The New York Times Book of World War II, 1939-1945

by The New York Times

  MARCH 21, 1948

  TRIESTE PROPOSAL ADDS TO U.N. GLOOM

  By GEORGE BARRETT

  Special to The New York Times.

  LAKE SUCCESS, N.Y., March 20—The three-power declaration by the United States, Britain and France calling for the return of Trieste to Italy was interpreted here today by disheartened officials as another sharp slap at the much-buffeted prestige of the United Nations.

  The joint request to have the troubled Trieste area taken from the protection of the United Nations was deposited with Secretary General Trygve Lie this afternoon under gloomy circumstances arising from the series of crucial issues the international peace organization had faced during the past ten days.

  The latest attack on the usefulness of the United Nations comes only twenty-four hours after the United States had abandoned the Palestine partition plan and only a few days after Chile had brought up before the Security Council a request to investigate the Communist coup in Czechoslovakia as a threat to world peace.

  The rapid-fire sequence of events is giving the United Nations its severest test and has produced an atmosphere of dejection. The gloom is increasing as each day passes and brings new evidence of an ever-widening split between the United States and the Soviet Union, a split that underlines and consequently hampers virtually every important step the United Nations tries to take.

  The Trieste declaration is especially disheartening to many officials here, for under the terms of the Italian peace treaty the Council-appointed Governor was to have very broad powers in administering the international zone and the Council itself was to have the important task of assuring Trieste’s “integrity and independence.”

  While the declaration on Trieste stressed that discussion in the Security Council had shown that agreements on the selection of a Governor were impossible, some observers said the Big Four were responsible for the failure of the fifteen-month search for a suitable candidate. Britain and the United States rejected ten days ago three names submitted by the Soviet Union, and before that the Soviet Union rejected a long list of suggestions made by the other powers.

  One of the few delegates who would comment on the Trieste declaration was Faris el-Khoury of Syria, who said that he thought it was a “very good idea” to return Trieste to Italy but that he was afraid the suggestion might lead to another opening of the conflict between the Western powers and the Soviet Union.

  MARCH 23, 1948

  RED MOVES IN ASIA SEEN IN A PATTERN

  By ROBERT TRUMBULL

  Special to The New York Times.

  NEW DELHI, India, March 22—Certain well-informed quarters here understand that Communist activity throughout Asia is coordinated from Moscow through agents who meet in several Asiatic ports, principally Bangkok and Hong Kong.

  The pattern of Communist infiltration in Asia was established by observers for interested powers who kept a close watch on the movement of known Communist leaders. An intensive check on radio communications and on the activities of certain travelers tended to confirm the belief that a solid front was maintained by the Communists in all the Asiatic countries.

  The central direction for the advance of communism in Asia is said to come from the “Eastern Political Department” in Moscow, headed by a former North China Communist leader named Wong Min. Closer centers are said to be maintained in Harbin and Vladivostok. Headquarters for China, formerly in Yenan, are thought to move about with the Communist army command.

  One report from an informed source says that Communist agents and agitators—mostly Chinese—are dispersed through Southeast Asia via Hong Kong, where they are brought by the Russian ship Smolny, which operates between Vladivostok, Shanghai and Hong Kong. Other ships that regularly change crews at Hong Kong are also watched as possible carriers of Communist infiltrators.

  Singapore, where the Communists are powerful in a strong trade union movement, is cited as another clearing house for Communist agents in Southeast Asia. Although few Russians have been noticed among Communist workers in Asia, some significance was attached by foreign observers and British authorities to the visit to Singapore and then Bangkok last autumn by a Soviet trade representative, Nicolai Plavin. The British refused to extend his visa for Malaya on its expiration.

  Dutch sources believe that the Indonesian Communists maintain direct radio contact with Moscow. They cite as proof that the speeches of the Indonesian Communist leader Alimin are frequently quoted word for word a few days later by the Moscow radio.

  The chief correspondent in India for Tass, official Soviet news agency, Oleg Orestov, has applied to the Netherlands Embassy here for a visa to the Dutch East Indies. Another Tass correspondent, Georgi Afrin, recently left Batavia, Java.

  Bangkok as a center of Communist activity in Asia has assumed a new importance with the opening of a Soviet Embassy. The embassy staff is said to number about 200 while some 2,000 Russians are understood to have applied for permission to enter Siam as “merchants” or “traders.”

  Observers here accuse Moscow of seeking to influence the Asiatic masses through numerous international organizations such as trade union federations, the World Federation of Democratic Youth and women’s and students’ organizations.

  Moscow’s contact with the Communists in India is believed to come through Afghanistan rather than through China. The Communist cell in New Delhi is said to be the source for agitation in Ceylon and Burma. The Soviet Union recently opened an embassy in New Delhi.

  Since the end of the war conferences of Communists from every country in Asia have been held at Dairen, Bangkok, Hong Kong and Vladivostok. From the Bangkok meeting held last September there emerged the “Southeast Asia League,” which gave as its objective the independence of the Southeast Asiatic peoples, the furtherance of world peace and the advancement of a Southeast Asia federation. This campaign appeals to nationalism, a racialism somewhat after the manner of Japan’s pre-war “Asia for the Asiatics” agitation.

