Plan to invade facing discard
Army and Navy Register says it depends on parley
By Merriman Smith, United Press staff writer
Washington – (Dec. 4)
Decisions reached by President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Premier Joseph Stalin in Tehran – the conference on which a Soviet news agency scooped the world – may make an Allied invasion of Western Europe unnecessary, the Army and Navy Register said today.
What decisions the three Allied leaders made have not yet been officially disclosed, but Russia’s TASS Agency stated unequivocally that agreement was reached on both military and political moves for destroying Germany as war-making power.
Upon these decisions “and the results thereof in the next few weeks or months,” the unofficial Army and Navy Register said in an editorial, will depend the “necessity for invasion.”
Cites ‘future events’
The service publication added:
Near future events may avoid the necessity of invasion, and that is a consummation devoutly wished for.
European reports of a “momentary” official communiqué on the three-power conference to the contrary, responsible officials here thought the announcement was not particularly imminent. This situation seemed to stem from security considerations and an effort to protect the principals while they are in transit.
Meanwhile, Director Elmer Davis of the Office of War Information, smarting under the second foreign scoop in a week on a war conference, asked the State Department:
…to make inquiries in Moscow as to the circumstances of publication by the Russian government agency of news of a conference at Tehran and whether such publication was violation of any agreed release date.
Earlier in the week, the British Reuters News Agency reported the Roosevelt-Churchill-Chiang Kai-shek meeting in Cairo before American newsmen were permitted to release the story.
Cites Marshall transfer
The Army and Navy Register did not elaborate its remarks except to say:
In the event an assault invasion, as distinguished from mere military occupation, becomes unnecessary, there would seem to be no reason to transfer Gen. Marshall from his present place as Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army to a high command in the European Theater, unless his administrative genius is needed for the meeting of the tremendous problems that will confront the occupation commander.
Gen. Marshall has long been believed to be the United Nations’ choice as commander to lead any cross-Channel invasion of Western Europe. The American staff chief accompanied President Roosevelt to the Cairo and Tehran meetings. Whatever decisions were reached, the Register said, he probably will not return here with the President.