"Force with Force"

This week President Roosevelt addressed the U. S. and its sister Republics in the Western Hemisphere: "In this association of nations, whoever touches any one of us touches all of us.

. . . We have only asked that the world go with us in the path of peace. But we shall be able to keep that way open only if we are prepared to meet force with force if challenge is ever made. . . . We [have] worked out ways and means of keeping war away from this hemisphere. I pray God that we shall not have to do more than that; but should it be necessary, I am convinced that we would be wholly successful." When Mr. Roosevelt spoke (by radio), war in Scandinavia was seven days old, and its westward impact was heavy upon him. During the first fogged days of battle (see p. 19), he and his military advisers wondered whether their profound dependence on the British fleet for protection in the Atlantic was misplaced. British successes later eased that fear, but a tremor remained. For the Allies, Washington speeded export of the newest U. S. fighting planes. Latest, possibly the fastest (over 425 m.p.h.), was a beetle-like, twin-engined, multi-gunned Grumman fighter designed for the Navy and offered last week to the French.

When Germany took Denmark, Adolf Hitler acquired (and emphatically disavowed) technical title to Denmark's Greenland--a vast (827,275 sq. mi.), arctic bloc only about 1,250 miles from northernmost Maine, well within the Monroe Doctrine's continental sphere. Mr. Roosevelt's advisers did not think the Nazis, with their already overtaxed fleet, could break past the British and use Greenland for a base during World War II.

But the State Department pondered: what of Greenland, with its unexploited riches and its strategic nearness to the U. S., if Hitler wins his war and claims his western spoils? And what of the imperiled Netherlands, whose Dutch West Indies and Dutch Guiana (on the northern hump of South America) lie within 1,500 air miles of the Panama Canal? This week the State Department seriously considered a cooperative, Pan-American protectorate over these Dutch possessions, if Wilhelmina's land should fall to the Nazis.

Rote. Last week the State Department (and, presumably, the diplomats most concerned) were caught with their heads in their diplomatic pouches. For a week the Department had expected a Nazi grab at Denmark and Norway--b,ut not before May 1. The night Hitler jumped the gun, Norway's slight, long-nosed Minister Wilhelm Munthe de Morgenstierne paid a midnight visit to Assistant Secretary of State Adolf Berle. A telephone call from busy Mr. Berle woke Cordell Hull at 1 a.m.: Franklin Roosevelt was allowed to sleep on until 3 a.m. A special train was waiting to return the President to Washington by nightfall. Secretary Hull rushed back. So did Denmark's greying, baronial Minister Henrik de Kauffmann, who was visiting in Charleston, S. C.

One afternoon a crow perched over the State Department entrance reserved for diplomats. As Great Britain's Ambassador, the Marquess of Lothian, strode in, the crow cawed. A little crowd of onlookers laughed. Up the steps, through the door walked tall, tanned Hans Thomsen of Germany. Caw, caw, went the crow. Henrik de Kauffmann followed later. Caw, caw. Embattled Norway's Mr. de Morgenstierne, then Sweden's Wollmar Filip Bostrom came and went. Caw, caw. The superstitious crowd no longer laughed.

The black wings over Cordell Hull's doorway fitted well with the mood over Washington and the U. S. Had not the drama and the villain been seen before, the lines known to the audience almost by heart? Last week the President of the U. S., receiving the Ministers of Denmark and Norway, did not hide his sympathy for them and their countries. The 1,500,000-odd Scandamericans in the U. S. prayed, raised relief funds, damned Hitler (and Great Britain, whom many taxed with provoking the invasion).

Mr. Roosevelt observed that this latest Blitzkrieg should make the U. S. people think seriously about the potentialities of World War II. Thanks to his and Secretary Hull's slightly awry foresight, the President had only to reach into the files, pull out and brush up proclamations and orders already prepared to orient the U. S. to World War II's greater scope. As though by rote, Roosevelt & Hull:

> Added seven major ports to the European sea zone from which U. S. shipping and travelers are banned. U. S. vessels must now stay out of all Scandinavian waters up to the Arctic Circle, may go nowhere in Europe excepting Spain and Portugal on the Atlantic, a few neutral ports in the Mediterranean.

> Forbade withdrawals or transfers of Danish and Norwegian gold stocks, cash balances, credits in the U. S. (see p. 79), except by permission of the Treasury Department. Object: to keep from Adolf Hitler 1) $20,000,000 in Export-Import Bank credits recently granted Denmark and Norway; 2) private moneys, credits and goods whose Scandinavian owners might be forced to disgorge to the Nazis.

> Warned Great Britain and Germany alike that the only three U. S. vessels (the freighters Flying Fish, Charles R. McCormick, Mormacsea) in Scandinavian ports last week must have safe passage home.

> Arranged to evacuate 552 U. S. citizens from Denmark, 1,067 from Norway, and (if need be) 1,752 from menaced Sweden.

Two more routine acts remained to be done: i) a neutrality proclamation, recognizing Nazi conquest in Denmark, war in Norway, and forbidding all three, as belligerents, to buy on credit in the U. S.; 2) a statement denouncing the Nazis. At week's end, the neutrality proclamation was still unmade. For four days Mr. Roosevelt also withheld the statement. When he did speak last week, he did not name Germany. His words were for-the-record echoes of all that a U. S. President could say and had already said for Austria, Czecho-Slovakia, Albania, Poland, Finland. ("If civilization is to survive, the rights of the smaller nations . . . must be respected by their more powerful neighbors"). The complacent Nazis considered his statement harmless enough to print in Copenhagen. To the U. S. people, President Roosevelt sounded like a bystander who is tired of talking at Adolf Hitler.

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