The Wilmington morning star., 1947-03-14
As Pegler Sees 1t
By PEGLER

power Oh LIE Stredm Dul Tile S1leHt, secret
rise Of the backWaters which suddenly trap
people on the high ground at night.
Now the British empire is in receivership
or bankruptcy and Americans who suspected
no danger to US in Greece learn that the
United States alone must take the financial
and undoubtedly the military responsibility for
stopping the spread of the Russian commu-
mist empire. This means war eventually If
we do not accept the job. The American,
western civilization is no less opposed to the
barbarian despotism and treachery of Moscow
than to the identical horrors Of Nazi Germany.
Why do we find ourselves in this fix? Let
us look for the reasons in Elliott Roosevelt
commercia1ized record of the drunken orgies
of the war gods in his book called Gas I
Saw It."
Elliott is discussing the Teheran conference.
His descriptions of the drinking scenes at this
and other meetings to which he was hidden
by his father have been horrible in their I'M
affected revelation of sensuality. There is not
a spiritual note anywhere of feeling for the
millions of Americans whose lives and homes
had been disrupted or ruined by this awful
calamity. And Winston Churchilrs futile de-
Tense of the Anglo-Saxon ideal of justice under
law had been howled down with drunken roars
at a state dinner.
Toward the end of this wild party, Stain
had proposed a toast-his umpteenth, as Eli
oft put ito the day when they would
slaughter at least SO, 900 German "war crimi-
nals,'' without trial.
Churchill was on his feet, Elliott says he
had stuck to his brandy, calls him "a re-
doubtable tippler'' and "suspects'' that his
tongue was thicker ethan usual Elliott
himself, however, had lushed a load of vodka,
including a full glass poured for him by
Stain. and white wine and champagne, and
found himself thinking Through the cham
payne bubbles" He got to his feet "some-
what uncertainty when his turn came. Harry
Hopkins had excused himself, ''the first Amer
lean detection"
"Grirnly-and by now a little hilariously,
too, the rest of us stayed by our glasses.'
ANY such attitude" Churchill cried, 'is
wholly contrary to our British sense of JUS
tice. The British people will never stand for
such mass murder, no one, nazi or no, shall
be dealt with sumnTarily before a firing
squad, without proper legal trial"
Stain seemed hugely tickled' and Frank
lin D. Roosevelt, whose drinks are not noted,
although Churchill's are, wittily proposed, as
a compromise, the execution Of 40, 500. And
so the fun went on behind the cordons of
barbarian guards and even Elliott himself,
uncertain on his feet, was called upon to
give his opinion. That was how far gone they
were.
This was the atmosphere in which the deci-
sion was made to deliver the Danube, the
Balkans and now undoubtedly Greece and
Turkey, and eventually all of Christian Eu-
rope down to Gibraltar, to a despotism which
President Roosevelt himself, only three years
earlier, had condemned equally with Adolf
Hitler's. These toss-pots changed the world.
Elliott's father had assumed a s~neering,
lofty, attitude toward Churchill, because he
was, as his wife had written, the ruler
OF the American people with their overpoWer-
ing quality and resources. Churchill had want
ed to invade Europe through the Balkans.
He was the better man, but Roosevelt had
the power.
In his room, alone with his pot-boy, Presi-
dent Roosevelt confided that whenever
argued for invasion through the
Balkans everyone in the room knew "What
he really meant That called for no enor-
NOUS intelligence. 1t meant that Churchill an
ticipated the very crisis in American affairs,
and in Christendom itself, that has now come
after a few years of temporizing.
Churchill wanted to keep the Red army
out of Austria and Roumania, even Hungary,
if possible. And 'Uncle Joe," when he argued
for the western invasion, was always con-
scious of the implications"
Elliott himself wondered g%ropingly, in his
hangover, whether Churchill mightn't be
right, but his father said the western plan
made sense to him as the quickest way to
win the war with the least cost in American
lives. OF course it made sense to Stain.
General Marshall, Roosevelt's subordinate
and always obedient to his commander-in-
chief and never more so than in the dis
graceful treatment Of General Short and Adj
Kimmel after Pearl Harbor, was for it.
"a whole lot of factors in the future would
whether the Russians would get
strong in Europe" and whether that's bad
Now the factors" have determined all that
as Churchill foresaw, and decisions reached
by a roomful of FOSTERING DRINKS have put
Europe as far as the Pyrenees, and
this includes France, under Russian commu-
nism.
He gets things done, that man." pop had
said from his couch, between orgies. "1ts a
pleasure working with him, nothing devious"
That was the quality of his character and
mind.
So that is how it all happened, that was
the mood of ribald, alcoholic cynicism in
which Roosevelt decided that Americans must
kill Hitler's country from the west for Rus
sia's sake and deliver the future of the world
to Stain, while in the Pacific other Amer
leans fought toilfully, lacking weapons and
power to finish off the primary enemy quick
ly. That was the time when every communist
organization in the United States, when
Charlie Chaplin, Joseph Curran, the president
of the National Maritime Union, and Lewis
Merrill, born Louis Cohen, the president OF
the CLIO office workers, and Gailmor, the
thief of the radio, and thousands of other
vicarious warriors were bawling for a second
front in France to save Russian lives.
The time was soon to come when Tito, of
Yugoslavia, would shoot down five unarmed
American filters for "violating'' his territory,
now won for Stain as Churchill had proph-
sled. We gave them a funeral and charged
them off.
churchllrs military plan and the arguments
been revealed SO that the Americans mieht
judge whether it would have cost more. or
less, than the western invasion, The no1itica1
i ans sco on Gha as side were suppressed
traitorous pro-nazi Propaganda "Aefeiore'
After the Yalta conference. 2 van ,.+ou
the Russians gave father, sev q yea ia'er,