America at war! (1941–) – Part 4

Führer HQ (October 14, 1944)

Kommuniqué des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht

An der Landbrücke zur Insel Süd-Beverland wurden fünfmal wiederholte starke Angriffe des Feindes abgewiesen. In den Stellungskämpfen um Aachen erzielten die Amerikaner trotz starker Panzerangriffe gegen den tapferen Widerstand unserer Grenadiere nur geringe Fortschritte. Dafür verwüsteten sie die alte Kaiserstadt auch außerhalb unserer Stellungen mit schwersten Bomben und Granaten. Am Nordrand der Stadt, westlich Stolberg und im Wald von Roetgen wurden mehrere feindliche Angriffe zerschlagen. Südöstlich Remiremont traten die Amerikaner auf breiter Front erneut zu starken Angriffen an. In mehreren Einbruchsstellen wird noch gekämpft.

Schnelle Kampf- und Nachtschlachtflieger griffen in der vergangenen Nacht Nachschubstützpunkte des Gegners mit guter Wirkung an.

Von unseren Küstenstützpunkten werden starkes Artilleriefeuer auf Dünkirchen und erfolglose feindliche Angriffe vor Lorient gemeldet.

London lag wieder unter dem Feuer der „V1.“

Im Kampfraum südlich Bologna greift die 5. amerikanische Armee weiter scharf an. Nach wechselvollen Kämpfen gelang es dem Feind, südlich Vergato etwas voranzukommen und eine Höhe zu nehmen. Östlich der Straße Bologna–Florenz fingen unsere Grenadiere nach hartem Kampf die angreifenden amerikanischen Verbände auf. An der Adriafront wurden britische Angriffe abgewiesen, geringfügige örtliche Einbrüche abgeriegelt.

Kampffähren der Kriegsmarine und Fahrzeuge eines deutschen Geleits versenkten im dalmatinischen Inselgebiet und im Nordteil der Adria drei britische Schnellboote und beschädigten vier weitere, von denen eines wahrscheinlich gesunken ist.

An der altbulgarischen Westgrenze wiesen unsere Truppen südwestlich Sofia den Angriff einer bulgarischen Division ab. An der Morawa zwischen Nisch und der Donau und südlich Belgrad wurde in Angriff und Abwehr heftig gekämpft. Hierbei wurden im Kampfraum Belgrad 36 Panzer abgeschossen.

An der oberen Theiß brachten Gegenangriffe deutscher und ungarischer Verbände weitere Erfolge. Die Schlacht südlich Debrecen nimmt in erbitterten Kämpfen ihren Fortgang. Zwischen Klausenburg und den südlichen Ausläufern der Waldkarpaten setzten sich unsere Truppen aus dem Nordteil des Székler Zipfels vom Feind ungestört auf neue Stellungen nach Nordwesten ab. Am Dukla- und Szirokatal-Paß in den Ostbeskiden scheiterten erneute Anstrengungen des Feindes, über die Passhöhe vorzustoßen, am hartnäckigen Widerstand unserer Divisionen.

Nördlich Warschau und im Narewbrückenkopf westlich Rozan wurden die unter schwerstem Artilleriefeuer und ständigen Schlachtfliegerangriffen geführten Durchbruchsversuche der Sowjets vereitelt.

Im Gebiet der unteren Memel griff der Feind unter dem Eindruck der in den letzten Tagen erlittenen Verluste an Menschen und Material gestern nur mit schwächeren Kräften und ohne Erfolg an.

Unsere Schlachtflieger brachten nördlich Warschau und nördlich Tilsit den in harten Abwehrkämpfen stehenden Erdtruppen fühlbare Entlastung.

An der Düna brachen mehrfache bolschewistische Angriffe zusammen. Zur Frontverkürzung wurden die auf dem Ostufer der Düna stehenden Verbände unter Zerstörung aller kriegswichtigen Anlagen im Ostteil der Stadt Riga auf das Westufer zurückgenommen.

Vor der Halbinsel Sworbe verhinderten leichte deutsche Seestreitkräfte weitere sowjetische Landungsversuche und versenkten hierbei ein Landungsfahrzeug und ein Schnellboot. Die Vernichtung ein« weiteren ist wahrscheinlich.

Die Sowjets verloren am gestrigen Tag in Luftkämpfen und durch Flakartillerie der Luftwaffe 45 Flugzeuge.

