THE DAILY ALASEA EMPIRE
“ALL THE NEWS ALL THE TIME"
VOL. LXXVIII., NO. 11,835
JUNEAU, ALASKA, THURSDAY, JUNE 14, 1951
MEMBER ASSOCIATED PRESS
PRICE,TEN CENTS
Allies Pushing Ahead In Shattered Red Area
JOHNSOH
DIVULGES
SECRETS
Former Defense Secretary
Reveals More Info on
Formosa, Korea
WASHINGTON, June 14 — UP)—
Louis Johnson, former secretary of
defense, testified today he wanted
to send a U S. military mission to
Formosa in December, 1949, but
President Truman over-ruled him
because of “political" protests from
the State Department.
Testifying at the Senate’s Mac
Arthur inquiry, Johnson said it was
only after the fighting began in
Korea that the State Department
shifted its position and “no longer
opposed doing things to keep For
mosa from falling into unfriendly
hands.”
Formosa is the big island off the
China coast where Chiang Kai
Shek’s Chinese Nationalists took
refuge when driven from the main
land by the Communists.
The question of its importance
strategically to the United States
has figured repeatedly in the hear
ings by the Senate Armed
Service.; and Foreign Relations com
mittees on the dismissal of Gen.
MacArthur.
Guarding of Formosa
Johnson, who left the Truman
cabinet last September, said the de
cision to send the Seventh fleet to
guard Formosa — after the outbreak
of the Korean war—was taken after
the President and others listened to
a "brilliant” memo on the subject
by MacArthur.
Johnson told the committees that
there had been a difference of opin
ion between the State and Defense
Departments late in 1949 about For
mosa.
Acheson's Opposition
He said the Joint Chiefs recom
mended in December of that year
that a military mission be sent to
Formosa to aid Chiang Kai-Shek’s
troops there but Secretary of State
Acheson objected.
A military mission was actually
sent a few months ago.
Johnson also gave the senators
their first intimate story of the
sending of troops to Korea.
He said the decision to intervene
militarily in Korea was made at a
White House meeting on motion of
Acheson.
But he told the senators he
would not “indulge in personalities”
or violate any confidence in his tes
timony.
Not Ready to Fight
Leading up to this, he said the
American troops in the Far East
were not ready for a fight when
the war came, and that he had re
ceived no intimation of possible
' trouble in Korea when visiting Mac
Arthur’s Tokyo headquarters only
days before the North Korean
(Continued on Page Two)
TheWashington
Merry-Go-Round
By DREW PEARSON
(Copyright. 1951. or Bell Syndicate, Inc. |
Washington. — There is no
quicker way to get a woman riled
than tell her she isn’t good-look
ing. Yet Gen. Hoyt Vandenberg,
himself a good-looking man and ef
ficient chief of the air force, has
let himself be put in exactly that
position with air force women.
What General Vandenberg did
was to bring aviatrix Jacqueline
Cochran, wife of finance wizard
Floyd Odium, into the air force as
special adviser on the WAFS and
later to accept her advice.
Miss Cochran, after an investiga
tion at Lackland Air Base, Texas,
reported that the WAFS lacked
glamor. She went further and even
advised General Vandenberg that
the WAFS were too short, too fat
and too unattractive. The air force,
she said, should pay more attention
to shapely figures in recruiting
women.
Vandenberg agreed that the Navy
seemed to be getting better looking
females into the WAVES, and that
the WAFS could go in for taller
women. The chief of the air force
(Continued on Page Four)
'Please Get Well'
“Cookie, please get well” is the tender plea of Sandra Shenehon, 8,
as she solicitously fondles her mutt terrier, victim of a Minneapolis,
Minn., dog poisoner. Sandra, blond, blue-eyed but deaf, has relied
on Cookie’s companionship since she was 4. “Some bad people gave
Cookie something bad to eat,” she explained to the veterinarian
who said the dog has a 50-50 chance for life, iff) U’irephoto.
