SOVIET-AMERICAN WAR RELATIONS

...Yet the fact remains that only a short time before the first atomic bomb was dropped over Hiroshima, the Soviet General Staff had postponed the offensive against Japan until the latter part of August, and then, suddenly, as soon as Japan's surrender became imminent, Molotov declared war on Japan and the Soviet forces entered Manchuria...

...We continued our appeasement policy long after it was necessary to do so...

...Those situations that can l>e concisely and simply told are most suited ta conventionally competent short story writers...

...Evstigneev was a "stuffed shirt:" "dignity and condescension linked up with stupidity...

...The story is told of Nick, a writer, and his love for his wife and his mistress in quantitatively equal but qualitatively disparate proportions...

...Between them they have turned out a racy little book...

...I trust the passage of time wilt serve to eliminate ostentatious literacy, characters who believe that only artists hsve amorous problems and other adolescent touches...

...In depth and poignancy, in psychological revelation and observation, Todrin fails to come^ up to Thomas Wolfe, whom his style occasionally recalls...

...and interdependence...

...We are dealing with people who respond only to strength...

...Since the authors are writing from the point of view of success, they have slight respect for high-minded failures...

...When Washington suggested to establish an airforce in the Caucasus to support Soviet military operations at Stalingrad, the offer was turned down...

...The hero of "Bird Song" (which received first prize) is permitted to leave an asylum for one day to visit his wife...

...MOST of these stories, assuming as they do an experience concentrated, framed, and-separate, end up as stunted interpretations...

...In one passage they speak of "that rare, forlorn and unhappy public servant who still places the general public interest above his own...

...General Deane tells—for the first time, so far as this writer knows—altout the negotiations with Stalin concerning Russia's entry ia to the Pacific war...

...So little is shown of his real nature, and the relationship between African native* and British troops is so cartoonized, that the writer cannot have tried to do more than superficially shock the self-righteods...

...This is exactly the case with David Savler's "The Beggar Boy...

...Those that*are good are so because of a deliberate choicest material that is itself limiting and final, with two exceptions where the short story form is shrewdly manipulated and transcended...

...Deane's conclusions are not cheerful...

...The question of Russia's entry into the Pacific war was discussed at Yalta, but here, it appears, General Deans is not free to relets all the details of tin negotiations, especially so far as China, her concessions and her future, art...

...TIME TO RETIRE Chiang Kai-Shek, Now $*), Giviaj Up Power...

...The ambassador* assured Stalin that nothing had changed in the attitude of their Governments...

...Deane quite vividly pictures the kind of life he and other military men were obliged to lead in Russia...

...Within a few hours, enough sordidness has accumulated to destroy his equanimity, and he returns voluntarily to the security of the ssylum...

...I recommend it to all members of the Liberal Party in New York and their counterparts in other states...

...It took a very long time to establish shuttlebombing and the American bases in tha Ukraine were a constant source of irritation and friction...

...such is the wsy of thing...

...In other cases, squeezing diversity into a nutshell only leads to distortion...

...We, our eyes with hone s-glint...

...In a terrifying incident, a "liberal" person is transformed by his irritability into a cruel one...

...Eudora Walty confines herself to a nostalgic Chekovian reminiscence of a place known in youth which says something more, at least, than others of less modest intent Too Much the Poet PA HA DISK WALK...

...It is a state of affairs commended to all who speak easily and eloquently of launching a third or fourth or fifth party...

...Here Todrin is dependent for effect upon the word much as he would be in s poem, but not upon narrative, clash ;>t personality and^ revelation by interaction, as he should be in a novel...

...Soviet leaders have respect only for strength...

...318 pages...

...When the British Mission was disbanded at the end of the war, Burrows' office was found to be infested with welt-concealed dictaphones...

...Stalin noted that the report from Roosevelt and . Churchill said nothing concerning Russian participation in the operations against Japan...

