ITALY INVADES GREECE. Finally, after weeks of tension in the Balkans comes an explosion. And it arrives on a typically flimsy Axis pretext -- a three-hour ultimatum from Mussolini demanding Greek territorial concessions. At the moment that ultimatum expired, at 11 p.m. Eastern standard time on Sunday night, ten divisions of Italian troops, numbering about 200,000 men, crossed the Albanian frontier into Greece’s mountain passes, where they were met by units of the small Greek Army. According to the Associated Press, Fascist warplanes and ships have joined in the assault, and the first air-raid alarms were sounded in Athens one hour after the ultimatum expired.
One bright spot so far is that the smaller countries have learned there’s nothing to be gained from appeasement. Greek Premier Mextaxas responded to the Italian threats by telling his people, "The moment has arrived for Greece to fight for her independence and honor."
The radio reports this morning are contradictory -- one report says the Italians have advanced ten miles into Greek territory, while another claims the Greeks are putting up ferocious resistance and that Fascist troops are being handicapped in their drive by an uprising of Albanian guerrillas.
ANOTHER POLAND -- OR ANOTHER FINLAND? Shouldn’t we have seen this coming? After weeks of military build-up and maneuvering in the Balkans, the Axis didn't go after the huge armies of Russia, or take on Turkey’s "2,000,000 bayonets" -- instead, they try to bully one of the smallest countries in Europe, possessing one of the weakest armies. Alas, a report in Monday’s Chicago Tribune demonstrates that militarily the Greeks are far fewer in number than the Italians, and are by comparison poorly armed and inexperienced.
The numbers available from a year ago showed Greece having 145,000 men on active duty and 455,000 trained reserves, as compared to 2,240,000 men under arms in the Italian army, and 5,175,000 trained reserves. Perhaps the gap in those numbers has lessened over time, but the Greek Air Corps is still piddly compared to Mussolini’s -- 1,600 active airmen and 4,500 reservists in Greece, compared to 116,000 active airmen and 102,000 trained reserves in Italy. The Tribune adds, "Italy, too, has the advantage, a big one in modern mechanized warfare, or having trained many of her soldiers and airmen in real fighting in Ethiopia and Spain."
The British Navy, which is on the way to aid the Greeks, could hamper the Italian war effort by occupying the islands of Crete and Corfu, as well as the Cyclades and Aegean Islands -- if they get there before the Fascists do. And the mountainous regions of the Greek-Albanian border give maximum advantage to a defender. But the Italian advantage in this invasion is so great that, like Poland, she could well succumb to invasion inside of one month. The radio says this morning that Mussolini expects his troops to be in Athens in three weeks.
WHY ROOSEVELT IS SLIPPING. In Sunday’s New York Times, Turner Catledge tries to explain why the war issue, which has seemingly helped President Roosevelt so much during this campaign, appears to have boomeranged on him in these final days --
"Mr. Roosevelt’s popularity with the voters has gone up and down in almost direct ratio to the fluctuation of their emotions about the war. When with each new German aggression the wrath of the people went up, Mr. Roosevelt’s popularity went up with it. When these thrusts seemed in any way to imperil the national safety of this country or its interests, his percentage curve went even higher in the Gallup poll and other indices. He apparently not only represented best the belligerent emotions of the people, but was also the personification in their minds of the information and experience we needed to meet the emergency at hand. By his own acts and words the President seemed to be directly in tune with these emotions and, indeed, may be said to have helped create many of them. But as each emergency passed, or the people became used to it, their regard for or dependence upon Mr. Roosevelt waned, just as it is obvious today throughout much of this Midwestern country that his popularity curve is bent downward. There is no getting away from the appearance...that the war and the apprehension of our getting into it are beginning to have tremendous political weight, and against Mr. Roosevelt."
