The Atlantic Report on the World Today: Washington

ON THE WORLD TODAY

TEHERAN gave Washington the best close-up it has yet had of the most significant man in modern history — Joseph Stalin. The Russian leader is in a hurry to finish off Hitler. He is not keying his plans, as so many whisperers would have us believe, to American politics in 1944.

The condition of the Russian masses is Stalin’s great concern. As soon as Hitler is licked, he wishes without a moment’s delay to begin the reconstruction of Russia, so that the living standard of the Russians may be improved until it approximates the best in Europe. That is his consuming ambition.

Stalin held nothing back. He explained what he had done, what he was going to do. His review of the war on the eastern front persuaded our military observers that his is the strategy. Even the tactics are Stalin’s, for not a move is made without his inspiration. It was against this background that the military could judge his pledges.

When the Anglo-Americans had finished explaining their intentions, he made his longest statement. When they hurled themselves over the divide, he said, they would probably think they had all the Nazi legions to contend with. They must not mistake noise for strength. He would still be containing over 200 enemy divisions, and, he added, he still had several score more reserve divisions which he would usher into the fight on the morrow of invasion.

This was sweet music to the Anglo-American strategists. There had been much speculation on Russia’s reserve strength, but because of the complete lack of information from the Russians, Russia has been terra incognita. Not only the military intelligence, but the economic intelligence as well, has known nothing about the Russian potential.

A well-known British economist whose job is evaluating other countries for the military has said that, while he could understand Germany economically, he had to confess that there were no data at all on Russia on which he could base a single conclusion. It will be different from now on. Information became a two-way process for the first time at Teheran. And Stalin inspired faith in his data as well as in his pledges. Our observers came back with the impression that Stalin is both a military genius and a man of his word.

The Russian bogey

This was perhaps the outstanding result of Teheran. In military Washington the suspicion of Russia has hitherto been profound. Now all the crossed fingers have been uncrossed. The military skepticism was, of course, explicable on grounds of Russian secrecy. Russians could urge, by way of extenuation, that they couldn’t trust any secret in the whispering gallery of the American capital.

Aside from lack of information, however, our military intelligence can be justifiably charged with prejudice. There was a sort of vested interest in the original estimate that Russia would fold up in six weeks.

The only military man on our side who had faith in Russia’s residual strength was General Philip Faymonville. He knew the Russians intimately. For a generation he had been military attaché either in Tokyo or Moscow. But when his prognostications proved right, the Army dropped him. The LendLease Administration put him back in Russia. Again he ran foul of the military, and now he is back in America on service somewhere in a training camp.

G-2, as our military intelligence is called, simply had no faith in Russian staying power. Perhaps the reason was that it rated the Nazis too high. Up till Teheran, at any rate, its members were describing German retreats as strategic.

Army respect for the German machine has always been august. Only three months ago General Strong, head of G-2, was calling the Nazi might greater than in 1939. In absolute terms, it is; but it is absurd to contend that it is greater relatively.

Russia and Japan

Stalin’s banter at Teheran was indulged in, apparently, at Churchill’s expense. Churchill’s first meeting with Stalin, in 1942, was evidently not very successful. At that time Stalin shared the general Russian view that the war would be won by “Russian blood, American material, and British time.” Churchill at Moscow didn’t take kindly to Stalin’s chaffing. He appeared equally uncomfortable when, at the dinner table, Stalin made sly references to Allied procrastination.

During one of these exhibitions of Stalin’s raillery the Prime Minister spoke about the war with Japan. He brought it up again in the official conferences. When would Russia declare war on Japan? In Washington the belief now prevails that within twenty-four hours of the defeat of Hitler, Russia will be at war with Japan.

That Russia will make war on Japan seems obvious from the circumstances of this global conflict. Russia is more and more an Asiatic power. It must be a party to the remaking of the map of the Far East; and the entrance fee to peacemaking, to paraphrase Badoglio in connection with Italy’s war on France, is a share of the casualties.

It is difficult to find out what Russia thinks of the preliminary draft of the peace terms to be exacted of Japan. One gathers that Stalin raised no objection to them. As to the general peace, the Big Four appear to be agreed upon a new map dotted with free ports and United Nations bases, so as to maximize trade and to ensure security.

