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University Daily Kansan Fridav. March 31. 1961
GOP Whip Rips Birchers Asks for Investigation
United Press International
WASHINGTON — Senate Republican Whip Thomas H. Kuchel, Calif., and Sen. Thomas J. Dodd, D-Conn., yesterday denounced the anti-Communist John Birch Society as "outrageous." Kuchel called for a Senate investigation of its activities.
Dodd, vice chairman of the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, and Kuchel arose in the Senate in succession to attack the semi-secret society, headed by Robert Welch. They cited Welch's attacks on former President Dwight D. Eisenhower and other officials.
Walter said "it is not the function of this committee, of course, to serve as a sounding board—either for an organization against individuals, or for individuals against an organization."
In urging a Senate investigation of the organization, Kuchel accused Welch of a "fantastic and incredible libel" for accusing Eisenhower of being a "card-carrying Communist."
IN THE HOUSE, Rep. Henry S. Reuss, D-Wis., said he had been told the House Committee on un-American Activities had declined to investigate the society on the grounds it has no authority to do so.
Reuss, who requested such an investigation, said he had received a letter from committee chairman Francis E. Walter, D-Pa., turning down the idea. Walter said the committee had received many letters of complaint about the society, but none contained material information indicating that the committee could or should launch an investigation.
"Good God," the California Republican exclaimed. "Should the American people and the American government let that kind of spleen be poured on one who gives his
whole life to the cause . . . of freedom?"
Kuchel said, "I denounce anyone who makes that kind of statement."
THE CALIFORNIA Senator said the Government Operations Committee should call Welch and "ask him for the basis on which he makes these charges . . . and since he is unable to document them, have him apologize to Eisenhower, Chief Justice Earl Warren and the American people."
Many Senators have received letters inspired by the society urging Warren's impeachment.
"Across the street sits the chief justice, another good American." Kuchel said, "and the people of this society besmirch his character. . . Many of us have been denounced and besmirched by some members of this organization."
Sen. Milton R. Young, R-N.D., who first discussed the Birch group in a March 8 Senate speech, followed Dodd and Kuchel. He said the majority of the Society's members in North Dakota are good people and some of them "repudiate many statements of their leader."
The Internal Security Subcommittee, of which Dodd often has been acting chairman, has been answering inquiries about the John Birch group with a form letter saying it appears to be a "patriotic organization." The letter says the group is "known to be a conservative, anti-Communist organization."
DODD SAID today, however, that Young had "performed a real service by calling the Senate's attention to the group. Dodd said many loyal citizens have joined the group but "many of those . . . did so in ignorance" of Welch's views.
The Connecticut Democrat noted that Welch had accused Eisenhower, former President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the late John Foster Dulles, Central Intelligence Agency Director Allen W. Dulles and Dr. Milton S. Eisenhower, among others, of being pro-Communist.
Young said he had been subjected to a barrage of letters since he first denounced the society. The letters accused him of "all manner of things," he said.
He said the great majority of North Dakotans who belong are unaware of the charges being leveled at high government officials by the society's leaders.
KUCHEL SAID the nation faces a danger in the Communist conspiracy. But there is an equal danger, he said, from those who espouse "the extreme philosophy of objecting to every kind of progress . . . and who point their finger at those who disagree with them and say, 'There goes a Communist.'"
Dodd said the "extreme rightism" of the society was as bad as the "naive, soft-headed approach of ultra-Liberals" to Communism. He also praised the "vigor and initiative" of the American press in exposing the society.
"The press has a tremendous weapon for public good in the power of exposure," Dodd said. "It has used it effectively in this case."
"However," he said, "for some reason which I cannot understand it has not used this weapon anywhere near as effectively against the Fair Play For Cuba Committee, the various offshoots of the Communist peace offensive, and the other Communist fronts in this country."
Conflict in Laos Complicated By Intense Guerrilla Warfare
VIENTIANE — (UPI) — There is more than one war in Laos.
Guerrilla war is fought equally hard by both sides. While Radio Hanoi and other red propaganda organs cheerfully publicize Pathet Lao raids on convoys, delayed and sketchy reports trickle down from the hills and tell of heavy damage wreaked on Communist motorcades by Meo tribesmen on the pro-government warpath.
KU Microbe Hunter Gets Recognition
"Meo armed with flintlock muskets don't hesitate to attack Red troop convoys," a U.S. diplomatic source said. "They are the best fighters in Laos."
Like most Laotians, Meo do not look at civil war as a political or cold war battle. They want to be left alone in their hilltop villages and the government is less interfering than the Communists.
Their jockeying back and forth leads to premature claims of victory such as Communist boasts of capturing Tha Thoma, which was always in government hands.
This war is a conflict of "auto defense" militia backing the government against part-time Pathet Lao irregulars serving the Communists between the harvest and planting seasons.
When auto defense and "armed populace" government units battle the Reds, fighting does not go on in towns. The key to each small struggle lies in the hillstops, where a single mortar can make a town useless for the enemy.
It is these irregulars on both sides who take and retake many small towns mentioned over and over in war communiques.
It also leads to government reports of its own strong resistance in some towns, like the Lak Sao border community, which previously was conceded lost.
