MOSCO TORY Soviet Russia seems to be emp asizing the theme of a separate peace-this following the Uiscow story that the British have been negotiat- ting with Bitler with a view to ending the war. The Uoscow radio announced tonight that Soviet news apers will publish a London Times Dispatch concerning propoaals of peace ade by the Nazis. These proposals are said to include the resignati n, power br Bitler if the llies would come to terms the German army to take control, with the Germans to be allowed a series of concessions in eastern Europe. This Nazi suggestion is said to have been aade two months ago, and now tbe Soviets, with a blaring of trump•ts, announce that the whole thi g will be made public in Russia tomorrow. All of which follows a statement by Preside Roosevelt here in washington this afternoon, in which the President declared that he was as much IIOSCOI STORY - 2 --------------.------ my tified as amybody else by that revious Russian charge of British negotiations with Hitler's foreign minister, Ribbentro. and, from sundry sources tody came information that only deepens the mystery mystifies the President.---- ---- ........ ....._~-----~ The sotyr was printe in Pravda, official or- gan of the Communist Party and was represented as a rumor from Cairo, that raise the question- what about the British sensor at Cairo? All news e anating from that British headquarters in Egypt is subject to censorship. And the denial goes still further. Pravda stated that it had the story from itr own correspendent at Cairo, to which the Britisb response is that so far as is known, pravda has no Representati~e in Cairo. It is stated tk• in London that the British government has made diplomatic repreeent~tions to the Stalin regime on the subject of these ara e peace accusation which Britain so angrily denier. l!Q§QQ __ §IQR! We hear that the British will tell the Soviet government that an explanation will be wel - come in the interest of Allied unity. London is wondering-why . a tbe Pravda story published? Nobody believes for moment that it as done in the authority of a•••• newspaper i editor newspapers in Soviet Russia being strictly controlled by the government and Pravda being the organ of the Coamunist Party which runs Russia. London thinks that nobody but a small group in lloscow knows the reason why; bu ,S'ome speculations are made that Stalin is afraid that tbe Western Allies may make a deal with the Nazis, which would result in the occupation of Germany by American and British armies before the Red Army could get there. Or, the suggestion is made that the Soviets are try~ ia1g ing to get back at the British because the Western Allies are supporting the exiled Polish government aga inst Moscow in the question of MOSCOW STORY Soviet ac uiBition of former Polish territory. These are mere speculations, lark indeed-t e mystery why Moscow has charged that the British are negotiating with the Nazis on the subject of a s e par t e p e a~c~e:_:·~-----------------------~ POLA D ------ A story tod a y states that Soviet Russia had already rejected British-American mediation in the Russo-Polish dispute-even before the American offer I ■ ediation bad b en received. So announced by Secret of State Cordell Bull, who e•plained that first Moscow turned down the lblish suggestion of mediation and then the American message was re_c_e_i_v_e_d_. _____ _ lH!§§l! In that latest new Russian drive-progress i• reported in the offensive against he Leningra d ____ ..- Red army attacks have pierced heavily fortified Ger■ an lines on two fronts west ura' ' south of the city. The Russian communique declares that the whole series of Soviet offensives fro ■ Leningrad the black sea, are now linked up into wbat Moscow calls •one fast battlet1,ia.JJLJL---------- __,. This coincides with a Soviet encircle ■ ent now underway on the road to the B~ltic State of Ltivia-an encirclement of an i ■ portant railro~d junction called Novosokolnicki. To the south, in Poland, the Re d forces are ■ enacing the city of Rovno. All a part of the titan~ conflict on that •one v a st battlefield.