ALASKA—MEMBER ASSOCIATED PRESS
63rd Year No. 60
NOME, ALASKA, MONDAY, MAY, 21, 1962
JFK Makes Strong Plea for Medical
o
Care for Aged . .. AMA Blasts Back
By the Associated Press
The Kennedy Administration,
with the President leading the as
sault, has carried a plea for its
medical care for the aged pro
gram across the nation in an
attempt to bring pressure to bear
on Congress, The American Medi
cal Assn, goes on nationwide tele
vision tonight to counter the
move.
While President Kennedy ad
dressed 17,500 persons at New York
City’s Madison Square Garden
Sunday, Vice President Lyndon B.
Johnson and other administration
spokesmen sounded calls for sup
port of medical care for the aged
under social security at more than
a score of rallies across the coun
try.
Many listeners, including some
gray-haired prospective recipients
of benefits under the King-Ander
son Bill, chanted "We Will, We
Will” when the spokesmen told
them to write their congressmen
and urge support for the measure.
Kennedy, whose speech was car
ried on nationwide television, pre
dicted the bill would pass Congress
“this year, or, as the tide comes
in, next year.” He noted Britain
adopted similar legislation 30 years
ago.
The American Medical Assn.,
which vigorously oppose the Ken
nedy-hacked measure, takes the
air tonight in a network television
program designed to answer the
The president of the association,
Dr. Leonard W. Larson, blasted
the bill and rallies saying the UJS.
Treasury is being looted “in a
massive propaganda blitz designed
to pressure Congress” into enact
ing the program.
In a statement after the Ken
nedy speech, Larson said: “Giant
Madison Square Garden rallies
cannot conceal this fact: The King
\nderson Bill wquld fqrce an im
mediate 17 per cent payroll tax
increase on workers earning $5,200
or more and their employers.”
FAA to Install
VORTAC Facility
t Nome Airport
o r
Plans to construct a VORTAC,
living quarters, sewage treatment
plant, flight service station, and
other facilities at Nome were an
nounced Friday by the Federal
viation Agency.
Bids will be received on the
project at FAA’s Procurement
Section, Area C, third floor, of the
new FAA Headquarters Bldg, at
8th and G Streets in Anchorage,
until 2.00 p.m., June 18 when they
will be opened.
The installation of the VORTAC
will give -fee Nome area a very
high frequency omnidirectional
radio navigation facility which will
provide aircraft with direction and
distance information. Work will
include construction of a 36 by
34 foot wood frame VORTAC fa
cility building and associated con
struction.
The project will also include
on of a 24 by 185 foot one
frame apartment building
with utilities, add con
a 28 by 26 foot con
block sewage treatment
Plant. In addition a 33 by 108 foot
t service station will be built.
_jpSS fipftsmfcway;
Larson described the measure as
radical and said it would “give
the federal government dangerous
power to control medical practice
in hospitals.”
The AMA favors the present
Kerr-Mills Law, which provides
for federal assistance to states but
leaves administration of a program
of medical care for indigents over
65 to the states themselves.
Under the King-Anderson meas
ure, social security recipients would
be eligible for medical aid financed
through a social security payroll
tax increase of one-fourth of one
per cent on employes and employ
ers.
The President said at least half
the mail he has received on the
bill has been “wholly misinformed”
about its provisions.
“This is not a campaign against
doctors,” he said, “because doctors
have joined with us. This is a
campaign to help people meet their
responsibilities.
“We do not cover doctors’ bills
here. We do not affect the free
dom of choice. You can go to any
doctor you want, and you work
out your arrangements with him.”
Vice President Johnson carried
the administration plea to St. Louis
where he told an openly partisan
audience of more than a thousand
that the program is a “sound, rea
sonable and digniilea" approach
to the health problems of the aged.
OF TWO
W — An invest!
B-57 jet bomber
in Armed Forces
>n Saturday, kill
ANCHOH^
gating team
Orbit Shot Is
Set for Thursday
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. UP) —
Technicians decked Aurora 7, the
Mercury spacecraft of Navy Lt.
Cmdr. Malcolm Scott Carpenter,
and its Atlas launching rocket in
detail today.
