America at war! (1941–) – Part 4

331

Letter from President Roosevelt on Reconversion Planning
August 26, 1944

fdr.1944

My dear Mr. Smith:

The recent favorable development of the military situation on the world’s battlefronts has emphasized the need to speed up preparations for the eventual reconversion of the Nation’s productive energies to peaceful pursuits. This will be a huge and intricate task, requiring careful preparations. In addition to legislative action already under consideration it will call for a great deal of accurate and comprehensive information concerning industrial production, the status of industry, and the wellbeing of the Nation’s workers. Such information should be currently maintained as we move from war to peace.

In particular I believe that the statistical record should include an account of our industrial system while it is geared up for maximum production during 1944. This may well be the peak year of production for many years to come. An intimate knowledge of the main characteristics of the economy during this war year will be important not only as a guide to our steps toward reconversion but as a part of the record which is essential for military preparedness in the future. I should think it would be possible, if production data were obtained for 1944, to avoid the necessity of appropriations for the regular biennial census of manufactures pertaining to 1945.

Again, it is important that we should have a running account of the status of employment, unemployment, and wages in the Nation as a whole and in the principal industrial areas. With this we should know more about the effects of the war on the incomes, expenditures, and savings of the great masses of our people whose work in the factories and mines, in transportation and on the farms, has equipped our armies in the field.

I believe that the costs of obtaining such information for the use of business, large and small, labor, agriculture, the general public, and governmental agencies themselves may properly be regarded as an essential part of the costs of the war emergency. In conjunction with the agencies concerned will you please undertake the preparation of plans for providing these types of information, and report to me at your early convenience upon the ways and means by which these plans can most appropriately be effectuated.

332

Völkischer Beobachter (August 26, 1944)

Neue große U-Boot-Erfolge –
Die Versenkungen im Nordmeer

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333

Churchill und Roosevelt –
Drahtzieher des Krieges von jeher

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334

Stimson macht Teilgeständnis –
Die Feindverluste in Frankreich und Italien

Stockholm, 25. August –
Kriegsminister Stimson machte ein neues Teilgeständnis über die US-Verluste. Hienach sollen die Verluste des Heeres bis zum 6. August 48.880 Tote, 125.931 Verwundete, 42.956 Vermisste und 43.822 Gefangene, zusammen 261.569 Mann betragen.

Die US-Verluste in Südfrankreich seit der kürzlichen Landung sollen sich nach, einem vorläufigen Bericht vom 20. August auf 1.221 Tote und Vermisste sowie 1.754 Verwundete belaufen.

Die US-Verluste der Armee an Boden- und Luftstreitkräften im Mittelmeergebiet sollen seit der Landung in Italien bis zum 7. August 1944 betragen: 17.035 Gefallene, 54.377 Verwundete und 20.411 Vermisste.

Der Stützpunkthunger der USA

Der US-Senator Harry Truman, Mitglied des Ausschusses für militärische Angelegenheiten im Senat und Kandidat für die Vizepräsidentschaft, erklärte laut Reuter am Mittwoch:

Es ist von Bedeutung, daß wir Stützpunkte auf der Inselkette unterhalb der Aleuten erhalten. Es ist von ebensolcher Bedeutung, daß wir uns Stützpunkte im Südpazifik sichern, um die Zufahrtstraßen zum Panamakanal zu schützen. Es ist von ebenso großer Bedeutung, daß wir noch näher an Japan gelegene Stützpunkte besitzen.

335

Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force (August 26, 1944)

Communiqué No. 140

More Allied armor and infantry are in PARIS, following the entrance of the 2nd French Armored Division Friday morning, and all resistance in the southern and southwestern outskirts has been overcome. By noon yesterday, one armored column had crossed the SEVERES bridge over the SEINE and another column had progressed into the southern part of the city. Infantry followed the armor and advanced to the CATHEDRAL of NOTRE-DAME.

