Kidnapper Foiled?

Up from his desk in the U. S. Senate one day last week rose round-shouldered, wraithlike Homer Truett Bone. Loudly he wondered why "the stubbornness of one man" (Franklin Delano Roosevelt) should be allowed to imperil the lives of 900 American refugees bound for the U. S. from Finland aboard the U. S. Army transport American Legion. The State Department gave no official explanation of why the route of the American Legion was not changed after Germany refused to guarantee her safe conduct through mined British waters north of Scotland.

In London last week, after the ship had safely left the danger zone. Newscaster Vladimir Poliakoff ("Augur") offered an explanation: Washington was neatly thwarting a Nazi kidnap attempt. His story:

After the conquest of Norway, Ger many planned to sweep the whole dynasty of King Haakon from the throne. But the King and Crown Prince escaped to Britain, the Crown Princess and the royal grand children to Sweden. Norway's quisling, Major Vidkun Quisling, demanded that King Haakon renounce the crown for him self and his descendants. Haakon politely refused. Germany intrigued to get Crown Prince Olav to replace his father on the throne, but Olav would have none of it. Then Crown Princess Martha in Sweden was offered a regency in the name of her son, Prince Harald. To escape political pressure she boarded the American Legion for the U. S., by personal invitation of President Roosevelt. In ruthless last-minute audacity Germany had tried to postpone the sailing by a dispute over the route, had tried to get the American Legion to take a northern route where it could be waylaid by a submarine, and Martha and her son kidnapped.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.