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About Herald and news. (Klamath Falls, Or.) 1942-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 18, 1963)
PAGE U HERALD AND NEWS, Klamath Falls. Ore. Wednesday. December 18, 196J Hour of Decision EPSON IN WASHINGTON . . . Ax-Grinders Board LBJ Ranch Wagon Don't Economize At An announcement by Secretary of De fense McNamara recently which calls for the closure of some 33 domestic and overseas military establishments almost set off an ex plosion In Congress. Senators and Represcn ; latives from the 14 states which will be af fected, raised a storm of protest. ;.' And yet many of these same lawmakers . have constantly cried for a reduction in gov ' eminent spending. President Johnson is being blamed for the cutback. But the late President Kennedy had proposed to McNamara that he provide defense at the lowest possible cost. Republicans, in particular, have been critical of our continuous spending and mounting debt. Conservative Democrats have been of the same opinion. But when actual steps are taken to save in the case of the military cutbacks it will amount to some $442 million annually a hue and cry immediately goes up from the representa It's a good thing the President did something about preventing a strike which would have put six major U.S. airlines out of commission right at the peak of the Christ , mas holidays. ' This would have been catastrophic to hundreds of thousands of persons who have ' waited all year long to make a trip home or elsewhere for Christmas. A disappoint- vment of this character would have been bad :enough for normal travel-minded citizens rf the U.S.A. But think of the hundreds '. and hundreds of servicemen who have been stationed beyond the limits of the U.S. They : would have been shut out entirely. It's tough enough as it is. G.I.'s lucky enough to get .a leave during the holidays or any other lime of the year, are permitted to travel on a commercial airline at a half-fare rate. But WILLIAM IgpjGOP By WULAM S. WHITE WASIIINGTON-Tlio extraor dinarily eager Interest shown by Henry Cabot Lodge In tor mcr President Elsenhower's re ported suggestion that ho seek nomination is troubling t w o very different groups for vory different reasons. People in the Administration, though far from afraid of Mr. Lodge as a potential rival to President Johnson in next year's campaign, do not hido their concern at (tic Ambassa dor's open and wholly unexcct ed Injection of himself into par tisan politics in an arena of hot war with Communist invaders. Mr. Lodge accepted President Kennedy's appointment as Am bassador to South Viet Nam for the precise purpose, on his side and on Mr. Kennedy's side, of keeping domestic politics strict ly out of a war effort in which 18.000 American troops are In volved alongside the anti-Communist Vietnamese. Tho regular Republicans, for their part, are putting out (or Mr. Lodge a mat upon which Die word "Unwelcome" is, in spirit, written large. The Am bassador, who lost his Senate seat from Massachusetts to John F. Kennedy and went on to represent President Eisen hower at the United Nations, has been In the black books of loyalist organization Republi cans since l!M9. He led an un successful effort to oust t h late Sen. Robert A. Toft of Ohio, "Mr. Republican," as principal GOP spokesman in the Senate. Then lie burned the last bridge with the orthodox Re publicans by taking the lead In accusing Taft men of attempt ing to "steal" the 1952 Repub lican Presidential nomination from General Eisenhower. While nothing is Impossible in politics and certainly not in the present slate of affairs with in the GOP serious talk of Mr. Lodge's nomination Is I e e n among Uie Republican regu lars as akin to moon-madncs.. And it It far (mm relished by tho backers of Gov. Nelson Rockefeller of New York, Sen. Barry Goldwater of Ariiona, Gov. William Stanton of Penn sylvania and Gov. George Rom ney of Michigan. Thus, many Republican pro fessionals are wistfully await ing soma signal that General a tives of states or areas where these econo mies are to be affected. First to howl after McNamara's announcement was Sen. Ken neth B. Keating, R-N.Y. New York is one of the heaviest losers according to McNa mara's schedule. In fact he was quoted as saying, "It is incredible that anyone could analyze this as an economy move." We feel you can call a rose by any other name but if the trusted Secretary of Defense says he can provide adequate pro tection of our nation for some $442 million less annually than is the case today, then this is tightening up the fiscal belt. The curtailments in government spend ing almost everyone wants to make are those which