Ned Touchstone
Encyclopedia
Ned O'Neal Touchstone was a newspaper
publisher who was a leader of the [Conservative Right-Wing Movement]] in Louisiana
politics during the 1960s
. He was born in the village of Florien
in Sabine Parish but resided in the Shreveport-Bossier City metropolitan area
for most of his life.
Touchstone was descended from Richard Touchstone, a settler of Maryland
prior to 1650, and Benjamin Merrell, who was hanged, drawn, and quartered in North Carolina
in 1771 in an early attack on the British crown. His family members were pioneers in the settlement of Mississippi
in 1798.
Touchstone fought in the Battle of Okinawa
near the end of World War II
. He was the personal driver/bodyguard of the V.P. of South Korea. He was also in reconnaissance and was often assigned the task of going into jungles and locating the enemy. On one such mission he was captured by the communists, and was put in a boxcar with other prisoners and shipped to a prison camp. After a short time he was sent back to Seoul. One one mission Touchstone accompanied three MP's to arrest several communists. During the arrest the lights were knocked out. Touchstone hit one communist with his right hand so hard he broke it. He continued to fight with his left hand and grabbed a machete which severely cut his only good hand. They subsequently overcame the enemy and arrested them. Touchstone was known for his remarkable courage in the face of real danger. He received a Purple Heart and was also the recipient of one of only twenty Sharpshooter medals issued during the entire war. He achieved the highest rank you could receive as a non-commissioned officer, which was Sergeant Major. In his latter years when Touchstone was questioned about his feats and heroism in the war, he always remarked that he did what he had to do, but was never proud of it.
and Texas
, including the Bossier Press" and the Waskom Gazette in Waskom
in east Texas. Before owning and operating his newspapers, he worked on Capitol Hill as an administrative assistant for five years for U.S. Representative Overton Brooks
. Touchstone researched and authored the bill which Congressman Overton Brooks presented and got approved to obtain and build the Veteran's Hospital which was constructed in Shreveport. There was an incident during his years of serving Congressman Brooks as his personal secretary/clerk, when he encountered several Puerto Rican Nationalists running down the steps of the Capital Building. They had assembled a small group of armed radicals and had attacked several congressmen, wounding two in the arm and then were fleeing when they encountered Touchstone with three other clerks coming up the steps into the building. Touchstone ran up to the first armed man and knocked him to the ground and took his weapon. Touchstone himself was totally unarmed during this courageous act.
In 1962, he became the editor of The Councilor, a publication of the White Citizens' Council
of America, of which his mail list included a worldwide readership of over 106,000. The Citizens Council was formed in the middle 1950s to oppose the civil rights movement
in the South. The White Citizens' Council's membership was composed of a growing group of conservative white southerners who sought to exert financial pressures on civil rights supporters. The greater part of the members were medium to lower-income whites who were staunch supporters of what was called "the southern way of life." The Citizens' Council grew in numbers until the Civil Rights Act of 1964
was signed into law by U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson
, a frequent target of Touchstone's editorials.
Touchstone's newsletter, The Councilor was hostile toward liberals in both major parties, and particularly the administrations of John F. Kennedy
and Lyndon B. Johnson
. Often Touchstone employed editorial ridicule and vociferous personal attacks against those whom he politically opposed. However, Touchstone was an expert researcher of truth and facts and never lost a legal challenge regarding any of his articles. Touchstone was often host to citizens from all over the United States and even various British dignitaries, who were faithful followers of his revelations and the news behind the scenes.
Touchstone was famous for his dry humor, and play upon words, as well as his political cartoons. He once printed a "letter to the editor" in The Councilor in which an African American man from the North derided young blacks in Sebring
, Florida
, where the city had set aside a beachfront for black recreation, but the site was constantly littered, "filthy," in the words of the letter writer, and therefore unusable. There were before and after photos to support this claim, but liberal readers found it offensive and off limits in polite society.
