Evening star., 1946-03-19


consul at Russian Army command
post for 80 minutes while his iden-
tity was being established. Nothing
In that to get excited about.
Yet there really is significance In
the fact that the incident was even
mentioned, with or without head
lines. 1t IS symptomatic of a condi-
tion that IS beginning to have the
aspect of international jitters, a
state Of mind and nerves that car
result in disastrous explosion II
.pot brought under control. For the
world Is filled with rumors of wal
and the rumors are largely built on
such so-called incidents.
Facts and Fiction.
One day last week Chicago News
correspondent undertook to separate
the facts from the fiction that has
been pouring out of Manchuria
since the ending of formal war in
that obscure region. For a fact, he
reported, the Russians before de-
parting from Mukden stripped for
mer japanese factories of machinery
and shipped it away. And for a
fact, mobs had looted many build
1ngs; whether the mobS were Rus
sian or Chinese, he didn't say.
For fiction, he repeated the
widely printed story of American
correspondents being held in a guard
house in Changchun, the Man
churian capital. The fact, he said
was that the correspondents had
been invited to come into the
guards lounge room out of the cold''
while the captain of the guards was
telephoning their request for an in
terview with the Russian COM
mander.
The six or eight Red soldiers who
met them at the station actually
were wearing tommy guns, but they
also were wearing friendly smiles
and insisted on helping the COR
respondents with their luggage.
Nobody saw a Russian fighter
plane make pass at the transport
IN which the correspondents were
travelling and he doubted that this
happened, since four Soviet diplo-
matte officers were also on the trans
port.
Their hotel rooms were cold and
the food was bad. But their Rus
sian hosts shared these discomforts
with them.
In Direction of Turkey.
Returning to the Middle Eastern
theater of War-or rumOrS of war
we've been reading one story after
another of Russian army moves in
the direction of Turkey. Turkey,
not Iran, we've been warned is the
real objective of the 'massing" of
troops and tanks on the border. And
yet tucked away in later dispatches
from London we find: Diplomatic
sources agree that any Soviet troop
movements in Iran were designed
solely to force that country to give
Moscow the privilege of exploiting
oil and not to threaten Turkey"
Further, we are now told, that the
1ranlan government is ''pro-Soviet";
that it IS group of "anti-Soviet"
army leaders, not the government.
that Is protesting the presence of
Russian troops in northern Iran:
that the government may even pre-
fer to have the visitors remain as
insurance against a revolutionary
effort by the army leaders. The
governments war minister disclaims
an interview in which he was quoted
as saying Iran would bring the
presence Of those troops to the at
tention of the United Nations Secu-
rity Council.
And finally the Russians are now
talking openly about their desire to
develop the oil of Northern Iran.
They have taken to the radio to re-
late a series of alleged agreements
by former Iranian governments
whereby the Russians were to re-
ceive oil concessions in the north
In the same manner that such con-
ceSSiOns were given the British in