Planning Ahead

The White House routine went on. The President did his work adequately, shoring up his domestic defenses just enough to hold a bit longer. But the U.S. was not watching him; and he was not watching the U.S. All eyes were on Tunisia.

To Casablanca's history of words, the more durable history of deeds was now being added. The first real victory over Nazi troops was in the making (see p. 16).

Franklin Roosevelt, planning ahead, looked to his military "eyes." The eyes, better known as Brigadier General Patrick J. Hurley, the President now recalled from the post of Minister to New Zealand. He assigned General Hurley as a "utility man" in the Middle East. Next he prepared to send New York City's bumptious little Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia overseas, presumably as a brigadier general (see p. 12) to North Africa.

Diplomatic Front. To the White House went British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, for the culmination of the extraordinarily cautious visit begun three weeks ago. For two hours and 15 minutes Franklin Roosevelt and Anthony Eden talked high diplomacy. They were flanked by Secretary of State Cordell Hull, Under Secretary Sumner Welles, Ambassador John G. Winant, British Ambassador Viscount Halifax.

The range of this full-dress exploratory conference was not discovered by any Washington reporter. But certainly if the Allies were going ahead militarily, they must be in agreement diplomatically. North Africa had shown the need.

Domestic Front. Franklin Roosevelt might have preferred to keep his eyes turned east all last week. He could not. On the home front, long neglected, another kind of crisis clamored for attention. Food shortages were a national bellyache. Meat and butter rationing had begun. Farmers begged and pleaded for help (see p. 12). Franklin Roosevelt had "solved" the food problem just three months ago, by transforming Secretary of Agriculture Claude Wickard into a Food Czar. Now he gave Wickard's power to hardheaded Chester C. Davis (see col. 2).

This time the President seemed really determined to help one of his domestic czars make good. At his press conference next day, he conceded that the Administration had made mistakes on the food front. He promised specific help to farmers: 1) more machinery, 2) deferment of 3,000,000 farm laborers from the draft this year, 3) a "land army" of students, women, part-time workers, 4) temporary Army furloughs, to help out at peak periods. But at last Franklin Roosevelt had been really prodded by a domestic defeat, was really looking for a new strategy.

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