The Key West Citizen Newspaper, December 22, 1954, Page 7

Wednesday, December 22, 1954 THE KEY WEST CITIZEN Page 7 US. Diplomats Worry About Cuts In W. European Armies By JOHN SCALI WASHINGTON —Top Ameri- can diplomatic officials were re- ported concerned today that West- ern European governments even- tually may follow the United States’ example and cut the size of their armies. Any sizable European manpower reductions, it was felt, would up- set North Atlantic Treaty defense plans for smashing possible Rus- sian invasion of the West “at the threshold,” as Secretary of State Dulles put it at his news confer- ence yesterday. Dulles said the United States has no present intentions of pulling out its six divisions now in Europe even though this country has plans to cut its armed manpower. And, he said, it would be inconsistent and unfortunate if European na- -tions also reduced their armed forces, He said that Western Europe, with its vast industries and skilled labor, is such a prize that an ag- gressor might gamble on a light- ning grab of this area, risking a heavy retaliatory blow. That, he said, is why larged armed forces must be ready in Europe. The defense of the Orient rep- resents a different problem, he said. There the chief peril is from Red subversion and the military need is for fast-striking mobile forces rather than big standing armies. In a formal statement, Dulles said nuclear weapons will be in- troduced gradually in North At- antic Treaty Organization defense preparations. He said the 14-na- tion decision to lean heavily on nuclear power ‘“‘shows for the frst time the means of developing a forward strategy which could be relied on to protect Western Eu- rope from invasion.” “As that capability is de- veloped,” he continued, “it will surely constitute the strongest de- terrent against military aggres- sion.” Informed officials told a news- man Defense and State department leaders do not believe there is much danger European allies will cut back their armies in 1955. They noted that at the 14-nation | 0: Nofth Atlantic treaty meeting in Paris last weekend, all European members agreed to maintain their esent armed forces in the next 12 months and to concentrate on sharpening their combat effective- ness. But these officials expressed concern about future years. European public pressure for de- fense cuts undoubtedly will mount during the next year, they fear, especially now that the U. S. De- fense Department has disclosed plans to cut American manpower by 403,000 in the next 18 months. Dulles said the United States actually will wind up stronger de- spite the manpower reductions be- cause of development of more powerful weapons, “The reductions are not due to the fact that we consider that the threat has diminished,” he said, “but merely due to the fact that we think that we have other ways to cope with that threat.” Long Research Goes Into Making Film Hollywood’s greatest production wonder will always be the actual putting onto film the product of a scriptwriter’s imagination turning words and ideas into concrete, vi- sible reality. Ths is how it was done for one of the more spectacular battle scenes in Columbia Pictures’ ‘‘The Black Knight,” Alan Ladd’s first great spectacle adventure in color by Technicolor at the Strand Thea- tre Thursday. High on a hill-top, art director Vetchinsky had constructed a grey stone Druid’s Temple. Here a Sar- acen knight brings as captive, Ladd’s co-star, Patricia Medina, and some captured monks, to be sacrificed by the Druids to their gods. While attendant maidens dance around the stones, and the Druids and Saracens carouse, Pa- tricia is tied to the sacrificial stone and the monks swing in wick- er baskets over bonfires. The fires are lighted, and flames leap up as Alan Ladd, the Black Knight, rides in to the rescue, fol- | lowed by King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, re- splendent in blue tabards and gold armor, their horses in blue. A team of top stunt men sur- round Ladd in thick of the fight, dying, riding and falling from rear- | ing horses, while others are roast- 4ng in the wicker baskets over the | bonfires. In one almost too realistic take, the basket in whcich one stunt man swung caught fire, and | his monk's robe began to smolder. | For mass hourse-riding scenes, a unit of cavalry, some 70 - strong, was used. These men are crack rid- ers, with horses in the pink