Tuesday, June 26, 1945

NO POLITICAL CAREER FOR IKE. The talk goes on about what General Eisenhower will do now that the war in Europe is won. President Truman is said to have told the General he could have any job he wanted. Well, "Ike" has now made it absolutely clear one thing he won’t do. And for anyone thinking that the General might make a swell candidate for elected office, and wanting to draft him for such, should forget about it. From the A.P. account of Eisenhower’s press conference last Friday --

"‘Look, . . . I’m in the Federal service and I take the orders of my Commander in Chief. All I want is to be a citizen of the United States, and when the War Department turns me out to pasture that’s all I want to be. I want nothing else. It is silly to talk about me in politics, and so for once I’ll talk about that, but only to settle this thing once and for all. I should like to make this as emphatic as possible. There’s no use me denying that I’ll fly to the moon because no one has suggested it and I couldn’t if I wanted to. The same goes for politics. I’m a soldier and no one thinks of me as a politician."

Conceivably, that could be read as something less than a complete denial that Ike would run for office under any circumstances. But he returned to the subject later, and shut the door to politics just as much as someone could shut it --

"In the strongest language you can command, . . . you can state that I have no political ambitions at all. Make it even stronger than that if you can. I’d like to go further even than Sherman did in expressing himself on this subject."

General Sherman is the one who said, when folks tried to draft him for the Presidency, "If nominated, I will not run; if elected, I will not serve." It’s hard to imagine how someone could "go further" than that, but it does sound pretty definitive. Whatever Eisenhower does, he won’t have a future in politics.

posted by Michael 8:12:00 AM

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WILL THE "UNITED NATIONS" SUCCEED? As the U.N. Charter is prepared for signing later this week, Walter Lippmann’s column today in the New York Herald Tribune wisely rephrases the question, and pinpoints the most hopeful element of the new world league --

"The fair and accurate question to ask about the charter is not whether the international institution will work. The question is whether we can make it work. The difference between these two questions is all-important. If we stand around and ask whether it will work, we are really saying that we expect 'it', a piece of paper with words written on it, to be a kind of automatic robot and big tin god to keep the world at peace. But if we ask whether we, the American people acting through out government and using our power and influence wisely, can make it work, then we are asking the right question. When our own Constitution had been written and ratified, the question of whether it would work was answered by Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Marshall, and the others who were determined to make it work, and knew how. What warrant have we for thinking that this charter can be made to promote and preserve peace? That it is the charter of a union or confederation which contains all the nations now capable of waging war; war can occur only if this union is dissolved. This distinguishes this new organization radically from the old one. The Geneva league never contained all the powers capable of waging war; Russia was not invited until long after the United States refused to join. Thus the Geneva league was never a union of the powers; this association will be a union of the powers. . . . The new organization is, therefore, properly and significantly designated the United Nations."

As Mr. Lippmann says, the United Nations is only a first step toward a peaceful, well-governed world. But he says, as others have pointed out, that it is the best we can do right now --

"In the international community the bonds of law are not nearly as firm as they are within the maturest states. But there is no substitute for the bonds of law if peace is to endure. In basing the new organization on the principle of union, rather than on the idea of all nations policing all nations, the San Francisco charter commits the United Nations to the development of an international society under the rule of law. The delegations at San Francisco have not created such a society. But they have designed institutions and laid down the commitments which, if we are wise and persevering, can be used to make the United Nations become an international society. More than that no one had the right to ask of the conference; to have done that much is to have done all that was possible, and to have earned in full measure the confidence and gratitude of mankind."

posted by Michael 8:09:00 AM

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NOT THE TYPE THEY’RE LOOKING FOR. From Time magazine’s Miscellany section -- "In Ann Arbor, Mich., a Mrs. Hunt and a Mrs. Peck applied for jobs at the University of Michigan Personnel Office, were both turned down flat because they had flunked the preliminary typing test."

posted by Michael 8:03:00 AM

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Sunday, June 24, 1945

OKINAWA FALLS, JAPAN GETS MORE JITTERS. Finally, finally the press is reporting that U.S. soldiers and Marines have broken large-scale resistance on Okinawa. Stragglers are still firing at our troops, but yesterday’s A.P. dispatch says these remnants aren’t presenting much of a problem anymore, and enemy troops themselves know it --

"On Okinawa, there were still five machine-gun nests to be wiped out, but generally the mop-up drive was meeting only slight resistance. Observers watched 160 Japanese commit suicide with grenades rather than surrender. . . . Meanwhile, the Marines raised the Stars and Stripes over the island, formally ending the 82-day campaign which cost the United States more heavily than any Pacific battle."

