Find ‘ring’ faking releases, combat transfers of G.I.’s
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Eliot: U.S. has key interest in British vote
Americans should hope election is decisive one way or another
By Maj. George Fielding Eliot
It is now almost commonplace to say that this war is a total and global war. We read these words and pass them by as accepted facts. But they have a meaning not only for present necessities but for future politics – both military and political.
Hereafter the policymakers of every great power must think and plan in global terms. time was when the Monroe Doctrine was a sufficient basis for American security; it is so no longer. Defense cannot be hemispheric, as two global wars have demonstrated to us.
It is within the framework of the global strategy which must guide our future policy that we must consider the demonstrated fact that the United Sates and British Commonwealth form a strategic unit of worldwide proportions. That Canada’s security is indistinguishable from our own, all Americans are ready to admit. But we must look beyond the hemisphere; we must realize that if we are to play an active part in world affairs, we must be prepared to use our power to support our policy.
Works both ways
It can be said with truth that without our help. Britain could not have emerged victorious from this war. It can also be said with truth that without British help we should have four ourselves isolated, struggling alone against a world in the grip of German and Japanese militarism.
This is not the first time that I have pointed out the significance of the great success of the combined chiefs of staff. As an instrument of military command, it was not perfect, but it worked, and worked well, because it fitted the strategic facts with which it had to deal – because the power of America and the British nations is so arranged and distributed that it does form a strategic unit and can be best used if it is so considered and directed.
It is against this background and especially with the development of Anglo-American relations within the future world organization in mind, that Americans should consider the British election.
I do not propose to make any prophecies as to its outcome, in view of the numerous factors of uncertainty. Few British observers are willing to hazard anything more than a guess, and it would be the height of presumption for an American writer to do so.
Need for working majority
But we Americans do have a very definite interest in the result of the election, insofar as it affects the policies of a nation which is very close to us in many ways, and with which we must cooperate closely in the future, for our own good and for the good of the world community.
On one point, at least, we can be definite. We should hope that the result of the British election is decisive, one way or the other; that whichever party assumes the responsibilities of government has a working majority in the House of Commons. To have a condition in which the shift of a few votes might overturn the cabinet at any moment would be the least desirable result from the American point of view.
The British people made an indispensable contribution to the winning of the war; their contribution to making and preserving of the peace will likewise be indispensable. Both for strategic and for political reasons, we have a particular interest in their future. It is to our best interests as well as theirs that in the councils of the world, they shall speak with no uncertain voice.
Finds evidence to bear out chauffeur on Hitler suicide
By Jack Fleischer, United Press staff writer
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Japs mobilize men, women in combat corps
Train civilians to prepare for expected invasion by Americans
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Even capital goes meatless
Families dining out are cause of closing restaurants there, too
By John W. Love
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ON THE RECORD —
French begin to regard Americans as conquerors
By Dorothy Thompson
PARIS, France – If psychological factors influence political events more than charters and resolutions passed at international conferences, then we are heading not in the direction of better international relations, but of worse. This is obvious in Paris.
We came in as allies and liberators, greeted by embraces and flowers. But to the average Frenchman, we remain as conquerors and herrenfolk. This is due to a lack of psychological briefing and planned approach.
Vast masses of Frenchmen are hungry and for five winters have been horribly cold. The fact is that coal may determine whether France and, indeed, all Europe will or will not swing politically to violent extremes.
There is a terrible shortage of transportation. I have the impression Allied offices in Paris are unnecessarily overstaffed; and though it is true we are soon to transfer many agencies from here to Germany, Paris as well as other parts of France will continue to be furlough centers and masses of Americans will be moving in and out for a long time to come.
Americans take the best
We have requisitioned the best hotels, villas and apartments; only recently taking 8,000 more billets. Americans in Paris have coal to heat these and men’s and officers’ messes are plentifully supplied with every sort of food. In Paris, every taxicab is in the hands of the American and British forces. We are an army of haves in the midst of a country of have-nots.
If my limited knowledge of French politics is reliable, I sense a gathering storm. All the factors are here for a mass uprising – a resistance movement hungry for absolute leadership, a weak government, currency in which there is no confidence, frayed nerves, a widespread sense of inferiority, inflation which hits worst of all the salaried middle classes without whose leadership no mass movements ever succeeded, and a plenitude of weapons in the people’s hands.
It would be like our forces, from the highest level downward, to have some friendly contact with the French people; yet even our officers treat French military men of the same rank as though they were an inferior breed.
One little incident illustrates this. Recently, two French majors and a colonel walked into the bar of a luxury hotel which has been requisitioned as an American club and ordered drinks. An American sergeant put them out of the place – only British and American officers were admitted. Higher-ups sustained the sergeant.
One must only ask why such psychological stupidity? These officers entered a hotel in their own city where they had often gathered at the bar previous to the German occupation. Now they find they are in the same position as under the Germans except that they were not then in uniform, knew the position and were thus spared public humiliation.
American officers and others who eat extremely well at their own messes patronize the black-market restaurants to the fury of the left-wing movement, whose numbers are now augmented by returned concentration camp victims and who are trying to halt black market profiteering.
Comradeship lacking
No one can ask the Americans to eat less well, but certainly directives could prevent the undermining the French efforts and unnecessary flaunting of a superior status, snubbing fellow officers and avoiding any sort of effective liaison.
Political orientation courses for American officers and enlisted men are invariably addressed by Americans, although many distinguished Frenchmen and French women speak excellent English.
Due to lack of liaison and absence of constructive programs for collaboration, the Allies all are seeing the worst sides of each other – which, to say the least, is unfortunate for the world the San Francisco charter wants to build.
Lawrence: New Deal may wane as issue
Cabinet changes seen as Truman’s preparation for 1948 election
By David Lawrence
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Axis leaders face death in Big Four court
Several dozen key men, thousands of members to be punished
By William H. Stoneman
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Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
SEATTLE, Washington – Goodness, that line about “let’s give the country back to the Indians” is certainly no joke to the people of Troy, New York. It seems that a long time ago the Mohawk Indians rented Troy to the white man for four bolts of calico a year to every member of the tribe.
Some Mohawk chief must have been smart enough to foresee the wartime textile shortage. You girls know how hard it is to find a bolt of good calico now. Think of those officials who have to dig up four bolts for every Mohawk.
Remember those other Indians who thought they were so smart selling Manhattan Island for $24 in cash? Most of that money has probably been squandered by now, but an income of calico is an income you can live within.
To evacuate is to cooperate with authorities, facilitate defence
Fierce battles in Syonan visualized
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Heroes cited
TOKYO (Domei, July 6) – The War Ministry announces that a citation has been brought to the notice of the Throne of the gallantry of Lt. Kiyoharu Kawada and Pte. Shigeo Tsuchiyama who bodycrashed against the vanguard of an enemy B-29 formation which attempted to raid the Nippon mainland on May 29 this year.
U.S. war losses
LISBON (Domei, July 6) – Latest list of war casualties of U.S. armed forces since the outbreak of the war gives a total of 1,036,937 or an increase of 6,258 over last week’s figures, according to a U.S. War Department announcement. Total army casualties included 191,684 killed, 566,117 wounded, 38,343 missing, 115,253 prisoners of war.