The Charlotte News
Tuesday, February 23, 1954
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that testimony made public this date by the House Appropriations Committee indicated that 11 State Department employees released in 1953 had been suspected loyalty risks, and out of 590 fired as "security risks", 291 had received jobs in other Federal agencies. Thus far, the Committee had made public complete or partial breakdowns by seven agencies regarding the security dismissals, figures which had been demanded by Democrats on the Committee. The departments had accounted for 1,058 of the security dismissals or resignations in 1953, out of the 2,220 Federal employees fired or resigned since the beginning of the Eisenhower Administration as supposed "security risks". Only 47 of those had been listed as suspected or actual subversives, while other causes of dismissal included drunkenness, homosexuality, over-talkativeness and incompetence. The figures for the State Department had been provided by Scott McLeod, the Department's administrator of security. He said that 21 employees had been discharged for cause, including 11 with "pro-Communist activities or associations", such as having relatives who were Soviet nationals, and that seven of those 11 had charges pending against them since the Truman Administration. He had also listed 291 employees who had been transferred to other agencies, but did not elaborate on the point and was not questioned about it. He said that in 99 of the transfer cases, the principal factor had been "homosexual deviations", with 278 investigations still pending. Of the 590 security separations the previous year, he said, 188 had resigned, 50 had been released through reductions in the workforce, 36 by the fact of expiration of limited appointments and four by retirement.
Testifying before Senator McCarthy's Investigations subcommittee, a former FBI undercover informant who infiltrated the Communist Party in Washington said that she had known as a card-carrying Communist a woman whom Senator McCarthy said was presently handling "top-secret messages" as an employee in the Army Signal Corps code room. The woman in question, according to the witness, had been a cafeteria worker in the Pentagon when she had known her. The Senator contended that the Army had the same information months earlier and that he had given notice that he planned to air the case publicly unless the Army did something about it. He said also that he believed that Secretary of the Army Robert Stevens probably did not have personal knowledge of the case. The testimony of Secretary Stevens had been deferred until Thursday. This date's hearing of the subcommittee was the first since the prior July in which the three Democratic members had participated, having walked out earlier because of a dispute with Senator McCarthy over his insistence that he had the sole power to hire and fire staff members, having since relented on that stance. In recent days, the Senator had been acting as a one-man subcommittee.
Assistant Secretary of State Walter Robertson, in charge of Far Eastern affairs, had previously told the House Appropriations Committee in testimony made public this date that the Communist Chinese had killed or starved to death about 15 million of its own people since 1949, in "just about the bloodiest pattern that the Communists have followed in any country in the world". He also said that the Department anticipated in the near future "emergencies, crises and problems of the greatest importance and magnitude" in Asia, that a basic U.S. strategy was to maintain Chinese Nationalist forces on Formosa as a constant threat of U.S.-supported military action against Communist China; that on the mainland, there was a deep undercurrent of unrest and resentment which would follow other leadership if the opportunity arose; that new outlets had to be found for Japanese trade, including increasing access to American markets to prevent Japan from entering the Communist orbit; and that for an indefinite period, the country had to make a contribution toward keeping its allies strong, especially in Formosa and Korea where the country presently had a million men in reserve against possible trouble in Asia. He said that mainland China had one of its worst famines in history in 1950 and that the Communist Government nevertheless continued to export food to Russia in exchange for industrial equipment and military supplies, and that liquidations of political enemies, landowners, business people and other classes whom the Government wanted to eliminate, had occurred in public squares where people were lined up and machine-gunned to death.
Senator Homer Ferguson of Michigan said this date that Democrats' talk of a business recession was hurting the country and should be stopped, saying that he did not believe there would be a recession but that the propaganda for it was more effective than he had anticipated, persuading people not to purchase items, leading to loss of jobs. Former President Hoover had told the American Good Government Society in Washington the previous night that as a President who had gone through one depression, he thought he could say on good authority that there were no signs on the horizon of any big depression at present.