But there are signs that the Japanese might not be as quick to fight to the death as they portray themselves to be. The A.P. also says we’ve probably now taken over 7,000 enemy prisoners on Okinawa -- an amazing number, and more than we’ve taken previously in the entire Pacific war. Broadcasts from Tokyo are also sounding a bit more panicky about an "impending" U.S. invasion of Kyushu, with Premier Suzuki himself joining in the invasion warnings.

And there’s been one intriguing development that might make the Tokyo government a lot more queasy -- the Truman administration has just now revealed that we’re shipping lend-lease supplies to the Russians in Siberia. As Leo Crowley, the Lend-Lease Administrator, told Congress last month, "The possibility of Russia’s entry into the war against Japan acts to pin down in northern Manchuria large numbers of Japanese troops which might otherwise be diverted against Allied forces in the Asiatic theater." Up until now, the administration has been absolutely mum on the possibility of the Russians joining in the Pacific war. If they did -- and if our lend-lease help is a quid pro quo to get Moscow to declare war -- it could notably speed up our timetable for invading the Japanese home islands by robbing Tokyo of desperately needed reinforcements. This certainly could be a factor in the latest round of Japanese jitters.

posted by Michael 8:35:00 AM

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THE NEW, IMPROVED POLISH GOVERNMENT. Seeking to break the Big Three stalemate over the composition of the Polish government, the Soviets have moved to open it up to non-Communist membership -- at least a bit. The "reorganization" of Poland’s provisional government, announced yesterday from Moscow, brings in three former members of the non-Communist Polish government-in-exile, including its former head, Stanislaw Mikolajczyk. Is it enough to gain American and British recognition of the provisional government. News reports tell us it doesn’t appear to have budged the Western allies that much, and Barnet Nover gives us some reasons why it shouldn’t --

"How really democratic is it? It is true that the Soviet-sponsored Warsaw regime has been enriched with new blood. But of the 21 members of the new government, 16 are holdovers and of the five new members of the cabinet, one, Wicenty Witos, Peasant Party leader, is an old and ailing man, another, Meczislaw Thugot, is without political experience and known only as the son of a distinguished democratic intellectual who died in exile two years ago. If Messrs. Mikolajczyk, Grabski and Stanczyk prove strong enough to make their influence felt in the new regime the hopes engendered by the Moscow settlement may be realized. At the moment the fact remains that they are outnumbered in the government by at least four to one, with most of the principal posts, including the administration of the police, in the hands of Lublinites, i.e., of Polish Communists. Of course, the composition of the new Polish regime is far less important, since it is admittedly a provisional government, than the policies it will pursue, particularly the manner in which it will prepare for and hold those 'free and unfettered elections . . . on the basis of universal and secret ballot' that are stipulated in the Yalta agreement."

Mr. Nover says that the U.S. and Britain should not recognize this provisional government until it gives "very explicit assurances" of its democratic nature and its intentions to hold fully free elections. The Polish exile government, on the other hand, has acidly described the new government as a Communist regime in disguise and an "unconditional surrender" to Russian demands, and asserts that any elections held under this government’s auspices will be a "sham."

I think the correct position is somewhere between these two -- the U.S. and Britain should applaud any effort to open up the Moscow-backed Polish government and make it more representative. But we should withhold recognition of a new Polish regime until after free elections have been held, with all democratic parties allowed to fairly participate. And in fact, according to an A.P. story this morning, this is what the Anglo-American position will be.

posted by Michael 8:22:00 AM

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KEEPING SECRETS FROM THE WIFE. From Time magazine’s Miscellany section -- "In Bloomington, Ind., County Clerk Earl Baxter grew tired of $300 alimony gathering dust in his safe, advertised for the divorcee to come and pick it up. She came promptly, explained, 'I didn’t know I’d been divorced.'"

posted by Michael 8:18:00 AM

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Tuesday, June 19, 1945

HOW LONG BEFORE THE INVASION OF JAPAN? I’d love to believe that U.S. forces are getting ready right now to invade Kyshu, or any of the Japanese home islands, as Radio Tokyo proclaimed the other day. And maybe it could happen. Still, there’s plenty of smart money out there that says it isn’t possible, not now and not for a long time yet. If you want to know why this is so, look up the recent article in Collier’s, "Transfer to the East," by Quentin Reynolds. As he begins, Mr. Reynolds sums up the gulf between our V-E giddiness and the demands of the Pacific war in the months ahead --

