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Show GENERAL HUGH S. JOHNSON Jour: Washington, D. C. LESSON FOR V. S. Most of the lessons of the war are too obscure to learn. The fall of France can't be explained. Gossip filtering back indicates a stench to heaven. , We are already officially blamed for not doing something that we were somehow supposed to be obliged to do. Who obligated us? Mr Bullitt did say openly that we wouldn't be in it at the beginning but would be in the end. The end came too soon for France. If she relied on Mr. Bullitt, she missed the ( bus. The lesson from France is not clear enough to learn but there is one lesson from the whole bloody mess that simply, shrieks. No nation na-tion can rely on any other and certainly cer-tainly not we on the British navy, or Latin America, or on anything but our own strength. France created the "cordon sani-taire" sani-taire" the ring of little nations like Poland, Czechoslovakia and Rumania, Ruma-nia, to keep Germany captive. She relied on them and they on her. She relied on the British navy. Britain relied on the French army. When Hitler began to show strength, France wanted to stop him. Britain wouldn't play. When Mussolini hi- jacked Ethiopia, Britain wanted to stop him. France wouldn't play. Both let Hitler and Mussolini build up the strength to ravage the French and British reliance on little nations in the "cordon sanitaire" and their reliance on Britain and France. One by one they fell. Britain and France were helpless or unwilling to stop it. They are responsible for the threat to us today because, finally, came the case of Poland. Britain and France at last were drowsily preparing. But neither was remotely ready. Nevertheless they shoved Poland into the guns. The case was weak. Danzig was a German Ger-man city. The Polish corridor was a monstrosity. Furthermore, worst of all. Hitler wanted no war in the west, he was headed east and southeast. v France, under British pressure, joined in declaring war when Hitler marched. It was one of the greatest and most stupid blunders in history if not the very greatest. It forced Hitler to turn to the west. The result re-sult already has been the destruction destruc-tion of six small neutral nations and the French empire. It terribly terri-bly threatens the British empire. It threatens us. Recriminations have already begun. be-gun. We hear that France didn't want to go to war and Britain forced her that the French government didn't want to abandon the defensive and plunge into the disastrous Belgian Bel-gian pocket that Britain forced it and didn't support it. The facts aren't clear. But the blunders are. They shout their lessons to us. Don't start anything you can't finish. Get fully ready before you start slapping down ears. Don't rely on anybody but yourself. Don't push other nations na-tions into warlike positions to defend de-fend yourself. In this blundering diversion of Hitler to our direction when he might have gone eastward to wear himself out in battle with the bear of Russia, we are not blameless We supported and encouraged it morally. moral-ly. Part of the argument to bring France in was that only if she uZ T W3 CUld She be sufficiently Zt i, T IH)bUiZed f0F War' and ttat a she did get in she would Exaectymth ready afterward thi , y I ' 15 being said to us in wa"? t0day- There anotn Step by muddled step we have fni owed blundering European wT p ! ices We are still following them Our two new war cabinet members believe in doing that tw y were chosen. Ourg new and compe before it is too late. dacrsll'P- WAXTED :APEODDCTIONMAN fndustr a u:,i .. ce" iXe":nende-rtrry-but necessary, but th suPP''ors are fey don't rl VsVt " wptable production ,o , 1 SC" that all the ,,,? 0 rcSulatcd the assembly iPnpate Parts c to ah oth del verier0PCr,y timcd to soiled worktTrtSsth"tdWith n I doubt if we are d not f,t-attention f,t-attention to elthc olo ZT enoueh oiples. There is to " ",ese Pri-about Pri-about billions Itttc0ndr""Ch ballyhoo demand of the peoZ m ,he effectiveness. P fr driv nd This column becan i i ,. ago that we ctllTmST but not in his prese,7t nudsc"-mg nudsc"-mg on and clearing ,jb of P;'- What this situation ralS-6reat ralS-6reat production r " nC0(,s best we have 7 nd Di" Is ft contracts, but uh??y bc Hood luck. That has no U's Jt Wo. There "I bpcn h' life', expert in contracting n,cn ""ore What he should bf'ri y design and , la ntti.,K neediest, best Zd ' 1,,sl'"e the cal Production. most ill. |