The Pittsburgh Press (January 26, 1941)
BRITISH TO GIVE WILLKIE ALL-OUT PICTURE OF WAR
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‘Opposition’ leader to get opportunity to see everything
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By Ned Russell, United Press staff writer
London, Jan. 25 –
Great Britain prepared tonight to give Wendell Willkie, who is expected tomorrow, a thorough tutoring in war.
The self-styled “leader of the loyal opposition” in the United States will see and hear everything Britain has to show or tell in accordance with his expressed desire to “see for myself” what goes on in a country fighting for its life.
He will visit bomb shelters and palaces, the ruins of London City and the headquarters of Britain’s government and Royal Air Force fields, and look at the misty coast of France across the Straits of Dover.
He will chat with King George VI and Prime Minister Winston Churchill, RAF pilots and men in the street, members of the government and stevedores.
During his stay in Britain, Mr. Willkie will be treated with all the deference accorded here to the leader of the opposition, a figure of great importance in British politics.
King George and Mr. Churchill will see Mr. Willkie as soon as possible after his arrival, it was believed, and will tell him their version of Britain’s position in the war and her need for American help.
After getting settled in a suite in the Dorchester Hotel on the edge of Hyde Park, Mr. Willkie is expected to begin an intensive study of British production and manpower, naval methods and problems, air war in general and learn the increasingly important questions of supplies and ships.
Mr. Willkie has expressed the desire to talk with civilians to learn how they are standing up under Luftwaffe attacks and the U-boat menace. He is expected to spend a night in a public bomb shelter.
The Pittsburgh Press (January 27, 1941)
WILLKIE PREPARES TO STUDY BRITISH PLANE PRODUCTION
By Drydon Taves, United Press staff writer
London, Jan, 27 –
Wendell L. Willkie revealed today that he plans to study British airplane production with a view of coordinating it with United States production.
It was his first detailed statement of the specific considerations which brought him to Britain for a “personal inspection” of Britain’s war effort, and served to revive reports that he might accept a post in President Roosevelt’s official family have to do with defense production. Britain’s pressing need is airplanes: she depends heavily on American production.
He told more than 300 British and foreign correspondents at a press conference at the Ministry of Information:
I want to see where your shortages and strengths are and study your methods and see how they can best be combined with American methods.
After the conference, he had a long talk with Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, then met Prime Minister Winston Churchill for luncheon. He handed the Prime Minister the personal letter of greeting which President Roosevelt has entrusted to him. Written in longhand, the President addressed the Prime Minister as “A Certain Naval Person.”
Mr. Churchill received him at his official residence, No. 10 Downing Street.
After his talk with Mr. Eden, he was taken in a government Rolls Royce to the “city” financial district – partly destroyed by a German fire raid Dec. 29. He walked through the area around St. Paul’s Cathedral, passed police barriers, and picked his way through the rubble of the Guildhall banqueting hall. Shown the burned remains of its historic relics and books, he exclaimed:
My God, what a terrible mess they made here. Gee, it’s awful.
Walks among ruins
Accompanied by John Cowles, one of two American friends who accompanied him here, and Herschel Johnson, Charge d’Affaires of the American Embassy, he persuaded the police to let him walk among ruined buildings whose walls are tottering.
To an air raid precautions worker, he said:
You must have had a terrible night when all the firebombs were cropping.
The man replied:
We can take it. We are giving it back. Hitler can’t beat us this way.
Mr. Willkie then returned to Downing Street for his luncheon date with Mr. Churchill.
At his press conference, he said he planned to go to Éire to talk with Prime Minister Éamon de Valera if he could. Britain urgently needs naval bases in Éire, such as those she returned to Éire before the war. There have been reports in the United States that the American government has aided British efforts to persuade Éire to let her have them.
With Churchill two hours
Mr. Willkie conferred with Mr. Churchill for two hours and then left the Prime Minister’s home smiling and waving farewell. He went by auto to the Labor Ministry where he conferred with Labor Minister Ernest Bevin. They discussed production problems, particularly manpower.
To stay two weeks
Mr. Willkie said he planned to stay in Britain for to weeks. He refused to comment on American or international politics.
I am here strictly as a private citizen to get all the information I can. You know the people decided in November that I should not have anything to do with the government.