"It’s all over in Europe, we shout; now mopping up the Japs will be easy. And say, what about a new car, a new radio? But, such optimism is founded only on a dream. The boys who beat Germany will have to join in the war against Japan. There’ll be no homecoming for them, no cars or electric iceboxes for civilians, for a long time to come. . . . To defeat Japan, we shall need 5,000,000 men in the Pacific."

Mr. Reynolds then follows a hypothetical Army division from Europe as it’s transferred to the Pacific to take part in the invasion --

"Nearly three months will have elapsed since D-Day. That is about as fast as a division can be rested, regrouped, re-equipped and loaded. It will take about 30 large ships to carry our division and its material. . . . Our division [will] go from Antwerp to Panama, and, perhaps, to Manila or Okinawa. It’s a long trip -- 14,000 miles to Manila -- and we’re not a fast convoy. That trip is going to take around seven weeks. So, by the time we land and our equipment is unloaded, some five months will have elapsed, since V-E Day. Those months are going to be rather trying for the folks at home. They may get impatient at the lack of invasion news. . . . After that we are put into training. We’ll grumble about this at first. We’ve fought for three years all over Europe. Why train now? Then we find out. For one thing, the terrain is a lot different. Here we’ll have to plow through rice fields and swamps. . . . Yeah, we reluctantly admit, we do need 45 days of additional training. Dozens and dozens of other divisions arrive at this and other staging areas and go through the same process . . . . Then we hear rumors. We are going 'up forward.' Where? Nobody knows. Maybe it’ll be Shikoku or Kyushu, or Taihoku on Formosa, or Nagasaki, or Saishu. These names are as familiar to us now as the names of Cologne and Aachen were nine months ago when our division was fighting in the Rhineland. Nine months? That’s right. It’s nine months after V-E Day, and our division hasn’t fired a shot."

Mr. Reynolds estimates it will take ten months, total, from V-E Day before we have the forces in place to invade any of Japan’s three main home islands. In other words, next March. And when we’re finally ready, our men will plunge into the fight of their lives --

"Let’s take a look at Japan’s strength. So far, we haven’t met her first-line troops, but only men placed on islands to fight a delaying action. They did so, and you know how costly they made our victories. When we go into Japan, and possibly China, we’ll find some 6,000,000 Japanese troops spoiling for a fight. Right now they have 4,000,000 men, but, in addition, they have one million Manchurian and Chinese puppets organized as auxiliary military units. And during the past few months the Japanese have accelerated conscription and are training an additional one million young men. They’ll be ready for us. And if you doubt the courage and aggressiveness of the Japanese soldier, ask any Marine who was at Tarawa or Iwo. . . . During her two and a half years of exploitation of East Asia, Japan has accumulated a huge stock pile of strategic materials. . . . It’s 6200 nautical miles from San Francisco to Manila, 1650 more to Tokyo. We’ll have to bring every weapon, every bit of blood plasma, every can of C rations along that route, or routes of similar distances. . . . We are going to have to overwhelm Japan with superior forces, and it will take ten months to get those superior forces ready to attack. Any attack on a smaller scale would be suicidal. We’d be fools if we didn’t face the realities of the picture and lock up our dreams for a while."

Tough words, and one can only hope the reality won’t be as hard as this. But there’s no known reason right now to think otherwise. Even if we are in a position right now to invade Kyshu, and even if Kyushu’s defenses are soft, we’ll still have to take the other home islands, and dislodge the Japanese from China. And there’s no reason at all to think any of that can be finished quickly, once we get started.

posted by Michael 8:09:00 AM

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MODERN ROMANCE. From Time magazine’s Miscellany section -- "In Lincolnshire, England, the Chronicle ran the following advertisement: 'Owner of tractor wishes to correspond with widow who owns a modern Foster thrasher; object matrimony; send photograph of machine.'"

posted by Michael 8:06:00 AM

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Sunday, June 17, 1945

JAPAN SAYS INVASION IS NEAR. It’s hard to believe that we could be ready to land on any of the Japanese home islands so soon, but Radio Tokyo says the signs are there. From an A.P. story this morning --

