GRAVE CHARGES

Waikato Times, Volume 195, Issue 22460, 22 September 1944, Page 3

GRAVE CHARGES

INDUSTRIAL RIVALRIES BRITAIN AND AMERICA ENTRY INTO FRANCE (United Press Assn.—Elec. Tel. Copyright. (Received Sept. 22, 1 p.m.) LONDON, Sept. 21

A statement that representatives ol American business interests are entering France with the American lerces and auxiliaries is made by the Daily Mail in an article by Colin Bednall. The article says that unless quick action is taken and explanations made a grave misunderstanding is going to arise between Britain and America centring on industrial and commercial rivalries, which are in danger of overshadowing common aims in the war.

“Agreements into which Britain entered for purely military purposes have been cynically exploited by certain American interests fQr purely commercial reasons,” says the article. “In one case it is alleged that one of the first American units landing in France took in, in the uniform of a Red Cross officer, a representative of a very powerful financial corporation. Less than 48 hours after the Allied entry into Paris it is said this gentleman disappeared from the Army and was sitting in an office in Paris. He had changed into civilian ciothes and was busy with clients.

Stream of Business Men “Since then responsible people have reported observing a stream of American business men passing through England on their way to the French capital. A whole planeload, it is stated, on one occasion crossed the Atlantic together. “I learned that the British Chamber of Commerce was one of the first

organisations to ask permission to return to Paris. It had permission from the British Government, but this permission was over-ruled by Supreme Headquarters. It is even Et this juncture denied entry to Paris.

“Supreme Headquarters organisation is such that the question of per-

mits to enter France rests almost

entirely on the decision and good will of American officers. Nobody seemed to realise before ‘D Day’ that this would be the case, but it has been apparent since.”

The Daily Mail’s Paris correspondent says that since the liberation of Paris a very large number of American civilians has been here finding time amid other duties to indulge to the full the well-known American penchant for energetic private enterprise. These civilians are provided with American officers’ uniforms, but are without badges of rank. Denial by America

The Washington correspondent of the New York Herald-Tribune says the War and State Departments, the Foreign Economic Axlninistration and the American Red Cross joined in an emphatic denial that American commercial travellers were being

granted travel priorities to Europe, particularly France, as reported in the London Daily Mail. The State Department said many civilians had applied for passports to Europe for commercial purposes, but were turned down.

Red Cross officials said they would like to know the identity of the person whom the Daily Mail charged with entering France wearing a Red Cross uniform and opening a business office two days later in civilian clothes. "We would clear that up in two minutes if we had the name,” said the officials.