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Show Washington, D. C. STATE DEPARTMENT STYMIES ROCKEFELLER Aides to Nelson Rockefeller think iie administration blundered in failing fail-ing to defend itself better against :he charges of Latin American ex-lavagance ex-lavagance made by Republican Senator Hugh Butler of Nebraska. Inside fact is that Rockefeller prepared pre-pared a rebuttal to Butler's blast igainst our Good Neighbor spending, Dut it was killed by the state depart' ment. The rebuttal had been prepared as n artiele for Reader's Digest, un-ler un-ler Rockefeller's by-line. Rockefeller Rockefel-ler showed it to two advisers, John Dickey and Anna Rosenberg, who both okayed it. Then it was sent to the state department. There, Hull's public relations adviser, ad-viser, Michael MeDermott, advised against letting young Rockefeller step out as defender of the government's govern-ment's foreign policy. He urged that this prerogative should be reserved tor Cordell Hull alone. So the article was killed, and the next issue of the Reader's Digest, Instead of carrying a government 1 rebuttal, carried another blast by Butler, with an editor's note saying that Rockefeller had been given a chance to reply, but declined. So readers all over the country are beginning to think Senator Butler But-ler may be right. LOS ANGELES STRIKE The army, which seized the Los Angeles Water and Power system as a result of a strike by electrical workers, hopes to turn it back to the municipal authorities about the time this appears in print. When the labor department reports re-ports on this strike, its figures will show that 2,300 men went out. Real tact, however, is that many times that number were thrown out of work by the stoppage of light and power. Reason the war department stepped in was that the strike l)ad closed: 84 aircraft plants; 38 navy plants; 14 army service forces plants (ordnance and quartermaster). quartermas-ter). Though the general public knows only of such prominent cases as the army seizure of the railroads, actually actual-ly the army is being forced to take over many properties tied up by strikes. It has become a pattern. Labor unions make use of it to threaten management. Ten mills were tied up in Fall River, Mass., because of a mere jurisdictional dispute between an independent in-dependent union and the CIO. The army was obliged to step in, and is still in. The same thing happened at Peabody and Salem, Mass., in a dispute, in the leather industry between be-tween an independent union and the CIO. Also, the army has been obliged to take over the Western Electric plants in Baltimore because of the notorious "back-house" dispute. dis-pute. War department officials are getting get-ting worried over this trend. They have become the Department of Emergency Labor. They don't like It. They want to fight the war, not fight labor. ON THE AIR FRONT Recently, U. S. fighter planes set up a new record by penetrating a distance of 550 miles into Europe 1,100 miles round trip. This has been published, but what nay not be realized is that fighters re working this run in relays, .'hree different teams of fighters go out toward the target at different times, using the following pattern: 1. The first team goeB out with the bombers, and protects them halfway to the target, meeting and engaging the German fighters. 2. The second team, starting later, lat-er, catches up with the bombers at the halfway mark and escorts them the rest of the way to the target. Thus, they arrive at the halfway mark without having to combat Germans Ger-mans all the way, and so have fresh supplies of gas and ammunition, while the first team, with exhausted supplies, turns back.' 3. The third team starts still later, and meets the bombers at the target. Here they drop their belly tanks, take over the hot fighting above the target. With fresh supplies, sup-plies, they relieve the second team, which turns home. Generally, the first team consists of Thunderbolts, the second team of the faster Lightnings, and the third team of the still faster Mustangs. Since all fighters are faster than bombers, they can go out and catch up with the bombers at any agreed point. This technique has greatly extended extend-ed the range of fighters and greatly increased the protection they afford for the bombers. MERRY-GO-ROUND C Ed Stettinius says the Soviet forces have been able to maintain good communications, partly because be-cause we have sent them 189,000 field telephones and over 670,000 miles of wire enough to go around the world 27 times . . . Equally Impressive Im-pressive is the quantity of barbed wire lend-leased to the Soviets 210,-000 210,-000 miles of it "It Is significant," i says Stettinius, "that after the fall of 1942, the Soviet army stopped asking for barbed wire In large quantities." |