Eugene register-guard., October 21, 1951, Image 12

e
When It Rains
LAN! tOUMrt MOM! HtaA1
AN INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER
PUBLISHER Alton F. Baker
EDITOR William M. Tugman. MANAGING EDITOR Alton F. Bauer, Jr.
SERVICES Full Associated Press. United Press, Audit Bureau of Circulations.
The Register-Guard's policy is the complete and impartial publication In Its news
pages of all news and statements on news On this page the editors of The Register
Guard offer their opinions on events of the day and matters of Importance to the
community endeavoring to be candid but fair and helpful in the development of con
tsiuctive community policy. A newspaper is A CITIZEN OF ITS COMMUNITI.
Entered at the Post Office at Eugene, Oregon, as second-class matter.
PAGE 10 EUGENE, OREGON, SUNDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1951
In Egypt As in Iran-Not Likely
That Egypt's intensely nationalistic
leaders should choose this moment to
demand an end to British control of the
Suez Canal and the Anglo-Egyptian
Sudan is quite understandable. Knot
ting the tail of the undernourished Brit
ish lion has become a seemingly simple
feat in the Near East.
Iran shooed the docile beast out of
the world's biggest oil refinery within
a week after Prime Minister Attlee de
clared his nation's firm resolve to stay
in Abadan.
In Egypt, leaders of the strong-arm
Wafdist party have placed national ag
grandizement above all other considera
tions. During World War II many
among them were openly friendly to
the Fascist powers. While they may not
actually court the Kremlin, they now
can be expected to bid in the same suit
as the Russians whenever it will fur
ther their own aims..
. But the Egyptians had better look to
their hole cards, for these reasons:
1. The United States, Fiance and Turkey
already have backed the British decision to
stay in the Suez zone and the Sudan. For
obvious strategic reasons, the western powers
cannot permit any weakening of military
control over the canal.
2. International law is on the side of
Britain. The 1936 Anglo-Egyptian treaty was
written for a 20-year term and in the eyes
of the world gave Egypt real Independence
ior the first time in 2200 years.
3. In Britain, on the eve of a general
election, another debacle of the Iranian sort
would spell political ruin for Attlee's Labor
party. (
The 1936 treaty authority for 10,000
British troops in the canal zone has
been exceeded since the start of the
Iranian affair. Some 35,000 Tommies
are garrisoned in the zone today. How
ever, Britain can counter this Egyptian
complaint noting that the treaty gave
her full power to protect her communi
cations lifeline through Egypt. That
provision saved Egypt from conquest
by the Axis in the early phases of
World War II. Furthermore, the treaty
provided for Egyptian military control
of the canal zone only when her forces
were sufficiently strong to insure its
defense.
Nothing In the treaty indicated British
plans to give up codominion over the Sudan;
nor would history indicate any desire of the
Sudanese lo be ruled by the Egyptians.
Egyptian concern over control of the
Nile's headwaters in the Sudan was met
in 1929 when pacts were drawn guar
anteeing that nation's essential rights
to the great river's flow. Egypt's cur
rent contention on this point is not
valid. It is true her prosperity depends
greatly upon bounties bestowed by the
Nile. However, if economic determinism
is a real force governing Egypt's actions,
the nation's interests lie clearly with
those of the British sterling bloc
through which her major markets are
reached.
The Wafdist demand that the British
quit the Sudan only follows an ages
old Egyptian aspiration to rule and ex
ploit the relatively backward people of
that region. During the 19th century,
the British controlled both Egypt and
the Sudan, often permitting the Egyp
tians to extend sub-rule over the Arabs
and Negroes of the Sudan. Oft-times
they were badly ruled, but when the
Sudanese rose up in 1884 and chased
the Egyptians out, .native rule proved
worse than anything seen before.
More than two million Sudanese died be
cause of famines, disease and misrule before
popular revulsion in Britain sent Lord Kitch
ener to defeat the fanatic Mohammedan
dervishes with a combined Anglo-Egyptian
army In 1898.