This could be due, Mr. Catledge writes, to the onset of draft registration and the flap over Elliot Roosevelt’s entering the Air Corps as a captain. But he offers one other, more profound, explanation -- "There has been no recent outstanding or dramatic event abroad to throw the people into an emotional fever or alarm them about their own security. England’s heroic stand is building up a confidence that our own defenses will not need to be tested soon, if ever, and American voters, like the English themselves, are growing used to the bombings of London."
WILL THE WAR IN GREECE AFFECT THE ELECTION? In that light, Italy’s assault on Greece might work in the President’s favor politically. Or, it might be viewed by Americans as much more remote to our interests than Germany’s campaign against Britain, and thus have little effect on the election. On the other hand, I’d argue that it might even work a bit in Willkie’s favor -- by confirming further that the European war will be a long, complicated, drawn-out affair, and thus not the quickly-resolved, immediate threat to U.S. security that everybody feared it could be at the beginning of the summer.
GALLUP SAYS WILLKIE’S STILL GAINING. Dr. Gallup has a new nation-wide survey in Sunday’s Washington Post, and in sum it says that Wendell Willkie continues to narrow President Roosevelt’s lead -- albeit slowly. In the new survey, the President’s share of the popular vote nationally is 54.5%, compared to Willkie’s 45.5%. Roosevelt’s total is down from 55% on October 18 and 56% on October 6. While the President is leading in thirty-six states with 410 electoral votes, Willkie leads in twelve states with 98 electoral votes. But Gallup warns it could get far closer by election day -- "Mr. Roosevelt’s lead in popular votes has never in this campaign approached his vote in 1936, and a continuing trend to Willkie in the final week -- if such a trend should continue -- would make the November 5 election one of the closest in history."
Once again, Dr. Gallup reminds us that the "danger line" for President Roosevelt isn’t 50% -- it’s more like 52%. That is, the President would likely lose the election in the electoral college with a popular vote of 52% or less, because the extremely high popular-vote totals Democratic candidates rack up in Southern states. (In South Carolina, for instance, the new survey shows an astonishing popular vote of 98% for Roosevelt and 2% for Willkie – numbers unheard in electoral contests not involving Bolsheviks).
Saturday, October 29, 2016
Thursday, October 27, 2016
Sunday, October 27, 1940
WILL THE U.S. SEIZE FRENCH COLONIES? Last summer’s Havana Agreement might be invoked before long. This is the treaty by which U.S. and other hemisphere nations agreed to seize and administer "orphaned colonies" belonging to countries occupied by the Nazis, if it looked like German infiltration of those colonies might threaten the security of the Americas. Now, says the Associated Press, the Roosevelt administration is alleged to have "plans ready for occupying French territory in the Caribbean area in case such a step is deemed necessary from a hemisphere defense viewpoint."
The sparks were, of course, provided by Hitler’s conferences this past week with Marshal Petain and Vice Premier Laval. "Informed quarters" tell the A.P. that the Hitler-Petain talks are evidence that "France has finally agreed to limited cooperation with Germany against Britain in return for an easing of the Nazi yoke." Just what does "limited cooperation" entail? If it means granting Nazi troops and ships the use of Casablanca, Dakar, and the Syrian port of Beirut, it could be a huge blow to Britain, since Germany would then be in a much better position to harass British merchant vessels in the Atlantic and seize Near East oil supplies. (Saturday’s New York Times points out, though, that British naval superiority would make it hard for the Germans to make use of French-held ports on the Mediterranean or the Atlantic, even if Vichy gave "permission.").
Petain’s regime is being obtuse about what agreements have been made, if any. The Chicago Tribune’s David Darrah quotes a French newspaper as saying Petain is working for "certain reorientations in international relations which were in conformance with new circumstances." Couldn’t be clearer than that. More ominously, the radio news this morning says that Vichy’s foreign minister, Paul Baudouin, has abruptly resigned. No reason given.