An der Bucht von Petsamo sind schwere Kämpfe mit gelandetem Feind im Gange.

Marineartillerie versenkte hierbei ein großes bolschewistisches Landungsboot. Weiter südlich zerschlugen unsere Gebirgsjäger alle Versuche der Sowjets, über den Naamajoki vorzudringen.

In norwegischen Gewässern vernichteten Sicherungsfahrzeuge der Kriegsmarine zwei erfolglos angreifende sowjetische Schnellboote.

Nordamerikanische Terrorflieger griffen Wien und oberschlesisches Gebiet an. Durch verstreuten Bombenwurf und Bordwaffenangriffe in West- und Südwestdeutschland hatte die Zivilbevölkerung Verluste. Einzelne britische Flugzeuge warfen heute in den frühen Morgenstunden Bomben auf Köln. 55 anglo-amerikanische Flugzeuge wurden abgeschossen.

U-Boote versenkten drei Schiffe mit 17.000 Bruttoregistertonnen sowie sechs Zerstörer und Geleitfahrzeuge. Ein weiterer Dampfer wurde durch Torpedotreffer schwer beschädigt. Außerdem wurden drei feindliche Flugzeuge abgeschossen.

Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force (October 14, 1944)

FROM
(A) SHAEF FORWARD

ORIGINATOR
PRD, Communique Section

DATE-TIME OF ORIGIN
141100A October

TO FOR ACTION
(1) AGWAR (Pass to WND)

TO (W) FOR INFORMATION (INFO)
(2) FIRST US ARMY GP
(3) ADV HQ 12 ARMY GP
(4) FWD ECH (MAIN) 12 ARMY GP
(5) AEAF
(6) ANCXF
(7) EXFOR MAIN
(8) EXFOR REAR
(9) DEFENSOR, OTTAWA
(10) CANADIAN C/S, OTTAWA
(11) WAR OFFICE
(12) ADMIRALTY
(13) AIR MINISTRY
(14) ETOUSA
(15) SACSEA
(16) CMHQ (Pass to RCAF & RCN)
(17) COM Z APO 871
(18) SHAEF MAIN
(REF NO.)
NONE

(CLASSIFICATION)
IN THE CLEAR

Communiqué No. 189

North of the Sint-Leenarts Canal, Allied troops have made some progress southwards from the Biervliet area. The bridgehead over the canal has been slightly extended. Fighters and fighter bombers renewed their attacks on gun emplacements and strong points in the Breskens area. In the neck of the South Beveland Peninsula, the enemy continues to counterattack fiercely. In the Dutch salient, a local enemy counterattack, southeast of ‘s-Hertogenbosch was repulsed. North of the salient, medium bombers struck at rail targets at Utrecht and Amersfoort. Allied troops, south of Overloon, have advanced some 1500 yards through difficult wooded country in the face of stiff opposition. In support of our troops in this sector, light bombers cut the railway line leading to a bridge at Venlo and destroyed the western end of the Meuse River bridge at Roermond.

Our troops are advancing slowly in house-to-house fighting in the northeast section of Aachen. Fighter bombers continued the air attack on Aachen and also struck at rail communications in this sector. Enemy aircraft were sent up and our fighters shot down 18 of them for the loss of eight. North of the city, in the region of Bardenberg, the Germans, reinforced by armor, have increased their pressure, but several counterattacks have been dispersed by our planes and artillery. Just south of Kohlscheid and Würselen, our forces are moving forward slowly against stubborn resistance from both mobile and dug-in tanks.

In the Hürtgen Forest, near Germeter, we are making slow progress against stiff opposition to regain ground lost earlier in a strong enemy counterattack. Two miles southwest of Germeter, slight advances have been made and pillboxes are being mopped-up. Medium and light bombers hit Langerwehe, on the Aachen–Düren road. The bridges at Mayen, west of Koblenz, and at Euskirchen were also attacked. One medium bomber is missing from these operations. Fighter-bombers struck at rail communications at a number of points in western Germany.

East of Nancy, our patrols have penetrated the Forêt de Parroy and three-quarters of the forest has now been cleared of enemy. Our forces have made further progress against heavy resistance in the Moselotte River bend southeast of Épinal and have advanced over rugged terrain, to the vicinity of Cornimont. Pressure has been maintained near Le Thillot. Elsewhere, in the Vosges foothills, activity was limited chiefly to artillery exchanges and vigorous patrolling.

