The Charlotte News

Saturday, April 24, 1954

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Hanoi that the French had launched powerful counterattacks this date against the Vietminh in the northwest corner outpost which the rebels had newly captured in their drive toward the heart of the French fortress at Dien Bien Phu. A French Army spokesman said that the defenders of the fortress had not succeeded in dislodging the deeply entrenched rebels from their grip on the whole northern half of the main airstrip of the fortress, but that the counterattacks had given the French some breathing room in which to establish a new defense line of trenches and fortifications. Brig. General Christian de Castries, commander of the fortress defenders, launched the counterattacks in an effort to take back the outpost captured the previous day by the Vietminh in furious hand-to-hand fighting. The Vietminh, however, introduced overwhelming numbers of troops and the General was forced to withdraw the main body of his forces to the heart of the fortress, though the French claimed that the enemy had suffered heavy losses in this date's fighting. Two Vietminh battalions, numbering about 2,000 men, were said by the French to have been hit severely by fire from tanks and artillery inside the fortress's shrinking perimeter. There was speculation that loyal forces marching northward from the Kingdom of Laos might be on their way to relieve the French defenders, having reached the Nam Ou River curve about 18 miles south of the fortress, but French sources would not disclose the objective of the movement. The French daily communiqué indicated that the previous night had been calm after a day of close-quarters combat. A heavy mist hung over the fortress this date, but the French hoped that the weather would clear before noon to permit new waves of bombers and fighters to blast the enemy. Monsoon rains during the previous week had turned the fortress, comprised of barbed-wire encircled trenches and underground bunkers, into a muddy mire.

In Paris, the French Cabinet this date provided Foreign Minister Georges Bidault a free hand to negotiate for France at the upcoming Geneva peace conference, scheduled to begin in two days. By giving him carte blanche, the Cabinet averted what otherwise might have been a collapse of the Government of Premier Joseph Laniel. Four Gaullist members of the Cabinet, against the policies of the Foreign Minister and the Premier regarding the handling of Indo-China, had caused the threatened collapse. The French delegation would be allowed to operate freely within the context of the policy terms laid down on Indo-China, as outlined by the Premier on March 7 before the National Assembly, approved by the Assembly and drafted largely by M. Bidault, indicating that France would miss no opportunity to reach a peaceful settlement in the war as long as the security and independence of the three French Union Indochinese states, Viet Nam, Cambodia and Laos, were not endangered.

The Big Three foreign ministers, Secretary of State Dulles, Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, and M. Bidault were winding up four days of private strategy talks this date in Paris, in advance of the start of the Geneva conference, set to have their final meeting this afternoon, before each headed to Geneva.

In New Delhi, Prime Minister Nehru, in a statement before the Indian Parliament, called on the U.S., Britain, Russia and Communist China to enter into a pact at Geneva whereby they would agree not to intervene directly or indirectly in Indo-China, part of a five-point program he proposed for ending the war there. He asked that the major powers "desist from further threats and stepping up the war", provide priority at Geneva for a cease-fire, proclaim complete independence for Indo-China, and initiate direct negotiations to end the fighting. He also wanted France to provide assurances at Geneva that it was taking steps to grant full independence to the three Indochinese states.

The Soviet Union severed its diplomatic relations with Australia this date because of the latter's refusal to hand over a fugitive envoy in Canberra, Vladimir Petrov, on charges of embezzlement. The Russians accused Australia of a "large-scale campaign of slander" in its allegations that Mr. Petrov had fled his post as third secretary of the Soviet Embassy at Canberra and provided the Australian Government documents which were said to have exposed a Communist spy ring. The Russians recalled their Ambassador to Australia and announced that their Canberra Embassy would be closed. At the Embassy, staff were busy burning documents and books in a huge bonfire built in a fenced-in yard. The Soviets also accused the Australian Government of kidnaping Mr. Petrov's wife, who was also granted political asylum with her husband. Australia had already refused an earlier demand for the return of the couple.

In Tokyo, the Japanese House of Representatives late this date defeated a no-confidence vote against the pro-American Administration of Prime Minister Sigeru Yoshida, climaxing the nation's greatest postwar political crisis. It was the first time in the 75-year modern political history of Japan that a Prime Minister had fought and won against violent opposition, scandal and nearly solid opposition from the press. More than 20 Progressives, the second conservative party of Japan, had walked out of the House, giving the Liberal party, conservative in its orientation, a majority vote. Shipping scandals had touched off the Government crisis the previous January after disclosures linked Liberal Party and some Progressive Party leaders to wealthy shipbuilders who were obtaining subsidies to restore Japan's war-battered merchant marine. There had been more than 100 arrests, confessions and indictments in the case thus far, with most of the evidence pointing to large-scale kickbacks to party leaders.

