Word: mccarran
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...Passed a bill to apply the Constitution's "full faith and credit" clause to divorces, so that decrees granted by one state will be recognized by all states. The bill's sponsor: the Senator from the divorce-mill state, Pat McCarran of Nevada. ¶ Repealed an old but forgotten 1890 law permitting servicemen to buy their way out of the Army...
When the U.S. Chess Federation issued an invitation to its Russian counterpart, it could hardly have expected a favorable reply. If it had, it would have given more thought to the McCarran Act's subversive clause. Thus, when the Soviet, flapping benignly in its latest peace offensive, allowed its team to take up the challenge, there was acute embarrassment in American chess circles, relieved only when the State Department-surely loaded with chess enthusiasts itself-promised the Russians visas on the grounds of "national interest...
...that the State Department recognizes this noble sport as vital to the country, it is surprising that the Russian chessplayers succeeded where hundreds of talented men from allied nations have failed. Most incredible of all, a majority of those who have been refused visas on account of the McCarran Act have been scientists and educators, men of equally noble calling and of much greater importance to the United States' welfare...
Even those men who can satisfy the McCarran Act's super-sensitive requirements for political purity might as well not try, for the convention or conference they wish to attend is usually long since over by the time they have waded through this long-winded procedure. Only those whose purpose in the United States does not depend on more or less precise timing find this ordeal worthwhile, and they, like the others, have little chance of succeeding anyway...
...Eisenhower Administration has recognized this. In particular, the Republican State Department, by flouting the Act's spirit so blatantly in the chessplayers' case has shown itself particularly aware of McCarran's folly. Apparently, however, this simple truth has not yet percolated down to the silver miners and sheep herders, to the Wisconsin farmers, or to the others on whom the likes of McCarran depend. Eisenhower, can hardly wait the many years this will take, though, for revision is already sixteen months overdue. Rather than anger everyone further by ludicrous exceptions, he and his legislative captains should make an immediate effort...