COORDINATED WITH: G-2, G-3 to C/S

THIS MESSAGE MAY BE SENT IN CLEAR BY ANY MEANS
/s/

Precedence
“OP” - AGWAR
“P” - Others

ORIGINATING DIVISION
PRD, Communique Section

NAME AND RANK TYPED. TEL. NO.
D. R. JORDAN, Lt Col FA Ext. 9

AUTHENTICATING SIGNATURE
/s/

The Pittsburgh Press (October 14, 1944)

B-29s JOIN FORMOSA ATTACK
530 Jap planes, 272 ships smashed

Tokyo reports raid continuing against key island off China
By Frank Tremaine, United Press staff writer

BIG PART OF AACHEN CAPTURED
Nazis massing tank force for offensive

Civilians stream from besieged city
By J. Edward Murray, United Press staff writer

2,000 heavies bomb 4 Nazi transport hubs

Yanks raid Cologne; RAF hits Duisburg

americavotes1944

Roosevelt refuses to share platform with Governor Dewey

Washington (UP) –
President Roosevelt has declined an invitation to share the speaking platform with Governor Thomas E. Dewey at the closing session of The New York Herald Tribune Forum next Wednesday, the White House disclosed today.

He was invited by Mrs. Ogden Reid, vice president of The New York Tribune, Inc., which publishes The Herald Tribune, to speak at the forum, but turned down the bid in a brief telegram last night, White House Secretary Stephen T. Early said.

Mr. Early added that, as he recalled it, the brief telegram gave no reason for the refusal.

Mr. Dewey has scheduled a major foreign policy address at the final forum session.

Sheridan ‘heaves chest,’ denies ‘dogging it’ in CBI

Entertainers have ‘no bed of roses,’ Ann says; other stars also reply to criticism

Smeared prints studied in slaying of heiress

Hollywood death laid to strangulation; victim’s diary may provide other clues

I DARE SAY —
Success story

By Florence Fisher Parry

Hotel union heads to extend parley

Additional meetings with RWLB planned

Yanks within nine miles of key Po Valley

Battle fierce German resistance
By Eleanor Packard, United Press staff writer

Edson: Another Publius needed to ‘sell’ world charter?

By Peter Edson

Ferguson: Manners and morals

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

Monahan: Hitler Gang carries a strong wallop

Hitler and pals graphically portrayed – Kaye a hit on stage
By Kaspar Monahan

Millett: There are times when customer isn’t wrong

Sloppy service and discomfort don’t have to be accepted by anyone
By Ruth Millett

americavotes1944

From St. Louis –
Dewey to speak Monday night

Need for honesty will be subject

Albany, New York (UP) –
Governor Thomas E. Dewey will continue his direct attack on the Roosevelt administration in a nationwide broadcast from St. Louis Monday night, when he will discuss “the urgent need for honesty and competence in our national government.”

Paul E. Lockwood, the Governor’s secretary, said the speech would deal with a wide variety of activities by the present Democratic administration.

Governor Dewey’s speech will be broadcast over the Blue Network from 10:00 to 10:30 p.m. ET.

The Governor will remain in Albany today preparing for the Midwestern trip. He will leave by special train for St. Louis tomorrow afternoon and return to New York State immediately after the speech. He will address the

In addition to St. Louis, Governor Dewey’s present itinerary calls for appearances at Minneapolis, Chicago, Buffalo, New York City and Boston. There were reports that he will also speak in Connecticut, Delaware and Pennsylvania before Election Day.

americavotes1944

Garner visits with Truman at Texas stop

En route to Los Angeles, California (UP) –
Senator Harry S. Truman was met at the Uvalde, Texas, railroad station last night by former Vice President John N. Garner, his one-time Congressional crony.

“Cactus Jack” Garner, red-faced and smoking a Mexican cigar, was wearing khaki work clothes.

Mr. Garner, chatting with the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, said he would be 76 next month and intended to live until he was 93. He explained his hands were badly strained from hulling pecans at his Uvalde ranch and added that he had been shucking corn all day.

He downed a shot of Bourbon whisky – “with branch water, none of that fizz stuff” – and reckoned he wouldn’t like to 93 “if I didn’t get that.”

Mr. Garner stayed aboard only a few minutes because the train had no scheduled stopover at Uvalde.

