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Show Washington, D. C. BRITISH AND V. S. POLICY U. S. diplomats are not shouting it from the housetops, but there have been two important occasions when the British put a very restraining hand on American foreign policy, and checked major moves in the South Atlantic and the Pacific. One move was last May when it became conclusively apparent that the Vichy government was the tool of Hitler and when many U. S. strategists favored the taking of Martinique and the Azores, and perhaps per-haps even a landing force at Dakar in French West Africa. But the Churchill government protested pro-tested that this would take U. S. ships away from transporting supplies sup-plies to the Battle of Britain; would focus American attention upon another an-other part of the world. So Roosevelt Roose-velt kept out of the South Atlantic. The second move was about two weeks ago when Mr. Churchill telephoned tele-phoned the President to advise against any showdown with the Japanese Jap-anese in the Pacific. His advice came shortly after the new pro-Nazi pro-Nazi cabinet took office in Tokyo. Churchill urged that the battle in Europe was the main show and the United States should not get absorbed ab-sorbed with side-shows. Regarding this Churchill advice, there continues to be a wide rift inside the Roosevelt administration. And incidentally, there is not complete com-plete unity on this point inside the British government. Australian sentiment sen-timent leans toward a cleaning up of the Pacific situation, after which all parts of the British Empire, plus perhaps the United States, could concentrate on Europe. Rift in Administration. Inside the Roosevelt administration, administra-tion, the men who urge a go-slow policy toward Japan are Admiral Stark, chief of naval operations, and the state department. On the other side are many of the other admirals, including Admiral Ernest King, comm'ander of the Atlantic fleet, who says he can get along in the Atlantic merely with his present pres-ent consignment of destroyers and light cruisers, which are all that are needed for convoying. The first big point of the "strong policy" admirals is that every day of delay weakens the Russians, and the Russians are the big potential allies of the United States against Japan. With Russian bombing planes operating from Vladivostok against the paper and bamboo houses of Tokyo and Yokohama, the Japanese would be up against it. The second big point urged by these admirals is one which not many people realize: When the United Unit-ed States went into the last war, Japan was on our side. There was no need to worry about the Pacific. But this time, the minute the U.S.A. becomes embroiled in Europe, it has to guard its back door against a traditional and very potent rival. Therefore, argues the Pacific school within the navy, let's face our enemies one by one rather than have two jumping on us later and from opposite directions. There is nothing the navy dreads more than the idea of attack in two oceans at once attacks aimed at Alaska on one side and Brazil on the other. That is why some of the admirals so retent the phone calls from Winston Churchill. U. S. DESTROYERS The submarine situation which forced the Reuben James and now threatens all U. S. destroyers in the North Atlantic, is far different from that of the last war. Today, German submarines operate op-erate in gangs or wolfpacks of three to five, lurking in the path of a convoy, and without putting their periscopes out of the water. They do not even run their engines. Thus the approaching destroyer cannot pick up the subs with its sound detector, de-tector, but the subs, on the other hand, can hear the engines of the approaching convoy. Then when the convoy is within range, the subs release their torpedoes, tor-pedoes, . sometimes blind. In other words, they do not lift their periscopes peri-scopes but frequently Ere merely in the direction of the approaching engines. Because convoys travel so close together these days, hits are almost certain. Submarines fire blind chiefly in the daylight At night, on the other hand, when the submarine cannot be seen, it comes to the surface. This is one reason for the increased in-creased number of merchant vessel casualties since September, for as the nights became longer, U-boats have longer hours to operate on the surface. CAPITAL CHAFF Says an official in the Finnish legation, le-gation, "Eighty-five per cent of my people desire the defeat of Germanybut Ger-manybut 100 per cent desire the defeat of Russia!" Peru's air attache in Washington, CoL Armando Revoredo, cried "To hell with the Good Neighbor policy" when Uncle Sam requisitioned Peru's 18 bombing planes. But actually ac-tually he is a good friend of the U.S.A., was responsible for changing chang-ing Peru's aviation instruction from Italian to American i |