide adequate natural resources for support of expanded food production. He points out that one of the widespread projections concerning population, issued in 1938, had predicted peak population would be reached at about 140 million in 1960, while another study had placed the peak at 154 million, to occur around 1980, but that already the population was more than 160 million. The earlier figures had been based on the idea that population expansion had reached stabilization during the 1930's, but the war and its aftermath had changed all of that. Yet, as recently as 1947, one authority had said that there was an anticipated decline in population and that the country's economic optimum population was well below the current level. In 1949, it had been generally anticipated that the peak population would be 165 million, with strong indications of a decline from that figure by the end of the century. But now, just four years later, all of those predictions had to be discarded as erroneous.

The prospect of an enlarging population posed the question of how it would be fed, though the food-producing capacity of the country was so large that it was illogical to anticipate a food crisis, at least within the foreseeable future. The dietary standard of the American people as a whole was so high that moderate downward adjustments could be made without serious damage to health. Yet, it was not certain that the country's population could be adequately fed 20 years hence. He provides statistics on the acreage devoted to livestock used for food supply, as provided by the Department of Agriculture in testimony before Congress in 1952, that being an aggregate of 464 million acres. It was estimated that by 1975, the amount of acreage necessary to feed the anticipated population by that point would be 577 million acres, 70 million more acres than envisioned in the presently projected governmental programs for land development and reclamation. Thus, as counter-intuitive as it seemed, the country had about come to "land's end".

There were also problems to be encountered in conquering soil erosion and developing an adequate water supply, with 40 million Americans, living in various regions and communities, presently facing water problems, either a real shortage or water of unsatisfactory quality, or both. During the previous half-century, water consumption per capita had doubled and given the fact that the population had doubled in the same period, water needs had increased four times over those of 1900.

The excerpt from his book concludes that the country could count on the great asset of its agricultural base, its forests, soils and water resources, provided proper care of those renewable resources was taken, as they provided approximately half of the national economy, as measured in goods consumed or in their transport, processing, financing and marketing. It was not the case, as commonly believed, that the country was a mechanized society wherein metals and minerals played the dominant role, that the industrial complex of the country would gradually weaken unless it not only maintained but substantially improved agricultural processes. While at present, the nation's forests showed that replacement growth was catching up with annual cutting, saw timber, a major category, was being used at a rate 40 percent greater than its annual growth, with one fifth of the original area of croplands having been destroyed, and continuing injury occurring to a considerable portion of the remainder through improper agricultural methods. Water shortages were beginning to appear in some areas, and overall, the job of conservation of those vital resources to ensure future welfare of the nation was not being done.

Drew Pearson indicates that Secretary of State Dulles had censored news from Korea to the extent that the American public did not realize the dangers again building up, as uncensored military dispatches reported 35 Communist airfields built in North Korea since the Armistice, all in violation of it, plus 800 Communist jets having been smuggled into North Korea from China since the truce. Mr. Dulles had kept all of that quiet for the sake of preserving the Korean peace conference, set to begin later in October, fearful that if the Communists were embarrassed by revelations of their buildup, they might seek to sabotage the talks before they began. He had even kept quiet the name of the base from which the North Korean pilot had flown the Russian MIG-15 jet, surrendered in Seoul recently to the U.N. Command, because the base had not been in existence prior to the truce.

Ambassador to Russia Charles Bohlen had been called home for reasons he did not yet understand, had told Paul Porter, former FCC chairman, that he did not have the vaguest idea, that they had telegraphed him to fly home, but now that he was home, he did not know what they wanted, to which Mr. Porter quipped, perhaps they wanted him as best man for Joe McCarthy's wedding, which had taken place at about the time of his arrival, Senator McCarthy having been a prime opponent of Mr. Bohlen's confirmation.

