THE WAR IN REVIEW
THE WAR IN REVIEW THIS was the week of rumors—rumors that Japan was on the verge of capitulating, that Joe Stalin had turned up at Potsdam with Japanese peace overtures, that the United States was...
...coupled with an offer to the Nipponese to provide them the benefits of the Atlantic Charter, was widely hailed this week as a major development in American strategy...
...The tremendous power of this softening-up process led Domei, the official Japanese news agency, to broadcast warning that landings on both China and Japan were being planned by American strategists for the immediate future...
...Spain's Dictator Francisco Franco announced his intention to restore the monarchy—clearly a move designed to strengthen his grip—while Belgium announced a national referendum to determine whether King Leopold III should return to the throne...
...We have conclusively proven that a free people can successfully look after the affairs of the world...
...Lack of specific American policies is hampering U. S. operations all through Germany and making a shambles of American reputation for efficiency...
...E. M. Zachar-ias, a Japanese-speaking U. S. naval officer broadcasting as the "official spokesman" of the U. S. Government, was dismissed, however, by OWI Chief Elmer Davis as having no special significance at all...
...A dispatch to the New York Times from Sam Pope Brewer in Yugoslavia reports that Yugoslavs are afraid to "mix with Americans and Britons because the government regards us as having 'Fascist' tendencies...
...American military authorities have weeded out some 70,000 Nazi leaders in Germany, but don't know what to do with them...
...Premier Achilles van Acker charged that the King had trafficked with Adolf Hitler over the future of Belgium...
...The London Mirror said editorially: "We avsk for the conference agenda...
...This address, by Capt...
...Far more significant by all odds was a speech delivered earlier in the week by President Truman at the formal raising of the American flag over Berlin...
...America wants no material gain of any kind out of the war, he said in a speech which could well have been pointed not only at the Messrs...
...The Belgian Chamber of Deputies, which voted a fortnight ago to "freeze" King Leopold in exile, haa now decided to let the people decide the fate of the King, who has refused to abdicate...
...Unhappy Poland is again much in the news...
...We are offered the delegates' menu...
...Meanwhile, the conference of the Big 3 at Potsdam rattled through its second week of secrecy...
...Franco sought to buttress his position by restoring the monarchy and picturing Spain as "a Catholic state" bent on returning to the "Christian democracy" of the 16th and 17th Centuries, rather than to the liberal democratic ideals that sprang from the French Revolution of the late 18th Century...
...We want peace and prosperity for the world as a whole...
...Obviously aware of the fact that he is in a tight spot as a result of his Axis connections...
...Is this the new diplomacy...
...A sharp decline in Communist Party popularity in Austria was reported in Paris last week by Jean Lambert, Paris representative of the Austrian Committee of Liberation...
...We are not fighting for conquest...
...Let us not forget that we are fighting for peace and for the welfare of mankind...
...That is what we propose to do," Mr...
...Arthur Vandenberg, Michigan Republican, disclosed last week that he had received assurances from the State Department that the U. S. will insist on equal participation in any Great Power supervision of the proposed elections in Poland...
...THE WAR IN REVIEW THIS was the week of rumors—rumors that Japan was on the verge of capitulating, that Joe Stalin had turned up at Potsdam with Japanese peace overtures, that the United States was on the verge of redefining its aims in the Pacific, and that Soviet Russia, aware that the collapse of Japan might come soon, was poised to plunge into the war in order to stake her claim for huge slices of territory in Asia...
...Secret diplomacy continued to annoy and anger the freedom-loving people of the world, but correspondents cabled from Berlin that Russian insistence was keeping the deliberations from the eyes of the people...
...Lambert said that during a period of 5 weeks no milk at all reached Vienna, and 50 per cent of the new-born babies died...
...The Russians hare been too grasping of food and too insistent on stripping their zone in Austria of all industrial equipment for shipment to Russia...
...and the Laborite Daily Herald said that "while over 50 British and American reporters were kept muzzled by the most rigorous censorship ever imposed, the Moscow radio broke the news of the conference opening...
...It consists of choice steaks, strawberries—big and juicy—whisky, gin, bourbon, vodka...
...Carrier planes of the Navy under Admiral Nimitz and land-based bombers under Gen...
...The London Daily Mail said that "secrecy has gone to preposterous lengths . . . where security is not involved...
...These rumors—and that was all they were for the moment—were fortified by the incredible lack of resistance encountered by American ships and planes as they struck smashing new blows against Japanese cities...
...if we can put this tremendous machine of ours, which has made this victory possible, to work for peace, we can look forward to the greatest age in the history of mankind...
...The American press was largely silent regarding the strict barrier of secrecy, but British dailies roared- their denunciation almost daily...
...Yugoslavs are convinced that war between Russia and the Anglo-American Allies is imminent, "and are incredulous when told we consider such a war neither necessary nor desirable," Brewer notes...
...EUROPEAN MERRY-GO-ROUND The goings and comings of kings dominated much of the non-Potsdam news in Europe this week...
...Truman said...
...Stalin and Churchill, whose imperial policies are quite the reverse, but at the people of Japan who may have been wondering if we intend to carve up their country for our own enrichment...
...American warships moved to within 5 miles of the Japanese shore and sent thousands of tons of shells crashing into Nipponese installations with only a negligible response...
...Yet inspired U. S. comment in Potsdam interpreted the speech as a warning to Japan to quit now or face the Russians soon too...
...Vandenberg had asserted in his letter to the State Department that the settlement of the Polish question thus far "is inadequate and unconvincing to millions of our citizens...
...Mac-Arthur wrecked Japanese shipping, factories, and civilian establishments...
...No Spoils For America A broadcast to the Japanese people to "give up now or else...
...We want to see the time come when we can do the things in peace that we have been able to do in war...
...There is not one piece of territory or one thing of a monetary nature that we want out of this war...
Vol. 9 • July 1945 • No. 31
