The Charlotte News
Monday, June 1, 1953
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that in Korea, U.S. Sabre jets shot down one MIG-15 and damaged two others this date in their first engagement with the enemy jets in three days. The Air Force reported that it had lost only one Sabre jet to two enemy MIGs during May, while the Sabres had destroyed 55 Communist jets, losing, however, 16 other Sabres to ground fire and other causes.
In the ground war, a driving rain produced mud all along the front, limiting action to patrol activity, the quietest ground action in the previous twenty days. The Eighth Army indicated that the fighting of the previous week on the western front had resulted in 2,300 enemy troops killed and 1,047 wounded.
President Syngman Rhee of South Korea reportedly had proposed that the President sign a four-point agreement pledging a mutual defense pact, under which the U.S. would come to South Korea's aid in the event it were again attacked by Communist forces, and provide future military and financial aid to South Korea, in exchange for the Government dropping its opposition to the U.N. truce terms, which would include a divided Korea. Previously, the President had vowed to fight on alone if the truce left Korea divided.
Treasury Secretary George Humphrey told the House Ways & Means Committee this date that failure to extend the excess profits tax on business would be an unsafe "gamble with the national economic security". The President had urged an extension of the tax for six months beyond its scheduled expiration on June 30, but the Committee strongly opposed any such extension. Mr. Humphrey said that he disliked the excess profits tax, but said that there was the "danger of an atomic Pearl Harbor" and that to keep the country safe from aggression and further inflation, the tax should be extended. He said that even with such an extension, there would be a deficit for the following fiscal year of 6.6 billion dollars, even after proposed budget cuts of 4.5 billion. The Secretary also argued that with individual income taxes not scheduled for ten percent reduction until the end of the year, offsetting the ten percent increase passed to help pay for the Korean War, it would be unfair to allow the corporations to have their tax reduction six months earlier.
Secretary of the Navy Robert Anderson this date told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee that the Navy and Marine air arms would more than double their jet aircraft strength in the ensuing 2 1/2 years, although the total number of planes in service would remain about the same, 9,941. He was the first witness from the Pentagon's top command regarding the 36.1 billion proposed military budget sought by the Administration for the ensuing fiscal year. The proposed budget for the Navy was 9.65 billion, a reduction of 1.7 billion from that proposed in the final Truman budget submitted in January. Overall, the Administration had proposed cuts of more than five billion dollars to the military budget submitted by President Truman. Secretary Anderson said that he had requested 10.1 billion dollars for the Navy after reviewing the Truman budget, but that the request was reduced by Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson to the final proposed figure.
Senator George Aiken of Vermont this date denounced a Senatorial proposal to cut off U.S. contributions to the U.N. if the organization admitted Communist China, saying that the proposal invaded the President's foreign policy-making powers. Senator Karl Mundt of South Dakota predicted, however, that the rider to the annual appropriations bill for the State, Commerce and Justice Departments, would pass, and constitute a challenge to the British to change their Far East policies, providing a warning that a similar measure might be passed against further British aid from the U.S. if they supported the Communist Chinese bid for a U.N. seat on the Security Council—which could entitle them to the unilateral veto enjoyed by the five permanent members, if the Communists were to replace the Nationalists in a permanent seat. But Senator Alexander Wiley of Wisconsin, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, had said that his Committee would not support any such limitation on foreign aid. British leaders had indicated that they would support Communist China's bid for a seat in the U.N. after a satisfactory settlement in Korea.
The President this date proposed creation of an independent overseas information agency, and a new agency to handle foreign aid, both of which would be under close supervision by the Secretary of State. The Mutual Security Agency, currently headed by Harold Stassen, would become the Foreign Operations Administration. The President also proposed revision of the Council of Economic Advisers, such that virtually all of the power of the Council would be vested in its chairman. In addition, an advisory group of Government agency heads would be established to make recommendations to foster "economic growth and stability". Dr. Arthur F. Burns, subsequently to become chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, currently a White House economic adviser, was expected to head the three-person Council. The proposals also included transfer of payments for airline subsidies on air mail, presently controlled by the Post Office, to the Civil Aeronautics Board.
The President accepted "with regret" the resignation of Carl Gray as Veterans Administration director, Mr. Gray indicating that he was in ill health.
