1941-02-04 — Page 7

CHINA MAIL Lisbon--Escape Hatch

an

'~WINDSOR HOUSE

HITLER AND ROOSEVELT

VENING was darkening as I looked down from the Lon- don-Portugal flying boat and saw the scrambled necklace of twink- ling lights about Lisbon's superb

harbour. I was homeward bound to America, and I caught my

Of Europe

or peace after 14 months in war troyers) which keep Portugal free sador, Sir Walter breath at this sight of the lamps artillery) nor his navy (six des- well. England's ruddy Ambas and darkness.

The steward nudged pointed. "Friend there

Franco's

to-day. me and

declining prestige enemy would skyrocket if ne would take

in

Eric Sevareid

down, Sieburg turned scarlet, and burst out in German, ' You are too small to be deflantf" He meant Portugal itself. Next day he sent profuse apologies. So far, Lisbon's press is carefully neutral.

As Biefurn and Sieburg con- ferred in the lobby, these men Selby, walks strolled a few feet away: Bech, four miles before breakfast, but once Premier of Luxembourg; athletics bore the dictator.

Pierlot, last Premier of Belgium; There is no real British fith | Camille Chautemps, once Premier column in Portugal "that of France; aged Paderewski, first wouldn't be cricket.” On the other | President of Poland. Each man hand, many of Portugal's secret had seen his nation undermined police were trained by Himmler by Sieburg's fifth column, seized in Berlin. The friends they made by the Nazl army, ruled by Bie- there come to see them.

furn's Gestapo,

That very day a man had come in to reserve a suite for their lat- est victim-deposed King Carol of Rumania.

Bieturn, sinister assistant to Himmler, arrived at Estoril while I was there. We learned his iden- tity from wise old Joseph Bech, Luxembourg's leading statesman. He'd seen Biefurn on the streets corner. Sicburg coolly glanced up of Luxembourg the week before as each man passed. The refugee Hitler's army overran the defense-statesmen did not turn their heads, Jess Grand Duchy.

Bieturn was talking in a lobby corner with a dark, heavy, dyna- mic German whom América should know about. His name is Friedrich Sieburg, and he is the man who perfected modern fifth- column tactics, America may ex- pect him when his work in Europe

In Belgium Sieburg, a man of the wealthy that Hitler would never touch their land. In Paris, he laid the groundwork among the "200 families" for the notorious |

who followed. He Otto Abetz wrote a book to flatter the French, called: Dieu, est-il francais? (Is God French?). He has now writ- ten an equally flattering about

Fascinated, I watched from my

nor speak to one another. I ached to introduce Bieturn to the burly, sprawling Russian asleep in the opposite chair-Dr. Lazovert, who helped kill Rasputin and drove his body. to the river.

Despite all the mystery of Hitler's present diplo- matic occupations, his problem may be simply there."

He is faced with stated.

A small cluster of lights hung in the sky to starboard - the At- three chief walls of resis-lantic Clipper from New York, over Portugal. But Franco knows tance standing between poised above the last fice port that Hitler cannot feed starving in Europe. To the right of the Spain. England is subsidising him and his ambition of clipper moved the dark blob of

shipments of Portuguese food world dominion.

a landplane seeking earth.

across the border in the faith that "Plane from Berlin," the stew-Spain will not bite the hand that The first and least sub-art explained. "Just started an

feeds it. Hitler knows that the for Hue to Lisbon two days ago. Portuguese empire in Africa, Asta Her stantial is France.

