Tuesday, April 2, 1940

MORE “SENSATIONAL” NAZI DISCLOSURES COMING? Sunday’s New York Times says the Germans promise to release a new series of documents from the Polish foreign ministry that, along with the sixteen made public over the week-end, supposdly prove U.S. “war guilt.” According to correspondent Percival Knauth, the Nazis portray the U.S. Ambassador to France, William C. Bullitt, as “the chief war-baiter behind the scenes in diplomatic moves which ultimately plunged Europe into war.” Joseph P. Kennedy, America’s ambassador to Britain, is supposedly his helper.

The House of Representatives’ least-patient isolationist, Hamilton Fish of New York, expressed again Sunday his eagerness to jump onto Hitler’s blame-America bandwagon. At first he demanded that the House Foreign Affairs Committee take up the question of whether or not President Roosevelt has committed impeachable offenses by conniving to start European wars. Now, according to the Times, Representative Fish has threatened to introduce a resolution to impeach the President, and for good measure, Ambassador Bullitt as well. Thankfully, a more sensible isolationist, Senator Champ Clark of Missouri, said Sunday that “the matter is too serious to make a snap judgement upon it.”

IS THERE ANYTHING TO IT? (II). Those of us who wish to dismiss the Polish documents as wholesale Nazi forgeries found this disturbing paragraph in Percival Knauth’s New York Times story -- “Correspondents who viewed the original ‘documents’ at the [German] foreign office today were inclined to accept them as genuine. They all bear a variety of signatures and marginal notes, which suggest that they have passed through many hands in the routine of the Polish ministry for foreign affairs.”

But an International News Service story by Walter Fitzmaurice, printed inside Monday’s Washington Post, says that U.S. investigating agencies have compiled a mammoth amount of evidence casting “indirect doubt” on the authenticity of the documents. He writes that F.B.I. and Secret Service investigators have discovered evidence of “bribery, theft and the distribution of forged documents” by Nazis directing propaganda activities in the U.S. A source says this evidence might be made public “at the appropriate time.” “Right now” would be a good time, actually.

A COUPLE OF EDITORIAL COMMENTS. The Chicago Tribune takes a typically curious line toward the Nazi disclosures. The editors write Monday that it doesn’t matter whether the charges are true or false, because they’re true! Or something like that --

“If the Polish documents printed in the German white paper...are forgeries it must be admitted that the craftsmen had authentic models before them....The forgers, if such they were, did not go to work upon material which would be unrecognizable in American eyes. They took utterances and events as Americans have heard them spoken and have seen them happen, and about them wove the most intimate inner-office confidential details that might have been in the hidden background of what appeared in public. The authenticity of what is known to be true does not, of course, establish by itself the truth of the purported revelation of the whole story. But it does establish the fact that there is no inconsistency between what is known as the public record and what are presented as the secret proceedings behind it.”

On the other hand, Barnet Nover of the Washington Post takes an understated, sensible approach in his Monday column --

“At this distance and at this time it is impossible to say whether these documents tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. But it is equally impossible to say with complete conviction that they do not. And Dr. Goebbels knows that...He knows also that where the will to believe exists, notably in certain isolationist circles long suspicious of President Roosevelt’s foreign policy, these documents will be grist for their mill, regardless of the President’s warning to take them with a grain of salt and regardless of the fervent denials of Secretary Hull and Ambassadors Bullitt, Kennedy, and Potocki. Individuals suspicious of the Administration’s foreign policy may find it awkward to believe the Nazi regime whose record for truth-telling is not impressive. But the temptation to accept the Nazi documents at their face value may override the promptings of caution.”

NORWAY AND SWEDEN ARE NERVOUS. And according to Harold Callender in Sunday’s New York Times, they’re arming rapidly, just in case --

“The presence of a German submarine in Norway’s territorial waters this week -- not far from the strategic points where a British destroyer had hovered a few days earlier to keep an eye on German merchant ships -- gave Scandinavia another of those minor shocks which lately have been too frequent to be counted. But in these uncertain times minor shocks may develop into major ones, and the accumulation of these alarms during and since the Finnish war has kept Scandinavia’s nerves on edge and intensified the desire of these pacific and until recently pacifist countries to become a good deal more military than they had thought of doing since Napoleon’s time.”

The numbers are impressive, considering the size of these countries. Sweden has spent $175,000,000 on its military since the invasion of Poland, and will spend $275,000,000 in 1940 -- an increase of eight times over the last five years. She is tripling the size of her air force, with plans for 1,000 fast fighting planes, is reorganizing her army on a war basis, and could field a half-million men if need be. Meanwhile, the Norwegians are trying to make up for lost time, spending $58,000,000 on defense over a nine-month period. The money comes from mammoth tax increases, including a 50% hike in the national income tax, a sales tax, and huge excise taxes on alcohol and tobacco. Even tiny Denmark is taking steps to protect herself, spending up to $30,000,000 for air squadrons and anti-aircraft guns, plus torpedo boats from Britain.

THE DIRECTION OF THE DANGER. Harold Callender’s Sunday New York Times article also says the Scandinavians “fear all the great powers” but have no doubts as to where an attack would come from -- “their sympathies are predominantly on the side of the Allies. They fear that Britain and France might precipitate an attack by Germany and Germany’s pact with Russia may cause further aggression from Moscow.”

What’s tragic about this is if Sweden and Norway had only began arming early last fall and had made a defense pact with the Finns, the Russians would probably have never attacked Finland, and the dangers facing them now would be that much less.

AMERICANS SYMPATHIZE WITH THE ALLIES (SOMEWHAT). A new poll by Dr. George Gallup published in Sunday’s Washington Post shows that Americans’ support of Germany has slipped just a bit. Six months ago, 84% of those surveyed said they wanted the Allies to win, versus 2% who wanted Germany to win. Dr. Gallup has just repeated that poll question, and the results are now -- 84% want the Allies to win, and 1% want Germany to win. A total of 15% say they’re “completely neutral” or have no opinion.

What bothers me about these polls is that many Americans who profess to want an Allied victory also say they don’t particularly want to do anything to help them. According to Gallup, “if the Allies appear to be losing” only 55% of those surveyed would even be willing to “lend money” to them, and 23% would use U.S. troops to prevent a British and French defeat, as disastrous for civilization as that would be. In other words, Americans hope the Allies win, but apparently in the same way that a Brooklyn fan wants to see the Dodgers beat the Giants.