Show io History Written at Quebec jI Only Time Will dill Reveal It ItY f Y MIlitary Experts Satisfied With Results of Roosevelt Roosevelt Churchill Churchill Conference Political Angle an Enigma By BAUKHAGE Hens CrtS and Commentator Mfr tIr Baukhage has bas written to- to today today day s column from Quebec site sate of the Roosevelt Churchill confer conIer conference ence which he be covered for news newspapers newspapers papers affiliated with Western Newspaper Union Wl U U Service Union Trust Building Washington D C Now that some of the deep secrets whIch surrounded the most important tant conference so far held by the firm of o Roosevelt ChurchIll pur purveyors purveyors of victory are beginning to tobe tobe be revealed in ID act on one can lean back gaze at this remarkable ad adventure adventure venture m in history m in the making making- and wonder I cannot help recalling the eve of o Sunday August 22 nearly a month after the actual Lions bons for the conference began the purpose of which was then un tin guessed even by the people whose job was to do the spade work ork I sitting WIth Edgar Mowrer the well known newspaper man Mich Michael ael Barkway representative of the BrItish Broadcasting company and Wilson Woodside commentator for forthe forthe the Canadian Broadcasting system That mornIng the news had broken that Ambassador would not return to Washington It was learned that a VIrtually unknown member of the SovIet diplomatic corps who had been their dive In Ottawa was to replace the adroit Mr Stalin s ewert lieutenant In London Woodside had learned quite by accident that a little while before the representative of Tass the official cial Russian news agency who had bad been an active part In the press conferences had suddenly de departed departed parted from our severing midst the thelast thelast last shadowy link WIth the Kremlin A few days before just as a rumor was circulating that the conference had agreed upon the divIsIon of Germany into separate states as one of the post war steps the text of a broadcast from Moscow was printed In an American paper It IE was made by the so called Free Germany com coin and of course could not have vOIced any vIews contrary to the will of Stalin It urged that the German army be kept intact after the thear ar wart Stalin's Absence Of course Stalin s absence from the conference had been wIdely dis discussed cussed In Quebec To say the least we were four very confused mem members hers bers of press and rad o 0 and I think our feelings were ere t typical vo of us had cov covered ed international confer conferences encl's before Was Russia running a on show to the one staged on the heights of America s tar tarp The shudder we shuddered and whIch spread out over the telegraph lines and airwaves bounced back to the walls of the Citadel where the top men were conferring At an eight o 0 clock conference that eve evenIng pres dent al secretary Ste Stephen Stephen phen Early Eary announced that the re recall recall call of had been to the conferees long before it hap happened happened and had no influence or of ef effect feet on the conference Meanwhile all sorts of speculation about the effect of the absence of the Russians the ominous empty chair bad been pouring out of Que- Que Quebec Quebec bec per aps comforting if not aid aidIng aiding Ing the enemy and probably making no one happy even Stalin Could this and the other unfortunate unfortunate nate things whIch were written have been avoided were ere we In spite of ourselves ev evil muses I said to one of the willing but rather futile and frustrated men who were supposed to proVIde us with facts if we could have just had a little gUidance wouldn t it have been better He admitted that was true but he added When an Inform at on man asks the higher ups for Inform information a tion they are so ab afraid they will say more than they ought to that we get nothIng More than press radio and news photographers were here We filled to bursting the little old Clar Clarendon Clarendon endon hotel WIth Its narrow corni dors its lobby turned into a tele telegraph telegraph graph office and Its modest bed bedrooms bedrooms rooms made Into press room and broadcasting studios Two blocks away was the spacIous Chateau Frontenac a Normandie palace with bedrooms where some mIll tary and technical experts were irn Mounted police tough British marines and heft hefty Cn Ca radian veterans of Dieppe guarded its portals The Inmates like us were virtually incommunicado When hen they dared take a one day days s srn rn riser er trip one officer said It was to prevent an outbreak of claustro claustrophobia claustrophobia phobia InvISIble Ink There IS much we did not know when we e arrIved There i more we west westill st still l do not know of what occurred after the conferees met History I was written but It was wrItten m in invIsible mk ink Now some things can be told In Inthe the first place the event was per perhaps perhaps haps purposely perhaps unwitting unwittingly ly played down m in Washington m in advance Before I left the capital capitalI I was assured the conference would probably end about the a week before It did I had hoped for a qu et half week s vacation But no sooner had I arrived on the Sunday preceding Roosevelt s ar arrIval arrival rIval the next Tuesday than I saw we weere were ere all wrong I felt sure some something thing had happened when the President dent and the prime minister had theIr preliminary talk at Hyde Park SomethIng d d for I am sure there had been no intention of producing the parade of cabinet officers and other brass hats who kept dropping In from the skies and elsewhere one after another But I learned that the length of the conference was planned to a t by the President long before it began He knew It would last precisely as long as It dId for he timed his Ottawa trip m in advance so he would be back m in Washington on August 26 He knew what was coming and that IS why he sl off for tha that t fishing trIp which was just that and nothing more ahead of the conference it wa a health measure pure and sun sin pIe plc Churchill and his midnight CI CIgars cigars gars are something to prepare for forthe forthe the wee sma hours are the big mo- mo moments moments ments for thiS human dynamo Then the something yet to be revealed happened Churchill hailed his foreign minister from London and With hIm came not only matron matlon Minister Bracken who played no part as an informer but nevertheless was of cabinet rank but also the permanent head of the British foreign office S r Alexander Aexander Cadogan with Ith the accent on the dog pronounced though Secretary Early could ne net er quite master It it dug Of course Hull had to appear to match Eden then another cabinet member Secretary of War Stimson to match Bracken and then Secre Secretary tarp tary of the Navy Knox for good measure perhaps to give tude to the talk that the Pac Pacific Jc was not being neglected Then lust Just be before before fore Stalin made public his gesture of wIthdrawal recalling T V Soong Chinese foreign mm s ster ster ter more or less permanently In Installed installed stalled In Washington for some t me past appeared Then there was the excuse that a b g drive on Burma was In the wind The Big Drive the press had blown very hot and then very cold on an immediate on of Europe from Britain I don t know whether the reports that the big smash was vas com coin coining mg ing was a part of the Allied war comI of I nerves but I am sure that the folks who threw cold water on it were sincere In their bel of ef It lust Just couldn t I be started before spring I sat With a general whom I have know known n for a long time a real soldier In World War I as well vell as In this one Here s what he had to say We haven t got the men yet We must drop bombs upon bombs There is a lot more softening up to do ThIS man was on the not on the inside I am sure that I the technical experts the officers officers- and we had them all probably the greatest on of military brains and real exper ence too ever I assembled anywhere they were sure They were certain And when the conference was over they were satisfied As to the political side that is an enigma and will be one oneas oneas as long as Russia remains one And th that t she Is |