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Show j WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS EIuss Reject 0. N. Berlin Proposal; Stalin Hits Three Western Powers As Attempting to Start a Flew War ' By Bill Schoentgen, WNU Stafi Writer (EDITOR'S NOTE: When opinions are expressed in these columns, they are -those of Western Newspaper Union's news analysts and not necessarily of this newspaper.) TREATY: On the Way? In view of the existing physical and ideological rift which has divided di-vided the world into two opposing battalions, it has come to seem almost inevitable that the western bloc sooner or later would devise some kind of formal military treaty for the mutual protection of the nations concerned. AND A few days before the election elec-tion word began to creep out from among "high American sources" that a military treaty was on the way. The report was that drafting was scheduled to begin soon of an agreement pledging full aid to the five-nation Brussels alliance of western Europe. Results of the U. S. election were in no way supposed sup-posed to affect the plan, since both major parties had committed themselves in principle to backing the Brussels alliance. SUCH AN alliance supposedly will link the United States and Canada in formal treaty relationships relation-ships with Britain, France, Belgium, Bel-gium, Holland and Luxembourg. From a behind-the-scenes standpoint, stand-point, this will not be a new move. It is highly probable, indeed, that the broad outlines of a north Atlantic At-lantic pact with some details sketched in has been in existence DIFFERENT COAL STRIKE . . . French troops in battle array march Into the Villiers mine In the St. Etienne area of France as the government govern-ment seized strike-bonnd coal mines throughout northern France. Vicious rioting and assorted civil battles preceded the government's action in taking over the mines. REJECTION: U. N. ProDosal lifted the Soviet blockade and ended the crisis. HE CHARGED that the western powers fear "most of all" to reach any agreement with the Soviet Union. "What they want is not agreement agree-ment and cooperation, but talk about agreement and cooperation, coopera-tion, so as to put the blame on the U. S. S. R. by preventing agreement, agree-ment, and to prove' that cooperation coopera-tion is impossible." Stalin's statement obviously was issued as a high-powered propaganda propa-ganda stroke a move the Russians Rus-sians undoubtedly hoped would tip the Berlin scales in their favor. Headliners Bmz. ND NOW, Srr BiT'Z' " for some time. The alliance is expected to commit com-mit the U. S. and Canada to: 1. BUILD up air, land and sea forces of the Brussels powers. 2. STANDARDIZE equipment and training. 3. CREATE a seven-nation unified uni-fied military strategic command under an American commander-in-chief. 4. PLEDGE a guarantee of each nation's territorial integrity in case of war. 5. GIVE the North American powers the right to establish air, land or sea bases In any of the five other countries. U. S. officials expect that the treaty will be ready for ratification ratifica-tion by the middle of 1949, barring extraordinary events. How congress con-gress will react to such a treaty is, for the time being, a debatable question. SHIPBUILDING: Navy Expands Increasing importance in the minds of U. S. defense chiefs of underwater and air warfare, including in-cluding consideration of possible attacks across the Arctic, was revealed re-vealed in a statement outlining the navy's post-war shipbuilding program. Vice Adm. Earle M. Mills, chief of the bureau of ships, listed the development of advanced prototypes proto-types in four major fields as the aim of the building and conversion plan: "FIRST, aircraft carriers capable cap-able of handling the fast, heavy long-range naval planes developed and under development since the war; second, high-speed, deep-submergence deep-submergence submarines; third, anti-submarine vessels to combat these submarines; fourth, ships equipped for Polar and picket service." Battleships were not mentioned in the statement, nor was there any direct reference to preparations against air attack over the roof of the globe, but the program's emphasis em-phasis on polar ships was considered consid-ered self-explanatory. IN THIS phase of the program, two destroyer escorts and two submarines sub-marines will be specially fitted for off-shore aircraft detection. One cargo ship and two floating dry-docks dry-docks for landing ships will be converted con-verted for service in polar waters. The aircraft carrier part of the program includes the construction, to begin late this year or early in 1949, of the yet-unnamed super-carrier super-carrier of 85,000 tons, designated as the CVA-58. Russia wouldn't play ball with the United Nations on the settlement settle-ment of the Berlin dispute. A six-power "face-saving" resolution reso-lution for solving the crisis was presented to the U. N. security council and promptly batted down by the Soviets to the surprise of no one concerned. THE RESOLUTION proposed that Russia lift the Berlin blockade block-ade immediately; that the four military governors of Germany begin immediate negotiations to implement the Moscow agreement of August 30 for a Soviet-backed, four-power controlled mark in Berlin Ber-lin by November 20, and that a foreign ministers' council be convened con-vened within 10 days thereafter to take up other serious differences over Germany. Russia's stated objection to the resolution was that it provided for the lifting of the blockade before the currency control went into effect. Previously, the western powers had turned down Andrei Vishln-sky's Vishln-sky's counter proposal for simultaneous simul-taneous lifting of the blockade and putting Into effect the currency agreement. IN REALITY, this point of difference dif-ference upon which the latest deadlock centered was a minor one, but it served to illustrate the vast gap that