A reporter asked Mr. Garner if he intended to vote for Truman. “Now, boys, you know you shouldn’t ask me that,” Mr. Garner replied.


Joe Pew speaks –
‘Treachery’ laid to New Deal

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (UP) –
The New Deal administration was assailed here last night by Joseph N. Pew Jr. as “12 years of treachery, dishonor and deceit, which brought creeping paralysis over our people.”

Making what probably was his first political speech, the millionaire executive of the Sun Oil Company and financial backer of the Republican Party charged that President Roosevelt “is not complaining for himself, but for Senator Harry Truman [the vice-presidential nominee] whom he hopes to make the next President.”

Mr. Pew was a surprise speaker at a rally of the Republican State Committee here.

Illinois Governor Dwight H. Green, accusing the Roosevelt administration of 12 years of “bungling and stumbling,” told the group that it was the duty of the voters to save returning U.S. troops from the “catastrophe and confusion which threaten if the New Deal is entrusted with peace and reconversion.”

Governor Green said the President’s record was replete with vetoes of bills aimed to help war veterans, their widows and children. From 1933 to Nov. 1, 1943, he said, Mr. Roosevelt vetoes 18 bills, depriving veterans and their dependents of $450 million in benefits.

americavotes1944

Rep. Luce: Roosevelt ‘lied’ nation into war

GOP Congresswoman charges that President lacked courage to ‘lead us into it’

Chicago, Illinois (UP) –
Mrs. Clare Boothe Luce charged last night that President Roosevelt was “the only American President who ever lied us into a war because he did not have the political courage to lead us into it.”

The sharp-tongued Republican Congresswoman from Connecticut who is a candidate for reelection, said in a radio speech that the President’s failure in his greatest obligation to his countrymen, preserving the peace “he inherited when he was young and strong,” disqualified him from any part in the making of the new peace.

Mrs. Luce accused Mr. Roosevelt of withholding his knowledge of the gravity of world events because he wanted a third term and “because he did not have the courage to admit that his seven-year policy of isolation and appeasement was a failure.”

She said the record belled accusations that Republican obstructionism tied the President’s hands and termed such charges “extenuating circumstances often presented by New Dealers” for the President’s “failure to safeguard this nation against an attack on two fronts.”

Republican Senators and Presidents were accused of keeping the United States out of the League of Nations and thus preventing Mr. Roosevelt from working with other nations to prevent war, Mrs. Luce said, but, she added, Mr. Roosevelt did not seek greater collective security during his seven peacetime years.

“The very opposite is the case,” she added.

Mrs. Luce said arguments to prove that Americans were so isolationist that Mr. Roosevelt could do nothing were tantamount to accusing the people of being responsible for Pearl Harbor.

Nevertheless, she asserted, the President did not warn the people and all she could find in studying the record were “happy assurance” from the President that the nation was in no danger from foreign powers.

When Herbert Hoover was President, Mrs. Luce declared in answering criticism that Republican Presidents had permitted the decay of American military power, he “spent a larger percent of the total government expenditures on armaments during his four years than Mr. Roosevelt did during his first four years.”

She said:

In view of the world situation, the fact that Mr. Roosevelt’s only economy before 1939 was in armaments is astonishing.

americavotes1944

‘Health whispers’ hit by Democrats

New York (UP) –
DNC Chairman Robert E. Hannegan charged today that the Republican Party was conducting a “whispering campaign” concerning President Roosevelt’s health.

Mr. Hannegan told newspapermen that “there is a whispering campaign being carried on by the opposition and it is being intensified.”

In Washington, the Presidential physician, RAdm. Ross T. McIntire, said yesterday that Mr. Roosevelt “is in good shape” and, “contrary to some reports, he does not even have a cold.”

Informed of Mr. Hannegan’s statement, RNC Chairman Herbert Brownell Jr. said the assertion was completely “unfounded.” He termed the Hannegan statement “some more of Hannegan’s shenanigans.”

americavotes1944

Berle calls Dewey ‘dishonest’ for hurling Communist charge

White House also replies to 10 charges made by Republican candidate

Washington (UP) –
Assistant Secretary of State Adolf A. Berle Jr. today accused Governor Thomas E. Dewey of being “surprising dishonest” and simultaneously the White House made available a list of “facts” seeking to refute 10 specific charges made against the Roosevelt administration by the Republican presidential candidate.

