THE WEEK IN REVIEW
THE WEEK IN REVIEW AMERICANS who have been poring over war maps and distance charts as Allied armies surge on to the borders of Hitler's Reich, are now beginning to throw uneasy glances at other...
...Both parties are working together today in this great labor so that it can go forward year after year, decade after decade, regardless of the party in power...
...The Roosevelt regime, Dewey contended, intends to keep men in the armed services because "it is cheaper to keep men in the Army than let them come home...
...The only thing that saved Kent's life was that he was an American citizen and we were not yet at war...
...Democrats and the CIO will sell busts of F. D. R. to raise a $50,000,000 campaign fund...
...As justification for this charge, Dewey quoted a statement by Maj...
...The Tyler Kent Case The war's number one spy thriller, "The Strange Case of Tyler Kent," has been the subject of manjr whispers and rumors during the past four years...
...He warned, however, that prices of many civilian articles not now in production, such as automobiles, radios, and refrigerators, will be higher than in pre-war years because of increased labor and material costs...
...Dewey made some effort to convey a difference of opinion by attacking the "Washington wasters" who he said "propose to buy themselves international power out of our pocketbooks...
...Subsequent to the State Department report, former Ambassador Kennedy granted an interview in which he emphatically denied charges that Kent was "railroaded by Scotland Yard" in order to forestall exposure by Kent of the alleged Churchill-Roosevelt commitments...
...2. Elimination of manpower controls...
...The cable is alleged to have carried this message: "I am half American and the natural person to work with you...
...He was sentenced to seven years in grim Bixton prison on the Isle of Wight...
...Ambassador Kennedy agreed to Kent's detention and he was placed on trial before a jury Aug...
...His position was criticized because many soldiers would not have such a pencil handy which might, according to critics, necessitate the use of ink, bullets, match stubs, or "even blood...
...Vice Presidential candidate Gov...
...The trial was held behind locked doors because "of the harmful effects to British counter-espionage efforts...
...Then, however, reacting apparently to the scope and multiplicity of the rumors, the State Department issued a 2,000-word report on the case, and Joseph P. Kennedy, who was U. S. Ambassador to England during the period, granted an interview which delved into the background of the celebrated episode...
...In an article in Collier's Magazine this week Wendell Willkie accused the Democratic and Republican parties of cowardice in their 1944 platforms as they relate to foreign policy...
...The Army announced that more than 1,000,000 soldiers will be demobilized when Germany is defeated...
...Long reluctant to show what basic plan, if any, it has for reconversion, the Roosevelt Administration spoke out last week through two of its top-ranking officials—War Mobilization Director James F. Byrnes and Acting WPB Chairman J. A. Krug...
...Byrnes predicted a tremendous market for civilian goods, resulting from long "pentup demand from a people who have the money to buy them...
...9. Reconstruction by Congress of the Byrnes proposal for a minimum weekly unemployment compensation of $20 for as long as 26 weeks...
...From various Government agencies and officials came a mass of sobering statistics to warn anew that the problems of peace cannot much longer be kicked around...
...Were I to become Prime Minister of Britain we could control the world...
...After reviewing the entire case in a way to show that Kent had done the Allied and American cause great harm, Kennedy concluded: "Nobody 'railroaded' Kent...
...Walter E. Edge, New Jersey Republican, assailed Truman's position as "a clear bid for a dictatorship...
...The most persistent concerns Kent's alleged discovery of a secret cable sent by Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty under the late Neville Chamberlain, to President Roosevelt in October, 1939...
...Names And Notes In The News Bullitt Blast...
...4. Removal of additional foods from the ration list "as soon as supplies justify removal...
...Cigarets...
...The people of Rome ask "seriously and sincerely if it is the deliberate policy of the present Government of the U. S. to make the Soviet Government dictator over all Europe," Bullitt reported...
...Byrnes declared that fears of prolonged unemployment following V-E day were "exaggerated," but at the same time he said it was "necessary that the Government plan now to spread the work...
...Without recommending any specific position for either of the old parties, Willkie wrote that instead of facing the issue forthrightly, the Republicans and Democrats have "borrowed from the past the timidities, the outworn doctrines and mistakes long since rejected by history...
...Now A Political Issue That the entire subject of reconversion might become one of the dominant issues of the Presidential campaign appeared likely last week when Gov...
...Politics...
...8, 1940...
...THE WEEK IN REVIEW AMERICANS who have been poring over war maps and distance charts as Allied armies surge on to the borders of Hitler's Reich, are now beginning to throw uneasy glances at other charts and figures...
...3. Retention of existing price ceilings on civilian goods which have been produced throughout the war...
...Meanwhile, War Mobilization Director Byrnes, who is the President's top-ranking spokesman on domestic policies, released a 7,000-word report urging a general easing of economic controls immediately after V-E (Victory in Europe) day...
...This would mean a sharp cut in "take home" pay for countless workers now getting time and a half for work over 40 hours...
...Non-Partisan' Foreign Policy Dewey's second major campaign address, in Louisville, Ky., the day after, underscored the fact that the GOP contender does not intend to make foreign policy a basic issue in the campaign...
...On Oct...