He told the newspapermen he wanted to talk to everyone from officials to the man in the street, that he wanted to talk to the heads of other governments such as Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands and King Haakon of Norway which are established in London because their countries are in the hands of Germany.
He said:
I want to find out what they are thinking about the conditions of today and after your victory, so I can tell the people of the United States.
Mr. Willkie was introduced to the correspondents by Sir Walter Monckton on behalf of Alfred Duff Cooper, Minister of Information, as a “good friend of Britain.”
He had no plans to meet Harry Hopkins, President Roosevelt’s personal emissary in Britain.
I never had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Hopkins, although in America, I knew who he was.
Also he had no plans to visit continental countries.
Reiterating his pleasure at being in England, he said:
This reminds me of an American political meeting, with all the lights and people. I am enormously impressed that we can have a press conference in a country under attack. Ask all the questions you want. It really shows democracy at work.
Uneventful flight
Mr. Willkie spent the night in a suite at the Dorchester Hotel which was formerly occupied by Lord Halifax, the new Ambassador to the United States, and Lady Halifax. He dined in the suite last night with members of the American Embassy staff and his friends Landon K. Thorne and Mr. Cowles who accompanied him here from America.
He and his friends arrived at a west coast town in an American-made plane manned by an all-Dutch crew yesterday afternoon after an uneventful flight from Lisbon where they had been deposited by a Pan-American clipper plane. Another plane flew then here. He had conferred with Herschel V. Johnson, Charge d’Affaires of the American Embassy, for a half an hour after his arrival.
There was no air raid alarm last night and Mr. Willkie had a good night’s sleep. He was in fine fettle for the press, his first business of the day.
A British correspondent asked him if the United States would enter the war.
Mr. Willkie replied:
I can’t speak on that. I have no connection with the government in any way. The American people decided that.
To tour provinces
Explaining his reluctance to discuss American politics, he said:
I am now in another country and though I opposed the President in the last campaign, he is my President and the head of my government and I shall not engage in any political controversies which he and I are entitled to have within the shores of the United States.
He hoped to remain in London for the next three of four days and then tour the provinces.
He said, adding that he hoped also to visit army, navy and air units:
I want to go to Manchester and see all the industrial centers – those towns that are particularly devastated – and as many other places as possible.
After the blackout in London last night, Mr. Willkie “strolled out into the void a little. It was like walking through a cemetery.”
In response to a question, Mr. Willkie said he did not plan to make any formal report to the President or to the Republican Party.
But I shall certainly make some speeches, and I hope they read them.
When he arrived at the Ministry, he was greeted by several hundred government employees. The Ministry’s Home Guard stood at rigid attention while he reviewed them with Mr. Monckton. Just before the press conference, he saw Duff Cooper to renew an acquaintance begun when Duff Cooper was in the United States last year.
First night is quiet
Carrying a trench helmet which a well-wisher had given him before he flew the Atlantic, the former Republican presidential nominee reached London late yesterday just as the nightly blackout was wrapping this besieged metropolis in a protective clock.
But there was no crash of bombs to greet Mr. Willkie as there were when Mr. Hopkins arrived in London recently. London was undergoing its seventh straight bomb-less night.
On the airplane flight from Lisbon, Mr. Willkie appeared “nervous” as the plane approached the British Isles, his companions said. He paced the floor of the plane and talked with the others of his party.
At Lisbon, he had purchased a map and spent a great part of the flight charting the course of the air journey, sometimes with the aid of the Dutch chief pilot of the American-built DC-3 passenger plane which landed him at an English west coast town. A Royal Air Force plane flew him to the capital.
Unheralded in hotel
Unheralded, he stepped out of a car at 5:15 p.m. and strode rapidly through the main lobby. Although it was crowded, not a head turned, not a remark was passed. No one recognized the big man in the conventional blue suit and dark overcoat, a soft gray felt thrust down over his eyes.
Without pausing to sign the register or observe the usual formalities, Mr. Willkie went straight to an elevator and was whisked up to his suite while reporters and photographers fumed in a back anteroom.
But within half an hour, he had changed to a clean shirt and loose-fitting blue suit and was ready for a brief press conference. He wore a tie with the word “WILLKIE” embroidered diagonally across it.
A gift from someone back home.