of condition. From four to eight per cent of | buman beings are left handed, Mrs, Hodges Fights For Her Meteorite By JAMES SPOTSWOOD SYLACAUGA, Ala. (#—Twenty- two days ago Mrs. Hulitt Hodges, a plump, pleasant-faced matron of 31, lay down to take a little nap. In the back of her mind was a jumble of plans—visiting friends, getting ready for Christmas, house- hold duties. But they could wait. She had a cold and needed rest. She dozed. Then there was a thunerous crash. She felt a violent blow on her left arm and hip. Sunlight shone through a hole in‘the ceil- ing. A rough-edged black “rock” lay near her, She had been struck by a frag- ment of a shooting star which had hurtled to the earth from outer space. Scientists said she was the first person in recorded history known to be hit by a meteorite. She still has to spend part of each day in bed because of the severe bruises she suffered. She has nightmares, in which “it seems like I hear the sound.” She and her husband moved out of their comfortable frame resi- dence to a smaller house after her landlady Mrs. Birdie Guy filed suit for the meteorite, for which more than $5,000 has been offered. Mrs. Guy’s lawyer said the Su- preme Court has held that a meteorite belongs to the owner of the property on which it falls. “The meteorite is personal prop- erty,” argues Atty. Huel M. Love for Mrs. Hodges. “It didn’t come to rest on Mrs. Guy’s property— it came to rest on Mrs. Hodges and on her studio couch.” Both the Smithsonian Institution and Alabama State Museum at the University of Alabama want the fragment, but the Smithsonian says the meteorite itself isn’t worth “Suing is the only way she'll ever get it,” said Mrs. Hodges of Mrs. Guy’s suit. “I feel like the meteorite is mine. I think God in- tended it for me. After all, it hit me.” The meteorite is in care of her lawyer now. Young Robinson Wins Out Against Robbery Charge SANTA MONICA, Calif. (9 — A} robbery case against Edward G. Robinson Jr.,.21, son of the actor, has been dismissed. He had been tried in November but the jury disagreed, standing 11-1 for acquittal. Retrial had been scheduled for Feb. 14 but yester- day the prosecution recommended dismissal. Superior Judge Allen T. Lynch commented that “since the prose- cution has no more evidence it would be extremely difficult to convince another jury beyond a reasonable doubt as to the defend- ant’s guilt.” Robinson was charged with rob- | bing two taxicab drivers on two nights last July of a total of $38. They identified him but he claimed | it was mistaken identity. He testi- | fied, with corroboration from his | wife Frances and friends that he | was at a movie one night and| baby-sitting with his daughter Francesca the other night. False Advertising Caused His Woes BALTIMORE (®—The youthful- looking lonely hearts club photo- | &taph advertised the husband- seeker as 5-feet-4 and 118 pounds. But when he met the woman, 62-year-old Herbert Jackson testi- fied before a Circuit Court exam- \iner yesterday, ‘‘she was about 450 Pounds and is over six feet tall. Jackson was awarded an abs lute divorce from Bonnie Jackson. 54, after telling how his wife sho! at him, scalded him and said he “didn't appreciate a fat woman.” The local steel worker said he knew he ‘“‘was stuck bad,” but he went through with the wedding. ‘She was too much for me,” he | added. AID FOR SANTA LOUISVILLE, Ky. #—For the third straight year, the Welfare Department has received from an anonymous Santa Claus five crisp $50 bills to be given to the five neediest families in the city. CROWD BURNS OFFICE SAO JOAO DA BOA VISTA, Brazil —The office and substa- tion of a local power company were burned by a crowd of 2,000 persons in protest over power shortages. Story About Apaches Heads Drive-In Bill The momentous days when the | whole Southwest trembled under the impact of 20,000 Apaches sweep- ing down the vengeance trail are thrillingly re-created on the screen | in Columbia Pictures’ ‘Conquest of | Cochise,” opening Thursday at the | Island Theatre. John Hodiak, in the title role as the great Apache warrior, stars with Robert Stack and Joy Page. In ‘Conquest of Cochise,” short ly after the war between Mexico and the U. S., the border areas | are ravaged by raiding Apaches | and Comanches, Eventually, Co- | ehise, the great Apache chief, | comes forward to make his peace with the white man, symbolized to him by Major Burke, U. S. Cav- | alry