Marseille hit by Fortresses
Great French port blasted; Turin plant crippled
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Guffey suggests ‘lottery’ to increase war finances
Scheme officially called ‘A Bill to Encourage Voluntary Contributions to Treasury of U.S.’
By Robert Taylor, Press Washington correspondent
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Bataan fort is made ready for U.S. return
Japs plan ‘last stand’ on Corregidor too, repatriate says
By Bernard Covit
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U.S. warships shell Madang in New Guinea
Notice served Japs that Allies control route toward Rabaul
By Brydon Taves, United Press staff writer
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27 U.S. planes lost in raid on Rhineland city
Lull in RAF’s large-scale operations continues for fifth night
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Allied leaders hold parleys in armed camp
Cairo, Egypt (UP) –
President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill and Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek held their historic conference in an armed camp.
The conference headquarters was described as “a complete defense unit.” Within its barbed-wire perimeter were air-raid shelters, slit trenches, ack-ack batteries, barbed-wire enclosures, military guards and fire watchers.
It was built to withstand surprise assault by land or air. It bristled with arms and mystery.
Roosevelt arrives
Only the conferees and their guards were allowed inside. Correspondents were outside the barbed wire.
President Roosevelt motored to the scene through a lane of U.S. soldiers spaced 20 yards apart – but no one will be able to tell his grandchildren that he saw the President arrive. Everyone was facing out – back to the road – watching for any suspicious person.
Prime Minister Churchill came part of the way by warship. He requested that the officers put on no extra “spit and polish” for him and the crew wore dungarees.
Relax on Thanksgiving
It wasn’t until Thanksgiving Day that the American, British and Chinese leaders were able to sit back, after three solid days and nights of joint efforts, and have their pictures taken.
President Roosevelt waved an expansive hand toward the center chair and said to Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek:
You are the guest of honor – and after all, this is your first conference.
Chiang smilingly declined the honor and took a chair on the President’s right.
British ‘break’ news release; U.S. angered
‘Premature’ disclosure of parley news brings rebuke
By Joseph Laitin, United Press staff writer
Washington –
Government officials, angered by repeated premature British disclosures of Allied news involving the United States, promised today to exert every effort to ensure American newspapers and news services an even break from now on.
Reuters, a British news agency, broke the news of the three-power Cairo Conference Tuesday morning, about 33 hours ahead of the official release time. Officials charged this was in violation of an Allied agreement not to publish the news until 7:30 p.m. Wednesday night to protect the safety of the conferees.
Held in confidence
American editors, it was pointed out, had the official communiqué on their desks and were holding it in confidence at the time the Reuters dispatch was circulated.
Rep. Frank Carlson (R-KS) today told the House that Congress should investigate the “slipshod and bungling manner” in which the conference was announced.
He added:
This is not the first time. What about the Tokyo raid? What about the Patton incident?
Rep. Clare Hoffman (R-MI) asserted that the people of the United States are being neglected because “the President of the United States wants to be President of the world.”
Defended by Democrat
Democratic Leader Rep. John W. McCormack (D-MA) replied that the President is a “strong and courageous” man now “abroad in line of duty.”
McCormack said:
In future generations when the country faces such a crisis, I hope we have another man as strong and courageous, and I don’t care whether he’s Republican or Democrat – Protestant, Catholic or Jew.
Director Elmer Davis of the Office of War Information placed partial blame on British censorship which allowed the Reuters story to be sent out from London although it did forbid its publication in the British Isles.
Price pledges aid
Director Byron Price of the U.S. Office of Censorship said he would back Mr. Davis to the hilt. Asserting that “the circumstances speak for themselves,” Mr. Price said that:
Censorship is doing all it can and is anxious to see American newspapers and radio stations get at least an even break on such stories in the future.
Mr. Davis sarcastically rejected Reuters’ explanation that the “scoop” was the result of enterprise by its Lisbon bureau chief.
He said it was a kind of “enterprise” that any American news editor could have “indulged” in if he so desired, considering that the official communiqué was available to editors at the time.
U.S. people entitled to news, paper says
Bayonne, New Jersey (UP) –
The Bayonne Times published the official announcement of President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill and Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek yesterday, in advance of the official release time, explaining that “the people of the United States are as fully entitled to news as any other country in the world.”
The story was headlined:
Everyone In the World Except U.S. Knows FDR, Churchill, Chiang Meet
The Times said:
This release has been violated not alone by foreign and domestic news agencies, by various diverse means, but by the Office of War Information itself, which has kept the news from the American people but has broadcast it to foreign lands. We prefer to do this openly instead of publishing rumor stories credited to the usual “well-informed circles.”
