STALIN MET

New Zealand Herald, Volume 80, Issue 24758, 4 December 1943, Page 7

STALIN MET

AMERICAN REPORT TALKS IN PERSIA ALLIED LEADERS CHURCHILL: ROOSEVELT (Reed. 9.30 p.m.) LONDON, Dec, 3 Another great conference is taking place in the Middle East, this time between President Roosevelt, Marshal Stalin and Mr. Churchill, according to a statement reported to have been made in a broadcast in the United States by Senator T. Co nn a ily, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate. Mr. Connally said the meeting was of paramount significance, but he would give no details. American journalists say the location of the conference is Persia. According to the Vichy radio the talks began yesterday at Tabriz, in the north-west of Persia. In Allied circles, however, there is a complete "blanket" on news regarding any new conference. Renter's correspondent in Istanbul quetes a Turkish newspaper as saying it is certain that the Allies will make an appeal to the Germans to surrender unconditionally. 'The three leaders, therefore, must also decide the kind ot German Government with which they are prepared to negotiate. BACK IN CHUNGKING MARSHAL CHIANG KAI-SHEK (Heed. 5.35 p.m.) LONDON, Dec. '2 Marshal Chiang Kai-shek and Madame Chiang arrived back in Chungking from Cairo to-day, says a message from the Chinese capital. a Earlier despatches to the Spanish press from Lisbon said that Mr. Churchill. President Roosevelt and Marshal Chiang Kai-shek were on their way to Teheran to meet Marshal Stalin.

PREMATURE RELEASE NEWS OF CAIRO TALKS i EXPLANATION BY MINISTER LONDON, Dec. 2 Britain could not accept responsibility tor the premature release of news of the meeting of Allied leaders in Cairo, said the Minister of information, Mr. Brendan Bracken, in the House of Commons, when replying to questions about the matter. "1 am certain," he said, "that publicity arrangements for such conferences will always break down because they depend upon three or four nations and all sorts of people." A member asked why news of the conference was broadcast in the Kuropean service of the 8.8.C. many hours before it was made available to the British press and the 8.8.C. home service programme, Mr. Bracken said tlint a report which was based on a Renter message from Lisbon was included in the official American programmes to Europe on Wednesday morning, but although this report was given over the 8.8.C. transmitter neither the Minister of information nor the B.ILC. was responsible lor the decision to broadcast it. "We have given a certain amount of broadcasting time to the American publicity authorities," he added. ''We do not censor what they put out and we cannot take responsibility for what use they make of their transmitter." Asked why the Renter report from Lisbon was allowed to pass through Britain to Washington, through channels under British control. Mr. Bracken said: "Anything published in a foreign capital is not censored when passing through London. The United States has made the strongest possible representations about Renter's conduct in Lisbon. We are not responsible for Lisbon or Renter. This sort of thing ought to be straightened out. I think the best thing is no publicity or full publicity."

Mr. E. Shi'mvell (Labour—Durham> asked: Have von soon the report in the papers of the speech by the High Commissioner for Canada, Mr, Malcolm Mac Donald, to the effect that another conference is about to he hold, and mentioning names of personalities likHy to ho present? Mr. Bracken: Yes. T shall get a lot of messages from America to-day blaming us for another leakage. GERMAN VICTORY HOLLOW NAZI OPTIMISM (Reed. 5.35 p.m.) LONDON, Doc. 2 "That nation will be victorious which does not carry the white flag of capitulation among its luggage, for if a nation carries the white flag it may fall into the temptation of hoisting it in a dangerous hour," savs Goebbels in an article in Das Reich, according to the Berlin radio. "The supreme law of war," lie adds, "is never to capitulate. If we get over this war victoriously it will open for Germany the gates 'of the world. This has often been tried in our history, but seldom achieved. Its chances were never as great as at present. "The Reich will end the war with a proud victory. The nation lias only to be as determined as its leaders to hold its weapons firmly and be still unshaken on the battlefield when the lastminute. gigantic struggle comes. Who doubts that that will" really be the case?"

NO DEBATE ON WAR (Reed. 3 1.10 p.m.) T/)NDON. Dec. The deputy-Prime Minister, Mr. C. R. Attlee, snid in the House of Commons to-day that the debate on the war situation and foreign affairs scheduled for the next day of the sitting would not now take plane.