WASHINGTON AMAZED

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 227, 22 June 1944, Page 6

WASHINGTON AMAZED

British Minister’s Speech (Received June 21, 11 p.m,) WASHINGTON, June 21. Stunned amazement was official Washington’s first reaction to reports of a speech by the Minister of Production, Captain Lyttelton, at the American Chambers of Commerce luncheon in London, in which he said that the United States had provoked Tokio into the war. stated Glen Perry in the New York “Sun.” Mr, Bloom, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives,* 1 took violent exception, commenting thy there was absolutely no truth in Captain Lyttelton’s statement. Mr. Bloom added: “If he really did speak as quoted, Captain Lyttelton is a very dangerous man to occupy the position he now holds,” Representative Eaton, a prominent Republican member of the committee, took an attitude which diplomats regarded as sound, when he said: “We could no more escape getting into this war than a ship can escape water. Germany got us in. The only way we can get out is to defeat both.

Mr. Perry adds that while Mr. Eaton’s view probably prevails in Washington, the fact remains that Captain Lyttelton’s alleged remark is raising a considerable storm. It will be worse before it is better.

The Secretary of State, Mr. Cordell Hull, in a statement in Washington, said that unfortunately Captain Lyttelton’s statement was entirely in error as to the facts and failed to state the true attitude of the United States, both during ■the earlier stages of military preparations for world conquest by Japan and Germany, and during the later aggressions by these countries. “This Government, from beginning to end, was actuated by a policy of self-defence against the rapidly increasing danger to this nation,” ho said.

The aid given to Great Britain and other countries resisting conquest was, in the words of lend-lease, “vital to the defence of the United States." Japan for years had notoriously pursued a programme of the widest conquest.

MINISTER EXPLAINS Very Different Intention In Address (Received June 22, 1.25 a.m.) LONDON, June 21. Giving a personal explanation in the House of. Commons about his address to the American Chamber of Commerce yesterday, Captain Lyttelton said he was trying in parenthesis to make clear’ Britain’s gratitude for the help given her in the war against Germany before Japan attacked the United States. The words he used had seemed to suggest that that help provoked Japan to attack the United States; this was manifestly untrue, “I want to make it quite clear that I do not complain of being misreported, and that any misunderstanding was entirely my fault,” he said. "I ask the Commons to believe that the fault was one of expression and not intention. I hope the apology will undo any harm the original words may have caused here or in the United States.”