THE WEEK IN REVIEW
THE WEEK IN REVIEW THE nation's foreign policy—or lack of one, past and present—dominated the news of the week as leading officials warned that we are poised on the road to World War III, while a...
...24 and Dec...
...The President's Formula President Truman's Labor-Management Conference ended in failure last weekend, and three days afterward the President sent a special message to Congress asking for authority to establish fact-finding boards for solving labor disputes in "important, nationwide industries...
...Miles testified that he thought Short's reply to a warning from Washington nine days before Pearl Harbor was "totally inadequate," but he could not say why nobody in Washington failed to follow through...
...The issue is power-sheer, naked, and unadulterated power," "We Are Fooling Ourselves" Denouncing the demand for blind cooperation by America in the United Nations Organization, Wheeler said : "The truth is that for the second time in one generation America has been called upon to pull chestnuts of an ancient rivalry out of the holocaust of war...
...Martin's resolution was introduced months ago, but has continued to gather dust while the House Committee proceeded with extensive hearings on the compulsory military training bill...
...Pearl Harbor Disclosures Warnings of World War III tended last week to crowd from front pages testimony before the Joint Congressional Committee investigating the Pearl Harbor disaster on how we were plunged into World War II...
...And for the second time in one generation not one of our Allies has wanted any traffic with American principles, ideals, or moral values, whether for themselves or for the miserable people who by our stupidity have been herded under their hegemony...
...THE WEEK IN REVIEW THE nation's foreign policy—or lack of one, past and present—dominated the news of the week as leading officials warned that we are poised on the road to World War III, while a special committee of Congress struggled to learn how we got into World War II...
...A war with Russia would mean suicide for both nations and no one—individual or nation—in his or her right mind contemplates suicide deliberately...
...Strange as it may seem, the great threat and crisis confronting the world and western civilization itself is not yet the bogey of Communism...
...There is a third world war in the making...
...USS Pneumonia...
...Hundreds of Germans and other military internees in Sweden attempted mass suicide last week as they awaited early deportation to Soviet-occupied areas of Europe...
...1. Housing...
...State Department diplomats, he charged, have been working behind his back wrecking American foreign policy in China...
...We had no part in shaping conditions that brought about these two wars...
...They were part of a group of 1,000 which protested against shipping in the USS Procyon, an un-heated vessel which they dubbed the USS Pneumonia...
...The atomic bomb, he said, is "God-awful," and the road to peace is "rough and tough...
...Panic action, appeasement, and defeatism must certainly end in disaster...
...Miles admitted under questioning that the Army had failed to warn Gen...
...We finished the war in the Far East, furnishing Lend-Lease supply and using all our reputation to undermine democracy and bolster imperialism and communism...
...I still favor democracy and free enterprise...
...Three hundred angry veterans of the Pacific war were stranded in Portland, Ore., last week when they refused to be shipped "like sardines" from Portland to San Francisco in a small cargo vessel...
...Prediction...
...This policy was pursued, Miles said, in order to keep the Japanese from knowing that we had broken their most secret code...
...Bush said...
...Between Two Imperialisms Still another warning came last week from Maj...
...Sen...
...Yamashita asserted in a radio interview this week that he had expected his outnumbered Japanese forces to be annihilated in the battle for Singapore and that he was surprised when British Gen...
...Only nine Washington officials, including the late President Roosevelt and his top aides, were allowed to know of intercepted Japanese messages, and all information was withheld from Maj...
...Joseph W. Martin, House Republican Leader, demanded this week that the House Military Affairs Committee order public hearings on his resolution calling upon the U. S. Government to make every effort to bring about an international agreement "that would eliminate the necessity of compulsory military service anywhere in the world...
...The President called for "cooling-off" and fact-finding machinery similar to that provided for in the Railway Labor Act, but he made it clear that this procedure would be invoked only in such industries as steel, automobiles, oil, aviation, mining, utilities, and communications, and not for "small industries or small local disputes in large industries...
...A senior medical officer had condemned the holds of the ship, in which the veterans were ordered to travel, as "unsanitary and cold...
...The astonishing feature of our foreign policy is the wide discrepancy between our announced policies and our conduct on international relations...
...Suicides...
...Burton K. Wheeler, Montana Democrat, in his first major address on foreign policy in many months, lashed out at current American practice of financing "war-breeding imperialisms" and warned that the U. S., by blind support of Russian and British imperialisms, is heading the world to another and more terrible world war that might destroy civilization...
...The Japanese had from 42,000 to 50,000 troops, he said, while the British were entrenched with about 100,000 men, but were scared out...
...In diplomacy today we are permitting ourselves to be sucked into a power bloc on the side of colonial imperialism against communist imperialism...
...I am glad I did not have to make the decision," Dr...
...Under the procedure outlined by Mr...
...Short that Japanese representatives in Washington and elsewhere were destroying their codes and secret papers several days before Dec...
...Names And Notes In The News Decision...
...The board would have full power to subpoena individuals and records...
...I expected British guns to wipe us Out to the last man," he said...
...None was translated, however, until after hostilities began, ostensibly for lack of personnel...
