WHAT CUDAHY SAID

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 39, 14 August 1940, Page 8

WHAT CUDAHY SAID

FAMINE IN EUROPE

SURPRISE FOR INTERVIEWERS

ECHOES WILL SOUND

By his statement on the desperate food situation that is likely to arise in Europe as a result of the war, Mr. John Cudahy, United States Ambassador to Belgium, has caused in diplomatic circles a disturbance whose echoes will undoubtedly reverberate throughout the United States and, thanks to the Nazi propaganda machine, throughout famine-threaten-ed Europe, said a dispatch from the London correspondent to the "Sydney Morning Herald."

The statement, made to the Press on August 6, was tantamount to a -suggestion that Britain should breach her own blockade of Europe and feed the starving millions whom Hitler has robbed of food to feed his army so that he can defeat Britain.

Perhaps the most remarkable passage in Mr. Cudahy's remarkable statement was: "It is not my business to say what the United States should do, but in 1914 a committee was organised to take over the supply of food to Belgium. Now the situation is complicated by the position of England and the German occupation of the French Channel ports.

"It will be necessary to lay a foundation if any aid is to reach Belgium. Firstly, one must get the co-operation of the German military authorities, and, therefore, I have had a conversation with them on this point. "Primarily, however, we have to wait and see what happens to England. The matter can only be dealt with by negotiation after we see what happens." The greatest exception was taken to the statement by one of Mr. Cudahy's audience, who could not refrain from asking the pertinent question: "Who does Mr. Cudahy think invaded Belgium? Great Britain?" "OBVIOUS IMPLICATION." The obvious implication of Mr. Cudahy's remarks was that if Britain is defeated by Germany in the next few weeks, everything will be satisfactory, and the problem of feeding starving Europe will be solved. No official British comment on Mr. Cudahy's remarks is expected because he was speaking unofficially, but unofficial British and American comment is plentiful and sharp.

It is generally felt that, on the grounds of good taste alone, this is hardly the time for a foreign diplomat ostensibly in Britain on a purely private visit to praise openly the Germans' conduct of their invasion of an innocent neutral country, and, by implication, to make it appear that Britain is responsible for the famine in Belgium and other German-occupied territories.

It is pointed out that, by his assertion that King Leopold of the Belgians had informed the Allies at least three days beforehand of his intention to surrender to Germany, Mr. Cudahy has cast aspersions on the veracity of both the Prime Minister, Mr. Churchill, and the former French Premier, M. Reynaud. Mr. Cudahy evaded a direct question regarding M. Reynaud. [On June- 4, after the evacuation of Dunkirk, Mr. Churchill stated in the House of Commons: "Suddenly, without prior consultation, with the least possible notice, without the advice of his Ministers, and upon his own per. sonal act, King Leopold surrendered his army and exposed our whole flank without the means of retreat."] INTERVIEWERS' REACTIONS. Among the most severe comments on [Mr. Cudahy's statement are those by American journalists in London, one of whom, when Mr. Cudahy said that the Germans were behaving with restraint and that he had heard of no authentic case of German atrocity, interjected: "I suppose that you regard the invasion of Belgium as one of the minor atrocities."

At one' point, when Mr. Cudahy was saying that there had been no antiSemitic riots, no shooting or looting, and no political arrests, he appeared to sense the correspondents' attitude towards his remarks, and said: "I hope that you don't think I am pro-German." A journalist replied acidly: "No, a neutral."

When Mr. Cudahy was defending King Leopold by saying that he thought that when the truth was known of King Leopold's decision to surrender, it would be accepted and applauded as right, an American correspondent commented: "Fire ahead. We've loads of time to hear it."