To Bomb or Not to Bomb

Last week Axis planes raided Cairo, cultural center of the Moslem world. This act brought Great Britain face to face with a crucial decision: to bomb Rome or not to bomb Rome.

Last April Britain warned Italy that if Athens or Cairo were raided, Rome would be bombed "as convenient, to the end of the war." Berlin's communique on last week's bombing said that an airfield near Cairo was raided, hangars and munitions dumps destroyed. But from Cairo it was reported that bombs had spread wider over the city, killing 39, wounding 93.

Both Cairo and Rome are sprinkled with places of worship. Cairo's Citadel, the stateliest group of mosques in the city, is to Moslems what Rome's St. Peter's is to Christians. El Azhar, the chief theological seminary of the Islamic world, is about the counterpart of the Vatican.

The British had to choose between two evils. If they gave the Egyptians their tooth for a tooth and bombed Rome, they might precipitate mass raids on panicky Cairo. If they did not bomb Rome, they might keep Cairo running smoothly as center of their Middle Eastern campaigns but British prestige would suffer a further dip in Islam's eyes.

For a brief moment it looked as if Britain had chosen retaliation and prestige. London suggested that the Vatican be lighted so that R.A.F. bombs would not hit the area. Since Mussolini would object strenuously if Vatican lights acted as beacons, the Vatican remained dark.

With the Pope and Myron Taylor, President Roosevelt's envoy, talking peace aims at the Vatican, Britain thought again. London mumbled that only suburbs of Cairo had been bombed.

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