After 25 years of nominal codomin
ion over the Sudan, in which Britain
actually held firm control, Egyptians
began agitating for freedom and de
manded sovereignty over both the lower
and upper Nile regions. Egypt was
given political independence in 1922,
but two years later the British governor-general
of the Sudan was murdered
in Cairo. Egyptians were kicked out of
the Sudan, this time by the British,
and it was not until 1936 that they
were allowed to return.
In half a century, British capital has
developed the Sudan to status as an
important producer of raw materials.
The strain of long-staple cotton raised
there has supplied a third of the cotton
imported by Britain for its important
textiles industry.
For military, economic and political
reasons, then, it is to be expected that
the lion will rouse himself if the gad
flies on the Nile forget how tough his
hide really is and try their puny stings
on him. Nor will the lion's friends re
proach if in his righteous anger he
should roll on his tormentors. (AHC)
Let's Make It 100 Per Cent!
The Lane County chest X-ray pro
gram has not fallen on its nose. Already
53,611 of our citizens have had their
picture snapped.
However, medical authorities and
volunteer workers guiding the program
are concerned because they know 40,000
more persons in Lane County should
avail themselves of this service. It
takes only a couple of minutes, and it
is just as easy as having a family pic
ture taken with a Brownie camera.
This Is no give-away idea. It Is part of
a long-range educational program by our
nation to control a communicable disease
which has plagued mankind for centuries,
EVERYONE should have a chest
X-ray for a person may have tuber
culosis and not know it. Early TB usual
ly gives no warning symptoms. Most
people are free from TB, but a chest
X-ray is the best way to make sure.
Age is no protection against TB.
Whether you are 15 or an octogenarian,
you can have TB. If you have it and
don't know it, you may be spreading it
to others.
Handling TB patients In Oregon costs over
$t million a year. As a taxpayer, you can see
the need to help stamp it out.
Three X-ray units will be held over
in Eugene on Monday, Tuesday and
Wednesday. They will be located at
10th and Willamette, Broadway and
Willamette and on East Broadway, just
off Willamette.
If you have not already done so,
this newspaper urges you to pay a two
minute visit to one of these units for
the sake of yourself, your family and
your neighbors. (AB)
The Next War in Retrospect
Using datelines in the year 1960, the
latest issue of Collier's offers a "review"
of the third world war. From cover to
cover, the magazine treats only of the
"unwanted war."
Preparations for ihis special number
started In Collier's editorial offices last Janu
ary under tlte innocuous label "Operation
Kcsnog." Robert E. Sherwood, four-time
Pulitzer prize winner, wrote the basic recipe
for the concoction In a lead article based on
five months' special research.
Sherwood's presentation tells how
the war started between the Atlantic
powers and the Communist bloc; how
it progressed, and, how it ended with
the Red armies crushed and routed
Overlooking nothing. Collier's edi
tors had fiction for this issue shaped to
the themes supplied by Nostradamus
Sherwood; special sidebars of graphic
imaginative nature were asked and re
ceived of a number of American names-in-the-news
Walter Winchell, Hal
Boyle, Senator Margaret Chase Smith,
Waller Reuthcr and Lowell Thomas
among them.
Throughout is the key message: The Rus
sian people are held in a bondage of terror.
Their tyrannical masters may take them into
war, but war against the Russians must, if it
comes, be aimed at their liberation and re
induction to the world of freedom and peace.
The Oregonian expresses an editorial
fear that the Collier's effort, intended
to demonstrate to Russia the sheer folly
of another war, may boomerang. Indeed,
the Kremlin may pervert it to "prove"
Americans are warmongering. On the
other hand, the issue may help dispel
complacency and wishful thinking in
America,
Marquis Child's
West Is Losing
In Middle East
WASHINCTON While the post-mortem
on America's China policy, if any,
grinds on and on, the Middle East is going
the way of China. That is to say, it is
rapidly being lost to the West.
4fm w Appareiiuy we iit:t:L-
frHirh Set around to these
thin ex until there is a
corpse to be fought over.
