Sunday, December 7, 1941

AN EVENTFUL WEEK-END. Until this morning it looked like the big news of the week-end would be Britain’s declaration of war on Finland (along with the Nazi satellite states of Rumania and Bulgaria). Then came word of President Roosevelt’s dramatic appeal to Japan’s Emperor Hirohito, which James M. Minifie of the New York Herald Tribune calls "a last-minute bid for peace." Mr. Minifie’s account describes just how tense things have gotten in the South Pacific --

"The President took this dramatic action as information came in that Japanese troops were moving while the British prepared to meet them by ordering their fighting men in Singapore to action stations and the American authorities in Manila decreed the immediate evacuation of non-essential civilians from the Philippine capital."

Mr. Minifie writes that the State Department puts the number of Japanese troops in Indo-China now at 125,000. According to the Chicago Tribune, the Administration also has gotten wind of "two heavily escorted Japanese convoys" sailing from Indo-China into the Gulf of Siam -- presumably heading for landing points in Thailand.

And if this wasn’t enough cause for worry, the Associated Press reports this morning that a new Nazi assault on Moscow, comprising some 1,500,000 men, has put the Soviet capital in her "direst peril" yet. Both sides are making their usual extravagant claims and counter-claims. One thing that is not in dispute is that the fighting is taking place in temperatures of thirty below zero.

A HOT ONE FROM TOKYO. The Tojo government has replied to President Roosevelt’s inquiry about Tokyo’s big buildup in Indo-China. According to the Japanese, it’s merely a "precautionary measure" in response to Chinese troop movements. I can’t even imagine the most fire-breathing America Firster buying that, and Secretary Hull doesn’t even consider it worthy of rebuttal. According to the Washington Post – the Secretary, "in what appeared to be an understatement of the official view in Washington, said in response to a press conference question on the Japanese explanation that he had no feelings on the matter now which he had not had before the note was delivered."

THE TRIBUNE PRINTS SECRET DEFENSE DOCUMENTS. Last Thursday, while the rest of the press was focused on the deteriorating state of affairs in the Pacific, the Chicago Tribune claimed a whale of an exclusive -- the publication of what they grandeloquently called "F.D.R.’s Secret War Plans." These documents are said to "reveal" that the President plans a massive U.S. Army of ten million men, including a five-million-strong American Expeditionary Force which would sail to Europe and seize the entire continent. Since then successive Tribune front pages have crowed about its "history making" revelations.

But it looks like there’s less here than meets the eye. While the Tribune may have hoped its scoop would be "history making," it didn't stop the House from voting $8,000,000,000 in supplemental defense appropriations the following day (by a vote of 309-5). And according to Secretary Stimson, the Tribune’s "exclusive" is really a secret War Department study on the feasibility of such an offensive, one of the many such studies the government undertakes on what the military might face in a war. But while not a statement of actual U.S. policy, its contents still could be useful to our potential enemies. For that reason, according to the Secretary, the Tribune was "wanting in loyalty and patriotism" for publishing this document.

"Wanting in loyalty and patriotism." Gosh, somebody else has noticed.

"WE FACE A WORLD WAR." Mark Sullivan’s column today looks at the need for an A.E.F.-style commitment to send troops abroad in event of war --

"At the moment this is written we are extremely close to war with Japan. If that comes -- thus it is thought by many -- it will be wholly a war for our naval and air forces, not for our soldiers. They think there will be no need for soldiers of the United States to fight outside the limits laid down in the Draft Act: the Western Hemisphere, together with our territories and possessions including the Philippine Islands. But can we be sure? If we should fight Japan it would be greatly to our advantage if our air force could have bases at Vladivostok and elsewhere in Russian Siberia. If we have such bases it would be desirable to have soldiers there to guard them. It might even be desirable to have a considerable Army in Siberia. Also, if we are at war with Japan, Britain will be united with us. Prime Minister Churchill has said that Britain would be at war with Japan within an hour after the United States is. With the United States and Britain united in a war with Japan, a most important base of operations would be Singapore on the Malay Peninsula, occupied by Britain. It might readily become desirable for us to have an armed force at Singapore, either supplanting the British force or in place of the British force. Wholehearted cooperation between ourselves and Britain in a war with Japan might call upon us to provide practically all the necessary soldiers in Singapore, releasing British soldiers for service where Britain needs them sorely, in Europe and Africa."

A LOOK BACK AT 1942. Time magazine had a double-page subscription advertisement in last week’s issue, listing some of the major events of next year that Time’s writers and editors will report on. And they include some good tidings on the war (which the Time-sters seem to think America will be fighting by then) --

February 12, 1942 - Uprising of Zagreb. Here began the armed disorders which swept the Nazis from the Balkans."

"April 14, 1942 -- Isle of Dordrecht. Here Britain began a successful invasion of the continent."

"May 11, 1942 -- Over the Great Deep of Japan. A U.S. fleet under Admiral Stark here defeated the flower of the Japanese Navy."

"May 21, 1942 -- Battle of Bornholm. Where a small British fleet wiped out the Nazi navy in 27 minutes."

"November 5, 1942 - Santos, Brazil. Here the exiled Benito Mussolini broadcast Hitler’s secret plans to the world."

"November 23, 1942 - Berchtesgaden. Adolf Hitler deposed by Goering. Riots in Berlin, Munich, Mannheim."

Time isn’t claiming to have a working crystal ball. "But it would be much more amazing still," the ad reads, "if the decisive year ahead failed to produce stories even stranger, news even more historic, discoveries and inventions and achievements even more significant than those [described here.]"

Well, let’s hope that at least a couple of Time’s imagined events really do come to pass.