In New York, the Committee to Secure Justice for convicted atomic spies Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, scheduled to be executed on June 15, reported that the Rosenbergs' ten-year old son had written to the President asking him to "let my mommy and daddy go". He said that he had seen on television that Associated Press correspondent William Oatis, imprisoned for two years of a ten-year sentence for alleged espionage for the U.S. in Czechoslovakia, had his sentence commuted by the Czechoslovakian President, based principally on a letter written to him by the wife of Mr. Oatis. He wished the same treatment to be accorded his parents. He explained that he had a six-year old brother who also missed his parents very much. White House officials were not available for comment regarding the letter.
In London, many thousands of excited people were gathering in preparation for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II the following day. Many were expected to spend the night along the procession route, bringing for the purpose bedrolls, blankets and hammocks to hang between trees. Whole families slept on rugs and some brought portable stoves on which to make tea, plus enough food for the night's vigil. Some 6,500 trains from the provinces would bring an estimated 2.5 million people into London during the ensuing 24 hours to add to the millions already present. Planes were stacked up to land at both of London's major airports, and special trains and boats brought thousands of others from abroad. Swarms of pedestrians had all but taken over many main thoroughfares, with the crowds being "good natured and gay". The celebration followed more than a decade of austerity for Britain, and the people were reacting accordingly. Some 250,000 persons who had tickets for seats specially built along the coronation route would begin taking their places early the following morning, and about four million others would gather along the route to Westminster Abbey, where 7,500 distinguished and invited guests would witness the coronation.
In Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University announced the selection of Dr. Nathan Pusey, president for the previous nine years of Lawrence College in Appleton, Wisc., to succeed Dr. James B. Conant as the new president of the University. Dr. Conant had resigned the previous January to become the new U.S. High Commissioner to West Germany. The selection of the new president was subject to confirmation by the University overseers at a subsequent meeting.
In Davidson, N.C., Donald MacDonald of The News reports that Edward H. Little, a native of nearby Huntersville and chairman of the board of Colgate-Palmolive-Peet Co., told 143 graduates at the 117th commencement exercises at Davidson College this date that unprecedented opportunity was not a temporary aftermath of war or world crisis, indicating that the graduates' chances for success were limited only by their own resolve. He said that if he had a chance to live his life over again, he would live it in the present and in the U.S., that the opportunities were greater than at any time in history.
As a closer, he recommended to the graduates that they use Colgate tooth cream with "Gardol"
On the editorial page, "Now They're Looking for an Angel" indicates that at a $50-per-plate Republican banquet in Charlotte the prior Friday, one Republican had expressed the wish that a rich donor would establish a Republican newspaper so that they could state their needs. They appeared to be looking for the Republican equivalent to Jonathan Daniels, editor of the Raleigh News & Observer. But the piece indicates that the Republicans should examine what the Democrats in the General Assembly had said about the News & Observer during the 1953 session, that having such a mouthpiece on a newspaper could cause more Republican discord than harmony, unless such a newspaper were edited by "spineless men who would not take issue with party members". If such a newspaper chose to present only Republican views, it would not long interest many readers.
It indicates that it was difficult to understand what the Republicans were complaining about, as many newspapers during the fall campaign of 1952, including The News, had urged establishment of a real two-party system in the South, that the Republicans should encourage capable Republican candidates and organize at the precinct level. Those same newspapers had endorsed General Eisenhower's candidacy. Since the election of Charles Jonas to Congress the previous fall, the first Republican member of the North Carolina Congressional delegation since the father of Mr. Jonas, many of those same newspapers had praised him, and the new Administration had been viewed favorably by the press as a whole, with its actions having been given comprehensive coverage.
North Carolina Republicans appeared to be upset because they felt there should be more news coverage of their activities. The piece indicates that when they made news, they could count on coverage, such as when the party had split in the state regarding patronage, between those who had supported General Eisenhower and those who had supported Senator Taft for the Republican nomination the prior summer. When the Republicans organized at the precinct level and injected vitality into the state organization, they would receive proper coverage for it. It concludes that the fault lay with the state Republican organization rather than with the press, that when they got rid of their obsession with patronage and began working at the precinct level, they might get somewhere. "Looking for an angel won't make their dreams come true."
