In the Public Eye

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 49, 26 August 1939, Page 26

In the Public Eye

Herr Joachim yon Ribbentrop, who signed the Russo-German Pac' for the I Reich, was born at Wesel, close to the i Dutch frontier. He was educated, first at Metz. then for a. short time in Engi land. An English tutor in Switzerland completed his excellent knowledge of English, which he speaks without the slightest trace of accent, and with a command of words not bettered by many Englishmen. His use of French is equally faultless. At- eighteen he went to Canada on a shooting trip and liked the country so much that he lived and worked there for four years. Then came the war. Determined to fight for his country, he had himself smuggled out of the country on a Dutch steamer. He hid in the coal bunkers. Yon Ribbentrop. saw service in the war as a cavalry officer on the Russian front. After the war he travelled all over the Continent of Europe, but principally in France, for a big German champagne firm. He married the daughter of the head of the firm, prospered, and entertained lavishly in Berlin. In 1928 he turned his attention to politics, being attracted to Herr Hitler after hearing him speak. He became consultant to Herr Hitler on matters of foreign policy. Then at forty-four he was made German, Ambassador in London. Last year he became Foreign Minister. Count Dino Grandi. Count Dino Grandi was recalled as Italy's Ambassador to Great Britain. Official circles disclosed that Mr. Chamberlain's Government had received a diplomatic snub in connection with the Ambassador's recall. A news association first informed the British Foreign Office of the action. No formal notification was rej ceived by Viscount Halifax, the Foreign Secretary. "It is very unusual diplomatic procedure for an Ambassador to be recalled without delivering a formal Note to the Government to which he is accredited," an official said. In Rome it was announced that Count Grandi will become the Lord Chief Seal of the realm. This makes him Minister of Justice. The post carries a seat in the Council of Ministers. Count Grandi will replace Arrigo Solmi as Minister of Justice. The latter resigned. The Italia® Government's announcement of the change said that Solmi had resigned for personal reasons. It added that Signor Mussolini had nominated him for appointment to the Senate by King Victor Emmanuel. It had been variously predicted in London that Grandi would be recalled to replace Count Galeazzo Ciano as Foreign Minister and that he would be summoned home in disgrace. Rumours of his recall began in May after he made a sensational speech at an Italian Embassy reception celebrating the conclusion of the ItalianGerman alliance. Before the German Ambassador and his staff and leading members of the German and Italian colonies Count Grandi boasted of the "invincible might" of the new allies and predicted "greater and more dazzling victories" for them. It was believed in some quarters that his talk offended the British Government and that he no longer was welcome as Ambassador to London. A fortnight later he went to Rome ostensibly on leave. He did not return. Grandi long has been one of Signor Mussolini's intimate friends. He took part in the Fascist "march" on Rome seventeeen years ago. He has represented his nation on various foreign missions, including those to the Washington and London debt conferences. He was the Italian delegate to the League of Nations and the London Naval Conference. He had been Am- j bassador to London for almost seven years. General M. G. Gamelin. | The French Government has raised General Maurice Gustave Gamelin, head of the Supreme War Council, to the rank of Commander of all French Defence Forces. Land, sea, and air forces thus are unified-under his command. By virtue of his position as chief of the Army General Staff, General Gamelin also became Commander-in-Chief of the Land Forces. At the same time the Government recreated in the French Navy the title of Admiral, which it conferred on Vice-Admiral Jean Darlin, who was named Commander-in-Chief of the French fleet. General J. Vuillemin was made Commander-in-Chief of the Air Forces. General Gamelin was in London in June for military talks with British officers. The chief purpose of these promotions was to protect the nation's military prestige. As a result of the lavishness with which the totalitarian States have been distributir high military honours French generals frequently found themselves occupying inferior positions in diplomatic protocol to foreign marshals, even though the latter actually held inferior rank. Mr. Archibald MacLeish. Archibald MacLeish, poet son of a Chicago merchant, is to be named librarian of the U.S.A. Congress, President Roosevelt announced recently The nomination is to be sent to the Senate. Mr. Roosevelt said he regarded Mr. MacLeish as one of the great American poets of the day, whose scholastic attainments are known throughout the world. The President also said Miv MacLeish is a graduate in law as well as being an outstanding poet and editor, and is well equipped from the business standpoint. Mr. MacLeish was born in Glencoe, Illinois, on May 7, 1892, and is the son of the late Andrew MacLeish, official of Carson Pirie Scott and Company, a Chicago department store. He graduated from Yale University and the Harvard Law School.. He has written several, volumes of poetry, among them "Conquistador," which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1832.