A gruff, tough master sergeant, who had fought in two wars, had phoned Mr. Pearson recently to complain about the "raw deal" which servicemen were getting, that he could not make ends meet and support his family, and though having been in the Army for years, he could not figure any way out of the dilemma other than to quit his Army career. Mr. Pearson began investigating Army living standards afterward and found other soldiers in the same boat. A chaplain had admitted that the morale of the non-commissioned officers, the backbone of the Army, was worse than in the 1930's. The problems were in food, housing, pay, travel and medicine, each of which he details, and, moreover, the Defense Department had assigned each military post a quota to contribute to local charities, the quota only capable of being met by forcing contributions from individual servicemen, who already had a good record for voluntary contributions. The G.I.'s had donated, for instance, 13 million dollars from their meager wages to help rebuild devastated Korea.

Stewart Alsop suggests that the serious-minded citizen could hardly help but feel like a laboratory rat exposed to conflicting stimuli, given the various positions taken by officials within the Administration with respect to Soviet air-atomic capability and its threat to the U.S. The confusion had been exacerbated by the statement made recently by Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson, indicating that there would be no more than 500 million dollars in additional spending proposed for air defense, despite the announcement in August that the Soviets had detonated a thermonuclear device, rather than the much higher amount recommended by the Lincoln Project report, the Kelly Committee report, the Bull Committee report and several other expert studies. Mr. Wilson had based his decision on the belief that it would be perhaps three years before the Russians had a reasonable number of hydrogen bombs and airplanes which could deliver them, but he was not taking into account in that statement the fact that the Russians had been stockpiling atomic bombs for four years, bombs which could do considerable damage to the larger cities of the country. The Secretary had stated that "panicky" persons had been giving the Russians credit for "bombers they don't have", presumably including among that group the Air Force chief of staff, General Nathan Twining, who had said some months earlier that the Russians had a long-range bomber force which was so big that they no longer needed to increase its size but only improve the quality of its airplanes.

Assuming the Secretary was correct regarding his three-year estimate of having a deliverable hydrogen bomb in sufficient numbers to pose a genuine threat to the U.S., it was, suggests Mr. Alsop, the best argument for immediately seeking all possible continental defense, as under the best estimate, it would take a good amount of time to build a secure and fully working warning net and have the weaponry necessary to respond effectively in the event of an attack.

Another argument being posited against the continental defense net was that nothing more could be done utilizing existing manpower ceilings. But actually, a study of that problem conducted by the Air Force, code-named "Operation Corrode", had concluded that available manpower could effectively produce a deep area defense, and even if that study was overly optimistic, there was no reason to conclude that out of the nation's 160 million people, there was no available reserve of manpower to prevent the country's destruction. Another argument against the defense net was that the large investment necessary for its construction could be wasted because of advances in technology rendering the defense net obsolete by the time it was up and running, with new guided missile technology and faster, higher flying jet bombers being produced in the meantime. But that argument flew in the face of the reassuring estimates regarding Soviet capabilities.

Mr. Alsop concludes that it was a complicated subject and it was possible that Secretary Wilson and those who agreed with him were correct, that the other experts who had studied the subject were wrong and that the optimistic estimates of the Secretary had nothing to do with the desire to lower taxes and balance the budget or the military's out-dated approach of a "balanced force" or a three-way split among the forces. But the reasons advanced thus far for that approach to continental defense, the problem of national survival, had been "confusing, conflicting and very far from convincing."

Robert C. Ruark, in Casablanca, French Morocco, again reports on the problems encountered in building new U.S. Air Force bases in French Morocco, focusing on the large airbase at Nouasseur, with things having gone smoothly after the Air Force was eliminated from the mix and the contractors were taken off the cost-plus basis contract, with a fixed fee at the end of the job, resulting in the primary contractor laying off 4,000 of its 11,000-man workforce, with the consequence of greater construction efficiency.

The project had been called a "crash program" at the end of 1950, in the wake of the start of the Korean War, causing construction to move fast, even if not done right. A minimum state of readiness to allow the landing of military planes had been achieved at one base in 64 days and at Nouasseur in 83 days. But when tests were made with a 200-ton roller at the latter base, the runway cracked and slumped in spots. One of the contractor's men had said bitterly that when he had been rounding up his crew for departure for Morocco, they had not told him that they were building the strip for a 200-ton roller, but rather that World War III might start the following week and they needed to get some kind of strip down in a crash program, and so they had gotten it down.

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