m NOME NUGGET
OLDEST NEWSPAPER IN ALASKA—MEMBER ASSOCIATED PRESS__
VOL. LXII No. 99 ~~ NOME, ALASKA, FRIDAY, AUGUST 19, 1960_Per Copy 15?
Powers Sentenced
President Expresses
Regret Over Severity
Of Powers’ Sentence
WASHINGTON, UP)— President
Eisenhower today expressed “re
grets” over “the severity of the
sentence” against Francis Powers.
The White House said the Presi
dent will not drop his interest in
the case.
Eisenhower’s feeling about the
sentence, and the broad implica
tion that the U. S. government
will press Soviets for better treat
ment of Powers were contained
in a statement issued by Press
Secretary James Hagerty.
U.S. authorities indicated a de
cision on just what further move
the United States might make in
Powers’ behalf must await fur
ther information about the devel
opments in Moscow.
But highly placed authorities
made plain they fully intend to
push further in the case.
Powers Distressed Over
Attacks On America
During His Trial
MOSCOW, UP) — Francis Gary
Powers was quoted today as say
ing he was distressed about the
attacks on America in his Soviet
defense attorney’s speech at his
trial for espionage.
“After all, I am an American,”
his family lawyer, Frank Rogers,
quoted the young flier as telling
his family at their reunion after
he was sentenced to 10 years for
spying on the Soviet Union.
Rogers said Powers told his
wife, mother, father and sister
that he realized the defense at
torney, Mikhail Griniov, was do
ing his best to try to help him by
putting the blame on someone
else.
Election Judge Comments
May Form Basis For
Revision of Election Code
JUNEAU, —Gov. Egan said
today he believes the state’s new
election code, given its first trial
in last week’s primary election,
operated “very well.”
Egan said the administration
had received comments from el
ection judges around the state
which would be studied closely
before the 1961 legislature con
venes.
The election judges’ comments,
the governor said, might be the
basis for administration sugges
tions to improve the code.
Egan said it had not been deter
mined how many ballots were in
validated around the state for
failure of the voter to adhere to
the election code provision for
straight party voting in the pri
mary.
President Requests Four-Star
Rank For Twining on Retiring
WASHINGTON, Ml— President
Eisenhower today asked the Sen
ate to . promote Gen. Nathan F.
Twining to full four-star general
rank when he retires as chair
man of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Twining currently holds the
regular rank of major general in
the Air Force.
Twining’s forthcoming retire
ment had been announced hy the
White House but a date for it to
take effect has not yet been set.
Twining has been in poor health.
LO Years in Prison
By STANLEY JOHNSON
MOSCOW, UP — The Soviet
Union tonight sentenced Francis
Gary Powers to prison and then
permitted him to see his tearful
wife behind the scenes at the
courtroom where he was tried for
his U2 spy flight.
A military court gave the 31
year-old American pilot a 10-year
sentence for espionage but modi
fied that by specifying only three
years are to be spent in prison.
The rest of the sentence is cov
ered by “deprivation of liberty.”
That may mean assignment to a
special colony with other prison
ers, or possibly expulsion.
It is entirely concievable that
Powers may be sent out of the
Soviet Union when his prison
term is finished. There was no
thing official on this, but the
feeling among some diplomats
and correspondents in Moscow is
that the Soviet Union at this
stage has no special desire to keep
Powers after the excitement
about him subsides.
The Soviet Union’s top penalty
for espionage is death by shoot
ing. Prosecutor Roman Rudenko
asked for a 15-year sentence.
Powers’ Soviet attorney, Mikhail
Griniov, asked for less, without
specifying the years.
There is no appeal provided for
in the Soviet law, but Powers’
wife has indicated her intention
to carry a personal plea to Pre
mier Khrushchev if she can see
him.
The presiding judge of the
three-man court read the verdict,
reached in a conference of 4
i hours 35 minutes, following sum
mations. The sentence, he said,
runs from May 1, the date of
Powers’ arrest.
A great burst of applause swept
the crowded courtroom, the So
viet Trade Union Building’s vast
Hall of Columns. It lasted two
minutes.
Powers’ wife and mother, Mrs.
Oliver Powers, collapsed briefly
and wept.
Later Barbara and her husband,
! whom she had seen only at a
distance since she came to Mos
cow Sunday, were reunited in a
little room adjoining the court.