"The Japanese, say Radio Tokyo, were getting set for an invasion which, it added, might be in the making at the present time. It reported an increase in American invasion ships around Okinawa; told of steps to make Kyushu Island a powerful fortress and said even women and the aged will be called upon to bear arms in defense of the empire. . . . With the Okinawa garrison on its last legs, Tokyo said Kyushu was being made into ‘one large fortress.’ Kyushu, southernmost of the main Japanese islands, is but 325 miles north of Okinawa. A sudden increase in the number of American cargo ships and landing craft around Okinawa was reported by the Agency Domei. It guessed this might mean ‘an enemy scheme to launch fresh operations near the Japanese homeland.’ Against this menace, Domei announced that ‘two-way and three-way defenses at all points possible’ had been erected on Kyushu."

This could be dismissed as propaganda to scare the home folks, but I recall Japan sounding similar alarms just before we landed on Iwo and Okinawa. Still, given the amount of time and careful preparation that went into D-Day, it’s hard to believe that we would rush pell-mell into invading Japan, as we’re only beginning the immense job of transferring some three million fighting men from Europe and re-training them to finish the Pacific war.

Then again...what if our intelligence has learned the Kyushu defenses are much softer than we previously believed? Wouldn’t it make sense to strike now, with what forces we have in place, rather than give Tokyo time to fortify the island into a large-scale Okinawa? Wouldn’t General MacArthur be inclined to strike rather than wait?

So, I’d say there’s a chance -- who knows how much or little of one -- that something big is about to happen.

posted by Michael 8:03:00 AM

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HERE’S A NEW JOB FOR EISENHOWER. As Washington, D.C. prepares for a mammoth celebration in honor General Eisenhower’s visit tomorrow, there’s been a wave of speculation in the press about what Ike should do next. George Connery speculates in today’s Washington Post that Eisenhower might be named to a Pacific command, or replace General Marshall as chief of staff. But I like the suggestion in Barnet Nover’s column better --

"It is not too much to say that the future of the world depends on whether Russia and the United States learn to get along. If they do, no problem in the realm of international relations will prove unsolvable. If they do not, even unimportant disputes involving remote nations might develop into festering sores plaguing the international body politic. . . . As supreme Allied commander in Europe, General Eisenhower not only displayed remarkable gifts as an organizer and strategist; he also proved himself to be, par excellence, a statesman in uniform. What he did in the way of combining British and American officers and units into a coherent and effective whole is unexampled in the history of coalition war. Now that his military task is finished, the talents he possesses could hardly be better employed than in making General Eisenhower our Ambassador to Russia. The greatest of our diplomatic friction points requires the presence of an American of his stature, his ability, his remarkable capacity to get along with people, his superlative common sense."

posted by Michael 7:59:00 AM

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A NEW DAD WITH REASON TO BE NERVOUS. From Time magazine’s Miscellany section -- "In Stockholm, Sweden, a mother who had just given birth to her fifth child talked with two wardmates who had each had twins, discovered that all five children had the same father."

posted by Michael 7:56:00 AM

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Tuesday, June 12, 1945

THE WAR GOES ON -- WITH LESS NOTICE. The Allies are fighting on Okinawa, at Luzon, Mindanao, and Leyte in the Philippines, and now on Borneo, where Australian troops landed at four points on the north coast this past week-end. And it’s worth noting how little attention these ongoing fights are getting in the press. Yes, most of the time the daily war news still makes the front page, but the current Pacific battles aren’t getting anything like the attention that the fighting in Europe and Africa got over the last two-and-a-half years. No doubt it’s due in part to the fact that there’s not as much dramatic day-to-day news to come out of the Pacific -- the Okinawa fighting is described as being in its "final stages" for yet another week.

But I wonder if the press -- and the newspaper-reading public -- are feeling a form of battle fatigue right now? Following the euphoria of victory in Europe last month, it seems that we’re a little slow to realize that, as General Patton said at his homecoming last Friday, we still have "half a war to win." Look at any map showing all the territory still controlled by the Japanese -- in China, Southeast Asia, the East Indies, New Guinea, Formosa, plus Manchukuo and Korea, and above all the home islands -- and that should be enough visual aid to make it clear how much longer this war has to go.