HITLER & STALIN PLAY HIGH-STAKES CHESS. An editorial in this week’s New Republic concisely sums up the tensions in the German-Russian relationship at the moment, stirred up by Hitler’s need to seize the oil reserves of Iran and Irak if he is to reliably fuel his war machine in the months and years ahead. To get to Iran and Irak the Nazis must go through Turkey, and there’s the rub --
"Behind Turkey looms the Soviet Union, which historically has had its own eyes on the Dardanelles, and certainly would dislike to see the straits pass under the control of a great and possibly hostile power. Hitler would hesitate to extend the war to Turkey unless he could buy Stalin’s consent with concessions elsewhere or unless he were sure that the USSR would not dare to resist him. It is here that the great and obscure diplomatic game now centers. Hitler knows well that Stalin does not want to fight and that the Soviet armies, though huge, are none too well organized or supplied. Stalin in turn knows that Hitler’s greatest fear is a war on two fronts at once, and even then if he could defeat the Russians inside of a year or two, he would go far to avoid clashing with them unless he had first finished off Britain. Hitler knows that Stalin, too, fears a war on two fronts and would hesitate to take on the Germans unless he were safe from Japan. On this great chessboard the diplomatists are now moving."
Who will win this game? The New Republic’s editors conclude with three possibilities -- "The Russians are great chess players, and it is possible that they may so arrange their pieces as to stay Hitler’s hand in the Balkans this winter. It is also possible that Hitler may drive so hard at their inherent weakness as to compel them to give way. Or he may simply upset the board and send all the pieces rolling."
JOHN L. LEWIS ENDORSES WILLKIE. Another former Roosevelt supporter comes out for the Republicans, this time the head of the C.I.O. In a Friday night radio address carried on 362 stations, the fiery labor leader put the choice in starkly dramatic terms --
"I think the re-election of President Roosevelt for a third term would be a national evil of the first magnitude. He no longer hears the cries of the people. I think that the election of Wendell Willkie is imperative in relation to this country’s needs. I commend him to the men and women of labor, and to the nation, as one worthy of their support, and as one who will capably and zealously protect their rights, increase their privileges and restore their happiness....America needs no superman. It denies the philosophy that runs to the deification of the state. America wants no royal family."
Call it rhetoric, but Mr. Lewis obviously believes in his words – he’s vowing to step down as C.I.O. chief if the President wins! In his own words, "It is obvious that President Roosevelt will not be re-elected for the third term unless he has the overwhelming support of the men and women of labor. If he is, therefore, re-elected, it will mean that the members of the Congress of Industrial Organizations have rejected my advice and my recommendation. I will accept the result as being the equivalent of a vote of no confidence, and will retire..."
Some of his criticisms are a little overheated, in the grand tradition of soap-box rhetoric. But Mr. Lewis makes a comprehensive case for change. By all means, if you didn't hear it on the radio, grab a copy of Saturday’s New York Times or New York Herald Tribune and read the transcript.
THE WASHINGTON POST ON THE THIRD TERM. A Post editorial in Saturday’s editions says it all --
"If [President Roosevelt] wins, the unique balance of our system of government will be in jeopardy. One of the most important bars to dictatorship will be down. It does not necessarily follow that the President would make himself master of the country, as other popular leaders have done in many parts of the world. But the path to excessive personal power would be at least partly cleared, and the temptation to take it would be strong. It is true that the Nation faces an emergency. For that very reason, however, safeguards against personalized government are the more important. What is the nature of the world-shaking movement that threatens us? Regardless of what else it may be, it is a revolution against democracy. It is the gravest sort of fallacy to talk of resisting this totalitarian menace by weakening the structure of our own democratic system."
THE TIMES SAYS IT SHORT AND SWEET. The editorial page of Saturday’s New York Times makes a telling comment on the third term as well, merely by quoting Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Henry Guest dated January 4, 1809 --
"I am sensible to the kindness of your rebuke on my determination to retire from office at a time when our country is laboring under difficulties truly great. But if the principle of rotation be a sound one, as I conscientiously believe it to be with respect to this office, no pretext should ever be permitted to dispense with it, because there never will be a time when real difficulties will not exist, and furnish a plausible pretext for dispensation."
I think the italics are mine.
