The Charlotte News

Thursday, April 23, 1959

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from New York that police, the FBI and other agencies had been alerted this date to what was termed a plot by hired killers to assassinate Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro, who had been in New York since Tuesday and was scheduled to go to Boston on Saturday. Hundreds of officers had been guarding him and more were quickly assigned to the detail. Police said that Sr. Castro's aides had notified them of the alleged plot early this date and said it involved two groups totaling seven men, none of whom were Cubans. One of the groups was described as being comprised of five brothers, between the ages of 28 and 35, originally from Philadelphia but now residing in Chicago. The other group was said to be comprised of two men, also brothers. The five brothers in the former group all had police records in Philadelphia for minor offenses, such as disorderly conduct and assault, according to police. It was reported that they might be riding in a 1957 black Chevrolet with a white top and bearing Florida license tags. The second party of two brothers was said to be traveling in a dirty gray Cadillac with Michigan plates. One of the latter was reported to be called "Doc". An alert sent to all police commands in New York stated in essence that the two groups had been paid to assassinate Sr. Castro. It was also stated that the two sets of brothers had no direct association to one another but that the plot probably had stemmed from the same source. A police official said that it was not known where any of the alleged assassins were supposed to be, but the report was that they would seize the first opportunity to try to kill Sr. Castro. Port of New York Authority officers were notified to watch for one or both cars approaching the city by way of the Port Authority's bridges and tunnels. A deputy chief inspector, commanding Manhattan detectives, disclosed that the police, the State Department and Cuban officials had received numerous phone calls that attempts would be made on Sr. Castro's life. He said they had pictures of people who had gone undercover since Sr. Castro had taken over on January 1 and that they were definitely on the alert to prevent any attempt being made on his life. He may wish to consider hiring Zorro in Los Angeles or the peripatetic Bat Masterson out on the Western plains as adjunct to his security detail to ward off any such attempts, which soon will include the U.S. Government, with plotting led by Mr. Nixon, Sr. Castro's brother Raul eventually needing to be concerned down the road in 2026 about being kidnaped by ol' Gran'pa Trump, El Presidente Demente, though primarily preoccupied with digging Arch de Bunker in Washington and Arlington, Raul perhaps needing the services the more therefore of Mr. Masterson...

At Cape Canaveral in Florida, a Thor ballistic missile had been launched this date, reportedly carrying a tiny data capsule which the Air Force hoped to recover from the Atlantic Ocean. The capsule was set to jettison at the end of the Thor's journey, and would carry a report on the missile's performance. It was not known whether an announcement would be made on the recovery efforts. Fired on a 1,500-mile mission, the powerful 65-foot rocket was launched on what appeared to be a perfect trajectory a half hour after midnight. It was the 28th launch of the versatile Thor, the intermediate-range ballistic missile which was both a war weapon and a booster for space probes. The launch had come six days after a team of British Royal Air Force missilemen had fired a Thor for the first time from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. An undisclosed number of Thor bases already had been set up in England as part of the NATO defense force. The Thor had pushed two big Discoverer satellites into orbit and provided first-stage power for three Air Force moon probes, and was expected to play a key role in more important space ventures in the near future. The missile would be used to launch a 25,000-mile radiation satellite and to boost a space probe toward Venus.

The President this date formally designated ailing John Foster Dulles as a special consultant for foreign policy to the White House staff. He arranged to drive to Walter Reed Army Hospital to attend a formal swearing-in ceremony for the former Secretary of State. The doctors decreed that there ought be no public ceremony because of Mr. Dulles's condition, suffering from cancer. In an exchange of letters when Mr. Dulles had resigned the prior week, the President had announced his intention of keeping him in service as a consultant.

In Tokyo, it was reported that the bumping of seven GI's from a military plane so that Lt. Col. Charles Platt, Jr., could take his family on vacation to Hawaii, had cost him his command and a $340 fine this date. The Air Force said that Col. Platt, who had pleaded that he was the victim of an administrative mix-up in the March 26 incident, accepted the punishment from his commanding officer without demanding a trial by court-martial. The 49-year old officer was commander of the big passenger terminal at Tachikawa Air Base west of Tokyo. He was reprimanded and assigned to new duties, but the Air Force did not indicate his new job. He was not available for comment. The seven enlisted men had been hurrying on priority orders to sick or dying relatives in the U.S. when they were taken off a military plane so that the colonel, his wife and four children could board for a vacation flight to Hawaii. One of the bumped GI's had telephoned Lt. General Robert Burns, the U.S. military commander in Japan, and the General had ordered the airborne plane back, had removed the colonel and his family and given six of the GI's the seats. The seventh GI had already left the airport and had flown home the next day. An Air Force investigating board had cleared the colonel of direct blame for the bumping and said that it was the result of an administrative error, but that his actions had contributed to the confusion which had caused the administrative error.

In Vienna, Austria, it was reported that two Hungarian soldiers assigned to prevent anti-Communist refugees from fleeing to Austria, had defected, telling police in Vienna this date that they were fed up with Communism and wanted political asylum.