affect other areas and other people. In Oregon we don't get very excited about clos ing military bases in Texas. This is true in reverse. But when they start cutting back at home we scream bloody murder. But we're surprised Republican Sen. Keating made such a howl! Airlines Strike they get no priority. So during Christmas time especially the lowly-paid draftee who has a chance to come home has to have everything working for him. Because being bumped is S.O.P. An airline strike would certainly foul up the detail. The scrap, incidentally, is between ma chinists and these lines: Braniff, Continen tal, Eastern Northwest, Trans World and National. When the aforementioned com panies are not flying, a great segment of the nation is left at the airport. Thank goodness the President's recent action will postpone for at least 60 days the threatened walk-out and will give the board a time cushion during which it can furth er study the hassle over pay raises and rule changes. We hope it will be resolved by Easter. S. WHITE Regulars Snub Lodge Eisenhower has not selected Lodge as his personal choice, but is so they hope and be lieve only trying to broaden the field of GOP possibilities, as he has before. What Ambassador Lodge is doing is not at all boUicring the purely political headquarters of tho Johnson Administration. That headquarters is in the hat of the President himself, who intends tor Cabinet associates just to got on with their jobs and leave tho politicking to him an intention that suits both sides. Lodge's ready "availability." however, Is causing great con cern to those in the Adminis tration who must implement the President's foreign and military policy the Stalo and Defense departments. These depart ments, under both President Kennedy and President Johnson, have been deliberately kept out of politics, under a career Sec retary of Stale. Dean Husk, and a Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara. who in private life was a big business Republican. W ithin thorn there is now fear that the diplomatic and milita One of (lie men most often named as a great prophet of the twentieth century was II. G. Wells. In his numerous books around (he turn of the century, he quite accurately predicted many of the latest developments In scienco and technology. Vet It is Interesting that even so Imaginative and speculative a thinker as Wells w li o so clearly saw tlie shapes of tilings to come in many areas, had his own gigantic blind spots. In his book, "Anticipations," written in 1901 and giving pie dictions of things to happen be fore tlie year WOO, Wells wrote: "I have said nothing in this chapter, devoted to locomo tion, of llw coming invention of flying , , . 1 do not think it at all probable that aeronautics will ever come Into play as a serious modification of transport and communication ..." 1 Home ry situation in South Vict Nam, already a bit chancy in the aft ermath of the revolt which de stroyed the regime of President Ngo Dinh Diem, might become dangerously bedeviled by do mestic American politics. There can be no doubt that if the present problem were only a political one Would Lodge be an especially danger ous opponent for President John son next year'.' no one in the While House would be running scared. The answer from there sound or not, as it might be without question would be: "No; not very dangerous." Indeed, a widespread view, quite outside the precincts of tile White House and not con fined to Democratic politicians, is that Mr. Lodge's somewhat remote form of campaigning in l'.HiO, as the Vice Presidential nominee, was not of the great est help to tile top of the tick el. Richard Nixon. There is also the fact to which anti-Lodge Republicans are already begin ning to point that Lodge is a two-time loser, first in Uie Sen ate race of 1932 and again in 19i0 on the Nixon slate. STRICTLY PERSONAL. My SYDNEY J. HARRIS And. a little further along in the same chapter, Ik- wrote: "I must confess that my imagina tion . . . refuses to see any sort ol submarine doing anything but suftocatc its crew and foun der at sea." Tins, mind you, was not some rigid traditionalist, but the most daring extrapolator of his times, much of whose brilliant "science-fiction'" turned into fact before his own death. If so prescient a man as Wells himself could not anticipate un a book called "Anticipations"!) the tremendous impact of tlie airplane or tlie devastating pow er of the submarine, how can we ordinary mortals have any conception of what the next dec ade niay bring us? And, since his time, the rate of acceleration has increased a hundredfold: not only is there more change today, but the rate Washington Window . . Politics By LYI.E