Four Results of Casablanca Talks

Manawatu Times, Volume 68, Issue 25, 30 January 1943, Page 5

Four Results of Casablanca Talks

Supreme Council of “Big Four” Anticipated (By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright.) Received. Friday, 10.20 p.m. NEW YORK, Jan. 29. The New York Times’ Washington correspondent, Arthur Korck, assesses the results of the Casablanca Conference as: (1) Roosevelt and Churchill selecteu a British and an American military leader for the remainder of the North African campaign. (2) They planned the 1943 military strategy to follow the eviction of the Axis from North Africa based on the increased assumption of the offensive everywhere, particularly against submarines.

(3) They laid the groundwork for closer co-operation with Russia and China in the formulation of military and economic decisions which will eventually be reached by a Supreme Council of the “Big Four” at which the views of the other United Nations will have weight. (4) They failed to obtain a satisfactory basis of adjustment of the political differences between the various French factions.

Informed Washington officials say the Fighting French faction remains unreconciled to Peyrouten’s appointment despite the fact that it was obviously made with the consent of Roosevelt ana Churchill who were in Casablanca when Peyrouten arrived in North Africa. Mr. Korck says: “For that reason it is clear that the Fighting French are no longer assailing the policy of the War Department and State Department but the policy of Roosevelt and Churchill themselves. • ’

The Central New Agency of Chungking said the Casablanca Conference was the most important event since the joint United Nations declaration early in 1942 and was particularly welcomed in China.

“A sense of unfinished business haunts the resounding echoes of the Casablanca Conference,” says the Herald-Tribune in an editorial. “It lacked concrete demonstration that a global war was being waged. Neither tho American people nor their leaders yet appreciate what waging total war implies. Since the leaders have not awakened to that realism which the I situation demands, they have not yet I enforced such realism upon then political, military and diplomatic ser vants throughout the various complex branches of our war machine. Hence it would be chimerical to expect a global policy to emerge from such confusion in the course of a single conference. It is not surprising the Mr. Stalin founa ' himself too busy to attend a conference at which he was apparently offered none of the realistic proposals which tho Russians well understand to bo the essence of war.”

“As far as can be told at present the story of the conference is complete,” said Mr. Stephen Early to the United Press Washington correspondent. He added: “Subsequent chapters will undoubtedly be written.” Mr. Elmer Davis (Director of the Office of War Information) saia the story would be amplified by subsequent military events. He discounted reports that Finnish, Turkish and Italian representatives attended the conference.

The correspondent says President Roosevelt’s and Mr. Churchill's joint note to Mr. Stalin is interpreted as foreshadowing even closer Russian coordination in the Allied offensive plans.