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Show Merry-Co-Round By DREW PEARSON and ROBERT S. ALLEN WASHINGTON The inside story of Viscount Halifax' conversations with Hitler has been cabled here in official reports and makes another chapter in the long series of rebuffs the nazis have handed the British. Before telling it, however, the other chapters in tho story should be kept in mind. They make significant history. Chapter 1 tck place in April, 1935, when Hitler tore up tiic disarmament sections of the Versailles treaty by declaring universal conscription con-scription and an army limited by no one. This convinced the British it was time to get friendly with Germany, so Sir John Simon and Captain Anthrfny Eden flew to Berlin. Meanwhile Hitler had been persuaded by his advisers to receive the British visitors in a friendly manner, and to let them do the talking. talk-ing. (Hitler has the habit of lecturing all visitors for hours on end.) Hitler went even further, and as a special honor, sent his personal bodyguard of brown shirts to the airport. But when the two Englishmen English-men stepped from their plane, they walked by without even giving the guard a nod, let alone returning the nazi salute. This snub was immediately reported to der fuehrer, who hit the ceiling. So instead of receiving re-ceiving Simon and Eden as he had promised and letting them do the talking, he launched into one of his usual lectures lasting three hours, in which he preached page after page of "mein kampf." The two Britishers returned to London with not one conciliatory pebble turned in their search for friendship with Germany. Two Rebuffs Chapter 2 was written in the spring of 1936 after Hitler had sent his troops goose-stepping into the Rhineland, thus tearing up the last military vestige of Versailles. The British immediately sent a questionnaire to Berlin asking the nazis to state their future intentions. The note was an opener for a western west-ern European conference. But the nazis never answered it, have not answered it to this day. Once again the British were rebuffed. Chapter 3 was penned last summer, when the British invited Foreign Minister von Neurath to London to discuss problems affecting the two countries. The nazis kept the British in suspense for several weeks, then just before von Neurath was scheduled to arrive, telegraphed that he was indisposed. Halifax Visit Against the background of these three rebuffs re-buffs came Viscount Halifax's visit to Hitler. His trip, it should be noted, was opposed by the British foreign office, which maintained that the more olive branches held out to Germany, the more high-handed her attitude. Foreign Minister Eden, who held the same view, hurried hur-ried back from Brussels when he heard the cabi- -net had gone over his head. Premier Chamberlain, however, was adamant. ada-mant. Convinced that Britain must cooperate with Germany until the British rearmament program is finished, he spurred Halifax to Berlin. Ber-lin. The ensuing conference boiled down to three things, once again with der fuehrer doing the talking. Hitler demanded: 1. Colonies Not immediately (he recognized that the actual transfer of colonies would take two or three years), but he wanted an immediate promise that all Germany's pre-war colonies would be transferred. 2. Free hand in Austria. Should the Austrian Aus-trian people decide through plebiscite or otherwise other-wise that thetr future lay with Germany, Hitler wanted no interference from any western nation. I 3. Freedom for minorities in Czecho-Slo-vakia For restive Germans in the land of the Czechs, and also for the Slovaks, Hitler demanded de-manded complete freedom. In return for this he was willing to give Great Britain a non-aggression pact respecting the border of western Europe. Once again the British had turned the other cheek and once again they had been smacked. The British have now taken up the German proposal with the French, and the latter, diplomatically dip-lomatically hard-boiled and realistic, have replied re-plied to this effect: The only time the Germans and Italians have listened to us was at the Nvon piracy conference confer-ence when the British and French fleets were pooled in the Mediterranean. Immediately, submarine sub-marine piracy disappeared. The only thing the Germans and Italians understand un-derstand is force, and the fewer olive branches' they get the better. The ambitious undercover campaign of Gilbert Gil-bert E. Hvatt. postal clerk union official, to make himself assistant secretary of labor has come a cropper. Hyatt hired a publicity went who circularized cir-cularized labor leader to write the president urging Hyatt's appointment. John F. Gateless, president of the Massachusetts State Federation of Labor, has res ported to this request with a letter to his units advising that thev cold-shoulder Hyatt and endorse Robert Watt, secretary of the Massachusetts orcaniraion. Among alleged civil liberties infraction being secretly probed by the La Follette committee commit-tee is a charge that hostile political and business forces forcibly tried to suppress the Bellingham, Wash, PlaindealerPress, a labor newspaper. New Jersey' one-time Republican Senator W. Warren Barbour has told former senate colleagues col-leagues that he will make another try for a comeback come-back in next year's elections. Copyright, 1937, for The Telegram.) |