, whom he claimed (and later proved with federal documentation and photos) had political and financial ties with international communism
. Touchstone said that many Americans could not understand that "King gets his money from known Reds until they are hit over the head with the facts. We stand ready to hit them over the head with solid facts." FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover
, however, claimed that while the communists had attempted to infiltrate the civil rights movement, they had failed in that mission.
Touchstone opposed the Fair Play for Cuba movement, a communist front
in which Lee Harvey Oswald
had been active prior to 1963. The "Fair Play" group sent busloads of northern blacks into the South to work for desegregation
. Touchstone and another Radical Right ally, George Singlemann of New Orleans, instead organized the "Reverse Freedom Ride movement," which raised funds to provide bus trips for southern blacks wishing to relocate to the North. Disgruntled southern minorities were encouraged to relocate to Hyannisport, Massachusetts
, the home of the compound of President Kennedy, or to other cities where northern leaders who supported civil rights legislation lived. Touchstone claimed that his "Reverse Freedom Ride" neutralized the "Fair Play for Cuba" activists.
Later, after the Kennedy assassination, Touchstone traveled and devoted himself to compiling the most detailed, fact-proven essay on the conspiracy that planned and hid the truth of Kennedy's murder in Dallas. Touchstone was among members of the Conservative Right-Wing Movement who questioned the Warren Commission
report that President Kennedy died from a single bullet fired by a lone gunman. For years, Touchstone investigated Kennedy's assassination. He supported the conspiracy viewpoint formulated by Orleans Parish District Attorney
Jim Garrison
. There have since been many books, documentaries, and even a popular Hollywood film, JFK
, depicting the facts that Touchstone wrote about in his newsletter, The Councilor. The notes and photos he compiled were so undeniable and clear, they were used for the basis of this movie regarding Lee Harvey Oswald and his connection to the U.S. Federal government of the cover-up and real reasons for that assassination, including the sacrifice of their "fall guy", Lee Harvey Oswald.
Touchstone was an early critic of growing American globalism
. He singled out "dangerous" groups such as the Council on Foreign Relations
, the Federal Reserve System
, the Bank of France, the Bank of England
, the three major American television networks, as well as the Rothschild
and Warburg
families. He claimed that these families were so interrelated that to preserve their domination he found sixty-four examples where the Rothschilds had married first cousins. According to Touchstone, these international families provided the money to establish Vladimir Lenin
in the former Soviet Union
and continued to assist the international communist movement, Touchstone claimed. His claims have since been proven and have been the subject of several documentaries on the History Channel.
Six months prior to Touchstone's death, the United States observed the third annual celebration of the birth of Martin Luther King. In many cities with large numbers of minorities, the King holiday has become the third most popular of the year. The honor to King was especially troubling to Ned Touchstone, who was never reconciled to desegregation and the turmoil, crime, and lower academic standings it brought to southern schools, some of which became known for gangs, rape, narcotics, shootings, crime against teachers, and even closings from lack of enrollment.
for Louisiana state superintendent of education. He claimed that he would use administrative measures to thwart the continuing process of school desegregation
in Louisiana, completed in August 1970. He was badly defeated by incumbent
William J. "Bill" Dodd, a long-time Louisiana politician. Incidentally, Touchstone was born in Sabine Parish, and Dodd, who was seventeen years Touchstone's senior, was reared in Sabine Parish.
Ned Touchstone was in Cuba
on New Years Day 1959, when the communist Fidel Castro
overthrew the government there with his rebel army. Touchstone was ordered to stay in his American-owned hotel, but he instead chose to leave under the cover of night and walk through the bullet-ridden, fire- burning city of Havana so that he could gather facts for the first news story telephoned from the island to the United States. He spoke with several national news networks and made history while risking his life to get the truth of the communist conquest of Cuba to the American people.
Touchstone critics tried unsuccessfully to nullify his achievements by claiming, falsely, that the journalist was affiliated with the radical Original Knights of the Ku Klux Klan
.
