Browning chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1941-1953, 1943-07-02
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Private Papers
OF a Cub Reporter:

PTlUdte Papers
OF a Cub Reporter:
Drew Middleton of AP, VIM. H.
Stoneman, John MacVane, Chas.
Collingwood and some other Amer
lean reporters and commentators
rate medals for their reporting of
the political embroglios in North AZ
RIGA despite the heavy army and
State Department pressure to stop
them The political censorship
was lifted early in January-but
since then pressure has been applied
to get the boys to lay off the
explosive situation created by our
policy What is not widely
known is that Columbia Broadcast
ing was pressured to shut up Col
lingwood and that Harry Butcher,
an eX-fiXer for Columbia Broadcast
ing, now a commander and naval
aide to Eisenhower, was the instru-
ment.
Returning war reporters tell of
the melodrama on a ship which
brought back prisoners of war
The Geneva convention, it appears,
ruled that officers of war prisoners
would handle the discipline of their
own men On this ship, some of
the prisoners included a few of Ger
many's former social democrats .
Now that they were prisoners, the
war was over for them-so they re-
fused to salute their Nazi superors
:. . The Infatuated officers sought
satisfaction from the Americans in
charge eve demand" one of
them stormed, "some pistols and
permission to have these men shot"
The request, of course, was ig-
nored.
The correspondents tell us they
are amazed about the rumors over
here regarding the WAACs in AL
giers "allegedly being a headache
to Eisenhower" 1--WE didn't see
anything to indicate that" said the
scribes. "In fact, the ladies who
arrived with Captain Marquis were
all lodged in convent in El-Biar,
suburb of Algiers-where they kept
very chaste hours"
You probably recall the booklet
handed our men in North Africa
about Arabian customs, which
warned them of the urgent impor-
lance of respecting mosques, GUS
toms, women, etc Arabian dig
nitaries say the effect has been very
good General Nogues decided
to resist when he learned of the
American landings in the early
hours of November He
planned to move his headquarters
to Meknes, which is inland, and
there await German help which had
been promised He was not pro-
Nazi-simply an opportunist He
thought we weren't there in suf-
ficient force He asked the Sui
tan to move with him from Rabat-
and from Meknes declare a holy war
on the invaders Despite the
legend of General Nogues' influence
over the Sultan, His Majesty re-
fused to move or declare holy war.
That was Sunday afternoon
That evening about six, the Sultan
was handed a copy of the booklet
the army got up with the help of
Harvard professor of anthropology
and some of his experts who were
over there ahead of time This
booklet, the Sultan learned, was
found on the body of an American
soldier killed in the landing at Port
Lyautey in the attack on the Kasbah
there, which was repulscd by native
troops The booklet was blood
stained The man who brought
it to the Sultan was an Arab dig
nitary favorable to the Allied cause
He translated the passages
about respect for Arab customs,
Arab women, etc. The Sultan,
not an emotional individual, wept
and said: Il knew that the Amer
leans were good people. l am glad
l did what l did,"