ATOM BLAST
IS TERRIFIC
SAYS HERBERT
"Had Feeling of Standing
Gates of Hell," Says
Congressman
NEW ORLEANS, June 14 — (AY—
The mightiest atomic explosion yet
seen by congressional observers va
porized the steel tower on which
„he bomb was mounted and blasted
everything except a few charred
palm tree stumps from an Eniwetok
Atoll island.
This picture of the power of a
new series of A-bombs was pre
sented today by Rep. F. Edward
Hebert, recently returned from the
Eniwetok experiments. He attended
as an official observer for the House
Armed Services committee. Of it
Hebert said:
*'I had a feeling I was standing at
the gates of hell looking into etern
ity."
He gave a graphic account of the
test in the first of a series of arti
cles he wrote for the New Orleans
States and which that paper made
available to the Associated Press.
The Congress member wrote
guardedly that the bomb he saw
detonated was ‘‘several times the
power of the bomb dropped on Hiro
shima.”
(There was some question whe
ther Hebert saw the last and pos
sibly biggest test blast set off at
Eniwetok. He and other congres
sional observers returned to the
United States about May 12.
(Ten days later there were un
official reports in Washington that
still another explosion was to oc
cur, and it was not until May 25
that the government announced the
conclusion of the mid-Pacific ex
periments. That announcement in
cluded a hint that some type of hy
drogen bomb — perhaps on a small
scale for an H-bomb but on a mam
moth scale for a conventional A
bomb — was tested).
Ship Movements
Alaska from Seattle scheduled to
arrive sometime Saturday after
noon.
Baranof scheduled to sail from
Seattle Friday.,
Princess Louise scheduled to sail
from Vancouver Saturday.
Prince George scheduled to sail
from Vancouver Saturday.
Chilcotin scheduled to sail from
Vancouver 8 p m. Monday.
Princess Kathleen scheduled to
sail from Vancouver June 20.
Aleutian scheduled to sail from
Seattle June 22.
Denali from westward scheduled
to arrive 9 p.m. Friday southbound.
SLATED
I)r. Allen O. Whipple (above) is
slated to receive the American
Medical Association’s Gold Medal
Award at 1951 AMA meeting in
Atlantic City, N.J. Dr. Whipple
is professor emeritus at Columbia
University and clinical director
of Memorial Hospital of New
York. Iffl Wirephoto.
PRETTY WIFE OF
BRITISH OFFICER
HITCHHIKES, KOREA
TOKYO, June 14—(#1—The young
wife of a British Army Captain,
with an enterprise which will make
her the envy of many an Army
wife, spent three days with her hus
band near the fighting front in
Korea.
Pretty Mrs. Benita Lassetter ,27,
mother of a seven-year-old son,
willingly acknowledged she had
made the unauthorized journey. But
she would not tell how because she
did not want to “kick up a fuss”
for others involved.
She probably hitchhiked plane
rides both ways. She returned to
day.
Her husband is Capt. Matthew
Lassetter, 29, of the Northumber
land Fusilliers, an Army regular for
10 years. Mrs. Lassetter came here
from her home at Roque Brune,
Southern France, and saw him fivei
or six days in Tokyo in May.
After he returned to the front,
she wanted to see him again be
fore she goes home.
She was in Korea four days but
it took one day to get the word to
her husband. ,
“A friend put us up,” she said,
but she wouldn't elaborate.
"We went for walks and I saw
many friends.” (
No one, apparently, told her to
leave.
"They all seemed to think it was
jolly fun.”
Brent Stungill of Mt. Edgecumbe
is stopping at the Earanof Hotel.
MatARTHUR
WELCOMED
BY TEXANS
Record Crowd Greets Fired
General; Appeasement
Accusation Made
HOUSTON, Texas, June 14 —UP—
Gen. Douglas MacArthur brought
his anti-administration stand to
Texas’ largest city today after draw
ing a record crowd at a Houston
welcome parade.
