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Show WEEKLY MEWS ANALYSIS By Edward C. Wayne Methods of Providing Aid to Russia Before Nazis Win Complete Victory Is Big Problem for U. S. and Britain; Japanese Move Again in Indo-China (EDITOR'S NOTE When opinions are expressed in these eolumns, thej are those of the newa analyst and not necessarily of this newspaper.) 'Released by Western Newspaper Union 1 th l" vr I IIS 0 P W SS ).. ii - '-,; J Disconsolate Russian prisoners are shown marching through an unnamed un-named town on their way to a prison camp behind the German lines, reads the caption accompanying this picture from Berlin. The caption further states that this is a part of the huge bag of prisoners taken on the far-flung far-flung Russian front. RUSSIANS: Deep Trouble As the Nazi blitz moved into high gear on the central and south fronts of the great battle of the east front, the question began to be seriously asked whether Russia, like France, Greece and so many other nations, was going to be forced out of the war as a combatant, wilting before the heat and ferocity of the Nazi war machine. Indeed, when the German spearheads spear-heads had been announced 65 miles away from Moscow, the stories of peace and truce offers began to come over the cables, and one of them even declared that Stalin was considering an armistice. However, these rumors were promptly denied from Berlin, Italy, London and Moscow, the Axis denials de-nials stating that objectives were far from being reached, and London and Moscow sources declaring the Russians were still able to fight. Be that as it may, it was obvious that the crisis was being reached, and that once again the great manpower man-power of Russia must decide if it were better to give in to the Nazi, or to battle it out as the Chinese did against the Japs. Few believed that Germany or any group of European powers could finally defeat Russia, with the backing back-ing of England and the United States, provided Russia were willing to fight the sort of rear-guard action ac-tion that China used with such success. suc-cess. But Whether the willingness was there, or the philosophical temperament tempera-ment needed for such a defense was a question. Harriman, American envoy to the U. S. mission to Moscow, answered it this way: "I believe the leaders of Russia will lead the people to fight on." Beaverbrook felt the same way. NAVY: Takes Prisoners The United States came its closest to actual participation in the war when the navy announced that it had taken prisoner about 20 "Nazis," whether actual German citizens or Norwegians under German Ger-man domination was not immediately immediate-ly clear. The American naval patrol, including in-cluding Iceland and Greenland in its orbit, was searching the coastline of the latter island for an alleged German submarine base when it came upon a small Norwegian vessel. ves-sel. The ship was stopped, questions were put to its crew and the vessel was thoroughly searched. Not only did the navy announce that it was determined that the men were Nazi agents under the direction of the Gestapo, but the questioning led to the finding of a radio station set up on the mainland of Greenland. This station, apparently, was being set up by the Germans, the report had stated, for the purpose of broadcasting broad-casting weather information to the Nazis. The purpose might have been for the flights of planes that had been "strafing" shipping in the north Atlantic; At-lantic; it might have been for guidance guid-ance of submarines; it might have been to give locations of lease-lend ships to surface raiders, planes or U-boats. At all events ship, crew and radio station were all taken over by the navy, which announced that all were on their way to the United States. It had been the first move of this type since President Roosevelt had issued the "shoot on sight" order. JAPAN: Moves Again Considerable alarm about the Pacific situation was caused when Tokyo made another move associated associat-ed with her expansion into Indo MATERIAL AID: But Hoiv? The Soviet crisis left the lease-lend lease-lend ideas of Britain and this country coun-try very much "out on a limb." That both countries were dispatching dispatch-ing aid was apparent. But how much and how long were difficult problems. prob-lems. "Barkis was willin'," but the Iranian Ira-nian railway from the head of the Persian gulf to the shores of the ' Caspian sea, thence into boats and ' again to Russian railways and roads in the Caucasus seemed the only I practicable route. : Britain had material to give and was giving it not only planes but . squadrons and pilots , and gunners. Much of this was of the heavier types which could be flown direct to the scene of service, put into action ac-tion and, if surviving an eventual Russian defeat, presumably could be saved. But much of it, such as tanks and guns, had to be shipped in. The British took the attitude that they . were not only willing to give of their own store, but of the American lease-lend store. They said, in effect: ef-fect: "We get it from the United States this way, and we shall do for Russia what the United States is doing for us." Britain felt that the Americans should give what they could, but the task they wanted this country to take over, the keeping of Soviet's "Burma road" open seemed a task that it was a little dubious how we could accomplish. China. The Japanese demanded control of the Indo Chinese railway system. They also had demanded the right to control customs collections and postal censorship. At the same time the Japanese demanded the arsenal at Saigon, and this was considered highly significant sig-nificant because at this arsenal the French had set up what was regarded re-garded as the most powerful radio direction-finding outfits in the Orient. The Japanese armed forces in Indo China were continuing their maneuvers along the Thailand frontier, fron-tier, back of which, and in Malaya, there were heavy concentrations of British troops. The Saigon moves, the British said, were being closely watched, because of the likelihood that if any plane attacks were to be .made against Singapore or Manila, Saigon would be the proper hopping-off spot. VIERECK: Revelations What many believed to be true, that Nazi agents in the United States were using the non-interventionists, the isolationists and other enemies of the President's foreign policy for their own ends was declared de-clared to be a fact by George Sylvester Syl-vester Viereck, author, poet and registered Nazi agent. Viereck was being tried in Washington Wash-ington on charges that he had not told the state department the whole story about his activities. It was perhaps a joke, but at all LEASE-LEND: Second Edition Everyone had expected the second sec-ond lease-lend bill of six billions ot dollars to pass the house, but the vote, 328-67, was considerable of a surprise to the anti-interventionists, who had made part of the fight a battle against aid to Russia. The smashing victory for the proponents pro-ponents of the President's lease lend policy, and for implementing it with a huge sum was repeated in the defeat de-feat of the no-aid-to-Russia amendment. amend-ment. This was knocked off handily by a vote of 161-27. The first lease-lend bill had been passed 336-55. Most opponents of the administration held that the country had made known its sentiments at the time of the passage of the first bill. They gained only 12 votes in the second "go-around." It was being freely predicted that there would be a third request from the White House for more billions next March. Representative liich oflcred the amendment which would have barred Russia, and which went down on a counted vole. i events a sensation when, at the outset out-set of his trial, he was asked to "name his associates" and he listed list-ed two assistants of Secretary Hull, Joseph Davies, former ambassador to Russia, and William Phillips, now ambassador to Rome. The nub of the case against Viereck was that he listed his activities activ-ities only as an employee of the German Ger-man library of information; as correspondent cor-respondent for a Munich newspaper. The library had been closed down by the government for alleged improper im-proper activities. The prosecution had maintained that Viereck failed to mention his connection with Flanders Hall, Inc., book publishers, or the Make Europe Pay War Debts committee. The committee charged that Viereck had financed the latter. Viereck had admitted that he had "used" isolationists and their organizations, organ-izations, but denied it was improper. improp-er. There were many who believed that many non - interventionist groups were honest enough in their intenlions but that they were being "used" by Nazi agents. Viereck seamed to have confirmed this. |
