OF SUPREME VALUE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 September 1943, Page 4

OF SUPREME VALUE

ANGLO-AMERICAN WAR CO-OPERATION MUST CONTINUE LONG AFTER VICTORY. SPEECH BY MR CHURCHILL AT HARVARD. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 10.0 a.m.) RUGBY, September 6. The British Prime Minister (Mr Churchill) arrived in Boston this morning and received an honourary degree of Harvard from the University’s President, Mr Conant, states a Washington message. In a speech, Mr Churchill spoke of the link between the two great nations, the United States and Britain. By way of example, he described the methods of working of the war chiefs, saying we had in continual and vigorous action a British’and United States Combined Chiefs of Staff Committee, which worked immediately under the President and himself.

This committee, with its elaborate organisation of staff officers of every grade, disposed of all our resources, and in fact used British and American troops, ships, aircraft and munitions as if they were the resources of a single nation, “I would not say there are never divergencies of view,” Mr Churchill said. “It would be unnatural if there were not—that is why it is necessary to have these meetings every two or three months. All these men know each other, trust each other and like each other, and most have worked together for a long time. When they meet they thrash things out with great candour and plain and blunt speaking, and after a few days the President and I find ourselves furnished with sincere and united advice. There was nothing like it in the last war. Indeed there has never been anything like it between two Allies. It is reproduced in an even more tightlyknit form at General Eisenhower's Headquarters, where everything is completely intermingled and soldiers are ordered into battle by the Supreme Commander, or his deputy, General Alexander, without the slightest regard for whether they are British, American or Canadian, but simply in accordance' with fighting needs. In my opinion it would be a most foolish and improvident act on the part of our two Governments for either of them to break up this smooth-running and immensely powerful machinery the moment the war is over. For our own security, as well as for the security of the rest of the world, we are bound to keep it working and in running orderafter the war, probably for a good many years. We must not let go of the securities we have found necessary to preserve our lives and liberties until we are quite sure we have something else to put in their place which would give us an equally solid guarantee.”

The fact that the British and American people spoke the same language had enabled Britain and the United States to wage war together, Mr Churchill said. It was a priceless inheritance and might well some day become the foundation of a common citizenship.