• CHURCHILL ____ ..,... ___ _ London has its ihurchill back again. The Pri ■ e Minister returned today, after bis re overy f the attack of 111•••••i•sx pneu■ onia that befell him while he was away at the Theran and Cairo Churchill looks fine, bale and hea ty after a perio ~ of recuperation under the hot North African sun. Be says be had a fine stay at the foot of th• Atlas Mountains taking it easy, basking in the sun. But London today saw Churchill without a cigar. Rot once did the Prime Minister appear with that fa ■ iliar long Havana stuck in face. Presumably he is off smoking, doctors orders--perhaps until the last sign of. his illness has gone. Meanwhile he's a cig a rless Churchill. ITALY ,__ ___ _ In Italy the gale is bowling a bitter winter stora in the Italina mountains. And there is a river Called "Rapido,• which name me~ns rapid. Bo you have a picture of a raging torrent, as well as the bowling stora, That's the state of affairs for American troops, as they cross the river to come to grips with the Germans in their number one fortress- Cassino. Meanwhile, the French in their flanking drive •••*••* against Cassino have driven to within four mil of that forteesa on their road to Rome. ITALIAI TREASURES ------------------ Some ■ ore Nazi looting is reported and t his is a reminder os one particular habit of the Y. ing ot Italy Victor Emanuel. Be is one of the world's great coin col ectors, we are told. Be pos s essed at least fifty 1bousands ancient ~ old coins, these treas• of the past dating back to the early days of the Ro ■ an e ■ pire. The Nazis have s6i1ed that nuaismatic hoard, together with other heridity posses aions of tberoyal house of Savoy. A Ger ■ an n•wspaper report d escribes these a• •three hundred and seventy huge cases bulging with jewels, gold bullion and precious stones.• Anne O'Hare McCormick in the Rew York Tiaes tells of an inte~iew she had with Ciano just before Italy took the fatal step into war. She says that Mussolini's foreign minister was op osc to war, although be had supported the alliance between racist Italy and Bitier's Germany. Why had he advoca the Bazi-Faoist pact? The answer is rather paradoxic Ciano, she says, bad believed that the Axis treaty be between the Nazis and Bitler would prevent Bitler fro plunging l•z, ■■ Europe into the maelstrom-because Italy was not re4dy to fight a war. •In a conversa- tion with the writer,• says Miss McCormick in the Times, •be said the pact was signed in tbe hope of restraining Bitler from waging war.• "But,• be added somberly •the Duce will not listen.• •The Ciano of that last inter i ew,• writes Anne O'Hare McCormick, •was not the vain, frivolous CIANO ----- POmpous young man who aped Mussolini's swaggering poses. He was, • she adds, •the Italian who had 1 learned to hate the Germans, too intelligent not to see that ris country was headed for disaster,• she goes on, •he was worried, uneasy, and afraid.• So that was the Count Ciano, who saw his fea• tor bis country come true, and who therefore helped to overthrow his father-in-law and was finally executen by Fascist puppets of tbe Nazis at Verona. • PACIFIC -- · -----...--- We are f r away from the bitter jungle fight- ing in the Southwestern Paoific, and reports are lat. But the ferocity of the struggle is indicated by a report tonight about the ftffighting on New Britian Island. le are tcld that allied ground troo son the Arawe peninsula have driven tbe Jeps back for a thousand yards, in a bitter, stubborn battle on Sunday. SOLDIER POLL ____ ...... ____ ,_._ ...... An investigation is being made of the poll that is said to have been taken among American soldie overseas,a political poll. Ten days ago Republican Rational Committee Cbatr an Spangler told newspapermen that such a poll had been held. Bes id that at his request four officer friends hai inouired mong American soldiers in Great Britain ~nd had reported th that fifty-six per cent ofthese were opposed to the Roosevelt Administration. Today Secretary of War Stimson declared that tha alleged poll is being investigStd by General Eisenhower, United States Commander for the coming second front. The Secretary declared that General Eisenhower bas already submitted a preli inary report saying that any such political survey was made with- out his knowledge or consent and that he is looking in to the matter thoroughly. ELECTIONS _ _ _ . . . . . . . _ i - . _ _ _ _ Today was election day in Pennsylvania and in Louisiana. The Louisiana contest of votes as mostly a picturesque import nee, with one oft e candidates being a juke box song co poser, who writes and sings those raucous lyrics of aentimental~ ty of the jazz vari•t1. Louisiana bas always been entirely democratic, and its hardly more than a curiosity to note that the regular aachine nominee, backed by the local state acbina, took a slim lead tonight over the singing, swinging candidate, Jim D~~is. Pennsylvania, however, presents an election day picture of national interest-tris because of th• fact that half a dozen vacancies in the Rouse of ~epresentative• are to be filled by special electi• The IK Democratic majority is mighty slim right now, a and the result of the elections might make it still