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Show I 1 The European Beat: If you want to see the American foreign correspondents in Europe, you'll find them in the Savoy Grill in London, at 21 Rue de Berri in Paris, the American Press club in Berlin, the Park hotel in Frankfurt, the Hotel de la Paix in Geneva, the Grand Bre-tagne Bre-tagne in Athens and the Stampa Es-tera Es-tera in Rome. If you stand close enough to their elbows, the chances are they'll be talking about: The preparations of the Swiss general staff for a Russian airborne attack In the dead of winter. It may never come, but every Swiss male over 16 has an army-issue rifle within with-in reach. . . . The way General Clay Is working himself into an early grave at his desk before eight In the morning until midnight, when he goes home with a sheaf of papers in his briefcase. He not only administers U. S. policy in Germany, he's got to make it up as he goes along. Washington gives him as much guidance as a seeing-eye dog with cataracts and a broken leg. The growing exhaustion of our air force pilots who've been flying fly-ing the Berlin route since June 21. They see Yaks in their sleep as well as in the air. . . . Lt. Gen. Curtis LeMay, the "lift" commander, who made his reputation repu-tation by never asking his pilots to do anything he wouldn't do himself. Every few days he walks out to "the circle" like any second louie and flies a freight plane to Berlin just to see for himself how the thing is working. The anti-Semitism of Ernest Bev-ln, Bev-ln, whose personal hate is the best known political fact in London. Some of his best friends call him a "guttersnipe "gut-tersnipe anti-Semite" as opposed, lt is presumed, to the more gentlemanly gentle-manly species. . . . The confidential Labor party report that if a general election took place today, Attlee would be returned by a margin of less than 25 seats in the Commons, which makes the next election (scheduled for 1950) an even money proposition. The "de facto" appointment of Montgomery as commander-in-chief (in addition to Britain's army) of the French, Belgian and Dutch armies. No appointment was necessary; they merely accept his military leadership as the world automatically accepted FDR's diplomatic leadership. . . . The Duchess of Kent's private crush on Danny Kaye. (My word, so unregal!) The Vatican's intelligence system, sys-tem, which has superseded the British Brit-ish as the most effective in Europe. No other chancellery knows as much about what's going on inside Russia. Rus-sia. . . . Marshal Tito's sudden generosity gen-erosity with visas for American correspondents cor-respondents to work out of Belgrade. He feels safer with America's free press looking on just in case the Russians start a roughhouse inside the country. Lucky Luciano's quick and frequent round trips between Rome and Naples, apparently on urgent business but nobody knows what business and he isn't telling. . . . Rome's Excelsior hotel which looks like a branch office of the 20th Century-Fox administration building except that the Hollywood place hasn't Orson Welles standing out in front like a cigar store Indian. . . . Jack Warner's heavy losses in the European casinos during August ninety thousand bux, they say, one night. (Only the brave chemin de fer, said R. E. Sherwood. Or was it Woollcott?) The Norman Mailer best-seller, "The Naked and the Dead," which has the former war correspondents green with envy. The trained seals saw it all but left it to a GI to write the masterpiece. . . . The offhours literary activity of the American correspondents in Italy (everybody is writing a novel) since Lionel Shapiro (ex-CBS man in Rome) struck Hollywood gold with two books In a row. . . . The modesty of Homer Bigart who, despite the fact that he regularly scoops the pants off every foreign correspondent, Is the most beloved guy in the business. busi-ness. . . . The talented toughness of Wes Gallagher, AP's Berlin chief, who has worn the same scowl practically prac-tically since birth. His nickname: Laughing Boy. Confirmation from high Czech sources (now in the American zone) of the details of Masaryk's death. Trapped by Gottwald's gestapo as he was about to leave his office for a flight to freedom he shot four of the secret cops before backing out of the window to his death. . . . The flood of French big business money flowing into DeGaulle's treasury because it is now a 1-10 bet that he'll be the leader (not the premier) of France. . . . The Russian drunk (a colonel) at a party In Vienna, who mumbled: "Nobody can afford a war except the Soviet Union. What have we got to lose?" The ex-German sergeant, just returned re-turned to Frankfurt from three years as a Soviet war prisoner who estimates esti-mates that 1 5 per cent of the men in bis outfit have become Communists. |