...Selective Service director, that "we can keep people in the Army about as cheaply as we could create an agency for them when they are out...
...A survey of American newspapers by Press Research, Inc., disclosed this week that 60 per cent favor the election of Dewey, 26 per cent favor Roosevelt, and 14 per cent are neutral...
...The State Department report disclosed, too, that a search of Kent's rooms by Scotland Yard operatives revealed that "Kent had in his possession copies of embassy material totaling more than 1,500 individual papers...
...John Bricker of Ohio yielded from his announced position that soldier votes would not count in his home state unless marked with black pencil in conformity with Ohio's laws...
...Kent, youthful code clerk at the U. S. Embassy in London, was arrested by Scotland Yard in 1940 on charges of engaging in espionage work against the British Government...
...In its report on the case last week, the State Department charged that Kent turned over to the Germans, while America was not at war, documents which "might have been useful to the enemy and which were, at the same time, prejudicial to the safety or interests of Great Britain...
...8. Discharge of "many Government workers...
...These figures and many others which were being passed around confidentially among business and labor leaders and Government officials emphasize the urgency of the task of reconversion of the nation's economy from a war to a peacetime basis...
...In a speech which was hailed by the pro-Roosevelt, internationalist press as "non-partisan," Dewey called for a world organization which would use force to prevent or repel "future military aggressors...
...Kent's mother, who is petitioning Congress for investigation of the entire case, has contended that her son was arrested and imprisoned because he was alert in detecting and preparing to expose official American circumvention of neutrality legislation...
...Our responsibility will be to remove every obstacle that might prevent business from going ahead boldly...
...The Republican candidate, who refrained from offering a specific program of his own but keynoted the need for unlimited production to provide full employment, characterized the Roosevelt Administration as "tired, exhausted, quarreling, and bickering," and as lacking vision for the peacetime tasks ahead...
...Lewis B. Her-shey...
...Although Willkie had the same percentage in his favor in 1940, Roosevelt's 1940 percentage dropped from 31 per cent...
...Speaking in Philadelphia at the beginning of his 6,700-mile cross-country tour, Dewey charged that the Administration plans to delay military demobilization in order to head off domestic depression...
...28, 1940, Kent was found guilty of violating Britain's Official Secrets Act...
...Writing from Rome, Bullitt, onetime admirer of Stalinist Russia, reported that there is great concern in Italy over Communist domination of Europe and brutal treatment of minorities by the Soviet regime...
...Officials of the War Production Board estimated that at about the same time that these men are being released, there will be a 40 per cent slash in war production, resulting in a temporary loss of jobs for at least 7,000,000, and possibly 17,000,000 war workers...
...Research men at Harvard University reported last week that cigaret smoke impairs the keen eyesight needed by night fliers...
...Lower Wages, Higher Prices Major recommendations for V-E day, in Byrnes* lengthy report, were these : 1. Resumption of the 40-hour week...
...Bullitt, by the way, was an ardent interventionist who carried the ball for the Administration when it was edging toward war...
...7. Announcement by Congress that it intends to drop the excess profits tax after the defeat of Japan...
...Government can help, but Government can't do the job...
...6. Appropriation of $2,000,000,000 by Congress to carry out the farm "support price" commitment...
...Only through a nonpartisan approach to the shaping of a peace structure can America achieve unity of purpose," the New York Governor declared...
...Until last week the Government of the United States declined to be drawn into discussion of the case...
...It is evident we see eye to eye...
...5. Increase of gasoline allowance for civilians in "certain areas...
...The 40 per cent cut in production which the WPB foresees when Germany collapses, will free enough manpower and materials to bring civilian production up to its 1939 level "and more," Krug estimated...
...Replying to Vice Presidential candidate Harry S. Truman's plea to reelect Roosevelt because of his "experienced leadership," Gov...
...The article created a stir in Russia...
...Pravda, official organ of the Communist Party, bitterly denounced their erstwhile friend as "a bankrupt spy" who sympathized with Adolf Hitler, staked his career on a German victory over Russia, and continues to carry on "dirty anti-Soviet work" in the columns of Life M&gazine...
...The British sentence that finally put him in the Isle of Wight for seven years was mild beyond measure...
...He also denounced the secrecy at Dumbarton Oaks, site of the Three Power Conference, asserting that planning should not be on any "hush, hush, pussyfoot basis," and that steps taken cannot be "secret, devious, and obscure...
...The case gave rise to many rumors...
...An article by William C. Bullitt, former U. S. ambassador to Soviet Russia, in Life Magazine created an international storm last week...
...Thomas E. Dewey opened his campaign for President with a blast at the Roosevelt Administration's failures in this field...
...War Output To Be Slashed Krug revealed last week that the WPB expects business to use the free hand given it to turn out a flood of civilian goods, including automobiles, soon after the defeat of Germany...
...He said that Italians are greatly alarmed over apparent U. S. financing of Soviet domination and they wonder why Italy cannot obtain comparable credits...
...Private enterprise will have to carry the ball on reconversion," Krug asserted...
...Both made it as clear as they could that the Administration proposed to give industry a free hand in turning back to peacetime production...
Vol. 8 • September 1944 • No. 38
