Axis to Axis

For the first time since the present game of international power politics began in 1931 (when Japan seized Manchuria) the London-Washington Axis dealt the cards last week. With growing concern the Berlin-Rome-Tokyo Axis watched them fall. The removal of the moral embargo against Russia (see p. 11) may have been only a nine-spot, but the missions of such men as Harry Hopkins, Wild Bill Donovan (see p. 21) and Wendell Willkie (see p. 16) might turn up jacks or better. The unprecedented welcome President Roosevelt gave Lord Halifax (see p. 11) was an ace with which the Lend-Lease Bill would neatly pair.

To the Berlin-Rome-Tokyo Axis it looked as if the London-Washington Axis were dealing from the bottom of the deck. An angry cry went up. The Italian radio sneered that President Roosevelt had "lowered himself" by going to meet an Ambassador. In Popolo d'ltalia Journal ist Luigi Barzini assured his countrymen that "in the crucial period of the war--not too remote--Great Britain will have received only a few thousand planes" from the U. S.

In Berlin the reaction was more thoughtful. The Foreign Office periodical Berlin-Rome-Tokyo published a long arti cle solemnly denying that its Axis planned to attack the U. S.. as solemnly accused the U. S. of trying to provoke an attack. "This is the hour when the Three-Power Pact of Berlin has found its renewed, final justification as a powerful instrument of common defense against aggression," wrote Berlin-Rome-Tokyo. "Whoever feels himself affected . . . has aggressive intentions. Nor does President Roosevelt make any concealment of these intentions. His only worry is that the nations of the Three-Power Pact do not permit themselves to be provoked. . . . If peaceful relations between two of the largest nations in the world be thus cynically destroyed, Germany does not want with one word to take responsibility for such a crime."

In Tokyo Foreign Minister Yosuke Matsuoka took Cordell Hull to task for saying that the invasion of Manchuria was the first step in the destruction of world peace (TIME, Jan. 27). "The Manchurian affair," said talky, U. S.-educated Mr. Matsuoka (Oregon, '00), "was not the cause but the result of Anglo-Saxon interference in the Far East." As the Diet met to vote the Konoye Government unprecedented powers and an unprecedented $1,611,432,400 budget (not counting war expenses), the Foreign Minister found himself on his feet most of the time. He said everything he had ever said before about the U. S., including the charge that the U. S. is trying to "intervene" in East Asia, and ended his most vocal week with the statement: "As long as the United States regards China instead of the East Pacific as its first line of defense, just so long will friendly relations remain an idle dream."

In such an atmosphere Japan's new Ambassador to the U. S., one-eyed Admiral Kichisaburo Nomura, sailed for San Francisco with six glass eyes and a three-point policy. The policy: 1) Japan wall stick to the alliance with Germany and Italy; 2) Japan will be boss of the Far East; 3) if the U. S. will accept Points 1 and 2, Japan will try to be friends.

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