Sydney, Australia (UP) –
The Daily Mirror yesterday published a full report of the Cairo Conference – 23 hours before the official release date. The story was withdrawn from later editions, the newspaper explaining that it had made a mistake.
Editorial: The Cairo Pact
The Cairo Three-Power Pact pledges destruction of the Japanese Empire and the rise of free China as the major Far Eastern nation. If it provides the united military power to make that pledge a fact, Japan will be confined permanently to her own islands.
This recognizes that the old era of foreign domination is past; that the key to the future is Western cooperation with China, and no imperialist deals with Japan. On that basis, Pacific peace is to be built.
All of which is a great victory for American policy. The inclusion of China in the four-power Moscow Pact, which is now implemented by the American-British-Chinese agreement, is due chiefly to Secretary of State Hull and President Roosevelt.
Indeed, this agreement underwrites the Roosevelt assurance to Congress last September:
The United Nations will never again let her [Japan] have authority over the islands which were mandated to her by the League of Nations… And the same thing holds good in the case of the vast territories which Japan has stolen from China starting long before this war began.
Thus, Japan’s loot of half a century is to be reclaimed. Manchuria, Formosa and the Pescadores go back to China. Korea, after a necessary period of help, is to be independent. The morale effect of these pledges on the Chinese, staggering from almost seven years of war, is obvious. It will be harder now for Jap propagandists to poison China.
Of course, the Cairo communiqué leaves many questions unanswered. United Nations agreement is not yet complete. Will Britain return Hong Kong to China? What becomes of French Indochina, Thailand, Malaya, Burma and the Dutch East Indies when the Japs are driven out? Are they to be trained for independence on the Philippine model, under their former rulers or under United Nations trusteeship? And the strategic mandated islands, are they to be under American or international guardianship?
Where does Russia come in? This four-power conference is being held in two sections, with Marshal Stalin absent from the Pacific sessions because Russia and Japan are nominally at peace. But his representative, Andrey Vyshinsky, attended unobstructively. That indicates Russian concurrence. Moreover, the return of Manchuria to China could not be guaranteed without Stalin’s tacit consent – probably leaving important Russian claims there to be negotiated by Moscow and Chungking directly.
When Russia is freed of the Nazi menace, she doubtless will become an active partner in the alliance against Japan – for neither Russia nor the present Pacific Allies can risk a Far Eastern settlement in which Russia has no part.
Also, the Cairo communiqué leaves open the complicated questions as to Japan’s future, when shorn of her conquests and disarmed. Is there to be Allied military occupation, short or long? Must the Emperor go? Is the Allied formula for free elections by the people, and civil liberties, to be applied? What about reparations, or Jap labor to rebuild liberated areas? Will a law-abiding small Japan have equal rights to markets, materials, trade and membership in the international organization, as hitherto promised by the Allies to all peaceful nations?
But it would be out of focus to expect answers to all the questions which will arise with Pacific victory, when we are so far from victory. On the political side, this conference was content to agree on the general goal while wisely it concentrated most on immediate military means. For Americans should be under no illusion – as certainly the Chinese are not – that any of the fine political pledges are of value unless enforced by much more Allied military power than has been put into the Pacific War so far.
Two years after Pearl Harbor and Singapore, Japan holds virtually all of her conquests, still keeps us 3,000 miles from Tokyo. The Cairo Pact is a sign that the Allies at last are ready to fight a major Pacific war. The test of the Cairo military threats is how soon and how hard and how continuously Adm. Nimitz, Gen. MacArthur, Lord Louis Mountbatten and Generalissimo Chiang can strike at the vitals of the Jap octopus.
Action counts now.
Editorial: Everybody knew it
That great “secret” is out.
Nobody would have suspected it, but President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill and Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek have been meeting in Cairo.
The three now are meeting, or are about to meet, Premier Stalin of Russia.
It had been a very “hush-hush” affair. Nobody was supposed to say anything about it. And nobody did, or practically nobody. Only those who knew it. And the only ones who knew it were all the government people in Washington, all the newspapermen, nearly every taxi driver, the hotel chambermaids, officials, non-officials, motorists, pedestrians, retailers, wholesalers, consumers, workers, non-workers and maybe a few others.
They say even the birds and the bees knew it, but perhaps that is “wholly unconfirmed.”
Still, it was a secret. Elmer Davis, boss of the Office of War Production, said so. Reuters, a British news service, was among those distributing news of the meeting, but Mr. Davis said that was “reprehensible.”
However, Reuters, which spread the story to America, was forbidden to publish it in England, so Mr. Davis’ OWI obligingly rebroadcast it to England, not to mention ‘steen other countries, but didn’t breathe a word of it in this country.
Now you tell one.
In Washington –
Bowles warns against ban on food subsidies
OPA administrator says prices would increase 7-10% in 1944
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