The Wilmington morning star., 1940-05-18
WASHINGTON
DAYBOOK
By JACK STINNETT

WASHINGTON, May 17-You would think that
a park service guide, who had a visit from Presi.
dent Roosevelt. would have a happy tale to tell
his grandchildren. But not the guide who tends
the Ship Museum in Yorktown.
In a tight little one.door building that looks
more like a white barn than a museum, the
Yorktown repository has three British cannon
dredged out of the York river. They are relics of
the great battle of 1881. The park service had
r%ecreated in the museum the gun deck Of a
British frigate and mounted the cannon. They
had sent to London for dope on handling such
cannon. Guides drilled for weeks, in the motions
OF loading, cleaning, aiming and firing.
Then, one day word spread about that the
President was coming down. The President has
a definite yen for naval history. He's an expert.
He has called some Of the navy's best on moot
questions and navigation records often have
proved him right. The museum was in a other.
Its crack guide was selected to put the guns
through their PAGES.
The presidential party arrived-and the Unit.
ed States secret service wouldn't let the Presi.
dent go inside. There's q rule, it seems, that
no President of the U. S. A. can enter any build
ing with only one exit.
BOOK REVIEW: For those who came in late
on the big war, take a tip from the capitalites
and read Sir Neville Henderson's Failure of a.
Mission"
Sir Neville was the British ambassador to Ber-
lin from 1887 to the outbreak of the second
World war. You might think his account would
be crammed with propaganda-and there is, of
course, some Of it there-but he has leaned over
backward to be fair and his appraisals Of many
Nazi leaders, including Goering, are almost com.
plimentary.
The villains of the piece are Hitler, Won Rib.
bentrop and HimmLer. At one point, the British
ambassador says:
IF l were, entitled to apportion the blame for
the tragic and CHASTITY war which We have now
entered, l should do so as follows: firstly, the
overweening ambition and the ever growing ME-.
galomania OF Hitler; secondly, the self-interest-
ed advice of Herr Won Ribbentrop and of the
small clique of Nazi veterans and gangsters. j..
to whom, for their services in the struggle for
power, were given many of the plums of vic.
tory. . -. and thirdly, Himmler and his black.
shirted S. S. and secret police"
To me, the most amazing revelation in the
book is the record that the German army gen.
eral stan had every one of its blitzkreigs work.
ed out to the most minute detail even before the
move against Austria.
Tying in with this are reports in WASHINGTON
that German army plans for every contingency,
including Switzerland and the Balkans, are on
nile. These plans, it is said, number II. and the
twelfth is a gigantic maneuver for the invasion
OF England-a scheme for cutting Great Britain
in half and waging a war to the death.
This could be nothing more than one of those
Old Wives tales that circulate about the nations
capital on the slightest pretext. But it could
also be one of those facts that drift up from the
depths OF international espionage.
More than a month ago military folk were
whispering that May 10 was the date for the
NaZi crash into the Netherlands Fveu u,bar ~,
Norwegian campaign was opened, army and
navy insiders winked and said: wait until May
TO-"
Not all the rumors that float about Washing
ton are hooey-most, perhaps-but not all. You"
have to choose Cor yourself.