The Charlotte News
Friday, October 18, 1957
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from the U.N. in New York that, at the urging of Syria and the Soviet Union, the General Assembly this date called an urgent session to discuss the charges that Turkey had threatened an imminent attack on Syria, with the Soviets contending that the U.S. was masterminding the alleged plot, indicating that Turkey planned to attack immediately after their elections on October 27. The U.N. delegate from Turkey called the Syrian claim fantastic, saying that the Soviet accusation was part of a Kremlin campaign to "put the blame for the tense situation in the Middle East on the shoulders of Turkey and the United States." U.S. delegates conferred with other delegations, seeking support for a U.N. investigation not only of the Syrian-Soviet charges but also of the U.S.-Turkey contention that Russian arms deliveries to Syria and Soviet maneuvers in the Middle East were the real threats to peace in that region. There was widespread hope at the body that a debate on the crisis would give the nations immediately involved an opportunity to let off steam and keep the conflict to a battle of words. At home, the Turks and Syrians seemed somewhat less concerned over the situation along their common border than their representatives and allies at the U.N. The Syrian Army was placed on alert, but a spokesman explained that it meant only that officers' leaves would be canceled. The Syrian Cabinet met for an hour in Damascus and decided that general mobilization was unnecessary. Arms were distributed to civilian "resistance" groups in centers near the Turkish border. Turkey delivered a note to the Syrian Government denying any military threat and expressing concern over events in Syria. Acting Syrian Foreign Minister Khalil Kallas called the note "interference in our affairs." High Syrian officials privately expressed the belief that the 500,000-troop Turkish Army would not attack, indicating also that talk of imminent attack by the 50,000-troop Syrian force was almost laughable. Reports from Istanbul said that the Turks also believed that an attack was unlikely and that Soviet threats of intervention were only a propaganda move in the cold war campaign to win the Arab world and isolate Turkey. The grave Western view of the situation was underscored by the announcement that British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan would fly to Washington on Tuesday to confer with the President. American and British officials were reported to be fearful that an incident along the tense Syrian-Turkish border might get out of hand, touching off a shooting war.
The President this date, in toasting Queen Elizabeth the previous night during her visit to the U.S., primarily for the purpose of celebrating the 350th anniversary of the founding of the Jamestown Colony in Virginia, hinted that he was developing a far-reaching proposal to pool the scientific brainpower and creative resources of NATO, with the aim being to meet the challenge of Russia's weapons advances as well as its progress in space. Informed officials said this date that the project might be the major topic of discussion when the President would meet British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan the following Wednesday. During his toast to the Queen at a White House dinner the previous night, he had said: "We have the power. The only thing to do is to put it together. Our scientists must work together. NATO should not be thought of merely as a military alliance. NATO is a way of grouping ability—of our manhood, our resources, of our industries and our factories." The President said that the total assets of the free world were far greater "than those of our potential enemy. We are too much separated by things that concern us locally." The British Government had long sought re-establishment of its World War II partnership with the U.S. and Canada, which had produced the first atomic bomb in 1945. More immediately, however, the President's proposition, which followed a long series of meetings with his scientific advisers and other officials during the previous two weeks, was apparently designed to deal with the challenge of Russia's ICBM and its launching of the first earth satellite, Sputnik. The information on the President's plan had come to light just ahead of a conference between Secretary of State Dulles and British Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd, the aim of those talks obviously being to cultivate the ground for the following week's meeting between the heads of state.
In London, the second atomic pile at Britain's Windscale plant was closed for inspection this date. The first pile had run wild the previous week and was put out of action, showering the countryside with radioactive iodine. Sir William Penney, director of Britain's Atomic Energy Authority, ordered all plutonium production halted at the plant 250 miles northwest of London. Plutonium was used as a trigger for nuclear bombs.
In Detroit, former Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson denied charges that he had blocked funding for the the U.S. satellite program, that his critic, Dr. Clifford Furnas, did not know all of the details of the space project and did not understand "where the ball was" when he had been an Assistant Secretary of Defense for research and development between November, 1955 and the previous January. Mr. Wilson said that the Defense Department was "interested in the project but basically it was not the Defense Department's business." He added that no one close to the project, as far as he knew, had said that there was a lack of money. Dr. Furnas had blamed shortage of funding for the failure of the U.S. to beat the Soviets with a satellite, and he had blamed that shortage directly on Mr. Wilson, whom he said regarded the satellite as a "scientific toy". In an article published in Life Magazine during the week, Dr. Furnas had said that some officials who now belittled Sputnik were among those who in the first instance were not convinced that the U.S. satellite program was worth pushing, and that had they been so convinced, there was every reason to believe that a U.S. satellite could have been orbiting the earth as early as 1955. He said that a lack of interest, rather than a lack of funding or other factors, was the cause of the U.S. failure to win the satellite race. He said that Mr. Wilson, who had retired as Defense Secretary the previous week, had a "so what?" attitude about the possibility that Russia would be the first country to launch a satellite into space.
