The Charlotte News

Wednesday, December 24, 1958

ONE EDITORIAL

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Cape Canaveral, Fla., that the Air Force had launched an Atlas ICBM on a successful 4,000-mile flight across the Atlantic, just six days after its predecessor had become the nation's and the world's largest satellite to date. It was the third major Atlas success in a row, announced about four hours after the liftoff of the 80-foot war rocket late the previous night. There was no official word from the launching site, but Col. John Powers said at Air Force Ballistic Missile Division Headquarters in Inglewood, Calif., that preliminary reports showed that the test had gone smoothly. The launch had followed the previous Thursday's satellite launch and the first 6,325-mile intercontinental range Atlas launch of November 28. The four-ton Atlas presently in orbit was signaling the President's "Peace on Earth" message to the world. Col. Powers said that efforts were being made to recover the nosecone of the rocket after its reentry from outer space, but it was not known whether an announcement on that possibility would be forthcoming. The Tuesday night launch had been the first appearance of a new Atlas ICBM call the "C series", featuring some special modifications, most of which were classified, which could result in lightening the Atlas payload by about 100 pounds. The start of the launch had appeared to be highly successful as the 120-ton rocket had burst through a blanket of puffy white clouds and darted eastward like a fading star. As the missile climbed, an eerie white glow had been cast over the launch area by the flashing exhaust tail of the rocket reflecting off a low-lying ground haze. As the Convair rocket streaked out of sight, the Atlas satellite was making its 88th orbit around the globe, expected to endure for several more weeks. The Air Force, which kept the satellite launch a secret the previous Thursday, announced on Tuesday night that the launch "was one of a continuing series of research and development flight tests of the Atlas weapons system." The military rarely reported the results of a weapon launch. Prior to the launch, there had been rumors that either another satellite attempt would be made or that something alive was aboard, but neither report could be confirmed. The mission apparently was to see how the "Big A" would stand up under heavy stress with the special modifications having been introduced. The Atlas, which might become operational before the end of 1959, reached speeds as high as 16,000 mph on a long-range flight. The flight time was only about a half hour when the missile was launched over the 6,325-mile intercontinental range just three weeks earlier on November 29. The three-engine propulsion system for the Atlas, developed by Rocketdyne, built up 360,000 pounds of thrust before it left the launch pad.

In Hollywood, Calif., Major General Bernard Schreiver, chief of the Air Force Ballistic Missile Division, said this date that the U.S. missile program was about six months ahead of schedule.

Striking pilots of American Airlines this date considered contract terms suggested by Federal mediators to end their walkout.

In Cairo, it was reported that the U.S. this date had agreed to sell the United Arab Republic nearly 25 million dollars worth of wheat for Egyptian pounds.

In Seoul, South Korea, police had driven striking opposition lawmakers from the National Assembly this date and the Government had then rammed through a controversial police powers measure to combat Communism.

In Portland, Ore., a gasoline bill this date gave the first solid lead to police in the mystery of a Portland family of five who had vanished on December 7. The bill arrived the previous day and showed that 5 gallons of gasoline had been purchased on December 7 at Cascade Locks with a credit card issued to the father of the family. He, his wife and their three young daughters had disappeared after setting out from their Portland home to find a Christmas tree. Police used the gasoline bill to begin following a trail which led into eastern Oregon and far away from the Portland-area woodlands where the search had been concentrated. The trail east included a waitress who said that she spotted the family, a salesman who had seen a similar car, and a police officer who had found a car in a gravel pit, with two men in it. Cascade Locks was about 40 miles east of Portland and farther east, at Hood River, a waitress said that she had seen the family in her café on December 7. The previous night, a salesman said that he had seen a car resembling the station wagon in which the family was riding on the night of December 7, heading east from the Dalles, 90 miles east of Portland. At Boise, Ida., a special police officer said that he had seen a red and white station wagon parked in a gravel pit on the night of December 15. He said that he had given it no more thought until reading of the family's disappearance. He said that the car had an Oregon license plate and some numbers appeared to coincide with that of the plate on the family's car. As fate would have it, the missing car and three family members who had been missing with it, the bodies of two others having been discovered near the Cascade Locks in 1959 after having floated away from the vehicle, were discovered just a year ago, in late 2024, and the car, or that part of it which could be salvaged, was brought to the surface of the Columbia River near the Locks in March, 2025. Evidence of human remains were found inside.

