THE WEEK IN REVIEW
THE WEEK IN REVIEW WITH the San Francisco conference of the United Nations now only a month away, the Roosevelt Administration is redoubling its efforts to rally public opinion around the world...
...A few days later, on Feb...
...Lend-Lease Restricted Another significant phase of American foreign policy is now before the nation—the program of Lend-Lease aid to our Allies...
...Another doubt which intruded on the unity sought by the State Department was to be found in the growing realization that the proposed security council had absolutely no power to prevent aggression by one of the Great Powers...
...Unilateral Action In Rumania Even more disruptive of the Administration's artificial "unity" were the curious developments in Rumania...
...It was clearly understood, according to official announcements, that there were to be no more unilateral actions, but rather that the Big 3 would consult and act together...
...Disturbed by the entire food situation, the Senate this week ordered a special investigation...
...But here's what has now happened in Rumania: Shortly after the Yalta conference, the Soviet press began to denounce the Rumanian government of Gen...
...While President Roosevelt and his aides sought to shunt aside questions on this point, Prime Minister Winston Churchill admitted in forthright fashion in the House of Commons that under the Yalta agreement "there is nothing at all" to deal with aggression by one of the big nations...
...Murray said he was "delighted" with this procedure...
...tanks] for 2 years say they are fed up with the statements coming out of Washington praising American equipment," the dispatch said...
...A War-Breeding Status Quo...
...With Germany and Japan scheduled to be disarmed and dismembered, and with the small nations incapable of aggression, people everywhere began to wonder what role the security scheme could play in preventing future aggression...
...The war in the Pacific, he said, "is just as important and more significant than the war in Europe," Mansfield asserted...
...Secretary of State Edward R. Stettinius, posing perpetually for news and movie cameras with his handsome smile much in evidence, put his best foot forward when he announced that the American delegation to the San Francisco conference will propose that the sessions be as open as possible to press and the public...
...Communist Political Association, sent Freedom House, sponsor of the memorial, a $5,000 check, but the Freedom House board of directors voted 13 to 1 to reject the gift...
...We can only interpret your decision as meaning that you have taken Mr...
...Arthur H. Vandenberg, Michigan Republican who accepted appointment to the U. S. delegation to the San Francisco conference, disclosed that he has filed with the State Department proposals to amend the Dumbarton Oaks agreements in order to provide for a subsequent review and revision of decisions now being reached which might threaten future peace...
...The American people, he said, have not suffered greatly from food shortages, and he called on them to eat less to help feed Europe...
...THE WEEK IN REVIEW WITH the San Francisco conference of the United Nations now only a month away, the Roosevelt Administration is redoubling its efforts to rally public opinion around the world security scheme conceived at Dumbarton Oaks last Summer and amended at Yalta last month by the Big 3. A shrewdly organized propaganda campaign is now in full pn> gress, with press and radio joining to present a thoroughly one-sided version of the security scheme and corollary Big Power agreements...
...Northern Transylvania had been wrested from Rumania and awarded to Hungary when the two nations were Hitler satellites...
...The Manchester Guardian, for instance, demanded that Russia "throw open the doors—and the windows—on the strange events" taking place in» Rumania...
...In order to strengthen Groza in his new post, Marshal Stalin announced the return of northern Transylvania to Rumania—and this one hour after Groza had taken office...
...Willkie's 'One World' and changed it to 'One World, Inc.,' attempting to appropriate it as the private property of a small, self-constituted group," Browder declared...
...The President rebuffed Jones and the War Food Administration...
...Disclosures regarding basic weaknesses in the Big 3 agreements and the security plan are being hushed up, with Administration spokesmen quietly emphasizing the need for concealing all defects until the structure as a whole has been sold to Congress and the country...
...Long current rumors that British and American-owned factories in Germany were being spared by Allied bombers, even though they have been producing materials of war for the Nazis, appeared to be confirmed last week...
...Stettinius said that members of the delegation would be free to pursue their "personal views and convictions," but, he added, they would still "work as one team...
...James E. Murray, Montana Democrat and author of legislation to create a Missouri Valley Authority similar to the TVA, claimed a partial victory last week in his fight for friendly committee consideration of his bill...
...Most American press and radio commentators pretended to be looking the other way when the Soviets ignored Britain and the United States in the Rumanian - shakeup, but liberal columnists and publications in England were quick to denounce this violation of the Yalta agreement...
...Names And Notes In The News Row...
...Nicolae Radescu...
...Josiah W. Bailey, North Carolina Democrat and foe-of public development of power...
...MVA...
...Men and officers who have fought in Shermans [U.S...
...American troops on the Western Front in Europe want new tanks on the battle lines "and less talk about them in Washington, D. C," Wes Gallagher, AP correspondent, reported last week in a heavily censored dispatch...
...Earl Browder, president of the...
...Warning...
...Despite the tremendous pressure from the Administration for "unity" behind the security scheme, there could be no doubt this week that doubts and misgivings have developed in the highest quarters...
...Murray had objected to the action of Vice President Harry S. Truman in sending the measure to the Commerce Committee, headed by Sen...