C. WILSON United Press International A decent interval will have passed by (lie time Congress reconvenes in January and Re publicans will be able to re sume speaking frankly their opposition to the Kennedy-Johnson program. The Republicans are handi capped just now by a whimsi cal fraud variously known as a political truce or a political moratorium. This is a period of grace and seemly conduct most often in effect after some trag edy of national proportions such as the assassination of a president. In Uie shocked after math of such an event, the loy al opposition usually hastens to announce that for the time be ing it will forego petty politics and nasty cracks about the late leader. If tlie opposition is caught with a big political clambake scheduled, it is tra ditional to postpone or to can cel it as the Republicans cancelled a midwestern meet ing at which was to be launched the campaign to re lire the Kennedy's nil three of them) from public life. An Absolute Phony Such -are the outward mani By PHIL NEWSOM I'I'l Foreign News Analyst "The Soviet army which crushed the Hungarian revolu tion seven years ago, plans to leave Hungary in the next few months, diplomatic sources said. UPl news dispalcn from Moscow. It was 8 o'clock in the morn ing on Nov. 4, 1936. and over Budapest Radio came the des perate cry: "Help Hungary! . . . Help us ...Help us!" Just before that had been the playing of the Hungarian na tional anthem, and before that an announcement by Premier Inire Nagy. ". . .Soviet troops attacked the Hungarian capital with the open purpose to overthrow the legal government," he said. "The Hungarian troops are in combat. . .This is announced to our people and to tlie world." Story 01 Courage The following days were a of change has been speeded up to a dizzying degree. It is star tling to realize tlie fact that 90 per cent of all scientists who ever existed are alive today. What is frightening about a In ture war. and what makes it so unfeasible from every point of ucw except the suicidal, is that governments have become the sorcerer's apprentices. Science is tlie sorcerer, which more or less knows what it is doing and can control its experiments: but governments use science for their own purposes, and are not wise or disciplined enough to be able to control all the possible results We cannot know what tlie next decade will bring in terms of mass destruction, any more tiian Wells could know how de cisive the airplane would be in modern transport and warfare. All e can know is that tlie po tentialities (or annihilation of the human race far outrun our capacity for survival, and that tlie sorcerer is becoming the vic tim of his power-mad apprentices. Truce Self Imposed festations of a political truce in Ihe train of national tragedy. It is of no consequence that such a political truce is an absolute phony. The facts, of course, are that the loyal opposition calls the truce against itself. This is done, not so much in re spect to Uie date leader as in the certainty that outrageously noisy political activity at a time of national grief would of fend a great many citizens and, thereby, cost the political activ ists a lot of votes next time around. You might say that there is a generous helping of self service in any political truce called against itself by the loyal opposition. But this does not prevent the loyal opposition from becoming restive as the truce is pro longed and tlie party in power happily ignores it. Not only does the party in power ignore the truce, but it does so in con fidence that no citizens will be offended nor votes lost in tlie process. This enrages tlie loyal opposition which can only pout or mutter to itself that the time of the loyal opposition will come, one day, and when it does the dadburned administra tion and its politicking presi Revolt Effect Still Felt story of human courage raised to incredible heights, of treach ery compounded, and, in the West, a time of agonizing in decision. The reappraisals and the harsli recriminations for what might have been would come later. On that morning in the blasted streets of Budapest men. women and children hurled their home-made Molo tov cocktails beneath the treads of Russian tanks or threw themselves bodily against tank portholes. It was an unarmed popula tion against 200.000 Soviet troops and four to five thou sand Soviet tanks, and before it was over more than 20.000 Hungarians were to die. These were some of the memories evoked by the dis patch sent from Moscow seven years later. Announces Withdrawal This had been the sequence of rapid-fire events: Oct. 27-28 Nagy announces Soviets had agreed to immedi ate withdrawal of Russian troops from Budapest and