J His mother, father, and a sis
ter also were permitted to see the
prisoner. They were allowed an
! hour with him.
Powers had pleaded guilty at
I the outset of the hearing Wed
I nesday. Over the first two days
I he testified directly for a total
| of nearly seven hours.
! Presenting a penitent theme
j the defense was to stress through
I out, Powers said “I am sincerely
i sorry I had anything to do with
. this.”
Powers argued in his final plea
today that his flight was a failure
that did no harm to the Russians
and that he never had any en
mity for the Russian people.
Urban Renewal Provides
$234,198 For Anchorage Project
WASHINGTON, UP — Rep.
Ralph Rivers was informed today
the Urban Renewal Administra
tion has approved final plans for
1 the Northern Lights project at
1 Anchorage.
Rivers said the next steps
needed for actual start of the
project are approval of the plans
by the Anchorage City Council
and the housing and home finance
agency, which has set aside $234,
198 for the work.
LODGE RESIGNS
U.N. POST
WASHINGTON, UP) — Henry
Cabot Lodge, the Republican
V'ice Presidential nominee, re
signed today as U.S, representa
tive to the United Nations, ef
fective Sept. 3.
The White House announced
President Eisenhower’s accept
ance of the resignation.
Press Secretary James C. Hag
erty said Eisenhower intends to
name James J. Wadsworth as
Lodge’s successor.
Wadsworth has been Deputy
Chief of the U.S. delegation to
the United Nations since Lodge
was appointed to head it at the
start of the Eisenhower aminis
tration in 1953.
Senate Passes
Kennedy Minimum
Wage of $1.25
WASHINGTON, UP)—The Sen
ate passed the Kennedy mini
mum wage bill 62 - 34 Thursday
night with its major provisions
largely intact, but the legislation
faces uncertain House prospects.
Sen. John Kennedy told a re
porter he was quite hopeful the
House will agree to most of the
Senate provisions. But experience
on differences between the two
branches involving labor legisla
tion in 1958 and 1959 cast doubt
on this.
The Senate bill would increase
the present $1 wage floor to $1.25
an hour and would bring under
the Fair Labor Standards Act
about four million workers not
now covered.
The much less comprehensive
House bill would fix a $1.15 mini
mum and cover about 1,400,000
additional employes.
Kennedy headed Senate con
ferees who dealt with House dele
gations on a pension and welfare
control measure in 1958 and the
broad labor regulation bill last
year. In both cases it proved dif
ficult for the senators to get the
House to do any compromising.
Since then he has been chosen
as the Democratic presidential
nominee, a status which may or
may not affect1 House members’
attitude toward his requests.
Senate Okays Ike’s
Foreign Aid Request
WASHINGTON, UPI — The Sen
ate Appropriations Committee to
day approved a $3,981,350,000
foreign aid money bill.
The committee gave President
Eisenhower virtually everything
he asked for by restoring every
cut made by the House except 200
million dollars in military assist
ance funds.
The $1,800,000,000 the commit
tee recommended for military
assistance — the same amount
voted by the House—is 500 mil
lion dollars more than Congress
appropriated last year for this
purpose.
RHEE'S POLITICAL FOE IS
NEW PREMIER OF KOREA
SEOUL, South Korea, —John
M. Chang, long a political foe of
Syngman Rhee, was elected pre
mier of South Korea today by the
National Assembly. He faces a
tough job of knitting the warring
factions of his party together to
carry out his promises of econ
omic reform.
Russians Orbit
Satellite Carrying
Several Animals
By PRESTON GROVER
MOSCOW, IP — The Soviet j
Union announced the launching of
a new space ship into orbit carry- ;
ing two dogs, and other animals j
whose life above the clouds will |
be reported back by television. |
Moscow radio said the five-ton
space ship is in orbit at an alti
tude of 198.8 miles.
The dogs aboard are named
Strelka and Belka, meaning point
er or arrow, and squirrel.
The other animals were not im
mediately identified, but Moscow
radio said these two dogs have
flown before, accompanied by a
big gray rabbit.
The broadcast said the purpose
of the ship is to test how living
creatures could exist in space—
and also how they might be
brought back to earth.
The broadcast did not state
whether it was planned to bring
these particular animals back to
earth. The space ship they are
in was described as large enough
for a man.
