Private Ambassador

Wendell Willkie got the Presidential blessing last week for another trip. At his own suggestion, he will visit Russia and China, with stopovers in Egypt, Turkey, Arabia, Palestine, Syria, Iran and Iraq. Since the U.S. will be drawn into ever closer cooperation with these countries, Mr. Willkie said, he wants to know the countries and their leaders better.

Franklin Roosevelt had let his press conference believe that Willkie was, in effect, going on a Presidential mission (see above}. In his brief case Wendell Willkie will carry letters from Franklin Roosevelt to various officials including Joseph Stalin and Generalissimo Chiang Kaishek. But no one who knew the big lawyer thought he was going only as a Presidential errand boy. Willkie wants to see for himself. So he is going to China, which necessarily means a stop in India, the hottest spot of all. And the U.S. could be assured that Willkie would report to the people as well as the President.

With him will go Gardner Cowles, Elmer Davis' associate in the OWI, and brother of John Cowles, who accompanied Willkie to England; and Joseph Barnes, former Moscow correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune, now chief of the International Press and Radio Bureau of OWI's Overseas Branch.

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