Editorial: FDR-Churchill meeting in Africa thrills world
The dramatic and unprecedented meeting of President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill at Casablanca has thrilled the people of America and Britain and brought new hope to the enslaved men and women in the countries overrun by the Nazis.
So well was the secret kept that news of the conference at this remote North African city so near the present war zone came as a complete surprise, both in Allied and Axis quarters. Announcement of the decision to force the enemy’s “unconditional surrender,” even if it requires every last resource of the Allied world, may well give Hitler as big a jolt as a defeat on the field of battle.
The determination to follow Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s historic insistence on unconditional surrender at the end of the Civil War was backed up by detailed plans worked out by the top-ranking military, naval and flying leaders of both nations. They covered all theaters of the war.
Thus is finally ruled out any possibility of a negotiated peace. Furthermore, we hope and believe it may bar any repetition of Allied blunders at the close of the last World War and assure a seizure of enemy territory until the announced objective of destroying the military power of the Axis has been achieved.
It was also reassuring to learn that Stalin had been invited to attend and was prevented only by his preoccupation with the great Russian offensive. Both he and Chiang Kai-shek were kept fully informed of developments at the conference.
As we read of Roosevelt’s precedent-shattering transoceanic flight to the parley, of the obvious joy and amazement of American troops near the scene of recent fighting when they discovered that their reviewing officer was their Commander-in-Chief and, indeed, of the whole handling of this drama-drenched episode in a strange, far-off land, the inspiring, almost uncanny, skill of the President’s direction of the war is driven home more forcefully than ever.
The mere going to Casablanca was the highest strategy. It gave notice to the temporarily subjugated people of France and the other freedom-loving countries of Europe – as no ordinary parley possibly could have – that the United States and Britain are in dead earnest in their plans for liberation. Any last lingering skepticism should be ended. And any possibility of Hitler’s consolidating his conquests is now gone forever.