IABITINE l. ~--~""~I J- ...,,,., l'f "'- A 11 atternoon, we watched the wire tor a bulletin saying -- Mariti ■ e Strike settled. lord tr.oa lashington was that an agree ■ent had been Yirtuall7 ,_ co■pleted, and that,4rUnion order5 oalling ott the 1\rik• were expected ■ o ■ entarily. The lateat ia that tbe aettle ■ ent ■ eeting called tor thia atternoon, waa atill in session -- the announcement ot an aareeaent expeote4 at an7 aoaent. Meanwhile, the news troa the Paoific Coaa\ ia not so good -- atate ■enta out there that the s\rlte would be called at lidaight, acoordia1 to 1obed•l•, aatter what the Onion Coaaittee did in laahiaatoa. Its decia ion• will baye t ' o be okayed by the lariti ■• workers, before the strike could be cancelled. In Hawaii, 'the Marine cook• and steward.a union aall ■ • called a -- •stop Wort• Meeting, •• a prelude to striking. •nd out there Go•ernor Stainback seized the Luxury Liner Matsonia -- to set its cargo unloaded. §QPRElfl_QOllJ!I In the Supreae Court uproar, President Truaan states that he had •u11eated that Justice Jackson ahould not aake hia public accusation qaiaat Juatioe Black. At a news oonterenoe today, the Preaidea\ reyealed that Jackson, in lureabera, tele1raphed to bl■ the charge that Black had insisted on takin1 part in . the judaing or a Labor Case in which one aide waa repreaented by hia for■ er law partner. In reply t.o the Jackson telearaa, the President adYiaed hia not to aake public tbe oharae, Be got no reply, and Jaatioe Jaokaon rejected the Presidential adYioe. Be publiahed the accuaation. BE[QGEI§ President Truaan states that there will be no revision of Aaerican i ■ migration laws as a aeans of easing the refugee problea in Europe. It has been proposed that, with all the controversy about Jewi1h iamigration into Palestine, our own regulation• aigbt be relaxed -- to adait aore refugees. The Preaident I today rejected this idea, and pointed to ~he tact that right now, by White liouse Direction given laat Deceaber, all quotas for ' iaaigration troa Central Europe are being tilled by refugees. Under that ruling, thirty-nine tbouaand will be accepted into this country each year. ' Meanwhile, in L~ndon, the Briti1h Foreiga Office bas backed down so ■ ewbat fro ■ the atate ■en~ aade by Forei g n Secretary lrneat Bevin earlier in the week. Bevin seemed to have indicated that the British Uovernaent would not carry out the reco ■ aendation to ad ■ it a hundred thousand Zionists into Palestine right away. Today the Foreign Office stated that this was a aisinterpretation, and that the Bevin declaration EfOGIIS - 2 should not be construed aa aeaning that the Britiah Go•ernaent had rejected the recoaaendation aade b7 the joint Britiah-Aaerican Coaaittee. ~~ The latest fro ■ the trial,,11 a virtual ad ■ ission by Mikhailovitch that he did • collaborate with the Iasis. He stated that ■ ost of hia subordinate Commanders did have dealings with the ene ■7, and a letter waa introduced to •how that, at leaat in thi• one inetance, he had agreed to the uae of Ger■an and Italian help against the Partisans of Co■■uniat larabal Tito. !ATIC41 The Aaerican Aabassador to the Vatican will be kept at his post until formal peace arrangeaents are concluded, and then he will be wlthdrawn. This waa stated today by President Truman, a Baptist. The ambassador ~o the Vatican is Myron c. Taylor, an Episcopalitl--7 sent by ia■a■ President Rooaewelt to the " seat of the Roaan Catholic ~huroh in·an effort tor peace. Last aonth he was reassigne~ to the Vatican post by President Tr~~~~ repreaentatiwe /\ in discussions of final peace arrange■ tna. The return of an A■erican !aba1aador to the Vatican was protested by large Portestant Group1, which claiaed that it was a Yiolation of the principle of the separation of Church and State. , This protest was, in ' turn, scathingly denounced b1 Spell ■ an of ~ A New York, who used such strong teras as •Bigotry• and •[lans ■ en.