A Senate Labor subcommittee, chaired by Senator Irving Ives of New York, this date would start two weeks of hearings regarding a bill to prohibit discrimination in employment because of "race, religion, color, national origin or ancestry." Senator Ives, one of 19 Senators co-sponsoring the bill, described it as being designed to encourage maximum cooperation with state and local agencies and containing a minimum of enforcement provisions. Substantially similar to a bill approved by the Senate Labor Committee two years earlier, it would create a seven-member commission on Federal equality of opportunity in employment, the commission to be appointed by the President and subject to confirmation by the Senate. The measure did not have the support of the President and had little chance of passage in Congress, it being modeled on previous efforts to set up a compulsory FEPC.
Attorney General Herbert Brownell announced this date that a Federal grand jury in Washington had returned five additional indictments, charging 18 individuals and seven corporations with a number of offenses in connection with the disposal of surplus oil tankers from World War II. Among the defendants were former Representative Joseph Casey and Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis. The new indictments named Mr. Casey for a second time as head of the group alleged to have made huge profits from the deal, accused of conspiracy to breach a purchase contract with the Government by sale of stock in the purchasing company to others, without the approval of the Maritime Commission. The earlier indictments, returned the previous October 13 but maintained under seal until February 8 after Mr. Onassis surrendered, had charged the defendants with conspiring to defraud the Government. This date's announced indictments also charged Julius Holmes of New York City, former U.S. minister to London, as an alleged participant in the transactions involving Mr. Casey.
In Pittsburgh, the first group of young people received this date their injection of the vaccine against polio, developed by Dr. Jonas Salk, who administered the injections personally, as he would to the first 5,000 recipients, members of the first through third grades in 19 Pittsburgh elementary schools between the present and the following June. Those receiving the vaccine were not given prior warning and their names were withheld, at the insistence of Dr. Salk, saying that he wanted them to approach the task in a normal frame of mind without mental tension. He planned to observe the local test and its results in a step-by-step process. Blood tests would be provided with the first injections, which might number as many as three per child, recording the progress in immunization. Thus far, the vaccine had been tested during a period of years on a myriad of animals and on more than 600 humans, including the Salk family. The vaccine was comprised of the three strains of polio known to science, inducing, when injected, a mild case of polio against which the individual's system produced antibodies, strengthening its natural resistance to the disease in more virulent form. Dr. Salk hoped that the injections would produce immunity for as much as seven months. The National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis would administer the vaccine during the spring to hundreds of thousands of youngsters across the nation.
On Iwo Jima, 250 Japanese workmen were salvaging junk left over from the fighting nine years earlier, intending to ship it back to Japanese factories, working under an agreement between the U.S. military and a Japanese firm after U.S. salvage firms had turned down the project as uneconomical because of the distances involved and present U.S. scrap prices. The workmen had removed almost all vestiges of the battle, but were still working on dismantling of a landing ship which had been washed high up on the beach and then covered by sand. The gunports and blockhouses along the cliffs still had multiple pock marks from machine gun, rifle and grenade attacks, and the stench of volcanic sulphur still predominated in the air, but the scenery had changed, with new foliage appearing, some spots having a jungle appearance. One of the island's three airstrips was still being used by the Air Force, which maintained a 350-man force on the island. High grass now covered the area where the 5th Marines had cut across the southwest end of the island and isolated Mount Surabachi, atop which the U.S. flag still flew where it had been planted February 23, 1945, one of the few sites worldwide where the American flag was never lowered. An executive officer at the Air Force base, used by trans-Pacific planes, said that they went through about one flag per week on the island. Nearby were four shrines for the 23,000 Japanese defenders of the island killed in the battle, the building of which had been permitted by the Americans to various religious groups in Japan.
The wholesale price of Maxwell House coffee was raised by five cents per pound to $1.06 by General Foods Corp. this date, the company also announcing that restaurant and hotel brands had been increased by seven cents per pound and that instant coffee had been raised in price by two cents per dozen two-ounce jars, the increases following those by several Eastern roasters the previous week.
