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Show Private Papers j Of a Cub Reporter: Drew Middleton of AP, Wra. H. i Stoneman, John MacVane, Chaj. j Collingwood and some other Amer. j lean reporters and commentators ' rate medals for their reporting of the political embroglios in North Af- ! rica despite the heavy army and ' State Department pressure to stop ! them . . . The political censorship j was lifted early in January but since then pressure has been applied ' to get the boys to lay off th explosive situation created by our j policy . . . What is not widely J known is that Columbia Broadcast- i ing was pressured to shut up Col- I lingwood and that Harry Butcher, an ex-fixer for Columbia Broadcast- ing, now a commander and naval i aide to Eisenhower, was the instrument. instru-ment. Returning war reporters tell of the melodrama on a ship which brought back prisoners of war . . . The Geneva convention, it appears, ruled that officers of war prisoners would handle the discipline of their j own men ... On this ship, some of the prisoners Included a few of Ger- i many's former social democrats ... Now that they were prisoners, the war was over for them so they re- I fused to salute their Nazi superiors . . . The infuriated officers sought satisfaction from the Americans in ; charge . . . "We demand," one of them stormed, "some pistols and j permission to have these men shot." I The request, of course, was ig- j nored. i The correspondents tell os they I are amazed about the rumors over here regarding the WAACs in Algiers Al-giers "allegedly being a headachei to Elsenhower" . . . "We didn't see-anything see-anything to indicate that," said the scribes. "In fact the ladies who arrived with Captain Marquis were all lodged in a convent in El-Biar, a suburb of Algiers where they kept very chaste hours." You probably recall the booklet handed our men in North Africa about Arabian customs, which, warned them of the urgent importance impor-tance of respecting mosques, customs, cus-toms, women, etc . . . Arabian dignitaries dig-nitaries say the effect has been very-good very-good . . . General Nogues decided to resist when he learned of the American landings in the early-hours early-hours of November 8 ... He j planned to move his headquarters. to Meknes, which is inland, and j there await German help which had ! been promised ... He was not pro- ' Nazi simply an opportunist ... He i thought we weren't there In suf- i ficlent force ... He asked the Sul- j tan to move with him from Rabat and from Meknes declare a holy war" I on the invaders . . . Despite the j legend of General Nogues' infiuenc i over the Sultan, His Majesty re- j fused to move or declare a holy war. ) That was Sunday afternoon . . . That evening about six, the Sultao was handed a copy of the booklet the army got up with the help of a Harvard professor of anthropology and some of his experts who were over there ahead of time . . . This booklet, the Sultan learned, wat-found wat-found on the body of an American, soldier killed in the landing at Port Lyautey In the attack on the Kasbab.-there, Kasbab.-there, which was repulsed by native-troops native-troops . . . The booklet was blood-stainey blood-stainey . . . The man who brought It to the Sultan was an Arab dignitary dig-nitary favorable to the Allied cause ... He translated the passages: about respect for Arab customs,. Arab women, etc. . . . The Sultaiv not an emotional individual, wept and said: "I knew that the Americans Amer-icans were good people. I am glad I did what I did." Notes of an Innocent Bystander: The Wireless: Elmer Davis won-; ders why Franco waited until his Axil chums were on the losing end before he got sorry about the inhumane in-humane aspect of bombings . . . Murder of British Sunday school tots and teachers by the Luftwaffe hasn't been officially wept over in Madrid, either .-. .Wm. H. Castle, once of the State Dep't, spouted don't-trust-Rus-sia talk, but Johannes Steel reminded remind-ed all that Castle's last boner was saying that Japan was to be trusted. He said that on the morn of Dee. 7, 1941, which you'd think would cure him of prophecy forever . . . Ed Herlihy, on NBC for Horn and Har-dart, Har-dart, sat a 4-year-old on his knee before the mike. "Wouldn't you," asked Ed, "like to go on the Children's Chil-dren's Hour?" to which the child (heard from Coast to Coast) replied: "No, I wanna go to the bathrooml" Insiders tell yon not to bet against Gen. Patton distinguishing himself sooner than you think . . . The General received "too much of a buildup In Tunisia" and then there was no reason to "attack" the enemy en-emy having fled . . . Life's photog-ger, photog-ger, Eliot Elisofon, is home minus 30 pounds of weight and all his equipment Lost everything getting out of a burning plane just in time . . . Eisenhower, they say, complained com-plained to Washington about the abundance of newspaper men and radio correspondents in N. Africa. |