Army puts Sinatra under observation
He may end up in 1-A after health check
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Aubrey Williams unsuited to head REA, Senator says
Former National Youth chief is called social worker lacking business experience
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Italy to yield colonies, Congressional source says
Purported harsh armistice terms include cession of Pantelleria Island to Britain
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Capture of Manila hailed by Russians
By the United Press
The Soviet Navy publication Red Fleet today hailed the U.S. liberation of Central Luzon and Manila as a “great victory for the Allies.”
The Americans are now in a good position to “sap the Japanese military strength,” the article said. It heralded the conquest as “the final and decisive stage” of the battle for the Philippines.
Perkins: CIO aligned with Russia in first big row
Offer amendments to British program
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer
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Several obstacles block Lewis’ early return to AFL
Green’s report ready for council – UMW head’s reply to bid kept secret
By Ned Brooks, Scripps-Howard staff writer
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Simms: Rumors flood Washington in lieu of news
Story of Big Three adds more material
By William Philip Simms, Scripps-Howard foreign editor
WASHINGTON – Washington today is a city of rumor. It reminds me of Paris during those 11 hectic days of November preceding the armistice of 1918.
The simultaneous release here, in London and in Moscow of the first official announcement of the meeting between President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill and Marshal Stalin in the Black Sea area. has served to increase the flood.
Envoys with European pipelines are convinced that peace forces inside Germany are already moving to dispense with Hitler and organize some kind of setup for dealing with an ultimatum expected at any time from the Big Three.
Hitler support wanes
According to these sources, Hitler is rapidly losing his support save for the Himmlers, the Goebbels and the fanatical Nazis who already feel the noose closing about their necks and who have everything to lose by surrender.
As for the rest, an increasing number of Germans – including many generals – are desperately seeking an out which would save at least something from the inevitable wreck.
Some informed diplomats are convinced that Berlin may be invested or occupied by the Red Army within the next few days. They also expect an Allied breakthrough to the Rhine and beyond within an equally short time.
Officials won’t talk
American officials are not quite so inclined to talk. They were badly burned last fall when their forecasts of an early end of the European war proved to be erroneous. Overoptimism at that time led to decreased war production and there were stories of ammunition shortages on the Western Front. Then came the Nazi counterattack and a news blackout which gave this country one of the gloomiest Christmases since Pearl Harbor. So nobody wants to be blamed for any more of that sort of national disillusionment.
Nevertheless, the impression in diplomatic circles here is that the crackup of Germany cannot be delayed much longer. While resistance may continue for some time after the fall of Berlin, few experts believe Hitler and his fanatics can hope to defy the Allies indefinitely.
Three invincible machines
So far as the Russians, the Americans and the British are concerned it is observed, they will continue to have, in being, the invincible war machine. After Berlin falls however, and with all the other principal industrial and communication centers, the Wehrmacht will be through as an integrated machine. The best Germany could hope for would be to keep up, for a while, a sort of guerrilla resistance which the Allies could and doubtless would crush probably within a comparatively short period.
Another widely credited report here is that most of the military leaders in Germany are in contact with the generals of the Free Germany Committee headed by Field Marshal von Paulus at Moscow. These officers have been telling their colleagues inside the Reich to cease the struggle and save their country from destruction.
These are just some of the rumors current here. Obviously, no war is ever until the last shot is fired. Every intelligent military leader knows that overconfidence is one of the most fatal of all mistakes. The last, dying bite of a wounded beast can be the most dangerous and most painful. Which is why one observer remarked: “The situation is too widely promising for speculation.”
Allies plot Reich’s defeat by end of next summer
Chiefs of Staff working out details for final blows in east and west
WASHINGTON (UP) – Announcement that the Big Three powers were jointly making detailed plans for the “final phase” of the European war seemed today to mark Germany for the knockout blow before next summer’s end.
The announcement was made in a progress report from the “Black Sea area” where it was disclosed that President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Marshal Joseph V. Stalin are in conference. They have completed the military phases of their own talks. Their chiefs of staff are now working out the details.
Complete agreement
The official announcement of the current Big Three conference said:
There is complete agreement for joint military operations in the final phase of the war against Nazi Germany. The military staffs of the three governments are now engaged in working out jointly the detailed plans.
Observers felt that military leaders would not be formulating “detailed plans” for the “final phase” until they felt confident that this phase would be completed with a relatively short time.
Much significance was seen in the statement that the plans are being formulated “jointly” by the military staffs of the three governments.
Closer collaboration
They believed that such joint planning meant there would be much closer collaboration henceforth between the Eastern and Western Fronts.
Use of the phrase “joint military operations in the final phase of the war” did not necessarily mean that Russian and British or U.S. troops would literally be fighting side by side, these observers believed, but it did show clearly that operations on the two fronts would be made to dovetail.
A timetable for bringing Germany to her knees probably has been or is being drafted.
Charges refuted
Some observers believe that if the Russians succeed in crossing the Oder in force now and drive a flanking movement into the plains north or south of Berlin, the Western Allies will hurl everything they can assemble into a simultaneous assault on the Western Front.
Regarding military cooperation between Russia and the Western Allies, observers here regarded the announcement of joint plans and planning as official refutation of charges that such cooperation has been lacking.
Actually, there has been closer military cooperation all along then has been realized publicly, and there was no truth to reports that American-British military leaders were not informed in advance of the imminence of the current Russian offensive.
Nazis prepare defiant reply
Official denounces Big Three leaders
LONDON, England (UP) – Nazi propagandists were believed preparing a defiant and sarcastic reply to the announcement that the Allied Big Three were plotting Germany’s final defeat and post-war control of the Reich.
German news agencies carried the Allied announcement without comment for foreign consumption, but have not yet relayed it to the German people.
German press chief Dr. Otto Dietrich gave a clue to the probable propaganda line yesterday when – several hours before the Allied announcement – he denounced President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill and Marshal Stalin as the “greatest war criminals of all time.”
Dr. Dietrich said:
They have made known that they have two aims to pursue. They want to make the German people give themselves up by a maneuver of agitation, and they want to promise eternal peace to a gullible humanity.
They have not succeeded in persuading the German people in past years to capitulate… they will not succeed now, either.
Propaganda drive aimed at Reich
WASHINGTON (UP) – The Big Three conference announcement was a propaganda bomb intended to give unhappy Germans a dreadful shudder.
If their morale was sagging yesterday, it should be drooping today. That is the way the war psychologists estimate the unveiling of the Black Sea area conference.
The Allied leaders broke the precedent of their first meeting by officially announcing this one, and its purpose, while it was still in progress.
Observers believe that a primary purpose in doing this is to exploit the psychological warfare value of the conference to the utmost at this moment while Allied armies are biting deeper into the Reich.