In the Middle East there
is a good chance that
we shall soon have sev
eral corDses. And in a
tew years the post
I mTtr M 1 mortem will be on who
XmAutk ;St EgyPt' Iran Iraq'
- CHILDS You can see the wit
nesses squirming under the interrogation,
Did you ever intend to abandon Iran to
Communism? Where were you on the night
of Oct. 18, 1951, and didn't you at one
time have a conversation in Teheran with
a member of the Tudeh Communist-dominated
party?
This extraordinary folly recalls once
again Winston Churchill's words spoken in
June of 1940 when all of the West seemed
about to go down: "If the past undertakes
to sit in judgment on the present, then
the future will be lost."
ROOTS IN COLONIALISM
The historical forces at work in Effvot
have some parallel with those that ran
their course in the China catastrophe. The
roots of the trouble are, above all, in a
colonialism that ignored the aspirations
of masses of people in a dynamic and
swiftly changing world.
The British signed a treaty of mutual
defense with Egypt in 1936. Under that
treaty they agreed'to do certain things in
return for the right to maintain bases in
the Suez Canal area. One obligation was
to train Egyptian forces and help to inte- I
grate them into a common defense.
The Egyptians say this w3s never done.
They say that if Britain had taken the I
ablest young Egyptian officers to England
and had given them training in such crack
military schools as Sandhurst, they could
have taken the leadership in forming an
Egyptian army with a western orientation.
LAND OF LOST OPPORTUNITY I
If ... if ... if ... the land of lost op- !
ortunity. A little opportunity may still be
left. British proposal for an international
commission that, would appraise the Brit
ish administration in the Sudan Is a start.
It avoids any complication with Soviet
Russia.
But should this prove unacceptable to
Egypt, then a United Nations trusteeship
should be proposed as quickly as possi
ble in spite of the hazard of the Russian
veto or, worse, Russian participation in
such a trusteeship. UN action would al
most inevitably have to be in preparation
for the departure of British administrators
from the Sudan.
Egyptian spokesmen say they can
starve out the British troops by shutting
off supplies of food and water and there
by forcing them in a comparatively short
time to get out. British spokesmen say
they can hold out for years by bringing
in their own supplies. That way invites
disaster. It is readying up the corpse for
the next post-mortem.
This process of post-mortem has about
it an air of almost suicidal futility. That
senators should at this point in world his
tory spend time deciding what Henry Wal
lace meant or did not mean, and if he
meant it who influenced him to mean it,
in a pamphlet written in 1946 is a phenom
enon historians will have a difficult time
explaining.
FUTILE, UNFAIR CONTROVERSY
It is, moreover, grossly and wickedly
unfair, inasmuch as it seems to impugn
the loyalty of individuals who may have
been mistaken but who were sincerely and
honestly seeking the best way out of an
almost impossible situation. What is hap
pening in the nomination of Philip Jessup
to be one of the American delegation to
the meetitng of the UN General Assembly
is a tragic case in point.
This controversy has become so in
volved, so complicated, that no one can
any longer tell where right or wrong lies
or even whether there is a right or a
wrong in the tangled mess of China's
downfall. But, meanwhile, Jessup is being
sacrificed to the fears, the prejudices and
the politics of those who mean to pin the
guilt on someone.
If it were a crime to be mistaken, a
very high percentage of the members of
Congress would be in jail today, and on
one score alone. The moment the war
ended a large majority of both Repub
licans and Democrats demanded that the
boys be brought home, often accompany
ing this with a denunciation of the brass
hats. This, in itself, had a lot to do with
creating the vacuums of power from which
so many of our current troubles stem.
(Copyright. 1031. by United Feature Syndicate. Inc.)
SO THEY SAY
I can't see any justification for paying
farmers for doing something they would
normally do. Farming should be a respec
table business with a respectable income
for anyone who wants to work for it.
Robert Meikle, farmer, of Michigan.
In a material and geographical sense,
Korea ... is a promontory jutting out into
salt water ruled by American seapower
under an air canopy controlled in the
main bv American Air Forces. Winston
Churchill.
In its frustration, the Congress (today)
is groping for some sort of code of ethics.
But the Congresp is confronted with the
fact that sacred honor cannot always be
tested by legality or enforced by law.
Herbert Hoover.