If they find no more “bugs” in
the capsule or missile — if the
weather holds — if other factors
all are favorable, then the Aurora
7-Atlas combination will blast off
next Thursday between 7 a.m. and
2:30 p.m., EST.
A successful launch would fling
Carpenter into the same type of
100-mile high, three-orbit flight
that Marine Lt. Col. John Glenn
Jr. made Feb. 20—but with several
new experiments to be performed.
The National Aeronautics and
Space Administration had planned
last week to launch Aurora 7
Tuesday. Discovery of a possible
defect in an electrical device that
keeps the Atlas flight control sys
tem from freezing up forced a post
ponement of at least two days.
Carpenter’s backup pilot is
Cmdr. Walter M. Schirra Jr.
Disillusioned
American Returns
'
From Soviet Union
ZELIENOPLE, Pa. (A — Robert
Webster, who gave up his Ameri
nan in _ thff.Snalot
Union in 1959, has returned home
disillusioned and tired but with
hopes of undoing “the wrong I
Webster, 33, a former plastic
' technician in Cleveland, Ohio, ar
rived at Greater Pittsburgh Air
port from New York Sunday night.
He rode some 20 miles by taxicab
to Zelienople where he went into
seclusion at his father’s home.
Webster, who left his wife and
two children behind when he de
fected after going to the Soviet
Union in 1959 to set up a Rand
Corp. plastics exhibit in Moscow,
said he would take any job he can
get.
James Rand III, president of the
Rand Corp., has said he felt a re
sponsibility for Webster and would
attempt to get him a job, though
not with Rand’s own firm.
Webster, wearing the same blue
suit he bought in Cleveland and
wore to the USSR, said he had no
immediate plans except that he
wanted “to rest a little.” He told
newsmen he was confused and
tired.
In New York he told newsmen
he hoped for a reconciliation with
his former wife, Martha, who has
divorced him. She lives with their
children in the Zelienople area
where they both grew up.
The U.S. Embassy in Moscow
said it was informed Webster left
behind a Russian girl and her
baby in Leningrad when he re
turned to this country.
JOHN GLENN INVITED
TO MIDNIGHT SUN
FESTIVAL HERE ON JUNE 21
Sen. Lester Bronson, in a phone
message to Sen. E. L. Bartlett at
the nation’s capital, invited him to
attend the Midnight Sun Festival
on June 21. Bronson also request
ed Bartlett, as a member of the
Senate Armed Forces Committee,
to extend an invitation to John
Glass to attend the Festival also.
Bronson said Bartlett assured
him that he would do what he
could to have the famous astro
naut visit the 49th state on the
lon*e«t day of the year. J
Flooding Rivers
Menace Aniak
And Ft. Yukon
ANCHORAGE Uft—One quarter
of the population of Ft. Yukon has
been evacuated to high ground as
the rampaging Yukon River,
caught behind two ice jams, sent a
foot of water into the town yes
terday afternoon.
A report from that community
indicates the town’s water system
has been extensively damaged.
Aniak, a village on the Kusko
kwim, also has been partly evacu
ated.
An ice jam at McGrath was
blasted out Saturday and the Kus
kokwim River is reported receding
in that area.
Biggest present threat seems to
be at Ft. Yukon where ice jams in
front and below the town are
causing apprehension. A river ex
pert from Ft. Wainwright is fly
ing to the area around this upper
Yukon community today to study
the two jams and the situation be
low Ft. Yukon where the river is
reported “solid with ice.”
Flood waters, held behind a 20
mile long ice jam in the Kusko
kwim at Aniak, have inundated
that riverside community 120
miles from Bethel.
Pilots flying over the area esti
mate flood waters are backed up
eight to 10 feet high behind the
jam.
Thirty scvcsut persons 4^^
ak, which includes 244 residents,
were evacuated late Friday. They
are being cared for in Bethel’s
new National Guard armory.
A 24-hour watch is being kept
on the river above Bethel, accord
ing to Herman Ludwigsen, who
operates a flying service in that
lower Kuskokwim river town.