The A.P. reports today that the Philippines campaign is about to heat up again, as U.S. troops on Luzon are about to launch "an all-out attack on the last major stronghold of the Japanese." I wonder whether that will bring that aspect of the war back to the front pages? Or, maybe our front-page diet for sometime will consist of alarmed reports on Europe’s latest crisis, while news of the real fighting languishes until our Marines begin the bitterly hard work of clearing out Honshu, Kyushu and the rest of it.

posted by Michael 7:49:00 AM

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A (HALTING) TRIBUTE TO THE U.N. CHARTER. Now that we’re only ten days or so away from the completion and signing of the United Nations Charter, it’s useful to remind ourselves, as Barnet Nover’s column does, that (1) it will be imperfect, and (2) it is still an important milestone. In Mr. Nover’s own words --

"The debate on the Charter has not ended. In a very real sense it will only have begun when the Charter has been signed and the delegates have scattered to the four corners of the earth. Then the parliaments of the nations, the press of the world, the courts of public opinion, will sit in judgment on the labors of the men and women who, during a period of close to three months, hammered out line by line, sentence by sentence, chapter by chapter, the document which is to occupy a central position in the affairs of nations in the years to come. It will be the easiest thing in the world to drive a coach and four through the Charter. Taken as a whole it will not satisfy everybody; in detail, it will satisfy nobody. It is full of imperfections as the delegates themselves would be the first to admit -- full of inadequacies. It suffers from poor draftsmanship and a split personality. It is not, as some critics are saying, a screen set up to cloak the domination of the world by a handful of powerful nations. Yet neither will it bring into being that ‘parliament of man, the federation of the world’ which many have dreamed about. The Charter is a compromise between hope and reality, between things as they are and things as they ought to be. Its weakness lies in the fact that the two are in eternal conflict. Its strength is the product of the circumstances that several hundred individuals of divergent races and peoples and historic backgrounds found it possible to agree at all and did so because agreement was preemptory. In other words, the most important fact about the Charter is not what it contains, but the fact that it came into being."

posted by Michael 7:46:00 AM

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MONEY TO BURN. From Time magazine’s Miscellany section -- "Off the coast of New Hampshire, Matthew Betton drifted in a power-boat for five days, finally set fire to his last twelve dollars, was rescued by fisherman who saw the light."

posted by Michael 7:43:00 AM

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Sunday, June 10, 1945

WHY DID RUSSIA CAUSE THE VETO CRISIS? Yet another diplomatic crisis was put to rest Thursday when Soviet Russia gave up its bizarre insistence on hog-tying the United Nations Organization with an absolute veto. According to Moscow’s previous position, the great powers should have the right to use the veto to prevent any problem from even being discussed at the Security Council. Such an extreme use of the veto was unacceptable to the smaller nations, and very much against the principles of the U.S. and Britain, who sensibly believe that any of the smaller nations have a right to make their case.

It’s certainly good news that the Russians have had an attack of sanity on this issue. But why did they provoke this crisis in the first place? Arthur Krock writes in today’s New York Times defines the up-and-down pattern we’re seeing in U.S.-Russian relations, and points out one way this dispute was awfully disadvantageous to Stalin --

"Once again -- as at Moscow in 1943, Teheran, Dumbarton Oaks, and Yalta -- light has broken through the clouds that have gathered intermittently over Russo-American relations, and once again Washington is relieved and happy. American statesmanship has no doubt that one of its greatest tasks is to preserve good relations with Soviet Russia in the years to come, and the belief that this goal is as attainable as it is essential acquires renewed strength, of course, each time an impasse with Moscow is broken. This task is complicated by some well-meaning, some not so well-meaning and some irresponsible persons in both countries and elsewhere in the world. But Russian methods and what at times has seemed an ineradicable Soviet distrust of the West have often been the greatest complications. Take, as in illustration, the dispute over the application of the veto. After a period of insistence that many feared would break up the United Nations Conference on International Organization, or confine its results to a very incomplete product, the Russians accepted the principle of the right of petition of small nations to the Security Council, if a Council majority approved, and abandoned their long-sustained position that any permanent member’s veto should deny petitioners a hearing. . . . What were the general effects of the Russian record in this episode, insofar as they seem to have materialized? The long holdout, against this mild acceptance of a principle dear to the West, gave anti-Soviet propagandists, especially in this country, an opportunity to impress their view on many who are most reluctant to consider post-war Russia a menace to peace or foreign democracy and eager to believe that Washington and Moscow can work together to the ends of peace and justice."