"The Meaning of Korean Casualty Lists" indicates that the latest casualty list released by the U.N. regarding the Korean War showed that at least 406,542 casualties had been suffered by the U.N. forces, while the Communists had suffered an estimated 1,897,000 casualties. The South Korean casualties added up to more than the total of all other U.N. troops, and U.S. casualties added up to more than the total for all other non-Korean U.N. troops. It provides a list of per capita casualties for each member of the U.N. forces, compared to the population of each country, with South Korea topping the list, followed by the U.S.
Some members of the U.N. forces, however, required their soldiers to get shot up pretty badly before they were regarded as a casualty. While the British and French had not suffered relatively large numbers of casualties in Korea, they had in Malaya and Indo-China, other fronts of the same general war against Communism.
Those in Congress who were suggesting that the country suffering the most casualties among the U.N. allies ought be the one to make the decision in Korea, inexorably implied that the South Korean Government, not the U.S. or the U.N., should decide what should be done in the war. But those Congressmen had come to the conclusion somehow that it was the U.S. who should make the decision.
It concludes that neither the U.S. nor South Korea could likely make it on their own, that the U.N. concept of joint action against aggression had resulted in more cooperation than was generally realized, and favors U.S. adherence to that concept.
"Blood Needed Badly" quotes from a story out of Tokyo on June 1 indicating that, according to Army authorities, medics in Korea had almost run out of whole blood to provide for the wounded U.N. troops and might not have enough supplies if heavy fighting continued, that the situation was so critical that U.S. Army chaplains in Japan were rousted from bed just after midnight the prior Saturday and asked to appeal to their congregations for blood donations at Sunday morning services. It concludes by giving the hours and address of the Charlotte Red Cross Blood Center.
"The Bugaboo of Red China's Recognition" indicates that Communist China was not pressing for U.S. recognition, but when the President was asked at a recent press conference about it, he remarked that the U.S. had always followed the theory that recognition of a foreign government also meant tacit approval of it, prompting some Senators to repeat their opposition to recognition of Communist China. The Senate Appropriations Committee had tacked a rider onto the appropriations bill recently which would cut off U.S. financial support to the U.N. if it admitted Communist China.
In a piece on the page, Neal Stanford of the Christian Science Monitor had pointed out that the President's statement was not wholly historically accurate and required refinement to fit historical facts. In the past, the U.S. had recognized many governments of which it did not approve, and continued to do so, including the Soviet Union, Tito's Yugoslavia, Juan Peron's Argentina, and others.
The broadest view of recognition had been enunciated by FDR when in 1933 he recognized Russia, without tacitly approving of its regime, seeking to effect "a practical method of communicating with each other". The piece finds that position had made sense, that granting recognition to a government did not change anything except permitting the exchange of diplomats, helping the U.S. to keep tabs on the other nation.
One school of thought believed that recognition should be denied to any government which obtained power through revolution, but under that standard, the U.S. would not qualify. In 1945, President Truman had gone along with the general view of President Wilson and Secretary of State Henry Stimson, under President Hoover, in stating that the country would refuse to recognize any government imposed upon any nation by force from a foreign power. That was more restrictive than the approach of Secretary of State Cordell Hull, who believed that a government which obtained power illegally could still qualify for recognition after it appeared to be in possession of the machinery of state, was administering the government with the consent of the people governed, and could fulfill the country's international obligations and responsibilities.
It posits that President Eisenhower was not bound by fixed historical precedents in the matter of recognition of foreign governments, that there was no need for a hasty decision on recognition of Communist China, and as long as it remained a belligerent in Korea and Indo-China, the matter was academic in any event.
Neal Stanford, as indicated in the above editorial, writing in the Christian Science Monitor, predicts that at some point in the future, the President would likely revise his comments on U.S. recognition policy, as they did not provide a wholly accurate impression historically, and could create diplomatic embarrassment. He had told a press conference recently that it was his understanding that since President Wilson's time, the U.S. had more or less proceeded on the theory that recognition of a foreign government meant tacit approval of the regime. But if that statement were completely accurate, it would mean that the U.S. presently approved the Communist regime in Moscow, the Communist regime of Tito in Yugoslavia, the regime of dictator Juan Peron in Argentina, and the puppet Communist governments in Czechoslovakia, Poland, Rumania and Hungary. Obviously, that was not the case, as during American history, the U.S. had recognized scores of governments of the left and the right, whose political philosophies it disapproved.