Mr. Berle, in a letter to President Roosevelt, accused Mr. Dewey of attempting “to play fast and loose with the American public” in his recent charge at Charleston, West Virginia, that the administration wanted to establish a Communist system in this country.

The documented list of “facts” was obviously intended to refute charges made by Mr. Dewey in his Oklahoma City speech last month.

Both sides quoted

It consisted largely of Dewey quotations from speeches or remarks of administration leaders, including Mr. Roosevelt, followed by “facts” consisting of more complete texts of the same speeches or explanatory statements.

Issued without comment, it was apparently designed to show that Mr. Dewey’s 10 charges were based on brief excerpts from longer statements which in their full context did not bear out his accusations or implications.

Mr. Berle wrote the President to accuse Mr. Dewey of having “ripped a single sentence” from a 1939 memorandum by Mr. Berle to the Temporary National Economic Committee and using this “single sentence” in “a surprisingly dishonest effort to claim that your administration was secretly trying to set up a Communist system.”

Program outlined

Mr. Berle said Mr. Dewey quoted the sentence – “over a period of years the government will gradually come to own most of the productive plants of the United States” – as the “doctrine” advocated by the Roosevelt administration. Actually, Mr. Berle declared, “the entire memorandum showed the exact contrary.”

He said the memorandum included this “clearly-stated” program:

In a democratic organization of economy, the obvious end should be to permit and require private initiative to do as much of the work as it can, consistent with maintaining the national economy on a reasonably even flow, distributing the burdens and benefits meanwhile so that no class will be unduly favored, no class unduly burdened, and a maximum of opportunity be provided for everyone to use his abilities usefully with corresponding reward. It is the definite function of the financial system to make this possible at all times.

Mr. Berle said Mr. Dewey knew him “well” after he “asked and got my help in getting him the independent nomination which made possible his election as District Attorney in New York.”

Mr. Berle added:

He knows, as does everybody else, that, while I want a finance system that takes care of little people as well as big, I have never been a Communist.

The list of Dewey statements and “the facts: began with Mr. Dewey’s attribution to Gen. George C. Marshall, Army Chief of Staff, the statement that:

In 1940, the year after the war began in Europe, the United States was in such a tragic condition that it couldn’t put into the field a mobile force of 75,000 men; the Aemy was only 25 percent ready.

Testimony cited

The document showed that Gen. Marshall testified on May 1, 1940, before a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee:

We could put into the field at the present time, as a mobile force, about 75,000 men of tegular establishment… to be promptly reinforced by 25,000 men from the Enlisted Reserve.

It also quoted Gen. Marshall as testifying before the Truman Committee on April 22, 1941:

In February 1940, I talked in a meeting before a historical group I didn’t have any preparation; I just went into it and talked – one statement I made was that, compared to the Navy, which is 75 percent mobilized at all times, we at best were not over 25 percent prepared in the Army.

Well, that was just for the purpose of illustrating the difference of the national policy.

It was in no way a criticism. It was the national policy that the principal buildup would be behind the oceans and behind the Navy, that our great task was the development of a successful mobilization.

The document said Mr. Dewey quoted Gen. H. H. Arnold, commander of the Army Air Forces, as saying: “Dec. 7, 1941, found Army Air Forces equipped with plans, but not planes.”

After making this statement in a report to the Secretary of War on Jan. 4, 1944, Gen. Arnold, according to the document, went on to say that:

When the Japanese struck, our combat aircraft strength was little better than a corporal’s guard of some 3,000 planes; of these, only 1,157 were actually suited to combat service…

‘Growing every hour’

Gen. Arnold said, too, that on Dec. 7, 1941:

We may not have had a powerful air force, but we knew that soon would have one. We had the plans and our organization was growing every hour. We knew that we had done everything in our power, everything permitted by us as a peace-loving nation to prepare to defend that nation against cruel and cunning foes.

It also quoted Gen. Arnold as having said:

The resourcefulness and energy of our people would have been of little avail against our enemies if the Army Air Forces had not begun preparations for war long before Pearl Harbor. By Dec. 7, 1941, we were in low gear and were shifting into second.

That we were rapidly building up our strength at that time has been erased from the minds of many people by succeeding events.

Didn’t start from scratch

But due in large part to the initiative of our Commander-in-Chief, we did not start this war from scratch.