The sparks were, of course, provided by Hitler’s conferences this past week with Marshal Petain and Vice Premier Laval. "Informed quarters" tell the A.P. that the Hitler-Petain talks are evidence that "France has finally agreed to limited cooperation with Germany against Britain in return for an easing of the Nazi yoke." Just what does "limited cooperation" entail? If it means granting Nazi troops and ships the use of Casablanca, Dakar, and the Syrian port of Beirut, it could be a huge blow to Britain, since Germany would then be in a much better position to harass British merchant vessels in the Atlantic and seize Near East oil supplies. (Saturday’s New York Times points out, though, that British naval superiority would make it hard for the Germans to make use of French-held ports on the Mediterranean or the Atlantic, even if Vichy gave "permission.").
Petain’s regime is being obtuse about what agreements have been made, if any. The Chicago Tribune’s David Darrah quotes a French newspaper as saying Petain is working for "certain reorientations in international relations which were in conformance with new circumstances." Couldn’t be clearer than that. More ominously, the radio news this morning says that Vichy’s foreign minister, Paul Baudouin, has abruptly resigned. No reason given.
HITLER & STALIN PLAY HIGH-STAKES CHESS. An editorial in this week’s New Republic concisely sums up the tensions in the German-Russian relationship at the moment, stirred up by Hitler’s need to seize the oil reserves of Iran and Irak if he is to reliably fuel his war machine in the months and years ahead. To get to Iran and Irak the Nazis must go through Turkey, and there’s the rub --
"Behind Turkey looms the Soviet Union, which historically has had its own eyes on the Dardanelles, and certainly would dislike to see the straits pass under the control of a great and possibly hostile power. Hitler would hesitate to extend the war to Turkey unless he could buy Stalin’s consent with concessions elsewhere or unless he were sure that the USSR would not dare to resist him. It is here that the great and obscure diplomatic game now centers. Hitler knows well that Stalin does not want to fight and that the Soviet armies, though huge, are none too well organized or supplied. Stalin in turn knows that Hitler’s greatest fear is a war on two fronts at once, and even then if he could defeat the Russians inside of a year or two, he would go far to avoid clashing with them unless he had first finished off Britain. Hitler knows that Stalin, too, fears a war on two fronts and would hesitate to take on the Germans unless he were safe from Japan. On this great chessboard the diplomatists are now moving."
Who will win this game? The New Republic’s editors conclude with three possibilities -- "The Russians are great chess players, and it is possible that they may so arrange their pieces as to stay Hitler’s hand in the Balkans this winter. It is also possible that Hitler may drive so hard at their inherent weakness as to compel them to give way. Or he may simply upset the board and send all the pieces rolling."
JOHN L. LEWIS ENDORSES WILLKIE. Another former Roosevelt supporter comes out for the Republicans, this time the head of the C.I.O. In a Friday night radio address carried on 362 stations, the fiery labor leader put the choice in starkly dramatic terms --
"I think the re-election of President Roosevelt for a third term would be a national evil of the first magnitude. He no longer hears the cries of the people. I think that the election of Wendell Willkie is imperative in relation to this country’s needs. I commend him to the men and women of labor, and to the nation, as one worthy of their support, and as one who will capably and zealously protect their rights, increase their privileges and restore their happiness....America needs no superman. It denies the philosophy that runs to the deification of the state. America wants no royal family."
Call it rhetoric, but Mr. Lewis obviously believes in his words – he’s vowing to step down as C.I.O. chief if the President wins! In his own words, "It is obvious that President Roosevelt will not be re-elected for the third term unless he has the overwhelming support of the men and women of labor. If he is, therefore, re-elected, it will mean that the members of the Congress of Industrial Organizations have rejected my advice and my recommendation. I will accept the result as being the equivalent of a vote of no confidence, and will retire..."
Some of his criticisms are a little overheated, in the grand tradition of soap-box rhetoric. But Mr. Lewis makes a comprehensive case for change. By all means, if you didn't hear it on the radio, grab a copy of Saturday’s New York Times or New York Herald Tribune and read the transcript.
