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Show WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS Bernadofie's iurder Dramatizes Question of Palestine Before Oil.; East-West Crisis Hits Final Peak By Bill Schoentgen, WNU Staff Writer (EDITOR'S NOTE: When opinions are expressed In these columns, they are those of Western Newspaper Union's news analysts and not necessarily of this newspaper.) I Shrinkage HOLY LAND: Murder The sullen-faced, uniformed men in the jeep didn't say a word after they had stopped the procession of United Nations cars that was winding wind-ing through the Katamon section of Jerusalem. Carrying a machine gun, one of them walked up to the automobile in UlCiS "Vi1' GOODS f tmUM IQQ M j I 1 1-00 - VVl939 MICE GOODS - DOLLAA too- l948F!W which Count Folke Bernadotte and Col. Andre Pierre Ser-rot Ser-rot were sitting, looked inside and started shooting. The two killers fled, leaving Serrot dead and Bernadotte Berna-dotte mortally wounded. The U. N. Palestine mediator (Graph by Family Economics Bureau, Bu-reau, Northwestern National Life Insurance In-surance company.) Since 1939 the total number of dollars in circulation In the U. S. has more than trebled from 33 billion to nearly 109 billion while our industrial production of goods to buy has less than doubled. Result: Cheaper money. Each dollar's proportionate worth in goods has fallen until it now takes 1.76 dollars to buy as much as one dollar would buy in 1939. Over three times as many dollars bidding frantically for less than twice as much goods equals inflation. Bernadotte d'ed as he was being be-ing carried into Hadassah hospital on a stretcher. For Bernadotte, head of the Swedish Red Cross, nephew of the king of Sweden, diplomat and humanitarian, hu-manitarian, it was a wretched, futile fu-tile end. His death was mourned not only by governments but by millions of ordinary citizens, yet he died not knowing when or if ever his assiduous assidu-ous and sincere efforts to organize peace in the Holy Land would be fulfilled. Bernadotte' s a ssa ssination brought Jerusalem and all of Palestine, for that matter perilously close to the brink of general violence. There was dangerr too, that the uneasy Arab-Jewish truce might fall to pieces under the circumstances. For the time being, Bernadotte's killers remained unidentified.' The Israeli government called it the work of Stern gang terrorists and issued an edict outlawing that extremist ex-tremist group. In Oslo, Norway, U. N. Secretary-General Trygve Lie added his panegyric to the praise that was being be-ing heaped on the martyred Bernadotte: Berna-dotte: "He burned with eagerness to bring about an understanding be-tweens be-tweens Arabs and Jews. He thought always of justice and peace." RUSSIANS: Western Stand Those who, in commenting on the strained relationship between the East and West, have been wont to say, "It'll get worse before it gets any better," probably had reached the end of their rhetorical rope. For it was unlikely that it could get any worse without producing armed conflict o.f some kind. This, it appeared, was the top of the heap of crises that had been piling up for two years. There were these developments: THE AMERICAN, British and French ambassadors, who had been tnllriTio with Soviet Foreign Min- FINAL REPORT: 'End It Now' As the United Nations general assembly as-sembly convened for its fateful 1948-49 session in the Palais de Chaillot Chail-lot the member nations took time out to pay somber tribute to Count Folke Bernadotte, their representative representa-tive in Palestine who had died while trying to implement the peace of which they were supposed to be the architects. Then they began consideration of the plan for an enforced Palestine settlement tliat Bernadotte had submitted sub-mitted before his death. THE SWEDISH COUNT'S final 35,-000-word report recommended that the Arab-Jewish war should be "pronounced "pro-nounced formally ended." If the Arabs and Jews refuse to make peace, the U. N. should do so itself, the report said. It calls for changes in the boundaries bound-aries of the U. N. partition plan adopted in November, 1947, proposing pro-posing that the Negeb desert be given giv-en to the Arabs and that the Jews should receive all of Galilee instead of only the eastern part. Other recommendations include: 1. INTERNATIONALIZATION of Jerusalem by placing it under U. N. control. 2. ESTABLISHMENT of a technical techni-cal boundaries commission to delimit delim-it the new frontiers. 3. CREATION of a Palestine conciliation con-ciliation commission to deal with population exchanges and supervise other parts of U. N. decisions. 4. SETTLEMENT of the problem of 360,000 Arab refugees by giving them the right to return to their homes in Jewish territory or to re ceive compensation if they choose not to return. ister V. M. Molotov and Premier Stalin in Moscow for six weeks, left the Russian capital, presumably ending the four-power discussions. THE THREE western powers asked the Kremlin for a simple and final "yes or no" on the question of whether Russia will lift its blockade block-ade of Berlin. U. S. SECRETARY of State George Marshall, speaking before the U. N. general assembly, warned the Soviet Union that American patience pa-tience should not be mistaken for weakness. With the Moscow talks at an end the center of action in the crisis had shifted to Paris where the issue is-sue would be debated in the U. N. The western nations the U. S., France and Great Britain plainly had had enough and were determined deter-mined not to give another inch. In an hour-long speech before parliament, British Foreign Secretary Secre-tary Ernest Bevin expressed his nation's na-tion's determination: "We are firmly firm-ly resolved to go on with our policy. pol-icy. "I AM NOT SAYING by that that we are committed to war and all the other things that might ensue. We have not reached that stage yet." Speaking to the United Nations in Paris, George Marshall, U. S. secretary sec-retary of state, outlined the basic U. S. foreign policy in much the same manner as Bevin. The United States, he said, would not "compromise "com-promise the essential principles" or "barter away the rights and freedoms of other peoples." HOME OWNERS: Record High One of the most maddening of all the modern paradoxes is that while millions of American families are searching desperately for decent places to live, at the same time more American families own their It was a good plan, the United States thought, and Secretary of State Marshall announced that this nation would back it to the fullest extent. Said Marshall: "THE UNITED STATES considers consid-ers that the conclusions contained in the final report of Count Bernadotte Berna-dotte offer a generally fair basis for settlement of the Palestine question." ques-tion." He called it "the best possible basis for bringing peace to a distracted dis-tracted land," adding that "No plan could be proposed which would be entirely satisfactory in all respects to every interested party." own homes now than ever before in history. About 49 per cent of the nation's non-farm families owned their homes at the beginning of this year, it has been revealed by a federal reserve board survey. That comes to a total of 18.5 million city and town families. Although the survey did not take up farm families, the proportion of home owners among that group traditionally tra-ditionally has been much higher than among city dwellers. |