CHINA VISIT ENDED

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 20913, 13 October 1942, Page 5

CHINA VISIT ENDED

MR. WENPELL WILLKIE PRESIDENT'S COMMENT (11 a.m.) NEW YORK, Oct. 11. Mr. Wendell Willkie has concluded his visit to. .China an d ky air - . The' "Chungking correspondent of the Flew York Times says that Mr. Willkie inspected the war front in the Honan provin.ee, visiting the most strategic stronghold northward of the bend of the Yellow River, where the Japanese have made 31 unsuccessful attempts to cross in five years. RJr. Willkie and party, including newsmen who have spent years in China, expressed surprise at the unexpected excellence and efficiency of the defence works and equipment and the rhorple of the troops. President Roosevelt told a press conference that he assumed Mr. Willkie was carrying out extremely well’ the duties the President had asked him to perform and added that everything was all right on Mr. Willkie’s trip as far a s the President was copcernpd, but he declared that the trip had been used politically. “The United States Government entirely sympathises that the statement of Mr. Willkie that all Asiatic nations must have unqualified independence after the war,” says the Christian Science Monitor. Although Mr. Willkie did not speak as the President’s special emissary, it is fair to assume that this point was discussed between them before Mr. Willkie left. Whatever the reaction to Mr. Willkie’s statement, it is safe to say that the Administration in its heart does not repudiate it.”