m NOME NUGGET
OLDEST NEWSPAPER IN ALASKA—MEMBER ASSOCIATED PRESS_
VOL. LI. No. 145 NOME, ALASKA, MONDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1949 Per Copy—15c
NEWS IN BRIEF
JUNEAU, Treasurer Henry Ro
den reported Saturday Alaska’s
• general fund was $590,018 short
of meeting Territorial obligations
at the end of November.
The sum of $228,018 was report
ed on hand. Against this amount
the auditor’s office listed unpaid
vouchers totaling $797,125.
Roden said he expects the short
age to be pared sharply by the1
end of the year with payments of
the balance of the year’s fish trap
taxes and early payment of 1950
fish trap fees.
PETERSBURG, Alaska, f/P) —
The Petersburg Merchants won
their game of the basketball sea
son Friday night 45-43 from Har
old’s Place of Ketchikan.
It was close all the way, with
Petersburg holding the lead most
of the time. There was only once
that the scores were more than
three points apart. L. Swanson
was high scorer for Petersburg
with 14. Chuck Graham led the
visitors with 11.
KODIAK, Alaska, f/P)—A Ko
diak-based coast guard plane
crashed on landing at Mile 13
near Cordova Friday.
The pilot, Lt. (jg> Louis Hopper
and other occupants were not in
jured, although plane damage was
described as “great.”
FAIRBANKS, f/P)—Mayor Mau
rice T. Johnson and City Clerk
Einar Tonseth are back in Fair
banks with lingering traces of
writer’s cramp.
They went to New York to sign
4.500 bonds of the $4,500,000 issue
for the Fairbanks utilities pro
gram.
Johnson said the ordeal was
speeded up by a gadget that sign
ed 20 bonds each time they af
fixed a signature.
“Einar set the record,” said the
mayor, “by finishing the 4,500 in
35 minutes. It took me almost an
hour.” The clerk took a shortcut,
though, by signing with only the
initials “A. E.” The mayor wrote
his name in full.
HAMBURG, Germany (A5)—One
of the Frenchmen expelled from
Poland was killed Saturday when
he threw himself from a French
military train in the American
zone of Germany, it was officially
revealed.
The Frenchman was M. Guy
Affray, one of nine French people
expelled from Poland as a repris-i
al for French expulsion of Poles.
The French rail traffic officer
at Helmstedt, British zone, said
that suicide was expected. The
doors of the train were locked and
Affray had apparently smashed a
window to get out of the train.
Authorities said his body was
later found by the railway line
near Offenbach, in the American
zone.
SEATTLE, <R*)—The choir di
rector of the Brighton Presbyteri
an church faltered midway
through a Christmas carol yester
day and then collapsed and died
as the congregation prayed for1
Planning Conimis- ;
siou Meet \\ illi
Bureau Officials j
- j
John Argetsinger, of the Bureau
Community Facilities Committee
and head of the $70,000,000 loan
project for the Territory arrived
yesterday morning from Juneau
accompanied by Joe Flakne of the
Interior Department who is mak
ing the trip with Mr. Argetsinger
because he is so well acquainted
with the people of Alaska.
A special meeting was called1
yesterday afternoon to meet with |
these important representatives
which included the rece n 11 y
named Nome Planning Commis
sion who are Luther Dunbar, Rob
ert Long, John McNees, Jerome
Trigg and Councilman Lester
Bronson. The school board at
tended as well as representatives
of the Chamber of Commerce and
many others who realized the im
portance of this visit of Mr. Ar-;
getsinger.
Mr. Argetsinger explained the
purpose of the Public Works Ap-1
propriation bill of $70,000,000 as!
having been made by Congress!
because of the great need through- \
out the Territory for advance- i
ment and their knowledge of the
many setbacks the Territory has
(Continued on Page Five)
Tragedy And Near
Tragedy Sunday
In Snake Ri ver j
Mrs. Jack Ozenna was drowned
early Sunday morning in Snake
River due to unusual weather con
dition. Mrs. Ozenna, who is well
known in the community—having
lived here most of her life, was
among the many natives, probab- j
ly a hundred or more, who were,
fishing on the new ice which
formed at the mouth of Snake
River Saturday. She arose before
daylight on Sunday morning to
get an early start at her tom-cod
fishing. She followed the custom
ary path on the Sand Spit to the
west end of the south revetment i
where she set out on the river ice.:
During the night the weather had
changed and the ice had broken
up. As she was unaware of the j
freakish ice condition she went!
through the ice.
Shortly after, Big Mike * start
ed to cross the river at the same
place and when he saw the water
and Mrs. Ozenna’s ice pick, which
he recognized, he hastened to her
home. An oomiak was launched
and her body was picked up late
when it rose to the surface.
Mrs. Ozenna, always a cheerful
(Continued on Page Five)
him.
He was Roy E. Bassett, 54, di
rector of the choir for the past 10
years. Members of his family said
he had been suffering from a
heart ailment or some time. A
former resident of Snohomish,
Wash, he had lived here since
1906.
Among the survivors is a son,
Ralph, stationed at Anchorage,
Alaska, with the army.
