THE NOME/NUGGET
Published Monday, Wednesday and Friday by the
NOME PUBLISHING CO.
NOME, ALASKA
Telephone: Main 125 P.O. Box 618
$1.50 PER MONTH $16.00 A YEAR*
E. P. BOUCHER . Managing Editor
CLINTON GRAY . Production Manager
Entered as second class matter October 14, 1943, at the
postoffice at Nome, Alaska, under the Act of March 3, 1879.
“CONTROVERSIAL ?”
(Christian Science Monitor)
A strange request has gone out to American book
publishers^ A letter from the State Department asks
them to certify that books they submit for export under
the United States information program are not written
by “Communists, fellow travelers, or persons who
might be considered controversial.”
Considered controversial by whom? And why?
What about “noncontroversial” books by “controver
sial” authors? What about “controversy” itself?
Is not controversy in one sense the lifeblood of
democracy—that free competition of ideas which dif
ferentiates a living, growing, many-sided society from
the rigid orthodoxy of the totalitarian police state?
Are readers abroad who turn to the libraries of
American information centers likely to be much im
pressed by a selection of books considered “safe” by
the most timid, 'conventional standards of orthodoxy?;
Or are they likely to be more impressed by the splen
did vitality and variety, the stimulus and challenge,
of books that mirror the wide-ranging views and the
fruitful clash of ideas to be found only in a free society.
Of course, the State Department’s purpose to elim
inate genuinely subversive books from official circula
tion abroad is wholly commendable — it is the loose
wording of the ban that rings the alarm bells.
If American information programs avoid all “con
troversial” books and authors, they will avoid the stuff
of which the town meeting, the open forum, the demo
cratic debate is made. They will avoid the very element
that can most unmistakably demonstrate to critics and
doubters abroad the difference between-1 American
freedom of mind and police-state rule.
Ridgway Turned Down Van Fleet's
Plan for Sea - Borne Strike Against
Korea Reds in 1951, Senators Hear
By DON WHITEHEAD
WASHINGTON, UP) — Senators
have been told that Gen. Matthew
B. Ridgway turned down Gen.
James A. Van Fleet’s plan for an
Allied sea-borne strike against the
Communists in Korea in June,
1951.
Van- Fleet, then commander of
the U.S. Eighth Army in Korea,
recently told a Senate Armed
Services subcommittee he was
“trying to turn me loose” for such
an assault, but that higher auth
ority woi^ld not approve it.
Van Fleet, now retired, said he
felt he could have destroyed the
Chinese armies with the blow.
At the time Van Fleet gave that
testimony, Ridgway said in Paris
he had “absolutely no comment.”
In June, 1951, he was Far Eastern
commander; he is now command
er of western European defense
forces.
Gen. J. Lawton Collins, Army
Chief of Staff, testified behind
closed doors Monday afternoon to
the Armed Services subcommit
tee, which has been investigating
reported ammunition shortages.
Later, a senator who asked that
his name not be used told report
ers:
“Collins said the Van Fleet rec
ommendation never reached the
Joint Chiefs of Staff for a decision.
He said Ridgway turned it down
because he felt it was too much
of a gamble. And, too, there was
>
a lot of talk about a truce at the
time which probably had an ef
fect.”
This development came after
the subcommittee, headed by Sen.
Margaret Chase Smith (R-Me>,
called at least a temporary halt in
its inquiry.
Monday night Gen. George C.
Marshall confirmed the testimony
given the subcommittee last week
that he had signed a controversial
directive.
This directive, issued Sept. 27,
1950, about three months after
the Korean fighting began, in
structed the armed services to
“assume for budgetary purposes”
that the war would be ended by
June 30, 1951. Marshall had taken
office as Secretary of Defense six
days earlier. The directive has
been criticized as a “slowdown
order.”
By telephone from his home in
Pinehurst, N.C., Marshall said he
had signed the directive at the
recommendation of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff and that this rec
ommendation was signed by Gen.
Omar N. Bradley.
TRAPPER FOUND DEAD OF
HEART ATTACK IN CABIN
ANCHORAGE, Iff! — Herman
Grunwald, 82, was found dead of
a heart attack last weekend in his
cabin at Big Lake, near Palmer,
where he had lived alone for 37
years. He was a trapper.
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— ♦
ON FJRST, BUT IT’S A LONG WAY TO HOME PLATE
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MAJOR INCREASE IN CRIME
The director of the Federal Bureau of Investiga
tion, J. Edgar Hoover, reported recently that more than
2,000,000 major crimes were committed in the United
States last year. It was a record crime total for the
United States and the first time that the two million
mark had been passed in this country.
Moreover, the crime rate rose faster than the rate
of population increase, thus showing that crime, per
thousand inhabitants, is increasing. It is estimated
that the United States gains about 1,500,000 inhabitants
a year. But even allowing for this increase, which
would allow for some increase in crime without push
ing the percentage rate upward, the number of major
crimes reported by the FBI shows that the rate, as
well as the number of crimes, is sharply up.