In Cambridge, Mass., Dr. J. Allen
Hyneck, associate director of the Smithsonian Astrophysical
Observatory, said this date that he was "shocked" at the
complacent attitude which he had encountered in the Midwest the
previous day toward the Russians having launched a satellite. He
spoke the previous day at the annual meeting of the Optical Society
of America at Columbus, O., commenting on the satellite optical
tracking program of which he was the head. He said that there was
complacency among laymen and not the scientists whom he had met in
the Midwest. He said that their attitude appeared to be that the U.S.
had lost the ball on the 40-yard line but would surely win the
ballgame, which he described as "a shocking mixture of
complacency and superiority. They seemed to want reassurance from me
that everything was really all right." In commenting on a report
from Russia this date that the Soviets might launch an automatic
station to be set up on the moon, he said that the problem of
reaching the moon was not much more difficult than that of launching
a satellite and was within the realm of possibility. He said that a
satellite would have to be launched into space at a speed of 7 miles
per second to reach the moon, compared to 5 miles per second to orbit
the earth. He indicated that the difficulty would be in the controls
to aim the satellite at the moon and enable it to land on the surface
without destroying itself. The moon was an average distance of about
239,000 miles from the earth and the scientists said that it was a
good guess that a rocket about twice the size of the present 11-ton
American Vanguard rocket would be needed. The Vanguard was designed
to launch a U.S. satellite weighing 21 pounds. (Although thrust and payload
Julian Scheer of The News reports that Sputnik was not visible as hoped from Charlotte this date because it was too misty and overcast in the pre-dawn hours to see it, though it had orbited over the city without an official tracking by members of the Charlotte Astronomy Club, who had watched for it at the Mint Museum tracking station. The observers would try again in the early hours of Saturday. There had been reports from several points around the city and in the county that Sputnik had been observed, but they were unconfirmed and believed to have been merely high-flying airplanes. One group at the Mint may have seen something early in the morning, just below the moon. There was an optimistic weather report for Saturday morning and the moon watch group in Charlotte would again go out en masse to try to observe Sputnik or its third-stage rocket orbiting with it. They planned to maintain a vigil for several more days, whether or not they were able to observe it the following day. The group was relaying its observations to the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory at Cambridge via telephone. Dr. Robert Hardie said this date that he and his associates at Vanderbilt University's Observatory had obtained a clear, two-minute observation of the orbiting rocket just north of Nashville early in the morning, describing it as varying in brightness "probably because of rotation and uneven reflecting surfaces." He said it was as bright as the brightest star at times. While the satellite had already passed over Charlotte many times, it was only visible when lighting conditions were right, either about two hours after sunset or two hours before sunrise, when the earth was in the dark and Sputnik was bathed in sunlight. Viewing was best accomplished from a high elevation where the observer could see the horizon unobstructed. No special equipment was needed.
At the Missile Test Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., a test firing of a first stage engine of the Vanguard rocket, designed to carry a U.S. satellite into space, apparently had been postponed this date.
In Santiago de Cuba, it was reported that earth tremors lasting several seconds had shaken the city early this date, with no casualties or damage reported.
In Bastrop, La., the mayor would obtain a petition the following date from residents of Eisenhower Drive who wanted the name of the street changed to Confederate Drive, the petition protesting the President's action in deploying U.S. Army paratroops and federalizing the Arkansas National Guard in the Little Rock school integration crisis.
The Queen, visiting the country to celebrate the 350th anniversary of the founding of the Jamestown Colony in Virginia, toured this date the National Gallery of Art in Washington, albeit for only about an hour, thus a hurried tour, about as much as one might glean in between flights on a short layover in the District; and, not reported on the front page, the following day would attend the UNC vs. Maryland football game in College Park, with the royal couple, viewing their first American football contest, set to sit with Governor Theodore McKeldin of Maryland and Governor Luther Hodges of North Carolina, and the presidents of the respective institutions, and their wives. (Both Governors were among the four who had been seeking to resolve the Little Rock crisis, the others having been Governors LeRoy Collins of Florida and Frank Clement of Tennessee.)
In Catskill, N.Y., a search was on this date for a 13-year old frightened adolescent female elephant in a thickly wooded, 20-acre section of a mountain on the Hudson River. About 40 farmers, led by a female animal tamer, tracked the elephant to the mountain but had to stop when darkness fell. The elephant had been part of a circus for six years and had become frightened while being watered. Searchers had followed its trail easily in the trampled brush. The animal tamer said that the elephant had bled heavily for awhile from cuts on its legs caused by barbed wire through which it had penetrated.
Girl, you got to fight
The editorial page is here. A letter from Vic Reinemer, former associate editor of the newspaper between mid-1951 and March, 1955, is particularly insightful
Framed Edition
Links-Date — Links-Subj.