South of PARIS, the enemy holds to the east edge of the SEINE between VILLENEUVE-SAINT-GEORGES and CORBEIL. Between CORBEIL and MELIN, reconnaissance elements have crossed the river. No changes have been reported from the areas of MONTEREAU, or MONTARGIS, both of which are in our hands.

The enemy is withdrawing northeast from MONTARGIS and we have patrols as far east as TROYES.

ELBEUF had been liberated and Allied troops between there and the sea are rapidly approaching the SEINE. The river RISLE has been crossed at many places and our troops hold both banks ad far north as MONTFORT-SUR-RISLE. We have taken HONFLEUR and BEUZEVILLE.

Further to the southeast, ÉPAIGNES and SAINT-GEORGES-DU-VIÈVRE are in our hands, and British and Canadian forces have made contact with American troops.

Brest was subjected to attack by land, air and sea. Enemy strongpoints, including the arsenal, were attacked by medium and heavy bombers yesterday afternoon and last night. Coastal batteries and selected targets were bombarded from the sea.

A fuel dump at CLERMONT, east of BEAUVAIS, was attacked by medium bombers during the afternoon.

Fighters and fighter-bombers attacked tanks, motor vehicles and barges, particularly in the Lower SEINE and eastward from the river. Medium bombers also hit concentrations of motor vehicles near ROUEN.

There was more opposition in the air, and 51 enemy aircraft were shot down, and others were destroyed on the ground. Twenty-one of our aircraft are missing.

Motor transport and trains in northeastern FRANCE were attacked during the night by our light bombers.

336

U.S. Navy Department (August 26, 1944)

CINCPAC Press Release No. 531

For Immediate Release
August 26, 1944

Forty‑seven tons of bombs were dropped on Iwo Jima in the Volcano Islands by Liberators of the 7th AAF during daylight on August 24 (West Longitude Date). Three of approximately ten intercepting enemy fighters were destroyed, and one was damaged. Two Liberators were damaged. Anti-aircraft fire ranged from moderate to intense.

In the Marianas, Rota Island was attacked by our aircraft on August 23, and Pagan and Aguijan Islands were bombed on August 24. Gun positions and other defense installations were the targets.

A single 7th AAF Liberator bombed barracks on Yap Island in the western Carolines on August 24, encountering meager anti-aircraft fire.

Nauru Island was attacked by Ventura search planes of Group 1, Fleet Air Wing Two on August 23, and on August 24, Venturas and 7th AAF Mitchells again heavily bombed the runways, gun positions, and the town.

In the Marshalls, Corsair fighters of the 4th Marine Aircraft Wing bombed and strafed barracks and gun emplacements at Mille Atoll on August 23.

337

The Pittsburgh Press (August 26, 1944)

REACH FRENCH-SWISS BORDER
U.S. columns advancing up Rhône Valley

Spearhead nears Italian frontier
By Eleanor Packard, United Press staff writer

Rome, Italy –
U.S. armored columns captured Avignon, Tarascon and Arles on the Rhône River and swung northward today in a powerful drive up the Rhône Valley, ancient invasion route to central France and Germany.

A London broadcast said U.S. spearheads were reported 17 miles northeast of Avignon.

A German communiqué said fierce fighting was in progress in the Rhône Valley, where motorized U.S. detachments “are attempting to prevent our movements in the direction of Lyon.”

To the northeast, other U.S. forces seized the fortress town of Briançon with the aid of French patriots after 10-mile advance through the French Alps from L’Argentière to within five miles of the Italian border.

Briançon lies 20 miles south of the Turin–Lyon railway and only 50 miles west of the Italian industrial center of Turin itself.

Battle in Toulon

Gen. Sir Henry Wilson, Mediterranean commander, announced in his daily communiqué:

Except for pockets of enemy resistance, notably at Toulon and Marseille, nearly all of southern France east of the Rhône and south of Avignon and Briançon has now been liberated.