...An Administration bill to extend Lend-Lease for another year rode through the House of Representatives last week by the overwhelming vote of 354 to 28, but only after the Administration had given ground on a major provision...
...Browder, in turn, charged the sponsors of the memorial with attempting to "appropriate" the memory of Willkie...
...Vandenberg's primary objective, he said, was to make it possible for the proposed security organization to break away from wartime determinations, like those of the Big 3 at Yalta, for instance, and not be bound to a status quo which might contain within itself the seeds of World War III...
...Purpose of these amendments was to prevent the Administration from handing put additional billions, without Congressional authorization, which would be used not for prosecution of the war, but .for rebuilding European nations and rearming them in preparation for future hostilities...
...A row developed within the Roosevelt Administration when the War Food Agency moved to slash shipments of meat to Great Britain and liberated areas and trim military demands in view of the growing shortages in the nation...
...Confirmation...
...Mike Mansfield, Montana Democrat who recently returned from a special survey in China at President Roosevelt's request, warned last week that the war with Japan will be long and costly...
...Less Food For America The subject of Lend-Lease and further aid to our Allies turned up as a major factor in the food problem this week...
...Correspondents described the immunity granted Allied investments in Cologne as "startling...
...Republican leaders sponsored and won approval of amendments which restrict Lend-Lease to "defense articles" for use only in "promoting the defense of the United States," and prohibit all Lend-Lease contributions for programs of "postwar relief, rehabilitation, or reconstruction...
...The Lend-Lease Act, under which the United States has shipped more than 35 billion dollars worth of munitions, food, and raw materials to the United Nations, principally Britain and Russia, expires June 30...
...Noting that European nations, France especially, were seeking billions of dollars for postwar rearma-> ment, Constantine Brown, foreign affairs expert for the Washington Star, asked a question which is in the minds of countless Americans: "If-Germany and Japan are utterly destroyed as military powers and through a drastic control their economic and industrial activities are reduced to impotence for many years, what purpose can there be in re-arming the European countries with Lend-Lease materials from the United States...
...In an outburst of real temper, the President indicated he was taking charge of the situation and proposed to continue shipments abroad...
...In both acts, the replacement of Radescu with Groza and the return of northern Transylvania, the Kremlin proceeded without in any way consulting London or Washington, although only a few weeks before at Yalta, Stalin had specifically promised not to engage in further political moves in Europe on his own...
...He called it the Army's 2nd expensive mistake in the Canadian area, the other being the $134,-000,000 Canol gasoline project which is also being abandoned...
...Waste...
...Brehon Somervell, whom President Roosevelt last week recommended for promotion to a full generalship...
...The board said it welcomed the support of all organizations symbolizing "the democratic ideal," but said it could not "reconcile this ideal with the role of the Communist Party in America...
...At Yalta the Big 3 had agreed that their governments would "jointly assist the people in any European liberated state or former Axis satellite state to form interim governmental authorities broadly representative of all the democratic elements...
...Emphasizing the ferocity of the fighting in the Pacific, Mansfield pointed out that while we "have in excess of 1,000,000 German prisoners in Allied hands," we have "less than 5,000 Japanese prisoners...
...Warren R. Magnuson, Washington Democrat, revealed last week that the Army plans to abandon the $139,000,000 Alcan Highway to Alaska...
...A special panel of 3 Federal judges, endowed with extraordinary authority to sit as the court of last resort, reversed a lower court decision last week and ruled that the Aluminum Company of America was a monopoly...
...Radescu was promptly fired as premier, and Peter Groza, a Communist sympathizer, was installed by Vishinsky as new head of the government...
...27, Russian Vice Commissar Vishinsky arrived in Bucharest and had an immediate audience with King Mihai...
...He followed this up with a statement designed to appeal to those who want the U. S. delegation to work as a complete, official unit, and those who hope that individual members will exercise independent judgment...
...Protest...
...Both costly blunders were under the supervision of Lt...
...Alcoa...
...War Food Administrator Marvin Jones and War Mobilizer James E. Byrnes established a special committee headed by Foreign Economic Administrator Leo T. Crowley to pass upon foreign shipments of food...
...As a result of a compromise agreed upon last week, the MVA bill will go to 3 committees, Commerce, Irrigation and Reclamation, and Agriculture, for 60 days each...
...London and Washington have "invoked" the Yalta agreement, but Moscow has shown no disposition to share control of Rumania with her Allies...
...The case has been in litigation for 12 years and the record of evidence and argument fills 58,000 pages...
...Magnuson said the 1,671-mile highway is useless because the Army picked a thoroughly unsuitable route...
...But the State and War Departments complained bitterly regarding the proposed reduction of shipments abroad, and the controversy went to the White House for settlement...
...A few days later the Government announced that the nation would have to get along with 12 per cent less meat in the next 3 months...
...An attempt by U. S. Communists to sweeten the pot being raised for a Wendell Willkie Memorial in New York led to a noisy row last week...
...Dispatches from Cologne reported that while the city has been about 95 per cent destroyed, the huge American-owned Ford Motor Company works, which has been making 3-ton trucks for the Wehrmacht, and the British-owned Courtald plant, making military textiles, were spared destruction...
Vol. 9 • March 1945 • No. 13
