U.S. At War: Unquiet Potomac

There has been a bad lag in the actual movement of U.S. war material to Russia and Turkey. The long-tried patience of Joseph Stalin-smothered with promises, fed with a trickle-is near the cracking point. Turkey, which unofficially promises to go anti-Axis for the barest trifle of Lend-Lease aid, is now getting desperately nervous, because no U.S. aid arrives. The President, seeing the Lend-Lease clearance papers, takes it for granted that the goods have been shipped, does not know that they have been sidetracked by the U.S. Army & Navy for other uses.

Washington correspondents were told these things last week as facts-by responsible people in the Administration who should know. Certainly a bitter behind-the-scenes battle was under way in Washington. The State Department, the Lend-Lease Administration, the agents of Information Coordinator Bill Donovan were fighting to get aid to Russia and Turkey before the Japs and Germans closed all possible routes of aid. The Army and Navy Departments were fighting to get all possible aid to United Nations forces now in combat; to mount offensives, if possible; to build up defenses at vulnerable points.

It looked as if the unified command of the U.S. needed a little more unifying.