Independent from Long Beach, California • 1

2 1 Southland's OWN SUNDAY Newspaper Phone HEmlock 5-1161 Independent Press-Telegram Classified HEmlock 2-5959 LONG BEACH 12, SUNDAY, MARCH 23, 1958 CAN'T BELIEVE TODD DEAD IN CRASH LIZ HYSTERICAL, HIS WORDS STIRRED VIOLENCE Art Cohn--'Always Called a Spade a Steam Shovel' They laughed at Art muriatic words he hammered ART COHN Pulled No Punches Sinkage Bill Due 2nd Test By BOB HOUSER Given a 12-to-1 vote blessing by the Assembly Oil Committee Thursday, Long Beach's antisubsidence bill meets its second test Monday at a scheduled 2 p.m. session of the Assembly Ways and Means Committee. The 28-member committee will consider a $250,000 appropriation written into the bill to provide the means for the first year's administration of a unitization. and repressuring program here. WITH SUCCESS in Ways and Means, the bill--AB 5- would go to the full Assembly, to the Senate Natural Resources Committee and finally the full Senate.

Only Philip Burton (D-San Francisco) voted -against AB.5 Thursday in the Manufacturing, Oil and Mining Committee. He had lost a motion to defer action until Tuesday. "Yes" votes were cast by William S. Grant and Herbert R. Klocksiem, Long Beach coauthors; Jesse Unruh (D-Los Angeles), who made the motion; Joseph Shell (R-Los Angeles), who seconded, and Frank, Luckel (R-San Diego), Richard H.

McCollister (R-San Rafael), John H. (D-R-San Francisco), Bruce F. Allen (R-San Jose), Allen Miller (D-San Fernando), H. W. Kelly (D-R-Shafter), committee (Continued on Page A-2, Col.

3) Nixon Gives Assurance of Slump Curb 'Administration on Top of He Tells Reporters WASHINGTON (AP). Vice President Nixon said Saturday the Eisenhower administration is on, top of the economic situation and will, not tolerate a prolonged or deepened recession. Nixon told a news conference President Eisenhower had made no decision yet on whether the administration will propose tax cuts or increase public works spending. He said that if such a decision has to be made--and the Vice President said it may not have to if economic conditions improve he remains personally in favor of a broad-based tax reduction: "THE AMERICAN people generally can he assured that, this administration is on top of the economic situation," Nixon said. "We are aware of the fact that a prolonged downturn cannot be tolerated.

"The people can be reassured that, as they make their plans for 1958, the economy is basically Without question, that sound economy will be backed up. with government action in those areas where it is proper to do so." NIXON SAID THE admini. won't know until it gets the full figures for March whether further! antirecession action will be necessary. Nixon said several indices show improvement but it is too early yet to make any final judgment on them. In this field he mentioned a recent increase in retail sales.

But he said this might have come because (Continued on Page A-2, Col. 4) Real Spring Expected in L.B. Today 'The first spring weather of the new season is expected in Long Beach today and Monday. Sunny weather moved into the area just two days late, on the heels of clouds and showers Saturday morning. Heavy, but localized showers Friday night and Saturday morning brought .12 inch of new rain to downtown Long Beach, bringing the season's total to 17.51 inches.

The Weather Bureau forecast slightly warmer temperatures near 70 today. Cohn--until he, sat down to play his typewriter. The onto copy paper brought anything but boffos. "Biffoes" would be a more appropriate word. Many man tried to punch Art in the nose for what he had written.

At the typewriter, Cohn, the most controversial sports writer ever to hit this city--and hit at it -lived violently. Saturday, at 49, in the prime of his writing life, Art Cohn died violently. He died alongside film producer Mike Todd in an, airplane crash in New Mexico. AT THE TIME of his death Cohn was chief columnist for the San Francisco Examiner, a successful screen writer, author of a best-selling book and a friend of many motionpicture stars. But he's best remembered in Long Beach as a man who made sports pages.

sizzle. From 1927 to 1935, first on the old Long Beach Sun, then a as a Press-Telegram sports staffer, and later as sports editor of The Independent, he frazzled many a nerve, triggered many a temper. A heavyweight fighter, Lester Kennedy, who once beat Max Baer, decided one day to add Cohn to his victory string. He came up to the office to punch Cohn in the nose. IT WAS COHN'S day off.

