The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1938-12-02
WHO'S
NEWS
THIS
WEEK
By LEMUEL F. PARTON

~ years ago, this writer met a
friend who had just interviewed
Gen. Ismet Inonu, who is today Tur-
keys new dicta-
dictator in0nu tor, succeeding
An Iron Man, Renal Ataturk,
Yet a Diplomat who died recent
smartest hombre I ever met" said
my friend. "He talked to me for
two hours, frank and honest, look
ing me right in the eye and never
holding out on anything. He was
charming and brilliant and he didn't
ask me not to print anything. I
thought I had a great story. But,
when started to write it, there
was just nothing there. I saw him
several times after that, and real
lied that he was master in heart
to-heart talk which left no commit
ments whatsoever. I saw cagey dip
lomats kissed off just as had been.
The man is a marvel of brains and
ingenuity"
The small, fragile, deaf, ingratiat-
ing General Inonu is the hero> of
the Turkish army, premier until a
year ago, when he was mysteriously
benched by Kemal Ataturk. There
were runors that he was engaged
in international negotiations of such
subtlety that he found it necessary
to keep out of Office and off-stage.
1t was in 1920 that young
Colonel Ismet joined Mustafa
Renal in Anatolia. By 1922, he
had driven the Greeks out of
Anatolia and Smyrna and in
this period and thereafter he
was Renal Ataturk's chief mill
tary aide. He added to his lau-
rels, when, at the 1923 Lausanne
conference, he ran rings around
British and Italian diplomats
and won for Turkey virtually
its demands.
He was one of few men who re-
tanned the confidence of Ataturk to
the end. He was firm and exact
ing and, at times, ruthless ruler of
the army, and is said to lack none of
the traditional specifications of the
iron man.
1t is apparent that Ismet Inonu is
intent on keeping Turkey diplomat
ically liquid, that he fully realizes
the bargaining power Of Turkeys
hegemony over the Moslem bloc,
and that he probably will use this
and other strategic assets in max
ing some shrewd bargains.
TALL, austere Sumner Welles,
L def precisionist in career diplo-
macy, is merely undersecretary Of
state, but off-stage he's the key-man
-, :, of a critical in
A Specialist in counter and a
S. A. Relations policy draughts-
man in whose
hands a chart of our South Ameri-
can procedure is taking shape. He
helped initiate and has diligently
fostered the "good neighbor' policy
in Latin-America, and his radio adj
dress urging get-together in the
Western hemisphere received
good press in those countries. But
a bad press in Germany.
His plea for joint defense
against "any threat Of attack"
is in interesting contrast to his
speeches of a year ago, when he
appealed to the ''nations of the
world for new world order,
based on Justice and law" He
weighs the actualities of trade,
finance and the collective safety
and solvency Of the Western
world.
Something like picture Of a
western league of nations be-
gins to emerge as the great
imperialisms turn toward the
vast raw material st0reh0use of
South America.
After his graduation from Har.
ward in 1914, Franklin D. Roosevelt,
then assistant secretary of the navy,
helped him enter career diplomacy.
In his early thirties, he was high
commissioner to the Dominican Re-
public, the author of "Naboth's
Vineyard" a two-volune study of
that country. He was made am
bassador to Cuba by President
Roosevelt in 1888. He became un-
dersecretary of state last year.
p OBERT DONAT, the English ac-
N tor on the up-take in ''The Cita-
dep' and other films, made SO many
unsuccessful tries at the screen
=. seven years ago
Laughing az that they called
Despair Gets him Screen
Donnf Fame Test Donat. A
competent actor,
he met hard luck and was all but
desperate, as something always
went wrong. One day, in what he
was sure would be his last try, the
director told him to register despair.
The irony of his merely initiating
despair sent him into demoniac
laughter. Alexander Korda. in an
other room, heard him.
"Sign that man up, whoever