His speech tonight in a 70,000-seat
football stadium will give the de
posed Far Eastern commander an
opportunity to develop these argu
ments he voiced on arriving in Texas
yesterday:
1. U. S. policy makers are guilty
of appeasement in Korea—appease
ment that could lead to war with
Russia.
2. The administration is guilty
of ’’moral weakness” in talking of
a peace settlement.
The biggest crowd ever seen in
Houston turned out — but cheered
only with marked restraint — to
see MacArthur’s arrival parade lete
yesterday.
Appeasement Charges
Mayor Oscar Holcombe estimated
the crowd at around 440,000, almost
double the previous record 250,000
drawn by President Franklin D. I
Roosevelt in 1936. Other estimates!
ran considerably lower.
MacArthur made his appeasement
accusation from the steps of the
state capitol in Austin. About 20,000
! Texans listened as the 71-year-old
general declared America’s first line
of defense is on the Yalu river at
the Manchurian border and not t£ej
Elbe fiver in Europe.
“The policies of appeasement on
which we are now embarked carry
within themselves the very lncita
| tion to a war against us,’’ he said.
I "If the Soviet does strike, it will be
! because of the weakness we now dis
I play rather than the strength we of
right should display.”
He blamed “the moral weakness
of the freed world” — not Soviet
military strength — for Russian
advances.
"NO" SAYS
MacARTHUR
Answer is Emphatic Re
garding Whether He
Would Run for Pres.
AUSTIN, Texas. June 14 — lift—
“Emphatically no,” was Gen. Doug
las MacArthur’s answer when asked
if he would run for president.
"Would you run for president?”
the war hero was queried by a
Dallas news staffer yesterday.
“No,” MacArthur said.
The reporter was not sure he had
heard right, so he asked the general
to repeat his answer to the question.
“The answer was emphatically
no,” MacArthur said.
When asked if his Texas trip was
linked with political ambitions, Mac
Arthur gave this explanation of his
Texas tour:
"When I first came back to the
United States, I went to my own
ancestral home and then to Mrs.
MacArthur’s. And then I came to
where I was a boy — Texas.”
FROM SEATTLE
[ E. C. Baker of Seattle is at the
Baranof Hotel.
STOCK QUOTATIONS
NEW YORK. June 14 — Closing
quotation of Alaska Juneau mine
stock today is 2Vi, American Can
111*4, American Tel. and Tel. 153%,
Anaconda 41%, Douglas Aircraft 47,
General Electric 54%, General Mot
ors 48'4, Goodyear 78%. Kennecott
74%, Libby, McNeill and Libby 8%,
Northern Pacific 42%, Standard Oil
of California 47%, Twentieth Cent
ury Fox 18, U. S. Steel 41, Pound
$280%, Canadian Exchange 93.25.
Sales today were 1,300,000 shares.
Averages today were as follows:
Industrials 252.40, rails 79.38, utili
ties 42.43.
Captured Tank Gu n Gets Going Over
Officers and GI’s inspect Russian-made 57mm anti- tank gun on Korea’s west-central front. The power
ful weapon, capable of penetrating 5'i Inches of armor plating, is believed the first weapon of its type
to be captured in the Korean campaign. (#I Wirephnto.
Air Women Get New Boss
.
Gen. Nathan F. Twining, vice chief of air. staff, pins colonel's
eagle insignia on shoulders of Mary Jo Shelly as she becomes new
head of the Women's Air Fore during ceremony at the Pentagon
Building, Washington, D.C. (/n Wirephoto.
TESTIMONY
SHOWS DOPE,
WASH., D.C.
Narcotics Bought There"As
Easy as a Soft Drink"
Is Report Made
WASHINGTON, June 14 —W—
Senate crime investigators today
made public testimony describing
drug addicts’ parties in the nation’s
capital and relating that “dope"
could be bought here “as easy as a
soft drink."