All Kennedy could do was shadow. box. Cohn gloated about it later. In his column he gave all the credit to the NRA. The Blue Eagle, he wrote, had given him this extra day off.

Before the NRA, sports writers worked a six day week. At Compton College, in the locker room, several football players once backed Cohn against 'a wall. Again his luck persisted. Before any damage could be done, college officials escorted him safely to his automobile. Another time, in the office of the California Boxing Commission, former sports editor Tom Laird of the San Francisco News, drew a bead on Cohn and threw a left hook.

But Phil Brubaker, the heavyweight, intervened. Cohn and Laird later shook hands, observers reported. "THAT DIDN'T 1 END the feud, though," one sports scribe commented. "It just ended cothe fight." From the very start produced caustic copy. Still in his teens, he was sent to cover.

a vaudeville act starring Jack Dempsey at Hoyt's Theater on the Pike. He thought Dempsey's stage appearance unbecoming to a man of his ring stature. He panned the act unmercifully. Realizing his editors would tone down the copy, he slipped it past them, took it directly to the printers. After that column, Cohn was a celebrity.

He called his Press-Telegram sports, column "On the Level." But when he leveled, it made the readers dizzy with anger. Like the time he wrote of a local track coach who (Continued on Page A-4, Col. 1) By BEN ZINSER 'Mr. Bellflower' Cote Dies: Realtor, Leader Death came Saturday to the man who was known as "Mr. Bellflower." L.

P. (Phil) Cote, 64, realtor and civic leader in the city since 1925, died suddenly at his home at 10030 E. Center St. Funeral arrangements are be. ing made at White's Funeral Home.

Cote was honored last Nov. 7 by -Mayor T. Mayne Thompson and the city council, who proclaimed the day as "Mr. Bellflower's Day" in recognition of his many years of service to the community. I He came to Bellflower from Canada in 1925 and entered: the land development business.

He served as dent of the Bellflower Chamber of Commerce in 1931 and 1932 and again in 1955. From 1942 to 1950 he served as field deputy to the late Supervisor William Smith. Cote was a member of St. Bernard's Catholic Church. Bellflower District Board of Realtors and a trustee of the Elks Lodge.

Among survivors is his wife, Agnes, Ronald Smolen Wins Trip to Portugal, Spain The Independent, Press-Telegram's "Young Columbus" is 13-year-old Ronald Smolen, among newspaperboys top salesman. Along with .59 other youths from throughout the nation, he'll fly the Atlantic early in April for a tour of Spain and The trip is a reward for having sold the greatest number of new P-T subscriptions in a two-month campaign. Ronald signed up 133 new orders. An P.T newspaperboy the past 22 months, Ronald competed against 1,800 young newspaper salesmen in the contest. His sales pitch: "I told of the Sunday magazine and the large number of comics.

I told of all the recipes and adver4 tisements to be the Thursday edition. When selling in Lakewood, I mentioned the special Lakewood edition on Thursdays. "If the prospect still' was thinking it over after this, I would tell some more about the newspapers." Ronald is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Leonard Cohen, 6128 Elsa Lakewood.

He's an eighth-grader in Bancroft School. On his regular route he serves 98 Press-Telegram customers. His territory includes the 6100 and 6200 blocks of Elsa Tanglewood St. and Arbor Rd. and the 4500 and 4600 blocks of Conquista St.

and Palo Verde Ave. "I try. to deliver the paper to each doorstep at the same time each he said. Ronald and the other 59 boys, who are winners of similar contests, will leave New York April 4. They'll spend four days in Lisbon and then travel by bus across Portugal and Spain to Madrid.