officer. But the war drums throb once again when Cochise kills a Comanche chieftain raid- ing a Mexican ranch. Further fuel is added to the fires when Cochise’s wife is killed and the fleeing mur- derer leaves an American rifle. The major, given four days to prove that an American was not responsible for the murder of Co- chise’s wife, produces the evidence in time, but the Comanches im- patiently brush the restraining | Cochise aside and condemn him to death at the tourture stake. Companion feature for the show- | ing ‘‘The Conquest of Cochise”’ will | be Paramount's “A Place in the Sun.” This forceful and arresting | screenplay stars Montgomery Clift, | Elizabeth Taylor and Shelley Win- | ters. Sister Denies Maxene Andrews Tried Suicide CHATSWORTH, Calif. (?—Max-| ene Andrews of the singing An-| drews Sisters, treated yesterday | for what police called an overdose | of sleeping pills, took them acci-| dentally says her sister, LaVerne. “Maxene loves life too much to} end it,” said LaVerne, adding that | her sister was “completely ex-| hausted” from a recent tour! through Australia with LaVerne. | Neighbors quoted Maxene as say- ing she took the pills becase she was despondent, police said. “The housekeeper found her un-| conscious and rushed her to the| hospital and in the excitement said Maxene must have taken 18 pills,” LaVerne explained. ‘“‘Later she remembered there were only five | pills in the bottle.” | The sister act split up last year. | Patty now is singing solo in Las | Vegas, Nev. | Last night Maxene had recovered sufficiently to return home and) wrap Christmas packages. Maybe You'll Get Donkey For Xmas ATLANTA (# — That bray you hear Christmas morning may be a present. | R. G. West, general agent of the | Railway Express Agency ni A-t| lanta, reported today he had six! Mexican burros waiting to be de-| lwered as Christmas presents. | He said they were enroute from Western states to points in Geor-| gia and other Atlantic Coast states | and that others already had been| delivered. | Several carried messages on! tegs, such as: | “Here’s that jackass I prom-j ised you. Merry Christmas.” Tiny Twin Born ' To Injured Woman Dies In Calif. LOS ANGELES (? — Tiny twin | | girls were born yesterday to a | mother who remained unconscious | |from a bullet wound in the head. | The smaller infant died four hours | later. | | General Hospital physicians of- \fered little hope that the larger) jone would survive. She weighed | pounds 8 ounces, only 2 ounces | ore than her sister. The mother, Mrs. Jayarre | Spaulding, 22, was found shot in! her apartment last Monday. Police | said she apparently had attempted suicide. Her condition remained critical. She Just Wasn't A Very Good Wife | | | BALTIMORE \P “— Edward R. Miller won a divorce here yester- day after testifying he lost 80 pounds during 13 months of mar- ried life. The 26-year-old ware- houseman attributed the weight jloss to his wife’s failure to cook |his meals and to his having to |walk the streets at night while a | girl friend of his wie occupied his , jhalt of the bed. He said he’s down to 150 pounds, jrunning about 20,000 for many | Military To Prune Many From Koster Fliers Ride Radar Fence By C. YATES McDANIEL WASHINGTON (#—The military services have been told to start pruning 403,000 from their ‘present over-all strength to reach the 2,- 815,000-man level the administra-| tion thinks is about right for the} current cold war. In disclosing a manpower cut- back program Monday, Secre-| tary of Defense Wilson said it will be accompanied by a 50 per cent | slash in draft calls starting in) February, when the announced{ quota of 20,000 is to be dropped to} 10.000 or 11,000. Quotas have been months. ae | Wilson said an improved situa-| tion in the Far East and “better | opportunities for peace” every-| where entered into President Ei- senhower’s decision to trim the} services. | Only the Air Force, which will continue its gradual buildup to 975,000 men in the next’ 18 months, escapes the trimming. | In the same pertod—that is, by) June 30, 1956—the Army will drop 25 per cent of its current strength | to level off at an even one million. | The Navy is down for a 6 per cent cut from present strength to reach | €50,000 and the Marine Corps will | drop 14 per cent to 190,000. Over-all strength for all services last month was 3,218,000. There was no immediate reac- tion from members of