Perkins: AFL stymies Soviet unions temporarily
But victory may be voided by new group
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer
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Loan agencies curb sought
Sen. Byrd to ask corporations’ control
By Charles T. Lucey, Scripps-Howard staff writer
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Poll: Public favors large U.S. Army and Navy during peacetime
Armed Forces totaling three million are envisioned as safeguard against war
By George Gallup, Director, American Institute of Public Opinion
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London paper says –
Roosevelt dominating Big Three talks
Outspoken American attitude reported
LONDON, England (UP) – The Sunday Observer, usually well informed diplomatically, indicated today that President Roosevelt was playing a dominant role in the Big Three conference, expressing an outspoken American attitude on differences in Allied policies.
The Observer said:
Hints from high Americans officials suggest that President Roosevelt is going to play (or is perhaps already playing) a most active part at the Big Three conference. He has made it clear that he will be outspoke on differences in policies of Allies and will make several proposals on how to settle them.
U.S. ready to bargain
The Observer said the United States opposes any totalitarian or authoritarian regimes, “whether of right or left that may be sponsored or propped up by Russia or Great Britain,” and that Mr. Roosevelt was believed to be strongly critical of British policy in Greece and Italy and Russian policy in Poland.
The United States is prepared to use its many bargaining counters, especially economic to enforce open-door politics and is likely to ask from Russia that no Communist governments be sponsored in liberated countries of the Russian zone, the Observer said.
The newspaper added that Mr. Roosevelt favors settlement of Germany’s future now rather than at a peace conference and has rejected all lenient peace proposals although not going as far as British and Russian advocates of harsh terms.
The Observer believed the President would suggest that the German frontier be not along the Oder River, but about halfway between the Oder and the 1939 Polish frontier. Similarly, while supporting a Curzon Line settlement in Poland, he was said to oppose the “Curzon A” settlement supported by Churchill preferring “Curzon B,” under which Poland would retain Lwow and the Galician oil fields.
The Big Three, the Observer said, is likely to discuss a new Polish settlement providing for diffusion of the London and Lublin government, in which the political parties and groupings in London and in Lublin would cooperate, the Observer said.
Early German collapse
The Sunday dispatch said the No. 1 priority item, on the agenda of the meeting is “What to do in case of early German collapse.” Since post-war plans for Germany have already been worked out the Big Three now has only to discuss the final details, the newspaper said.
They are also expected to make a final demand for Germany’s surrender, the newspaper said. The Germans have suggested that the “Big Three” will issue a new version of Wilson’s Fourteen Points.
The Germans have issued such suggestions in hope unconditional surrender terms may be modified, the Dispatch said, adding that “this is wishful thinking in hopes that owing perhaps to Allied differences there may be a chance of conditional terms.”
The Sunday Times said the first task of the meeting will be to decide on the final measures to end Nazi resistance and treatment to be given the defeated enemy. It added that the Nazi leaders are obviously apprehensive that the Allied statesmen may appeal to the German people “over the heads of the gangsters in control,” and that the Germans “seem to think such action might lead to that crack of which they are so terrified.”
The Sunday News of the World editorialized that it is taken for granted the three leaders are now meeting somewhere in Europe or outside, adding that “the Big Three have gotten together for the last time before the trumpets of peace replace the drums of war… the future of a dying Germany is priority number one at this fateful conference.”
U.S. prepares hard terms for Germany
‘Big Three’ expected to give approval
WASHINGTON (UP) – The State Department is preparing what it regards as hard, realistic and practicable peace terms for Germany.
These plans contemplate that Germany’s war potential must be destroyed or at least rigidly controlled; that its standard of living must not be allowed to improve faster than that of any neighbor states which were ravished by the Nazis, and that Germany should help reconstruct Europe to the maximum of its ability.
The broad outline was painted coincidentally with confirmation here that the “Big Three” leaders are expected to give quick, formal approval to armistice terms for Germany which have been prepared by the European Advisory Commission.
Changes possible
President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Marshal Joseph Stalin may find it necessary to make some changes. But it is anticipated that their approval of the terms to be handed the German High Command when and if the Nazis surrender unconditionally will be more or less routine.