French forces waging a battle of annihilation against the encircled German garrison in Toulon further compressed the enemy pocket yesterday, capturing the Maritime Arsenal, the Fort of Colle Noire and Cap Brun.

Dana Adams Schmidt, United Press writer, reported from Toulon that though most of the naval base city had been cleared of Germans, the enemy was still resisting stubbornly from Fort Malbousquet, dominating the main road from Toulon to Marseille, and from the Napoleon coastal forts of the Saint-Mandrier Peninsula.

Bombard strongpoints

Allied warships and planes continued to join land artillery in bombarding strongpoints in Toulon. A U.S. destroyer landed a small force of French troops without opposition on the Giens Peninsula, 11 miles southeast of Toulon, after a heavy attack on the area.

In Marseille, French troops consolidated their positions and attacked an enemy pocket around Notre-Dame de la Garde in an effort to complete the liberation of France’s second largest city.

At the opposite end of the Riviera, U.S. troops pushed four miles northeast of Cannes and captured the resort town of Antibes, 10 miles southwest of Nice.

Hit oil depot

Allied destroyers engaged enemy coastal batteries on the islands below Cannes and started numerous fires, including one in an oil storage depot. Several gun emplacements were destroyed.

U.S. infantry, with armored support, captured Avignon, 50 miles northwest of Marseille and famous for its mineral waters, after taking Carpentras and Cavaillon, 3½ miles northeast and southeast respectively.

Allied headquarters announced that the Americans had swung north from Avignon up the Rhône Valley, part of a complex system of rivers and canals linked with Germany itself by way of the long and winding Rhine.

Thirteen miles south of Avignon, the Americans captured Tarascon, and 8½ miles farther south, Arles, both also on the Rhône River.

Reported near Lyon

There was still no official word of the progress northward of U.S. forces who captured Grenoble, 58 miles southeast of Lyon last Wednesday, though a Rome newspaper yesterday said they had penetrated to within 20 miles of Lyon, also on the Rhône 120 miles above Avignon.

Disclosed that one column had captured Briançon, 22 miles southeast of Grenoble, however, indicated that the Americans were fanning out toward the Italian border to threaten the rear of German forces in the Po Valley.

Headquarters also announced that U.S. troops in force had occupied Sault, 20 miles east of Avignon; Gap, 12 miles southeast of Grenoble, and Saint-Bonnet, two miles north of Gap. U.S. light armored forces had passed through both Gap and Saint-Bonnet in their thrust north to Grenoble.

338

Yanks reported over Marne

Alsace-Lorraine told to prepare for Allied invasion armies ‘soon’
By Virgil Pinkley, United Press staff writer

map.082644.up
Racing toward Germany, German forces today were being pounded on all fronts in France, as Allied troops hammered the Nazi pocket south of the Seine (1) and closed on Le Havre, while the enemy troops (2) were threatened in their race toward the border by U.S. columns fanning out from Paris.

SHAEF, London, England –
U.S. armored spearheads were reported striking for the German border beyond Troyes and Reims today as Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s headquarters warned the people of Luxembourg and Alsace-Lorraine that Allied invasion armies may “very soon” roll through their lands into Germany.

Slashing almost unopposed through the rear of the disintegrating German armies in northern France, Lt. Gen. George S. Patton’s U.S. tank columns were reported barely 100 miles from the German frontier after crossing the Marne River below Reims.

Headquarters announced that one U.S. force broke into the railway hub of Troyes, 65 miles south of Reims, and about twice that distance from the Reich.

Fan out from Troyes

The Yanks fanned out beyond the city and, according to a still-unconfirmed German report, raced northward to Reims in a thrust pointed straight at Sedan and the Ardennes Forest where the German Army broke through the French “hinge” in 1940 and won the first Battle of France.

Luxembourg was barely 80 miles beyond the American spearheads and Alsace-Lorraine only about 65 miles away, and the allied warning made it clear that Gen. Eisenhower’s armies were on their way into the Reich itself.

