RUSSIAN AGGRESSION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26708, 1 March 1948, Page 7

RUSSIAN AGGRESSION

“GREATER MENACE THAN HITLER'S "

MR HARRIMAN’S WARNING

WASHINGTON, Feb. 27. The Secretary of Commerce, Mr Averell Harriman, has warned Congress that Russian aggression is a “ greater menace than Hitler’s,” it was revealed to-day. The disclosure was made by the House Appropriations Committee as it voted 503,420,263 dollars to run the Departments of State, Commerce, and Justice, and the Federal Courts during the fiscal year starting on July 1. This is a net cut of 35,417,168 dollars from President Truman’s Budget requests. Mr Harriman, a former Ambassador to Moscow, said at the committee s hearings that unless Communism was stopped in Western Europe “we will face a situation that we cannot deal with, and the balance of power, which now is predominantly in our favour, will be against us.” He was one of several top American officials, including the Secretary of State, Mr George Marshall, who criticised Soviet policy during the hearMr Marshall said the United States was “basically friendly” to the Russian people, but that Soviet officials

were “ very slow to agree, rather difficult in negotiation, and, I would say, generally suspicious of our motives.”

The army announced to-day that it has dismissed seven employees at the St. Louis (Missouri) administration centre for alleged subversive activities. While the army gave no exact details, informed quarters said that, apart from the employees who were dismissed, 26 other suspected cases had been turned over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for further study. One source of information said the St. Louis centre had become a “ beehive ” of subversive activity through Communist infiltration. “ This situation constitutes one of the gravest dangers to our national security existing to-day,” the source said. The F. 8.1. chief, Mr Edgar Hoover, told the House Appropriations Subcommittee to-day that the bureau had checked almost 85,000 Government workers, and found 143 who had to be investigated on disloyalty charges. Mr Hoover said these were conservative figures, and indicated that the President’s loyalty programme was not “ one of hysteria or panic.” Of the 143 who had to be investigated, four resigned and two were completely cleared.