The controversy in this country over a “soft” or a “hard” peace for Germany reached a climax last fall when the so-called Morgenthau Plan was publicized. Compared with some of the proposals of the Morgenthau Plan – such as the flooding of all German coal mines, it might be said that the State Department’s ideas are less drastic.
But it was pointed out that they were also believed to be far more realistic. For example, most of the nations surrounding Germany are dependent upon her for coal.
French need coal
France, always deficient in coal, could hardly be expected to agree to the flooding of mines, thereby cutting off her main source of supply.
There is no inclination here to give the impression that the steps to be taken to keep Germany unarmed after this war are near completion.
Some of the decisions that will have to be made cannot be done until after the war is over. It will be impossible to decide what industries are to be destroyed, transferred or controlled until it is known what industries are left after the final battles are over.
To determine zones
According to the Army and Navy Journal, the “Big Three” conference “is expected to determine the zones of Germany which the military forces of the several powers will occupy after conquest” but warned that no responsible officials here placed credence in reports that the Hitler regime would collapse internally.
Recent press feelers, “largely through the medium of German business moguls” have been ignored because they lacked authority, the Journal said.
The Journal said:
Since Hitler… is to be punished by the United Nations, it is obvious that to recognize him by negotiation would be to give him a standing that would embarrass later treatment of him.
It is therefore with some agency other than Hitler that surrender might be discussed, and other than the “Free Germany” Committee created by Marshal Stalin from captured German generals, no such agency is now on the horizon.
Navy fliers blast 9,819 Jap planes
Army pilots destroy 6,686 aircraft
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New B-29 field opens in Marianas
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Thousands of captives die building railroad for Japs
Inhuman treatment in Thailand and death march cruelties described by rescued
By William B. Dickinson, United Press staff writer
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Simms: Big explosion long overdue in Germany
Nazis worsen fate by surrender delay
By William Philip Simms, Scripps-Howard foreign editor
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Editorial: How long can Hitler last?
How long can Hitler hold out? Government experts, military and political, are asking the same question as the man in the street – and not coming up with any more definite answer.
But there are differences in emphasis between the official and the curbstone opinions. Officials are less optimistic. They got caught far out on the limb of prophecy last fall, and want no more of the same. Another difference is that the cracker-barrel strategists figure the Russians will take Berlin soon and end the war, while the professionals doubt that the capital will fall quickly or that Hitler will surrender when it does.
On the military side, Germany is still much stronger than the 20-mile-a-day sweep of the Red armies across the Polish plain indicates. The Germans withdrew from a large and sprawling flat area, which offered no strong natural defenses, to a long-prepared line on the Oder River. This withdrawal, which apparently began before the Russian attack, was not unexpected. At any rate, Germany still has a vast and well-trained army, with magnificent weapons and shorter supply lines.
More military importance is attached to the Russian breakthrough on the northern and southern flanks, in East Prussia and Silesia, than to the spectacular leap across central Poland. On its face, the speed with which the Russians cracked the great natural defenses of the East Prussian lakes looks like an all-time military miracle.
But why didn’t the Germans try to stand on that “perfect line”? Did some Junker generals cooperate with their old friends, Marshal von Paulus and Gen. von Seydlitz, of Stalin’s “Free Germany Committee”?
If the Junker generals – who hoped to use Hitler but were used by him, and who tried to have him assassinated last summer – are making deals with the Russians in any large numbers in response to Paulus’ pleas, part of Germany may fall soon. Reports of another Nazi purge of Junker commanders suggest Hitler fears this.
Civilian disorders, of course, would help. Hitler’s warning last week, and the fact that two trusted mayors of Breslau had to be purged in rapid succession, plus reports of German unrest by neutral travelers, all are promising – particularly because of millions of foreign slave laborers there, waiting to rebel. But the Nazis have foreseen and prepared against revolt for a long time, and their capacity to carry out fast mass murder of their opponents is only too well demonstrated. So, the Allies can make no definite plans on the basis of a probable successful German revolution.
Even if the Russians – with or without the aid of Junker generals and popular revolt in some industrial centers – are able to take Berlin quickly, and Gen. Eisenhower plunges through from the west, the Nazis may go on fighting from central and southern German bases. Prolonged destruction and chaos in Germany seem more probable than a quick and clean-cut peace for the whole country while the Nazis survive.