In Worms, Germany, a woman this date confessed to administering fatal doses of poison to her late husband, a female friend and her father-in-law, after being questioned almost continuously since her friend had died eight days earlier, minutes after she had bitten into a bon-bon filled with a deadly insecticide. She said she had killed her husband in the same manner, by placing the insecticide in milk, because she believed that her marriage had been "unlucky", the husband having died in 1952 of what was then thought to be a stomach ailment. The father-in-law had dropped dead while riding a bicycle in 1952, believed to have succumbed to a heart attack. The woman confessed to having killed him by placing the poison in a bottle of yogurt, the motive having been, she said, that he had accused her of being immoral. She said that the poison given her friend had actually been intended for her friend's mother, just to make her sick. A fourth potential victim was a man whom police said the victim's wife claimed had been intimate with the woman just before he had died of suspected alcohol poisoning two years earlier and police were considering exhumation of his body. They were also considering exhumation of the mother-in-law of the accused, who had also died suddenly.
In Thornwood, N.Y., a woman, according to police, confessed to having killed her husband the previous night by shooting him to death in the mistaken belief that he was suffering from cancer, after he had told her he was and to shoot him. She had told police that her husband had been suffering from a skin ailment and recently had all of his teeth removed. The Gordon setter of the couple was also found dead in the cellar, and the woman was quoted by police as saying that the dog had also been ill and so she decided to put it out of its misery. She had also shot herself in the side. The medical examiner ordered her admitted to a hospital, as she appeared emotionally disturbed.
In Brisbane, Australia, it was reported from Cairns that a 28-year old man had staggered ashore, suffering from malnutrition and exposure after drifting 450 miles through the Coral Sea in an open 12-foot dinghy without a paddle for 46 days. He said that he had lost his paddles in a storm shortly after disembarking from the tip of Cape York peninsula on January 6 and then drifted after that point. He had trapped rainwater in a cup and plate for nourishment, also sustaining himself on seaweed and a small shark which he had caught.
In Speigner, Ala., a 20-year old convict was shot to death and another wounded while attempting to escape over the wall of the Draper Prison early this date, with first reports indicating that three or more men were believed to have taken part in the attempt and that one of them had gotten away, corrected by subsequent reports, after a check of the prison population, to have included only two inmates. The dead man had been in prison since the prior June and had also been involved in an escape plot the prior January. The deputy warden said that the two men had been caught in crossfire between two tower guards using high-powered shotguns, the dead man having been serving six years and a day for grand larceny and the wounded man having been sentenced the prior October to 25 years for robbery.
In Rome, Ga., police reported that they found five pint bottles filled with illegal moonshine whiskey tucked away under the pillow of a baby bed at the home of a man, charged with illegal possession of non-tax paid whiskey.
In Sumrall, Miss., church attendance had increased 50 percent at the local Baptist Church the prior Sunday, following the Saturday tornado which had flattened 21 structures in the town, albeit without loss of life, about 50 extra members of the flock, according to the minister, having become "increasingly aware of the power of God". If y is the number normally attending the church, how large was the tornado and how many twists did it have?
In San Francisco, two partners were
trying to name their new Lombard Street tavern, and while they were
executing the necessary legal papers to open the establishment, an
official prodding them to sign "once again, please", the
tavern owners decided to name it "Once Again". Why not be a
little more clever and add, ", Around the Bend
Betty Boyer, in the grocery news
section of the newspaper the following day, would present the story
of the yolk, which promises
On the editorial page, "A Community Recreation Program" praises the discussion the previous week of a countywide recreation program between residents of both the urban and rural areas of the county. There had been no dissension between the city and county residents in the discussion, but rather unanimous agreement that a survey ought be undertaken to determine what was needed and how the need could be met. It suggests that broadening of the city program to cover the whole county would be relatively simple in comparison with other suggested consolidation programs, not facing the same inherent problems in merger, rather to be accomplished through expansion. It finds the project off to a good start and that the next step for the city and county governments would be to agree to pay their proportionate share of the cost of the expert survey.