Forty young Arvan tourists' were

and the Atlantic, a richer prize opposition is composed of passengers on the first trip."

than the country itself, would When I entered the Palace fall into the hands of the British unreadiness on the

Hotel in Estoril, the resort oasis

navy if the Axis seized Portugal. least part of at

some 15 miles down the beach from

Portugal owes her freedom to Lisbon, I realised that luck had of her rulers to perform tossed me into the espionage cen-

many things, to her position un the map, at the crossways of the the Nazi bidding without the of World War II Low-tone Atlantic and Mediterranean trade

conversations go endlessly on

routes; to the fact that Lisbon is question. Having surren- the bar and in the long, dim lob-

the last direct point of contact

One morning at nine, the Ger- dered their army, this dis- bis Germans, Italians, Britons + with the United States for all

man passenger 'plane roared and Spaniards sit in great over- taste on the part of the stuffed chairs while they gather strongest reason is the fact that is dore,

belligerents. But

the

alarmingly low over perhaps

the Palace Hotel. I asked a waiter why the men of Vichy would count ports of their spies, and watch the spies of both sides find a free

pilot should go off his course to little against the German i Such other. Among them, probab- | Portugal useful. The Lisbon air great personal charm, convinced do this. "We think it's to get us

ly the fate of Portugal will be de-line, for example, is the only way

used to the Swastika," he said. threats of force, were itcided. The mild, honest Portuguese Nazi-Fascist ager.ts can get in and

"The first time he did it, the visa have little to say about it. not that France has re-

line at your consulate grew much Portugal is dry and poor. She

longer." cently acquired three bar-has 7,000,000 people, yet she is gaining counters which grow more precious with each new collapse of Italy. Weygand's presence Africa, the absence part of the French fleet from the Mediterranean, and finally the growing resentment of ordinary Frenchmen against their conquerors constitute to- gether the French wall of resistance. It is not im-! penetrable. Treachery in

tremendouts arches

chance, 50 much Vichy, guile in Paris, to-

to earth thei fantastic last impressions. I might have to be carried by business into the seemed

mid-Perthshire gether with a ruthless

art of the Highlands. A pras-glitter within a hundred yard, i festind

plung ted deeper in } soaking mist display of German power. ing accident, but shettld i not have my dopanting trath.

were London and brought oilskins?

I am not saying that a rainbow than might at any moment

in sweeping is the acme of beauty.

gulfed It might Manchester what hu bondage to

their brands ut "smoky, open

considerable nimatic statements, and so tma- dismissed by some as Nature a particular

of alnost | choky feg." Rolling stones may breaches in it. However, med Luch Tay in November as exhibitionism, a

a grey crevice in grey hills them-

gather no moss; likewise, sweep Hitler must batter down selves as watery as the pool be-

ing judgments collect na verity.

Yes, but how lar At such a reason, I feared,

is truth the this first wall before he it would be a dark journey to

ideal IT conversation or the brighter forms of composition? can hope to possess the park place, a slow, chill, and com.

That is the essential point. If we Some fortless invasion of a misty wil best conditions for an as-Merness, with little to see of that sault on the second.

in

of

out of England.

Portugal has been tied to Eng- only the size of Maine, and a third land's money and wine markets of her land is uncultivated. If herrince 1703 Great Britain controls professor-dictator, Dr. Antonio de virtually all Portuguese Imports Oliveira Salazar, can steer Portu- and experts. The people are pro- at away from war, he can go on British. But this is a dictatorship, with his ambitious effort to wipe and Salazar, with an eye on the out illiteracy, which blights hall war machine which could so easily the population. He ea. build more roll over him, leans Axis-ward. of his excellent clinics, clean the beiter the national dict. leprous slums and perhaps even

The Axis is busy and looks effi- eint. The German Minister is the cultured Baron Honneger, who He knows it is not his army can match Dictator Samzar's own (one division of troops without professorial intellect. They get on

book

Portugal's once glorious empire and present culture. Hard- ly an influential Portuguese has |escaped his suave attentions.

He made one break. When at a banquet he proposed a glowing toast to the Fuhrer, one tough oli Lisbon journalist abruptly sat

On Sweeping Statements

Recently I had the good fortune these twin,

low.

My

I

Was

SOME-

train Wits

1

rick

vu gar display, heaven's dabbing in coloured photography. But my

By Ivor Brown

Hollywood,

Grampian glory which the sum-point is not the beauty, but

rilliance. Grey Scotland indeed! mer so nobly unfolds.