If the President were to refine his remarks, it would more closely fit the historical pattern, as, at times, the country had operated on the assumption that recognition should be denied to regimes forcibly imposed on a country by a foreign power. Secretary of State Henry Stimson, serving under President Hoover, had most recently enunciated that doctrine, since given his name. But, indicates Mr. Stanford, the Stimson doctrine was more honored in the breach than in the observance.
The U.S. had not recognized the Communist puppet regimes which Russia had set up in the Baltic States of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia or their incorporation into the U.S.S.R. It continued to recognize pre-Communist missions from those three states despite their being absorbed into the Soviet Union. The U.S. had also recognized Soviet puppet regimes in Eastern Europe which had been set up with the backing of the Red Army and maintained in power primarily by the presence of that Army.
He indicates that the heyday of recognition-approval doctrine had been during the Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover Administrations, spanning from 1913 until 1933, and was followed in determining relations with Latin America. But since the rise of Communism and Fascism in Europe and Asia, the doctrine had fallen into disuse. Secretary of State Hull, under FDR, had more accurately described existing attitudes toward recognition, calling for three qualifications, evident control of the machinery of state and the territory of the nation to be recognized, evidence of general popular approval of the new regime, and willingness and ability of that regime to meet the country's international responsibilities. Meeting those three criteria did not assure recognition, but was prima facie qualification.
He concludes that the fact that the U.S. became independent through revolution made it difficult to object per se to regimes that arose likewise.
Drew Pearson indicates that Mayor Thomas D'Alesandro of Baltimore, having had an excellent record during his time in Congress, had recently used his political position to obtain favor on behalf of his son to avoid his service in Korea, thanks to the intervention of Senator John Butler of Maryland, enabling a transfer for the son, 23, from officer's training school, receiving an immediate commission and assignment to the Judge Advocate General's office, where he would not likely see combat. He had told the column that he had just graduated from the University of Maryland Law School and was entitled to the assignment. Senator Glenn Beall of Maryland, first approached by the Mayor for the favor, declined, but Senator Butler had talked to General Miles Reber, the Army's legislative representative on Capitol Hill, who was able to obtain an immediate commission for the son. When asked why he had done so, as a Republican, pulling wires for a Democrat, Senator Butler responded that the Mayor was a friend and that they had served together in the city government in Baltimore.
The President had assigned three Government artists to bring his scrapbooks up to date, pasting in all of the President's documents since he had been a second lieutenant, then drawing artistic frames around them. Congressional economizers did not like it, however, pointing out that the President could borrow employees from any Government agency without charging the cost against the White House budget.
The governors who had gathered in conference in Washington recently were concerned over a secret proposal to stifle the National Guard, with Governor William Marland of West Virginia having challenged Undersecretary of Defense Roger Kyes when he spoke before the governors regarding a secret memo circulated within the Defense Department which would prevent the Guard units from enlisting 18-year olds. Governor Marland said that such a policy would kill the Guard, backed up in the statement by Governors Frank Lausche of Ohio, Robert Kennon of Louisiana and Frank Clement of Tennessee. The Undersecretary sought to placate the governors, indicating that the plan was only a proposal and that the Defense Department was still studying it.
But the Defense Department's manpower coordinator, Dr. John Hannah, had drafted a confidential memo sent to the three branches of the military, aimed at curtailing the Guard, saying that many draft-eligible young men were avoiding service in the military by enlisting in the Guard prior to reaching the age of 18 1/2, authorized under the Universal Military Training and Service Act, following a proclamation by a governor that the state's Guard units could not be maintained by enlistments of personnel exempt from the draft. The memo had said that if the Secretary of Defense announced a determination that trained personnel were available to enable a Guard to maintain its authorized strength, enlistment in the Guard would no longer be ground for deferment, with Dr. Hannah recommending that determination.