There will be no soft peace in regard to either Germany or Japan. It will be a peace secured by sanctions continuously applied. It is the consensus in Washington that this assumption of joint responsibility arising out of a realistic appraisal of the present war is the best assurance that peace will survive.

Germany’s fate

Of course, the problems of either the transition period or the peace were not all settled at the world conferences. Policy toward Germany has been fixed. But the method of applying that policy requires further exchanges. There may be zones of occupation, perhaps integrated by a tripartite committee sitting in Berlin. The alternative is a military government for all Germany, composed of representatives of America, Britain, and Russia. It is felt in Washington that this sort of condominium would be a difficult arrangement to work out.

That the Russians are set on retribution is obvious from the trials at Kharkov. These have caused such uneasiness in London and Washington over the possibility of reprisals at the expense of American and British prisoners in Germany that the American and British governments have been constrained to ask Moscow to postpone the trials.

In other respects the three governments see eye to eye about the treatment of Germany. Demilitarization is basic. There will be no wholesale dismemberment, though if separatist tendencies show themselves, they will be encouraged.

As much agreement has not been obtained about Eastern Europe or the Balkans. Stalin has declared flatly that Russia’s new frontiers are a Russian concern, though the Administration clings to the hope that one of these days our good offices may be entertained in behalf of Poland and Finland. The fate of all the border countries is a matter of concern to Washington.

AMG and FEA

The importance of AMG — the Allied military government of occupied territories — in the transition period is still a question. Will it be given the responsibility for the restoration of civilian functions and the beginning of reconstruction? The notion of a continuance of military government is unfortunate. The phrase has disturbed several of the governments in exile. In Washington the headquarters of AMG at the Combined Chiefs of Staff are known as the Office of Civilian Affairs. That gives a better idea of what AMG has aimed at.

The organization in liberated Italy has made arrangements for supplies, afforded aid in relief and rehabilitation, and endeavored to assist the rise of civil authority free from enemy taint. The task has proved extremely difficult. There has been the great difficulty of transporting needed goods. Military operations have had the first priority, of course, and the Germans did a capital job of wrecking Italian ports.

Civilian agencies have been set up by the Allies to further the work of reconstruction. One of these agencies is UNRRA, or United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration; the other is FEA, or Foreign Economics Administration. The men in these organizations will carry on where AMG leaves off. The relation between UNRRA and FEA, however, is still unclear, and FEA itself is in an embryonic state.

FEA is the grand amalgamation of all the government agencies having to do with economic relations abroad. It arose out of the Wallace-Jones feud. In FEA are absorbed the following agencies: Office of Economic Warfare, Lend-Lease Administration, Procurement Division of the Commodity Credit Corporation, Office of Foreign Relief and Rehabilitation, Office of Foreign Economic Coördination of the State Department.

So far as one can make out, FEA has a few men in the held already, but not many. Some have acted as consultants and observers with AMG in Italy, ready, presumably, to take over when AMG finishes its task.’ Others have come back to Washington to await the outcome of the present reshuffle, notably James M. Landis and Alexander Royce, who had been sent to Africa with credentials from the Office of Foreign Economic Coördination of the State Department.

Presumably FEA, carrying out policies laid down by the State Department, will supervise on the spot American units of UNRRA. But nobody seems to be certain that it will. It looks as if some more coordination is necessary in order to avoid overlapping. , There is some question, indeed, whether FEA will ever attain any large degree of effectiveness under its present management.

In the meantime reliance has been placed on AMG in the hope that it would prove the grand coördinator of our non-belligerent activities in the transition period. In Washington the job has been headed up by John J. McCloy, Assistant Secretary of War, Dean Acheson, Assistant Secretary of State, who is also an officer in the UNRRA setup, and Lauchlin Currie, Executive Director of FEA. McCloy is reputed to be the directing genius. He has been in closest touch with AMG operations in the field.

THE MOOD OF THE CAPITAL

Washington observes the contrast between the direction abroad and the lack of it at home. The domestic spectacle gives the appearance of players competing to kick through their own goal. Civilian officials feel that the domestic mess will be straightened out when heavier casualties occur.

The mood of the Capital urges that the fruits of victory be not imperiled by the lesions in the home front. Compromise is the order of the day between Congress and the President. Only by compromise can government show a solid front to all the pressure groups which have been making a football of the government. The new firmness is necessary to afford a breathing space in which the two branches of government can coöperate to prepare for peace —an increasingly urgent duty.