RUSSIANS FIGHTING IN RUMANIA. Some people, Joseph Stalin for example, just can’t take yes for an answer. Four days after Rumania’s King Carol assented to Soviet demands for Bessarabia and a chunk of Bucovina, the Russians are marching into strategic Rumanian cities bordering these newly-seized territories, while they battle angry Rumanian mobs in their rear. The Associated Press says that Russian troops have forced the Rumanian Army out of the city of Reni, at the Danube and Prut Rivers near the southwest border line of Bessarabia. The Red Army used a clever ploy in this attack, sending forth “baby tanks” landed by airplanes. The tanks were “suspended between the wheels of big transport planes in a display of warfare in its most modern phase.” The gambit “caught the Rumanian garrison so completely by surprise that the rifles stood untouched in barracks packs.” Sounds like Red officers have paid close attention to Nazi lighting-war tactics.
Eugen Kovacs reports in Monday’s New York Times that there’s some real fighting going on inside Bessarabia, and reports two trains full of wounded Rumanian troops arrived in Bucharest during the week-end. The Time article counts 35,000 to 40,000 Rumanian refugees fleeing the Soviet advance. On the other hand, about 7,000 Jews, alarmed at about Rumania’s recent tilt toward Nazi-ism, are fleeing in the other direction, trying to get to the Russian-occupied portions of the country.
Interestingly, the A.P. casts the Russian takeover of Reni as a “major blow” to Hitler -– “From Reni, the Red Army is in a position to block all traffic from the Danube to the Black Sea -- if it so desires -- with hardly more than machine guns necessary.” The Germans are no doubt also worried about reports of Russia’s “request” that Turkey “share” defense responsibilities of the critical Dardanelles Straits with the Soviets. Just four months after it appeared Stalin and Hitler might likely end up as wartime allies, it has to be wondered whether Russia has decisively outsmarted Germany in the East and now stands on par with Britain as the Reich’s most serious rival.
GIBRALTAR NEXT ON THE AXIS LIST? Sources in Berlin tell Sigrid Schultz of the Chicago Tribune that a coordinated German and Italian attack on Britain’s territories “seems to be rapidly drawing near,” and that Italy’s role in the drive will be a Fascist assault against the British fortress at Gibraltar on Spain’s southern coast --
“Some sources speak of an attack on Gibraltar with legionnaires, similar to the Italian Arrow divisions and the German Condor legions which fought in the Spanish war, operating from the land side of ‘the rock,’ aided by the attacks of Italian sea and air forces. Gen. Franco, who was aided by Hitler and Mussolini in the Spanish war, has declared Spain ‘nonbelligerent’ -- the same term which Italy used before Il Duce entered the war on the side of Hitler. There have been several recent demonstrations in Spain calling for the return of Gibraltar. It is believed that an Italian attack against Gibraltar is a stronger possibility than an Italian attack on Egypt. To drive the British out of Gibraltar, Germans feel, would enhance their chances of success in a direct attack upon the British Isles.”
THE MIRACLE OF WILLKIE. In Sunday’s New York Times, Arthur Krock exults at Wendell Willkie’s nomination as a glorious and improbable event that can only happen in a democracy --
“The nomination of Wendell L. Willkie by the Republican National Convention was not only the climax of an American political revolution, and the achievement of a miracle; it was a notice that, as ever before, the Democratic system here furnishes a man for the exigent hour and traditional molds are burst to effect his entrance. In the light of all political experience Mr. Willkie’s nomination was impossible. He has voted the Republican ticket for only four years, and has been registered with that party for only one. He has never been in politics, or sought or held a public office. His claims to this nomination were not submitted to any party primary or convention before this one met. He is an executive in the utilities business, which the New Deal has chosen as its especial example to prove the needs for drastic regulation of industry. He is a director of the First National Bank of New York, a “Wall Street” bank. And not until the day before the convention met did Mr. Willkie form a professional political group to pilot his campaign.”
Mr. Krock also sees Mr. Willkie’s triumph over the G.O.P.’s political bosses as a most encouraging contrast to the war news -- “Democracy worked this week, at a time when triumphant war machines have been erected on its ruins in nearly all the rest of the world.” Yes, it is always heartening to see an honest, upright dark-horse candidate triumph over conventional politicians picked by the “old guard” party men. But the press seems to me to be making too much of this democratic “miracle.” I doubt if Hitler is losing any sleep over it.
WILL ROOSEVELT DECLINE A THIRD TERM BID? He might, once the Democrats nominate him. That’s the odd and intriguing theory being sounded in Monday’s New York Herald Tribune --
“With the Democratic National Convention, scheduled to open in Chicago two weeks from today, a report has been circulating in Democratic circles, it was learned yesterday, that President Roosevelt would allow himself to be nominated for a third term and then, in a dramatic appearance before the convention, decline the nomination and suggest the substitution of some other candidate whom he would designate by name. Two names recurring in these reports are those of Attorney General Robert H. Jackson and Justice William O. Douglas of the United States Supreme Court.”
This sounds like a bit of theorizing cooked up by a Washington observer very late at night in his favorite bar. I suppose that in the wake of the Willkie phenomenon, any wild prediction suddenly seems plausible. But it’s hard to imagine a wise politician like the President honestly thinking that this kind of gambit would boost the Democrats’ chances. Dr. Gallup says that 92 percent of Democrats want F.D.R. to run for a third term -- can you imagine how unbelievably crestfallen the delegates in Chicago would be to see their hero take the podium and proclaim, “Thanks, but no thanks”?
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