Congress, but the decision seemed likely to} stir some controversy. A number of Democrats have complained | that the nation’s military might is already dangerously weak. The reduction spelled out by Wilson both revived and speeded | up by a full year a program set aside by the Pentagon only last year because of the crisis in Indo- china and a threatening situation around Formosa. The Army, Navy and Marine Corps will lose by next June| 107,000 uniformed people they have money to maintain under the cur- rent budget. They will have to drop an additional 130,000 in the 12 months starting next July. The new program calls for the| early return home from Korea of | the 1st Marine Division and the eventual move of one regiment of the 3rd Marine Division from Ja-| pan. Some of the slack will be taken up temporarily by the shift of an Army division, one of two now in Japan, to Korea. The net result of these moves will be to leave the equivalent of four Amer- ican divisions in the two Far East nations. The Army will continue it can maintain its division total, | HILL AIR FORCE BASE, Utah (@—Like cowboys riding fence, al team of fliers here goes out al- most daily to check the invisible | radar fence that helps guard the United States against air attack. | The mission of the 4677th Radar Fvaulation Flight was disclosed in Washington Tesday by the Air Force. The unit has been stationed at Hill AFB, near Ogden, for about a year. There are only two others like it in the country—one at Ham- ilton AFB, Calif., and one at Grif- fis AFB, N. Y. Maj. James A. Gerwick, a big, | ruddy-cheeked man, is the Hill unit’s commander Describing his job, he searches for precise terms. | “I think the best way to ex- press it,” he said, “is that we) try to determine radar coverage. | We need to know just how much territory our radar network takes ips To do this job, Gerwick has nine airplanes in his flight—seven B29s, one B25 and one C47. ' His men “ride fence” for the Central Air Defense Area, which includes 28 states in the middle of the country and stretches from Mexico to Canada The radar testers fly around the clock, winter and summer, going out beyond the border and then/| swinging back through the network. Ordinarily the pilot doesn’t know whether he has been spotted by to keep the equivalent of six divi- sions in Europe. The Army will decide whether | now 19, under the cutback. Wilson said the Navy might have to lay | up a few ships and man the re-| maining ones with fewer men. 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Sometimes Gerwick sends up planes unannounced. “Then we try to come in as an unknown,” he said. ‘‘When we do, interceptors investigate us immediately.” ‘Clothing Fire Injures Two Men InN. J. Factory ELIZABETH, N. J. (?—Scream- ing wildly, two men with clothing fire rushed out of the Arny Steel |Construction Co. plant into shop- ping crowds last night. Police and pedestrians grabbed them and snuffed out the flames with coats and a rug. The men, John Valiga, 30, and Edward Lied, 23, were listed in fair or critical condition at Eliza- beth General Hospital. Their clothes had become soaked with a turpentine derivative while they were removing paint from steel plates. Lied’s clothing burst into flames when he went to an oil stove, and Valiga’s clothes cuught fire as he tried to help Open Evenings ‘til 9 P.M. for Your Convenience Until Christmas NEED CASH CHRISTMAS? | “We Like To Make Loans” COME IN PHONE FIRST...... IF YOU LIKE...... YOU CAN GET UP TO $300. CASH QUICKLY Auto - a Furniture Signature Shop for a Merry Christmas with ease and repay us with our new easy payment plan 705% DUVAL ST. Key West, Fla, Alan D. Saver Manager PHONE 2-3574 OUR 24th YEAR OF PUBLIC SERVICE OC ENE NE OL A EN A NE NU NL A OU NEN AG A OAT NL NEN NEE UTES Subscribe To The Citizen--25c Weekly Lied. The plant was undamaged. WD DUD DDB DBD De BED DURE De) VICTORY = 804 White St. WE DELIVER Phone 2-2013 OPEN SUNDAYS — 9:00 A.M. TILL 12 NOON HORMEL’S WESTERN — Shank Half or Whole Pork HAMS 22 10 1 ub ave B 59 WE HAVE SMALL PIGS (LECHONE) Hormel’s Midwest BACON Grade “A” EGGS |BEER 39c Ctn. of 6 BG« Bake With The Best | Campbell's TOMATO > HEINZ TOMATO C9 3... 8% Delicious w. 48c|Veal Liver » 59c try [new pink carett® IT’S MILDER! Giant Regular 69¢ 29¢ SOUP = 10c KETCHUP --»19¢ Hunt's PEACHE DIAMOND Lg. 24%2 Can Rath’s Pure rous DOE Sunshine Crackers RITZ . . 1.50 29¢|KRISPY 1s. 2.x 19