In Zichem Zussen Bolder, Belgium, at least 16 mushroom farmers were still entombed this date after a giant rock had collapsed in a nine-acre maze of tunnels near the village in northeast Belgium. Three persons were known to be dead. One rescuer said that there was virtually no hope of saving those still trapped underground. But hundreds of weary, grimy men had continued nevertheless to claw their way through the tons of clay, earth and rock which had come crashing down on the underground mushroom beds the previous day. The missing were believed to include both men and women. A police spokesman said that it was possible that more than 16 persons were entombed, estimating that at least 100 persons and possibly more had been underground at the time of the cave-in. Rescue workers brought two bodies to the surface the previous day, and a 17-year old girl had died on the way to the hospital. The caves had been built during World War II as bomb shelters and their humid darkness had proven ideal for the growing of mushrooms. After the war, they were extended into a crazy-quilt pattern of tunnels spreading 6 miles around. Some of the caves extended as far down as 60 feet.

In Pulaski, Tenn., it was reported that a Greyhound bus had collided with two trucks while trying to pass on a wet, fog-enshrouded hill at twilight the previous evening, killing seven persons and injuring 12. Flames had erupted in the bus minutes after it had crashed in a gully 7 miles south of Pulaski. A majority of the estimated 23 passengers had scrambled out before the fire had harmed them. Three of the dead were badly burned and the others apparently had been thrown from the bus. The bus driver, who the previous summer had received an award for 15 years of safe driving, had been among the dead. Twelve persons, including one of the truck drivers, had been treated at a hospital and six were released, one having been sent to a Nashville hospital in critical condition. The 40-passenger bus, according to the police, had been bound from Birmingham to Cincinnati, and was passing a coal truck in a fog when a southbound semi-trailer truck suddenly was seen to loom ahead. The bus whipped back toward the right lane, hooked bumpers with the coal truck and then crashed almost head-on into the tractor-trailer. The impact had broken the bus loose from the coal truck and the bus had careened 75 yards further on and crashed to a stop upright in the gully, catching fire. The coal truck had stopped, its brakes locked up, with one wheel off the shoulder of the road. The coal truck driver of Pulaski was not injured. He said that the tractor-trailer was blowing its horn and signaling with its lights, that he was "going mighty slow, if not stopped, when the bus hit him." The collision had opened a hole in the left side of the bus through which some of the passengers had escaped. Others had apparently used the emergency door at the rear. A Pulaski photographer said that the people who were in the bus did not seem to know what had happened. He said that the black people aboard seemed to be lucky as they were in the back of the bus and were able to get out more easily. Seven bodies had been recovered. One funeral home said that it had charred parts of what could have been an eighth body. Officials had determined later, however, that it was not.

In Mount Gilead, N.C., it was reported that a fire had raged for almost 8 hours in a box factory and had threatened the entire business district until finally being brought under control during the morning. Two firemen had been overcome by smoke while fighting the fire, the worst in the history of the community. They had been treated by a local physician and released. Several other firemen suffered cuts and bruises while fighting the blaze. The source of the fire had not yet been determined. The box factory, its equipment and thousands of packing cartons had been destroyed. Firemen were still on the scene early in the current morning.

