The Charlotte News

Friday, May 14, 1954

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Hanoi that the French had begun airlifting this date their seriously wounded troops from the fallen fortress at Dien Bien Phu, with the conquering Vietminh having stated that they would release at least 450 of the casualties from the fortress, 250 fewer than previous French estimates of the number of serious cases remaining behind when the fortress had fallen a week earlier. The Vietminh had reported that they had captured 1,400 wounded in all at the fortress. The French high command announced this date that the first contingent of the most gravely wounded had arrived at the royal Laotian capital of Luang Prabang at about noon this date, with Dakota transport planes set to rush them from there to Hanoi and other points with hospital facilities. Only helicopters and small planes could be used to evacuate the fortress and so the French expected the airlifting of the 450 seriously wounded men to take at least two weeks to accomplish.

In the meantime, in the Red River delta around Hanoi, the French stated that they had incurred "serious losses" after resisting an attack by 2,000 to 3,000 Vietminh rebels the previous day at a point 30 miles south of Hanoi on the main road to that city, the largest attack thus far during the year in the delta area, the major target for the Vietminh since the fall of the fortress. Subsequently, French Union infantry, led by tanks, counterattacked, forcing "several battalions" of regular Vietminh infantry to withdraw into the nearby hills with "extremely heavy" losses. It was the first major attack in the delta region since the previous October.

France was reported to have asked the U.S. for direct high-level talks in an effort to determine what the U.S. was willing to do regarding intervention in the Indo-China war. The French conceded that the plan of French commander in Indo-China, General Henri Navarre, had been destroyed by the fall of Dien Bien Phu and that the Communist forces had been able to carry on more than mere guerrilla operations, making it a different kind of war from that which had been envisioned by General Navarre. Both U.S. and French officials said that the French Government had not yet formally requested U.S. intervention because of the fragile Government of Premier Joseph Laniel, which had only survived collapse by a two-vote margin in the National Assembly the previous night. The U.S. had informed France that two major political conditions would have to be satisfied prior to any U.S. intervention, those being that France would have to give the Indochinese Associated States full independence, so as to provide genuine motivation for native resistance to Communism, and that a coalition of nations would have to participate in the intervention.

On the 17th day of hearings before the Senate Investigations subcommittee regarding the dispute between the Army and Senator McCarthy, Senator Karl Mundt, acting chairman of the subcommittee for the investigation, and Senator Everett Dirksen testified in the matter, relating behind-the-scenes approaches to them by Army general counsel John G. Adams the prior January, visits which Senator McCarthy had called "blackmail" attempts to get him to cease his investigation into alleged espionage and sabotage at Fort Monmouth in New Jersey. Both Senators agreed that Mr. Adams had told of pressure from the subcommittee, chaired by Senator McCarthy, and particularly from its general counsel, Roy Cohn, on behalf of Private G. David Schine, who had been drafted into the Army the previous October after having been an unpaid aide of the subcommittee. Both Senators stated that their first reaction had been that if the charges outlined by Mr. Adams were true, then Mr. Cohn would have to be fired, but that when they discussed the matter with Senator McCarthy, he had said he would not submit to "blackmail". At that point, the subcommittee recessed until the afternoon session, at which time Senator Charles Potter, temporary member of the subcommittee, taking the place of Senator McCarthy, would also testify about his conference with Mr. Adams the prior January. Earlier in the morning session, Mr. Adams had continued his testimony for the third day, but Army special counsel Joseph Welch said that he was barred by executive order from answering questions about a January 21 conference at the Justice Department with Attorney General Herbert Brownell and top White House aides, a meeting which Mr. Adams had first mentioned two days earlier.

A photograph on the page shows future attorney for President Nixon during the Watergate scandal, James St. Clair, assistant special counsel for the Army during the hearings, conferring the previous day with a lieutenant colonel as to whether Private Schine should remain at the hearing, while Mr. Adams looked on with an irritated expression, indicating to the subcommittee that he could not continue to testify because of the stir around him.

In Amarillo, Tex., Air Force chief of staff General Nathan Twining said this date, in a speech prepared for an Armed Forces Day ceremony, that the new Russian heavy jet bomber, comparable in size to the U.S. B-52, had been developed for the sole purpose of reaching "important targets" in the U.S. He said that the Soviet medium bombers could reach "any important target in Europe or Asia or North Africa", that only the heavy bombers could reach important targets in the U.S. He said that the Soviet Union now had thousands more combat planes than the U.S. Air Force, Navy, Marines and Army combined. His estimate appeared to be in some conflict with that of Representative Errett Scrivner of Kansas, chairman of a House Appropriations subcommittee handling military funds, made the previous month, that the U.S. outnumbered Russia in the air by a three to two ratio. It was not clear at the time whether Mr. Scrivner had been referring to overall air strength or only to combat aircraft. As of the previous January, the U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marines had about 33,000 planes of all types, of which one-third were jets, while Russian strength was estimated at 20,000 planes in active service, with another 20,000 in reserve.

In London, the Archbishop of Canterbury, ranking prelate of the Church of England, had accepted an invitation to attend the final London revival meeting of the Reverend Billy Graham, that meeting to be held on May 22 at Wembley Stadium, where a crowd of 110,000 was expected.

