The Pittsburgh Press (February 18, 1944)
New Europe being mapped, but behind closed doors
Many problems face Allies in deciding political and economic rehabilitation plans
By Victor Gordon Lennox
Victor Gordon Lennox, a war correspondent in London, is now on a visit back home to the United States.
A new pattern for Europe is being fashioned in London and few people outside official circles will be allowed to know what shape it is taking until the war in Europe is very much nearer to being won.
On Jan. 17, The Pittsburgh Press and The Chicago Daily News carried a London dispatch from Helen Kirkpatrick reporting the concern voiced in newspaper circles over the fact that the British and American governments apparently prefer to deal with post-war questions behind closed doors.
She added that the Censorship Office, under Adm. Thompson, was not at that time obliged to accept Foreign Office advice on political stories.
Now it is clear that the Foreign Office is strengthening its hold over the censorship, in that it has appointed two British career diplomats as āadvisersā permanently attached to Adm. Thompsonās office. Neither has any experience in censorship or press work. One, Sir Reginald Hoare, was minister to one of the Balkan states; the other, Sir Robert Hodgson, served in Ethiopia and Franco Spain.
āA minor sensationā
Some American correspondents in London feel that this step was taken by the Foreign Office in compliance with representations from the Washington State Department.
The inference seems to be that American proposals for steps to be taken to impose the will of the United Nations on Germany after victory, presented to the European Advisory Commission last week, have created something of a sensation among correspondents who have gained some knowledge of their main outlines.
In Britain, as in the United States, there will undoubtedly be serious misgivings if it is thought that a plan is being cooked up in private which for one reason or another would not command popular endorsement. It should be remembered, however, that the European Advisory Commission was set up expressly to permit the three principal Allied powers in Europe, to privately thrash out their respective views and attitudes on European reconstruction and pacification.
Many questions
When British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden visited Washington last March, he was gratified to find how much constructive study had been given to this subject in the State Department ā more indeed than had been given in the London Foreign Office up to that time.
It then appeared, moreover, that the American trend of thought was along lines closely similar to those being pursued by the British.
After the Moscow Conference of foreign secretaries, it was widely assumed that the Russians had fully exposed their own thoughts on the same subject. Now, in fact, there is reason to believe that Russian Foreign Commissar Molotov was careful to confine himself to generalities, and it may well be that Russian plans are only now being propounded in greater detail.
These plans must deal not only with the disarmament, and possible partition, of Germany but also with the industrial and economic future of the States now comprised in the Reich.
Apart from political problems, it may well be found that the desire of various big business interests to gain a preponderant position in European industry during the period of reconstruction is creating trouble.
Attitudes undefined
While there has been no public announcement of the British attitude on this subject, it is known to be the general line of British policy that the western powers should try to prevent a competitive race for markets in the immediate post-war period.
The Russian attitude has been still less publicly defined, but probably envisages large-scale transfers of German industrial equipment and labor to the Soviet Union, to assist in restoring Russiaās industrial productivity.
As to the German state, the last available information shows the Allies thinking in terms of partition into several separate entities operating within some form of federal system.