L.T. SUNOCO. ItiOI^DAY « JUNE 24. 1940
GOOD EVENING EVERYBODY:
I am in Philadelphia tonight. In a ringside seat at the
O.O.P. convention. Never were issues of such world shattering
importance hanging upon even a Republican convention. And that?s
reflected everywhere you go in the City of Brotherly Love.
There1s a different spirit in the air from Cleveland, four years
ago. An electric feeling of tension, anxiety, in the atmosphere.
The grapeveine report tonight is that there111 be unanimous
agreement in the Resolutions Committee on that zi ticklish and
vital plank -- foreign policy. The plank is not yet finally
drafted, the final job
has to be done tomorrow. Sub-committees





LEAD 3
have been at wor^c today^
As a result of their work, it*s a-ppa-reat-ty safe to say that the
foreign policy plank will pledge the Republicans to peace
preparedness
The capitulation of France threw the Committee on the
horns of a ticklish dilemma, the dilemma about giving aid to the
Allies. There are Republicans who have expressed themselves as
in favor
of helping the Allies. But after the surrender of France
there are no
Allies. That problem will be got around by putting the
oppressed
party
onVecord
as promising aid to
all^^smnkxj peoples.
There never was a
more difficult job for platform
writers. For that particular plank had to reconcile Republicans
whose opinions about the war in Europe and our relation to it,
seemed
^ apart, the hundred per cent isolationists and
xBEm to be oce-
A
those who wanted to give aid to the Allis-*
The sub-committee that wrote this compromise was
headed by the man whom the Republicans nominated last year,
former Governor
Alf
Landon of Kansas. It
included
men as
isolationist as the late Senator Borah as well as those who



LEAD - 4
wanted to throw in every possible aid short of war to beat
Hitler and Mussolini. The plank also pledges the Republicans
to increase the national defenses, planes, ships and guns and
trained men, 30 as to protect the entire Western Hemisphere and
enforce the Monroe Doctrine. It also levels the criticism at
President Roosevelt that his provocative notes to Europe threaten
to involve the United States in war.
v
<'-



WAR
Six weeks ago, Adolf Hitler, the Nazi Fuehrer, started
his blitzkrieg. Tonight, at the end of those six weeks, the
Republic of France is no longer at war.
There have been other periods in history that were
full of drama and yet surprisingly short. For instance, those
meteoric hundred days which followed Napoleon’s Escape from
Elba. Butjnever was there a series of events so catastrophic,
swift and so brief as the six weeks that it took the Nazis
so
to knock out Holland, Belgium and all the once mighty power of
France.
In less than a hour from now, the generals of
Nazi Hitler and Fascist Mussolini will sound the or.ei cease
firing 1 Every fighting man
in France will lay down his arms,
a coura
•eous but hopelessly *x*x*fx* beatenarmy.
The end ea® in sight at one thirty-five this
thirty-five Eastern Daylight time in
Rome. It was at that moment
afternoon, that is, one
America, seven thirty-five in
+ bps ied by General Huntziger, signed
that the French delegates, neaue y
________
J
the -terms
'
* Mussolinifpil hostilities were to cease




WA£ - 2
after six hours from that minute. ^ ^
, , _ ^ 7/^.
^
All Frenchmen, thougji at peace, will he virtually
prisoners.
Oh, they will have their own civil government, hut
with Nazi and Fascist commissars looking over their shoulders.
Even a certain number of French troops will t» stiiy®________
y^^aTLi
intents and
MohittBatioi*) enou^i to preserve order. Buty
ioges, France, so long one of the great strongholds of liberty,,
purp<
will be Virtually one huge prison camp.
Of course all this has appeared inevitable from that
tragic moment one week ago, whef the world heard Henri Petain,
Premier and Marshal of France, jannounce that his country could
fi6ht no more. Actually, as
oL
hindsight tells us now, it
had been inevitable from the Ament war was declared.
inevitable from the time the
Ulies permitted Germany to ream
under
the frenetic spell^ Hi tie r and the Nazi idea.
Military experts over here are claxming tout the
imposed on France are moderate from a
if the rest of us,
Nazi and Fascist terns
tandpoint. From the standpoint o:
devastating. For the time being,
military s
they are pitiful, crushing,