, Texas, where he and his wife had retired. Services were held on July 30, 1988, at the Osborn Funeral Home Chapel in Shreveport. As a hero of World War II, he was given a military burial and laid to rest at the Hillcrest Cemetery in Haughton, La., close to the red hills and lush forests where he was born and played as a young child.
Most of his lifetime work was donated to the Noel Memorial Library at Louisiana State University in Shreveport
. His large personal library became the property of his children. Touchstone was known for his vast knowledge of facts and ability to call to mind complete passages from the thousands of books that he had read and collected. He was a world traveler and could discuss nearly any subject intellectually with any expert. His expertise included the fields of ancient history
, languages, sciences, poetry, art, and the Bible
.
Touchstone was survived by his wife, the former June A. McGehee (born 1927), a native of Homer
in Claiborne Parish
; his father, Sam F. Touchstone (1904–2002), a taxidermist and inventor in Haughton
in southern Bossier Parish
, who was living in Bossier City at the time of Touchstone's death; a son, David Mark Touchstone (born September 23, 1952), a business lawyer
in Shreveport-Bossier City; two daughters, Lia Touchstone Tippit then of Rockwall
, Texas, and Lauren Touchstone Webb of Shreveport, La.; two sisters, three brothers, and ten grandchildren. Touchstone was predeceased by his mother, Carrie Moore Touchstone (1906-1982). Sam Touchstone and his second wife, Lura P. Touchstone, operated the Wildlife Museum in Haughton.
Touchstone was a first cousin of former Louisiana State Senator
Danny Roy Moore
, a civil engineer and land surveyor who resides in Arcadia
, Louisiana. Moore represented Claiborne and Bienville
parishes in the Senate from 1964-1968. Moore's mother, Capitola Touchstone Moore (1903-2002), was a sister of Sam Touchstone.
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
publisher who was a leader of the [Conservative Right-Wing Movement]] in Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
politics during the 1960s
1960s
The 1960s was the decade that started on January 1, 1960, and ended on December 31, 1969. It was the seventh decade of the 20th century.The 1960s term also refers to an era more often called The Sixties, denoting the complex of inter-related cultural and political trends across the globe...
. He was born in the village of Florien
Florien, Louisiana
Florien is a village in Sabine Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 692 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Florien is located at .According to the United States Census Bureau, the village has a total area of , all land....
in Sabine Parish but resided in the Shreveport-Bossier City metropolitan area
Metro Area
Metro Area is a Brooklyn-based dance music production team composed of Morgan Geist and Darshan Jesrani.- History :Geist grew up in Wayne, New Jersey, while Jesrani is from upstate New York...
for most of his life.
Touchstone was descended from Richard Touchstone, a settler of Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
prior to 1650, and Benjamin Merrell, who was hanged, drawn, and quartered in North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
in 1771 in an early attack on the British crown. His family members were pioneers in the settlement of Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...
in 1798.
Touchstone fought in the Battle of Okinawa
Battle of Okinawa
The Battle of Okinawa, codenamed Operation Iceberg, was fought on the Ryukyu Islands of Okinawa and was the largest amphibious assault in the Pacific War of World War II. The 82-day-long battle lasted from early April until mid-June 1945...
near the end of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. He was the personal driver/bodyguard of the V.P. of South Korea. He was also in reconnaissance and was often assigned the task of going into jungles and locating the enemy. On one such mission he was captured by the communists, and was put in a boxcar with other prisoners and shipped to a prison camp. After a short time he was sent back to Seoul. One one mission Touchstone accompanied three MP's to arrest several communists. During the arrest the lights were knocked out. Touchstone hit one communist with his right hand so hard he broke it. He continued to fight with his left hand and grabbed a machete which severely cut his only good hand. They subsequently overcame the enemy and arrested them. Touchstone was known for his remarkable courage in the face of real danger. He received a Purple Heart and was also the recipient of one of only twenty Sharpshooter medals issued during the entire war. He achieved the highest rank you could receive as a non-commissioned officer, which was Sergeant Major. In his latter years when Touchstone was questioned about his feats and heroism in the war, he always remarked that he did what he had to do, but was never proud of it.
