"There Will Always Be a Russia"

A chill deadlier than winter's struck the U.S. last week--the chill of repeated Russian defeat and retreat (see p. 23). As Hitler's pincers hooked their talons toward Moscow, the eyes of the U.S. turned inevitably to the White House. In answer to that mute demand, the President this week made a formal statement.

"The President announced today that within the past few days large amounts of supplies have been sent to Russia. He further stated that all of the munitions, including tanks, airplanes and trucks, promised at the Moscow conference for delivery in October will be sent to Russia before the end of the month.

"These supplies are leaving United States ports constantly.

"The staffs in the Army and the Maritime Commission have worked over the past week end rushing supplies to the seaboard, and everything possible is being done to send the material to Russia to help the brave defense which continues to be made."

Mr. Roosevelt did not disclose the specific amounts promised or sent, nor the shipment routes (Archangel or Vladivostok--see map). But earlier he had told Congressional leaders that Russian armies were far from defeat; that the Russians would not sell out or make peace to avoid further battering, that the Russians would somehow last through the winter, that he believed they would withdraw behind the Volga River. He based his faith, he said, on Harry Hopkins' report from Russia, and on the estimated 40% of Russian manufacturing that lay in the Ural Mountains and eastward.

This was news, and this was optimism. With Nazi troops now battering along the last hundred miles to Moscow, the Archangel railroad in the north was threatened. All but two rail lines from the south, the Black Sea area, had been cut off, and the Nazis were on their way. Again U.S. aid might be too little and too late. There remained Vladivostok--and that was a long, long way from Moscow (5,000 miles of inferior railroad and foul weather) or from wherever the Russian Army must be kept supplied and fighting. And U.S. aid thus far, in four months of fierce Russian resistance, had consisted of 200 to 300 bombers (some diverted from Britain), four tankers of oil to Vladivostok in September.

As it had with each dying country, the U.S. hoped against hope. In spite of the President's sanguine words, Russia's situation was patently desperate. Adolf Hitler was beating the last big, well-equipped Army that opposed him on the continent of Europe.

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