AMERICAN MOVE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 February 1943, Page 4

AMERICAN MOVE

TO DRIVE ITALY FROM WAR AND ENSURE THE NEUTRALITY OF IBERIA. WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT’S STORY. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 1.0 p.m.) NEW YORK, February 18. A co-ordinated American move apparently is underway, to drive Italy from the war and to ensure neutrality of Spain and Portugal, says the “Her-ald-Tribune’s” Washington correspondent. The strategy entails the gaining of freedom of action against Germany in the Mediterranean theatre, by Italy’s abandonment of the Axis or, failing this, the neutralising of the Iberian Peninsula, thus protecting the Allies’ flank in North Africa. Events indicating the progress of these aims include: Firstly, Mr Elmer Davis’s admission that Italy is aiming peace feelers at Britain and America; secondly, the voyage of the New York Archbishop Francis Spellman -.-to the Vatican, via Madrid, where he conferred with General Franco. Archbishop Spellman saw President Roosevelt before his departure from the United States. He will have an opportunity to talk to Axis representatives at the Holy See; thirdly, a forthcoming meeting between General Franco and Senor Salazar, to sign an Iberian neutrality bloc pact; fourthly, the impending arrival at Washington of General Juan Beigbader, a member of the Spanish General Staff.