"A Four-Point Tax Reduction Plan" indicates that the tax revision in Congress was shaping up as a political tug-of-war, with Republicans, according their traditions, having moved toward new incentives for U.S. business, to encourage expansion of business and industry, create new jobs and thereby increase consumer purchasing power, while Democrats, true also to their traditions, were stressing individual tax benefits for ordinary citizens, indicating that there was more production at present than consumers were able to purchase, therefore favoring increasing the personal tax exemptions to increase purchasing power.
It indicates that economics textbooks supported both approaches, assuming that taxes could be substantially reduced at present without causing more deficit financing, something which defied the facts. But it was a midterm election year and the dangers of deficit financing were fading into the background in a time of recession, and so it believes the tax reductions would proceed, and that if so, it ought be done fairly and equitably. It thus proposes its four-point plan, a reduction in the base corporate tax rate, an increase in personal exemptions for individuals, some relief for individuals in the very high brackets, and reduction of excise taxes on products and services outside the luxury classification.
"Good Politics" indicates that RNC chairman Leonard Hall, in his speech in Charlotte the prior Saturday, had followed the President's urging of fellow Republicans not to make reference to "20 years of treason" and like charges against Democrats while they had been in power, Mr. Hall saying that he also did not like blanket attacks on Democrats.
The piece finds it simple justice and good politics, for without the votes of Democrats, the Republicans would not presently be in power, and that if Mr. Hall ever again forgot that fact, it suspects that local Congressman, Charles Jonas, the only Republican Representative in the North Carolina Congressional delegation, would bring it to his attention.
"'Recognition' of China Not an Issue" indicates that Representative James Richards of South Carolina had said that had former Secretary of State Acheson returned from the Big Four foreign ministers conference in Berlin with the same type of agreement brought back by Secretary Dulles, regarding the April 26 Geneva conference anent the Far East, including Korea and Indo-China, "the Republicans would have been howling all over the river, pulling out the name of Alger Hiss, and raising hell in general."
Thus far, it notes, no one had claimed that Secretary Dulles was an appeaser, though Senator Alexander Smith of New Jersey had warned Mr. Dulles that he should beware of the "dangers of appeasement".
The fact that no one appeared to be prejudging the results of the conference was, it finds, a good thing. It indicates that when the U.S. representatives had sought the Armistice in Korea through negotiations with Communist Chinese and North Korean representatives at Panmunjom, it had not implied any diplomatic recognition of either government and neither should it be the case at the Geneva conference, especially since the Big Four foreign ministers had agreed in writing that the conference would not involve any diplomatic recognition. It indicates that U.S. officials ought to be concerned that Russia's role in the Korean War was now established, as U.N. and Communist representatives had argued for a long time that Russia should have been included in the Panmunjom talks, with U.N. officials asserting that Russia should have been invited to attend as a "belligerent" and the Communists advocating for an invitation to Russia as a "neutral" nation. With regard to the Geneva conference, Russia was placed in its proper role, as a participant in the Korean War. It indicates that the Communists might seek to use the Geneva conference as a propaganda tool, but the speed with which Communist China had accepted the invitation suggested the small hope that China might on this occasion prove less intransigent than during the Panmunjom talks.
A piece from the Winder (Ga.) News, titled "Gone Huntin'", indicates that the "mixups, the trials, the mistakes of judgment, to say nothing of the typographical errors that creep into the weekly newspaper," were enough to drive a normal person crazy, but that it was said that one had to be a little crazy to be a newspaperman in the first place.
It indicates, however, that there were compensations and sometimes a lot of fun, all of which had reminded of a story about Booth Tarkington when the author was visiting a small Indiana town, and, preparing to depart, found that one of his favorite dogs was missing, rushed over to the newspaper office to insert an ad for the lost dog, which read: "Lost, a pointer dog answering to the name of Rex. $50 reward for his return." Late in the afternoon, Mr. Tarkington had gone back to the newspaper and, finding the office empty except for a young printer's devil, asked where everyone was, to which the boy answered, "Gwan to hunt th' dawg."