...Persons not prepared to compete in such sn organisational task had better employ their reforming seal In some other field...

...Any chap without BO or a hairlip is practically guaranteed success in the great referendum of voters if he makes this slender book his Bible...

...Hy Oliver Carlson and Aldrich Blake...

...Rhk TORIC, sometimes impassioned, sometimes classic, sometimes painfully overdone, is the essence of this novel, its outstanding virtue and its gravest fault...

...Now that Chiang has, bless bis heart, Cast the die and made s start...

...It haa about as much to do with morals, economics or history as a cookbook...

...General Antonov, however, saw in Eisenhower's proposal a desire to advance into the Soviet zone of occupation...

...And...

...And here, I think, is tha only point about publishing a review of such a practical and unmoral work for the critical eyes of New Leader readers...

...President Roosevelt seems not to have realized that Stalin's entry into the war, as he promised, three months after Germany's surrender, would no longer be necessary for the defeat of Japan snd would, at the same time, result in Soviet aggression against Manchuria and the rest of China...

...Du»ll, Sloan and Pearce...

...GENERAL JOHN S. DEANK was the heed of the United States Military Mission in Moscow in the crucial years of Soviet-American co-operation, from September, 1943, to Octol>er, 1945...

...It seems that Washington was eager and anxious to see the Soviet Union take part in the Far Eastern conflict, while Stalin himself was determined to do so . on his own terms and in his own interests...

...Such a theme has about it the annoying quality of being another "portrait of the artist...

...I Other statesmen we might nam« Many years hsve grown the same...

...210 pages...

...that despite his characters' worship of words, in respect to themselves they really appear inarticulate...

...317 pages...

...Those bent on remaking the world with political tools can learn plenty from iff hard-boiled psges...

...On page 28, for example, they will leam that there are about 2,000,000 precinct, town, county, state and federal party workers in this country...

...Amid the billowing, the fury, the cadence of his language, we are only temporarily forgetful that the essences of his peoplt are not projected...

...In the midst of activity, their center remains static, and they miss all the elements of change, indecbiveheei...

...Eisenhower suggested that while hostilities continued he should be free to advance and that thereafter boundary lines should be agreed upon by the Allies...

...OLIVER CARLSON, New Leader correspondent on the Coast, is an intellectual who turned politician...

...More than once they mention reformers and speak with satiric edge of the political awkwardness which is prelude to their failure...

...Again, Truman Capote's ghost story, "Miriam," is adroit enough with Ian...

...The soldier in Irwin Shawl "An Act of Faith" adopts on impulse the conviction that Jews will not Bead to defend themselves with guns in postwar America...

...New York: Doubleday & Co...

...This occurs when the hero writes a long letter to his mistress, explaining that Its cannot leave his wife or her either...

...Czechoslovakia was in the orbit of the Soviet Union, and Czech gratitude to America was not part of the program...

...Literary Hit-Parade Reviewed by ISA KAPP O HENRY MEMORIAL AWdKD PRIZE STUKIEZ Ut 1946...

...3.00...

...By Boris Todrin...

...Innocents" analyses a baby who in her first four days acquires all the potential affirmations and rejections.of her adulthood...

...Stalin "appeared to be somewhat surprised that after the assurances he had given the President st Teheran, we had not taken Soviet participation into account in our planning...

...With both commoners and kings...

...Stalin said that there had lieen no change in the Eussian attitude, but if the United States and Great Britain preferred to bring Japan to her knees without Russian participation, ha was ready to agree...

...The success of the major parties depends upon the correlated labors of these swarming coral Insects...

...In September, 1944, the British and American ambassadors reported to Stalin on the Quebec Conference...

...These political conditions of Russia's participation were essential lo Stalin...

...everything he had said in the privacy of his office had been iecoitied by the NKVD...

...The exceptions (both from Kenyan Review) happen to contain the best writing in the book, although the award judges were very uneasy at the inclusion of Mauds Hutchins' ingenious "Innocents" (one of them called it "an irritating stunt") and had no comment at all to make on Meridel le Sueur's brilliant and tragic war story, "Breaths Upon These Slain...

