Next Stop

The train of events which the U.S. had set in motion in North Africa moved ineluctably ahead. How fast it would go, and how far, no man could say. But the nation got a broad hint of the timetable in a significant utterance by future-minded Assistant Secretary-of State Adolf A. Berle Jr.

At an Italian-American dinner in Manhattan, Adolf Berle spoke to about 400 Americans and anti-Fascist refugees. But his words were meant for the ears of 45,000,000 bewildered, tired and unhappy people 5,000 miles away. Hardly had the sound died down when they were repeated, via short-wave radio, to the people of Italy.

Said Adolf Berle:

"As the march of dictatorship began in the Mediterranean, so the march of freedom has at length begun there.

"In this new military situation, Italy once more enters the valley of decision. She must decide whether she will exhaust her remaining men, and let her nationhood ebb out as servant of a decaying Nazi state, or whether she will cleanse herself from the evil into which her Fascists have led her. . . .

"We in America insist on hoping that the day will come when we can once more welcome into the brotherhood of civilization a free and friendly Italian nation, giving again to the world the fruit of her shining culture and her splendid traditions.

"... The Italian people now, while the struggle is in progress, can give unquestioned evidence that the philosophy of conquest and force has been conclusively put aside, by joining the struggle against Nazi and Fascist tyranny. . . .

"To those true patriots who undertake the liberation of Italy we say, you do not act alone. The armies of America and the United Nations are close at hand."

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