ore slender. So what did Pennsylvania do today? The places of two Congressmen to be filled, one Democratic, and th~ other Republican? ELECTIONS --------------- Well, In Philadelp~ia, a Democratic Congress- man resigned, and tonight we find a Republic n h 8 wo out. Republican Joseph U. Pratt has defeated his Democratic opponent. In Pennsylvania's Montgomery county, the seventh district was represented by a Republic n who was killed in a Navy plane crash last November. The Districts ill remains Republican, with tonight's returns showing the GOP candidate to be the victor by a large majority. SOBSTITUT~ RAILROADS The railroads are ~-x back under the control of private ownership. The return from government con- trol was effected · tonight by Secretary of War Stimson after President Roosevelt had stated that the labor 1~ disputes bad been completely settled. Secretary Stimson in returning the railroads to tbe management of their owners, declared that the wage settlement provides assurance that there will be no stoppage of railrae.d service PILOT ~--.-.---- Over in England, the flying fortress crews found their hero. Last week I told how t e en oft e big bombers were looking for an unlaiwn pilot who had protected them : n at greatest of air battles fought over Germany just a week ago today. A big for ation of fortresses was hard- pressed by a swarm of Nazi fighters the bombers having lost their own fighter escort. Then sudaenly one lone American Mustang appeared and attacked the whole German swarm. Wag- ing an epic battle against incre ible odds, the Mustang protected the Fortre ' s formation, and was 1• seen diving through a cloud o~tbe tail of a Nazi fig~ fight er. The bomber men didn't know who he was, couldn' t guess whether be bad been shot down or whether he got back. They hoped he h~d made it and were looking for him to give him thank~ 1 xxx and honor. Today his identity wa . disclosed. he is PILOT --~~- Major James Boward of Missouri; and be bad indee4 got back. The story from Britain pictures him as a particularly interesting type of pilot. A veteran of thirty, a former me ■ber of those astounding flying tigers who, with General Chennault, made history in China. Major Bowara •~s, in fa~t, born in China, at Canton the son of a mecical messssiion and out there he was, in a sense, fighting for the land of his birth. Re shot down six Jape, then later joined the O. S. Army Air Force and was sent to Britain, noe to go on with records of new exploits over there. Be is tall and lanky, so tall he can bar ~ ly fold himself into the constri~te cockpit of a fig . te- plane. He is of the blond westernty~~ and loo k s a lot like L indbergh. Today h e tol i s story reluct ~ tnly, aving said nothing much about it-until the Fortress c rews foundnhim. Be s aid he just got lost from the rest of his squadron an d , he continues, "when I reac r ed belt J bomber altitude I found I was flying alone. Up ahead,• he relates, "about 25 flying fortres , s in a very com pa ct formation, seemed to be under a pressure attack by enemy aircraft. There inust have been about thirty or fourty planes working the bombers over i ndividually.• Whereu on be elosed fof the attack, choosing o o ne plane after anot er and diving at it before the Nazi could get withing ragge of the bombers. In that way be drove them off or shot them down. "We w ould fight down to fifteen thousand feetV be says, "then I would climb up to bomber level, when I would find ano t her Jerry tooling up for an attack. I was pretty busy," be explains, "in a constant meery- go-round of clumbing and fighting." He s a ys b e ha d five encounters wit h enemy planes in h a lf an h our and he shot down t w o, an d possibly two others. Thus th e oneti m e p a l ad in oft e F ly in g i g er s PILOT --- in China did a songle-handed job in beating off the enemy att~ck against bombers-the exploit of which he said so 11,tle, until the bomber crews ~unted him down and disclosed his identity today. TIBET ----- Today's news gives us a hea rl line that's alwa~ a classic in the world of travel and exploration: a trip to Lhasa, a visit to that long famous forbidden city of the Llamas of Tibet. ~his time it's a ca•e of war, as is most everything these days. !'Be journey to Lhasa was made by a party of American flying men although they had not the remotest intention of visiting that Sbangri-la of the Himalayas. A big transport was on that tremendous run from Indian, across the towering mountains to China. It got into a violent Himalayan storm and was blowm far off its course. The gasoline supply was ~unning out, and th~ flyers were over some of the most frightful count ~y in all the world. Over on on• side something eoomed, something huge ... Flight Officer Harold YcCallum of Quincy, Mass, thought it was an immense cloudbank. Then he yelled. "That's not a cloud, it's a mountain." To which co-pilot Corpor a l Kenneth Spencer of Rockville Center, New York, Echoed. side.