WAR - 3
Fr&ncefs entire serboard on the English Channel, on the
Atlantic Coast and along the Mediterranean will be in the hands
of foreign soldiers. | The Petain Government can goverh. from
anywhere it pleases^ It can even return to Paris, under Nazi
supervision,
The military soothsayers point to an interesting
fact about the French fleet. Hitler does not propose to try
to use it to fight France^ former allies, the British.
But the experts declare that he makes this conditions because
he can’t do anything else. It means, they say, that he realizes
he
get surrendered French warships through the British
blockade
into
German
waters. Moreover,
it is
believed
that
even if he could get
theainto
German »ters, he
wouldn’t
have
the
^ \
officers and men to operate them.
...
\$L

, f
As a matter of fact.j^te business of^surrender ^
of the Trench fleet leaves a great many people ^ndering. Will |
the French
officers and their
crews
obey
the
co -ana
,
. ir-ronGe and surrender their
Pwtain Government to come be > -
6

Hpraulle. the Ex-Minister
5*4^3 to the Nazis? General Char
A




WAR - 4
who took refuge in London, announced that he had reason to believe
that the men of the French navy would not give up their ships
if ,
Again, if the commanding officers of the fleet were inclined to
obey, would the British admirals permit it?
_____ _
There is another significant point in those terms.
m
/
The Nazis and Fascists allow the French to retain part of their
fleet to protect the colonial interests vOf France, ihc t is taken
to mean that the Rome-Berlin;Axis now looks upon France as a
virtual ally, though an unwilling one.
And that*s the attitude taken in no uncertain phrase
___
by the gritiii. London declares unequivocably thnt the terns
i
accepted by the Petain government makes France a virtual ally of
Hitler and Mussolini. In feet, the Churchill government goes
within an ace of declaring war on the Petain gpvemment. It
has withdrawn its recognition of Petain and his colleagues and
announces that from now on, the British government will leal with
the committee in London, headed hy General
jleGauUeJfe-Premier
Paul Raynaud probably will be on that committee to carry on the
war outside of France.
f *11 this now is a tragic succession
The outcome of all tn^.s 1
11
1 r,nn+ recriminations between the former
of recriminations and counter x



WAR - 5
allies* The Petain govermaent replies to Londdm with^
complaiit that the British war efforts were insufficient, that
tte
OLfadf*-

,
.^.v,
4
.
1
. „
%V*>
government tried to wage war in accordance with tne
A
hn?t£.
traditions and compromises. There is vehement criticism in
A
Bordeaux of the former French ministers now in London, especially
George Handel and General deGaulle.
j
Incidentally, General
deGaulle has been officially rebuked, reduced in rank to a
colonel, and will he court-martialled in his absence for his
ailure to obey orders and come home.
-------------------
^
'—
Lon6 after cablei had flashed us the news of the
A
’Inal isaing of Aml.tl... 1* .1="
offer bulletin of fnrtber disastera to french eras. Nani
communiques continued flash out cries of trlumrt. ««■*
ln the heart of the Vosges «o«.t.l»a. edv.ncl.g »•» a~i.s
thev had taken twenty
Maginot Line. The Nazis announced that th y
• r.iurtin,- the comiiianiiing general, three
thousand prisoners, including the
dleisionel eo„„d.re. on. «ho«s-d officer, .d t.elS.
artillery d,t.m,-.«.^.c. aged.
hW com-.d is


orovdng about the booty captured from the French.
On the Italian front, the Fascists also announce that
they ha' e penetrated the French line. In some places they were
attacking the French from the rear while the Nazis were crushing
them from the front.
\ '
~
/fo
<£y
But all that slaughter is over now, or at least will
/
be within the hour. And now the French are sitting down once more
to the humiliation they suffered sixty-nine years age,
Is&Gt-.
tfr® military occupation by enemy troops.
A




DIES
A Trojan Horse in the Middle West: That's the sensation
offered today hy Congressman Jies, Chairman of the Un-Ameri
can
Activities Committee. A good many people have been given to
understand that the so-called Fifth-Column business was confined
mostly to the eastern seaboard. Pursuing the work of his Committee,
Chairman Dies has been traveling. He was in Chicago today, and
declared that his Committee's investigators had found the Middle West
a regular hotbed of Fifth Column conspiracy. Therefore, he has
issued subpoenas for forty or fifty peoole, members of three German
organizations and two Italian societies. And Dies added that his
agents have been watching Communist, Nazi and Fascist outfits in
the prairie states for six months.
I.- ©rs
' im what G
d
Italian
organizations
he .
Frive. i eating* T / b
byf, .rv bl d t'' t th<
3