Whatever happens in Korea, we must
not make the mistake of jumping to the
conclusion that the Soviet rulers have
given up their ideas of world conquest.
President Truman.
All day long a man competes. When he
comes home at night he wants a stuoid
girl who'll keep her mouth shut and let
him look at television. Cy Howard, radio
writer.
it's started
TO POUR1,
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I I I kJ v Ji I I I 1 I I I ' III! I
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THE FORRESTAL DIARIES
The Events Leading to Forrestal's Resignation;
Final Days Spent in Naval Hospital
22. Resignation
Early In December, 1948, the President had
told his press conference that there would be no
immediate changes in the Cabinet. Then on Jan.
7, 1949, the resignation of both Marshall and his
Under Secretary, Lovett, was announced. Dean
Acheson would become Secretary of State and
James E. Webb, Forrestal's antagonist in the
Budget Bureau, would succeed Lovett. On Jan. 8
Symington published his annual report as Secre
tary of Air; renewing the demand for a full
seventy-group Air Force, it reopened the contro
versy of the previous year and still further under
mined Forrestal's position. Then the columnists
turned their attention to him. On Jan. 9 Walter
Winchell broadcast a prediction that the Presi
dent would accept Forrestal's resignation within
the week, coupling this with a bitter attack,
charging that twenty years before Forrestal had
formed a Canadian corporation to reduce his
income tax.
Next day the President's press secretary.
Charles C. Ross, said flatly that the Winchell'
prediction was untrue; and Forrestal, when he
was asked later by the reporters whether he ex
pected to continue, said: "Yes, I am a victim of
the Washington scene." This damped the rumors
of his retirement; especially when the President
gave a lukewarm endorsement. But on the eve
ning of Jan. 16 Drew Pearson renewed the radio
attack. Recalling Winchell's assertion, Pearson
insisted that the President would have accepted
Forrestal's resignation if the Winchell forecast
had not angered him. Pearson repeated the at
tack on the Canadian corporation, and added a
trumped-up version of an old robbery of Mrs.
Forrestal's jewels that reflected on Forrestal's
personal courage. Forrestal had his attorneys draw
up a libel complaint against Pearson, and re
ceived almost unanimous advice from his friends
that ho should sue. Yet he never authorized the
filing of the complaint, shrinking from the
notoriety. When a guest on another radio pro
gram erroneously accused Forrestal of having a
major financial interest in a cartel controlling
the old pro-Nazi firm of I, G. Farben, friends
secured a retraction and an apology.
Fatigue Begins to Tell
There is no doubt that Forrestal was tired. As
his fatigue increased, some associates in both the
White House and the Defense Department felt that
he became less and less willing to reach decisions.
On Jan. 21, General Eisenhower came back to
full-time duty as Forrestal's principal military
adviser.
"One of the reasons," General Eisenhower re
calls, "that Forrestal felt such an acute need for
some help was his inborn honesty and his very
great desire to serve the country well. He would
listen carefully to presentations, even where he
was certain that these were partisan and even
prejudiced; his ability to see truth on both sides
of bitter questions led him to a turmoil out of
which it was difficult to form a clear-cut de
cision in which he could personally have real
confidence."
Very probably, when Forrestal wrote to a
friend on Jan. 13 that he would stay on for "an
additional period," he had already discussed with
the President some definite limit to that period.
,He conferred with the President on the 28th;
there are no diary notes of the meeting, but ap
parently Forrestal was arranging on that day for
his succession. Louis Johnson has given a detailed
account: "In the latter days of January . , . the
President sent for me and told me that Mr. For
restal wanted to talk to me. He said that Mr.
Forrestal was my friend and that he wanted me
to listen to him accordingly. ... I crossed through
the White House, and Mr. Forrestal, coming down
the corridor from the Cabinet room, called to me.
. . . Mr. Forrestal asked me, with the approval of
the President, to take over his job as Secretary
of Defense. ... I told Mr. Forrestal that a story
had been printed saying I had been undercutting
him seeking his job. Mr. Forrestal replied that
he had double-checked the story and was satisfied
that there was not, and had not been, a word of
truth in it."