Don't know what that means and don't
want to know. Probably some more of that top-secret
Drew Pearson indicates that the Administration would dump a large portion of the 270 million pounds of butter presently in Government storage onto the domestic market after April 1, which would have the effect of decreasing the price of butter to a point where it would almost be running out of the groceryman's ears. Another large amount would be shipped abroad as a giveaway program to countries in need of butter, but it was not clear how the U.S. would avoid arousing in the process the ire of Denmark and other butter-producing countries abroad. It was believed, however, that if most of the butter went to Japan and Korea, there would be little objection. The plan would be a boon to the housewife, but Administration officials were not sure about political repercussions, with some worried about the possibility that the Democrats would raise the former Republican criticism of the Brannan Plan as being socialistic and throw it back in their faces. The latter plan had amounted to a subsidy to farmers, combined with a low price to consumers, with the Government filling in the gap. The new butter plan exactly followed that model, as the Government had already paid the farmer the subsidized support price on butter and now would sell it to consumers at a much lower price. As the Administration had already adopted that plan with respect to wool, some advisers were concerned about going further and applying it also to butter. But based on present planning, the Agriculture Department and the White House were headed in that direction.
Senator Herbert Lehman of New York, 75, was observed strolling down the corridor in the Senate recently, holding hands with his wife.
Gum-chewing Senate Minority Leader Lyndon Johnson was being out-chewed by Senator John Butler of Maryland, across the aisle.
Senator John Williams of Delaware, bane to tax chiselers, had waved affectionately to his wife in the Senate gallery recently.
Pat Nixon was growing more beautiful every day, as her hair was turning a deeper red, and Senate wives wanted to know the name of her new hair rinse. (It's called Commie Shine by Revlon.)
Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine, the only female in the Senate, wore a fresh red rose every day, sent to her by a Washington auto dealer.
Senator Clyde Hoey of North Carolina maintained a new red carnation in his lapel every day, Mr. Pearson, however, not revealing its source.
Senator John W. Bricker of Ohio was running his hand over his "silvery locks, making sure every wave is in place."
Senator Henry Jackson of Washington, a bachelor, wore a shabby brown sweater around the Senate.
The father of Senator Estes Kefauver had been listening in the Senate gallery while his son debated the Bricker amendment.
Senator Herman Welker of Idaho had glanced up at the Senate press gallery recently to see whether its inhabitants were watching the proceedings.
Senator Fred Payne of Maine, presiding over the Senate with professional poise, had boomed out parliamentary decisions, Mr. Pearson noting that he had more hours in the chair than anyone else, including Vice-President Nixon.
The President had sent out his "fact paper" to all bureau chiefs, giving the official Administration policy position regarding important questions, having been working on a separate "fact paper" on the Administration's point of view regarding the supposed 2,200 "security risks" who had been released from the Administration, turning out to be only about 10 percent of that figure in fact.
Assistant director of the Budget Office, Rowland Hughes, had admitted behind closed doors that the new budget was based on two assumptions, that unemployment would remain between two and 2.5 million, and that there would be no change in the international situation. But, notes Mr. Pearson, unemployment had already reached more than 3.5 million and the crisis in Indo-China would likely triple the Eisenhower estimate, with Government economists predicting privately that the budget deficit would reach at least four billion dollars more than the President had originally estimated.
Secretary of State Dulles had advised the President that the Berlin Big Four foreign ministers conference had actually improved the prospects for peace with Russia, even though it had failed to settle any problems with regard to Germany and Austria, its primary stated aims. The Secretary had sent a special report to the President at Palm Springs, indicating that Soviet Foreign Minister V. M. Molotov's stubborn stand at the conference had shown that the Russians were gravely worried about developments inside the Iron Curtain, with the Secretary claiming that Premier Georgi Malenkov would maintain the status quo and make no immediate aggressive move in Europe for at least one or possibly two years. Mr. Pearson, however, notes that in his own interview with the former Russian spy in Canada who had defected with Soviet secrets provided to the Canadian Government, Igor Gouzenko, the latter said that it was unlikely that Russia would take the offensive for fully ten years.