  MARCH 25, 1948

  TRUMAN ASSAILED BY RUSSIAN PRESS

  MOSCOW, March 24 (UP)—Moscow publications today denounced President Truman’s “hysterical screams,” discounted the effectiveness of germ warfare and hinted anew at Russian progress in making atomic bombs in a major blast against the United States.

  Basing its charges largely on President Truman’s recent message to Congress, the Literary Gazette, organ of the Union of Soviet Writers, led the attack. It devoted nearly half its space to articles criticizing the United States. Izvestia, the Government newspaper, and Red Star, organ of the Ministry of the Armed Forces, joined in.

  “The hysterical screams of Truman and Co. have exposed the aggressors completely,” one Literary Gazette article said. “Simultaneously they have exposed their weakness and fear.

  “American imperialism wants to repeat Hitler’s game. Already it is selecting its Goebbelses and Goerings, its Himmlers and Ribbentrops. It selects its Quislings and forms its SS men.”

  A cartoon depicted a wild-looking President Truman sitting before a set of trap drums in such a position that the shadow thrown on a wall behind him resembled Adolf Hitler with his arm out stretched in a Nazi salute.

  “Truman—Hysterical Drummer of war,” the caption said.

  The Literary Gazette said also that the United States was making exaggerated claims of the effectiveness of bacteriological warfare in an attempt to frighten other nations.

  “The world’s progressive public must nail to the pole of shame the American scientist-poisoners and their militarist lackeys who are trying at all cost to utilize the mighty forces of science for the development of a new world war,” the article said.

  Red Star recalled a book in which Maj. Gen. John R. Deane, head of a wartime mission to Moscow, expressed doubt of Russia’s ability quickly to make an atomic bomb.

  General Deane, Red Star said, wrote that when he was asked about Russia’s ability to make such a bomb he thought about a Moscow tire factory where technique and production were bad, and
that he drew “definite conclusions” from it. This factory, Red Star said, will turn out its 1,000,000th tire about May 1.

  “Let the Deanes draw their definite conclusions,” Red Star said.

  Izvestia said, in commenting on President Truman’s message, that the danger of war existed in the actions of American “ruling circles.” But to such actions, Izvestia said, “there is opposed the peace policy of the Soviet Union.”

  MARCH 26, 1948

  PARLIAMENT BACKS BRITISH RED PURGE

  By HERBERT L. MATTHEWS

  Special to The New York Times

  LONDON, March 25—Britain’s Parliament gave its blessing today to the Labor Government’s policy of weeding Communists and Fascists out of civil service positions involving the security of the state.

  There was no vote but a tense and vehement House of Commons showed its overwhelming support for Prime Minister Attlee. William Gallacher, Communist member, fought the Government’s move bitterly in one of the most powerful speeches of his career, but he had few friends. However, all members showed their anxiety to have every possible safeguard for those accused and to avoid the sort of witch hunt that Britons believe the United States Congress sometimes conducts.

  Mr. Attlee apparently set most fears at rest in winding up the debate.

  If a civil servant is a suspect, Mr. Attlee explained, he will not only be informed but will be told the specific reasons for the suspicion. He will have full opportunity to study the information and reply to it.

  The matter will then go to his departmental head, and if the latter decides that action should be taken it will be passed on to the Minister. The Minister can then consult an advisory board of three retired civil servants, if he considers that there is a prima-facie case. The accused person will be allowed to appear before this board and bring other persons to support him.

  It is only then that the Minister will make his decision and, whenever possible, the suspect will be transferred, not dismissed.

  Mr. Attlee expressed the belief that there would be few dismissals and the House clearly approved his mixture of firmness and fairness.

  It was a Liberal party member who appropriately lamented the fact that the “tragedy of tyrannies is that they impose tyranny on the democracies” and it was a Conservative who posed the great problem that is facing all democracies—whether to permit the “liberty of the Communist to take other people’s liberties away.”

  If they all spoke in sorrow, “Willie” Gallacher spoke in anger and even in religious fervor.

  He launched into a most vicious personal attack on the Government leaders yet heard in the House while the Conservatives sat in obvious glee watching dirty linen being washed in public.

  Mr. Gallacher, among other things, accused Herbert Morrison, Lord President of the Council, of dodging the Army in the first World War and then dodging jail by taking a job as a market gardener. He also said that Mr. Morrison tried to foment a strike against conscription in 1916. Mr. Morrison got up and denied this.

  Mr. Gallacher blamed the “multimillionaires of America” whom he referred to as “typical” gangsters for what he termed a slander campaign leading to the present measure.

  He aroused a storm of protest when he said:

  “America wants to make war against the Soviet Union and use this country as a forward base.

  The Government will then go away and the royal family will probably go to Ottawa and the people will be left to perish and by the time it is finished this Britain will be a mass of radioactive mud, if such a war develops.”

  Most speakers agreed with Mr. Attlee in considering Mr. Gallacher’s tirade as somewhat beside the point. The Prime Minister brought the debate back to its central theme of the necessity for loyalty to the state by members of the civil service. The Communists, he said, “hold loyalty to another power.”