1
and }-/ added t t the. Unit ec / - os rig t n
a greater system
of foreign espiona e vitin its borders than ranee or England ever
had.
Dies has begun to spread his investigation to cover the


Mexican borderf£it*;-lii Texas. He declared today that he has hig
surprises in store for us regarding tfoe Nazi propaganda ^Fifth
Column plots that ai*e being fomented south of the Rio Grande.
A


CONVENTION - PERSONAL - 2
I suppose all observers feel just about the same at the
end ol tie iirst day at a national political convention -- in a
somewhat
hopeles
daze. I wish I could give you the real inside dope,
tipp33fe$ you of! tonight^to who is going to be the G.O.P.
c 01 iidate. But, I ia c^inTt do it. tNor do I think any
one else can
One of the wisest and most experienced of all the
political experts here in Philadelphia remarked to me this
afternoon that he had never seen such a wide open convention,
a convention where anything coultl happen.
As you no doubt have heard fcfc there is a lot of
11th hour talk about Wendel Willkie. His boosters are raising
a terrific hullabaloo. They are pointing out that they have
the man who can stand toe to toe with Mr. Roosevelt and
get the better of him in any kind of a bout. But, the
— KVfptr
,
western delegates shake their heads^ Dewey and Taft are
both going strong. We hear a lot about Senator Vanderbe rg
and Governor James. They are aH saying that the Pennsylvania
delegation is the one to be reckoned with, the largest single
block of strength in the convention. And over tne whole
scene looms the figure of a man who hasn’t yet arrived in



Philadelphia, the man who is to speak tomorrow night, the man
CONVENTION - PERSQUAL -
3
whom so many are looking toward in this time of world crisis,
If De: ey and Taft c m get together,xxEijck well, it i
easy to see what would happen. But the political wise men
are saying that unless they do their getting together "before
the balloting it will be too latejand then, the others —
Vandenberg, Willkie, and Hoover will be in the running.
in a
stand with me for a
in the lobby of the BeLlevue-
Stratford. Although sane of the candidates have their main
headquarters in other hotels they nearly all have,--al-SQjp
rooms at the Bellevue. The National Coramittee offices are
there. The broadcasting chains have their headquarters
in the Bellevue. Also, the press;-the U.P., A.P., tax&.
inx I.N.S. and the telegraph companies.
seems to be milling around in the lobby of the Bellevue. If
you stand trite re long enough yov will meet every person


CONVENTION - PEKoONAL -
4
connected with this convention. As Alice Longworth and Siaxmiar
Eleanor Roosevelt, Colonel Theodorefs wife.said to me a few
moments ago "Vvhy, it
ts
more exciting here than it is at the
Convention Hall”.
there is a double thrill to a national
Eaxxsnitixm convention for many of us: The thrill of watching
the greatest American show; and, the thrill sx of seeing so
many
j
f
pwt
* old friends. As you stand in the lobby of the
hotel, you get a slap on the back and when you turn around
It Is an old pal from Texas* eone grabs you by the elbow
and it turns out to be Bert Mattel from Honolulu. You
put your frg.TT head in a room where you hear clicking
typewriters and there Damon Runyon and Bugs Baer, in
their shirt sleeves, ripping out their stories, lou con'e
around a marble column and bump into Boake Carter and arou d
the next one into Wythe Williams. You get into an elevator
and encounter Congressmen and Senators. Y01 get off fc -t
a floor upstairs and tat in the crowd trying to jam into the
Kisfc elevator for tne trip dcwn you see George Sokolsky


CONVKNTION - PER: .QNAL - 5
f nous writer and. speaker
has lost
thirty or forty pounds during this first day of the Convention.
k
moment later y u bump into the head of one of the largest
corporations in Americayask hi wno
helfs
for and he pul! s
his button out ol his pocket saying that he is not wearing
it
-
<
2-0
's called an ,reconoinic royalist", perhaps
/v
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it wouldn't do his favorite any good if he wore the button.
And one lovely gray-haired -OOT^pe^womah, Grace Rennolds
i/tCH
£ir*> £
tr^VV
' n d .
ito
th-were i]
from In iana cane up to remind iro lhot=^were in school
together thirty years ago.
I could go on inddufinately telling of Mt-t-la
incidents, and people
met. But in trus hour
of world crisis all seems too uni portant. You are
A
anxious to know who the candidate will be. And, right now
Lv