must be closed before be-fore a meeting of minds between the East and West can be achieved. MOREOVER, it has become increasingly in-creasingly clear that Moscow does not even have any desire to lift the blockade. It is, for them, too good a weapon with which to attempt at-tempt to bludgeon the U. S. and the West into granting them further fur-ther concessions in Germany, including in-cluding a voice in the operation of the all-valuable Ruhr industrial area. STALIN TALKS: 'Horrors' In what is probably the most amazing outburst he has made since the war, Soviet Premier Josef Stalin told the world that the U. S., Great Britain and France are seeking a new war through a "policy of aggression." The accusation, despite the high level of its source, amounted to nothing more than a repetition of the already stereotyped Russian practice of attempting to turn an opponent's reasoning back on him. HOWEVER, he added, the "public "pub-lic forces favoring peace" are too strong to permit "the instigators of a new war" to plunge the world again into the "horrors" of conflict. con-flict. Stalin named Winston Churchill as "the main instigator of a new war" and predicted that Churchill's Church-ill's "pupils of aggression" would be rejected by the people just as Churchill has been. Although he did not label President Presi-dent Truman or any other leader as a "pupil in aggression," the Implication was too clear to be mistaken, particularly since the Moscow radio had broadcast a prediction pre-diction that Mr. Truman would be defeated on November 2. STALIN accused the U. S. and IN YORK, Pa. . . . Mrs. Walter Sechrist made a wide-eyed announcement an-nouncement that her gas range picks up short wave transmissions made by her next-door neighbor, an amateur radio operator, vowed it had broadcast a conversation between be-tween the neighbor and another operator op-erator in South America. IN SALEM, Mass. . . . Robert C. Carter claimed In a divorce suit that his wife had deserted him a block from the church just two minutes after they were married in 1944. IN HAGERSTOWN, Mo. ... Thieves broke into the Potomac Edison building, got away with a specially equipped camera set up to take pictures of thieves breaking into the Potomac Edison building. IN LITTLE BRICKHILL, Eng. . . . Postmaster N. C. Parrott looked down his nose at the man with the gun trying to rob him of his postal receipts, sneered, "The revolver is not loaded, you know." "Sorry," said the crushed desperado, slinking slink-ing away. IN DURAND, Wis. . . . Frank Weimirski was forced to reassure his customers as to the fact that he still was in the popcorn and soft drink business after he began making mak-ing deliveries with an old hearse. BLUFFING: In Berlin Gen. H. H. Arnold, wartime commander-in-chief of the U. S. air forces, turned up in the news with a military man's hearty opinion about what to do with the Russians in Berlin. "WHY NOT take a motor convoy and push it through the corridor to Berlin?" he suggested. "Perhaps we might have learned something from Gen. George Patton's technique. tech-nique. If Patton were running the show he would take it through." Russia, he claimed, is attempting attempt-ing a tremendous bluff against the U. S. and the western allies, but is "not ready to fight, doesn't want to fight and won't fight" if some-I some-I one should call her bluff. Conspicuous First f f "I : M Britain of twice rejecting settlements settle-ments of the Berlin crisis with Russia and said that debate on the Berlin question in the U. N. security council "was a display of aggression on the part of Anglo-American Anglo-American and French ruling cir-cl cir-cl s." The British and Americans, the Soviet premier said, declared "null and void" an agreement reached in the Kremlin conferences confer-ences August 30 that would have WHAT would the Russians do if an armed convoy did plow through the blockade? "Not much, if anything," any-thing," was Arnold's laconic estimate. esti-mate. "It would be a grave and basic error to let the Communists bluff us out in the present deadlock in Germany. " ney are not ready to fight and they do not want to fight. We should curb the national tendency to be in awe of the Russians, an awe amounting almost to fear. "TIME plays with the Russians. We have the superior power now. They may have it later. Meantime, it would be folly to let them bridge the gap by bluff alone." Whether he was right or wrong, Hap Arnold at least had done the worrying U. S. public one favor: By reducing the problem to hard, simple terms of pure action and divorcing it from the intricate realm of diplo.nacy he made It appear ap-pear more understandable, less overwhelming and less frightening. frighten-ing. General Arnold, at least, isn't expecting a war tomorrow. i One of the minor sidelights of the late, great election was provided by Mrs. Fannie Rockwell Rock-well of Danbury, Conn. She turned 104 years old on October Octo-ber 25 and celebrated this chronological attainment six days later, on November 2, by casting a vote for the first time in her life. RED PRICES: Going Up America doesn't have a capitalistic capital-istic monopoly on inflation. Russia is getting hfer share of that uncomfortable un-comfortable condition, too. Here's what happened in Russia in August: Postal and telegraph rates were boosted 33 per cent. Train fares and long distance phone call rates went up in varying vary-ing amounts. In Moscow subway fares jumped 25 per cent and streetcar fares from 50 to 100 per cent. Old-Fashioned, but . . . Toothaches are old-fashioned. That is the opinion of Dr. John C. Brauer of the University of Washington Wash-ington school of dentistry, a leading lead-ing authority on children's dentistry den-tistry and care of the teeth. Dr. Brauer said few children would experience dental pain during dur-ing their lives if they practiced preventive measures now known to dental science. Mnst older people peo-ple are doomed because of their tast habits. |