So why did the Russians behave the way they did on the veto issue? Barnet Nover lists some reasons in his latest column --

"Just why Russia took this stand is anything but clear. Chronic suspicion of the outside world which has, justly or unjustly, colored so much of Russia’s thinking on international affairs was undoubtedly one factor. Fear that the right of discussion might be used to bring up matters embarrassing to the Soviet Union was probably another. But a contributory factor, without question, was the Russian government’s ignorance of the state of mind of the outside world and, therefore, its inability to gauge in advance the effect its attitudes and actions will have on other nations and peoples. There was never the slightest doubt among observers at the Conference that the American delegation would under no circumstances recede from its position. Nor can there be any doubt that, had the voting question been submitted to the steering committee, Russia would have been voted down overwhelmingly. Furthermore, it would have been a strange spectacle to see Russia, the fervent apostle of five-power unity, fighting to ditch a viewpoint so strongly opposed by the other members of the Big Five."

Mr. Nover hits upon the most troubling aspects of this affair. Is Soviet diplomacy, to put it bluntly, exceptionally suspicious and dim-witted? If, after almost four years of friendly relations with the U.S., the Russians can’t or won’t grasp the dangers of obstinacy on matters such as this, what will happen when the Big Five, and the U.N. organization, face a real crisis?

posted by Michael 8:19:00 AM

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PROTECTING THE NATION’S WEALTH. From Time magazine’s Miscellany section -- "In Manhattan, Gristede Brothers, grocers, sent two boys with each pushcart load of orders -- the extra one to stand guard over the butter."

posted by Michael 8:16:00 AM

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Tuesday, June 5, 1945

TWO MORE YANK DESTROYERS SUNK AT OKINAWA. For a week, we’ve been getting happy-slappy reports in the press assuring us that the fighting on Okinawa was "almost over," and today’s A.P. dispatch is no exception. This time, A.P.’s man tells us that "the end of the bitter island struggle [is] in sight." But that’s not the lead of the story, which says -- "Two more American destroyers, the Morrison and the Luce, have been sunk off Okinawa, with heavy loss of life, the Navy Department announced last night." The story goes on to tell us that 313 Navy craft of various types have been sunk during the war, but interestingly, it doesn’t recount how many of them have been sunk during the Okinawa campaign. Instead, it says vaguely that "the Okinawa area has been perilous for seacraft, for ceaseless Japanese suicide plane attacks have been concentrated there."

I understand the need for military censorship, and I realize that the press can’t tell us information that the military doesn’t release. But is anybody else getting tired of the sugar-coated reporting which has reported about a dozen U.S. "breakthroughs’ on Okinawa over the last couple of months -- and made the initial landings on the island sound like a low-casualty cakewalk? Some months from now, when our Marines face the toughest fight in their history as they hit the beaches at Honshu, will we be getting stories in the papers again again telling us how "surprisingly easy" everything’s going?

I noticed a Washington Post story Saturday about President Truman’s plans to more than double Army strength in the Pacific, by moving three million troops out of Europe over the next year. When we hit the Japanese in their home islands, we will hit them with a larger overseas force than we ever deployed against Hitler’s troops. That sounds like a battle that will dwarf D-Day. And it will deserve harder-nosed reporting than we have had.

posted by Michael 7:58:00 AM

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AMERICANS DON’T BELIEVE HITLER IS DEAD. Another intriguing Gallup poll has come out, this one showing that, despite all the reports of Hitler’s death in the world press, a vast majority of Americans are inclined to disbelieve that the former Fuehrer killed himself in Berlin. A Gallup survey on this question says that only 17% of respondents believe Hitler really is dead, and a full 68% are convinced he’s still with us -- somewhere. People in all walks of society believe this equally, and the college-educated who closely follow world affairs are only slightly more inclined (23%) to believe Hitler’s really gone. Why this skepticism? Gallup explains --

"The general feeling is that any man with as scheming a criminal mind as Hitler, would have carefully laid his plans to escape when Germany lost the war. . . . It seems clear from the above that, unless there is some final and official proof of Hitler’s death, a 'Hitler legend' will persist in the minds of the people for some time to come."

Gallup further adds that this has become a matter of "considerable public interest," and "is discussed on every street corner and in every group."

