WARNINGS PRECEDING PEARL HARBOUR

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 19, 18 October 1943, Page 4

WARNINGS PRECEDING PEARL HARBOUR

Claim By Mr. Willkie

NEAV YORK, October 15.. Criticizing the Administration’s failure to heed the warning of the Ambassador in Tokio, Air. J. C. Grew, Air. Wendell AVillkie, in a speech at St. Louis claimed that this information was not imparted to the people, on the assumption that diplomacy must be secret. “Yet all the concealment and appeasement through fear of aggravation did not delay the menace one jot,” he said. “The only result was that we as a nation remained unwarned and unprepared. If the people had been given the facts they might have been wiser than their leaders. Perhaps if today the Administration gave us the facts of our diplomatic relations with Britain, Russia, China, France and Italy the people would come to a wiser conclusion than their leaders will reach behind closed dors.

“We were unprepared mentally and physically for Pearl Harbour. Similarly, we are now unprepared for what will come after the war. America must be willing to bear its share of any military effort to prevent or repel aggression. Military power and force alone are not a full and final answer. The real foundation of peace must be economic. Finally, any plan for peace with half a chance of success must be built on a world basis. — “America must bear its share of any military effort after the war to prevent or repel aggression. . . . All the world turns to her for leadership. I should like to see this country exercise its utmost qualities of leadership and moral force to bring Britain, Russia, China and the United States to a point of understanding where they will make a joint declaration of intention as a preliminary . to forming a common council of the United Nations and friendly nations, and eventually all nations.’’