The Waterbury Democrat., 1944-09-21

With the armistiee due any time, joint British and American army units spent most Of the summer writing and rewriting handbook to place before civil ad- ministrators to be assigned to Germany. The fourth draft of this handbook arrived here from London late in August for com. ment from the War, State and Treasury Departments, ft turned out to be completely negative set of instructions, With no clear and workable recommendations concerning labor problems, food problems, industrial problems
 And there was absolutedly no instruction for the handling oE Nazis in key posts, Civil admin' istrators studying the book were given no reason to believe that the British and American Gov. ernmentS even desired to oust Nazis from Important posts ln Germany,
 The galley proofs came in with instructions that recommended changes should be eabled back to London in about 24 hours.
 In disgust, Treasury Secretary Henry M0rgenthau and Harry White, director Of the Treass ury's monetary research division, took the proofs to the White House, tossed them on the Presi' dents desk and asked him to IVOk them over.
 The President, already peeved because he had not been consult" ed about the appointment of keb- ert Murphy Ns political aaViser to General Eisenhower, read through about six pages Of the handbook, then threw It down ln' dignantly,
 "Feed the Germans!" he said.
 T'n give them three bowls of soup . day with nothing In them, Control imitation! Let them have all the imitation they want, l should worry! Control Industry. There's not going to be any industry In Germany to control"
 CLUSTERING LETTER
 TO STIMSON
 He turned to Morgenthau and demanded that, within two days, Morgenthau, Secretary of War Stimson and Secretary Of State Hull prepare for him detailed plan for the civil administration Of Germany. Then he wrote Stim- son 6 two-page letter, blistering the proposed handbook
 So irked was he that he dis pensed with the usual Dear Henry" salutation, heading his letter instead ITO the Secretary of War" First sentence was, "fhis is very bad iOb." There fol- lowed long quotes from the hand book galley proofs, passages which FDR picked at random as es' pecially weak or stupid.
 Copies of this letter went to Hull and Morgenthau. Hull's copy was routed out through the vari- ous offices concerned in the State Department, finally getting back with pencilled notations opposite the various quotations. State De- partment officials were unable to understand, it seems. what wa wrong with the draft and wrote in the margin such comments as "What's wrong with this? or "This looks Okay to mel"
 FDRs demand for a definite poll icy on Germany was made on Thursday afternoon Augut 3l. The deadline was the next Saturday, and resulted in furry of memos and a good deal of overtime work at the State Department.
 No final plan was reached but enough was put together Tor the next week. By the time he left for Quebec, he himself had some clear ideas on this policy, even though 1t was not yet fully formulated.
 One beneficial result of the Presidents anger was the dump ing into state Department waste baskets of half a dozen directives being prepared to outline civil administrSsion in Japan after the war. These were just as insipid as the handbook for German admin istration.
 POLITICS AND THE WAR
 House minority leader Joe Mar tin, who is on record for tak- ing the war out of politics. had an uncomfortable moment last