Roosevelt-Churchill talks may turn to Pacific plans
Disclosure Russia was not invited sets off new speculation on Anglo-U.S. conference
Washington (UP) –
Speculation that the Roosevelt-Churchill conference in Québec will concern the next Allied step after the fall of Sicily was being discounted here today on the theory that it, and possibly the next series of blows in Europe, have already been planned.
However, the official Soviet TASS News Agency’s statement last night that the Soviet Union was not invited to the Québec meeting “because of the nature of the conference” sent the guessers off on another whole series of speculations about what President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill will discuss.
Factors cited
The most logical guess, in view of the Soviet statement, was that the Canadian conference would deal with the Pacific situation. These factors are cited to support that theory:
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The Soviet Union is not at war with Japan and thus, as TASS said, could not expect to participate in such a conference.
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Canada, the locale of the latest Churchill-Roosevelt meeting, is as vitally interested as the United States and Great Britain in the outcome of the Pacific War. It has a long Pacific coastline.
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Earlier this week, President Roosevelt met with the Pacific War Council. The time of the Roosevelt-Churchill meeting has not been announced, but he presumably discussed the forthcoming conference in general terms with the council members, especially if it is to deal with the Japanese war.
Would welcome aid
Logical as that speculation seemed to be, one major flaw in it was President Roosevelt’s press and radio conference remarks of last Tuesday, he admitted then that no Soviet representative would attend the conference, but that that did not mean he wouldn’t be awfully glad to have them present.
Those who argue that the conference will deal with the Pacific War, contend that the President’s remake is not inconsistent with their speculation. They say that it has been no secret that Great Britain and the United States would welcome the assistance of Soviet Siberian air bases to the Jap homeland. Thus, they say, Mr. Roosevelt would be awfully glad if the Russians attended the conference, especially if it is to plan offensives against Japan.
The discounting of reports that the conference in Québec was for the purpose of planning something new and big in the way of an Allied offensive in Europe this year – maybe a knockout punch – was based on the fact that such offensives are not planned or prepared on such short notice.
There is always the possibility that an internal collapse in Germany might hurry things along, but in general there was little basis for belief that the conference would be planning operations for the immediate future, although plans previously formulated would be reviewed.