Joseph & Stewart Alsop find that prior to the fall, the Administration had to make one of the most uncomfortable political choices in recent history, between a sound national policy with some form of national sales tax to pay for it, or an unsound policy without the sales tax. It was known that some form of sales tax was being actively considered, and would be entirely proper and inevitable under the circumstances. It was probable that Secretary of the Treasury George Humphrey would advise the President to undertake such a risky political move. The budget was out of balance, and would likely be more so the following year, would be in the red to the extent of 2.8 billion dollars during 1954, provided that the Congress followed the recommendations of the President to extend the excess profits tax, set to expire at the end of June. In the 1955 fiscal year, the full effects of the expiration would be felt, producing, at the same rate of current spending, a deficit of more than six billion dollars.
The leaders of the Administration were increasingly recognizing that the defense program could not be adequately maintained without additional expenditures, especially with regard to the inadequate air defense and air-atomic retaliatory capability. The cost of solving those problems would more than counterbalance any savings which might be made elsewhere. Additionally, every other source of revenue had been tapped except for a national sales tax, as both corporate and individual income taxes had been raised substantially by the war. Raising them further would inhibit enterprise and lower productivity.
While the defense program could be sacrificed, the country, within a few years, would be exposed to air-atomic destruction by the Soviets, without the ability properly to retaliate, operating as a deterrent to attack. A balanced budget could also be sacrificed, but the President, Secretary Humphrey and Budget Bureau director Joseph Dodge were all adamantly opposed to it. Secretary Humphrey argued that if the budget were not balanced soon, the people would begin to lose faith in the value of their currency and then money could not be borrowed for long-range projects, either by government or industry. According to a report, a sales tax on manufacturers was being considered, along with ways to compensate lower income groups for the effects of such a sales tax.
Britain and Canada relied on a hybrid of direct and indirect taxation, which, they opine, might also become of necessity the case in the U.S.
Marquis Childs indicates that it was difficult to say whether the speech read by Senator Taft's son in Cincinnati the previous week, when the Senator was in the hospital, had hurt the chances for armistice in Korea, as it could be used by the Russians and Chinese as proof that the U.S. intended to go it alone in the Far East, as the speech had indicated it ought to do if a truce were not soon forthcoming. In that event, the Russians and Chinese would have little incentive to end the war. Whatever the final result of the armistice talks, careful consideration had been given regarding the steps to be taken if the war continued, the subject of a recent National Security Council meeting, at which all possible courses of action were sought, including a frontal attack on the Communist line.
The Joint Chiefs estimated that such an assault on the positions of the Chinese and North Koreans would cost 350,000 casualties, as along the battle lines in many places, the enemy was dug in to a depth of 15 to 20 feet. There were other kinds of action, such as General MacArthur's end-around maneuver invading Inchon in September, 1950, shortly before the disastrous drive to the Yalu River and forced withdrawal after the Communist Chinese entered the war in force in response. One such course was recommended by Secretary of State Dulles, who urged that the war be made unprofitable to the Communists in both Korea and Indo-China by substituting South Koreans in Korea and loyal Indo-Chinese in the latter, withdrawing American and French forces. The President appeared to favor this view in the Council meeting, indicating that any course of action involving heavy casualties and serious risk would have to be evaluated carefully. Ultimately, the decision would be his.
Two months hence, the new set of Joint Chiefs would take over, with the new chairman being Admiral Arthur Radford, whose views were known to be at odds with the present Chiefs, wanting to take the offensive and win the war in Korea rather than accept truce. He believed that a political settlement in Asia would only give the Communists, with the Russians and Chinese eventually working together, a chance to prepare for their goal of destruction of the U.S.
The President might have had his own reasons for approving the defense cuts, perhaps shrouded in the secrecy of atomic weaponry, which was being developed at a fast rate, together with light fighter-bombers which could carry tactical atomic weapons, allowing, as they became smaller and more powerful, the number of planes required to carry them to diminish. Mr. Childs notes by contrast that the new atomic cannon, recently tested in Nevada, was huge and cumbersome.
A Pome appears from the Atlanta Journal, "In Which Is Restated The Long-Standing Feud Engaged In By Motorists And Pedestrians:
"Here is how each faction
feels!
Folks on wheels hate folks on foot
and folks on foot hate folks on wheels."
So if you are on foot on heavily
traveled macadam,
You had better be on your guard and look, signal of
your presence send, lest you become another sad datum, gone with the
wind
Framed Edition
Links-Date — Links-Subj.