EUROPE: Neutral Nervousness

Germany’s most dangerous secret agents are at work in Portugal. One of them is an old enemy of mine.

He is notorious and wears a monocle. I was personally depressed last night to see him in Lisbon. The last time I saw him was in the Hotel Athénée Palace, Bucharest, just before the occupation of Rumania, and in the Hotel Serbski Kralj, Belgrade, before the attack on Yugoslavia.

—London Daily Mirror Correspondent David Walker Such E. Phillips Oppenheimish apprehensions were commonplace realities last week among Europe’s chief neutrals. The world waited to see whether Adolf Hitler, balked in Russia, would strike massively through Turkey at Suez and the Near East, or through Spain and Portugal at Northwest Africa. Both courses had their prophets. The prosecution of both at once was possible.

Spain. One hint that Adolf Hitler might not demand that Spain pave a new road for his conquest lay in the fact that Spain had taken over Germany’s interests in the U.S. and was reported preparing to send 200 consular officers across the Atlantic.

British Ambassador Sir Samuel Hoare, interviewing Spanish Foreign Minister Ramón Serano Suñer twice in two days, tried to counterpoise his own influence to that of the German Ambassador. But probably the military strategy of the Axis (see p.12), and not diplomatic conversations, would determine the duration of peace in Spain.

Portugal. Delicate Portuguese-British relations were violently chafed by the British-Dutch occupation of the Portuguese half of the East Indian island of Timor (see p. 13). When the Portuguese Government protested sternly, the British Foreign Office insisted that Japanese submarines had been sighted off Timor, that the Allies acted only to forestall invasion by the Japanese. German gutturals continued to sound in Lisbon’s streets, hotels and restaurants.

Turkey. To pious, fatalistic President Ismet Inönü of Turkey, the U.S. entry into war has brought added unease. Having repeated that Turkey was neutral, partially deaf Ismet Inönü expediently turned his bad ear to German protests that his acceptance of Lend-Lease aid was unneutral. But he could hear clearly enough reports from Turkey’s Bulgarian border that Germany was increasing her gasoline stocks and working feverishly on air bases in Bulgaria. Turkey awaited her Kismet (fate) and wondered about rumors that Chief of Staff General Fevzi Cakmak was partial to the Axis.