RIOTING BREAKS OUT IN ITALY. Could it be that Mussolini’s regime, buffeted by military defeat, is starting to crack up? One can infer that tantalizing possibility from a couple of C.B.S. broadcasts last night, reporting on uprisings in Milan and movements toward Italy by Nazi troops. C.B.S. Belgrade correspondent Winston Burdett says that rioting is going on this week-end in several cities in the Po Valley, including Milan and Turin. Three Italian generals have been killed, and "several hundred" civilians wounded. The information comes from diplomatic sources in Belgrade. who also say three generals were killed by German troops who had intervened to put down street riots. Italian soldiers have taken part in street fighting -- but it’s not clear whose side they’re on. The disorders are "grave and far-reaching," according to C.B.S. -- and they’re continuing. German military units have occupied key positions in Milan, and another report by Henry Flannery, C.B.S.’s man in Berlin, claims that "endless trains with units of the German air force" are heading southward into Italy through the Brenner Pass.
Of course, the most hopeful thing about these bulletins, if they pan out, is that Hitler might have to make a dramatic and unanticipated move southward to bail out the Duce, committing military resources he might have planned to use against Britain. And that could once again postpone an all-out invasion.
INVASION OF BRITAIN "WITHIN THREE MONTHS." One can only hope for anything that delays the Germans from trying an invasion. As horrifying as the current air campaign has been, Drew Middleton writes in an Associated Press dispatch that when Hitler sends his troops onto the British beaches, it’ll get unbelievably worse. It will be, according to military and diplomatic circles in London --
"...the mightiest onslaught in history, with bombing on an unimaginable scale and the use of every modern weapon, including flame-throwers and gas, to be launched upon the British Isles within three months....Britain, these informants believe, will beat off the German invasion attempt, but only after sacrificing half of her airforce, three-quarters of her battle fleet and at least 250,000 troops. Along the beaches and behind them tonight Britain tightened the lines of preparation for the expected assault, particularly the threat of gas. Authorities considered requiring a gas mask as an admission ‘ticket’ to bomb shelters and the Ministry of Home Security weighed plans for civilian gas alarm practices to shake Britons back into consciousness of this menace."
The Germans, naturally, hope that merely by spreading the fear of such an attack, they can reap the benefits of it by deterring their enemies from defending themselves. That won’t work with Churchill, or the British people as a whole. Here’s hoping it won’t work with Americans, either.
LINDBERGH’S GLOOM AND DOOM. The House Foreign Affairs Committee heard another round of isolationist argument Thursday, this time from Colonel Lindbergh himself. And the Colonel outdid himself, with a series of eye-popping remarks that demonstrate his vision of what it’s like to be, in his words, "perfectly neutral." His most dramatically-stated reason for opposing lend-lease aid to Britain was his most dour -- namely, there’s no practical way we can defeat Hitler -- ever. He told the congressmen that only through a "coincidence of miracles" could the United States and Britain, now or even years from now, subdue the Nazi empire through invasion. In terms of what’s politically advisable to say out loud, that was too much for Representative Fish, the arch-isolationist New York congressman, who tried to get Lindbergh to back off -- "You do not want the impression to go out to the country that England couldn’t win the war if it went on a long time and if we were willing to send 20 million men, we couldn’t wear the Germans down?" Lindbergh moderated his defeatist impulses only slightly, replying that it’s "possible but not probable."
Yet even if it were possible, Colonel Lindbergh made it clear he doesn’t want to see a victory over Hitler -- he mused that victory by either side would be a "disaster" and endorsed the long-discarded notion of a negotiated peace. But why should the Colonel want a victory for the democracies, since he feels passionately, to the point of ignoring inconvenient facts, that the war is largely our fault? Says Willard Edwards’ account in the Chicago Tribune -- "Lindbergh placed part of the blame for the European war on this nation. If England and France had been put on notice in advance that the United States would not supply arms or take part, the war would not have started, he contended. When he was reminded that the arms embargo had not been lifted when the war started, he replied that he believed England and France expected it would be." Finally, while the Colonel has never forgone an opportunity to condemn the Administration for moving us "away from democracy," he’s meek as a mouse on the subject of the world’s most dangerous dictator. When asked if by Representative Luther Johnson of Texas if he’d ever criticized Hitler, Lindbergh replied, "Yes...but not publicly."