THE WASHINGTON POST ON THE THIRD TERM. A Post editorial in Saturday’s editions says it all --
"If [President Roosevelt] wins, the unique balance of our system of government will be in jeopardy. One of the most important bars to dictatorship will be down. It does not necessarily follow that the President would make himself master of the country, as other popular leaders have done in many parts of the world. But the path to excessive personal power would be at least partly cleared, and the temptation to take it would be strong. It is true that the Nation faces an emergency. For that very reason, however, safeguards against personalized government are the more important. What is the nature of the world-shaking movement that threatens us? Regardless of what else it may be, it is a revolution against democracy. It is the gravest sort of fallacy to talk of resisting this totalitarian menace by weakening the structure of our own democratic system."
THE TIMES SAYS IT SHORT AND SWEET. The editorial page of Saturday’s New York Times makes a telling comment on the third term as well, merely by quoting Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Henry Guest dated January 4, 1809 --
"I am sensible to the kindness of your rebuke on my determination to retire from office at a time when our country is laboring under difficulties truly great. But if the principle of rotation be a sound one, as I conscientiously believe it to be with respect to this office, no pretext should ever be permitted to dispense with it, because there never will be a time when real difficulties will not exist, and furnish a plausible pretext for dispensation."
I think the italics are mine.
Monday, October 24, 2016
Thursday, October 24, 1940
ROOSEVELT COULD WIN, BUT STILL LOSE. Dr. Gallup says in Wednesday’s Washington Post that despite President Roosevelt’s 55%-45% lead over Wendell Willkie, we may be facing for the first time since 1888 an election where the winner of the popular vote is the loser in the electoral college. He writes, "If Wendell Willkie had not stopped the Roosevelt trend which [Gallup] polls reported during September and early October, Roosevelt would obviously be winning by a landslide of electoral votes. But today the trend is moving the other way -- toward Willkie -- and unless the Roosevelt forces stop the Willkie trend, the campaign may end in the closest race since 1916."
Gallup also explains just how easy it would be for a Democrat to win the popular vote and still lose the election --
"The odd but highly important political fact is that in view of the political composition of certain States, Roosevelt cannot win the election without carrying about 52 per cent of the popular vote. The national vote must be near or at that figure before the key States would normally show any margin over 50 per cent for Roosevelt. The reason is, of course, that the Democrats pile up a greater popular vote in the South than they need to carry the electoral votes of that section. With the surplus majority of the South figured in, a vote of 52 per cent for Roosevelt in the entire Nation is normally the equivalent of only about 50 per cent in the key States. Roosevelt’s present strength of 55 per cent is thus only three points above the 52 per cent he needs to win....At any time between August and the past week -- a period when Roosevelt’s electoral votes nearly doubled -- a shift of less than one million votes would have changed enough electoral votes to put Willkie ahead."
Gallup also highlights another finding from the Oct 18 survey which shows just how much President Roosevelt is dependent on the current crisis to win the election. When voters are asked which candidate they’d prefer "if there were no war in Europe today," Willkie scored 53%, to Roosevelt’s 47%. That raises in intriguing question -- if there were to be a sustained lull in the fighting between now and election day, would some voters switch to Willkie on the basis of that alone?
A TIE-UP OF GERMANY AND FRANCE? Newspaper reports on Tuesday’s meeting between Hitler and French Vice Premier Laval speculate this could lead to the signing of a Franco-German peace treaty, and the formal acceptance of Marshal Petain’s regime into the emerging "New Order" of Nazi Europe. C. Brooks Peters’ story in Wednesday’s New York Times carefully avoids rash predictions on the chances for a rapprochement and what it could mean, but an Associated Press dispatch is loaded with possibilities for a tie-up, and even French military involvement on Hitler’s side --
"It is believed here [in Berlin] the French are finding Vichy highly unsuitable as a seat of government, and Chief of State Marshal Henri Petain might seize an opportunity to conclude a definite peace with Germany rather than continue armistice conditions which make return of the government to Paris unfeasible. Moreover, by supporting the Axis in a military way in Africa...France might hope to fall heir to some British colonies as compensation for the loss of Alsace-Lorraine and possibly Burgundy. If, as has been reported, the meeting today was the climax of a developing attempt to mass the surviving French warships with those of Germany and Italy for a showdown with the British fleet, the Axis would obtain powerful aid at sea should the French Navy join in the war against Britain."
