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No Ambassador just writes out a telegram and sends it. This is done by embassy secretaries who code all important dispatches. It was certainly queer that somebody handed in at Paris an uncoded telegram signed Jacob Suritz, addressed to Joseph Stalin, and congratulating the Dictator upon having foiled "plans of the Anglo-French warmongers" and "sinister schemes of enemies of Socialism" by worsting Finland. Whoever sent that undiplomatic telegram into the teeth of French censorship knew the French Cabinet must inevitably demand the recall to Moscow of fallen Litvinoff's friend Suritz. It did.
Soviet Premier Molotov promptly sent instructions which caused Ambassador Suritz, now persona non grata in France, to swing aboard the Simplon Express last week. At that, Ambassador Suritz could not have been wholly sorry to leave Paris. Since the war with Finland his Government has been a good deal less than popular in France. On a recent evening French Playwright René Fauchois saw the Ambassador rolling by in his bulletproof limousine, hollered: "Vive la Finlande!" 'Bulletproof notwithstanding, the Ambassador dived for the car's floor.
Louis XVI's Successors. Meantime, before a military court, the trial of 44 Communist ex-Deputies went into its second week. Charged with attempting to carry on "treacherous" activities by changing their Party's name after war's outbreak, the 44 continued to complain that their rights as French citizens were being violated because their trial was in camera. Even Louis XVI got a public trial, they pointed out. The official French attitude was that if all 44 legislators were permitted to sound off in public, the case would not end before 1941. In prospect for them were light sentences and fines, but the fact that in France, prior to last year the Reddest European country outside Spain and Russia, there was so little agitation about the secret trials, was one more indication of a sterner national attitude toward the U. S. S. R.
Molotov Borsch. None of this had been missed by Premier Viacheslav Molotov when he rose to address the Supreme Council of the U. S. S. R. in Moscow. His speech was an interesting borsch whose recipe was two parts passivity to one part provocation. Russia must "refrain from participating in the war between the big European powers." In fact, Comrade Molotov was all for peace —on Germany's terms and with Russia keeping her slice of Poland. On the other hand he charged the Allies with trying to use the Finnish war as "a starting point for war against the U. S. S. R." and paid special respects to ex-fellow travelers in France and Britain, "all those Attlees and Blums ... all those lackeys of capital who have sold themselves body and soul to the warmongers!"
Reynaud on Force. Monger or not, little Paul Reynaud talked aggressive war as his regime, its working Chamber majority upped from one to 17 by belated switched votes and given the tardy blessing of the sulky Right by an accolade from L'Epoque Editor Henri de Kérillis, went into its second week. To London Premier Reynaud flew for a meeting of the Allied Supreme War Council, where tougher tactics toward all neutrals—and that went for the U. S. S. R.—were agreed upon.