Kx-Arniy Offirrr Says Hopkins Srnt
Russia holosalo Lois’* of l . S. Sorivls
WASHINGTON, (/P)—A former:
navy officer said Friday night that
wholesale lots of secret U. S. doc-1
uments and material that Soviet
officers called uranium “bomb
powder” were flown to Russia
under wartime pressure from the
late Harry Hopkins for secrecy'
and speed.
The one-time officer, G. Racev
Jordan, said Hopkins, who was
confidential assistant to the late
President Roosevelt, was “the but
ton the Russians touched every
time they needed emergency
help.”
Jordan, identifying himself as a
wartime captain assigned to a
ledn-lease air route from this
country to Russia, told the story
to commentator Fulton Lewis, Jr.,
in a broadcast.
Stephen T. Early, now deputy
secretary of defense, who was the
Roosevelt press secretary and
like Hopkins a confidant of the
wartime chief executive, called
the story “utterly unbelievable.”
Given an outline of the Jordan
account, Early told a reporter:
“On the basis of the informa
tion just given me, the whole
story seems utterly unbelievable
to me.
“It is the first I ever heard of
it.”
It all happened, Jordan said,
while he was stationed at Great
Falls, Mont., where lend-lease
planes took off for Fairbanks,
Alaska, for delivery to Russian
pilots.
Jordan said he became suspi
cious of the Russians because of
the “every increasing amounts of
baggage” they carried.
Finally, he began checking their
large shipments of rope-bound
suitcases, he said.
In them he found “a tremen
dous quantity of state department
documents—carbon or photostatic
copies of them—and on each of
them a piece had been cut out of
the top and the bottom of the
i
page, where the stamp secret or
confidential was always placed.”
Jordan said he also found a let
ter on White House stationery
“which impressed me because it
had the name Harry Hopkins
printed in the upper left hand
corner.”
Part of the message, he said,
went: “had a hell of a time getting
these away from Groves."
Lewis suggested that’ the refer
ence might have been to Gen.Les
lit Groves, head of the secret
atomic bomb project during the
war.
At his home in Darien, Conn.,
General Groves said he did not
j see how the charges could be “ig
| nored” by Congress although he
1 declined to speculate on whether
there would be an investigation.
Groves declined further com
ment on the radio interview other
thri to say that he was waiting to
(Continued on Page Eight)
U. S. Will Make
New Atomic Bomb
Test Explosions
(By Elton C. Fay)
((JP) Military Reporter*
WASHINGTON, (A>) — Some
more, and probably more deadly,
atomic weapons are going to be
exploded by the United States in
a secret test. It will be weighty
with meaning for Russia and the
rest of an a-bomb conscious world.
A joint announcement by the
atomic energy commission and de
fense department gave the place
—the mid-Pacific proving ground
in Eniwetok Atoll—but kept se
cret the time. It said only that
tests are “planned.”
There was an obvious reason
for concealing the month, week
or days on which the tests will be
made: to foil any attempt by Rus
(Continued on Page Four)
THE ALBATROSS
CIVILIZATION Z
<di
News of the \\ oriel
At A dance - - -
Saturday, December 3, 1949
<By The Associated Press)
The civil war in China entered
its final phase today as powerful
communist forces penet rated
western China, last haven of Chi
ang Kai-Shek’s nationalists. There
seemed little or nothing which
could prevent the victorious Reds
from engulfing all the Chinese
mainland with its 457.000.000 pop
ulation.
The Nationalists, who fled
Chungking Wednesday, tried to
set up their capital in hopelessly
overcrowded Chengtu. The com
munists cut the highway between
Chengtu and Kunming. They also
severed the route between Cheng
tu and Chungking. Soon the na
tionalist refugee regime will have
to move on again: where is uncer
tain.
j Chiang is leading the national
ist forces. Although he announc
ed his retirement some time ago
in favor of acting President Li
Tsung-Jen, he is expected to re
1 sume the Presidency. Li, who is at
outs with Chiang, will leave Hong
Kong by plane Monday for the
United States. Aides said he is
suffering from a stomach ailment
; and he has private reasons for his
.trip to Washington.
The communist regime of Mao
Tze-Tung issued a warning against
sheltering fleeing nationalist lead
ers. The warning said that “any
country which gives shelter to the
Kuomintang reactionary armed
forces must be held responsible
for its action and bear the respon
sibility for all the ensuing conse
quences.”
In Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, one of
10 White Russians charged with
spying for the Soviet Union de
nied the charge before a People’s
court. The accused, a former cap
tain in the Russian Czar’s army,
admitted he collaborated with the
Nazis during the war, however. A
Russian priest yesterday admitted
the was “partially guilty” to the
long list of charges in the indict
ment linking him with the Ger
mans during the occupation and
the Soviet Union afterwards.
Monday, December 5, 1949
The Chinsee Nationalist gov
ernment appeared today to be
pulling out of Chengtu—its capital
for less than a week, and the
third since Nanking fell to the
Communists.
A special dispatch to the Hong
Kong newspaper Sing Tao Man
P said government officials as
sembled at the Chengtu airport
(Continued on Page Five)