Another Norway

As Adolf Hitler's Armies slogged toward Moscow last week (see p. 17), Representative Warren Magnuson of Seattle, Wash, was thinking about Alaska. Mr. Magnuson's thoughts were not as far-fetched as they may have seemed. They were based on the following strategic and geographic facts: 1) if Hitler beats Russia, he gets the Trans-Siberian Railway; 2) whoever has the Trans-Siberian Railway controls Siberia; 3) Siberia is little more than a Cyclopean stone's throw from Alaska.

From Big Diomede Island, where Russia has a new air base, to rocky Little Diomede, which belongs to the U.S., is less than five miles. With Russia's Siberian bases in German hands, Alaska could become another Norway. Congress has authorized $90,000,000 for Alaskan defense, expects to appropriate from $10,000,000 to $15,000,000 more in the next few months. The Army is hard at work building new airfields; Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox said the Navy's new base at Dutch Harbor, in the Aleutian Islands, will be ready Sept. 1.* But air and naval bases alone cannot transport or supply the kind of army that would be needed to protect Alaska from invasion.

Ever since his election in 1936, Warren Magnuson has been trying to get Congressional funds for a highway from Seattle to Alaska. He is chairman of the Alaskan International Highway Commission, has helped survey the wild terrain through which the road would pass, has flown over every mile of the proposed route.

Cost of a gravel-top road, under a bill introduced in the House by Delegate Anthony Joseph Dimond of Alaska, would be about $25,000,000--roughly the price of a new 10,000-ton cruiser. Until last week the whole plan sounded pretty far-fetched to the House. But with Hitler's shadow coming east against the sun, it began to look as if others besides Warren Magnuson might begin to think about Alaska.

*State Department officials this week emphatically denied a story that the U. S. is working on a deal with Russia to acquire the use of Siberia's air bases.

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