An unusual publisher
Touchstone was a professional researcher and writer and owned and operated the largest retail book store in Shreveport. He was an avid reader and was known for his extensive vocabulary and for remembering and quoting large portions of published books and poetry. For eight years, he published in his print shop in Bossier City numerous weekly newspapers in LouisianaLouisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
and Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
, including the Bossier Press" and the Waskom Gazette in Waskom
Waskom, Texas
Waskom is a city in Harrison County, Texas, United States. It lies about east of the county seat, Marshall, on U.S. Route 80. To the east is Shreveport, Louisiana...
in east Texas. Before owning and operating his newspapers, he worked on Capitol Hill as an administrative assistant for five years for U.S. Representative Overton Brooks
Overton Brooks
Thomas Overton Brooks was a Democratic U.S. representative from the Shreveport-based Fourth Congressional District of northwest Louisiana, having served for a quarter century beginning on January 3, 1937. Brooks was a nephew of U.S. Senator John Holmes Overton as well as a great-grandson of Walter...
. Touchstone researched and authored the bill which Congressman Overton Brooks presented and got approved to obtain and build the Veteran's Hospital which was constructed in Shreveport. There was an incident during his years of serving Congressman Brooks as his personal secretary/clerk, when he encountered several Puerto Rican Nationalists running down the steps of the Capital Building. They had assembled a small group of armed radicals and had attacked several congressmen, wounding two in the arm and then were fleeing when they encountered Touchstone with three other clerks coming up the steps into the building. Touchstone ran up to the first armed man and knocked him to the ground and took his weapon. Touchstone himself was totally unarmed during this courageous act.
In 1962, he became the editor of The Councilor, a publication of the White Citizens' Council
White Citizens' Council
The White Citizens' Council was an American white supremacist organization formed on July 11, 1954. After 1956, it was known as the Citizens' Councils of America...
of America, of which his mail list included a worldwide readership of over 106,000. The Citizens Council was formed in the middle 1950s to oppose the civil rights movement
Civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between approximately 1950 and 1980. In many situations it took the form of campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change by nonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations it was...
in the South. The White Citizens' Council's membership was composed of a growing group of conservative white southerners who sought to exert financial pressures on civil rights supporters. The greater part of the members were medium to lower-income whites who were staunch supporters of what was called "the southern way of life." The Citizens' Council grew in numbers until the Civil Rights Act of 1964
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a landmark piece of legislation in the United States that outlawed major forms of discrimination against African Americans and women, including racial segregation...
was signed into law by U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
, a frequent target of Touchstone's editorials.
Touchstone's newsletter, The Councilor was hostile toward liberals in both major parties, and particularly the administrations of John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
and Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
. Often Touchstone employed editorial ridicule and vociferous personal attacks against those whom he politically opposed. However, Touchstone was an expert researcher of truth and facts and never lost a legal challenge regarding any of his articles. Touchstone was often host to citizens from all over the United States and even various British dignitaries, who were faithful followers of his revelations and the news behind the scenes.
Touchstone was famous for his dry humor, and play upon words, as well as his political cartoons. He once printed a "letter to the editor" in The Councilor in which an African American man from the North derided young blacks in Sebring
Sebring, Florida
Sebring is a city in Highlands County, Florida, United States, nicknamed "The City on the Circle", in reference to Circle Drive, the center of the Sebring Downtown Historic District...
, Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
, where the city had set aside a beachfront for black recreation, but the site was constantly littered, "filthy," in the words of the letter writer, and therefore unusable. There were before and after photos to support this claim, but liberal readers found it offensive and off limits in polite society.