Hostile demonstrations, it is disclosed, cut short a parish tour by Cardinal Theodore Innitzer, Archbishop of Vienna. The demonstrations were interpreted as partly Nazi reaction to the clerical regime under the Dollfuss and Schuschnigg Governments of Austria before the nation -was taken over by Germany. The incidents began in the parish of Nieder Russrach and were repeated at Ziersdorf and Koenigsbrunn. All are in north-western Austria. The archbishop was pelted with rotten eggs at Koenigsbrunn, struck on the head with an umbrella, and his chauffeur was beaten, it was reported. In explanation, it was said that, during the Dollfuss and Schuschnigg regimes, the Roman Catholic Church in Austria supported Austrian independence and did what it could to suppress National Socialism (Nazism.) The Nazis were said to have resented the fact that Cardinal Innitzer'did nothing to save the Jives of Nazis who took part in the abortive putsch of 1934 in which Chancellor Dollfuss was assassinated. Nazis contended that as Primate of Austria the cardinal could have obtained pardons for the condemned men had he pleaded for clemency. , Persons inside and outside the church at Koenigsbrunn hissed when the visiting churchman started to preach on peace, it was reported. "You preach peace and your hands are stained with the blood of Holzweber and Planetta," one demonstrator shouted. (Holzweber and Planetta were hanged as ringleaders of the 1934 putsch.) Later when the cardinal's automobile appeared at the door of the church the chauffeur was beaten and the archbishop became the target for rotten eggs. One demonstrator was said to have struck him with an umbrella, (knocking off his cardinal's cap. Major Ferenc Szalasi. Green-shirted Nazis carrying picnic lunches marched into Budapest last month singing out "Poor Szalasi is behind the bars waiting to be released to relieve us of slavery." Behind the bars, indeed, was Major Ferenc Szalasi, the "Hitler of Hungary," but he was more confident than ever that the day is approaching when the nation will call him to lead it as dictator. It is a grandiose destiny that the major predicts for himself. Once it was the butt of Budapest jokes. But no longer. Many conservative Hungarians are worried now by the sudden rise of Szalasi's lieutenants to strategic political power. In the new lower House of Parliament forty-nine members wear his green-shirted uniforms, while scores of Government party adherents are reported to be flirting with his ideas. Recently Szalasi completed the first year of a three-year sentence for treason. Already there is talk of circulating a petition for his pardon which would be signed by "one million Nazi voters." Despite frequent arrests, police raids on his offices, and Government decrees designed to stamp out the Nazi movement. Szalasi never has wavered in his determination to follow in the footsteps of his idol, Adolf Hitler. His followers like to point out similarities in temperament and career between Szalasi, now iorty-six years old, and Hitler. Neither has married. Hitler lives largely on fruits and vegetables. Szalasi goes for months on a meatless raw food diet. Each abstains from tobacco and alcoholic drink. In prison, after the abortive Munich beer hall putsch of 1923, Hitler wrote "Mem Kampf," his autobiographic exposition of Nazidom's aims. Szalasi likewise writes in his cell. Mr. L. Steinhardt. Mr. Laurence Steinhardt, the new United States Ambassador to Moscow, recently passed through Britain on his way to take up his post. He will inaugurate what might be called the third phase of America's relations with Soviet Russia. Optimism and pessimism, it is reported, have now been discarded for realism. The tall, alert, 46-----year-old lawyer with greying hair, will therefore be charged with the unromantic task of making the best of things as they are. He is not regarded as a progressive intellectual, as was Mr. William Bullitt, the first Ambassador, now at Paris, nor is he a wealthy capitalist like the second Ambassador, Mr. Joseph Davies now at Brussels. His category, among most of those who come in contact with him, is "average American business man." Mr. Steinhardt gave up the law for diplomacy in 1933, when he went to Sweden. There he remained till 1937. when he was transferred to Peru. Ho soon acquired a reputation at the State Department of being one of the bestinformed of the President's political nominees in the foreign field. His transfer to Moscow was felt by the Deparlment to be a fitting tribute to his work. Monsignor C. E. Brown. The Rt. Rev. Monsignor C. E. Brown, Deputy Administrator at Westminster Cathedral, has been raised to the dignity of a Domestic Prelate to the Pope. Cardinal Hinsley. at Archbishop's House last month, presented the Papal brief, conferring the dignity, and a cheque for £300 subscribed by friends. Monsignor Brown was chosen by Cardinal Vaughan for service at Westminster thirty-seven years ago. "The poor around him in this neighbourhood," said Canon Howlett, "look to him as their real friend. Several who have enjoyed his Majesty's hospitality for a long period, immediately on regaining their liberties, have made a bee-line for Monsignor Brown." Cardinal Hinsley warned Monsignor Brown that the £300 was not intended for the "pocket with a hole in it" which he dedicated to the assistance of exprisoners and the poor, but to meet his own heavy outlays in his new dignity.