...Above all we must abandon the hopes that go with the weakness of appeasement...

...And this lesson is given with charm and despatch in chapters made easy by a liberal admixture of literary charm...

...guage and climax, but fundamentally indifferent to its characters...

...Kay Boyle's "Winter Night" reduces its familiar themes until only the banality remains of them...

...Again Antonov protested...

...As is true of so many stories that fall somewhere between the "slick" and the "little" magasines, there is a great temptation to say that it is "effective," without recognising what confusion and blindness must be momentarily imposed on the reader before he can feel its intended effect...

...Stalin replied that he would accept the planes but not the American personnel to fly them...

...Milton S. Mautner...

...Wslt to see who'll take the bint...

...The high point of the book in i dramatic sense is an escape from ths problems of novel-writing into the realm of rhetoric — excellent rhetoric, but in aesthetic evaluation, nevertheless...

...But his faults of form and content can be considered only a "faults," because his work has drive, still mostly on the verbal level, but .full of possibility...

...We had barely scratched the surface of the possibilities that existed for a full Soviet-American partnership m the prosecution of the war...

...Hems em per kemdUne SlLVEK threads among the gold Chiang Kai-Shek is growing old...

...One of General Dearie's main tasks was the preparation of joint SovietAmerican operations in the war against Japan...

...The same question arose at the beginning of May, 1946, when the American forces were set to enter Czechoslovakia...

...First Aid to Political Reformers Reviewed by WILLIAM E. BOHN HOW TO GET INTO POLITICS...

...This was equally true when the Soviet side was more interested in a given problem than was the American...

...3.00...

...Letters written by the author to Soviet agencies concerning the most vital war problems remained unanswered for a long time, and it was of no avail asking for replies...

...New York: Dutton...

...Richard Armour...

...he was replaced by another general...

...Aldrich Blake is a politician who turned intellectual...

...Anyone who undertakes to challenge these parties must be prepared to train and marshal a similar force...

...Indeed, Todrin's great weakness is that he is too much the poet, too little the novelist, even in the lirosd contemporary meaning of the term...

...During the last months of the war, differences arose because the American forces advanced in Germany too fast...

...In fact, Stalin did enter the war exactly three months after Germany's defeat, and the Soviet side, for public consumption, stressed its strict fulfillment of obligations...

...The conclusions at which the author arrives are not based on theories and assumptions, they are founded on reality and practical experience...

...The story skirts the whole meaning of his sickness, and instead of producing understanding, produces sn atmosphere...

...concerned...

...Leadership is a transient thing, and beneath the oppression of the present Soviet regime is a people with whom we shall some day be proud to march into a happier future...

...Its business is strictly to produce a recipe for success in politics...

...its Freudian premise gives it focus and definition, and continually extends the possibility of involved revelation In "Breathe Upon These Slain" the boundaries are those of physical horror: th» infinity is psychological: the hours before death contain the poisonous images of the whole past, the eternal longing for a sense of community...

...The leaders of the foreign missions were carefully watched by the NKVD...

...thus, with sn air of sayiag a great deal that is wise, the story falsely suggests that one man's sentimentality is relevant to the status of American Jews...

...This important book is the honest report on facts and developments, many of which are unknown to the general public and have never before been reported in the press...

...He was instructed to operate exclusively through a Russian general, V. N. Evstigneev, and all his efforts to find direct contact with the General Staff were for a long time futile...

...Which is a reflection of the author'* inability to model them whole...

...It may not be a happy relationship, but it can !>e a workable one...

...Edited Herschel Brichell...

...General Barrows, the chief of the British Mission, Was suddenly declared to be arrogant and difficult to deal with...

...Since it was practically impossible to train Soviet personnel in the use of such aircraft in time to be of help, the operation did not materialize...