Always scandal somewhere, always unrest everywhere else. It just seems that way. On June 7th 1947 it was no different. On this day in June disgraced and jailed Boston Mayor James M. Curley petitioned the White House in search of a Presidential pardon for his Mail Fraud charges. Also on Capitol Hill, Congress was seeking to halt Oil Exports (fancy that) in lieu of our domestic oil shortages. Seems even the Navy was noticing a shortage while we shipped some 800,000 barrels to Russia. And since Price Controls had expired, there was a big spike in food and household prices, with as much as a 50% hike in beef, causing a second and third look at that Porterhouse on the dinner table.
Speaking of The Soviet Union. There was a big thumbs down in Moscow over the nomination of Ernst Reuter as Mayor of Berlin, while the Foreign Ministers meeting in Paris was getting a bit itchy. Not the least because of the heat wave in Paris (hitting 100 on this day), but because the Russian delegation was getting testy and it caused the meeting to go secret, barring the press while fingers waved and tempers flared.
On the subject of waving fingers and flaring tempers, the Civil War in Paraguay was heating up with accusations the Argentine government of Juan Peron had been sending weapons in support of the Military-backed Junta. While Peronista heads wagged denial, crates of munitions marked Hecho en Argentina galloped across the border. And speaking of Peron, Eva landed a 27 minute private audience with Pope Pius XII at the Vatican, doubtless broaching the subject of confession for shipping all the Ordinance . . .or not.
Ethiopia got into the Marshall Plan fracas by accusing the hand-that-gives of ignoring Africa in the aid and reconstruction plan. Something that no doubt would bite a few posteriors in the future. And General MacArthur pushed for a land-grab by insisting Okinawa and its neighboring islands be turned over to the U.S. for buffer-zone purposes in the event of . . . .oh yeah, Cold War.
And if you were living in St. Louis this day in 1947 you'd be bracing for 39 feet of flood water as the Mississippi and Missouri were doing what they seem to do every year, wipe out entire chunks of farmland and neighborhoods as June continued busting out all over.
Just another day on Planet Earth via ABC Radio's News Of Tomorrow for June 7, 1947.