A high staff officer broadcast the invasion proclamation early today, warning residents of the threatened areas against helping the fleeing enemy or exposing themselves to the Allied air attacks which, he said, will be carried on by night and day wherever the German armies are to be found.

Battle decided

He said:

The elimination of the German 7th Army as a fighting entity has decided the battle of France. The survivors of the Normandy battle and a handful of German divisions north of the Seine can at best fight a series of delaying actions on their retreat into Germany.

The areas in which you live are already today in the rear area of military occupations. Very soon they may become a theater of war.

There was no immediate indication of the strength of the U.S. columns now pounding toward the Nazi frontiers, but they were believed to be operating in considerable force with the aid of French Partisan units known to be prowling through the countryside.

Cut across escape path

Their dramatic thrust carried squarely across the path of the German 15th Army, now in full flight eastward from the robot bomb coast.

The Stockholm Dagens Nyheter said that Field Marshal Günther von Kluge, commander-in-chief of German forces in northern France, was reported to have been killed. The report, said to have come from Germany, gave no details and a spokesman for the Nazi Legation in Stockholm was quoted as saying that he was unable to confirm or deny it.

The first word of the reported thrust into Reims came from German military commentators, who said the Americans crossed the Marne yesterday and lunged on 15 miles northward into the cathedral town.

Report unconfirmed

Allied headquarters refused to confirm the German report but it was admitted probable that Gen. Patton’s rough rider had turned north from Troyes over the excellent hard-surfaced roads running through Châlons, Epernay and Château-Thierry into Reims.

The capture of Reims would place the American armor within 50 miles of the Belgian border and completely outflank the German 15th Army pulling back at top speed from the Dieppe–Amiens–Beauvais triangle above Paris.

Imperils Nazi escape

Couple with the seizure of Troyes, which appeared to have fallen almost without a fight, the American breakthrough into Reims imperiled the entire German position in northern France and the line of escape for the Nazi forces in southern and central France.

Official sources confirmed the headlong flight of the German 15th Army from the Channel coast, and aerial reconnaissance reports said the main highways leading eastward to the Rhineland were jammed with retreating Nazi troops and transport.

Allied warplanes bombed and strafed the fleeing enemy columns all day yesterday and on into the night, while other aerial formations piled the Seine River crossings high with Nazi dead and the wreckage of enemy tanks and equipment.

Wreck 270 trucks

About 270 German trucks and 56 tanks were destroyed by low-flying U.S. fighter-bombers and rocket-firing British planes, along with 29 troop-packed barges caught on the Seine yesterday.

Allied ground forces crowded in from the west and south on the Seine pocket, moving in for the kill on an estimated 90,000 Germans squeezed against the river in a triangle measuring less than 300 square miles.

U.S., British and Canadian forces linked up just south of Rouen and threatened momentarily to break into that key river port, while British and Canadian units from the west broke across the Risle River at a half-dozen points and fanned out along the Seine estuary within artillery range of Le Havre.

Le Havre itself was reported a “dead” city, and Allied troops moved freely along the opposite bank of the Seine without drawing fire from the big German coastal batteries there.

Swarms of German minesweepers, torpedo boats and coastal craft jammed the harbor, however, in a desperate and apparently doomed effort to evacuate part of the garrison.

U.S. and British warplanes smashed repeatedly at the Nazi evacuation fleet, sinking a number of vessels and turning most of them back into port.

Fan out from Paris

Below the vanishing Seine pocket, U.S. and French troops fanned out on all sides of liberated Paris, sending armored patrols across the Seine between Corbeil and Melun south of the city and on northward toward the Marne.

Far to the west, heavy fighting flared up around the besieged Breton port of Brest as U.S. troops launched a climactic assault on the city under cover of shattering air and sea bombardment. Swarms of bombers pounded the cornered enemy garrison while Allied warships, including the British battleship HMS Warspite, poured round and round of high explosive shells into the port.

