U.S. Takes Grave View Of International Situation

Greymouth Evening Star, 15 March 1948, Page 6

U.S. Takes Grave View Of International Situation

NEW YORK, March 13. . Mr Tames Byrnes, the tamer Secretary of State, today called for American action, “not a letter of protest,” should Russia threaten the independence of Greece, Turkey, France, or Italy. Giving a warning that the United States may have to meet an international crisis “only four or five weeks from now -tetae the elections in Italy on April 18-Mr Byrnes emphasised that he was expressing only his own views, and that he had not consulted President Truman or the Secretary of State (General Mars a ).

Mr Byrnes, who was addressing a Charleston Military Academy graduating class, proposed, among other things, an immediate ' increase of Army strength, and increased appropriations for the Air Force. He said also that Russia should be warned that indirect aggression would bring a demand for action by the United Nations, and that the United States itself would ‘‘act immediately _to maintain the status ouo till the Security Council investigated. ■ He added” that the United States should forget her desire to hhut armaments until Russia .stopped her expansionist moves. _ Mr Byrnes said that ihe United States was not prepared to meet a world crisis, but he expressed the hope that she would prepare. “Real Alarm” In Washington. Sunday newspapers in New York continue to reflect growing uneasiness over the state of world affairs. The Washington correspondent of the New York Herald-Tribune reports that “to a reporter who has returned after four weeks away, Washington is a city that has* suddenly suffered a bad attack of jitters,” and cites as one of the reasons ‘real alarm over the state of international affairs ” The 'columnists Joseph and Stewart Alsop say there is real reason to believe that General Marshall’s recent appeal for calm was aimed primarily at Mr Stalin, because among General Marshall’s advisers there is a deep , conviction that the real danger of war rests simply _ m the fact that the Kremlin is relying wholly on distorted accounts of the situation in America and therefore is undoubtedly underestimating the gravity of the American reaction to such events as the coup in Czechoslovakia.

The columnist Drew Pearson says that telegrams have been sent to a

large number of reserve officers to be ready if there is trouble, and that Army representatives have visited key plants and inquired about plans for. rapid conversion. , . The Washington correspondent ot the New York; Daily News reports that military chiefs have abandoned the hopeful theory that the Soviet will not start trouble until she has atom bombs, and they now believe that “anything can happen in a matter of weeks or months.” Effect Of Leaders’ Appeals

Reuter’s correspondent in Washington says: “Both President Truman and General Marshall have been endeavouring in public announcements in the last few days to maintain the people’s, appreciation of the seriousness of the deteriorating international situation, while at the same time seeking to prevent the naiion\s emotions getting out of hand. “The effect of their pronouncements, appearing in a headlineconscious press and a drama-con-scious radio, have been the opposite of what they intended. Emotional alarm has been intensified without a corresponding appreciation, even in Congress, of the detailed practical and immediate needs of the international situation.” . ® The correspondent adds that it is believed that the question of United States co-operation with the Western European Union was discussed by the Cabinet today. A New York Times correspondent, James Reston, says: “State Department officials concede that the danger to the, United States is not open war, and that the problem is not how to combat Communist ideology and the march of the Soviet army to the West. ,The danger is in the Communist technique of step-by-step infiltration into unions and police and finally power over the government and the whole populace.”