ne gotiations for withdrawal of troops from the whole of Hun gary. Oct. 29-30 Nagy ends single party rule, forms an all-party government and promises free elections. Tlie new government includes Janes Kadar. Nov. 1 Nagy repudiates the Warsaw treaty and proclaims Hungary's neutrality. Nov. J-On this night, on a Soviet guaranty of security. Hungarian military leaders meet with the Soviets to nego tiate withdrawal of Sonet troops. The Soviets arrest thf Hungarian leaders and launch their attack. It was the same treachery which had been employed against Polish mili tary leaders in 1945. Nov. 4 Joseph Cardinal Mindienty takes refuge in U.S. legation in Budapest (where he still remains). Soviets recog nize turn - coat government of Kadar. Nagy takes refuge in Yugoslav Embassy. dent had better not forget to duck. GOP Holding Off And so it is with the Repub licans just now and with Pres ident Johnson. Politics as usual is not for tlie Republicans dur ing this period of mourning for John F. Kennedy. The citizens would resent it and that is that. But no such hazard frustrates the political activity of JFK's successor, nor should it. A president who undertook to ob serve a political truce would be abdicating his responsibilities as chief executive. The presi dential job is politics and if there is no politicking the job is not being done. So it is Uiat President John son lias been the busiest man in Washington in the past two weeks politicking with labor leaders, Negro spokesmen, con gressional leaders and such. Some Republicans are becom ing unhappy as Johnson's ac tivity is publicized and their own activity is submerged. They know better, however, than to break the truce. So they await during t!ie decent interval, honing their weapons tlie while for blood-letting when tlie ' secondsession convenes in January. It was on Nov. 22 that Nagy was tricked from the Yugoslav Embassy and June 17. 1958. that his executioners announced his death. There were other far - reach ing results. India, quick to con demn the Israeli - Anglo French invasion of Egypt, final ly came to realize tlie brutal ity of the Soviet attack on Him gary. President Tito of Yugo slavia condemned the Soviet action as a "mistake" and a new period of coolness resulted between the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. But more important, the heroism of the Hungarian free dom fighters frightened the Soviet leaders and did gain a relaxation of sorts for all of Uie Soviet European satellites. . BERRY'S WORLD "Step on it yea guys, J'e got to get back to the ofYct Chrhtmos party!" By PETER EDSON Washington Correspondent WASHINGTON INEA) - The way all tlie pressure groups are climbing aboard the Lyndon B. Johnson ranch wagon often for conflicting reasons is the political phenomenon of (tie age. At first there were some pre dictions (hat President Johnson would have heavy opposition from the liberals who in 1980 didn't even want the tall Texan for vice president. Just two months ago this sen timent was so strong that there was much speculation L.B.J, might be dropped as vice presi dential candidate on the 1964 Democratic ticket. It took a de nial from President Kennedy to stop the rumors. After Johnson became Presi dent, almost his first endorse ments came from American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations, Amer icans for Democratic Action and the 80-organization Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. That ended the liberal revolt against Johnson-. Since that time many special interest groups of all varieties have issued voluntary state ments supporting Johnson. Some of these testimonials even come from opposing camps. For instance, the Citizens For eign Aid Committee which is against it says that since John son had pledged strict econ omy, he will "seize the golden opportunity" to curtail govern ment foreign spending. Supporters of AID, the gov ernment's Agency for Interna tional Development, however, cite a speech Johnson made just before he became Presi dent, in w hich he said, "The foreign aid program has been a success. . . . We must turn away from those who counsel that the works of peace rep resent failure." U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Edwin P. N e i 1 a n wrote Johnson that the cham ber w as heartened by the Pres ident's emphasis on the need for a tax cut "to stimulate job creating investments." But no v comes James B. Ca rey of the AFL-CIO Industrial Unions with a satement that, "the recently reported 5.9 per cent unemployment rate empha sizes the need for immediate passage of consumer-oriented tax legislation." Weather Effect On Jets Demands Careful Study By BRUCE BIOSSAT With the crash of the