According to the United Press, Vichy quickly denied any intention of re-entering the war on Germany’s side -- not that a denial from Vichy means much of anything either way. On the other hand, Petain's surrender regime admits the conference covered the need for "increased collaboration" with Germany.
RISK OF A U.S. WAR IN THE PACIFIC. New York Herald Tribune columnist Walter Lippmann agrees with Wendell Willkie that isolationist hoopla about sending U.S. troops to Europe is a "manufactured panic" with no basis in reality. But in the Pacific, he argues, we’re running a real and necessary risk of war by making military supplies available to China while embargoing vital war materials to Japan --
"There is very little doubt...that once Japan had entered into the alliance with the Axis, the risks of this policy became less than the risk of standing by, refusing to help China and continuing to supply Japan with the materials she needs to complete the conquest of the Far East. For if we helped Japan to win in the East, and that is what Japan demands of us, our one-ocean navy would never be free to leave the Pacific Ocean. Japan would become invincible in the Pacific and free to strike when she chose, at a time when a catastrophe in Europe might require the shifting of the fleet to the Atlantic. Therefore, we have been driven to realize that the strengthening of the Chinese resistance and the weakening of the Japanese power of aggression are a necessary insurance against the possibility of an Axis victory in Europe. Having only one navy in two oceans we need the Chinese resistance to keep Japan entangled in Asia in the event that our support of Britain should turn out to be insufficient to keep the Axis out of the Atlantic."
MORE BALKAN WORRIES. The new trade agreement between Germany and Yugoslavia contains a "protocol providing increased political cooperation," writes Sam Brewer from Istanbul in Wednesday’s Chicago Tribune. According to Turkish "informed opinion," the Nazis will not occupy Yugoslavia, but are "more likely to invade northern Jugo-Slavia where resistance to [Germany’s] vast forces would be virtually impossible. That would give her a road down the Danube valley into Rumania." And from there, the Tribune explains, German and Italian troops could push across northern Greece, blocking the Turks from providing any effective aid to the Greeks in case of an Axis assault there.
The British are "increasingly concerned" about this, according to Mr. Brewer. But at least there are signs Britain might not sit around this time waiting to see what happens. A United Press dispatch cites the Times of London as warning that the Royal Navy "may occupy Greece’s strategic islands in the Aegean Sea as naval and air bases to thwart Axis thrusts which might be ‘ruinous’ to Britain’s strategic position." A good idea, although the criteria given for doing so -- "if Greece should ever cease to remain a free agent" -- is too restrictive. The British should move the moment Axis troops cross the Greek border.
Gallup also explains just how easy it would be for a Democrat to win the popular vote and still lose the election --
"The odd but highly important political fact is that in view of the political composition of certain States, Roosevelt cannot win the election without carrying about 52 per cent of the popular vote. The national vote must be near or at that figure before the key States would normally show any margin over 50 per cent for Roosevelt. The reason is, of course, that the Democrats pile up a greater popular vote in the South than they need to carry the electoral votes of that section. With the surplus majority of the South figured in, a vote of 52 per cent for Roosevelt in the entire Nation is normally the equivalent of only about 50 per cent in the key States. Roosevelt’s present strength of 55 per cent is thus only three points above the 52 per cent he needs to win....At any time between August and the past week -- a period when Roosevelt’s electoral votes nearly doubled -- a shift of less than one million votes would have changed enough electoral votes to put Willkie ahead."