Opposing King, integration, and globalism
Touchstone decried the civil rights activism of Martin Luther King, Jr.Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was an American clergyman, activist, and prominent leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for being an iconic figure in the advancement of civil rights in the United States and around the world, using nonviolent methods following the...
, whom he claimed (and later proved with federal documentation and photos) had political and financial ties with international communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
. Touchstone said that many Americans could not understand that "King gets his money from known Reds until they are hit over the head with the facts. We stand ready to hit them over the head with solid facts." FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover
J. Edgar Hoover
John Edgar Hoover was the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States. Appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation—predecessor to the FBI—in 1924, he was instrumental in founding the FBI in 1935, where he remained director until his death in 1972...
, however, claimed that while the communists had attempted to infiltrate the civil rights movement, they had failed in that mission.
Touchstone opposed the Fair Play for Cuba movement, a communist front
Communist front
A Communist front organization is an organization identified to be a front organization under the effective control of a Communist party, the Communist International or other Communist organizations. Lenin originated the idea in his manifesto of 1902, "What Is to Be Done?"...
in which Lee Harvey Oswald
Lee Harvey Oswald
Lee Harvey Oswald was, according to four government investigations,These were investigations by: the Federal Bureau of Investigation , the Warren Commission , the House Select Committee on Assassinations , and the Dallas Police Department. the sniper who assassinated John F...
had been active prior to 1963. The "Fair Play" group sent busloads of northern blacks into the South to work for desegregation
Desegregation
Desegregation is the process of ending the separation of two groups usually referring to races. This is most commonly used in reference to the United States. Desegregation was long a focus of the American Civil Rights Movement, both before and after the United States Supreme Court's decision in...
. Touchstone and another Radical Right ally, George Singlemann of New Orleans, instead organized the "Reverse Freedom Ride movement," which raised funds to provide bus trips for southern blacks wishing to relocate to the North. Disgruntled southern minorities were encouraged to relocate to Hyannisport, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
, the home of the compound of President Kennedy, or to other cities where northern leaders who supported civil rights legislation lived. Touchstone claimed that his "Reverse Freedom Ride" neutralized the "Fair Play for Cuba" activists.
Later, after the Kennedy assassination, Touchstone traveled and devoted himself to compiling the most detailed, fact-proven essay on the conspiracy that planned and hid the truth of Kennedy's murder in Dallas. Touchstone was among members of the Conservative Right-Wing Movement who questioned the Warren Commission
Warren Commission
The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, known unofficially as the Warren Commission, was established on November 27, 1963, by Lyndon B. Johnson to investigate the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963...
report that President Kennedy died from a single bullet fired by a lone gunman. For years, Touchstone investigated Kennedy's assassination. He supported the conspiracy viewpoint formulated by Orleans Parish District Attorney
District attorney
In many jurisdictions in the United States, a District Attorney is an elected or appointed government official who represents the government in the prosecution of criminal offenses. The district attorney is the highest officeholder in the jurisdiction's legal department and supervises a staff of...
Jim Garrison
Jim Garrison
Earling Carothers "Jim" Garrison — who changed his first name to Jim in the early 1960s — was the District Attorney of Orleans Parish, Louisiana from 1962 to 1973. A member of the Democratic Party, he is best known for his investigations into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy...
. There have since been many books, documentaries, and even a popular Hollywood film, JFK
JFK (film)
JFK is a 1991 American film directed by Oliver Stone. It examines the events leading to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and alleged subsequent cover-up, through the eyes of former New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison .Garrison filed charges against New Orleans businessman Clay...
, depicting the facts that Touchstone wrote about in his newsletter, The Councilor. The notes and photos he compiled were so undeniable and clear, they were used for the basis of this movie regarding Lee Harvey Oswald and his connection to the U.S. Federal government of the cover-up and real reasons for that assassination, including the sacrifice of their "fall guy", Lee Harvey Oswald.