339

Allies mop up virtually all Nazis in Paris

De Gaulle establishes headquarters in city

London, England (UP) –
U.S. soldiers strolled the streets of Paris today and Gen. Charles de Gaulle triumphantly set up headquarters in his liberated capital after surrender of the Nazi commander had ended German resistance except for a few isolated pockets.

As SHAEF announced the cessation of virtually all hostilities in Paris, United Press writer Robert Richards filed a dispatch from the city, dated at 9:10 a.m., reporting that fighting had subsided and that the main concern now was the feeding of the population of five million.

Mr. Richards said that American doughboys were on every street corner and that jeep-towed trailers loaded with food were rolling into the city. Parisians were not starving, Mr. Richards said, but he was told that another month of German occupation would have created an acute food situation.

Commander surrenders

The virtual end of fighting in Paris came only a few hours after the surrender of the Nazi commander, SHAEF announced.

The German commander signed a six-point surrender demand last night and then toured the city with Allied officers, ordering his troops manning strongpoints to lay down their arms, a headquarters spokesman said.

The spokesman acknowledged that some resistance was still being encountered at Davron, 15 miles west of the center of Paris, and possibly in isolated parts of the capital, but the surrender terms provided that any German troops who ignored the “ceasefire” order would no longer come under the “laws of war” and could be summarily shot as guerrillas when captured.

Surrenders to Leclerc

The Nazi commander, whose name was not disclosed, surrender to Brig. Gen. Jacques Leclerc, commander of the French 2nd Armored Division, the first Allied army unit to break into the city.

Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s daily Western Front communiqué said:

More Allied armor and infantry are in Paris following the entrance of the 2nd French Armored Division Friday morning, and all resistance in the southern and southwestern outskirts has been overcome.

Amends announcement

The headquarters spokesman later amended the announcement to include the quelling of virtually all resistance in the city. Thousands of prisoners were believed to have been taken, but the total was not announced.

A Berlin broadcast, for German consumption, said the surrender order was “forced and freely invented” and claimed that Nazi troops were still fighting inside the French capital.

Gen. de Gaulle entered Paris at 7:00 p.m. (1:00 p.m. ET) yesterday while French and American tanks and troops, aided by tens of thousands of Parisians, were still battling Germans and collaborationists in the streets and buildings of the world’s fourth largest city and the first Allied capital to be liberated in this war.

To place wreath

His arrival ended an odyssey that began in June 1940 with his departure – alone of the Reynaud government, in which he was Undersecretary of War – for England, there to rally under the Fighting French banner the forces that eventually were to rise up and help free France.

Today he was to receive the acclamation of Paris, which had listened over forbidden radios to his counsel during the four years and two months of German occupation.

Radio Paris said Gen. de Gaulle would lay a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier under the Arc de Triomphe at 3:00 p.m. and drive along the Champs-Élysées to the Place de la Concorde where national anthems of the Allied nations will be played. He will later attend a service of thanksgiving in Notre-Dame Cathedral, the broadcast said.

Whereabouts unknown

Gen. de Gaulle’s entry into Paris wiped out the last claim of the Vichy Government to authority over France. The whereabouts of the Vichy regime was a mystery and its envoys throughout the non-Axis would either had disowned it or had been notified by the countries to which they had been accredited that they were no longer recognized as the representatives of France.

Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain, Chief of State in the Vichy government, was reported by Madrid to have addressed letters to Prime Minister Churchill and Pope Pius XII in which he defended his policy and handed over his disputed authority to Gen. de Gaulle.

The letters were delivered to the Papal Nuncio at Vichy before Pétain was arrested by the Germans and taken to the Reich, Madrid said.

Help Patriots

U.S. and French armored columns finally rolled into Paris yesterday to relieve Patriots who were near exhaustion after battling the Germans since last Saturday under the battle cry of an earlier revolution, “Remember the Bastille!”