• · Into this religious quarrel, President I■■•■ Trumar, injects a species of compromise -- announcing that the A ■bassador will stay at the Vatican until the final conclusion of peace, but no longer • •• The Aaerican proposal tor conteol of &oaic weapons is drastic. It was presented toda7 to the lationa Commiasion on atomic energy by Aaerican repreeentatiYe Bernard Baruch. The plan, which baa the -----------..J full backing ot PreaidentTruaan, woald proYide tor a werld atoaic authorit7, which would haYe power• ot inapection and enforoeaent. The worli authority woull haYe the right to investigate in any country to be sure atomic weapons were not being manufactured, and it •••l could bring about world action against aay countr7 that might try to Yiolate the prohibition against atomic weapons. The world authority •o~ld be established by international agreement within the United lationa, and no nation could block its operation by any Yeto. That'• the plan proposed by the United aati ■ aa States - with the proviso that we would keep the atomic secret and would maintain our sup p lies of atomic bombs until the program of world control was in full operation. At MIC - 2 Here's the latest oo ■ment from London on the Aaerican ato ■ ic plan. A apokea ■an of the Britiah foreian office calla it - 1 ad■ irable•. But the London communiat newapaper, the dail7 worker, denoanoea the propoaal •• paYin1 the ••1 tor shat it calla •world dictatorahip•. And the London DailJ lorker often reflecta the •i••• of the Soyiet ao•ern■ent in lea cow. _AFGHANISTAN T he news tonight puts the spotlight on wtHt- one of th~remotea::t of all the far corners of this globe -- a distant intersection where frontiers of t hree countries meet, Russian Turkestan, Iran and Afghanistan. Moscow announces that the Afghan Gover has turned over to the Soviets the district of Kushka ;;,._ ~ ~ "°P~, · d-'";.•,,;t- ... .;;r./;:.dJ,. ~ / A ~ 0 ; : 8 ~ ~ ~ 4 ~ - " ' 2 ~ ~i!'~Q•;:_1trategic rte,•~ along Ancient Central Asian routes of trade and conquest. The ar■ ies of Genghis Ihan and Ta ■ erlane swept through , ........... ~. the mountair)C?f •t ~ and Marco Polo, in hia fabulous journeys, went wandering that way. Economically -- the Kushka District has been notable up to now, chiefly for the production ot pi~tachio nuts, with vast groves of pistachio trees. H owever, the Soviets are probably not going into the nut business. There's •ore th&n pistachio in the business. There's -- oil. The strip of land the Hussians now acquire lies instr tegic relation to the AFGHANISTAN - 2 - - Iranian oilfields, which Russia baa~• acquired the right to exploit -- and to petroleu ■ deposits that are known to exist in Afghanistan, around the an~ient city of Berat. So, which pistachio nuts go well with cocktails and are flavoring for ice crea ■, the econo■ic i■portanoe of the new■ ton't{';;;iiaa in three letter word -- oil. that The geographical i ■ portance lies in the fact that the Iuahka ~i ■ triot is a gateway to Afghanistan, and that secluded country is the highroad fro ■• t_e~tral · Asia to India •. ~-"'~ London? ~•e do, ln•sa•• So, do we hear tro ■ To ay the Moscow announcement was pro■ ptlJ followed on the wire bJ a story out of London, which - began as follows: 'Russia's secretly negotiated s agreement with !fa Afghanistan,• state,A the dispatch, ... ' ~ regarded in London today as another Soviet encroacnment into a British sphere c f influence~ essential to the defense of Northern India.• To the British, the Iushka business is juat another step in a whole series of Soviet aoves. le over here haven't been paying much attention to Af hanistan lately, but the British are acutely sensitive in that direction and today•• London story . tells of a large recent Soviet penetration. There are, for example, what losoow calla -- cultJral caapaigns. Cultural••• aeaning, of courae propaganda. London states that at Iabul, the Afghan Capital, the staff of the Sovi,et, E■baasy now totals 10 ■• six hundred people, diplomatic, military, scientific and cultural. The only air transport service of Afghanistan is run by the Russians, who likewise have IL trained tiiBI small Afghan Air Force. roviet influence ia A said to be spre ding _ -- and b1tt1f young A#}ans cil'e bein1 given scholarships to ~uasian Universities. All this today sent ■e back to something I wrote twenty odd years ago, in a · book called •Beyond Khyber Pass• -- ~ f a trip I made into Af g hanist a n 'ni .. "!2.;::;;t.,.,~e ~-'!.'"'