The Pittsburgh Press (December 7, 1943)
Cairo parley may presage Balkans push
Meeting with President of Turkey may mean push north from Thrace
By Robert Dowson, United Press staff writer
London, England –
President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill were reported conferring with President İsmet İnönü of Turkey in Cairo today in what may be a prelude to an Allied offensive in the Balkans, possibly in part through the Turkish “backdoor.”
The German Transocean News Agency broadcast a report attributed to Ankara that İnönü was returning from Cairo and a special session of the Turkish Cabinet would be held immediately.
The authoritative British Press Association, in what amounted to tacit confirmation of Axis reports of the conference, said it was expected the deliberations would “have almost as important an effect on the course of the war as the first Cairo and the Tehran Conferences.”
Promise offensive
The Roosevelt-Churchill-Stalin declaration in Tehran significantly promised that new operations would be undertaken against Europe “from the south” and there was every indication that the “Big Three” discussed the possibility of bypassing the Aegean, Crete and Rhodes by striking directly into southeastern Europe from Turkish Thrace.
The Press Association said it was presumed that Mr. Roosevelt, Mr. Churchill and the Turkish leaders were discussing the Anglo-Turkish Pact of 1939 which bound Turkey to help Britain in the event that aggression by a European power led to war in the Mediterranean.
The Press Association’s diplomatic correspondent said:
Ankara observers state the possibilities Turkey will enter the war are increasing and Russia, whose relations with Turkey markedly improved recently, is known to have stressed the importance of Turkish intervention.
Nazi mass troops
The diplomatic correspondent doubted, however, that Turkey would officially enter the war in the immediate future. Other sources suggested that if Turkey did decide to throw in her lot with the Allies, she would hardly announce it until Allied forces have taken up dispositions that would protect her from any sudden Axis attack.
Hungarian sources in Stockholm said yesterday that German troops were moving through Bulgaria toward the Turkish frontier zone.
The Press Association said “reliable overseas reports” indicated that British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, Turkish Foreign Secretary Numan Menemencioğlu and Harry Hopkins, President Roosevelt’s special assistant, were also participating in Anglo-American-Turkish conferences.
Would push from Italy
Cairo reports have implied that Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander in the Mediterranean, and Gen. Sir Henry Maitland Wilson, British commander in the Levant, both of whom would presumably be involved in any Balkan operation, were also in Cairo, recently if not presently.
Any Allied drive through Turkey into the Balkans would probably be accompanied by a thrust across the Adriatic from newly-won bases in southern Italy into Yugoslavia for a pincer offensive.
A United Press dispatch from Cairo, which passed the strict British censorship there, said the Arabic press was speculating broadly on Turkey’s future role, though Allied authorities refused to comment on the situation.
Among the principal questions discussed by the newspapers, the dispatch said, were:
- Opening of the Dardanelles to Allied ships supplying Russia.
- Russian influence in the Balkans, particularly in Bulgaria, Greece and Yugoslavia.
- Possible German reprisals against Istanbul in the event Turkey entered the war.
- Possible further Russian influence through the Middle East toward Iran.
MacArthur aide attends parley
Cairo, Egypt (UP) –
The staff officer from Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s headquarters participated in the Cairo Conference and is now on his way back to report, it can be revealed today.
This officer, whose name cannot be published, told the United Press he had presented a detailed picture of Gen. MacArthur’s strategy and operations to Prime Minister Churchill, President Roosevelt and Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek.
Turning to the status of the Pacific Theater on the second anniversary of Pearl Harbor, this staff officer from the Southwest Pacific commented:
We are no nearer the Japanese mainland than we were a year ago, but this has not been our chief aim.
What we’ve been trying to do is cut off the Japanese lifeline, especially to the Dutch East Indies. Rather than made a head-on attack on the Japanese mainland against well-defended shores which the Japanese would prefer, we have been hitting his four weak points – oil, air strength, merchant shipping, and naval shipping.