Sporadic resistance was met along the way, but it was quickly put down. Men and women swarmed out of their homes and underground hideouts to point out nests of snipers and strongpoints, and soon hundreds of prisoners were filing through the streets they once had tread as conquerors.

One Paris broadcast said some snipers even held out for a while in Notre-Dame Cathedral. Six hundred Germans were captured in the Chamber of Deputies.

Hold Renault plants

James McGlincy, United Press writer and the first American newspaperman to enter the liberated capital, said in a broadcast over the Paris radio that U.S. tanks fired on German forces holding out in the Renault factories.

He said:

It was like Bastille Day in the streets, with crowds eagerly following the battle and taking cover only when shells came their way. Many people held telephone lines open and gave running commentaries to their friends who were not in the battle zone. Then they made appointments for celebrating the victory together.

When Gen. de Gaulle entered the city and his car pulled up outside the War Ministry, tanks which had been his escort closed in on a building only 20 yards away and began firing.

Warns of fight ahead

Gen. de Gaulle went almost immediately to the Prefecture of Police, where cheering crowds greeted him and an orchestra played the “Marseillaise.” Responding, he hailed the liberation of France, but warned:

The enemy is still on our soil. We have to aid the Allies to chase him out. That is one reason why French troops have come with Allied troops in the south of France. All together we shall drive the enemy out of France.

Long live Paris! Long live France! Long live the Republic!

Armistice terms given

Then a few hours later came the news that the German commander in the Paris area had signed an armistice providing that:

  • Commanders will be ordered to cease fire immediately and hoist a white flag. Arms will be collected in an open space while awaiting orders. Arms are to be handed over intact.

  • Military dispositions of mobile units and equipment depots are to be furnished. Depots must be handed over intact with their records.

  • Particulars of destruction of defense works and depots are to be furnished.

  • German staff officers equal in number to the strongpoints or garrisons are to be sent to Gen. Leclerc’s headquarters.

  • Gen. Leclerc’s staff will determine conditions of evacuation of German Army personnel.

  • Once the orders to cease fire have been transmitted, those forces that continue to fight will no longer come under the laws of war, but those who continue to fight unaware of the surrender will be treated humanely.

Other Paris broadcasts said the first consignments of American wheat had already begun to arrive in Paris to relieve a drastic food shortage. Water and gas service was also said to have been restored in the capital.

Jean Le Fèvre, provisional secretary-general for agriculture, set up headquarters in Paris to handle the feeding of the city, the Paris station said, and had broadcast an appeal to farmers of the region to “thresh and deliver grain with the utmost haste.”

Gen. Alphonse Juin, Chief of Staff of National Defense for the French Committee of National Liberation, ordered the population of the Paris region and neighboring areas to stay off roads leading into the city for imperative military reasons.

340

Vichy liberated, French report

Algiers hears Pétain executed at Metz
By the United Press

A Fighting French radio station announced today that French Partisans have liberated Vichy, as unconfirmed reports from Algiers said that Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain has been executed by French patriots at Metz.

The Fighting French radio transmitter, giving its location as Vichy, said French Forces of the Interior control the former capital of the Pétain government.

There was no confirmation of the reported execution of Pétain, and French sources in London described them as “incredible” because the aged Vichy Chief of State had never been included on the Partisans’ “death list” of traitors and collaborationists.

The official Vatican City Bulletin said Pétain has been put in a position where it is “impossible for him to exercise his powers.” Leon Berard, Vichy Ambassador to the Vatican, was believed to have informed the Papal authorities that his diplomatic mission was at an end because of the disappearance of the Vichy government.

Pétain had been reported arrested by the Gestapo and removed to Germany.

341

Bombers blast 12 Jap ships in raids on Dutch Indies

U.S. fliers strike within 750 miles of Tokyo in new attacks on Volcano Islands
By the United Press

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342

Crosby in England

London, England –
Big Crosby, movie and radio star, was en route here by train today from Glasgow where he arrived last night by air from the United States.

