ALLIED COUNCIL

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 106, 29 January 1943, Page 5

ALLIED COUNCIL

Casablanca Opens New War Phase POSSIBLE SCOPE OF TALKS (British Official Wireless and Press Assn.) RUGBY, January 27. The great news of the meeting between Mr. Churchill and President Roosevelt made an enormous impression in London. The time and place of the meeting would have sufficed to indicate that this was a council of historic moment, says “The Times,” apart from the long list of names of the highest ranking officers who accompanied the leaders. “The Tinies” adds: “Mr. Roosevelt crossed the ocean to make good the promise he uttered long before his country entered the war, that civilization should not be allowed to perish. “The meeting of Generals Giraud and de Gaulle looks far ahead to the day when all France shall be free, while Its immediate promise is for the resolution of the confused politics in North Africa. Casablanca would hardly have been chosen as the place of assembly if this were not also the immediate preoccupation of a wider conference. On the swift expulsion of the enemy from his remaining strongholds in Tunisia depends every plan for the reduction of the European fortress in 1943.” “The Times” considers that un-U-boat menace must also have been one of the major subjects discussed. “Provided only that this deadly menace is warded off,” it says, “the Allied leaders are able to go forward into the new year with the certainty that the war for survival Is ended and that the war for victory and for the creation of a new world has begun.” Mystery and Rumours. “The conviction is growing among those who were present at the RooseveltChurchill press conference that the leaders dealt with more than the ’unconditional surrender’ statement,” says the Algiers correspondent of the BritishUnited Press. “Mr. Roosevelt would not have dared to risk the 6000-mile plane journey merely for a heart talk with Mr. Churchill or to review past and coming events. The British and American combined staffs could have done that without the presence of the leaders. “An air of mystery surrounded the meetings from the first. There were rumours that Italian and Spanish and even Finnish and Turkish delegates were present. It is suggested that these representatives were not to be invited to join the Allies, but were to he shown the might of the United Nations and left to make up their minds about which side they should join.” Ward Price, of the “Daily Mail,” says: "Close observation of the personages principally concerned revealed an rir of secret satisfaction which is hardly justified by what was given to the world. One may expect what sort of developments might produce such a mood. The importance of the meeting may yet be even further enhanced.”

r The London “Star,” in a leader, says; “We have some regrets about the conference. The long-desired United Nations permanent contact council is still lacking. In addition, something more definite than a handshake between the French generals is needed before lhe unhappy political situation in North Africa is straightened out.” Allied Unity Need.

“The conference completed plans for the 1943 campaign, but has fallen short of the prophecies which have come from Washington in the past week,” says the “Daily Herald.” “Decisions were taken and announced in the interests of all, yet the impression remains that eloser uniflcation of strategy between Britain, the United States, Russia and China is possible and urgently desirable.” The “New York Times” refsrs to Mr. Roosevelt’s visit to Casablanca ns a bold and brilliant stroke of leadership, and adds that a historian writing many years hence is certain to conclude that Mr. Roosevelt's voyage was in fact a token act that sealed the inescapable participation of the United States in world affairs.

The “Daily Mail” says: “The inference from the determined wording of the communique is that tremendous events are moving and that they may break in the near future. . . . For length and thoroughness' there has been nothing like this meeting in military or political annals.” The meeting was 1 described today by Mr. Stephen Early, President Roosevelt’s secretary, as “the end of lhe first chapter.” There has been no Russian comment so far.

A New Delhi correspondent says there is some regret in India that nothing more definite was stated about Japan, though there is no doubt that the United Nations are ns determined In smash Japan as they are Germany and Italy. Lord Halifax. British Ambassador to Washington, said: "Casablanca speaks for itself, and the Axis will know what it means in 1943,”