State of the Union

This was the week when Franklin Roosevelt must deliver his message on the state of the Union. The President toiled and moiled over its phraseology. He kept his visitors list to a minimum, his desk clear of everything save business that could not wait.

For Franklin Roosevelt well knew that the new 78th Congress was less friendly than any of its predecessors, that any program he presented would have to run a gantlet of enemies on both sides of the aisle. And Franklin Roosevelt, who has his own ideas about the war, the peace to follow and the post-war U.S., was not willing to give up without a struggle. Nor would Franklin Roosevelt the politician, who has influenced the course of U.S. history more than most men before him, allow himself to lose the struggle through ineptness on this important occasion.

Last week the President also: >Talked to a military mission representing North Africa's General Henri Giraud, and announced that he would "soon" be visited by Fighting French General Charles de Gaulle, on the question of French military and political unity (see p. 32).

>Held an unscheduled conference with John G. Winant, Ambassador to Great Britain, who returned to the U.S. to report.

>Appointed Francis B. Sayre, pre-war High Commissioner to the Philippines, as Deputy Director of Foreign Relief & Rehabilitation under Herbert H. Lehman. >Decided to lift the ban against nationwide publication of casualty lists, in effect since Pearl Harbor. In this decision, he yielded to the persuasion of Information Director Elmer Davis, who had long resented accusations that the Government was needlessly withholding the cold, hard truth of war.

>Talked to Vice President Henry A. Wallace for an hour and a half before Wallace made another major speech on post-war policy (see p. 22). >Made his own plea for post-war planning in a statement on the first anniversary of the United Nations' pact: "In this as in no previous war, men are conscious of the supreme necessity of planning what is to come after--and of carrying forward into peace the common effort which will have brought them victory in the war. They have come to see that the maintenance and safeguarding of peace is the most vital single necessity in the lives of each of us. . ."

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