In Kansas City, Kans., it was reported that an explosion had leveled a block-long, one-story building of the Thompson-Hayward Chemical Co. plant this date, killing three men and injuring five others. A fireman had been injured slightly in a traffic accident en route to the fire. The explosion had occurred in a tank containing 3,000 gallons of weed killer and had destroyed seven other tanks. For a time, the resulting fire had threatened to spread to a half dozen other tanks, but after 2 1/2 hours, firemen reported that the fire had been contained, but that it would have to burn itself out.

In Concord, Mass., five desperate inmates of the Concord reformatory had held 15 hostages for four hours the previous night until a wave of State troopers had ended the bid for freedom with teargas and acetylene torches. One of the five, identified as a kidnaper, 36, had held a smuggled gun to the head of a hostage while demanding that they wanted out. A correction commissioner said that the ringleader of the group had mistakenly thought that he could make it out of the facility through the front door with a revolver and hostages. The superintendent of the reformatory said that it was definitely an escape attempt. The reformatory had once housed only youthful offenders but now was used for long-term adult prisoners. The superintendent said that the leaders of the revolt had called him twice by telephone from their temporary strongholds, demanding their release. Instead, the superintendent had called in State police to storm the wing where the rebels were holding the hostages with the gun and knives. He said that in addition to the inmates who had directly participated, about 50 other prisoners had milled about free from their cells during the uprising, but had taken no active part in it. The five inmates had held the hostages, 13 guards and two civilians, for four hours before surrendering meekly with their eyes swollen by the teargas. Their chances of getting out from the start had been nil. An executive officer of the State Police, heading an assault force of 125 troopers, said, when asked if negotiations had been considered, that he never negotiated with anyone and that they were there to get them out and restore order. The troopers had swarmed in with military precision, many wearing campaign ribbons. They wore steel helmets, carried riot guns and war bandoliers of cartridges and teargas charges. The issue had never been in doubt. The troopers had driven the malcontents from the first to the third floor of a wing of the prison, like soldiers assaulting pillboxes, opening steel doors along the way with acetylene torches.

In Henderson, N.C., it was reported that police and State troopers, outnumbering a handful of strikers, had escorted a full shift of workers to their jobs at the Harriet-Henderson Cotton Mills this date, following another outbreak of violence. The quiet scene had contrasted sharply with the previous night when second-shift workers had met small arms fire, homemade flares and firecrackers. About 250 pickets had ignored a steady drizzle at the company's two plants to jeer and shout defiance at the departing workers. One picket had been struck in the arm by a .38-caliber bullet, that person having received first-aid treatment at a hospital and released. An unidentified woman reportedly had suffered a slight head wound from a shot or a steel pellet hurled from a slingshot, an officer indicating that she had been treated at the South Henderson plant dispensary. Giant floodlights were beamed at the strikers as the workers, most of whom were in automobiles, were escorted through the plant gates by 100 Highway Patrolmen. There were a few minor incidents reported during the night. Two persons had been arrested and charged with illegal discharge of firearms and carrying concealed weapons. The strikers had been angered at the small number of jobs left available to them after the strike apparently had been settled the previous week. When only 30 strikers were taken back on the job on Monday, the striking Textile Workers Union of America said that it had been misled as to the number of jobs available to its members. The union said that it had about 1,000 members out of the 1,200 workers in the two plants before the strike had begun the prior November 17. The violence on Wednesday night had followed by only a few hours a denunciation in Raleigh by Governor Luther Hodges of the handling of the situation by management and the union. The Governor, who had helped negotiate a settlement the previous Friday, accused management of misleading him "intentionally or otherwise". Red-faced and shaking his finger vigorously, the Governor said that trying to end the five-month old strike was "the toughest job I've ever had." He said that he had notified Boyd Payton, regional director for the union, that he was holding him "responsible for any further violence" in Henderson. Mr. Payton had replied through newsmen that he had "no control in the matter of violence."

John Kilgo of The News reports that dog-catching was more dangerous than most people realized, that one was barked at, usually by dogs, but sometimes by people, and sometimes the dogs bit instead of barking. The previous day, the dogcatcher had found a new hazard to his job. He had broken his leg in two places while chasing a brown and white "mixed-up dog". He had been chasing dogs for 13 years and could have shot the dog and saved his leg, he said, but he loved dogs too much to do that. He said another person and he got the call the previous day to pick up the little dog. He did not want to hurt it. The dog could not run fast and he was on top of it and was ready to put the rope around its neck when both of his feet had gone out from under him and he heard his leg pop like a stick. He knew right away that it was broken. The dog got away while the dogcatcher was lying on his back in the mud. Now, he was lying on his back in Memorial Hospital in Charlotte with a cast on his leg. He said that his leg really hurt and he had to keep the cast on for six months. He promised that they would eventually get the dog. "We shoulda shot him yesterday but I don't shoot a dog if I can help it. I love them too much." It was not the first time that his job had landed him in the hospital. He indicated that he had been in the hospital not long earlier for three weeks taking rabies shots, that he had been bitten many times and had been scared before. "This job is about five times more dangerous than most people think."

On the editorial page, "Anonymous Government Is a Bad Joke" finds that the biennial buffoonery of "anonymous government" had been reenacted by the General Assembly's joint appropriations subcommittee during the week, but nobody had giggled despite it being one of the most elaborate jokes in the history of the republic, adding comic relief in Raleigh for years.