Tough Talk

Steely-haired, steel-wise Edward R. Stettinius Jr. went after enemy steel.

His talks in London with Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden were quickly followed by diplomatic action. Simultaneous U.S.British notes cracked down on neutrals supplying Germany with ball bearings, chromium, tungsten. Toughening their attitudes, the Allies emphasized Cordell Hull's warning that neutrals must abandon munitions trade with Germany or face the consequences.

Startled Sweden. Hemmed, trade-conscious Sweden received its warning with a surprised gasp. Giant, Swedish-owned SKF (Svenska Kullager-fabriken) has had its Schweinfurt and Paris factories blitzed by American bombers; but others, in Sweden, kept on turning out ball bearings for the Nazi war machines. Swedes had thought that their iron-ore and ball-bearing trade with Germany had U.S.-British blessing; both Allies approved the revised Swedish-German trade pact last January.* If deprived of U.S. gasoline Swedes would suffer, but not so much as if they gave up German coal. Likely Swedish answer: a pained, determined NO!

Whirling Turk. Vacillating Turkey vacillated again. Turkish chrome is a vital element in ball bearings, many other steel products. Of late it has moved to Nazi-land in increasing tonnage. Last week Turkey's Foreign Minister Numan Menomencioglu hardly took time to read an Allied protest before calling in the correspondents for a bout of oil-slick doubletalk. Said he: "I had an interview today with the British and American Ambassadors (Sir Hughe Montgomery Knatchbull-Hugessen and Laurence Steinhardt). They each gave me a note and we exchanged views in the most friendly spirit ... of collaboration which characterizes our relations.... I can say no more. . . . We will . . . aid the Allies to the limit of our material possibilities." This week there was a report that German chrome-trade licenses had been suspended.

Persistent Spain. Long-drawn, indecisive talks with slippery little Caudillo Francisco Franco made no visible progress despite recent misinformation to the contrary. Already cut off from U.S. oil, Spain seized Anglo-U.S. oil stocks in Tetuan, Spanish Morocco, on the pretext that Spanish taxes had not been paid. The U.S. and Britain protested, but Spanish tungsten continued to flow into Germany for high-speed tools and armor-piercing shells.

It appeared the toughening Allies would have to get tougher still.

* International law on the trade rights of neutrals is vague, unrevised since 1907. In cynical practice, what they can get away with is legal.

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