Off Cape Hatteras, N.C., a 200-foot freighter of Panamanian registry had run aground this date in raging seas at Hatteras Island, three miles north of the fishing village at Rodanthe, and the Coast Guard had removed its crew of 14 by breeches buoy. The wooden-hulled vessel had been reported to have left Philadelphia the previous day with a cargo of scrap iron headed to Havana. The Coast Guard said that the vessel was owned by Frank Cohen of Havana.

Pictured on the page is Caryl Chessman, convicted of kidnaping, rape and robbery for a series of crimes committed in Los Angeles in 1948 and sentenced to death based on kidnapings charged under former Penal Code section 209, subjecting the defendant to either the death penalty or life imprisonment without possibility of parole where the kidnaper acted with intent to hold the victim "for ransom, reward or to commit extortion or robbery or to exact from relatives or friends of such person any money or valuable thing" in cases where the victim suffered bodily harm. He had been granted a stay of execution by a California judge for at least 60 to 90 days pending the outcome of his habeas corpus petition on the basis that his trial transcript was inaccurate and fraudulently prepared from notes of a court reporter who had died during the trial, one of the preparers having been of notorious reputation and given to abuse of alcohol. The case subsequently, in 1955, was certified for appeal on the same ground to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which subsequently affirmed the prior conviction without issuing a writ and hearing evidence on the issues raised by the petition, whereupon the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari and, in a per curiam decision, reversed and remanded to the District Court for determination on the merits of the claim, concluding after an evidentiary proceeding on the writ of habeas corpus, that there was "not a scintilla of verity in the allegations made by the petition" regarding fraud, that the trial judge, district attorney and substitute court reporter had diligently endeavored to establish an accurate record of the trial from the notes left by the deceased court reporter, and that due process therefore was satisfied. In 1957, the Supreme Court, however, again reversed, 5 to 3, in an opinion announced by Justice John Harlan—to be appointed to the Court in 1955 by President Eisenhower following the death of Justice Robert Jackson the subsequent October—, on the ground that due process was violated as the petitioner had not been represented in person or by counsel at a critical stage of the proceedings, when the transcript was being settled, requiring the State of California to undertake the process again of reconstruction of the record, affording Mr. Chessman presence or representation by counsel during the process. Justices William O. Douglas and Tom Clark dissented on the basis that, while agreeing with the basic rule of necessary due process enunciated by the majority, due process had been afforded in the case as Mr. Chessman had participated actively in the process of establishing the record, though it had been conducted ex parte, without his actual presence or representation by counsel, which he had refused. Justice Harold Burton briefly dissented on the basis that due process had occurred. Chief Justice Earl Warren, who had been Governor at the time of the original trial, took no part in the decision. In 1959, after resettlement of the record, the California Supreme Court again affirmed the convictions based on the resettled record regarding the substantive claims raised by Mr. Chessman. The U.S. Supreme Court would issue a stay of execution in October, 1959 without opinion and, eventually, after affording the State of California time to file opposition to the alleged grounds for the new appeal, would, also without opinion, vote to lift that stay. Mr. Chessman was the author of a bestseller, Cell 2455, Death Row—and would, in 1960, ultimately be the last inmate executed in California for such a kidnaping where death had not ensued in the course of the kidnaping. His eventual execution for crimes not involving the death of the victims would become an international cause celebre for opponents of capital punishment, as well as for those in favor of it, placing subsequent Governor Pat Brown in the middle.

In Raleigh, the state's highest elected officials paid tribute to Senator Clyde Hoey, who had died on Wednesday in Washington at age 76. Governor William B. Umstead would head a large group of State officials who were planning to attend the late Senator's funeral services in Shelby the following day. The contingent from the State Supreme Court would include Justices J. Wallace Winborne, William H. Bobbitt, and Emery B. Denny, the latter mentioned among the possibilities for appointment as Senator Hoey's successor. Not included was the actual successor, Justice Sam J. Ervin, who had also been mentioned among those who were possible appointees to the seat. Nor was included Lieutenant Governor Luther Hodges, who would succeed Governor Umstead at his death the following November.

In Shelby, the body of Senator Hoey was brought home this date by train from Washington for funeral services and burial. Vice-President Nixon would head the official delegation from Washington, including 45 members of the Senate and a dozen members of the House, who planned to attend the funeral. The Senator would be buried alongside his wife, who had died 12 years earlier. Among the Senators attending would be Senator McCarthy, along with Army Secretary Robert Stevens. Also expected to be present were Senate Majority Leader William Knowland and Minority Leader Lyndon Johnson. Virtually all of the Southern Senators were also expected to be in attendance. Shelby, with a population at the time of 15,000, would suspend all business activity the following afternoon for 90 minutes, in tribute to Senator Hoey. (It is probably a good thing that Nannie Cash, mother of W. J. Cash, buried in 1941 13 feet from Senator Hoey's grave, and backyard neighbor to the Hoeys from 1942, would not be present at the funeral to see that "old latterned-jawed" Mr. Nixon in person, though she was not given to any form of direct insult, being gentle in temperament, but more prone to state her actual opinion when face-to-face with some individual appearing on the television screen. Special note, however, to Mr. Nixon: Please do not step, inadvertently, on Cash's grave.)

On the editorial page, "Say, Buddy, Where's the Fire?" indicates that the Mecklenburg County Medical Society would shortly submit a worthy recommendation to the City Council that emergency vehicles should observe the prevailing speed limits appropriate to the area in which they were operating, unless moving under police escort.