Every community in the country can do its share
by cleaning out corruption in law enforcement agen
cies, cleaning up breeding areas for crime, as demon
strated by past records, and by electing public officials
of integrity and courage.
Engine Trouble Caused
Crash. Says Survivor;
Stewardess Praised
OAKLAND, Calif., UP)—One of
the two known survivors of last
night’s Western Air Lines plane
which crashed in San Francisco
Bay said Tuesday one of the en
gines caused the crew some con
cern throughout the trip from Los
Angeles.
Jerry Adams, 21-year-old U. of
Alaska junior from Fairbanks,
said “a crewmember had turned
the light on the engine several
times on the way up from Los
Angeles.
“The takeoff from San Francis-,
co seemed better than average;
we got up to about 100 feet, then
seemed to drop down to 50 feet
where we leveled off. I was
watching the far engine to my
left which seemed to be running
hot.
“Suddenly the right wing seemed
to drop and then it struck the
water. There was a blinding flash.
I yelled, ‘Let’s get out of here’.
That’s all I remember until I
woke up in the water.”
Adams and the other survivor,
Stewardess Beverlee Nelson, 27,
estimated they were in San Fran
cisco Bay’s chill waters about an
hour before a crash boat rescued
them.
Adams praised Miss Nelson:
“She was wcnderful . . . like a
coach to his students.”
A single oyster may produce
millions of young, but most of
them die before they find a safe
anchorage where they can devel
op as oysters.
Former Interior Assistant
Blames Salmon Packers
For Firing of F &WL Head
WASHINGTON, UP — Charles
Alldredge, a former assistnat to
the Interior Secretary, Tues
day blamed Alaska salmon pack
ers and certain California sports
men for the discharge of Albert
M. Day as director of Interior’s
Fish and Wildlife Service.
Alldredge, son of ICC Chairman
J. Haden Alldredge, said in a pre
pared statement that McKay
“lacked the grace to fire Day per
sonnally, but left the matter to
fan underling.”
He said that among Farley’s
chief supporters are “Alaska’s
salmon packers, who are dis
turbed at the conservation meas
ures which Day has enforced in
order to restore the valuable sal
mon runs of the territory, and a
group of California sportsmen
who supposedly wish less string
ent enforcement of the game laws
including permission to use baited
fields in duck hunting.
“Neither true sportsmen nor
conservationalists will be pleased
by McKay’s action,” he said.
TUESDAY SCOftES
(By the Associated Phessj
National League
Philadelphia 2 — New York 1
St. Louis 9 — Milwaukee 4
Brooklyn at Pittsburgh
postponed, cold.
American, League
Boston 4-11 — Washington 2-4
Coast League
San Diego 4 — Portland 0
S. Francisco 8-9 - Oakland 3-10
Returned GIs Tell of
Death Marches, Brutality
(Continued from Page One)
refuse to work, wouldn’t eat or
fall out for roll call.”
That night, he said, “They
doubled the guards on us.” The
prisoners attended a motion pic
ture. As it ended, the captives
started ter file out.
“The first three or four were
bayonetted” by Chinese guards,
LeGay said. “They didn’t kill
them—just put them in the hos
pital.” He said the rest of the
prisoners stopped and refused to
go out until an English-speaking
guard led the way.
After such disturbances, LeGay
said, the Chinese usually “picked
out an instigator.” He said these
men and others werp “were against
them (the Communists) all the
way” were sent to a labor camp.
“We didn’t see them again,” he
said, nor did he see any of these
men while traveling to Panmun
jom to be released.
One American said that of 700
men who started a forced march
north only 287 arrived at their
destination.
A Turkish officer said one of
his men told him 200 died in a
march to the north in the frigid
winter of 1950. An American sol
dier on the same march said there
were 100 in the starting group
and 40 dropped out.
Allied officers have not added
up the figures and official sources
said no evaluation will be made
of the reports until all of the 600
Allied sick and wounded are re
turned late this week.
U.N. May Ask Reds
To Return More
Disabled Prisoners
(Continued Irom Page One) -
morning with Day and other
guests.
Unable to reach Day by tele
phone, Cool said he went back to
Smith Island at daybreak. He said
he saw Martin and Day go by
the blind where 3,000 ducks were
feeding and scare the birds, but
they did not shoot there.
Cool said, “They went on over
to two other blinds, probably
some 700 yards away, which had
been previously baited. They did
their shooting from the other
blinds.”
The law prohibits shooting
ducks from within half a mile
(880 yards) of a baited blind.
Cool said he made a written re
port but the situation was “too
technical to make a case.”
Day said so far as he knew,
“There was no semblance of any
violation.”
He said Martin told him one
blind had been baited for photo
graphic purposes only and that
they did their shooting from
blinds a considerable distance
away.
Day said he did not even know
of Cool’s report “until we were
having some administrative
changes here a couple of years
after it came in, when it was
pulled out and shown me—kind
of held over my head.”
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