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Show THE CASE: Of Hottelet WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS By Edward C. Wayne U. S. Would Speed 'All Out' British Aid With Appropriation of Seven Billions; Landing of British Troops in Greece Adds Confusion to Balkan Situation . - t- 1 - 1 ' 1 (EDITOR'S NOTE When opinions are expressed In these columns, they are those of the news analyst and not necessarily of this newspaper.) . (Released by Western Newspaper Union.) ! ' rT'. - i u . L With the labor situation in the defense industries much in the news these prominent labor leaders called at the White House to discuss with the President the formation of a national mediation board for settling all disputes in defense production. Photo shows: (Left to right) H. C. Bates, president Brickmasons and Plasterers union; O. W. Tracy, assistant secretary secre-tary of labor; Sidney Hillman, defense commission; Allen S. Haywood, C. I. O. official, and A. Johnson, locomotive engineers official, as the group left the White House. RICHARD C. HOTTELET . "Suspicion of espionage. It was something more than mere coincidence that close upon the passage pas-sage of the lease-lend bill' the Nazis arrested Richard C. Hottelet, a United Press correspondent in Berlin, on "strong suspicions" of espionage. The D. N. B. announcement said that Hottelet was suspected of having hav-ing conducted espionage in the interests in-terests of an enemy country. This, of course, ruled out the United States, and the Germans themselves them-selves said: "Naturally the United States is not an enemy power." It was added that the espionage of which Hottelet is suspected had nothing to do with his journalistic work. As the case went forward into the preliminary hearing stage, Americans Ameri-cans began to wonder two things: 1. Did the arrest of Hottelet have anything to do with the arrest in the United States of Zapp and Tonn, the agents of the Transocean News Service, Serv-ice, a Nazi outfit? 2. Did the arrest have anything to do with the passage of the lease-lend lease-lend bill, and was this to be interpreted in-terpreted as the start of a series of Nazi reprisals which could end only in the entry of America into the European war? The very day that the special grand jury in Washington returned the Zapp and Tonn indictments, the Nazis arrested Hottelet. It also might be remembered by some that Mussolini closed the American consulates at Naples and Palermo, and the United States followed fol-lowed suit with the Italian consulates consu-lates at Newark and Detroit. TRAGEDY: On the Prairie Windstorm, snow and severe cold combined to take at least 66 lives in eastern North Dakota and western west-ern Minnesota as one of the most severe storms in the memory of pioneers pio-neers swept across the prairie country. When their cars stalled or were blown off the highway most of the persons who lost their lives tried to walk to the safety of nearby farmhouses farm-houses but were either frozen to death before they could reach shelter shel-ter or else died of sheer exhaustion in battling the terrific wind. The gale at times reached a velocity of 85 miles per hour. SCORNFUL: Are the Greeks The "Greeks have a word" for Mussolini, following the episode in which H Duce took personal charge of the Fascist troops on the Albanian front. They called him "bogus Caesar." The story is that Mussolini took charge about the first week in March, and that after a short time at the front he told his generals they'd have to produce something in the way of a victory at the "Ides of March." The generals, so they said in Athens, Ath-ens, did their best. Fresh troops were rushed into the Tepelini battle, troops well equipped with all the arms of war, and each attack they launched, the Greeks said, was beaten beat-en back with heavy losses. Among those killed were two members of II Duce's cabinet. The defenders of Greece claimed that Mussolini had failed as had his armies, for Benito had hoped to build up their morale, but the men in the front lines still showed, it was claimed, the "spirit of despair" and the "criminal indifference" to fighting fight-ing that had marked the long series of defeats in Albania. In the final five days of the fierce Italian drive, the Greeks claimed, they killed 15,000 of the Fascist soldiers, sol-diers, decimating entire battalions, and reducing the strength of five divisions to about one-half. MISCELLANY: LANCASTER, PA: A member of the Dunkard sect, whose religious convictions against killing people in war were so strong that he was a conscientious objector to the draft for religious reasons, was given a life term for slaying his rival in love. LONDON: That Britain is leaving no stone unturned in preparation for a Nazi invasion attempt was seen in the announcement that leaflets were being distributed among the'popu-lace the'popu-lace telling them not to flee and clog , the roads if the invader comes to ! their very doors. 'Stand firm and . help the troops," the message read. ' ISTANBUL: Former British Min- ister to Bulgaria George W. Rendel, : on whom an assassination attempt was made when he arrived here, in- : sisted on a search for bombs being i made in his luggage before setting 1 out for Ankara. J SPEECHES: Two Leaders In an address that was carried by radio to all parts of the world, President Presi-dent Roosevelt called for an American Amer-ican "total effort" to provide nations resisting aggression with the war implements they need. Speaking before a gathering of the White House newspaper correspondents, the President declared in effect that the aim of the United States is "total victory" over the dictators. He said that this cannot be achieved without some very definite sacrifices on the part of the American people. He called for a maximum output of war materials by the United States and stressed the high importance impor-tance of national unity. He expressed ex-pressed the thought that the British people aTTd their Grecian allies needed ships, planes, food, tanks, guns, ammunition and supplies of all