| OCR Text |
Show WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS By Edward C. Wayne Japanese Movements in Far East Bring Freezing of Assets by U. S. Plus Philippine Troop Mobilization; Nazis Claim Gains on Three Fronts (EDITOR'S NOTE When opinions are expressed in these columns, they are those of the news analyst and not necessarily of this newspaper.) I (Released by Western Newspaper Union.) isilispf.ililll LOS ANGELES, CALIF. Japanese are shown intently reading "extra" news bulletins posted at a newsstand in Los Angeles' "Little Tokyo" telling of President Roosevelt's order freezing all Japanese assets in the United States. (For other new of Japan . . . See Below.) peal to the United States to "reconsider." "re-consider." The government took immediate retaliatory action, freezing all American, British, Canadian and Australian assets, and Ito, head of the Japanese Board of Information, said: "If the United States refuses to understand Japan's real intentions and is now bent on taking measures to exert pressure on Japan, the conclusion is inevitable that it is the United States that disturbs the peace. The responsibility rests entirely en-tirely with that government." Thus Japan, and this was recognized recog-nized as the most militant statement state-ment against this government that had been made in the history of the relations, many times strained, between be-tween the two nations. NOTICE: Served on Japs The reaction of Tokyo, as expressed ex-pressed by Ito, was coupled wifib. a none-too-veiled threat in the newspaper news-paper Nichi-Nichi as follows: "The United States may be confronted con-fronted with a perilous situation fraught with the danger of war." The newspaper Asahi said: "This is no longer an economic problem which could be dealt with economically, but provokes the fundamental fun-damental determination of the Japanese Japa-nese people." These words were particularly significant, because they bespoke the nation's inability to face the withdrawal of the exports of the United States and Britain and her dominions, or to replace these missing miss-ing goods without going to war to get them. Thus observers saw in the Philippine Philip-pine mobilization order that this government gov-ernment was serving notice on Japan Ja-pan that the United States is getting get-ting ready to defend her territory in the South Pacific and her trade . JAPAN: Shows Hands Dwarfing even the Russo-German war, with all its action, the Japanese Japa-nese situation because of its closeness close-ness to involvement of the United States, stole the world spotlight. . While there were indications that the Japanese were to continue the war with China, perhaps on even a more vigorous basis, and that Nippon Nip-pon was attempting to strengthen its hand on the Russian front, the main move was the military and naval occupation of French Indo-China. While this had been foreseen as a major Japanese objective, and even regarded as a probable one during and after the period of the change in government in Tokyo, the actual occurrence fell with a sense of considerable con-siderable shock on the United States. For once the nation began to feel the hot breath of actual war blowing upon it, and the feeling that "all that" was far, far away began to be a distinctly shaky sort of thing. For the action taken by this government gov-ernment was swift, drastic and met with complete collaboration by Great Britain, Canada and Australia. Austra-lia. It consisted of this, as the first steps: ; The freezing of Japanese assets. The limiting of all trade with .'Japan .'Ja-pan under special license. The mobilization of the troops of the Philippines. In addition to the British empire's collaboration with the first two plans, Britain's far eastern troops were on the qui vive for action and a request by Thailand for British aid in case her territory was violated violat-ed was met with instant assent. In fact, it seemed extremely likely that Britain would move into Thailand Thai-land in order to create a buffer state that might prevent Japanese attempt at-tempt to cut the Burma road, which lies only a short distance, relatively speaking, from Hanoi in the northern north-ern part of Indo-China. lifelines to that part of the world with armed force. Gen. Douglas A. MacArthur, former for-mer chief of staff of the United States army, was called out of retirement re-tirement to take command of all the far eastern forces. The handsome, hand-some, socially debonair general, still vigorous for all his years, immediately immedi-ately went to work. The forces involved total now in the neighborhood of 150,000 trained or partially trained men, and with draft machinery already at work in the islands, and equipment ready to be rushed there, an armed force considerably larger was a possibility. possibili-ty. RUSSIA: Holding Hard While it was still practically impossible im-possible to make any definite sense out of the German and Russian claims, the consensus was that the Russians were making a surprisingly surprising-ly good fight out of the war. As time wore on the battles were admittedly severe according to both sides, and the main objectives were clarified as Smolensk, Kiev and Leningrad. REACTION: And Results The immediate reaction of Japan was what amounted to a "sparring for time." Nippon was caught with several ships tied up at American wharves, automatically, by this government's gov-ernment's declaration, prevented from moving. Some 40 additional ships were en route here, and were hove to at sea. And if the Pan-American republics were to take similar action to the United States they might find it hard to make a port where they would be able to unload. One of the vessels was carrying a $2,500,000 silk cargo and nearly 500 passengers bound for the U. S. Most serious result, however, was seen as the immediate stoppage of oil exportation to Japan from American Amer-ican sources. Utterly dependent on foreign supplies of petroleum, and for much of her scrap metal as well, Japan was visualized as practically prac-tically forced to move on the Netherlands Neth-erlands East Indies for the former and for supplies of tin as well. Most observers felt that if and when such a move was made, it would find the United States taking some sort of direct naval action of a preventive nature. Tokyo, immediately after President Presi-dent Roosevelt's outline of American Ameri-can action with regard to the Indo-Chinese Indo-Chinese incident, broadcast an ap- There was nothing definite to indicate in-dicate that any of these three German Ger-man claims had actually been carried car-ried out. This lent general credence to the belief that if the Germans were not stalled, they at least were able to make only thin forays past these points, and were probably having a hard time of it. German dispatches tending to prove this to be so told of "bad roads" and "unfavorable weather," plus "stiff resistance" of scattered units of the Red army as making it difficult to advance. The Finns were more frank, and stated "there can be no talk of a blitz campaign. We are advancing but have to take one bunker after another." From time to time there were indications in-dications that Moscow was taking the offensive, certainly at some points in the front. BRIEFS: Washington: The highly controversial contro-versial question of whether husbands hus-bands and wives must file joint tax returns had been decided favorably favor-ably by the house ways and means committee, still wrangling over the huge tax bill. Washington: Lieutenant General Gohkov and Engineer General Re-pin Re-pin of the Russian army flew all the way from Moscow to the U S conferred with defense heads who assured them that military aid to Russia will be speeded up. COINCIDENCE: It so happened that the sudden move by Japan and the counter-moves counter-moves by this government were timed exactly to coincide with congressional con-gressional consideration of the measure to keep draftees, guardsmen guards-men and reservists in the armed forces for the duration. There was no question but that the back of the opposition to this measure was badly bent if not broken bro-ken by the quick change in the international in-ternational situation. That this was true was seen in the action of the senate military affairs af-fairs committee, which voted favorably favor-ably on the proposition to declare the nation "imperiled," and to back it up with the extension measure. The senate's intentions were outlined out-lined by Senator Hill, who said that the committee didn't feel that it ought to declare a full national emergency, which would give the President the broadest possible powers, pow-ers, but that, acting under the lan- guage of the selective service act it intended to declare the nation im- periled. |
