U.S. WAR AIMS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 308, 29 December 1944, Page 2

U.S. WAR AIMS

STATEMENT WANTED

SENATOR ISSUES WARNING

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 18,

Senator Gillette (Democrat), of lowa, issued a warning that unless America takes a strong hand, the war will end in a "hollow victory," defeated hopes, and a vast spread of totalitarianism.

"As matters now stand," he told the Senate, "our hopes for peace and our optimism for the development of relations among the Big Three toward a general collaboration in the future give signs of disintegrating before our eyes for want of a firm adherence to moral principles in international relationships." He spoke of news from Europe which he called "tremendously discouraging" to American zeal for creating lasting world peace. Some of our Allies, he said, are openly "extending and consolidating their own assumed spheres of influence," while Americans are dying to destroy Hitlerism. "We now confront a situation," he said, "where the American people themselves are no longer sure of the goal for which they are fighting."

If they are kept in ignorance, he said, they will become "a disunited people." He called upon this country for a clear* statement of her war aims. Unless there is a miracle or America states and maintains a strong position, he said, many people of the world will come out of the war "saddled against their will and contrary to their desires with totalitarian regimes." The cement of joint military interests among the Allies is already crumbling under the corroding effect of rival national interests, he asserted. So, he saids America should declare that she cannot participate in establishing an "unethical, immoral, dishonourable and unjust status quo anywhere in the world, to be underwritten and paid for with a blank cheque signed in the blood of American youth."