kinds. He followed this with the statement that America would provide pro-vide them with all these things. Day later Adolf Hitler spoke to his countrymen and told them that no amount of outside help would permit per-mit the British to defeat the Axis powers. He did not refer directly to President Roosevelt's speech. Germany, according to Hitler, has been preparing throughout the past winter for a final drive to victory in 1941. He predicted that this final victory would come "on land, sea, or air or in any part of the earth." BRITISH: First Again The British, who have been trying try-ing their utmost to get the jump on their Nazi and Fascist opponents since Germany made hash out of French and British armies on the West Wall, apparently had beaten the Germans to the punch on the northern Greek front. The story came, not from British sources, but from the Nazi officials in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. The move had two important objects, apparently, appar-ently, one to attempt the hopeless task of keeping Yugoslavia in line as a possible Nazi opponent in a drive on Greece, the other to put troops into position for a swift and powerful defense against a Nazi invasion in-vasion from Bulgaria. The story was that 100,000 soldiers, sol-diers, including shiploads of munitions, muni-tions, tanks and other mechanized equipment, sufficient for five full divisions, di-visions, had been landed and were taking up positions on Greek soil opposite to the estimated 500,000 Nazis in Bulgaria. The original informant said that official denials could be expected both from the Greeks and the British. Brit-ish. However, entirely unofficially, British authorities told correspondents correspond-ents in London that the reports of the landing of the British forces in , Greece "probably were well founded." found-ed." Germany immediately denied any knowledge of the movement, and as the Greeks were not letting newspaper news-paper men into that territory, but indeed were evacuating everyone in expectation that it would be a battleground, bat-tleground, the entire story was impossible im-possible of positive confirmation. The same report said that Germany Ger-many was wheeling her mechanized forces and her planes into position fcrt Immediate attack. CHINESE: For Britain One of the most unusual dispatches, dis-patches, never confirmed, but never denied, emanated from Tokyo, and told how the Chinese nationalist government gov-ernment was sending a million Chinese Chi-nese men to Britain's Malay possessions posses-sions to serve as soldiers. The men, according to this story, will be armed and outfitted for the Far East defense by American shipments ship-ments of arms and ammunition. According to reports brought to Belgrade by neutral diplomats, five ships a day have been coming into southern ports in Greece, and have moved forward to take positions in the central part of the country, readily accessible to the northern frontier. Die Is Cast The move by the British meant that they had cast the die, that they were going to move in full force to the aid of Greece, and hence that if Germany wants to force a separate peace with Greece it will have to be a real military victory, and not merely diplomatic pressure. This move, together with the landing land-ing at Salonika, was not without a powerful effect on Turkey, which, unlike Yugoslavia, seemed to have some ability to stand out against the Nazi inroads, aed to hold herself in alliance with Greece and Britain, in accordance with the wishes of the government majority. While Berlin refused to confirm the reports, and refused to comment on them in any way, it was considered ominous that the statement should be made in a Nazi communique that "the moment had now come for a decisive act in German-Greek relations." rela-tions." ENVOY: 'Means Business' W. A. Harriman marched up to newspaper men on the Bristol, England, Eng-land, airport as a special representative represent-ative of President Roosevelt and said these words: "Believe me, the United States means business in this war." They were cheering words to the English, and at the same time in this country President Roosevelt's lease-lend plan went zooming ahead, with congressional approval of the $7,000,000,000 implementation of the law a certainty. It was within the same week of the passage of the British aid act that the house subcommittee swept into instant action and approved the amount. ' President Roosevelt already had "sold" senate and house leaders that the amount was no figment of the imagination, thought up hurriedly, but was, rather, the carefully considered con-sidered amount which would take care of a sizeable aid to Britain program pro-gram for the life of the bill July, 1943. The newspapers printed careful breakdowns of the 7 billion amount, showed how this and that had been divided out, and how safeguards had been thought out as to the question of moving funds from one category to another. It was all placed before the public pub-lic succinctly and with his usual compelling power of oratory by President Roosevelt himself in an address to the nation. Without telling tell-ing any secrets, or tipping off adverse ad-verse powers, the President took the people into his confidence, and just on the eve of the consideration of the measure, too. That clinched the situation, in view of congressional leaders, who figured that in three days, at most, it would be all over, and the administration ad-ministration would have, practically intact except for some dozen amendments, amend-ments, his fully implemented aid-to-Britain plan. Industrial Las; Seen So confident was the President of the outcome, based on the advices of those close to him and watching congress, that he issued an announcement an-nouncement even before his radio address, that he was planning to spend the whole huge sum within 16 months. William S. Knudsen. however, the head of Production Management, hinted at an industrial lag. and said that it would probably be two to three months before the whole British Brit-ish aid program would really get going. |