MENACED NATIONS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 July 1941, Page 6

MENACED NATIONS

MR SUMNER WELLES’S STATEMENT REPLY TO GENERAL FRANCO. CONSEQUENCES OF NAZI VICTORY. (Received This Day, 1.5 p.m.) WASHINGTON, July 21. The Associated Press of America says Mr Sumner Welles (Assistant Secretary of State) in disclosing that the United States had evidence that further aggression was . planned by the Nazis on European nations still independent, did not explain which countries were about to be attacked, but obviously he referred to Spain and Portugal and possibly to Switzerland and Turkey. Mr Welles disclosed that the United States had promised full support to Bolivia, in the event of an international incident arising from the attempted Nazi coup. Mr Welles also referred to the sharp attack upon the United States by General Franco last week, in Which General Franco asserted that American offers of economic help to Spain alvzays involved attempts to force Spain to obey the will of other nations. Mr Welles said it was entirely imtrue that supplies of food and medicines sent to Spain by the American Red Cross were contingent upon any policy except that the Spanish people should remain at peace. AnsweringGeneral Franco on the consequences cf a Nazi victory, Mr Welles pointed cut that if control of the Atlantic and ether seas passed to unfriendly powers, the independence of the American re-

publics would be gravely endangered. Their present security and prosperity were founded on the fact that such seas were controlled by friendly powers.