The document said Mr. Dewey quoted Senator Harry S. Truman as saying on the floor of the Senate Aug. 14, 1941, that the responsibility for “the shocking state of our defense program” could be laid to the White House.

The “facts” said the discussion followed a Truman speech “chiefly” about “camp construction and raw materials” and that Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg (R-MI) asked Mr. Truman “where the final authority rests in respect to priorities and curtailments?” Mr. Truman said the committee was trying to find out.

White House blamed

Mr. Vandenberg then said: “In other words, the Senator [Truman] is now saying that the chief bottleneck which the defense program confronts is the lack of adequate organization and coordination in the administration of defense?” Mr. Truman agreed and Mr. Vandenberg asked, “who is responsible for that situation?”

“There is only one place where the responsibility can be put,” Mr. Truman said according to the Congressional Record as quoted by the document.

“Where is that – the White House?” Mr. Vandenberg asked.

“Yes, sir,” Mr. Truman replied.

Courage questioned

Mr. Dewey was next listed as having quoted from a Truman magazine article published in November 1942 concerning the “lack of courageous, unified leadership and centralized direction at the top.”

The document pointed out other portions of the article at length, including a passage:

Chaotic conditions in war production are by no means a thing for which the administration or the men in charge are alone to blame. Leadership implies “followship.” And up to now we, who have been free in finding fault, have shown ourselves poor followers. If we wish to correct the situation, the power lies with us.

Mr. Dewey also used this Truman quotation: “After Pearl Harbor, we found ourselves woefully unprepared for war.”

Rubber question stressed

The document offered additional quotations from a Truman report to the Senate, saying that “the Senator was talking only about disputes between agencies with particular reference to rubber.”

Mr. Dewey also used a line from the fourth term nominating speech made by Senator Alben W. Barkley (D-KY), who was quoted as saying, “When the treachery of Pearl Harbor came, we were not ready.”

The document says Mr. Barkley in the same speech praised Mr. Roosevelt as “the man who saw and warned the people against approaching danger.”

The document then went into four statements by Mr. Roosevelt and used by the Republican candidate. One was a line taken by Mr. Dewey from a message to Congress by the President in 1935:

There is no ground for apprehension that our relations with any nation will be otherwise than peaceful.

Another quotation given

In the same annual state of the nation message, the President said, according to the document:

I cannot with candor tell you that general international relationships outside the borders of the United States are improved.

Mr. Dewey quoted part of a 1937 speech by the President in which Mr. Roosevelt said:

How happy we are that the circumstances of the moment permit us to put our money into bridges and boulevards… rather than into huge standing armies and vast implements of war.

‘Must make will prevail’

The document pointed out that in this “quarantine-the-aggressors” speech, Mr. Roosevelt followed that sentence in this manner:

I am compelled and you are compelled, nevertheless, to look ahead. The peace, the freedom and the security of 90 percent of the population of the world is being jeopardized by the remaining 10 percent who are threatening a breakdown of all international order and law.

Surely the 90 percent who want to live in peace under law and in accordance with moral standards that have received almost universal acceptance throughout the centuries, can and must find some way to make their will prevail…

Mr. Roosevelt’s May 14, 1940, press conference statements about a two-ocean Navy were the basis of this Dewey statement:

It was in January 1940 that I publicly called for a two-ocean Navy for the defense of America. It was that statement of mine which Mr. Roosevelt called, and I quote his words: “Just plain dumb. Then as now we got ridicule instead of action.”

50,000 planes asked

The document offers a partial transcript of this press conference in which the President called a two-ocean Navy “an entirely outmoded conception of naval defense.”

It added a footnote saying that the conference dealt largely with Mr. Roosevelt’s message to Congress asking for 50,000 planes a year and an Army-Navy appropriation of $896 million, “but Dewey said nothing about the message.”

‘Soothes the people’

The concluding phrase of the document deals with Mr. Dewey’s statement:

When Hitler’s armies were at the gates of Paris, Mr. Roosevelt once again soothed the American people with the jolly comment: “There is no need for the country to be ‘discomboomerated.’”

This, according to the document, occurred during a May 1940 news conference when the President, discussing the public response to the need for preparedness, said he thought the people understood “the seriousness of the situation,” but that at the same time he wanted them to realize that “we are not going to discombobulate or upset, any more than we have to, a great many of the normal processes of life.”