THE WAR IN REVIEW
THE WAR IN REVIEW TO AN AMERICA, observing this week its fourth wartime Christmas,, there was cause for grave concern over the nature of the war it was fighting. To most Americans, rising from...
...The Prime Minister insisted that the provisions allowed changes before the peace conference if there was mutual agreement, i. e...
...MaeArthur's new invasion thrust into Mindoro sent, men onto the beaches without meeting so much as a rifle shot...
...On the other hand, the Labor benches, which were so articulate in assailing his policy in Greece, were notably silent about Poland...
...The Charter provides that changes will be made only with the consent of the people involved...
...In the Philippines, Gen...
...Admitting that he found "difficulty in discussing these matters because the attitude of the United States has not been defined with precision," Churchill disclosed that his Government favored the following policies, most of which were reached in conference with Moscow officials: Poland must accept Russia's demand for a western boundary along the old Curzon Line...
...In the House of Lords the UNRRA was criticized as being top-heavy and inefficient...
...Despite this explanation there was widespread speculation that the terms of the Charter had been secretly altered by the Big Three...
...This agreement was taken to Quebec, submitted to President Roosevelt and agreed to and initialed by him...
...Of the war itself, the Prime Minister had little to eay other than to make a prediction that "fighting will occupy the Spring and Summer" and "will involve the fiercest and largest battles fought in this war...
...Called for mass transfers of population to prevent minority problems in the new boundary arrangement...
...Assured the House that Germans would have enough living room under the new arrangement because "six or seven million" have already been killed "and more will be killed...
...The Administration saw no objection to the territorial changes outlined by Churchill "if a mutual agreement is reached by the United Nations directly concerned...
...The Nazis Counter-Attack Meanwhile/American forces on the front lines were meeting the most serious .German .counterblows encountered since D-Day...
...To most Americans, rising from their beds on Christmas morning, no gift would be more welcome than a solid affirmation ifrom the governments of the Allied nations that the principles of the Atlantic Charter and the Four Freedoms were not dead...
...Allied headquarters said that the German drive represented a major effort...
...Bevin Defends Churchill Policy To many seasoned observers Churchill's revelations were seen as the chief British quid pro quo for a free hand in Greece and Italy...
...One of the most startling was wrung from Ernest Bevin, Labor Minister, who, as a Labor Party representative on the war coalition cabinet, fought a move of his Party members to break with the Churchill Government...
...In Greece, where UNRRA officials were working under British military direction, American staff officials announced that the agency was pulling out rather than continue to operate during the civil strife...
...A significant sidelight, illustrating America's indecisive role in the European, picture, was the part being played in the news by the United Nations Rehabilitation and Relief Administration, the agency in charge of distributing American food, medicine, and other supplies to war-ravaged peoples...
...Under the command of Field Marshal Karl Gerd von Runstedt,jthe Germans had mounted a powerful attack along a 60 mile front which drove American forces back in to Belgium and Luxembourg...
...When this interpretation was challenged, the Government admitted that Churchill had erred and that the provision to which he referred was not a part of the Charter but part of the "statement of our own policy...
...That was in the Philippine Islands, where Gen...
...Behind them in the liberated areas, they left a confident, cooperative, and friendly people, who knew that the guarantees of the Atlantic Charter and the Four Freedoms would be theirs as time and circumstance permitted...
...Here in America our State Department spoke up on the Polish question in such a way as to make it difficult to determine what policy America would follow...
...Speaking in defense of the Prime Minister's policy in Greece, where Grecian left wing groups were still engaged in bloody conflict with British and pro-monarchy forces this week, Bevin told a Labor Party convention, which had before it a resolution condemning the Government's position, that by agreement with Russia, the Soviets were to undertake the problem of Romania and "we undertook the main problem of Greece...
...Error On Atlantic Charter One of the most significant passages in his address dealt with, the Atlantic Charter's provisions concerning territorial changes...
...It is presumed that Russia would get the rest of East Prussia...
...The Laborites defeated all attempts to censure the Government and voted to stay in the coalition until a general election is called or the war against Germany is won...
...On those islands, Americans were receiving the full cooperation of the Philippine people, who welcomed them joyously and joined with them in driving out the Japanese conqueror...
...Steaming through 600 miles of enemy-held waters and by-passing enemy-held islands, the convoy was attacked several times by enemy planes but successfully beat them off...
...The statement offered American assistance in population transfers and rehabilitation...
...Only in one small area of the great global conflict was there evidence that the two standards around which the people were called to rally for the war were being put into effect...
...While American forces fought to stave off alarming new German counterblows along the wintry front, a sordid pattern of power politics unfolded behind them, leaving little doubt, as one impassioned member of the British House of Commons put it, that "The Atlantic Charter has become a ghost, and that ghost was laid today...
...Carving Up Europe It was in Europe that the two statements of Allied aims were being gutted and ravished this week...
...Poland will have Anglo-Soviet support for expansion to the west at German expense, taking over all of East Prussia south and west of Koenigsberg, including once free Danzig and a 200 mile Baltic coastline...
...Douglas MaeArthur's forces executed another daring and sensational thrust deep into enemy territory by invading the island of Mindoro, only 150 miles from the Philippine capital of Manila...
...This statement led to speculation that Russia might be holding up a Winter offensive until its demands in Poland are met by the Allies...
...The new landing, MacArthur said,, puts American forces in a position to dominate the sea and air routes along the China coast, enabling them to cut Japan off from much of her new empire and imperiling the "so-called imperial life line...
...Americans were all the more shocked by an assertion from Ernest Bevin, Minister of Labor in Churchill's cabinet, that establishment of certain spheres of influence had the approval of President Roosevelt...
...But there was little in the news of the war that could give Americana any cause for cheerfulness...
...The observation burst from the member following some sensationally frank admissions from Prime Minister Winston Churchill concerning Anglo-Russian agreements to carve up the map of Europe and to establish spheres of influence on the European continent...
...In a surprising demonstration of air power, the Nazis landed large forces of paratroopers behind the American lines...
...Asserted that President Roosevelt had been kept informed of these plans, but in a petulant and anxious mood implied that a proposed new meeting of the Big Three had mysteriously misfired...
...It was noted that the most vigorous criticism of the newly proclaimed policy toward Poland came from the Prime Minister's own Conservative Party, which last week cheered his defiant announcement that British guns would continue to defend the empire's interests in Greece...
...agreement between the Allied powers...
...Other British concessions to the Soviets were made known also...
...Without going into the subject of whether there was "mutual agreement" or whether the Poles were coerced into accepting the changes, the statement gave U. S. approval to any "agreement" that will help in the prosecution of the war against Germany...
...Expressed his disapproval of the present Polish government-in-exile and favored the restoration of former premier Stanislaw Mikolazjcyk to his old position to carry on negotiations with the rival, Soviet-sponsored Lublin group...
Vol. 8 • December 1944 • No. 52
