PRESIDENT'S HOPES

Evening Star, Issue 25422, 1 March 1945, Page 6

PRESIDENT'S HOPES

ENDURING WORLD PEACE BROADCAST ON YALTA TO-MORROW MORNING (llec. 11.35 a.m.) WASHINGTON, February 28. After the San Francisco conference President Roosevelt plans another conference with Mr Churchill. The President arrived home from the Crimea Conference this morning. He will address Congress to-morrow at 12.30 p.m., eastern war time, on the Conference's decisions. He told journalists that, unlike Teheran, some secret understandings were reached at Yalta. These, for the present, must necessarily be secret. He said he had no knowledge whether Russia would be asked to enter any discussion of Pacific problems before the defeat of Germany. Russia had been completely neutral towards Japan, and Britain and America were respecting that neutrality. War against Japan was not even mentioned at Yalta. The President said he was not planning a Pacific War Council with Mr Churchill and Marshal Chiang Kaishek. He regarded Yalta as one of a series of steps towards a better world. He held buoyant hopes for an enduring peace throughout the world, accompanied by a refaction of armaments. The United Nations organisation would develop into the best method ever devised to stop war and for eradicating some of its causes. He even visualised Germany and Japan as future members when they were proved worthy of such membership. First thoy must purge themselves and reverse the militaristic tendencies they had shown for decades and demonstrate their ability to live peacefully among nations. Such conversion might take 50 to 60 years. The President disclosed that the plan for the occupiers of Germany whereby Russia takes the eastern area, Britain the west and north-west, and the United States the south, including the provinces of Baden, Bavaria, and Wurtemburg, is subject to change, particularly the British and American

zones, because of the probability of French participation in occupation. Asked if he thought Germany and Japan should eventually be permitted to rearm, President Roosevelt replied in the negative. He said he hoped that armaments would decrease, even with Britain, the United States. Russia, China, and France. Pointing out that the Americans did not realise there would be a hard battle to subdue Japan, the President stressed the need for industrial emphasis on the Pacific war when Germany capitulated. The President's personal physician, Vice-Admiral Mclntire, said President Roosevelt's health stood up well to the strain of the Crimea Conference, although he worked long and strenuous hours. Commenting on the statement that the President proposes another conference with Mr Churchill, a British Official Wireless message from Rugby states that he intends to visit' England in the spring or early summer, according to newspaper correspondents in London. It is hoped that Marshal Stalin may also accept an invitation _to come to London, but his visit is unlikely to coincide with. Mr Roosevelt's, and will, in any case, be postponed until after the end of ,the war in EuroDe.