Tuesday, July 3, 1945

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY. Starting tomorrow I’m taking off for a one-week vacation of reading and radio-listening. Alas, it’s likely this won’t be the last wartime Fourth, but we can always hope -- and pray. Regular blogging will resume July 15.

posted by Michael 8:07:00 AM

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TWO YEARS? TEN YEARS? ALWAYS? Here are three more sober (if not grim) predictions of what the future portends, for the war with Japan and beyond --

General Joseph Stilwell, in last week’s Time magazine -- "A lot of people have the idea that this is a pushover. . . . It will take a long time -- easily two years."

Willis Church Lamott, in the June issue of Harper’s -- "Our progress may become a succession of Japanese Aachens and we may face a decade of guerilla warfare."

General Patton, talking to a group of Sunday-school children, as quoted in Time: "In my opinion there will be another war because there have always been wars."

Patton probably has it right, but we can certainly hope for making this the last great war, and we have one good omen in that regard -- contrary to the developments of 1918 and thereafter, this time the United States will not be on the sidelines. The Truman administration and Congress have made it clear that this time around we will do everything we can to create a long-lasting postwar peace. And with America’s political and military power in the world now greater than ever, there is surely much we can do.

posted by Michael 8:03:00 AM

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THE U.N. CHARTER IS A SHOO-IN. The old America Firsters on their isolationist brethren probably can’t stand it, but this time the Congress isn’t going to stand in the way of America’s participation in a world league. Ever since President Truman joined representatives of forty-nine other countries last Tuesday in signing the United Nations Charter, the number of Senators who’ve pledged to vote "yea" on this historic agreement has been astoundingly high. The first estimates had only 53 Senate members definitely for approval, but the signs were there from the start that this wouldn’t be another 1919. Senator Burton K. Wheeler, once a lion of the isolationist faction, meekly listed himself as "unsure" on the Charter and said there would be no organized fight against ratification. Senator Hiram W. Johnson, who helped kill U.S. participation in the League a generation ago, says now of Charter proponents that "they’ve got the votes," and that they might get his as well.

Since then, the A.P. has finished its poll of the Senate on the Charter vote, which shows 65 Senators definitely voting yes, five more saying they would "probably" vote yes, 17 noncommital, and eight Senators unavailable for comment. Not one solon piped up to declare he would vote no.

That’s a testament partly to the power of polls, which have consistently shown over the last year that two-thirds of Americans want the U.S. to play a major role in an international peace-keeping body after the war. But it’s also a testament to the common sense of the Senate, whose members seem to realize that we face a historic opportunity for peace after the end of this war that we simply can’t shirk.

President Truman asked in his address yesterday that the Charter be ratified "swiftly." He should get his wish. The pundits say the Senate should approve it by August 1.

posted by Michael 8:00:00 AM

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MAKE $10 IN YOUR SPARE TIME. From Time magazine’s Miscellany section -- "In Columbus, S.C., Dentist C.B. Draffin stepped out of his office and a stranger stepped in, collected $10 in advance for repairs on a patient’s plates, quickly stepped out again."

posted by Michael 7:56:00 AM

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Sunday, July 1, 1945

DESTROYING JAPAN, CITY BY CITY. Another week, another record air assault over the Japanese home islands. This time it was about 600 B-29 Superforts, raining over 4000 tons of fire bombs on four big industrial cities -- Kure, Shimonoseki, Ube, and Kumamoto. The targets included Japan’s biggest naval base, a number of heavy industrial plants, the empire’s coal mining facilities, and railway hubs. No one’s put an exact total on the number of bombs, but the United Press says it’s "almost certain" that Monday’s bombing beat the old record of 4,119 tons of bombs dropped on Tokyo in the May 24 fire raid.

So why are we bombing lesser-known cities, some in the range of 100,000-200,000 population? Because (1) regardless of their size, they’re still important military and economic centers, and (2) we’ve pretty much blasted most of the larger target cities to pieces. From the U.P. report --

"Gen. Henry H. Arnold last month predicted that the Superfortresses -- soon to be augmented by Gen. James H. Doolittle’s U.S. Eighth Air Force of European fame -- would destroy Japan industrially by fall. Already in the stepped-up campaign which started last March, they have burned and gutted huge sections of 22 Japanese cities, with Tokyo, Nagoya, Yokohama, Kobe, and Kawasaki written off as primary targets."

Another U.P. dispatch brings home just how devastating the air war has been over the last six months. Tokyo, the third largest city in the world with a population of seven million, has ordered all but 200,000 of its citizens to leave. A broadcast from Tokyo radio says that "every resident whose presence is not indispensable" must quit the capital. I’m not sure what they have to worry about -- the U.P. cites American air officers as saying Tokyo will no longer be a top priority target "until the Japanese rebuilt something worthwhile in the way of an objective." The same thing goes for five other major Japanese cities. We’d be wasting our time bombing ‘em until they put up something worth bombing.

One can wish that the devastatingly successful air war would make Hirohito and the Japanese militarists come to their senses and accept the Allies’ surrender terms. But surely that’s not in the cards. We saw how a successful air campaign against Hitler’s empire did little to make the Nazis more conciliatory. We can take the Japanese equally at their word when they proclaim their intention to fight to the last breath.

posted by Michael 8:05:00 AM

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WE’RE JUST WILD ABOUT HARRY. It’s official -- President Truman is now more popular than President Roosevelt ever was. The newest survey by Dr. Gallup and his polling teams shows President Truman with an approval rating of 87 percent, a full three percent above F.D.R.’s post-Pearl Harbor rating. Democrats and Republicans equally love the Missourian, and Dr. Gallup points out one huge advantage the President has over his predecessor --

"While President Roosevelt enjoyed almost universal support for his foreign policy, there were always sharp differences of opinion among voters on the Roosevelt domestic policies. In Mr. Truman’s case, however, no such difference has apparently arisen as yet. It is clear from the survey figures that the new President has thus far not taken any stand which has dissatisfied any large number of voters."

But there’s more to President Truman’s popularity than his avoiding controversy, as Mark Sullivan points out in his latest column. It’s his steadfastness --

"When a public figure has made a certain kind of impression on the public, it is important that the impression remain constant. People like to think that the public figure they admire will remain always the same, for in remaining the same there is a kind of integrity of personality, equivalent to intellectual integrity, and this gives the public a sense of confidence. . . . There is very little likelihood of Mr. Truman changing. The very fact that simplicity is his most conspicuous characteristic makes change unlikely. Probably the only risk Mr. Truman runs, and in his case it is not much of a risk, is that someone may try to persuade him, on one occasion or another, to be different from what he is. . . . Anyone who would suggest to Mr. Truman that he put on a show probably would be moved by recalling President Roosevelt and the immense popularity he had. But to be dramatic was an essential part of Roosevelt’s personality and the public enjoyed the performances he gave, thought of him as a master showman and liked him for what he was."

Assuming President Truman stays the way he is, it probably wouldn’t be too early to call the 1948 presidential election for him -- assuming he wants a full term of his own.

posted by Michael 8:01:00 AM

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TALK ABOUT A LOOOOOONG SHOT. From Time magazine’s Miscellany section -- "In Stirling, Scotland, four bridge players were each simultaneously dealt the same 13 cards twice on the same night (2nd and 18th hands). Odds against it: 85,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 to one."

posted by Michael 7:57:00 AM

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