343

americavotes1944

Opponents lay ban on speech to Roosevelt

GOP Senators help stir up controversy

Washington (UP) –
Two Republican Senators today laid on the White House doorstep responsibility for the War Department’s sudden reversal of its decision to let the Socialist Party broadcast “a political address” over Army shortwave stations to servicemen overseas.

The Socialists had sought permission for the broadcast on the grounds that President Roosevelt’s Aug. 12 speech from Bremerton, Washington, rebroadcast to troops, was a “political address.”

Their request was based on the Soldier Voting Act, which provides that if a political address is rebroadcast to troops, equal time must, if requested, be allowed other political parties with presidential candidates in at least six states.

Decision is reversed

The War Department announced yesterday that it would grant the Socialists’ request, apparently agreeing that Mr. Roosevelt’s Bremerton speech was “political.”

Six hours later, Assistant Secretary of War Joseph J. McCloy rescinded the action, holding that the President’s Bremerton “report” was not a “political speech” and that therefore no equal time was due any other political candidate.

Senator Homer Ferguson (R-MI) said that the Socialists should appeal the new War Department decision directly to the White House because if “any pressure” had been brought to effect the Army’s reversal, that would be the place to look for it.

Wherry hits McCloy

Senator Kenneth S. Wherry (R-NE) said there was “no doubt” that the Army did an “about-face” because of White House pressure. He called for a senatorial investigation of War Department official decisions.

The Republican Senators’ views were reflected by Socialist presidential candidate Norman Thomas who said in Denver that the President “either directly or indirectly” ruled his own speech was “not a political talk.” Mr. Thomas called the War Department’s reversal “unfortunate but not surprising.”

Senator Claude Pepper (D-FL), ardent administration supporter, denied that Mr. Roosevelt’s speech was political. Senator Pepper said the President “could have done a lot better than that in a political speech.”

Calls it a ‘report’

In ordering the Army’s reversal of its decision to grant the Socialists radio time, Mr. McCloy said the Department determined that the President’s “report” was “not political” and that accordingly no broadcast time would be given the Socialists “on such a basis.” In its earlier decision acceding to the Socialists’ demands, the War Department referred to the President’s talk as a “speech.”

Mr. McCloy’s announcement follows:

It has just been called to my attention that a decision was made by an Army agency to grant time to the Socialist Party for an overseas broadcast to troops on the basis of that party’s contention the President’s report at Bremerton was a “political address” within the meaning of Title V of Public Law 227. I have reconsidered this decision. The War Department determines that the President’s report was not “political” and accordingly no time will be granted to the Socialist Party on such basis.

Issued by colonel

The War Department’s Public Relations Office credited the earlier decision favoring the Socialists to Col. Robert Cutler, Soldier Vote Coordinator for the Department. Col. Culter declined to say whether Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson had approved his decision, and Army Public Relations chief Maj. Gen. Alexander D. Surles said he didn’t think “the Secretary was aware of the situation.”

Norman Thomas, in Denver, said of the War Department’s reversal:

There is no way to answer the ruling by the War Department. It is unfortunate, but not surprising.

The Commander-in-Chief has, either directly or indirectly, ruled that his speech was not a political talk. It is a taste of what we can expect in the future if the President is going to exploit his position as Commander-in-Chief!

344

KRUG SWINGS TO UNITE STRIFE-RIDDEN WPB
Acting head moves to end internal war

Threatens to fire ‘snipers’ in future

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345

americavotes1944

Dulles, Hull agreed on ‘experiment’

U.S. foreign policy to be ‘nonpartisan’

Washington (UP) –
Democratic and Republican Party leaders today placed their hopes of avoiding another bitter League of Nations debate, such as followed the last war, upon an unprecedented campaign-year experiment in bipartisan cooperation.

