Allied leaders may see Franco
Spanish move to forsake Nazis is hinted
By Leon Kay, United Press staff writer
Cairo, Egypt –
The possibility of a Roosevelt-Churchill meeting with Generalissimo Francisco Franco was speculated upon today as interest turned to the Western Mediterranean following the epic Allied conferences involving Russia, China and Turkey.
The Western Mediterranean bristles with problems just as thorny as those ironed out at Cairo and Tehran, but it was not known whether President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill propose to include Iberian, French and Italian affairs in their already-crowded scheduled.
A meeting among the two Allied chieftains and Franco at Tangier or Casablanca would afford Spain an opportunity to extricate herself further from the Axis web. Some sources suggested, however, that any such negotiations might be carried on by underlings rather than by the principals.
Though it must be emphasized that nothing definite can be revealed about the plans of Messrs. Roosevelt and Churchill, their presence in Africa would obviously enable them to make on-the-spot inquiries into the troubled French and Italian situations as well as to meet Franco.
The French have felt left out in the cold by their exclusion from the Cairo and Tehran Conferences, but a courtesy call by Messrs. Roosevelt and Churchill on Gen. Charles de Gaulle, President of the French Committee of National Liberation, might soothe their ruffled feelings.
May inspect front
It was not believed that the two leaders would concern themselves with the still-unsettled Italian political situation, though they might take advantage of their presence in Africa to inspect the Allies’ only active European land front.
In connection with the French and Italian situations, it might be significant that Robert Murphy and Harold MacMillan, American and British representatives respectively on the Italian Advisory Commission, twice journeyed to Cairo for consultations with Messrs. Roosevelt and Churchill. Messrs. Murphy and MacMillan were formerly special ministers to North Africa and as such had close contact with the French Liberation Committee.