Gallup also highlights another finding from the Oct 18 survey which shows just how much President Roosevelt is dependent on the current crisis to win the election. When voters are asked which candidate they’d prefer "if there were no war in Europe today," Willkie scored 53%, to Roosevelt’s 47%. That raises in intriguing question -- if there were to be a sustained lull in the fighting between now and election day, would some voters switch to Willkie on the basis of that alone?
A TIE-UP OF GERMANY AND FRANCE? Newspaper reports on Tuesday’s meeting between Hitler and French Vice Premier Laval speculate this could lead to the signing of a Franco-German peace treaty, and the formal acceptance of Marshal Petain’s regime into the emerging "New Order" of Nazi Europe. C. Brooks Peters’ story in Wednesday’s New York Times carefully avoids rash predictions on the chances for a rapprochement and what it could mean, but an Associated Press dispatch is loaded with possibilities for a tie-up, and even French military involvement on Hitler’s side --
"It is believed here [in Berlin] the French are finding Vichy highly unsuitable as a seat of government, and Chief of State Marshal Henri Petain might seize an opportunity to conclude a definite peace with Germany rather than continue armistice conditions which make return of the government to Paris unfeasible. Moreover, by supporting the Axis in a military way in Africa...France might hope to fall heir to some British colonies as compensation for the loss of Alsace-Lorraine and possibly Burgundy. If, as has been reported, the meeting today was the climax of a developing attempt to mass the surviving French warships with those of Germany and Italy for a showdown with the British fleet, the Axis would obtain powerful aid at sea should the French Navy join in the war against Britain."
According to the United Press, Vichy quickly denied any intention of re-entering the war on Germany’s side -- not that a denial from Vichy means much of anything either way. On the other hand, Petain's surrender regime admits the conference covered the need for "increased collaboration" with Germany.
RISK OF A U.S. WAR IN THE PACIFIC. New York Herald Tribune columnist Walter Lippmann agrees with Wendell Willkie that isolationist hoopla about sending U.S. troops to Europe is a "manufactured panic" with no basis in reality. But in the Pacific, he argues, we’re running a real and necessary risk of war by making military supplies available to China while embargoing vital war materials to Japan --
"There is very little doubt...that once Japan had entered into the alliance with the Axis, the risks of this policy became less than the risk of standing by, refusing to help China and continuing to supply Japan with the materials she needs to complete the conquest of the Far East. For if we helped Japan to win in the East, and that is what Japan demands of us, our one-ocean navy would never be free to leave the Pacific Ocean. Japan would become invincible in the Pacific and free to strike when she chose, at a time when a catastrophe in Europe might require the shifting of the fleet to the Atlantic. Therefore, we have been driven to realize that the strengthening of the Chinese resistance and the weakening of the Japanese power of aggression are a necessary insurance against the possibility of an Axis victory in Europe. Having only one navy in two oceans we need the Chinese resistance to keep Japan entangled in Asia in the event that our support of Britain should turn out to be insufficient to keep the Axis out of the Atlantic."
MORE BALKAN WORRIES. The new trade agreement between Germany and Yugoslavia contains a "protocol providing increased political cooperation," writes Sam Brewer from Istanbul in Wednesday’s Chicago Tribune. According to Turkish "informed opinion," the Nazis will not occupy Yugoslavia, but are "more likely to invade northern Jugo-Slavia where resistance to [Germany’s] vast forces would be virtually impossible. That would give her a road down the Danube valley into Rumania." And from there, the Tribune explains, German and Italian troops could push across northern Greece, blocking the Turks from providing any effective aid to the Greeks in case of an Axis assault there.
The British are "increasingly concerned" about this, according to Mr. Brewer. But at least there are signs Britain might not sit around this time waiting to see what happens. A United Press dispatch cites the Times of London as warning that the Royal Navy "may occupy Greece’s strategic islands in the Aegean Sea as naval and air bases to thwart Axis thrusts which might be ‘ruinous’ to Britain’s strategic position." A good idea, although the criteria given for doing so -- "if Greece should ever cease to remain a free agent" -- is too restrictive. The British should move the moment Axis troops cross the Greek border.
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