The testimony was taken from in
mates of the House of Correction for
Men and the Reformatory for Wo
men, both at Jessups, Md.
Most of the witnesses said nar
cotics are cheaper in Washington
than in Baltimore, but readily avail
able to adults and tenn-agers in
both cities.
Names of the witnesses, questioned
at the two institutions May 29 and
June 7, were withheld.
A 23-year-old Washington woman
told of earning money through
prostitution to buy dope. The report
quoted her as saying she “went as
girls do1 on the street to get needed
funds.”
“She said that quite a few of the
girls she knew had to do that to
take care of their habit,” the re
port added.
Release of the report coincided
with a demand by Fairfax County
supervisors in nearby Virginia for a
state law providing mandatory life
imprisonment without parole for
persons convicted of peddling dope
to minors.
Supervisor Robert Dye sponsored
a resolution directed to Gov. John
S. Battle asking him to recommend
such legislation to the 1952 general
assembly.
TOP FOUR FLOORS
MENDENHALL APTS.
OCCUPIED MID-JULY
Occupancy of the new Mendenhall
Apartment building's top four floors
is expected by mid-July, according
to Ken Eskestrand, construction
superintendent of the Anderson
Construction Company.
The building will be completed
by the end of July and will be
ready for occupancy by then. One
elevator will be completely finished
in one week with the second fin
ished in three weeks. The tower
that has been used to carry build
ing supplies to the various floors
of the building will be demolished
by next week. Painting of the struc
ture will then proceed to com
pletion.
Kenneth Anderson, permanent
manager of the Mendenhall Apart
ments, is expected to arrive July 1
with his family. The rental office'
is now located on the east side of
the first floor of the building.
NAVY RESERVE
10 HEAR LECTURE
ON ELECTRONICS
Juneau’s U. S. Navy Reserve unit
will hold a meeting tonight at the
National Guard offices at 7:30.
Lt. Andrew Moe, of the Kodiak
Naval Base, will give a lecture on
modern electronic^ devices used by
the Navy and show a film on the
subject.
All members of the unit are urged
to be present.
June 15
Low tide . 4:15 a.m. 1.4 ft.
| High tide . 10:28 a.m. 12.6 ft
Low tide 4:07 p.m. 4.0 ft.
High tide ... 10:24 p.m. 16.6 ft
• I
FISHING
BOAT IS
DISABLED
Craft With 26 Persons Re
ported Aboard Taking
Water, Kodiak Bound
SEATTLE, June 14 - Alaska
bound fishing vessel with 26 persons
aboard rtpurte • today It was dis
abled in the North Pacific and tak
ing water over its stern.
The Coast Guard said the vessel,
the Sea Lark, messaged at 9:28 a.m.
PST today that was taking water
over its stern, with its engines dead.
It ws|s reported 300 miles due west
of Queen Charlotte Sound, off the
British Columbia coast.
The manager of the Global Pack
ing Co., owner of the Sea Lark, said
there was no reason to believe the
vessel to be in any lmmedate danger.
The manager, W. H. Lilly, said tak
ing water over the stern was noth
ing unusual for the loaded vessel
because it rides low in the water. ,
He said the vessel has a crew of
10 under Capt. Ben Bandickson,
of Seattle. He described it as a tuna
type fishing vessel, making its sec
ond annual trip to the northern
fishing grounds.
It is a 166-foot craft with nine
smaller fishing boats lashed to the
deck. It is headed for Kodiak.
The cutter Winona and a Canad
ian frigate were reported speeding
toward the vessel.
The first distress call was re
layed to the Coast Guard by the
marine operator shortly after mid
night.
Water in the fuel oil was blamed
for the vessel’s trouble. *
The Global Packing Company,
Seattle, was listed as the owner.
DISAPPEARING COOK
Levi DeBord, about 34, was re
ported to U. S. Coast Guard head
quarters here yesterday afternoon
as having disappeared from the
motor vessel Sally S, at Kake.
