Maj. de Seversky: Air war’s cost
By Alexander P. de Seversky
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Extent of Arabian oil deal known only to White House
Cabinet members are just now learning proposal involves more than pipeline
By Henry J. Taylor, Scripps-Howard staff writer
New York –
In preparing to press President Roosevelt for information, members of the new Senate committee investigating oil matters say that vital facts about the Anglo-American post-war project in the Middle East are largely unknown outside the White House. Only now, and chiefly as a result of public revelations, they say, are Cabinet members being brought up to date on decisions reached abroad.
The dimensions of the proposition seem to expand all the time. For it develops that apparently much more is involved than a pipeline, costing $100-odd million, across neutral Saudi Arabia. It involves governmental relationships with a dozen or so Arab sheiks, several British protectorates, a sultanate, two British-mandated territories and five rival countries in the Middle East.
The United States undertakes to “construct and maintain” the pipelines, but the undertaking clearly does not acquire, or make accessible for Americans, rights or leases. It does not pertain to America’s oil reserves for the future. The Senators are prepared to challenge President Roosevelt’s recent statements to that effect.
Three lines, not one
There are three projected pipelines, not one. The first would run from the Iranian oil fields to Iran’s port of Abadan at the head of the Persian Gulf. Although this particular line may cost $50 million, say the Senators, its whole existence in the White House project has been largely overlooked.
Line No. 2 would run from Abadan across Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Transjordan, Palestine and Egypt. Line No. 3 would parallel the present pipeline from Kirkuk in eastern Iraq to the Mediterranean port of Haifa, Palestine. Two and possibly three refineries would be built.
As for the financing, the Senators say the entire project may be supplied under Lend-Lease, or at least would involve a loan to Britain to facilitate her own part, including her ownership in the refineries and pipelines.
Cartel is involved
As to export markets, the proposal apparently involves the formation of what would amount to a cartel between the U.S. government, Great Britain and the USSR. The understanding would provide that none of this oil be shipped to the United States. It would be used exclusively for a European price-and-territory government partnership in Europe’s post-war oil – an Anglo-American-Russian cartel. There is little doubt that some members of the Senate committee will insist that the project should be stopped on that point alone.
South Americans fear the Middle East plan would shut off their important oil exports to Europe. As a showcase for America’s global behavior, members of the Senate committee fear the venture might prove a hard blow to American goodwill around the Caribbean, from where it is obvious much of America’s oil for any future war must come.
Stokes: GOP drifters
By Thomas L. Stokes
Washington –
Two political developments in the day’s news point up the alternatives which confront the Republican Party in its attempt to return to power.
The choice lies between a passive, wait-and-see attitude which counts on drifting into power on what looks like a Republican tide, and moving out aggressively with a definite, forward-looking program.
Senate Republicans took the easy way when they decided to continue with a temporary organization instead of electing a permanent leader now to succeed the late Senator McNary, one who could take command boldly in shaping a party program to arouse the voters.
Wendell L. Willkie is taking the hard road, out beating the bushes, speaking day and night in the personal interest of his candidacy for the Republican nomination and in the broader interest of a progressive domestic and international program for the party.
Primary dividends
He got some dividends in the New Hampshire primary in winning six delegates who, though not actually pledged, will support him at the Chicago convention. Three are unpledged and two are for Governor Dewey. Next week Mr. Willkie takes to the hustings in Wisconsin and later in Nebraska, with primaries April 4 and 11.
Whether the bolder method, exemplified in Mr. Willkie’s one-man campaign, is the better party policy strategically remains to be seen.
But some of the newer and younger Republicans think a definite and aggressive policy by the party in the Senate is wiser. They wanted to set up a permanent organization now. But they acquiesced in the temporary organization.
Senator White (R-MO) will continue as acting leader; Senator Vandenberg (R-MI) will remain as acting chairman of the party conference, and Senator Taft (R-OH) will be chairman of a steering committee of nine appointed by Senator Vandenberg. This committee includes the three named, and party whip Senator Wherry (R-NE), Senators Danaher (R-CT), Bridges (R-NH), Brookes (R-IL), Bushfield (R-SD) and Millikin (R-CO).
