as NOME NUGGET
OLDEST NEWSPAPER IN ALASKA—MEMBER ASSOCIATED PRESS
VOL. LJX No. 136NOME, ALASKA, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 1957 Per Copy—15*
France Walks Out of NATO Meeting
Protesting Arms Shipment to Tunisia
PARIS, iff)—France reacted vig-<
orously today to US. and British
arms shipment to Tunisia, walk
ing out on a NATO meeting and
firing off strong protests to Lon
don and Washington.
The token shipment of machine
guns, rifles and ammunition was
Top Russian Spy
Sentenced to
30 Years Prison
NEW YORK, iff—Russian Col.
Rudolph I. Abel, the highest rank
ing Soviet spy ever caught in this
country, today was sentencefl to
30 years in prison and an $8,000
fine. He could have received the
death penalty.
The 55-year-old spy ring mas
ter stood stonily before Federal
District Judge Mortimer W. Byers
in Brooklyn as the sentence was
pronounced.
He displayed the same outward
calm shown during the days after
his indictment and during his
trial. He said nothing, and after
the sentence was promptly led
away handcuffed by two officers.
Abel’s court-appointed attorney,
James Donovan, pleaded that his
client be spared death, contend
ing the prosecution had failed to
indicate any specific instance in
which Abel had actually trans
mitted U.S. secrets to Russia.
Donovan also argued that if
Abel’s life were spared, there
might come a time when this
country would wish to exchange
him for some American intelli
gence agent captured in Russia.
Now ‘Proctor’s Gamble’
WASHINGTON, UV—Pentagon
punsters no longer speak of a j
“calculated risk”—a term famil-1
iar to all military planners.
Now it’s “Procter’s Gamble,”
AsSt. Secretary of Defense Wil
fred J. McNeil told the National
Security Industrial Assn.
Secretary Neil H. McElroy was
president of Procter & Gamble
Co. before he assumed office last
month.
Federal Budgeteers Race Dec. 15 Deadline to Cut
Spending So More Money Can Go for New Weapons
WASHINGTON UP)—G overn
ment budget makers are racing a
Dec. 15 deadline, trying to imple
ment President Eisenhower’s call
for a rollback in non-essential
spending so that more money may
toe poured into the search for new
weapons.
Thus far, an administration of
ficial said today, there has been
nt> solid agreement on just where
the government can cut its multi
bfllion-dollar costs.
Eisenhower said in Oklahoma
City Wednesday “some programs,
while desirable, are not absolute
ly essential . . . savings of the
kind we need can come about
ohly thru cutting out or deferring
eh tire categories of activities.”
Where can the cuts or defer
ments be made? It’s a complex
question, calling for many an
swers. And the answers must be
forthcoming soon. For purely
technical reasons, the budget for
fiscal 1959—which begins next
July 1—must be in the hands of
the printers by Dec. 15 so it can
be sent to Congress early in Jan
uary.
The administration frankly has
hopes of revising the country’?
agricultural programs to save
some 500 to 600 million dollars
(see today’s editorial on Page 2).
It also hopes Congress will pass
a postal rate increase that will
save the government about that
much more.
.
Beyond that, administration of
ficials see little hope of any really
substantial savings—unless the
Defense Department itself can
come up with a shift of emphasis
within the military establishment.
“Maybe it’s-time to ask our
selves,” one official said, “if we
really need all those bows and
arrows now that we have gun
powder. As we move forward in
the field of rocketry and nuclear
weapons, do we really need—just
for instance—the same amount of
field artillery we have considered
essential before?”
There has been speculation that
military spending may go up by
about a billion dollars next year,
to a total of $39 billion.
»
intended by France’s two big
NATO allies to keep that North
African nation from turning to
Egypt or the Soviet bloc for arms.
But France, fearful the arms
will find their way. to rebels fight
ing French rule in neighboring
Algeria, was not mollified.
A French spokesman declared
the U.S.-British decision was
made known “at the precise mo
ment when the French govern
ment was preparing the immedi
ate dispatch of military supplies
to Tunisia.” Tunisia was formerly
a French protectorate.
The French-Tunisian negotia
tions have been hanging fire for
weeks, and the British-U.S. action
also appeared intended to spur
the French to quick action before
the Soviet bloc could move in.
The U.S. and Britain said they
won assurances from Tunisia the
weapons would not reach the
hands of smugglers who ply the
long, sparsely settled Tunisian
Algerian border.
The British and Americans re
ported the delivery would total!
only 920 guns and ammunition.
Truman Says Stevenson
Plans Further Talks on
Advising at NATO Meet
NEW YORK, (IP—Former Presi
dent Harry S. Truman said today
Adlai Stevenson apparently plans
further conversations before de
ciding on an offer to become an
administration consultant at a
NATO meeting in Paris next
month.
Truman said he conferred with
Stevenson for an hour last night
and that “I got the impression
that there are still some conver
sations to be had before it is de
cided.”
Stevenson, twice defeated by
President Eisenhower for the
presidency, has indicated that he
might accompany the President to
the Paris meeting, which is de
signed to increase allied coopera
tion. But he said it depends on
the nature of U.S. proposals to be
made.
17 BODIES RECOVERED FROM
PAA CLIPPER CRASH IN PACIFIC
Federal Reserve
Board Gives
Boost to Economy
WASHINGTON, 'The Fed
eral Reserve Board gave the na
tion’s leveling-off economy an un
expected shot in the arm today
by cutting back its discount rates
in four sections of the country.