Declines Ambassadorship
According to Johnson, the agreed dale for the
change was May I, the interim to be used to brief
Johnson on the duties of the office. There are
Indications that Forrestal later visited Johnson at
his office and documentary material was occasion
ally sent to Johnson from the Defense Depart
ment. Yet there is evidence that Forrestal may
have considered the succession less firmly set than
Johnson evidently did. Forrestal talked as late as
mid-February of the possibility that, when he did
leave office, someone other than Johnson would
replace him. Forrestal also.remarked about this
time that he felt the President had always been
very fair with him. It is known that he received
the offer, or an intimation of the offer, of one of
the more important ambassadorships, but de
clined. The climax, when it came, was swift. Forrestal
had an appointment with the President at 12:30
on March 1; he left no record of the interview,
but at least one friend came to understand later
that at this meeting the President asked Forrestal
to send in his letter of resignation at once, and
that this had been a "shattering experience." Un
til this interview he had evidently felt that the
resignation was not urgent. Now he began to work
on the letter at fever pitch. As it went through
various revisions that evening and next day, For
restal kept advancing the effective date, until it
finally stood at March 31. His assistant, Marx
Leva, asked whether the President wanted him
out on that day; Forrestal replied that the Presi
dent wished him to stay until June 1, but that
he wanted to get out earlier.
His Letter of Resignation
The letter went to the White House on the
forenoon of March 2, and was released next day,
together with the announcement of Johnson's ap
pointment. The letter of resignation pled "urgent
personal considerations"; the President's letter of
acceptance declared that at "my personal urging"
Forrestal had served far longer than he had in
tended. "For all that you have done," it ended, "in
your country's behalf and for the service which
you will continue to give out of your abundant
experience I tender you heartfelt assurance of my
gratitude and appreciation."
Louis Johnson was sworn in as Secretary of
Defense at a brief ceremony at the Pentagon on
March 28. Forrestal drove to the White House
to pay his respects and there found, to his com
plete surprise, that a second ceremony had been
arranged at which the President pinned to his
coat the Distinguished Service Medal,
Next day Forrestal flew to Hobe Sound, Fla.,
as a guest of Robert Lovett, his old friend and
colleague in so many crises of state. The effect,
unfortunately, was not what had been hoped.
With his final departure from office Forrestal
was precipitated into depression so severe that
within a day or two psychiatric help seemed im
perative. On April 2 he was flown back to Wash
ington and was admitted that evening to the
Naval Hospital at Bethesda, Md.
Tragic End to His Career
By the end of April he was responding well to
treatment. He seemed his old self to numbers of
his friends and associates, including the President,
who visited him. By the middle of May his
physicians were looking forward to his discharge
in another month or so, and as a necessary part
of the treatment they risked a relaxation of the
restraints that had been set around him. It was a
tragic miscalculation. On the night of May 21-22
he was reading late in his room on the sixteenth
floor; the book was Mark Van Doren's "Anthology
of World Poetry," and he was copying from it
Winthrop Mackworth Praed's translation of
Sophocles' dark and solemn "Chorus from Ajax."
Fair Salamis, the billows' roar
Wanders around thee yet,
And sailors gaze upon thy shore .
Firm in the Ocean set.
Thy son is in a foreign clime
Where Ida feeds her countless flocks,
Far from thy dear, remembered rocks,
Worn by the waste of time
Comfortless, nameless, hopeless save
In the dark prospect of the yawning grave. .
Woe to the mother in her close of day,
Woe to her desolate heart and temples gray,
When she shall hear
Her loved one's story whispered In her ear!
"Woe, woe!" will be the cry
No quiet murmur like the tremulous wail
Of the lone bird, the querulous nightingale
The copying ceased on this word: the sheets
were laid in the back of the book and the book
Itself set down open at the page. It was 3 o'clock
in the morning. Forrestal went into a small diet
kitchen on the same floor, which he had been en
couraged to use. and fell lo his death from its
unguarded window.
Thus a great and singularly selfless career
reached its tragic end.
Copyright. 1951. New York Hcritd Trtbunf. Inc.
Editor1
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