Truman To Speak On Critical Situation: Conjecture Aroused

Greymouth Evening Star, 17 March 1948, Page 5

Truman To Speak On Critical Situation: Conjecture Aroused

WASHINGTON, March 15. President Truman will address a joint session of Congress at 12.30 p.m. on Wednesday on “the critical foreign situation.” This was announced from the White House today. The speech, which is obviously of the highest importance because of its timing, will be broadcast by all major radio networks. The announcement surprised Congress and State Department officials. It followed a series of secret conferences of the nation’s leaders, including one between the Secretary of Defence (Mr James Forrestal) and the joint Chiefs of Staff of the armed services at Key West, Florida,

It is expected that Mr Forrestal will report to President Truman before Wednesday on attempts to formulate a plan of unified strategy to defend the United States against attack. , >

The Secretary of State (General G. C. Marshall) and the Under-Secretary of State (Mr Robert Lovett) are reported to have spent the week-end in North Carolina, presumably at work on a report for President Truman to help him frame his message to Congress. Officials on Capitol Hill said that the President was expected to report on the entire world situation. He might lay special emphasis on recent Russian encroachments on Finland and Norway. He was also expected to discuss the situation in Italy.

They added that Congressional leaders had been given only 30 minutes’ warning of the President’s announcement of his desire to address a joint session of Congress, and that he had some serious information, presumably of developments in Europe, which had not yet been made known to the public.

The Speaker of the House of Representatives (Mr Joseph Martin) told Reuter that President Truman had telephoned him 30 minutes- before the White House issued its announcement, and said: “I have some information I want to give Congress before it leaks out.” “President Truman is expected to .submit to the joint session a comprehensive ‘preparedness’ programme based on United States supremacy in air power,” says Reuter’s Washington correspondent. “Such a programme would be designed to back up the United States against any consequences which might follow complete fulfilment of the ‘Truman Doctrine’ pledge that the United States will support any European country resisting totalitarian pressure. This is taken in informed quarters to include Scandinavia.”

Compared With 1940

The correspondent, who compares the position with that after the fall of France in 1940, when Mr Roosevelt* asked for a nation-wide preparedness programme, adds: “It is understood that there is strong pressure on the President to call for a comprehensive mobilisation of United States resources. “Measures under discussion in responsible circles here include the revival of conscription, the establishment of war powers over industry, restoration of lend-lease, and the declaration of a state of national emergency.” Both the New York Times, in a leading article' and the New York Herald Tribune, in a dispatch from its Washington correspondent, suggest that President Truman may announce American plans to support the alliance now being formed by Britain, France and the Low Countries. The New York Times says: “The alliance is assured of the tacit support of the United States, but President. Truman’s decision to address Congress suggests that this „support may be made more explicit.” The Herald Tribune correspondent says it is reported in Washington that the Administration has decided that the new alliance in Brussels must be backed by some form of military commitment from the United States.

“Fateful Hour”

“The hour is far more fateful now than it was a year ago,” said General Marshall today. He was speaking to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The United States, he said, must act “with calm determination to prevent any further spread of Communism in Europe. General Marshall was urging Confess to vote 275,000,'000 dollars for military aid to Greece and. Turkey. Last year 400,000,000 dollars was V °G eneral Marshall said: “By intimidation and frank terror, Communist regimes have been imposed on Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Totalitariancontrol has been tightened in other Eastern European countries, . _ and these States have- been linked-m a network of alliances. “Other European peoples face a Hmilar threat of being drawn against their will into the Communist orbit. General Marshall said that the United States should avoid ‘‘hasty action, which could lead to the dissi-

pation of our resources, or fear, which could lead to sterile inaction.” He then said: “With calm deliberation we must pursue the policy confirmed last May by Congress.” (Congress last May first approved aid to Greece and Turkey in response to the “Truman Doctrine” message). General Marshall said that today the Greek situation was serious but not without hope. He added that the latest example of the Greek guerrillas’ ruthlessness was the planned removal of 12,000 or more Greek children to countries of Eastern Europe “in connivance with foreign Powers.” Warning To Italians

The State Department said today that if Italy becomes Communist she will receive no more economic aid from the United States. Mr Michael McDermott, a press officer who made the announcement, said: “If the Communists should win the elections in April—which we cannot believe will be the case —there will be no further question of assistance from the United States.”

Italy, which has already received emergency assistance from the United States, is listed for a substantial allocation under the European recovery programme.

‘PEACE CAN BE PRESERVED ONLY BY FORCE'

NEW YORK, March 16. “World peace can only be preserved by force,” declared the New Zealand Minister, Sir Carl Berendsen, in a speech at the Los Angeles Town Hall. He said that the veto, which should be abolished, had made the United Nations completely.powerless. The United Nations was admirably adapted to crushing the ferocious mouse, but it could do nothing against the marauding tiger. He said: “Rather than have an organisation which is universal, and will not work, it would be better to have one that is not universal, and that will work. Those who think that world peace can be preserved by words and by sweet reason are of an order of mentality that is quite out of this world.” _