The Pittsburgh Press (December 7, 1944)
Simms: Political split among Allies cheers Axis
Agreement needed on Italy, Greece
By William Philip Simms, Scripps-Howard foreign editor
Washington –
The third anniversary of Pearl arbor finds the Allies so dangerously far apart politically that unless President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill and Marshal Stalin soon remedy the situation the Axis may yet win something short of unconditional surrender.
Moscow, London and Washington are working at political cross-purposes. They are determined, of course, to smash Hitler and all three claim that democratic government everywhere is their chief war aim. But it is tragically clear that their ideas concerning democratic government are far apart – whether in Greece, Yugoslavia, Poland, Belgium, France, Spain, Italy, China or elsewhere.
Because of the failure of the Big Three to agree on a workable formula, the whole European continent – Soviet territory excepted – is on the verge of revolution or civil war.
Rioting is rife
Arms paid for by American taxpayers and given to Europeans to help them fight the Nazis, are now being used to kill one another.
They may yet be turned against the Allies because Allied troops may be compelled to use force to keep their supply lines open.
Greece is an example of what is threatening Europe. Led by Communists, leftists are trying to overthrow the existing temporary regime and impose themselves. Scores have been killed and hundreds wounded.
Following British intervention in the Italian political crisis, Secretary of State Stettinius issued a statement which was interpreted here and in London as a rebuke.
Good news for Axis
These disturbances in Europe and Asia are the best possible encouragement to the Germans and the Japs.
When they see evidences of disagreement among the Big Three over how to control the disturbances, it makes them feel that if they can only hang on long enough, the Allies, instead of the Axis, will go to pieces from within.
If Europe is allowed to drift into civil war – and the revolutionaries are using fundamentally the same tactics pretty much throughout the continent – the Anglo-American war effort may be hamstrung.
The Allies armies may find themselves caught between Hitler’s fanatical Nazis in front of them and half a dozen civil wars behind there.
The danger remains and there is every reason to believe that it will grow. There is only one way to get rid of it and that is by a better understanding between Moscow, London and Washington.