Touchstone was an early critic of growing American globalism
Globalism
Globalism can have at least two different and opposing meanings. One meaning is the attitude or policy of placing the interests of the entire world above those of individual nations...
. He singled out "dangerous" groups such as the Council on Foreign Relations
Council on Foreign Relations
The Council on Foreign Relations is an American nonprofit nonpartisan membership organization, publisher, and think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy and international affairs...
, the Federal Reserve System
Federal Reserve System
The Federal Reserve System is the central banking system of the United States. It was created on December 23, 1913 with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, largely in response to a series of financial panics, particularly a severe panic in 1907...
, the Bank of France, the Bank of England
Bank of England
The Bank of England is the central bank of the United Kingdom and the model on which most modern central banks have been based. Established in 1694, it is the second oldest central bank in the world...
, the three major American television networks, as well as the Rothschild
Rothschild family
The Rothschild family , known as The House of Rothschild, or more simply as the Rothschilds, is a Jewish-German family that established European banking and finance houses starting in the late 18th century...
and Warburg
Warburg
Warburg is a town in eastern North Rhine-Westphalia on the river Diemel near the three-state point shared by Hessen, Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia. It is in Höxter district and Detmold region...
families. He claimed that these families were so interrelated that to preserve their domination he found sixty-four examples where the Rothschilds had married first cousins. According to Touchstone, these international families provided the money to establish Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
in the former Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and continued to assist the international communist movement, Touchstone claimed. His claims have since been proven and have been the subject of several documentaries on the History Channel.
Six months prior to Touchstone's death, the United States observed the third annual celebration of the birth of Martin Luther King. In many cities with large numbers of minorities, the King holiday has become the third most popular of the year. The honor to King was especially troubling to Ned Touchstone, who was never reconciled to desegregation and the turmoil, crime, and lower academic standings it brought to southern schools, some of which became known for gangs, rape, narcotics, shootings, crime against teachers, and even closings from lack of enrollment.
Running for superintendent of education
In 1967, Touchstone ran as a DemocratDemocratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
for Louisiana state superintendent of education. He claimed that he would use administrative measures to thwart the continuing process of school desegregation
Desegregation
Desegregation is the process of ending the separation of two groups usually referring to races. This is most commonly used in reference to the United States. Desegregation was long a focus of the American Civil Rights Movement, both before and after the United States Supreme Court's decision in...
in Louisiana, completed in August 1970. He was badly defeated by incumbent
Incumbent
The incumbent, in politics, is the existing holder of a political office. This term is usually used in reference to elections, in which races can often be defined as being between an incumbent and non-incumbent. For example, in the 2004 United States presidential election, George W...
William J. "Bill" Dodd, a long-time Louisiana politician. Incidentally, Touchstone was born in Sabine Parish, and Dodd, who was seventeen years Touchstone's senior, was reared in Sabine Parish.
Ned Touchstone was in Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
on New Years Day 1959, when the communist Fidel Castro
Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011...
overthrew the government there with his rebel army. Touchstone was ordered to stay in his American-owned hotel, but he instead chose to leave under the cover of night and walk through the bullet-ridden, fire- burning city of Havana so that he could gather facts for the first news story telephoned from the island to the United States. He spoke with several national news networks and made history while risking his life to get the truth of the communist conquest of Cuba to the American people.
Touchstone critics tried unsuccessfully to nullify his achievements by claiming, falsely, that the journalist was affiliated with the radical Original Knights of the Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...
.
Touchstone's obituary
At the time of his death, Touchstone resided on Lake Palestine near TylerTyler, Texas
Tyler is a city in and the county seat of Smith County, Texas, in the United States. It takes its name from President John Tyler . The city had a population of 109,000 in 2010, according to the United States Census Bureau...
, Texas, where he and his wife had retired. Services were held on July 30, 1988, at the Osborn Funeral Home Chapel in Shreveport. As a hero of World War II, he was given a military burial and laid to rest at the Hillcrest Cemetery in Haughton, La., close to the red hills and lush forests where he was born and played as a young child.