The overseas trip is sponsored by these newspapers, Parade Magazine and Trans World Airlines. In his quest for new subscriptions, roamed Long Beach from Bixby Knolls to the San Gabriel River, from the downtown district to Artesia St. in North Long Beach, "I worked at it two hours each evening, Mondays through (Continued on A-2, Col. 1), RONALD SMOLEN Young Columbus traces route of prize trip. The Weather--- Sunny, and slightly warmer and Monday, The high tonear 70.

High Saturday, 68; 50, VOL. 6 NO. 31 132 PAGES COLLAPSES Producer's Trip Shatters Pact Pair Kept This Vow: 'Whither Thou Goest Go Too too." But Todd broke the pact Friday night despite urgent pleadings from his wife. "I just told her: "Dammit, you're staying home with that virus. And that's final'," Todd told Associated Press is reporter James Bacon just a few hours before takeoff.

HOLLYWOOD -Elizabeth Taylor, filled with sedatives and fighting a 102-degree fever, babbled over and over again Saturday: "I can't believe it's Mike." The beautiful star and her husband, Mike Todd; had a pact between them: "Whither thou goest, I go See Possible Ouster Soon of Bulganin- A TEAR FOR THE TODDS Actress Debbie Reynolds, a close friend of Elizabeth Taylor, appears to be wiping away a tear as she leaves the Beverly Hills home of Miss Taylor whose husband, Mike Todd, was killed Saturday in a plane crash. Miss Reynolds is caring for the three Todd (AP Wirephoto.) 'I'll Die of Old Todd Said By EDDY GILMORE LONDON (AP)- -Just a month ago Mike Todd sat in a London hotel room and insisted he wasn't afraid of flying. "That ain't the way gonna die of a happy old He said he wasn't worried about planes, it was just the law of averages that troubled him. "I'm so happy I sometimes get scared I damned scared last," said. rean't Pete "You know, I've chased lots of things in my life, including happiness and I finally caught it when I caught that dame Dame--one of his favorite words- was Liz, the Londonborn Elizabeth Taylor, his last wife.

"At heart I'm a gambler," he went on. "And that means I've got a good respect for the law of averages." He gulped a tall glass of orange juice. "I the. law of averages is being just a little too good to me. I'm scared it might change." Then he grinned, stuck out his jaw again and quipped: "What the hell am I talking about? I'm talking like a chicken.

See what comes from giving up cigars." LESS THAN FIVE hours later Todd and three others perished in the crash of the private plane he had recently dubbed: "The Lucky Liz." Famed producer Todd perished in flames when the executive-type plane plunged with tremendous force, exploded and burned ed in the Zuni mountains of western New Mexico southwest of Grants, N. at. 2:05 a.m. in a storm. Another who died was movie writer Art Cohn, who was working on the story "The First Nine Lives of Mike Todd." The secretary for the colorful and flamboyant 50 year old producer of "Around the World in Eighty Days" said in Los Angeles that Todd, Cohn, 49, pilot Verner, 45, and copilot Tom Barclay, 34, definitely were aboard.

He had seen them off at Burbank at 10:41 p.m. Friday. BUT OFFICERS who made their way the remote crash scene about 20 air miles southto, west of this uranium mine-mill town said they could recover only what appeared to be parts of three bodies. Condition of the bodies made positive identification at least temporarily impossible. Miss Taylor did not accompany her husband.

She stayed at their West Coast home because of a cold. She collapsed when she heard the news and was placed under sedation. The news of the New Mexico Dick Hanley, broughdato private; crash was her by secretary, who was informed by the Associated Press. Hanley brought the actress' personal (Continued on Page A-4, Col. 6) Malibu Dam Threatens to Burst MALIBU (U.P.) A large, year-old earthen dam on a ranch near here threatened to give way Saturday night, and residents of several ranch homes in a canyon area were warned to evacuate.