Bleak November! There were two Yet my forecast was wrong from sweeping statements swept aside. newest with all its start to finish. warm, strictly punctual, and com-magic, could not have spilled the paratively empty. (To sit in

paint more amply. Any Tayside punctual and empty train is

crofter, looking upward from his pleasure now unknown in many

turnip-field, could justly have murmured, "Whaur's your Glori-

13

southern parts, and seemed to me as exquisite a bliss as travell- ing in the height of "de luxe" to playgrounds of the old, sweet

as old as the Ice Age

and

ous Technicolour noo?"

guard the of narsh north-east. Or harsh at

ever

00

Twenty thousand German, French and Belgian refugees mili around in Portugal, waiting for American visas. The Portuguese, to their everlasting credit, treat them kindly, often take destitute mothers and children into their homes.

But the refugees are nervous and depressed. They watch with Export longing as the American boat slips from harbour, and the Clipper wings toward the west. They are trapped. There is no "green frontier," as they call any border they can sneak across. Only the ocean. There is but one key to unlock this massive door of escape-the American visa.

They talk of nothing but immi- gration, quota numbers, our young vice-consuls-all-powerful gods to them. They are sick of each other. Men who shared bunks in concen- tretion camps avoid one another in Lisbon's jangling streets. The poor refugees droop over sidewalk cafe tables, munching cold Portu- guese beans with their beer. Daily the same routine: the general de- livery window to ask for a letter; the American consulate; the news- stand to speculate on Hitler's next move back to the corner cafe, then listlessly to bed.

drifted have given up, there to be scrupulous beyond fault back into the barren hill towns in our pursuit of truth we shall and "gone native." Others read of say very little, which may be our draft law, and get a bright Britain is the second

well, and what we say will be suiden. They have fled war consis- hedged about with qualifications tently so far; now they offer to wall, yet even while Hitler

in the American mobilises his machines for

as to be exceeding dull, which is "volunteer ill. I have ari acquaintance who Army." This is a humourless joke a new and more, terrific

has all this regard for accuracy to our harassed diplomatic staff, Tell him that it is a fine day and which spends exhausting hours attack against us, he must

we mean the twenty-four hours line of refugees. still take account of the

he will probably reply, "If by day checking the papers of the endless beginning last mid-night, and by Rich refugees from Biarritz third. That third wall-

My journey was a happy one fine we mean that the temperature scurry with httle black bags from and encountered all the cordiality has averaged sixty-five, with three bank to bank, buying and selling America's machine pow- peace.)

which the English as a rule deny hours of continuous sunshine, Imoney. At night they crowd the Not even a flaming sunset can

to the Scots. Yet, curiously,

tables on cannot agree." The fellow is, I roulette er-is not yet built, al- turn a Highland town into a rose-

at the Estoril my return I found a letter from fear, justly regarded as being both casino. They edge

over to an though it promises later red city, even though it be half

thean airmen who has come out of whimsical and tedious in his lust American consul and strike up to become formidable mammoth.

and England's gentle middle west to for accuracy. His zeal for truth conversation. They have bribed Stone is stone

waters of Scotland's makes one the more crave that their way across

many borders enough. He must bash wears its honest hue, but in Killin

admixture of the lie which so and cannot believe that money sober-suited Kirk even the down the second while the Scotland appears

architectural y least he found the land, the peo- often does undoubtedly give plea- doesn't talk with American off-

ple.glum and hostile, and the old, sure.

