To Drive Axis From S. American Skies

Northern Advocate, 26 May 1941, Page 4

To Drive Axis From S. American Skies

WASHINGTON, May 25.

President Roosevelt has allocated 8,000,000 dollars from the defence funds to inaugurate a programme fostering air line services to South America to compete with the Axisowned companies with the object of driving them from the Western Hemisphere. A correspondent of the “New York Herald-Tribune” says that Dr. Kurt Rieth, a German diplomat in New York, is attempting a new high-pres-sure task of economic appeasement. He has been charged with the job of buying rich American-owned oil properties in eastern Europe which are, at present, almost valueless to America. He travelled via Rio de Janeiro, where he called a conference of German diplomats to discuss plans for more extensive penetration of South America by Germany and Italy.

Abstention Committee

The “Herald-Tribune” correspondent says that the conference formed an inter-American abstention committee, the real aim of which is to hinder the application of the Lease or Lend Act b T y all possible means. The Dies Committee has issued a report on the German-American Bund saying that it is a highly militarised unit which “clearly anticipates violence” in the United States.

The report adds that members of the German organisation have been working in United States shipyards and aviation factories, and have “direct possession of secret plans for the construction of United States battleships.” The committee is greatly impressed by this evidence, which indicates the relationship between the German Government and the Bund through the activities of German consuls.