One wishes that this kind of "Blame America, but Not the Dictators" guff was considered beyond the pale by more responsible isolationists. Alas, it doesn’t seem to be. When General Hugh Johnson testified Thursday, he repeated the notion that the Germans are impregnable and asserting that U.S. policy should be one of cynical calculation ("We should...not get into this thing until we know which way the cat’s going to jump."). Meanwhile, the Chicago Tribune runs Lindbergh’s words now as if they’re Holy Scripture, and Mr. Edwards’ story on the Colonel’s committee appearance contains the usual drippy phrases ("With fire and sincerity, he preached...", "statements of the airman who thrilled the world...") that are routinely seen these days in the biased "anti-war" press.
HUTCHINS -- THE U.S. ISN’T GOOD ENOUGH. Further evidence that the isolationist side is collectively staggering right over a cliff, from a speech delivered over the N.B.C. Red Network by Dr. Robert Maynard Hutchins, president of the University of Chicago. Like Colonel Lindbergh, President Hutchins is alarmed that the Roosevelt Administration seeks to help the anti-Hitler forces achieve "victory," since that might be too much trouble in the long run. He takes an incoherent stand, claiming to support aid to Britain if it’s "extended on the basis most likely to keep us at peace" (but not "one dime more," and not enough to give the British a chance to win). And he assails the Administration because -- get this -- its stance on the war isn’t selfish and cold-blooded enough to suit him --
"If we go to war, what are we going to war for? This is to be a crusade, a holy war. Its object is moral. We are seeking, the President tells us, ‘a world founded on freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.’ We are to intervene to support the moral order. We are to fight for ‘the supremacy of human rights everywhere.’...I hold that the United States can better serve suffering humanity by staying out....The chances of accomplishing the high moral purposes which the President has stated for America, even if we stay out of war, are not bright. The world is in chaos....What we have of high moral purpose is likely to suffer dilution at home and a cold reception abroad."
Astonishingly, President Hutchins then explains that the U.S. falls short of some arbitrary, insanely high level of moral standing which would be required of us to battle Hitlerism -- "We are morally and intellectually unprepared to execute the moral mission to which the President calls us. A missionary, even a missionary to the cannibals, must have clear and defensible convictions....It is surely not too much to ask of such a missionary that his own life and works reflect the virtues which he seeks to compel others to adopt. If we stay out of war, we may perhaps some day understand and practice freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. We may even be able to comprehend and support justice, democracy, the moral order, and the supremacy of human rights. Today we have barely begun to grasp the meaning of the words. Those beginnings are important....They leave us, however, a good deal short of the level of excellence which entitles us to convert the world by force of arms."
WIDE MAJORITY FAVORS AID, SAYS GALLUP. Despite all the noise they’ve made in Congress and in this press this past week, the isolationists appear to be losing the battle for public opinion, if a new Gallup poll is to be believed. The survey, published in yesterday’s Washington Post, show a dramatic switch this past year in the number of Americans willing to send war material to Britain "even at the risk of getting into the war." Last May, 64% of Americans said it was more important for the U.S. to stay out of the war, while only 36% favored helping England. Now, the numbers have flip-flipped -- 68% for helping England, no matter what, and only 32% saying it’s more important to stay out of the war. Gallup says President Roosevelt’s fireside chat last month and his defense message to Congress have had a dramatic impact on public sentiment, and again the surveys seem to bear that out -- as recently as October, the public was split 50-50 on aid to Britain.
Also interesting is a Gallup survey issued a week ago which seems to show strong bipartisanship for lend-lease aid to the British. Some 74% of Democrats favor aid, and 62% of Republicans do -- which means the G.O.P. rank-and-file is much closer to Wendell Willkie’s position than to Colonel Lindbergh’s.
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