The Unmentionable Emissaries

The Big Three men did not meet last week, but the Big Three nations began their conferences. First in London with the British, then in Paris with the French, emissaries of President Roosevelt discussed background problems of the big meeting. The cooks were standing in front of the stove and the world was left to guess what was cooking.

Until this week censorship forbade printing the name of the principal emissary--Harry Hopkins. But some papers managed to use his name anyhow. After he had conferred with Winston Churchill and Anthony Eden in London, then with Charles de Gaulle in Paris, the censors passed the news that he was off to Rome to visit Pope Pius XII.

In both London and Paris the then unmentionable emissaries talked with the press freely about their discussions. They talked about such subjects as the terms on which the U.S. would be prepared to take an active part in European settlements, what to do with Germany, etc.

But the object of the emissaries was probably less to settle matters in advance than to round up points of view for Franklin Roosevelt. With such a roundup, he will know better what he wants to discuss when he sits down opposite Joseph Stalin and laughingly asks him: "What are you going to do when you get to the Rhine?" (see below).

There was more than a hint that the emissaries were engaged in an even more important job: helping to make up Franklin Roosevelt's mind whether, at the big meeting, he should not only try to cook but cook with gas. With the backing of the Vandenberg speech and the letter of the new Senators (see below), he might decide to take Congress at its word and offer to make commitments for the U.S.--if, in exchange, he could get commitments from Britain and Russia that rival imperialisms would not dominate the new peace. It looked very much as if Franklin Roosevelt was toying with the idea of giving the world a big surprise.

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