MORE LIGHT ON SOVIET ATTITUDE IN WAR YEARS

Greymouth Evening Star, 27 April 1949, Page 6

MORE LIGHT ON SOVIET ATTITUDE IN WAR YEARS

LONDON, April 25. The second volume of the private papers of the late Mr Harry Hopkins, President Roosevelt’s confidant and special war-time envoy, which have just been published in Britain, are described by reviewers as one of the most important personal accounts of the diplomatic background to the war yet given to the public. They describe the differences which developed between the Russians and the British and Americans over the date for starting the second front, and they make it plain that at one stage there were definite fears that the Russians would make a separate peace with the Germans. This occurred when Mr Stalin sent an abusive message to Mr Churchill alter learning that the date for the second front had been fixed for May 1 1944. Mr .Churchill, without waiting to consult Mr Roosevelt, sent back what Mr Hopkins described as a “scorching cablegram.” Mr Hopkins’s papers describe the pressure brought to bear by the Russians to persuade the British and Americans to attack in Western Europe much earlier in the war, and they record a number of speeches and private exchanges in which Mr Stalin and Mr Molotov spoke of their allies in the most disparaging terms. On one occasion Mr Stalin made the observation that if' the British infantry would only fight the Germans as the Russians had done they would not be so frightened of them. Mr Churchill replied: “I pardon that remark only on account of the bravery of the Russian troops.” The papers say that Mr Churchill s determination to avoid a bloody frontal attack on Western Europe until he coul’d be sure it would be successful sometimes became very trying to the Americans, to such an extent that they once threatened as a bluff to transfer the major American war effort to the Pacific. Nevertheless, the papers make it very clear that both the British and Americans did everything possible to enlist full Russian co-operation and confidence, only to be baffled by a continual lack of response. Relations were at their best immediately after the Teheran Conference, but they deteriorated.