  “As long as we are in a world where there is the possibility of war,” continued Mr. Attlee, “we must have defense and its secrets must be preserved.”

  MAY 15, 1948

  ZIONISTS PROCLAIM NEW STATE OF ISRAEL

  THE JEWS REJOICE

  Some Weep As Quest for Statehood Ends

  By GENE CURRIVAN

  Special to The New York Times.

  TEL AVIV, Palestine, May 15—The Jewish state, the world’s newest sovereignty, to be known as the State of Israel, came into being in Palestine at midnight upon termination of the British mandate.

  Recognition of the state by the United States, which had opposed its establishment at this time, came as a complete surprise to the people, who were tense and ready for the threatened invasion by Arab forces and appealed for help by the United Nations.

  In one of the most hopeful periods of their troubled history the Jewish people here gave a sigh of relief and took a new hold on life when they learned that the greatest national power had accepted them into the international fraternity.

  CEREMONY SIMPLE AND SOLEMN

  The declaration of the new state by David Ben-Gurion, chairman of the National Council and the first Premier of reborn Israel, was delivered during a simple and solemn ceremony at 4 P.M., and new life was instilled into his people, but from without there was the rumbling of guns, a flashback to other declarations of independence that had not been easily achieved.

  Young Jews celebrate the proclamation of a new state of Israel, Tel Aviv, May 14, 1948

  The first action of the new Government was to revoke the Palestine White Paper of 1939, which restricted Jewish immigration and land purchase.

  In the proclamation of the new state the Government appealed to the United Nations “to assist the Jewish people in the building of its state and to admit Israel into the family of nations.”

  The proclamation added:

  “We offer peace and amity to all neighboring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation for the common good of all. The State of Israel is ready to contribute its full share to the peaceful progress and reconstitution of the Middle East.”

  WORLD JEWS ASKED TO AID

  The statement appealed to Jews throughout the world to assist in the task of immigration and development and in the “struggle for the fulfillment of the dream of generations—the redemption of Israel.”

  Plans for the ceremony had been laid with great secrecy. None but the hundred or more invited guests and journalists was aware of the meeting until it started, and even the guests learned of the site only ten minutes before. It was held in the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, a white, modern-design two-story building. Above it flew the Star of David, which is the state’s flag, and below, on the sidewalk, was a guard of honor of the Haganah, the army of the Jewish Agency for Palestine.

  As photographers’ bulbs flashed and movie cameras ground out reels of the scene, great crowds gathered and cheered the Ministers and other members of the Government as they entered the building. The security arrangements were perfect. Sten guns were brandished in every direction and even the roofs bristled with them.

  The setting for the reading of the proclamation was a dropped gallery whose hall held paintings by prominent Jewish artists. Many of them depicted the sufferings and joys of the people of the Diaspora, the dispersal of the Jews.

  The thirteen Ministers of the Government Council sat at a long dais beneath the photograph of Theodor Harzi, who in 1897 envisaged a Jewish state. Vertical pale blue and white flags of the state hung on both sides. To the left of the ministers and below them sat other members of the national administration. There are thirty-seven in all, but some were unable to get here from Jerusalem.

  At 4 P.M. sharp the assemblage rose and sang the Hatikvah, the national anthem. The participants seemed to sing with unusual gusto and inspiration. The voices had hardly subsided when the squat, white-haired chairman, Mr. Ben-Gurion, started to read the proclamation, which in a few hours was to transform most of those present from persons without a country to proud nationals. When he pronounced the words “We hereby proc
laim the establishment of the Jewish state in Palestine, to be called Israel,” there was thunderous applause and not a few damp eyes.

  After the proclamation had been read and the end of the White Paper and of its land laws pronounced, Mr. Ben-Gurion signed the document and was followed by all the other members of the administration, some by proxy. The last to sign was Moshe Shertok, the new Foreign Minister and the Jewish Agency’s delegate to the United Nations. He was roundly applauded and almost mobbed by photographers.

  The ceremony ended with everyone standing silently while the orchestral strains of the Hatikvah filled the room. Outside, the fever of nationalism was spreading with fond embraces, warm handshakes and kisses. Street vendors were selling flags, crowds gathered to read posted bulletins, and newspapers were being sold everywhere.

  As the Sabbath had started, there was not the degree of public rejoicing that there would have been any other day.

  The proclamation was to have been read at 11 P.M. but was advanced to 4 because of the Sabbath. Mr. Shertok explained that the proclamation had to be made yesterday because the mandate was to end at midnight and the Zionists did not want a split second to intervene between that time and the formal establishment of the state.

  In the preamble to the declaration of independence the history of the Jewish people was traced briefly from its birth in the Land of Israel to this day. The preamble touched on the more modern highlights, including Herzi’s vision of a state, acknowledgment of the Jewish national homeland by the Balfour Declaration in 1917 and its reaffirmation by the League of Nations mandate and by the United Nations General Assembly resolution of Nov. 29, 1947.

  It asserted that this recognition by the United Nations of the right of the Jewish people to establish an independent state could not be revoked and added that it was the “self-evident right of the Jewish people to be a nation, as all other nations, in its own sovereign state.”