Churchill & the U. S.

While Franklin Roosevelt again revised the U. S. defense setup by giving it a two-man head (see p. 21), Winston Churchill last week again revised Britain's setup. He made Labor Minister Ernest Bevin Chief of Production Executive, Supply Minister Sir Andrew Rae Duncan Chief of Import Executive, Minister Without Portfolio Arthur Greenwood, whose so-called Production Council has proved inadequate, he made Chief of [postwar] Reconstruction Executive. In Britain, as in the U. S., these changes were not wholly satisfying. Said the Laborite Daily Herald: "There is still no supreme high command of economic and industrial policy."

Prime Minister Churchill devoted particular attention to courting U. S. good will last week. He inspected the first American Motorized Squadron of the British Home Guard, a unit of 75 officers and men. The same day he said good-by to former Foreign Secretary Viscount Halifax, whom he is sending to serve as His Majesty's Ambassador in Washington. Speaking at a luncheon of the Anglo-U. S. Pilgrims Society, he was at pains to point out for the U. S. benefit that, whatever Lord Halifax once was, he is no longer rated an appeaser: "Our choice . . . commands the full confidence of nearly all those in this country who mean to persevere in our righteous cause until its certain victorious end is reached. . . . We send to the United States an envoy who comes from the very centre of our councils and knows all our secrets. . . ." He buttered President Roosevelt by adding: "I rejoice that this pre-eminent figure should newly have received the unprecedented honor of being called for the third time to lead the American democracies."

Next day lean, pallid Lord Halifax looked down from his great height at up-glancing Harry Hopkins, who had just arrived in London from the very centre of Washington's councils and who knows at least as many of Franklin Roosevelt's secrets as Lord Halifax knows of his Prime Minister's. The British press promptly hailed New Dealer Hopkins for refusing to bed in a London air-raid shelter, for getting up early and eating "a good breakfast with some good American coffee" in his room at Claridge's, for taking good-humoredly his British valet's suggestion that he buy plenty of English-type white shirts without attached collars and get himself some long woolen underwear.

Personal Envoy Hopkins was soon sitting in the U. S. Embassy at the desk vacated by Joe Kennedy. To correspondents he admitted that he knew whom the President will shortly appoint as U. S. Ambassador to the Court of St. James's, but "it won't be me." After these preliminaries Mr. Hopkins saw new British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden and got to the point of his visit in three hours spent with Winston Churchill, another half-hour with George VI. Said Personal Envoy Hopkins afterward: "I have no misgivings about the outcome of this war. There is going to be a united and altogether successful effort in the production of defense materials to be used by ourselves, Great Britain, Greece and China."

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