...Johnson urged the U. S. to retain atomic bomb secrets, contending that America could outlaw wars of aggression "with vision and guts and plenty of atomic bombs, ultra-modern planes, and strategically located air bases...
...Russia will be able to produce an atomic bomb in three years, and when she starts, she may be able to outstrip the U. S. because of her superior resources, Dr...
...The number one job for America and for Russia today is to avoid at all costs an American-Russian war...
...R. J. Thomas, president of the CIO's United Automobile Workers, this week called on President Truman to take prompt action to relieve the "catastrophic housing shortage...
...It would report to the President within 20 days, unless both sides agreed to an extension with Presidential approval...
...Irving Langmuir, associate director of research for General Electric, predicted last week...
...In the higher echelon of our policy-making officials, American objectives were nearly always clearly defined," Hurley said...
...President Truman said he was appointing such boards on his own authority, without waiting for Congress to act, to deal with the General Motors-United Automobile Workers dispute, which is now in the strike stage, and the steel industry controversy which is nearing a showdown...
...The Navy had sent such a message to its commanders on Dec...
...The disputants would not be legally bound to accept the findings or follow the recommendations, but, the President said, "the general public w#uld know all the facts...
...28, and had notified Washington that the Hawaiian area was "alerted to prevent sabotage...
...Incompetents...
...Husband E. Kimmel, commanding officers at Pearl Harbor at the time...
...The President asked the UAW members to "return to work immediately...
...Controversy over present policy was touched off in the Senate by debate over legislation to empower the American delegate to the United Nations Security Council to commit American troops to military action without the consent of Congress...
...Walter Short and Adm...
...The weakness of American foreign policy has backed us into two world wars...
...More than 600 employes of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration have been fired for incompetence during the past few months, UNRRA officials disclosed last week...
...Our associates in the war at that time gave eloquent lip service to the principles of democracy...
...3, 1941, but the message contained no instructions for the fleet commanders to give the Army commanders the information...
...Truman, in cases where collective bargaining has broken down and all other Government efforts fail, the dispute would be certified by the Secretary of Labor to the President...
...Japan's Gen...
...While the board was deliberating, it would be unlawful to call a strike or lockout, or to make any changes in pay, hours, or working conditions...
...Instead of backing democracy and unity, they "sided with the Communist armed party and the imperialistic bloc of nations whose policy it was to keep China divided against itself...
...The Navy refused to permit volunteer motorists to drive the men to San Francisco...
...Russia knows that we are waving an empty pistol by our conscription prattle and their contempt for us must grow with each passing hour...
...Another warning came from Sen...
...Thomas urged the Government to mobilize every facility at its disposal, including unused military and naval establishments, to meet the housing crisis...
...I am opposed to both...
...Short had received a general warning on Nov...
...Now we are faced with a rivalry between British and Russian imperialism that has its roots deep in the distant past...
...Commentator...
...For instance, we began the war with the principles of the Atlantic Charter and democracy as our goal...
...Patrick J. Hurley, long a trusted trouble- shooter of the late President Roosevelt, who resigned his post as ambassador to China, to be promptly replaced by Gen...
...Failure of the Army to pay serious attention to these intercepted Japanese messages was a regrettable error in view of what happened, Miles conceded, but he thought it was "perfectly normal" for the Japanese to be acquiring such information at that time...
...Asserting that "a combination of suspicion, bluff, and appeasement brought on war with Japan," Johnson added: "Today we are trying to bluff Russia with conscription of 'teen-aged boys, but we are only fooling ourselves...
...Hurley bitterly assailed the diplomacy of career diplomats in the State Department and warned that a third world war was "in the making...
...Martin said he firmly believed "this effort should be made before we fasten compulsory military service in peacetime upon the young men of the U. S. Certainly the great rewards which would result from the agreement are worth the effort...
...Sherman Miles, chief of Army Intelligence in 1941, who revealed that between Nov...
...8 eight Japanese messages were intercepted which might have suggested Hawaii as a point of attack...
...He said that families of more than 2,000,000 war veterans are living in "doubled-up" quarters...
...The workers were to meet late this week to vote on the White House request...
...The latter would be empowered to appoint within five days a factfinding board...
...Principal witness during the past week was Maj...
...George C. Marshall, who resigned recently as Army Chief of Staff...
...Scare...
...Sir Percival surrendered that empire bastion early in the war...
...The only aggressors today are "our beloved and noble peace-loving Allies," the Montanan pointed out as he struck out at British and Soviet grabs of power and territory and their peace-threatening competition for still more spoils...
...7,1941...
...Edwin Johnson, Colorado Democrat, who told the Senate that the U. S. "is drifting toward war with Russia with certainty and speed...
...New York's fiery Fiorello La Guar-dia will become a radio commentator over a coast-to-coast network when he retires from his post as Mayor of New York Jan...
...There was some question, he said, because it was known that many civilians would be killed...
...Vannevar Bush, who headed the war work of American scientific laboratories, told a Senate committee this week that it was the late President Roosevelt who made the decision to use the atomic bomb and fearsome new incendiaries against Japan in order to destroy her industry...
...Conscription...
Vol. 9 • December 1945 • No. 49
