The Waterbury Democrat., 1938-12-29

series Of cOnfldenClal confer Sumner WelleS, AmbasSado
 It is safe to say that these talks have been more important than Cabinet changes, Democratic Squabbling or preparations for the coming session of Congress.
 The reports brought to Roose- welt by his ambassadors can be summarized briefly:
 l. The Chamberlain appease-
 ment policy is getting Britain
 nowhere. If the French and
 British are pushed further by
 Hitler they will have to fight.
 2. They will be pushed fur
 ther probably in the spring.
 Hitler always has timed his
 moves carefully. Also he has
 made the German people for
 get their economic woes by
 series of political victories at
 the expense of Germanys neigh
 bors. So another move will
 come soon.
 3. Conclusion is that war
 seems almost certain in the
 spring or summer = depending
 upon one big IF.
 That one big IF is the United States and her future foreign pol icy. This is what Roosevelt and his advisers have been studying so carefully in recent weeks. Key to Germany
 Roosevelt foreign policy has talk en as its key to the German mili- tary mind the famous meeting of the Kaiser with his Cabinet in 1916, when he decided to inten- sify submarine warfare against American merchant shipping.
 At this meeting, Chancellor Bethmann-H HOIIweg reported to the Kaiser that if submarine were intensified, the United States was sure to enter the war on the side of the Allies. He made this a positive prediction.
 Whereupon the German mili- tary and naval commanders both informed the Kaiser that it made no difference if the United States did enter the war. The American army, they said, was a mere hand ful of men, her navy not enough to interfere with German sub marines. German military and naval forces, they guaranteed, could handle both without diffi- culty. They promised that with all supplies cut off from the Allies, Germany could win quick vic- tory before. the United States could train an army.
 This advice was accepted by the Kaiser. At that meeteing he de- cided to intensity the submarine war, risk the entry of the 'im- potent" United States.
 AirplaneS Talk
 Roosevelt,s advisers draw an important deduction from that conversation. What influences Germany most today, they say, is the military strength of her enemies-particularly in airplaneS.
 This deduction is reinforced by Hitler's tactics at the Munich con- ference and after. What counts with Hitler are the weapons for a quick victory by air. At Mu- nich he figured that Germany's air force could clean up Paris and London in a few days and all would be over.
 In this he may have been right. In modern warfare air planes talk, and Germany has about double the French and British air force put together. Last spring she was making air planes at the rate of 400 a month. And she is still build ing new airplane factories.
 Fleeing together the different parts of this picture, Roosevelt's foreign affairs experts report war in Europe inevitable within six months or a year-unless. It is also their opinion, as well as the opinion of almost every other can- did observer in this country, that the United States cannot stay out of any world war. Eventually, human nature being what it is, the passions of war will drag us in.
 Prevention of War
 Therefore, the problem from the American viewpoint becomes the practical one of preventing war in the first place.
 That is where the Kaiser's con- ference with the German war council in 1916 comes in. Roosevelt advisers figure that mere knowl- edge that the United States will fight, will not deter Hitler. NE>r rnE> nrNNnn