big U.S. jet in Maryland, Uie time may be at hand for a sweeping gen eral study of the effects of se vere weather turbulence on all of this nation's major jet mod els. . The three principal categories are Uie Douglas DC-8, the Boe ing 707 and related models, and the Convair 880 lor 990). All of these are swept-wing aircraft, and questions are aris ing about the relation between this design element and violent drafts of air. The Elktnn, Md., crash in volved a 707 and put a r a r e blemish on Pan American, a pioneer U.S. overseas airline w ith an incredibly good safety record. Federal investigations may lake months, if not longer, to sift the cause of this accident, as they so often do. But they are immediately skeptical of eyewitness accounts suggesting the jet was destroyed by light nine. With the possible cxreption of If the ne President can sat isfy both !nagement and la bor on a tax bill, he will in deed have to live up to his bill ing as the greatest compromis er and fixer of all times. Tlie curious thing about John son's support for fast action on civil rights reform is that it has not yet met serious opposition from the South. "There." as one poliUcal leader puts K. "they recognize that Johnson is 'a wheeler and a dealer." They'll let him make civil rights speeches to the northerners to win votes. But southerners expect Johnson to soften the blow as it will affect them." This penchant for wanting to make the new President "our boy" characterizes many en dorsements the lobbies now put out. Thus the American Public Power Association, and the Co operative League of the USA, supporting rural electrification and public power, claim John son as theirs. So do the National Education Association, supporting federal aid for schools and teachers' salaries, the National Council of Senior Citizens supporting medical care for Uie aged un der Social Security, the Nation al Farmers Union, Committee for a National Trade Policy, AFL-CIO Committee on Politi cal Education, National Associ-, ation of Home Builders support-, ing private housing industry and others. But there are a few exceptions. National Right-To-Work Com mittee has told its members that Johnson is clearly commit ted to repeal of section 14 ' b of the Taft-Hartley Act. This rec ognizes the right of the states to enact and enforce local right-to-work laws, which Uie torn mittee wants retained. And Rep. Jerry Ford R-Mich., while endorsing John son's promises to defend free dom from communism from Berlin to Vict Nam, declares: "On the other hand, it should be noticed that the new Presi dent endorsed all of the feder al spending policies ... I re senvc tlie right to oppose where conscience dictates." These are but first straws in the winter winds to indicate that the honeymoon isn't going to last forever. a freakish accident to a TWA piston-engine Constellation over 'Milan, Italy, there is no known case of lightning having serious ly damaged a metal-skin air craft. hi investigators' minds, t h e turbulence accompanying a hea vy rainstorm over Maryland is a likelier beginning explanation. This could have produced struc tural failure, with fire and ex plosion a consequence not a cause. iMost reports of mid-air explosions, given by ground eye witnesses, prove totally errone ous. But now and then such bursts do follow a plane's break up in flight. What should lead investigators in the Civil Aeronautics Board to mount a more general re view of jet safety is the fact that several of Uie big planes seem to have been drastically affected by violent weather. The CAB report is still not complete, but it is known that weather is a prime suspect in the crash -last February of a Boeing TM (a modified 7071 in the Florida Everglades. Heavy thunderstorms were reported in Ihe area. There have been several in stances where U.S. jets have been caught in tremendous downdrafts which nearly pro duced major tragedies. The most recent occurred near Hou ston. An Eastern Air Lines DC-8 plunged thousands of feet before being pulled up-and lost a jet engine in the process. Some aviation specialists are wondering about Uiese encount ers. They say swept-wing planes sometimes are buffeted into stalling position by severe drafts and wrenched out of control. Structural failure may follow extreme pilot effort to restore control. But in all this there is too much guesswork. Recent jet history is sufficiently perplex ing to justify Uie most thorough going uiquiry into this clearly vital satety matter. BARBS With Lttle kids running around the best thin; to try on your piano now and then is fur niture polish. The latest shock from a drv cell is the report that a boot legger was running his busi ness from prkon.
