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Show WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS Russians Urge West German State - Be Wiped Out; Ask 4-Power Rule; Congress Curtails IV Legislation (EDITOR'S NOTE: When opinions are expressed in these columns, they are those of Western Newspaper Union's news analysis and not necessarily of this newspaper.) Potent Vote I ' rl: !f It !' t . i GERMANY: A Sour Note The Big Four conference in Paris was underway. For the first time in the cold war between East and West there was real hope that har-Biony har-Biony would be forthcoming. In fact, Secretary of State Dean Acheson had been warned by Senator Sen-ator Vandenberg, senate foreign affairs committee chairman, not to be too aggressive with the Russians, Rus-sians, but rather to keep open, if possible, the door to lasting peace. WITH the Russian blockade of Berlin lifted and the Soviets appar-, appar-, ently ready to sing a new tune in world cooperation, the theme of the conference was to be harmony. But the delegates hardly had time to warm the seats of their chairs before the Russians were at it again. Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Vishinsky blandly proposed that the council of foreign ministers wipe out the new west German state and return German affairs, including direction of the Ruhr, to four-power control machinery. MANY had expected this course by the Soviets. They had predicted that lifting of the Berlin blockade was done to soften up the ministers 'for this very proposal. But it didn't work. All three western powers immediately rejected the proposition. proposi-tion. ' The S o v i et foreign minister showed little tact. He led up to his proposal with a long tirade denouncing de-nouncing the U.S., Britain and France for what he termed "viola--tions" of the Potsdam agreements. SOVIET ideology could not tolerate toler-ate a separate German state with autonomous powers and there was little question that the Kremlin would stand firm in this position. On the other hand there was no possibility that the western powers would recede from their intention to return government of Germany to the German people. Thus It would .seem the impasse was clearly established. For the U. S.( Dean Acheson delivered de-livered himself of what might well jbe the decade's masterpiece of understatement when he called the Russian suggestions "disappointing." "disappoint-ing." But then he summed up the world's reaction when he added: "My hopes are distinctly chilled." CONGRESS: Let's Wait A lot of "trouble for nothing" might be an apt phrase to describe all the national agitation against President Truman's health insurance insur-ance and civil rights proposals for his own leaders in congress erased the issues by taking both hotly-contested hotly-contested items of legislation off the "must" list. ALSO slated for further delay was the administration's four-billion-dollar tax increase plan, the equally controversial Brannan farm program and the foreign-arms proposal. pro-posal. This left only three measure bills lor top priority action. They were: 1. Extension of the reciprocal trade program which has passed the house but is stalled in the senate. sen-ate. 2. Repeal of the Taft-Hartley labor act. 3. Ratification of the North Atlantic At-lantic security treaty which requires re-quires only a two-thirds majority vote in the senate. SENATE MAJORITY LEADER J' Scott Lucas indicated action might be sought before adjournment on minimum-wage boosts, the international inter-national wheat agreement, and a pay raise for top government executives and military personnel. Speculation was that decision to abandon for the time the compulsory compul-sory health insurance program stemmed from mounting congressional congres-sional clamor " for sharp cuts in .government spending, with the civil rights legislation delay believed be-lieved motivated by fear of a southern filibuster. Congress wants to adjourn by August, and consideration consid-eration of any of the "powder keg" legislation might make that impossible. LUCAS said he thought President Truman was "definitely satisfied" with the progress being made. That surprised some legislators, for unless congress repeals the Taft-Hartley law, the President will be unable to point to accomplishment accom-plishment of any of his campaign pledges when congress adjourns. POTENT VOTE . . . This lone woman voter, to whom a pair of shoes would be a Godsend, is shown as she cast her ballot in the elections held in the Russian Rus-sian zone of Germany. The Russians Rus-sians had hoped to make a big propaganda gun of the election a gun that would be used in the "Big Four" conference beginning be-ginning May 23. But the Soviets had to admit that one-third of the valid ballots cast voted against the all-Communist slate. FORRESTAL: "Better to Die . . ." "Comfortless, nameless, hopeless, hope-less, save in the dark prospect of the yawning grave . . . better to die, and sleep the never-waking sleep than linger on ... " With the import of these lines from Sophocles' "Chorus From Ajax" so obviously goading his consciousness, con-sciousness, James V. Forrestal, former U.S. defense secretary, plunged to his death from the 16th floor of national naval medical center cen-ter in Washington. FORRESTAL had been under treatment for "operational fatigue" since April 2. Attendant physicians said he had been considering suicide, sui-cide, that the nature of his malady indicated this mental condition as an inescapable adjunct to it. But they felt he was getting better; in fact they had hoped to release him from the hospital in 30 days. As secretary of defense, Forrestal Forres-tal labored under a burden such as few national servants have, carried. His was the job of directing the gigantic naval program during the war, as well as the almost hopeless hope-less task of attempting unification of the armed forces. The strain was great and a sympathetic people could understand why it might have broken a strong man. President Truman took full cognizance cog-nizance of Forrestal's worth when he declared the former defense secretary was "as much a casualty of war as if he had died on the firing fir-ing line." BUT there was an added burden weighing on Forrestal. That was a burden of attack and vilification from two of the nation's top radio newscaster-columnists. After his shocking death, the press of the nation began to revalue the impact of its effect and that of the radio. Some nationally-syndicated observers ob-servers charged that the attacks upon Forrestal via radio and in print had added to his load of desperation. They advanced the premise that unless some check was put upon this type of journalism, journal-ism, it might discourage many able men from entering government service. There is possibly no agony of mankind comparable to that which must go on in the mind of the man about to take his own life. It is wholly foreign to the concept of the normal, every-day mind. Certainly Cer-tainly it flies in the face of the very first natural law self preservation. Weighing all this, it is difficult to understand how there could be anything any-thing but sympathy for Forrestal, and an honest effort to understand something of the torturous mental suffering which drove him to leap to his death. |