Radio equipment will report
back the condition of the animals
and the functioning of the appar
atus aboard and, said Moscow
radio, television reports of their
activities also will be sent back.
Correspondents covering the
trial of Francis Powers speculated
the dogs were orbited at this
particular time to demonstrate
that the Soviet Union could not
only shoot down high flying Am
erican planes but could launch
high flying dogs in the interest
of science.
MOSCOW, UP — Throughout
Moscow, citizens swelled their
chests with pride and rushed up
to foreign acquaintances Friday
to spread the news: “Have you
hear that we just launched a
| space ship with two dogs aboard?”
One American correspondent
was heard to reply: “Yes, and if
those dogs land in America we
will try them as spies.”
State Refunds $19,185 To
11 Retired School Teachers
JUNEAU, UP)—The state today
mailed out refund checks totaling
§19,185 to 11 retired Alaska teach
ers, Gov. Egan’s office said.
The refunds, ranging from $350
to $4,700, result from the last
legislature’s action in eliminat
ing from the Teachers’ Retire
ment Act a requirement that
teachers contribute additional
amounts to the retirement fund
to obtain retirement credits for
service prior to 1955.
The names of the 11 teachers,
who represent a total of 236 years
of teaching service in the state,
were not disclosed.
Eight of those receiving refunds
according to Commissioner Floyd
Guertin of the State Department
of Administration, are still resi
dents of Alaska.
The Teachers’ Retirement pro
gram is supported by matching
contributions from the teachers
and the state.
First White Man Hanged In
Kenya For Killing a Negro
NAIROBI, Kenya, UP> — Peter
Richard Poole, 29, a Briton, was
hanged Thursday night—the first
white man to be executed in this
British East African colony for
killing a Negro.
Planes Catch
Capsule From
Discoverer XI\
WASHINGTON, I,P — The Air
Force has scored its first catch of
a satellite capsule in the air. One
of 10 specially equipped trans
ports snagged the ejected capsule
from the satellite Discoverer XIV
at an altitude of about 10,000 feet
over the Pacific about 300 miles
northwest of Hawaii.
The capsule had been ejected
from the satellite as it orbited
over Alaska at a height of several
hundred miles. A parachute slow
ed the descent of the 85-pound
capsule from space.
The capsule contains instru
ments and equipment designed to
speed the development of recon
naissance and missile warning
satellites of the near future. It
was picked up on the radars of
two of a dozen airplanes and one
Navy ship in the predetermined
drop area.
A few minutes later crewmen
on two of the airplanes reported
seeing the descending object, and
the team of snatchers was guided
to the right point by radio tele
j phone.
Sourdoughs Hard
To Show Statehood
i Is Here To Stay
BERKELEY, Calif., Iff* — The
29th annual convention of the In
ternational Sourdough Assn, op
ened here yesterday and delegates
quickly demonstrate that they are
a tough group to convince.
One of the key questions on
the agenda:
“Is Alaska statehood here to
stay?”
Some of the oldtimers doubt it.
Dick Racine, 76, who now lives
in Long Beach, Calif., spent a
winter on the Klondike trail dur
ing the gold rush days.
Still burning issues, says Ra
cine, are such questions as:
“What are we going to do about
the slaughter of the polar bear?”
“Who discovered the first gold?
Where? When?
“And how much did 30,000
miners take out?”
Dozens of sourdoughs here
claim they or their anrestors were
first to strike gold — and each
claims they hit their bonanza in
a different section of the terri
tory.
Racine, whose father built the
first hotel at Whitehorse, says
sourdoughs are a vanishing breed.
“It used to be that anyone
who spent a winter in Alaska
and saw the big freeze on the
river was a sourdough,” Racine
said.
“Nowadays a sourdough is a
person who spent five years mak
ing enough money to go to Alaska
and then soured because he could
n’t get enough dough to get out.”
Red Chinese Charge U.S. Planes
Intrude Over Their Air Space
TOKYO, (7P1 — Peiping radio
charged U.S. military planes vio
lated Red Chinese territory twice
Friday, near Canton and over the
Hsisha Island area of Kwantgung
province.
The broadcast said the Chinese
j Foreign Ministry issued its 118th
“serious warning” against such
intrusions. The warnings began
i in 1958.