The Waterbury Democrat., 1944-03-17

When 8 nation surrenders, it is the victors who are on hand for the armistice "kill' who get the conquered fleet and spells of war. That was why Stalin was blazing mad when, at first, he was not consulted. He was sore at some other things too, but especially over the Italian matter, for Rus sia has long wanted to build her. self up as a naval power and long ago saw the Italian fleet as a stepping stone.
 When this columnist revealed the State Departments cold shoul- der to Russia, it was promptly de- nied. Later, when the President didn'tt hink Hulps denial effective enough, he hurled some brief, ugly, chronic words of his own straight in this direction.
 All of which. in retrospect, may be more amusing than important, but it leads up to question which never ceases to puzzle news men, no matter how many years grown grey at the typewriter namely, why distinguished states men issue diplomatic denials which they know are certain to be dis proved later.
 STIMSON DENIES
 Many years ago, when Henry l.. Stimson was Secretary of State in the Hoover Administration, I had an interesting talk with him about this question.
 had reported, during our crisis with Japan over Man chuckuO, that the governments of Chile and Mexico had offered us naval cooperation in case of war. StimsOn stood up in his press conference a few hours la- ter and denied the story cate- gOrically.
 That evening, however, he called me to his home, sat down in front of an open fire, and ex- plained that he had to deny the story because he feared Chile and Mexico would be indignant over the leak. Chile and Mexico are countries, probably not as sensi- tive as MT. StimSon thought, but I could understand the denial. Per- haps he was right.
 But I never could understand the denial, after Pearl HarbOr, of our losses there. Even three months later, after the Japs had circulated exact details of the losses through Latin America obviously knew whatt hey were talking about - even then the President came out. in his Feb. 22 speech, unequivOcalIy deny ing that there had been losses worth worrying about at Pearl HarbOr
 With lot of people, this only undermined confidence in future statements by Roosevelt and his Administration and loss of public confidence can be even more Serioust han losing battle ships.
 THE DENIAL SCORE CARD
 Just for amusement, the already overworked girls in my office have got up a list of fairly important Merry -Go-Round stories which were indignantly, categorically. vehemently denied but later turned out to be true. Here they are:
 November, 1943-General Pat ton skipping incident officially de- nied by Army. Later admitted.
 January, l943-Faulty inspection of shells at a St. Louis plant denied by the Army. Despite the lenial, a Grand Jury indicted ten jeople for this war fraud-though t took eleven months to do it.
 September, 194O-The Attorney General denied the story regard ng the plane crash of FBI agents md the late Senator Lundeen, 'ome of whose speeches were be- ing written by Nazi agent George Sylvester Vierick. Senators Wheel CT and Bonnet Clark also de- nounced this story on the Senate floor. while Mrs. Lundeen threat sned to sue for libe However. vierick is now in jail, convicted n part for writing Senator Lun-
 June, l938-First revelation of louisiana scandals. involving Gov. Leche, Democratic National Com nitteeman Seymour Weiss and President J. M. Smith of Loulsi- ana State University. was denied. All later served jail sentences.
 June, 1943-Justice Byrnes was reported to havex stopped the Navy's Elk Hills oil deal. Denied by Navy. Later, Secretary Knox issued a statement promising to