Senator Vandenberg explained that this temporary organization is based on expectation of Republicans winning the Senate as well as the White House next November, in which case:
We wish to be entirely free to fit the permanent organization to the necessities of those events.
Guilty of own charges
Such a position has been criticized as based on the implication that Senate Republicans would lean on their President to name a Senate leader, which is just what they have so often jibed at in President Roosevelt’s intervention to elect Senator Barkley (D-KY) as Democratic Leader, all a part of the picture they built up of a “rubber-stamp Congress.”
What is most regretted by some younger and more progressive Republicans is that the Senate policy of delay and evasion seems to fit a pattern favored by the GOP old guard of avoiding party conflict and side-stepping troublesome issues.
U.S. Navy Department (March 17, 1944)
CINCPAC Press Release No. 314
For Immediate Release
March 17, 1944
Seventh Army Air Force Mitchells, Ventura search planes of Fleet Air Wing Two, and Dauntless dive bombers and Hellcats of the 4th Marine Air Wing attacked three enemy‑held bases in the Eastern Marshall Islands on March 15 (West Longitude Date).
An ammunition dump was blown up by the Mitchells. The Venturas scored hits among ground installations. The dive bombers and fighters strafed and bombed small craft and shore facilities.
Navy search planes bombed Pingelap and Oroluk Atolls.
All of our planes returned safely.
The Pittsburgh Press (March 17, 1944)
VIENNA BLASTED BY U.S. FLIERS
Americans rip Austria from bases in south
Bombers fail to see any Nazi fighters
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Nazis at Cassino in death pocket
Main escape road cut; infantry bayonets way through ruins
By Reynolds Packard, United Press staff writer
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Ernie Pyle hurt by flying glass in Nazi bombing
On the 5th Army beachhead, Italy – (March 16)
Ernie Pyle, roving war reporter and Scripps-Howard columnist, narrowly escaped death or serious injury today when German glider bombs wrecked a correspondents’ headquarters building on the Anzio waterfront.
Mr. Pyle, who was cut by flying glass, leaped from his bed when ack-ack fire gave notice of the approaching bombs, and was blown across the room by the first blast. He got to his feet in a corner when the second bomb landed, blowing down slabs of heavy wall tile on the bed he had occupied a moment before.
Mr. Pyle was cut on the right cheek but did not require hospitalization, although other correspondents agreed that if he had remained in bed, he undoubtedly would have been severely injured or killed by the falling slabs.
Four other American correspondents who were sleeping in the building when the bombers came over shortly after 7:00 a.m. (local time) suffered minor injuries in the raid, three requiring hospital treatment.
The headquarters building was crowded with sleeping reporters and Army Public Relations personnel.
Those requiring hospital treatment were William Strand of The Chicago Tribune, George Tucker of the Associated Press and Wick Fowler of The Dallas News.
George Aarons, correspondent for the Army weekly Yank, was treated at a first-aid station.
In South Pacific –
U.S. troops land on Admiralty Isle
Invade Manus, key Jap base in group
By Don Caswell, United Press staff writer
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Jewish homeland issue tabled
Washington (UP) –
The House Foreign Affairs Committee, following a War Department recommendation, today tabled resolutions which would put Congress on record as favoring free entry of Jews into Palestine and eventual establishment of that area as a Jewish commonwealth.
The committee acted after hearing Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCoy testify in opposition to the resolution in an executive session.
Committee Chairman Sol Bloom made public a letter from Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson saying:
It is the considered judgment of the War Department that without reference to the merits of these resolutions, further action on them would be prejudicial to the successful prosecution of the war.
The committee said in a statement:
Advice and information given to us by those responsible for the conduct of the war have convinced the committee that action upon the resolutions at this time would be unwise.
Voting record shows GOP as best legislative team
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer
Washington –
Voting records of the first session of the 78th Congress compiled today show that House Republicans worked together last year in considerably more harmony than did their Democratic colleagues.
Editorial Research Reports compiled the record of political alignments on outstanding House roll calls in four categories: Taxation and appropriations; price, farm and labor legislation; war and post-war policies; miscellaneous roll calls. The first two categories contain the most numerous votes and fairly completely cover the field of domestic policies dealt with by Congress last year. Eight roll calls are recorded in each of those two categories.
