"Glass of Wine?"

Last week handsome General Douglas MacArthur, Chief of Staff of the U. S. Army, was home from his travels in Europe which included the witnessing of military maneuvers in France and in Jugoslavia. His tour aroused no great interest in the U. S.; few Americans knew about it, fewer cared. But the Italian Press attached great importance to it, finally exploded with rage last week because. . . .

In Belgrade General MacArthur was the only foreign military expert invited to watch while a division of the Jugoslavian Army maneuvered in the mud, marched between lanes of peasants who threw grapes at the soldiers. At a banquet of generals General MacArthur joined hands with the others, did the national dance, called kolo, which consists of running around the table in one direction, then running around the table in the other. Then he made a speech.

The Fascist Il Tevere reported that speech under the headline IN A GLASS OF WINE, declaring that perhaps the sparkling quality of the banquet wine "made General MacArthur abandon himself to political oratory." The General had been quoted, according to Il Tevere:

"There is a mysterious liaison which unites the American Army to that of Jugoslavia. This liaison is not a treaty, nor an alliance, nor a declaration, but consists in eternal sentiments of spiritual friendship which extend beyond the bonds of distance. . . . Our desires, our sentiments, our characters are fundamentally the same. In the great moral principles of right to liberty and peace, the armies of Jugoslavia and America will march parallely in full accord, not disturbing one another since in all fundamental things Jugoslavia and America are in full accord."

As nearly everybody knows, Italy bitterly hates Jugoslavia; and Jugoslavia hates and fears Italy.

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