Most of his lifetime work was donated to the Noel Memorial Library at Louisiana State University in Shreveport
Louisiana State University in Shreveport
Louisiana State University in Shreveport is a branch of the Louisiana State University System in Shreveport, Louisiana. Opened in 1967, LSUS is the only public four-year university in the Shreveport-Bossier metro area....
. His large personal library became the property of his children. Touchstone was known for his vast knowledge of facts and ability to call to mind complete passages from the thousands of books that he had read and collected. He was a world traveler and could discuss nearly any subject intellectually with any expert. His expertise included the fields of ancient history
Ancient history
Ancient history is the study of the written past from the beginning of recorded human history to the Early Middle Ages. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, with Cuneiform script, the oldest discovered form of coherent writing, from the protoliterate period around the 30th century BC...
, languages, sciences, poetry, art, and the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
.
Touchstone was survived by his wife, the former June A. McGehee (born 1927), a native of Homer
Homer, Louisiana
Homer is present day parish seat of Claiborne Parish, Louisiana, United States. The town was named after the Greek poet Homer and was laid out around the Courthouse Square in 1850 by Frank Vaughn. The present day brick courthouse, built in the Greek Revival style of architecture, is one of only...
in Claiborne Parish
Claiborne Parish, Louisiana
Claiborne Parish is a parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana. The parish seat is Homer and as of 2000, the population is 16,851.-History:The parish is named for the first Louisiana governor, William C. C. Claiborne....
; his father, Sam F. Touchstone (1904–2002), a taxidermist and inventor in Haughton
Haughton, Louisiana
Haughton is a town in Bossier Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 2,792 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Shreveport–Bossier City Metropolitan Statistical Area.-Geography:Haughton is located at ....
in southern Bossier Parish
Bossier Parish, Louisiana
Bossier Parish is named for Pierre Bossier, a 19th-century Louisiana state senator and U.S. representative from Natchitoches Parish.Bossier Parish was spared fighting on its soil during the American Civil War...
, who was living in Bossier City at the time of Touchstone's death; a son, David Mark Touchstone (born September 23, 1952), a business lawyer
Lawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...
in Shreveport-Bossier City; two daughters, Lia Touchstone Tippit then of Rockwall
Rockwall, Texas
Rockwall is a city in Rockwall County, Texas, United States, and a suburb of Dallas. It is part of the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. The population was 37,490 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Rockwall County. Rockwall County is the second wealthiest county in the state of Texas in terms...
, Texas, and Lauren Touchstone Webb of Shreveport, La.; two sisters, three brothers, and ten grandchildren. Touchstone was predeceased by his mother, Carrie Moore Touchstone (1906-1982). Sam Touchstone and his second wife, Lura P. Touchstone, operated the Wildlife Museum in Haughton.
Touchstone was a first cousin of former Louisiana State Senator
Louisiana State Legislature
The Louisiana State Legislature is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is bicameral body, comprising the lower house, the Louisiana House of Representatives with 105 representatives, and the upper house, the Louisiana Senate with 39 senators...
Danny Roy Moore
Danny Roy Moore
Danny Roy Moore is a civil engineer and land surveyor in Arcadia, Louisiana, who served as a conservative Democrat in the Louisiana State Senate from 1964 until 1968...
, a civil engineer and land surveyor who resides in Arcadia
Arcadia, Louisiana
Arcadia is a town in and the parish seat of Bienville Parish in north Louisiana, United States. The population was 3,041 at the 2000 census....
, Louisiana. Moore represented Claiborne and Bienville
Bienville Parish, Louisiana
Bienville Parish is a parish located in the northwestern portion of the U.S. state of Louisiana. The parish seat is Arcadia and as of the 2000 census, the population is 15,752....
parishes in the Senate from 1964-1968. Moore's mother, Capitola Touchstone Moore (1903-2002), was a sister of Sam Touchstone.