BYRNES WARNS OF POSSIBLE EARLY INTERNATIONAL CRISIS

Chronicle (Levin), 15 March 1948, Page 5

BYRNES WARNS OF POSSIBLE EARLY INTERNATIONAL CRISIS

( N.Z.P.A. -

-Re-tiier*

QomriQUt)

Reeeived Sunday, 7.50 p.m: NEW ¥OEK; March 1- 8. Mr, James Byrnes, former Secretary of State,vtoday called for the independenee of Greeee, Turkey, France or Italy. American action, "not a letter of protest," should Russia threaten Warning* that the United States may have to meet an international ciisis ' ' only fpur or fiye weeks from now,", he said it was possible that the Russian threat might require intervention before the elections in Italy- on April 18. Mr. Byrnes emphasised that he was expressing only his own- views and that he had not consulted President Truman or Mr. Marshall. Mr. Byrnes, who was addreSsing the Charleston* Military Academy graduating* elass, proposed among other things an immediate increase of the array strength, increased appropriations fpr the air force, a warning to Russia that indirect aggression will bring.a demand for United Nations action and that the United States itself will "act immediately" to maintain the status quo till the Security Council investigates, and that the United States should forget the desire to limit armaments until Russia stops her expansion moves. Mr. Byrnes said that the United States was not prepared to meet a world crisis, but expressed the hope that it would prepare. Meanwhile the Sunday papers in New York continue to reflect the growing uneasiness over the state of world affairs. The Herald-Tribune's Washington correspondent reports that "to a reporter who returned after four weeks "away from'Washipgton it is a pity that the city has suffered a bad attack of the jitters," and cites as one of the reasons '.'the real alarjn- over the state of international affairs." . The columnists Joseph and Stewart Alsop state that there is real reason .to believe that Mr. Marshall 's rec&nt appeal for cairn was aimed primarily at Mr. Stalin because among Mr. Marshall's advisers there is a deep conyiction that the real danger of war rests simply in .the fact that the Kremlin is relying wholly on distorted accounts of the situation in America and is therefore uadoubtedly underestimating the gravity of American reaction to such events as the coup in Czechoslovakia. • The columnist Drew Pearson says 'wires have been sent to a large number of reserve officers to be reacly if there is trouble and that Army representatives have visited key plants and inquired about plahs for rapid conversion. The Daily News' Washington correspondent reports that the military chiefs have abandoned the hopeful theory that the Soviet would not start trouble until they had atom bombs, and they now believe ' ' anything can happen in a matter of weeks or months. ' '

Both President Truman and AIi*. Marshall have been .endeavouring in ])ublic- aimouneements during* Ihe past l'ew* days to mahitahi the jxdple's appreciation oi' the .-w.-i-ousness oi' the deteriorathig intefnat'umal .situation. while at the sanie time seeking to prevent the ' nation 's emotions getting *out of hand, says Router's "Washingtoh correspondent. Tlie effect of the ])i*oiiouneenients . appearing in a headlino-eonseious press and a ('rama-eonseious radio 'have been epp site l'rom vvhat they intended. I'bnothmal alarm has been in-iensif'-ed withont a c.orresponoling appreciation even in Cong'ress of the detailed praetiqal and immediate needsof the international situation. Jt is believed that the qiiestioii of Tnited States eooperation with tlie Western JOuropean I'iiion was diseussed by Cabinet ■ today. The Xew Yoi'k Times' writer (.James Roston ) said today that State Department ofiieials eoncede tliat the danger to the United States is not opou war, and that Ihe problem is not how to eonibat 1 1 1 ( Dommunist ideology and tht mareh of the Soviet Army to the \ves1 . . The danger is in the Uom munist 1eehni(pie of step-by-step iniilt l'ation into the Uniun's poliee and (inally power over tlie (Jovcriiiiiciii anl the whole populaee.