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Show Washington, D. C. DEFENSE JAM-BUSTER Donald Nelson, for many years executive ol the Sears, Roebuck mail-order house, now has become one of the chief log-jam busters of national defense. Officially his job is director of procurement for the United States treasury In other words, in charge of government purchases. pur-chases. Recently the navy department sent a very important order to Bethlehem Beth-lehem Steel corporation with a preference pref-erence number to expedite it for the earliest possible delivery. The next day word came back from Bethlehem: Bethle-hem: "Sorry, but you will have to wait." For some unexplained reason the navy said nothing to the defense commission about Bethlehem's delay, de-lay, even though the commission has the power to compel compliance. Instead In-stead the navy tried to handle the situation itself. But after two weeks of unsuccessful effort, the navy finally final-ly went to- Nelson, who in addition to his procurement duties aids the defense commission. Nelson reached for a telephone, called Walter Tower, secretary of the American Iron and Steel institute, insti-tute, and said, "I hope we don't have to get tough, but when an order goes out marked 'expedite,' it means just that. 3 want immediate action on that order." Twenty minutes later, Eugene Grace, potent boss of Bethlehem, personally telephoned Nelson and assured him it was all a mistake. F. D. R. AND ARGENTINA There has been a lot of publicity regarding Roosevelt's conference with Argentine diplomat Leopoldo Melo over buying Argentine beef. Actually the conversation covered a lot of things besides meat. Roosevelt promised that this country coun-try would substantially increase its Imports of Argentine products; first because Argentina has suffered heavy loss of her European export market and faces an acute depres-! depres-! sion; second, because Argentina continues con-tinues to buy from the United States, but this buying must fall off if she cannot sell here to obtain dollar exchange ex-change for purchases. Discussing these problems, the President told Melo that the defense program would require heavy purchases pur-chases of wool for uniforms, hides for shoes, and canned beef for the commissary. Though the government govern-ment would not buy direct from Argentina, Ar-gentina, the buying from domestic domes-tic sources would create a new demand de-mand for imports, substantially benefiting ben-efiting Argentina. There was also discussion of using a part of the new Export Import bank fund of $500,000,000, about to be voted by congress, for trade with Argentina. Note Latest export figures show that Argentina has now become the leading foreign purchaser of American Amer-ican passenger cars. a BRITAIN'S FOGS The most important development during the last few days of bombing London is the realization by British and American observers that bad weather is not going to help the defense de-fense of London, but instead will hinder it. , Second important development is the realization that Britain's only real defense is retaliatory raids against Berlin. This means, of course, more long-distance bombers -almost all of which are now ob-tamed ob-tamed from the United States ul hatl .ueen EeneraUy expected that with the arrival of foggy weather, weath-er, London would be safer became Nazi raids would have to abate However, there was considerable cloudy weather over England last haedafian,dridUring "onerS had a field day. What they did was to use the clouds as a shield and drop their bombs, without aiming all over London. 8 7.","." louas as a shield and drop their bombs, without aiming all over London. 8 On clear days they had tried to JZ 31 ,milUary tarts. Bm at mght, and during cloudy weather' the Nazis ave up any pretense of tak! BSpfaXtrycd " their bombs indiscrfnnately Tn der these circumstances, there wn, only one way for the British , Active, and th ' ??S'0naI t0 be ef" margin tTe t to? 8 WWe bomber in th ?i , looking for a for a needle ln iHdS 'ike looki"g too cloudy " the Weather was - etxx. s toteB r u- other words, the Br ti J .C,rlm- In equally mX t " over the German ca f w."u' war of nerves nnrf V So tho -ing "tt, Nolc-oe thing whfchV0"0-downfall whfchV0"0-downfall of Pran?e d ,,?aiised countries was the collnn," , loWln"d PIu fifth column ' V ot m"'- ver. U. S. observe 'in'l08', "" unanimous that Bri ! ond"" ""-' tf highest pk n',rth,1mornl0 is t ish will fight s n thnt tl,c n''it- I |