Foreign policy leaders of both parties – Secretary of State Cordell Hull speaking for President Roosevelt and John Foster Dulles speaking for Governor Thomas E. Dewey – have agreed on numerous aspects of the world security plan presented by the U.S. delegation this week to the Dumbarton Oaks Conference.

They have also agreed that the subject should be kept on a nonpartisan basis, thus asserting, if the policy is followed, united participation in the proposed world security organization whichever party wins the November election.

Dulles wants ‘discussion’

They have not agreed, however, on the degree of nonpartisan public discussion of the world security issue. Mr. Hull wanted it kept “entirely out of politics,” but Mr. Dulles insisted that the understanding on nonpartisanship should not preclude “full public nonpartisan discussion of the means of attaining lasting peace.”

Regardless of that reservation, the joint declaration is unique in American political history, especially if each candidate abides by it to the satisfaction of his opponent.

But the road ahead for the two candidates has many danger spots. Republicans have already accused President Roosevelt of using the war for political purposes. Mr. Dulles cited his recent Bremerton, Washington, speech made upon his return from the Pacific tour as an example.

Dulles gives his views

Mr. Dulles volunteered the following as his idea of nonpartisanship:

To my mind, a partisan discussion distinct from a nonpartisan one would be an approach where you take a position in which you do not believe but which you think will give you votes.

Democrats and Republicans will be watching every word of each other’s candidates from now on for what might be considered a breach of the Hull-Dulles agreement. Until official publication of the American proposals or an American-British-Russian agreement on a plan for world organization, Mr. Dewey would appear to be limited to generalities.

Will history repeat?

Mr. Dulles was confident that he and Mr. Hull had scored a great achievement – “something novel in American history” – but their joint statement itself conceded that “complete agreement” depended upon future developments.

Some political historians, hopeful that this would prevent another low-level partisan political debate on foreign policy such as occurred in 1920, recalled that during the early years of world War I there was also almost-unanimous approval of a league to keep the peace. Samuel Flagg Bemis, in his Diplomatic History of the United States, says:

The elder statesmen of both parties were for it: T. R. Roosevelt, Taft, Bryan, Elihu Root, Lodge and finally Wilson, although Lodge was to desert the idea when Wilson later coupled it with a proposed peace without victory. No one took exception to the proposal of a League of Nations before 1917 and then, among Republican leaders, only Lodge.

346

British drive in Italy nears Gothic Line

Eighth Army meets little resistance

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Alice from Dallas causes trouble

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347

U.S. bombers blast Nazi oil center in Ruhr

RAF hammers enemy from Berlin to Ruhr

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348

Editorial: Matter of ‘gobbledygook’

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349

Editorial: Mlle. Darrieux cleared

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350

americavotes1944

Editorial: PAC shakedown

The bagman for Sidney Hillman’s Political Action Committee sees nothing illegal or even unethical in the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union’s shakedown of employers for its campaign money chest.

Hyman S. Blumberg, vice president of the Hillman union, not only defends the solicitation of money from firms having contracts with the union, but asserts he would not be surprised if other meetings to further the collection of funds were to be held “throughout the nation” between now and November.

Mr. Blumberg’s bland assurance that “no high-pressure methods were used” is one of the most cynical statements yet made in the Hillman campaign to create a fund large enough to buy the election.

In bright contrast to Amalgamated’s activities, it should be pointed out that other unions, notably the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, have long recognized that the collection of funds by a union from its employers even for charitable purposes comes dangerously close to blackmail. In fact, David Dubinsky’s union establishes this principle in a strict constitutional provision absolutely prohibiting any such solicitation or collection. And Mr. Dubinsky himself made a noteworthy example of one union official whom he suspended for four weeks for having sold an employer tickets to a benefit in which the union was interested.

If there were any question about the threat to democracy embodied in the huge election fund the PAC is taxing out of its own membership – and now out of the employers – the latest revelations of Amalgamated’s shakedown and its threat of further shakedowns should answer it.