The dam--a 30-foot structure backing up a reservoir one-half mile long and 400 feet wide- -is on the Rocking Oak Ranch, near the intersection of Mulholland Drive extension and Latigo Canyon Rd. County fire department officials estimated there were a dozen homes that faced inundation if the dam should burst. Another dozen or more dwellings- -some plush $30,000 ranch style homes also were in the canyon path of the water, stones and earth. By DONALD J. GONZALES WASHINGTON (U.P.) Nikolai Bulganin may be ousted as Russian premier this week in the continuing battle for power in the Soviet Union, usually relidiplomatic quarters reported Saturday.

His removal would increase the already great authority concentrated in the hands of Nikita Khrushchev, first secretary of the Communist Party, There was speculation that Khrushchev will take over the premiership. The late Josef Stalin held both posts at the time of his death in 1953. -Experts following the game of Kremlin politics are betting that Bulganin, despite his close association with possible East- summit parley, will be sidelined. They said that If Khrushchev wants to make a change he will have a perfect opportunity next Wednesday when the Supreme Soviet (parliament) meets in the wake. of the recent Soviet election.

I'm gonna die," he said. "I'm Russ Fire 3rd Bomb in 3 Days WASHINGTON7 UP The Atomic Energy Commission said Saturday night the Russians had tested another nuclear weapon Saturday, the third in the past three days and the sixth in the past nine days. The commission the latest. Russian detonation at the usual test site--in Siberiaappeared to have been in the medium range. The current nuclear weapons tests by the clude firing of developmental fission or fusion on intermediate range ballistic missiles.

THE ATOMIC Energy Commission, in one of its latest reports on detection of Russiannuclear explosions, noted that one of the "larger-yield" detonations occurred in an arctic area used by the Soviets. This explosion, on Friday, followed by a day a detonation a small-yield weapon on what the AEC calls the "usual Siberian testing ground." The commission, following its custom, offered no details about the significance of these seventh and eighth shots of the present Soviet series. Rep. Long, Kin of Huey, Dies at 74 WASHINGTON (P'. Rep.

George S. Long (D-La) died Saturday at Bethesda Naval Hospital, two days after suf-' fering a heart attack at his home here. He was 74. Long had been a congressber of the House Finance man since 1953 and was a memForeign Relations committees. He was a brother of Gov.

Earl Long of Louisiana and the late Huey P. Long. He was an uncle of Sen. Russell Long I (D-La). UNDER THE ELECTION laws and the Soviet constituBulganin and his governare required to resign.

The answer to his fate will come when, the new government is formed. Relations between Khrushchev and Bulganin were strained in the last Kremlin shakeup in June, 1957, when Khrushchev ousted bigwigs V. M. Molotov, Georgi M. Malenkov and Lazar M.

Kaganovich. Diplomats say evidence has been accumulating that Bulganin's prestige has been skidding since the June power struggle. The split between him Khrushchev apparently developed when Bulganin sided with his old cronies who were fired. MORE RECENTLY, Bulganin lost his choice spot as a representative of the Moscow city district in the Council of Nationalities, one of the two houses represented in the Supreme Soviet. He was assigned to run instead from the Maikop district in the far off northern Caucasus.

He got very little backing in the nomination process although he did win along with all other Soviet candidates as a result of the oneparty Soviet election process. Aside from Khrushchev, on Bulganin's possible successor centers on I. Kirichenko, Khrushchev's lieutenant in the Ukraine and now in Moscow as a secretary of the Communist Party; Anastas I. Mikoyan, deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers, and Nikolai M. Shvernik, former Soviet trade union leader.

WHERE TO FIND IT AN ANNUAL PAYROLL of $12,500,000 will be gained by Long Beach when a worldwide organization completes its, new headquarters. And the leader of one of the Southland's greatest department stores expects good gains in Long Beach business. These and other stories on economic advances here are headlined in today's Real Estate Section. HOW IT FEELS to tangle with pirates is told by a Long. Beach mariner in an interview with staff writer Hodgson on, Page A-3.

Regular P.T features follow: Automotive Radio-TV C-8 Amusements C-6 Real Estate Section Beach Combing School Menus W-6 Bridge W-11 Classified Ship Arrivals Death Notices B-8 Sports Editorials Star Gazer. Military Women's News W-1-2.