NEW U.S. AMBASSADOR TO BRITAIN

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 85, Issue 33, 8 February 1941, Page 5

NEW U.S. AMBASSADOR TO BRITAIN

MR. JOHN G. WINANT LOYAL COLLABORATOR WITH MR. ROOSEVELT MR. A. D. BIDDLE BECOMES ENVOY TO REFUGEE GOVERNMENTS. (By T.l«rraph—Pr.ss Association—Copyright) WASHINGTON, Feb. 6. The United States President, Mr. Franklin Roosevelt, nominated Mr. John Gilvert Winant as Ambassador in London. He has also nominated Mr. Anthony Drexel Biddle (former Ambassador to Poland) to go to London as Ambassador to the refugee Governments of Norway, Poland. Belgium, and the Netherlands.

A British Official Wireless message states that Mr. Winant will, if the nomination is approve.!, be welcomed in London both as a man with a wide, liberal outlook on international affairs and a loyal collaborator of Mr. Roosevelt. Was Director of Labour Office. As Director of the International Labour Office, Mr. Winant was in frequent and close contact with members of the British Government and important political figures in Britain as a whole, and will be greeted not as a stranger or even as a newcomer but as an able man hwo has changed a very important taks for one in the present, circumstances even more important—the task of interpreting the United States to Britain and Britain to the United States. The knowledge he already has of British institutions and character and in particular of the whole background of labour opinion will be a valuable asset at a time when all sections of the British public are playing such a crucial role in the war and are anxious to leave the world in no doubt of their attitude to Herr Adolf Hitler’s new order. If Mr. Winant succeeds in maintaining knowledge in the United States of the British attitude in this respect, so fragrantly misrepresented by German propaganda, this will be the first of the services to the cause which it is not doubted he has at heart—United States and British mutual understanding and co-operation and securing the triumphant defeat of all forces menacing the democracies. Two Observers In Britain. Within the next few days Mr. Harry Hopkins will leave England for the United States. He has been there for one month as the President’s personal representative and will take back with him more knowledge of the inner workings and policy of the British Government and a more accurate estimate of the scope of the British war effort than any ot'/cr visitor. When Mr. Hopkins reports to Mr. Franklin Roosevelt there will be few secrets of the War Cabinet that he will not be able to repeat, having, since January 9, attended conferences at Downing Street from which all but a few of the service chiefs are always excluded. The News Chronicle says that Mr. Wendell Willkie, who visited England in a private capacity and has left, will take home with him a wider and perhaps more detailed picture of the external situation —the face of Britain —and that Mr. Hopkins will know far more about the internal situation—the heart of Britain.

Mr. Winant, M.A., LL.D., is aged 52 and a Republican. He was educated at the Princeton and New Hampshire Universities, and in 1917 .he enlisted in Paris as a private in the American Expeditionary Force, later serving as air commander and captain. He was appointed Director of the International Labour Office, Geneva, in 1939. As Ambassador, according to the London correspondent of lhe New York Times, Mr. Winant, who succeeds Mr. J. P. Kennedy, will be accompanied by a business man with the rank of Minister to conduct iiaiso activities for the United States’ production of war materials for Britain.