• "Yes ' and there's another mount~ th· . ... u 18 And at that moment, their gasoline gave out, nd the motor died with a few last gasps. They took to their parachutes and all came safely to the ground, where they rendezvoused by shouting. Soae Tibetan natives found them, and guided tham along the ricky trails to a town, where they were greeted by a Budbist monk who spoke English. And then they were taken through the mountains for sixty miles to LHasa, the Shangri-las of his serene highness the Dolai Limas of Tibet. Mighty few people of the west have ever visited that forb,dden city. Time was when ·t meant death for an outsider to try tog t to Lhasa. But now the lost Americans Jho has descende d from tre sky were entertained hospitably enough in the for i city and then ere e corted on the lon g arduous trip e n TIBET _. .... --- over tba high Himalayas and back to India. •The escape story to end ail•••• a l l • • escape stories!• they ari s ying over in Calcutta. And what are you saying over there in I.Y., Roger? PLANE ----- Over in Britain there is an American fighter plane with the cutest n a me. It is called, •Lamby.w Which sounds just too ducky. Well, the name may be sweet nd girlish but the plane is a hard-boiled battler of the sky. Its pilot, Major John G. Mej.er of Forrest Bills, Long Island bas just been decorated ~ with the Distinguished 3ervice Cross for sooting down three Nazi planes over Germany. This is relatee in today's news dispatok, which goes on to tell bow Major Meyer happened to give bis ship that sentimenta name. Raturally, there is a girl in the story, Mies Mora Schell of Jamaica, L~ng Island, She i~ ~Grand-daughter of the late ·srigadier-General A. L. Klein, one-time Mayor of New York, and has a gift for those doting locutions which are commonlj called baby talk. This she deHn strated w hen the fighter p lane pilot left for sky battles abroad. Saying goo d -bye, s she murmured sweetly "whose lamby is oo?w PLANE ----- to which he replied that he'd answer that question when be got into the battles of the air in Europe. •whose 1 ■bJ is oo?• He remembered that fond quer7 and proceeded to name his plane 'La ■by.• The baby-talk worked out all right, as is illustrated by the prompt shooting dowc of three Razi aircraft and the winning of the Distinguished Service Cross. Today at Jamaica, Long Island, Miss Shcell made the following comment ~bout the news of the Major's exploit. •If you can get in touch with him, please send him my love and kisses.• lhiob would indicate that her sentiments have not changed one big, and she's still asking, "WPose Lamby is oo?• HOPKINS LETTER ~----------~--~ Today that much talked of letter, the one in which Harry Hopkins is supposed to have predicted that Republicans will nominate lillkie, was offi- cially pronounced to be a forgery. This was st~ ed ~ an official of the Depart ent of Justice. And at the same tiae an employee in Secret~ry Ickes' departaent of the Interior was suspended from his job, a five thousand dollar a year assistant, Geroge N. Briggs. The allegation has been made that Briggs turned the letter over to the author oft book in which it was printed, the Book •one Man 1illdell Willkie• by C. Nelson Sparks, former Mayor of lkron, Ohio. And it is claim~d that Ickes knew abo it. A11 of which is denied by both Briggs and Ickes. The latest is tha there is a move for a possible investigati n of the circumstances surroundh g the Willkie nomination by the Repu lican convention in 1940. Senator Langer charges that Pre•idential HOPKINS LETTER - 2 -------..---- --------.- advisor Harry Hopkins had a hand in tbe Republican choice of the President's 1940 rival and the Senator also claims th ~ t dele ate-votes for lillkie were purchased. So toiiy Senato Kilgore of West Virginia called a meeting of the Senate sub- committee on elections of which he is chairman, to determine wather or not there should be an official Senate inquiry into the Ii lkie nomination. RAILROADS . _,.. ........... - ..... . ...... - President Roosevelt tonight tl111eush +,t,e eee-. GJ I-IK, turned the rl\ilroads back to private control Tb-s afternoon be annou~ced that the wage dispute with the non-operating unions had been aettlei and said that he had notified Secre , ary Sti son that the Army control of the railroads - might now · be given~U~P~•:....---- ---.....,--- ----- ,