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Show MHIBWOIJND KAJ fay ORBW PEARSON J.MiJ Lr-'U... ' mrr mrrrrrrtll m Washington, D. C. j PLANS FOR PACIFIC WAR ' It has all been kept very hush, hush, but top army officials have made a vitally important decision on war production after Germany's : defeat. Original war production schedules ! called for a 40 per cent cutback j after Germany caves in, permitting , a vast reconversion program and the early production of automobiles, refrigerators, radios and other goods. However, the army plus WPBig-wigs WPBig-wigs have now decided to keep the war machine rolling full tilt, not cutting cut-ting back any but a few items until Japan is defeated. Behind the vital decision is an important new plan to speed victory in the Pacific. Confidential Confi-dential war department surveys disclosed that it would take over a year to return European veterans, together with their equipment, much of it geared for winter rather than tropical fighting. Allied shipping shortages short-ages would make it a long job to crate, sort, repair and re-ship re-ship heavy equipment from the Atlantio to the Pacific. In addition, the army survey disclosed dis-closed that a lot of European equipment equip-ment will be obsolete for Pacific fighting; would have to be rebuilt, taking valuable time. Instead, the new plan calls for bringing the men back at once, Issuing them new equipment specifically designed for Far Eastern combat. Later, the army will bring back overseas war gear and use it for Pacific replacements. replace-ments. ' This should speed final blows against Japan, and shorten the Far Eastern war by many months. As a result, 1945 production schedules sched-ules will probably be a billion dollars dol-lars higher than those of 1944. The war department, which had a pile of telegrams two feet high canceling cancel-ing war contracts to be sent out the day Germany is licked, has now culled through them and may only cancel a few dozen orders. MacARTHUR AND MARINES The boys in the Pacific long have known about the rivalry between General MacArthur and the U. S. navy. Many are the wisecracks about MacArthur and the U. S. marines, ma-rines, land army of the. navy. However, How-ever, in only one case so far as is known, has MacArthur ever come up against one of these jokes face to face. It happened on one of the Philippine Philip-pine islands a few days after it was taken and when MacArthur was inspecting in-specting a battery of marine artillery. artil-lery. Solemnly, he passed from gun to gun, making no comment. Then suddenly as he came to one gun, he turned on the marine lieutenant lieu-tenant in command and let loose the most terrific dressing-down that young officer ever had received. The air was smoky with expletives. The lieutenant at first stood bewildered. be-wildered. The gun was carefully polished. Everything was in place. Then he looked a little closer. Beside Be-side the gun an enlisted man had placed a sign. It read: "With the help of God and a few marines, MacArthur retakes the Philippines." Philip-pines." The lieutenant thought at first that he would be busted. But several days passed and nothing happened. He is now back in the United States and the story can be told. INSURANCE LOBBY The insurance lobby is headed for trouble regarding its bill to exempt insurance companies from the Sherman Sher-man anti-trust act. If the lobbyists aren't careful they will get a White House veto. The bill passed the senate in a form which met with all-round approval. ap-proval. But in the house, the insurance in-surance lobby sharpened its ax and quietly tacked on some amendments which will not be acceptable either to the White House or, probably, to a majority of the senate. Chief effect ef-fect of the amendments was to make it impossible to revive the anti-trust act regarding insurance companies, i without a special act of congress. , Fair-minded Senator O'Mahoney ' of Wyoming, who was quite willing to give the insurance companies a reasonable compromise, will fight this extra grab to the end. So will a great many of his colleagues. CAPITAL CHAFF C General Franco's controlled Span- I ish press has been using the same propaganda line as Hitler regarding regard-ing the recent Big Three conference. C. Despite the fact that American diplomatic relations with Lithuania Lithu-ania hang by a thread, the Lithuanian Lithu-anian delegation celebrated Lithuanian Lithu-anian Independence Day even after the Big Three conference. L The war department's G-2 or ' military intelligence is being reorganized re-organized again, partly as a result of failures to spot Nazi troop concentrations concen-trations preparing for the bulge attack. at-tack. C. The Mexico City confab is the most sorrowful Pan-Amerirnn conference con-ference in history for Dr. Leo S Rowe, benign, longtime director ot the Pan American union. This is the first important Pan-Am parley held outside the conlincs of his union. Dr. Rowe says: "1 rannot speak, but my heart is runnint: over." |