Admiral Arthur Radford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, had reported secretly to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee so optimistically about the crisis in Indo-China that Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota had slipped a note to Senators Mike Mansfield of Montana and Guy Gillette of Iowa which read: "I don't think we are getting all the facts." Mr. Pearson states parenthetically that they were not.
State Department security agents under the direction of Scott McLeod had been asking doctors to violate their oath and talk about their patients, but the doctors had refused.
Joseph & Stewart Alsop discuss the "new look" of U.S. defense policy. The previous October 13, a meeting was held of the National Security Council, to which new Joint Chiefs chairman Admiral Radford had been invited to present the result of the Chiefs' new look, which had not really been the real new look at all. On July 10, the President had instructed the new Joint Chiefs to re-examine the whole design of American defense, in the expectation of a "long period of tension" and danger. The Chiefs had then proceeded to undertake several weeks of hard work, and it now fell to Admiral Radford to report to the NSC on the results, proposing new force levels for the Army, Navy and Air Force, with the Chiefs requesting larger armed forces, somewhat larger than those at present and substantially larger than the country would have in 1955. But most of the members of the NSC wanted immediate cuts in the defense budget, and when the Defense Department comptroller said that the annual cost of the proposed new levels of defense would be 43 billion dollars, Budget Office director Joseph Dodge and his allies on the Council were horrified.
Then, Admiral Radford made a speech of historic import, saying that the civilian arm of the Pentagon had never told the military what sort of war for which it should plan, whether conventional large war, atomic large war, or a small war of the conventional type or utilizing atomic weaponry. Thus, he had said that preparing for every type of war was necessarily of great cost, the Admiral then indicating that if the military were instructed as to the type of war the civilian side was prepared to fight, a real new look to defense, with consequent savings in money, could be realized.
Not long after the October 13 meeting, the NSC directed the Joint Chiefs to be prepared to use weapons wherever and whenever they would be effective, and, in consequence, the Joint Chiefs abandoned the traditional American defense concept of balanced forces, substituting the new concept of national defense entirely built around the air-atomic striking power.
The Alsops indicate that the change in policy had come about as a natural result of the new Administration's defense thinking, starting at the outset with the commitment to ending the Korean War, to the extent that the President was prepared the prior March to order national mobilization and an unlimited effort to win a final victory, until word had come of the Chinese truce offer, probably the result of the new policy, which had been communicated through India's Prime Minister Nehru. Yet, at the same time, the Soviet air-atomic threat was rapidly growing, and the push in Congress and the Administration to reduce defense costs prompted the question of whether military security or fiscal stability would have first priority.
Initially, members of the Administration, such as Secretary of the Treasury George Humphrey and Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson, acted as if the conflict did not exist, with bad results having occurred in the previous year's defense budget, until the question was finally tackled the prior spring in an informal debate among the highest Administration policy-makers called together by the President. That meeting resulted in an executive order creating an NSC study known as "Operation Solarium", named for the fact that it had taken place in the sunroom of the White House, summarized in NSC-162, a policy paper approved the prior October 7, defining the threat to the U.S. as "total", in light of the detonation by the Soviets the prior August of an hydrogen bomb, the new policy giving first priority to military security, with the new look actually beginning a week later at the October 13 NSC meeting.
The Congressional Quarterly indicates that 30 billion dollars had been applied to Government research since 1941, with four billion dollars having been spent in 1953, as Government, industry and non-profit institutions worked together. The Government alone would be spending about two billion dollars in each of the ensuing two fiscal years. Military research was a large portion of the 30 billion spent since the beginning of World War II. President Eisenhower had called research "our surest promise of expanding economic opportunities", stating that the Administration placed a premium on scientific development as prosperity insurance. Overall, the predominant share of research had shifted from industry to the Federal Government in the years since 1941, the piece providing a short table of the breakdown between industry, Federal Government, and nonprofit institutional contributions to research in each of the years 1941 and 1953. More than half of the Federal funding for research was used to purchase research services of industry, while less than a third was spent at Federal facilities. The remainder was distributed to nonprofit institutions, such as colleges and universities, hospitals and independent research groups.