-' 'I'-- AFGHA lSIAJ! - 4 forbidden country. One chapter is called 'Intrigue in High Asia•, and relates how, in th e theoreticall7 forbidden city of Iabul, a ga■ e of international politics was going on. Eaissaries from various countrie1 ~ were there. All ~usily scheming -- and chief aaong the ■ were the British Minister and the en•oy Plenipotentiary from Sovi t RuasiJ. This was back in the I 'Twentie•, long before World lar •••••• Two was drea■ ed ot, the Lenin-Trotsky days, when Bolshevik Russia was an outcaat among the nations. Yet, what I · wrote then would •e•■ to apply juat as well today -- sa ■ e old thing. In an interview with the British Minister to Afghanistan those twenty odd years ago, he told ■ e: •one predominating motive bas guided Great Britain and her relations with Afghanistan -- and that is the defense of India. There have been,• Be went on, 'About a dozen invasions of India, and the Afghans ~ook part in the ■ all allies or as principals." ~~Q~d In [abut,\ had an interview either as with the Soviet Emissary, and here's what he said: 'The union of AlGHAJl§tAN - 5 Socialist So•iet Republics,• Be proclai ■ ed, •stand1 , for freedom the world oYer. •e have no intention in Afghanistan beyond that of helping the cause of freedoa.• Along with this quotation, I wrote the following: •The ~uasians in the Borth are preparing to advance to the conquest of Afghan-Turkestan -- that i•, lorthern Afghanistan -- slowly but surely, Jaat •• the7 did under the la Czars.• That co ■■ ent would 1ee ■ to be juat •• apt today as ti it was twenty years ago. Or, in the wor4• of the old frcnch saying -- 'The ■ ore things chaqe, the more they re ■ ain the ea ■e thing.• The scandal in Tokyo, which involves high American Officers, centers around a peculiar sort ot Jap named -- Ando. This Ando is a fellow of ■ any activities. He is described as a ■ illionaire Tokyo contractor, a taxicab owner and ni g htclub operator. He is also mentioned as a Director on the Board of two Japanese UniYersities. During tl:\,t war, he is said to have built underground factories and airfields -- and, when Japan surrendered, contractor Ando was given given the job of preparing the Atsugi Airfield for the landing of the American Airborne forces of Occupation. In the scandal involving the United States Officers, Ando appears rather spectacularly in his capacity as a night club operator. Be owns a lavish haunt of entertainment, and there he entertained American Of ·1cers with Millionaire hospitality, and bestowed generaous gifts upon them -- fi gifts that apparently inclu · ed Geisha Girls. The office of the Provost Marshal in Tokyo SCAIDAL - 2 _,._,_.. __ _ uotes one G isha Girl as stating that Ando had ottered her ten thousand yen to spend the weekend with an officer of American Gen e ral Headquarters. One int e resting angle of Ando's Geisha Girl parties is a guest book kept at his Tokyo Bight ~lub. What's a guat book for, except to be signed? So Ando asked the American Officers whoa . he ent e rtained to inscribe their na ■es in the guest book. Many did, and Ando is said to have an int e resting collection ot autographs -- so interesting that he bragged that hi• guest book would aake hi ■ sate fro ■ any ■easures taken by American Ar ■y General Headquarters. The gue c t bo ~ k, by the way, has disappeared from Ando's Nightclub -- but the ~ord fro ■ okyo is that the volume of autographs is likely to appear in the investigation later on. It didn't d ~ Ando much goo, apparently. Because, gu e st book or no guest book, Ando's offi~e was rai · ed by Am e rican M.P. 's, who f o und a lot of black mark e t merchan d 'se there -- and they took Ando off to §CAIDA~ - 3 jail in what i called •protective custody.• It would api:-ar that, as a r turn for his princely hospitality, Ando expected favors fro ■ tbe American Officers he entertained favors pertainin1 to his business as a contractor, probably. But there is no inaication in the news that he ever got such favors. The story fro ■ Tokyo ■ ight see ■ to indicate not. The Provost Marshals Office states that proceedings against Headquarters Officers who attended the Geisha Girl Parties would be on the grounds of their having received •Gifts•, which is against Aray regulations. Also, they ■ ay be ao~used on the traditio grounds of •conduct unbeco ■ ing a gentle ■ an.• Ando's guests go right up to the top, even to the r ank of General. Today the Deputy Provost Marshal in Japan stated: •There ■ ay be so ■ e General Officers with red faces, too.• It would seem to b a sad story, the story