SEATTLE VISITOR
Robert W. Graham of Seattle is
at the Baranof Hotel.
• «••••••••*
| • •
• WEATHER REPORT •
• Temperature for 24-Hour Period •
• ending 6:20 o’clock this morning •
• In Juneau — Maximum, •
• 54; minimum, 44. •
• At Airport — Maximum, •
• 56; minimum, 43. •
• •
• FORECAST •
• Partly cloudy with scat- •
• tered rain showers tonight •
• and Friday. Lowest temper- •
• ature tonight near 45. Warm- •
• er Friday with highest temp- •
• erature near 58. •
• PRECIPITATION •
• (Past 24 hours ending 1:30 a m. today •
• City of Juneau — .77 inches; •
• Since June 1 — 3.99 inches; •
• Since July 1 — 76.18 inches. •
• At Airport — .67 inches: •
• Since June 1 — 2.48 inches; •
• Since July 1 — 43.88 inches. •
• ••#*♦•••••
I
COLUMNS OF
TANKS ROAM
UNOPPOSED
Small Red Forces Harass
Allies in One Sector,
Fight in Others
By Associated Press
Allied tank columns roamed at
will over the Reds' shattered Iron
triangle in Korea Thursday, but
small groups of Chinese bitterly op
posed infantry attempts to mop up
the area.
A late field dispatch said that al
though the Reds had apparently
abandoned serious efforts to defend
their former supply center, small
forces up to company strength (llbO
or so each) remained behind to
harass the advancing Allies.
Despite small local setbacks, how
ever, the Allies were able to push
ahead in that Central sector.
Reds Turn, Fight
Farther eifst the Communists
turned and fought.
UN patrols probed through Intense
artillery fire to outpost of the new
Red defense line north of Yanggu
and Inje on the East Central front.
In some sectors the Allies were
kept busy Thursday beating off a
series of North Korean counterat
tacks. The U. S. 8th Army reported
only one advance of as much as a
mile.
On Eastern Line
The picture along the east was
in marked contrast to the situation
In the west. Qlgnt tanks. Utterly
covered with riflemen, rumbled the
length of the triangle Wednesday
to Pyongyang. TOey were almost un
opposed.
The two big columns of more than
100 tanks returned at night after
sweeping beyond the bomb shattered
city.
Tank forces and Infantrymen
again made "little or no contact”
with the Chinese In the triangle
area Thursday, the 8th Army re
ported.
Enemy Silenced
However, the Fifth Air Force said
"a large concentration of enemy
troops” floured heavy fire into UN
troops in the Pyonggang sector. Jet
pilots roared In with fire bombs
and blasting machlneguns. The Air
Force said they "silenced the en
emy.”
russmnT
KILL IRAN
SENTRYMAN
TEHRAN, Iran. June 14—(*>—An
authoritative government source
says an Iranian frontier patrol
soldier was shot and killed by
Russians along the border east of
the Caspian Sea.
The Informant said an Iranian
Military Commission was sent to
the frontier to investigate the In
cident, which took place three days
ago. He said the Russians reported
the soldier was shot because he
was found on the Soviet side of
the frontier.
There have been a number of
clashes between Soviet and Iranian
troops in the past few years in bor
der areas.
The new incident came, however,
at a time of great tension in Iran,
where such agitation against all
foreigners is being carried on. The
British Ambassador, Sir Francis
Shepherd, has Just warned Prime
Minister Mohammed Mossadegh
that continued Iranian propaganda
against the British may touch off
a powder keg of violence against
all foreigners in the southern oil
field areas.
Shepherd disclosed his warning as
top officials of the British-owned
Anglo-Iranian Oil Company pre
pared to start negotiations, perhaps
today, with Iran’s government on
the nationalization of the com
pany's vast holdings centered at the
Persian gulf port.
From Abadan Associated Press
correspondent Fred Zusy reported
the situation there appeared ex
tremely delicate.