The Defense Department and the Atomic Energy Commission together handled more than three-fourths of all Federal research funding, the piece providing another table of the military expenditures versus the total expenditures for each of the years 1951 to 1953, with estimates provided for the ensuing two years. Applied research and development accounted for more than 90 percent of the current Federal research spending, with the remainder going for basic research, to increase scientific knowledge, the latter however appearing to be provided a larger role in the Administration, as the President had sought from Congress a six million dollar increase for the ensuing fiscal year for National Science Foundation appropriations, indicating that half of that increase was "needed to expand basic research".
A letter writer from Pinehurst comments first on the editorial of February 19, "Dr. Manion Got His Come-Uppance", approving the President's firing of Dr. Clarence Manion from his position as chairman of the President's Commission on Inter-Governmental Relations because of the latter's outspoken positions supporting the Bricker amendment, which the President opposed, the writer finding himself in general agreement with the editorial but wondering whether its condemnation had gone far enough, that it should have included those responsible for the appointment in the first instance, because, as the editorial had noted, the President had been quite aware of Dr. Manion's positions at the time of his appointment. The writer suggests that part of the problem with the President, as the New Republic had indicated in its "Washington Wire" column of February 22, was the consistent editorial support he received from newspapers, ignoring the fact that he was still a human being subject to human errors. (He also played too much golf, not enough minding the store.) The writer goes on, discussing the revelation by Senator William Langer, chairman of the Senate Judicial subcommittee considering the confirmation of Chief Justice Earl Warren, appointed the prior October during the Congressional recess, of the ten unevaluated charges against him, the writer accepting that Chief Justice Warren was an honorable man of loyalty and integrity, but nevertheless subject to being smeared. He quotes Vice-President Nixon as having suggested that the Senate had better things to do than deal with such ridiculous charges, that they ought instead be investigating those who had made them, a statement with which the writer agrees, but pointing out also that it was a "two-edged sword", wondering whether the Vice-President would consent to an investigation of unsupported charges made by Senators McCarthy and William Jenner, HUAC chairman Harold Velde, and former witnesses before Congress who were former Communists turned informants, such as Louis Budenz and Elizabeth Bentley—omitting, for whatever reason, to include the most preeminent of them, Whittaker Chambers. The writer thinks that if such investigations were honestly conducted by a nonpartisan group, some progress might be made in bringing to an end "this era of character defamation."
A letter writer from Pittsboro indicates that he was for America first, last and always, that he had never been in favor of the Kremlin and had opposed recognition of Soviet Russia in 1933 and lend-lease to Russia in 1941—apparently, therefore, quite okay with Nazi Germany winning World War II as a result. He goes on to say that Secretary Dulles, as he departed the Big Four foreign ministers conference at Berlin, had indicated that the Big Three Western powers were willing to trust the Germans while the Russians were not, the writer indicating that he did not believe Germany had any change of heart since the war, a suspicion shared by the French. He suggests that when the U.S. became involved in a war with Russia, Germany and Japan would stand by and watch the two kill each other, with Germany then becoming master of Europe and Japan master of Asia, concluding that he advocates withdrawal from both Europe and Asia "as fast as a dog with a lighted firecracker tied to his tail." He thinks the reckless foreign policy would be the country's complete undoing in the near future.
Just pretend that the atom bomb, jet airplanes with long-range capability, and the continuing development of guided missiles and the advent of the hydrogen bomb never occurred, that we can all cuddle together by the fire back in 1914 and just pretend it's all over there again, just like a Trumpie Dumpy do. After all, after the nukes are finished, it will all be back to about 1814 or even earlier than that anyway.
Framed Edition
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