cials, too. workmen on the third are in a surplice. Its house of wor-

familiar epithet of "dour" merlt-

And pleasure, after all, is a One night in a corner of the ship is white and graceful as still engaged and can be flower, and answers with an equaled by the sorry welcome that he legitimate object of conversation.gaming room, I recognised first a sur- met. (At the same, time he him-It is the business of religion, pair of ill-fitting trousers, then caught unprepared. Yet radiance the shows on the

been philosophy,

and scholarship to the German Socialist to whom I rounding crags. Een Lawers, the self admitted that he had a man in America under-central bastion of all Scotland and, happily at home in earlier days pursue the truth without surren- had given them before he escaped other der to the wayside lures of easy from an Alpine concentration stands the process as well by some glacial accident, most with charming people in

and parts of Scotland) I had set out generalisation, effective. over- camp with. Lion Feuchtwanger, richly Alpine in its herbs as Hitler. He realises that blossoms, was now well covered to find Tayside in November emphasis, and smart, seductive the famous author.

in epigram. But let us mimit that He had been a mild little man, only if Britain's wall with snow upon its upper quar-dripping desert blanketed

au- the spinning of theories, amid a teacher and writer, when Hitler ters. As I left this very colour-mist and had discovered

He had since. stands will he have a ful country I saw the sun pounce turin fires and a rainbow radiance which, incidentally, truth may al- came to power. chance to build his own, through the clouds on Lawers's instead, he, looking for Caledonia ways break in. Is a proper exer- fought in Spain for his ideals, had and he sends bricks and shimmering summit and kindle a affably cordial, had found it cise of our mental faculties, and climbed the Pyrences carrying a that to malce a sweeping state-sick refugee child in his arms. He white November radiance in mid- disagreeably stern and wild.

The moral of this is never to [ment, however dubious may be was hard now, and quite without sky such as I had once beheld

We left the smoky room, and upon Parnassus on or April day montes general statement about gin an argument which is great fear. in Greece. This I watched, fur- peoples places that is, I entertainment

We must be austere indeed ifsat on the rocks where the surf thermore, through a double rain- truth be the object. Mr. Hamilton bow the inner member of which Fyfe recently wrote a most cogent we deny ourselves all joy in scor-pounded.

He, too, awaited his visa, He was both complete and inexpres-and salutary book about the folly ing a point, albeit by a quibble.

tional groups; he quoted chapters truth is a good servant but a bad refugce writers considered, worth Hence the outburst of fibly bright. The terminals of of attaching ethical labels, to na-It would be dangerous to say that was on Thomas Mann's list of 120 and: verses by the score to show master. We want its mastership a special effort to save. He was hostility towards the action should America that the British had generalised of our minds, but only in the sense tranquil. He never read the pap- In every possible (and contradic of a suave, tactful, and con-ers any more. If the Nazis came United States by Hitler. That said, we may justly tory) way about the virtues and, stitutional monarchy. The tyranny all right. They would never get Hitler is stung to fury by gain satisfaction from more commonly, the vices of their of exactitude could be a grave him, he said. the quiet resolve with this. Both: President neighbours, whose moral charac- oppression, but the danger of I felt I must tell him whom I

teristics appeared to vary most such a dictatorship is small in this

He turned; and in the darkness which President Roose Roosevelt and Hitler show obligingly according to the needs world of slogans and propaganda.

of diplomacy. It would not be dlf-Let us salute the truth, but let I could see the flashing whites of velt solders more surely that they have the same cult to compile a similar record us not be morbid or slavish in our his eves. the Anglo-American al- understanding of this or violently conflicting judgments obeisance. There are times when "Sleburg here?” he suld, "That'

about places and climates. Our a sweeping statement gives such means the kiss of death. To-mor- liance. Yet even in his wary they both know how own climate, in particular, has pleasure as to justify the flourish row I will make some acquaint- cured for of that mental broom. Without itances among the Portuguese fish- tantrums he does not lose big a part America must been most vigerously

its churlishness and blessed for we might cease from mental strife, ermen who have boats in the har¬ his guile. By his threat of play in the battle.

mortar to bolster the one barrier which can give him time to make his own construction.

し

a

had seen in the Palace Hotel,

its kindliness. So much depends and how bare would life be then! 'bour.”

+