The immediate effect is to make
it easier for banks to obtain mon
ey for lending to businesses and
the general public. And it ap
peared to herald an easing of tight
money policies that have accom
panied a two-year business boom.
A spokesman for Aie FRB said
the action was “recognition that
inflation, at least temporarily, has
ceased to be the dominant factor
in the economy.”
He emphasized, however, the
board’s belief that there is no rea
son for any public alarm that a
business recession may lie ahead.
The board announced yesterday
that, effective today, the discount
rate would" drop from the 24-year
high of 3Vi> percent to 3 percent
at the Federal Reserve banks in
Atlanta, New York, Richmond
and St. Louis. Similar action by
the eight other reserve banks is
expected soon.
AFL-CIO Suspends
Bakery Workers Union
WASHINGTON, OB—'The AFL
CIO today suspended the Bakery
Workers Union from the federa
tion.
AFL-CIO President George
Meany said actions of the bakery
workers executive board consti
tute “failure and refusal to com
ply” with an Oct. 25 order of the
AFL-CIO executive council.
The council had ordered the
bakery union to clean house or
face ouster from the federation,
and listed certain specific actions
to be taken by today to eliminate
what it termed corrupt influences
from the union.
» HONOLULU, UR—The Navy,
noting evidence of fire today, has
recovered the bodies of 17 per
sons who were killed when a Pan
American Airways Stratocruiser
vanished over the Pacific Ocean
a week ago.
A relentless ocean search was
being pressed for additional bod
ies and debris that might provide
clues to the fate of the plane that
disappeared with 44 persons on a
flight from San Francisco to Ha
waii.
Three of the bodies had wrist
watches stopped at 5:27. The last
radio message from the plane, a
routine position report, was re
ceived at 5:04 p.m. Friday. Twelve
bodies had on life jackets.
There was “some evidence of
One Marine Convicted,
One Acquitted in Japan
YOKOSUKA, Japan, UR—One
U.S. marine was convicted and
another acquitted Thursday as
the Navy began trials of 16
Leathernecks accused of brutality
to brig prisoners at Sasebo Naval
Base.
Cpl. Glenn W. Fredericks, 21, of
Sleetmute, Alaska, was sentenced
to 14 days at hard labor and re
duced to private rank for punch
ing a sailor while Fredericks was
on guard duty in the Navy brig
at the south Japran Navy base.
Russians Announce Dog in Sputnik
Died From Oxygen Deficiency
-«
Ground Observer
Corps Relieved
Of Active Duty
WASHINGTON, (^-Because of
advances in radar warning sys
tems, the Air Force is relieving
its volunteer civilian Ground Ob
server Corps of its skywatch for
unidentified planes.
Col. Owen F. Clarke, GOC proj
ect officer at Air Force headquar
tersv gave out word of the move
yesterday at a meeting of the Na
tional Assn, of State and Territor
ial Civil Defense Directors. Civil
defense officals have recruited
volunteers for the observer corps.
The Air Force stressed it is not
disbanding the GOC, saying it
wants the observers to stand pre
pared for emergency duty and to
remain in a trained and ready re
serve status.
One effect of eliminating the
daily ’round the clock skywatch
will be the closing of many GOC
observation posts and 29 filter
centers, where reports from the
observers are collected and used
to plot courses of reported air
craft and establish their identifi
cation. Some military personnel
assigned to work with the observ
er corps also will be freed for
other duty.
' MOSCOW, MV-A Soviet scien
tist announced today that Laika,
the dog in Sputnik II, suffocated
when the oxygen regenerative
equipment aboard the earth satel
lite stopped working.
The scientist, Alexei Pokrovsky,
told a news conference there had
never been any plan to bring
Laika back to earth. He said she
died painlessly of oxygen defi
ciency.
Today’s news conference appar
ently was intended to set at rest
all the speculation about the first
living thing to get into outer
space. One scientist said Laika
would be immortalized on a
plaque near Leningrad honoring
Soviet dog heroes of World War
II.
Soviet scientists also told the
news conference:
1. The Russians have not solved
the problem of Sputnik re-entry
into the earth’s atmosphere.
2. The Russians will launch sev
eral more Sputniks.
3. They eventually plan to send
a rocket to the moon.
4. They are working on a new
super-fuel to power future rockets
and Sputniks.
The scientists would not say
what fuel was used for their first
two Sputniks but maintained the
same fuel was used for both.
They said there would be no
advance notice of future Soviet *
launchings.
fire” in the “considerable debris
consisting of mail, cushions, mis
cellaneous buoyant parts,” the
aircraft carrier Philippine Sea re
ported.
The Jodies were found yester
day as the carrier combed a more
than 100 square mile area 955
miles northeast of Honolulu with
a flotilla of small boats picking
up debris from the “Romance of
the Skies,” which vanished with
36 passengers and a crew of 8.
With small boats from all ships
in the area working under heli
copter guidance, the Navy said it
expected to “exhaust the possi
bility of survivors and recover all
available bodies and significant
material, from the area” by 5 p.m.
today.
AH the bodies found were shoe
less; most wore lifejackets and all
had “external injuries and multi
ple fractures,” the Navy reported.
“The cause of death is consid
ered to be the extensive injuries
and fractures,” the Philippine Sea
radioed.
Coast Guard Gapt. Donald Ma
diarmid said the evidence “indi
cates the pilot did not have every
thing go sour suddenly or he
would not have had time to warn
people to get into jackets and get
their shoes off. I would assume
the pilot ditched the aircraft.”
Removing shoes is routine pre
ditching practice for planes at sea.