Count me in that 18% minority. But there’s no way to prove or disprove Hitler’s death right now, and in the meantime it’s likely this particular majority sentiment will have a big impact on the publishing industry. I predict that within a short time, a bevy of buck-chasing wordsmiths will be hitting their Underwoods, producing manuscripts with titles like Hitler Is Alive!, A Trip to Adolf’s Secret Hideout, and The Fuehrer’s in Fargo. I’d be tempted to try it myself, but I need to replace the ribbon on my Underwood.

posted by Michael 7:55:00 AM

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HELPING JUSTICE ALONG. From Time magazine’s Miscellany section -- "In Jersey City, when jury members at a murder trial politely reminded the judge that they were low on smokes, the prosecution dug up six packs of cigarets, the defense a handful of cigars."

posted by Michael 7:51:00 AM

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Sunday, June 3, 1945

NOW, A SYRIAN CRISIS -- AND A RESPITE. France’s military reprisals against rioters and would-be guerillas in the Levant -- which include a brutal shelling of Damascus civilians -- have been stopped by British intervention. The U.S. and Soviet Russia have played supplementary roles, the former by openly supporting the British action and the latter by pointedly not taking the French side. But it’s clear that Prime Minister Churchill’s "request" that French troops in Syria return to their barracks, a request backed up by a column of British Army tanks, has put the crisis on hold for now. France’s De Gaulle might pout, but according to the A.P. even his own cabinet is against his harsh posture against pro-independence Syrians.

One could say that the sudden outbreak of violence in the Levant shows how urgently it is for the U.N. Conference delegates in San Francisco to get the world organization functioning, so it can settle problems like this one. But I think Barnet Nover is right when he says in today’s column that the crisis demonstrates something else entirely, namely that traditional big-power politics will still be the biggest factor in world peace for some time to come --

"The Syrian crisis happens . . . to provide a first class example of the fact that side by side with the World Organization there will continue to be in existence an older system of power. When the situation in Syria began to show signs of deterioration, both Great Britain and the United States stepped in and sent sharp warnings to the French government. In fact, Prime Minister Churchill’s statement to General de Gaulle was just about as drastic a one as the head of one government has ever addressed to the head of a friendly regime. Churchill declared that the British commander in chief in the Middle East has been ordered to intervene to 'prevent further effusion of bloodshed in the interests of security.' And de Gaulle was 'requested,' the request actually being an unequivocal demand . . . . Now it is perfectly true that the intervention by Great Britain and, to a lesser extent, the United States might not have occurred, or been either so speedy or so drastic, if, instead of France, the offending party had been Russia. Within the ranks of the Big Five there are degrees of power which it would be foolish to ignore. France belongs to the periphery of the sacred circle, but even among the Big Three there is no such thing as absolute freedom of action. Each of them must weigh every move with an eye to the effect it will have on the limits beyond which it cannot safely transgress. In other words, as between the great powers the maintenance of peace depends on their interrelationship, with the World Organization a subsidiary factor. This is not an ideal arrangement. It is the best we are likely to get at this time."

posted by Michael 8:28:00 AM

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"MANY" FAVOR TORTURING NAZIS. According to a new Gallup survey, two-thirds of Americans want Nazi Goering to be killed for his war crimes, with only 6% saying he should be imprisoned for life, and 4% saying he should be given a trial. Not too surprising there. But the intriguing result is one that Gallup doesn’t provide numbers for --

"The 67 per cent advocating death for Goering includes many who say the manner of death should be made as unpleasant as possible, with torture thrown in."

Moreover, says Dr. Gallup --

"The poll does not include the views of men in the armed forces. Presumably their opinions on the proper treatment for Goering would be equally as stern as the views of civilians, if not more so."

A second Gallup survey indicates that half of Americans feel the Gestapo men and captured Storm Troopers accused of war crimes should be "wiped from the face of the earth" as well -- again, after torture.

It’s understandable to feel this way, but I would advocate a more moderate approach. I would only torture and kill captured Nazis after they’ve been convicted in a military trial. Which we ought to set up quickly.

posted by Michael 8:25:00 AM

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NOW THAT I THINK ABOUT IT . . . From Time magazine’s Miscellany section -- "In Seattle, Eric Mackey slashed his left hand, drank down a bottle of disinfectant, jumped seven stories from a hotel room, had his plunge broken by a jutting marquee. At the local hospital he commented, 'Kind of foolish thing to do. I could have killed myself.'"

posted by Michael 8:22:00 AM

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