Ludwigsen said today the Bethel
area is in “no immediate danger.”
He said the river was rising ap
proximately six inches a day.
Concern is being felt, however,
for villages upriver from Bethel.
A, breakup of the Aniak ice jam
will bring waters rushing toward
the two low-lying river villages of:
Tuluksaw and Lower Kalskag. j
COSMONAUT GAGARIN
RECEIVES MIXED WELCOME
ON ARRIVAL IN JAPAN
TOKYO iJPi — Soviet cosmonaut
Yuri A. Gagarin said today Soviet
space research “is developing
rapidly and a trip to the moon
may come about sooner than ex
pected, possibly within five years
from now.”
The 28-year-old Soviet major, the
first human space traveler, made
this statement in an airport press
conference shortly after arriving for
a nine-day private visit to Japan.
Gagarin was greeted by about
2,300 flag-waving leftists a Tokyo
International Airport and a hand
ful of rightists who shouted over
louspeakers “Gagarin Go Home!”
Gagarin and his wife, Valentina,
were accompanied by a Soviet air
force general, two members of the
Supreme Soviet and seven Soviet
newsmen.
Japan is the 30th country Gaga
rin has visited since his space
flight.
WEATHER FORECAST
Cloudy with occasional light rain
or snow. Little change in temper
ature. . i *
In the past 24 hours: highest
temp. 37, lowest 30. Sunrise at
2:20 am., sunset at 9:36 pm.
A year ago today: high temp.
Alaska Will Be
Highlighted On
TV Program
By Fritz Witti
Associated Press Special Service
WASHINGTON Wl — Alaska
and some of its people will be
featured in a 17-part television
series to be shot in the 49th State
next fall by the Japan Broadcast
ing Corp.
The weekly half-hour shows,
provisionally entitled “Story of
Alaska,” are to be shown in Japan
next December through March.
Why Alaska? The explanation is
from a prospectus by Yoshinori
Maeda, general managing editor
of the Japanese corporation, sub
mitted to Sen. E. L. Bartlett:
“Alaska is the most important
region of what President Kennedy
calls ‘New Frontiers.’ The central
city of Alaska (Anchorage) is
situated at the same distance from
Tokyo as from San Francisco, and
close industrial relations have been
established between Alaska and
Japan.
“In this serial drama we wish
to deal with a story featuring dy
namic actions and a love romance
unfolded in the wild nature of
Alaska, thereby introducing part
of Alaska to the Japanese.”
The series—to be filmed at sev
eral Alaska locations next Aug. 10
to Sept. 18—will feature Japanese
actors, Eskimos, American Indians
and local Alaskan extras.
Shooting is being planned at An
chorage, Fairbanks, Fort Yukon,
Mt. McKinley, Point Barrow, Kot
zebue, Nome, Sitka, Juneau and
surrounding areas. One of the
sequences is to he shot in San
Francisco.
EUROPEANS FLEE ALGERIA
ALGIERS tff) — Driven by secret
! army organization terrorism and
the fear of Moslem reprisals, 2,600
Europeans fled Algeria by plane
over the weekend.
So great was the demand for air
passage that military authorities
had to add four planes to 12
flights previously scheduled for
Sunday.
In the five days preceding the
weekend, officials said about 2,000
persons departed with no apparent
intention of returning to terror
plagued Algeria. Outgoing flights
normally carry 1,600 passengers a
week.
A smiliar rush for ship passage
was reported along the Algiers
docks, as alarm spread over in
creasing slaughter by killers of the
secret army organization and the
threat of reprisals by Moslem
commandos.
Demo Chairman Says GOP In
State of Intellectual Bankruptcy
WASHINGTON iff) —Democratic
Chairman John M. Bailey said to
day the Republicans are in a state
of intellectual bankruptcy, while
the Democrats have good issues
and a real record of accomplish
ment to take to the voters.
Bailey opened a campaign con
ference for Democratic women
with an attack on both Republican
conservatives and liberals.
He told the estimated 3,000 dele
gates Republicans are floundering
in search of issues as the Demo
crats display an energetic adminis
tration trying to make the United
States & bs&sr country in a better
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