Senator Karl Mundt of South Dakota, acting chairman of the Senate Investigations subcommittee conducting the investigation of the dispute between the Army and Senator McCarthy, said this date that the subcommittee might have to rewrite its "fuzzy" order for seizure of records of telephone calls monitored without the consent of both parties, specifically one of November 7, 1953 between Secretary of the Army Robert Stevens and Senator McCarthy, a transcript of which had been made at the behest of Secretary Stevens without the foreknowledge of Senator McCarthy. The subcommittee was in recess until Monday following the second day of public hearings the previous day, during which the issue came to light when Secretary Stevens disclosed that a call with the Senator was monitored and transcribed. Senator Mundt said that if the matter went to court, he did not want the entire investigation sunk on the basis of a legal technicality. The subcommittee had voted unanimously the previous day to subpoena all memoranda, documents, and notes of monitored conversations between parties to the dispute and all others, provided they were found to be material and relevant to the issues the subcommittee was considering.

Senator McCarthy prepared to deliver a couple of speeches in Milwaukee this date after flying from Washington for the weekend, and reiterated to newsmen that he was insisting that all monitored Army Department statements connected with the case of Private G. David Schine be presented as evidence in the hearings in chronological order, to place matters in the "correct perspective", which he believed would show that the Army had prevented the subcommittee, normally chaired by Senator McCarthy, from exposing the cover-up of the previous 10 to 30 years, and had engaged in effort to get the subcommittee to end its investigation of Communists in the Army.

In Augusta, Ga., the President this date called on U.S. citizens to join on September 17 in a "rededication of the great principles for which this nation stands." The Congress had designated in 1952 that date as "Citizenship Day" in commemoration of the signing of the Constitution on that date in 1787. Perhaps, it would be a good notion to revive that date as cause for celebration, and retire the dark shroud surrounding September 11, after twenty years. The country is stumbling around like a manic depressive, vacillating between morose paranoia on the one hand and cackling insanity as humor on the other. Perhaps somewhere in the middle would be a better place to be, in terms of cultural sanity, standing firm for our Constitution, all of it, not merely a handful of words here or there which are appealing to gun nuts and the like, those in Congress and out.

Rowland Evans, Jr., indicates that Guy Hollyday, recently ousted as Federal Housing commissioner, had taken issue with Justice Department criminal division head, Warren Olney III, and his charge that the FHA felt no responsibility for protecting homeowners from predator repair salesmen, telling the Senate Banking Committee the previous day that FHA was "greatly concerned" over the welfare of homeowners who used Government-insured loans to remodel their homes.

In Jackson, Miss., a reporter for the Clarion-Ledger, Joe Penix, was able to stop a potential suicide by keeping the caller on the telephone the previous night until she could be identified and police sent to her address. Mr. Penix had told the story in the newspaper this date of how he spent 45 minutes talking the woman out of her intent to commit suicide, after she called to say she wanted to report a death, her own. He asked another reporter to have the call traced as she consistently refused to identify herself, saying she was 27, had been married four times and was in ill health. She said that she had attempted suicide previously and had her stomach pumped at a hospital, provided the reporter with her physician's name, which Mr. Penix provided to another reporter who was able to locate the physician, enabling the police and doctor to hurry to the woman's apartment, where, she had informed Mr. Penix, she had turned on the gas, placing the phone receiver nearby so that he could hear it escaping. She told him that she was feeling sleepy and asked him not to hang up, eventually dropping the telephone, whereupon police arrived two minutes later, in time to revive her.

In London, evangelist Billy Graham ended the eighth week of his crusade this night with his voice still strong, after having spoken to about a million persons during more than 70 revival meetings. The crusade still had four more weeks to go at Harringay Arena, before a finale at Wembley Olympic Stadium on May 22, where 100,000 people were expected to attend. Following two days of rest, Rev. Graham would then take his crusade to Paris on May 25, and from then until June 16, would tour U.S. military bases in France and West Germany. He would then tour Scandinavia, with rallies in Helsinki at the Olympic Stadium for two days in mid-June, then at Stockholm's Sports Stadium for two days, finishing in Copenhagen on June 21. He would then speak in Berlin's Olympic Stadium on June 27.

Also in London, real Russian vodka was returning to British bars this date for the first time since the Revolution of 1917, 500 cases of it having arrived the previous day aboard a Soviet freighter, with importers indicating that demand was high and pleading for licenses to bring in more. The Commies are trying to turn you into alcoholics to make it easier to take over.

Daylight savings time would go into effect on Sunday morning at 2:00 a.m. in 18 states and the District of Columbia, and so if you live in those areas, be sure to turn your clock ahead one hour, so that you don't fall behind and wind up having lifelong nightmares about missing that class, what was the subject? and not knowing anymore, though once you did, where it is even meeting in the building, and how many book reports you failed to turn in during the semester, when were they due? with only a couple of weeks left before the start of exams, wandering aimlessly, hopelessly from classroom to classroom, trying futilely to awaken a glimmer of recognition and recall, waking with a start in a cold sweat, only to realize, embraced by the soothing warmth of a satisfied grin, that nothing of the kind ever happened, at least not of that particular specie of procrastination.

On the editorial page, "A Senator without a Party" indicates that Senator William Jenner of Indiana had been one of two Senatorial problems for the President in the 1952 campaign, the other having been Senator McCarthy. Both had bitterly attacked General Marshall, who had taken then-Major Eisenhower from obscurity and brought him to Washington, subsequently, as Army chief of staff, appointing him to lead the Allied forces in Europe during the war. General Eisenhower, during the campaign, decided, against his better judgment, to appear with both Senators.