Republicans are FOR
On the eight major price, farm and labor issues voted upon in the House, Democrats cast an aggregate of 1,481 votes, Republicans cast 1,421 votes. The significant factor is that the Democratic votes tabulated on those eight issues show 743 FOR and 738 AGAINST whereas the Republicans divided 1,158 FOR and 263 AGAINST. The average division further emphasizes policy disputes among Democrats and comparative cohesion among House Republicans. The Democrats average 93 votes FOR to 92 AGAINST, Republicans averaged 145 votes FOR to 33 AGAINST.
Here are the issues upon which the votes were cast:
No rollbacks on foods below parity; override anti-subsidy veto; new anti-subsidy bill; motion to consider anti-strike bill; anti-strike bill (passage); anti-strike bill (conference report); override anti-strike veto; Hobbs anti-racketeering bill.
The taxation record
On eight taxation and appropriations issues, the Democrats nearly voted together but Republicans were even more cohesive. On those eight issues, Republicans and Democrats cast the same aggregate of votes, 1,509, divided as follows: Democrats FOR 411, AGAINST 1,098; Republicans FOR 1,415, AGAINST 94. The average of votes was: Democrats FOR 51, AGAINST 137; Republicans FOR 177, AGAINST 12.
The tax and appropriations issues involved were: Compromise pay-as-you-go tax bill; first, second and third votes on the Ruml Plan; Robertson-Forand compromise tax bill; debt limit increase coupled with salary limit repeal; reduction of Office of Price Administration appropriation by $35 million; withhold funds from Office of War Information Domestic Branch.
The division of Republican votes in those two categories fluctuated from 105 FOR and 71 AGAINST the motion to take up the anti-strike bill, to 163 FOR and 3 AGAINST the bill to forbid rollbacks on foods below parity prices.
The division of Democratic votes fluctuated from seven FOR and 190 AGAINST the Ruml Plan on the third vote to 89 FOR and 99 AGAINST the compromise pay-as-you-go tax bill.
Research Reports says that Republicans maintained better attendance records than Democrats during the early months of last session and were able sometimes to achieve results which could not have been attained had Democrats been voting in full strength.
The figures do not suggest that the Democrats have been politically impotent. For instance, Democratic votes defeated the Ruml Plan and sustained President Roosevelt’s anti-subsidy veto.
But the compilation does spotlight policy disputes within the Democratic Party. It is partly upon the basis of these disagreements that Republicans confidently argue that the New Deal-Democratic coalition which was so effective from 1932 at least through 1940 has disintegrated considerably.
States at odds on soldier ballot
Roosevelt’s survey seems inconclusive
Washington (UP) –
Telegrams carrying widely divergent answers piled up in the White House today in President Roosevelt’s survey to determine whether the various states will accept the federal ballot provided in the new Soldier Vote Bill.
More than half of the 48 state governors have responded to the President’s request for the information, with unofficial returns showing only five unequivocal decisions – four accepting the ballots or promising acceptance, and one rejecting him.
In between the direct “Yes” and “No” columns, nine governors indicated their states probably would take action to validate the ballots, seven that it was unlikely they would accept, and most of the others apparently unable to give clearcut information, saying merely that they would do “everything to enable the soldiers to vote.”
While more than half of the governors have replied so far, their answers have not given the ringing chorus of affirmatives which the President may have wanted before signing the bill.
Here is the tabulation of unofficial replies given so far:
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Maryland, North Carolina and California governors said their laws already authorized use of a federal ballot. Utah’s governor said he would call a special session of the legislature to authorize it.
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New Jersey, Connecticut, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Maine, Nebraska, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and New Mexico gave replies indicating they would seek federal ballot authorizations.
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Missouri, Oklahoma, Kansas, Louisiana and Illinois governors had not yet made up their minds.
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The only positive “no” came from Idaho’s Governor C. A. Bottolfsen, who said state laws did not authorize a federal ballot and no steps would be taken to legalize it.
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However, replies largely negative came from governors of Tennessee, Ohio, Michigan, Montana, Iowa and Colorado; and Governor Thomas E. Dewey previously indicated New York would not accept the federal form.
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Kentucky’s Governor Simeon Willis said merely that he would do “everything possible” to assist soldier voting.