In Monrovia, Calif., an 81-year old man lay pale and gaunt in a quiet room, his only companions being memories of other Christmases when big-eyed children had told him their dreams. Memories of happy days when he was the most popular, rotund, bewhiskered Santa Claus in Monrovia, a foothill town 20 miles from Los Angeles. But now he was alone in a hospital room, forgotten, with sadness welling up inside him. Suddenly, the door had opened, however, and two small children had tiptoed in to wish him, "Merry Christmas, Mr. Santa Claus." His eyes had opened and tears rolled down his emaciated cheeks. The spirit of Christmas had returned to him. For years, he had played Santa to thousands of San Gabriel Valley children. Several months earlier he had suffered a stroke. The children who remembered him on Tuesday had been a four-year old boy, a seven-year old girl, brother and sister of a couple of Monrovia. They had started a movement to get Santa's young fans to write him thank-you and get-well letters. They said that that he was the best Santa they ever had, situated in a local department store for eight years at Christmastime. The president of the department store said that he had been wonderful with kids and even visited them at school, that he knew the true meaning of Christmas. After the two children had left the quiet hospital room, the man looked at the letters they had given him. He said that he had always told the children when they sat on his knee to say their prayers at night, that he thought that was the real way to teach them what Christmas means.

In Tokyo, it was reported that a gray, balding American had stood waiting at the gate of the Japanese steel mill as down the street, strains of "Silent Night" floated through the door of a bar. From the plant yard, a Japanese man approached on a bicycle, studied the waiting man's features, halted, gasped in astonishment, then turned as if to run. The man told the Japanese man that it was all right, that he just wanted to be his friend. The latter had continued to stare in disbelief, then managed a weak smile. Between them lay the gulf of a bitter war, of starvation, brutality and grinding labor, of defeat and surrender. Shortly after the outbreak of World War II, the man, 60, whose home was Los Angeles, had been captured on Wake Island, where he had been a civilian employee. He had spent almost 4 years as a prisoner of war to the Japanese. The Japanese man had been a guard at the steel mill, between Tokyo and Yokohama, where the American was forced to work long hours. He had been a 101-pound skeleton when he had last seen the guard. He told the Pacific Stars and Stripes: "I had sworn I would kill them all if I ever met them again. But over the years, the harsh memories softened and I wanted them to know I bore no grudge. It became almost a mission. I had been talking about coming back to Japan for years and now I've done what was in my mind since the war ended." The man had recently gone to work for a firm in Yokohama which transported freight for servicemen. His search for his former guards had begun during Christmas week and carried him to the mill of so many bitter memories. When the Japanese man first had ridden up on his bicycle, the man thought that he would turn around and ride away. Instead, after hesitating, he got down and bowed. "I could see he recognized me. I raised my hand and slapped him on the back. This is the Christmas season and I felt this was a good time to meet." On Friday, at least six of his former guards would be his dinner guests. When asked why he was doing it, he said, "I guess I just wanted to turn the other cheek."

In Oxford, England, it was reported that the hounds of the South Oxfordshire Hunt had cornered and killed a fox the previous day on a woman's new living room carpet, right in front of the Christmas tree laden with presents. The woman was out for some last-minute shopping and no one was at home. The hunt had been in full cry, and the fox had been cornered. With no place to go, it broke through a French window into the woman's parlor and seven hounds came tearing in behind it. The woman arrived back home to find the living room a shambles. She said that there was mud and blood all over the lounge, which had been newly decorated in lavender and gray. "Some of the young men and women of the hunt were already busy with scrubbing brushes and buckets of water. They had our window repaired within two hours and have told me to put in a bill for cleaning our new red carpet and Jacobean loose covers." Her husband said that there was little real damage "but it was a nasty shock for my wife—she had worked hard to make the place spic and span for our Christmas guests." The woman added that she was against fox hunting but did not want to kick up a fuss over the incident. The secretary of the hunt, Col. John Ashton, explained: "It was a good scent. Hounds follow fox closely. Fox met a man on the road and diverged to the house. Fox jumped through glass door. Hounds followed naturally." Strangely, it sounds like an average nightly talkie-talk episode at Fox Propaganda, with the listeners as the hounds (of Hecket).

In New Britain, Conn., a first grade Christmas play had demanded the best acting skills from the troupers. One of the props had been an apple, but the prop-man who brought it had eaten it for lunch. Undaunted, the cast faked the scene with a make-believe apple.

On the editorial page, "The Prayers of the Great Religions" indicates that the editorial column for Christmas Eve was devoted not to contemporary comment but rather to prayers of the great religions, illustrating the kinship of the spirit and the brotherhood in a season which Christians held closest to their hearts.