RESEARCHER AT WORK—Cora Downs, professor of bacteriology, probes the microscopic world as she works in her laboratory.
Class two for the government is the Auto Defense Militia, who defend their own province against class two Pathet Lao, who are recruited for a single season of fighting in their home territory.
It is this kind of warfare that leads Western observers to divide the armies of both sides into class one, class two and class three.
The rebels rarely occupy towns, even after successful fighting, because towns are too hard to hold.
This hodgepodge of uniformed soldiers and civilian night fighters is complicated further by local warlords who defend themselves and the neighborhood opium trade.
A KU researcher who has tracked down the elusive virus of tularemia (rabbit fever) and developed a revolutionary method for spotting publicity-shy bacteria has just received some publicity herself.
Class three for the government means Meo tribesmen (hit and run fighters), and for the Pathet Lao, night raiders who are farmers during the day.
Class one consists of regulars.
Frequent reports of government evacuation do not always mean rebel occupation. Often it means the government merely pulled out of the city hall for more strategic positions in the hills.
She is Cora Downs, professor of bacteriology. A two-page article about Prof. Downs' contributions to the fight against tularemia has recently appeared in the Saturday Review.
The year she entered the University, the virus responsible for tularemia was isolated in Tulare County, California. Five years after she earned her Ph.D. at KU., "fame came hopping into her laboratory on the backs of some Kansas rabbits," said the article.
THE ARTICLE traces her interest in bacteriology back to the days of her childhood, when her father, a physician in Kansas City, showed her streptococci bacteria in his microscope. Later, in 1912, Prof. Downs entered KU to study bacteriology.
The year was 1929. The stock market crash had brought on a depression, and one Lawrence family, like others elsewhere in the nation,
Spaak Emerging as Power In Troubled, Divided Belgium
By Phil Newsom UPI Foreign News Analyst
Belgium, first of the Nazi-occupied countries to recover after World War II, has for the last 10 years been involved in a series of difficulties.
Most recently the 62-year-old Spaak served as secretary-general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Now, against the background of a welter of political, religious and economic conflicts extending over the years, it is in the midst of forming a new government whose chief responsibility will be to return the country to normalcy after loss of the Congo.
A KEY FIGURE in current negotiations is a Socialist veteran of Belgian politics. Paul-Henri Spaak.
But for years he has been one of Europe's most respected, and at the same time controversial, political figures.
It was natural that Spaak should have been selected to serve as civilian head of NATO, the organization which brings the armies of Western Europe under a single
Today Spaak is in the midst of a political comeback. In last Sunday's elections, he received a record 60,000 votes in Brussels and is given much of the credit for his party's success in the national elections which toppled the Social Christian-Liberal Party coalition of Premier Gaston Eyskens.
UNDER SOCIALIST pressure,
Leopold abdicated and his son
Baudouin moved in, first as prince
royal and then as king.
Included also in his active career was his bitter opposition in 1950 to the return of King Leopold III, who fled Belgium before the advancing armies of Hitler's Germany.
command. He long has been one of the strongest advocates of a United States of Europe, urging political and economic as well as military unity.
This week, Spaak was moving rapidly to consolidate his rains.
In a 1,000-word editorial in the Socialist Party publication "Le Couple," he called for a Socialist-Social Christian coalition government.
Working in his favor were left-
wing Social Christians who long have denounced their party's affiliation with the conservative Liberals and the Social Christian trade unions.
Working against him was Social Christian opposition to Socialist demands for repeal of Eyskens' controversial economic reform and tax bill passed by the outgoing parliament.
THIS WAS the austerity bill by which the Eyskens government sought to offset financial losses in the Congo. Strikes touched off by Socialist opposition cost the nation millions of dollars in lost time and property damage.
Despite their election losses, the Social-Christians remain Belgium's strongest party, and in any coalition with the Socialists, they would supply the premier.
Spak probably would become Foreign minister.
kept alive by shooting and eating rabbits. They contracted tularemia.
The stocky, bespectacled Speak already has said what his foreign policy would be: solid support for NATO and the United States leadership in the alliance, plus a new, steady drive for European political unification.
No effective means of treating the disease was known. In the following years, Prof. Downs' research helped to explain the biological mechanism through which the virus brought about infection.
The K.U. team, after years of concentrated effort, came up with a stable form of fluorescent dye which has vast potential in diagnosis.
A more recent contribution to international knowledge began in 1954. Through the contributions of many K.U. researchers and graduate students, the fluorescent antibody technique for identifying bacteria and viruses was made fully practicable.
"TODAY," the article says, "her name stands alongside one or two at the top of the list of 'rabbit fever' research pioneers. So far has her reputation spread that the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R. in Moscow recently asked permission to hang her photograph in its international gallery of medical honor."
"VIRTUALLY all infectious bacteria," the article says, "are susceptible to identification by the technic. Micro-organisms reddes and rods, but causing different diseases, from streptococci to the plague, can be differentiated quickly: the cause of undulant fever, polio, smallpox, certain mold infections, tularemia, typhus fever, "Q" fever, and rocky mountain spotted fever.
"The fluorescent antibody method is just beginning to be used in human epidemics. But its speed, surressness and economy are such that epidemiologists say it certainly will in time replace the much slower and costlier diagnostic methods now prevalent in medicine..."
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