See how it looked in 1943

The President and the Prime Minister: How They Met and What It Signifies

'Unconditional surrender' of Axis is aim of leaders and chiefs of staff at Casablanca strategy conference | Stalin's duties keep him away | Full aid pledged Russia and China

By R. Maillard Stead | Military Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor Accredited to the American Headquarters in North Africa

CASABLANCA, French Morocco, Jan. 27

President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill in 10 days of consultation here with the highest American and British military commanders have decided on offensive actions for 1943 designed to “keep the initiative in all theaters of the war” and pave the way to ultimate and “unconditional surrender” by Germany, Italy, and Japan.

Premier Joseph Stalin was invited to meet with the President and Prime Minister at some point farther east than Casablanca, but the Russian Commander in Chief declined because of the great offensives he is personally directing against retreating Nazi armies.

Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek of China was kept advised of the Casablanca negotiations.

French Generals Henri Honoré Giraud and Charles de Gaulle met in a villa on the outskirts of this Moroccan city for the first time since they became central figures in the political tangle from which Casablanca sought to unravel a unified French force.

Mr. Roosevelt, who had flown across 5,000 miles of the Atlantic Ocean for the first wartime trip abroad of any United States President, emerged from the conferences in a mood of cheerfulness and good humor. Yet his smiles did not hide a fixed determination to crush the Axis military machine as quickly as possible, and free the world from its dark threats.

Preview of Strategy

Mr. Churchill, also jovial on the surface of his Gibraltar-like persistence, alternated with the President in telling uniformed British and American war correspondents as much as they could tell about these epic war councils.

We met with them in the beautiful garden of a villa on heights overlooking this French Moroccan city. Sitting at their feet in a semicircle on the lawn, we had a preview of the shape of things to come as a result of successful meetings that for the first time had embraced the entire global picture in the presence of nearly every responsible Allied military chief.

While details are necessarily withheld until actions themselves speak, these are the major accomplishments of Casablanca as outlined to us by the President and Prime Minister themselves:

Full Defeat of Axis

1. War plans for 1943 have been settled, taking full advantage of the favorable turn of events at the end of 1942 and designed to make the Axis feel – soon – the weight of new Allied offensives.
2. Peace has been reaffirmed as possible only by the complete military defeat of the Axis powers.
3. United Nations resources are to be “pooled” even more than in the past.
4. Russia and China are to receive increasing military equipment and food up to the maximum capacity of the United States and Britain within their other worldwide commitments.
5. Generals Giraud and de Gaulle in a formal statement announced agreement on the objective of uniting French forces to fight for liberation of the motherland and victory of the United Nations. When photographs were taken, the serious expression of these French Generals contrasted with the puckish good humor of Messrs. Roosevelt and Churchill.

“Liberation of France”

Then the Frenchmen walked gravely together into the villa, leaving President Roosevelt to invite newspapermen to gather round for a talk.

General de Gaulle and General Giraud made this joint statement:

“We have met. We have talked. We have registered our entire agreement on the end to be achieved, which is the liberation of France and the triumph of human liberties by total defeat of the enemy.

“This end will be attained by the union in the war of all Frenchmen fighting side by side with all their Allies.”

[From London the Associated Press reports that full agreement presumably was reached at the conference on the clarification of the command in Africa and may be disclosed soon, according to military circles there.]

Sat in the Sunshine

Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill sat in the sunshine before the background of the picturesque villa outside which purple bougainvillia was climbing up the columns of the loggia.

To one side was a swimming pool converted into an air-raid shelter. The President wore a gray suit, pale blue shirt, and black tie. Mr. Churchill was garbed in a chalk-stripe gray suit with a white shirt and the familiar polka-dot bow.

The Prime Minister wore on the lapel of his jacket a “Victory V” in diamonds and a miniature insignia of America’s Distinguished Service Order bestowed on him by Gen. John J. Pershing in World War I. Correspondents at his feet had a closeup of his black boots with zipper fasteners instead of laces.

A Bit of Persiflage

Just before the pressmen gathered round, Mr. Churchill solicitously inquired whether Mr. Roosevelt wouldn’t like a hat to shield him from the sun.

“Not at all, thanks,” the President replied. “I was born without one, why should I need one now?”

The president pointed out to correspondents that the successful landings in French North Africa which had changed the whole outlook of the war since Nov. 8 were a realization of plans he and Mr. Churchill had formulated at Washington as far back as last June.

Now the time had come for a review of events in the light of progress made in various theaters of war, and for drawing up plans in regard to steps to be taken in 1943.

Premier Stalin was cordially invited to attend these talks which if he had accepted would necessarily have been held considerably further eastward.

But the Russian leader replied that, although he greatly desired to come, he could not leave his country owing to his duties as Commander in Chief of the Soviet forces engaged in transforming the grim Russian defense into sweeping advances of the winter offensive.

The Soviet Premier has been kept posted on the progress of the discussions relating to events which have already drawn off some of the enormous weight of combat Russia has been sustaining, and Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek has been informed of the measures the United Nations propose to undertake to aid China in the struggle with Japan, now in its sixth bitter year.

Without Precedent

The range of military studies in which Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill have been engaged with their service chiefs was described by the President as without precedent in history.

It concerns the retention of the inestimably valuable initiative obtained in North Africa and the offensive now to be pursued relentlessly in all parts of the world until the Axis powers and their satellites are conquered.

The President contrasted the possibilities for personal detailed conferences between allies widely separated geographically now and in World War I.

Here the men actually in control of operations in the different theaters of the war had been living in closest touch with each other and threshed out details in their respective talks.

The combined staffs had proceeded on the principle of the pooling of all of the resources of the United Nations.

The main work of the committees has been to bring the war to a successful conclusion, but due regard has been paid to economic questions, particularly in North Africa where the Allies are now based and the President in some remarks he made following Mr. Churchill’s talk said that the intention was to see French North Africa through its difficult period and keep it going in regard to food until the next harvest is gathered in.

Now the staff chiefs are going their various ways to put 1943 plans into what the official communiqué described as “active and concerted execution.”

Maximum Aid to Russia

President Roosevelt emphasized that the future plans of the Allies are keyed onto the necessity of lending the utmost possible aid to the Russian offensive.

This is being done by throwing a maximum strain on German manpower and going on with the process of inexorable attrition of German material now being carried out with notable success in Mediterranean regions.

At the same time within the scope of this policy all possible help is to be given to the Chinese.

The Axis is now finding itself with the disadvantages the democracies formerly had of having to meet heavy defensive demands on a widening perimeter, so that the Axis has the utmost difficulty to obtain adequate concentration of military power in any one sector.

Unconditional Surrender

Peace is to come, Mr. Roosevelt said, by total elimination of German, Italian, and Japanese war power. This doesn’t mean destruction of the people in those unhappy countries, but total and merciless destruction of the machinery they have built up for imposing totalitarian doctrines on the world.

In this connection the President reminded his listeners of the famous American General, Ulysses Simpson Grant, whose initials U. S. were adapted to express his resoluteness on the nickname “Unconditional Surrender” Grant. The democracies’ war plans were to compel the “unconditional surrender” of the Axis.

Mr. Churchill, who didn’t refer to typewritten notes as did Mr. Roosevelt, said he was in entire agreement with everything Mr. Roosevelt had said. The Prime Minister declared that nothing could come between the two of them who were now such firm friends, and he described the conference here as the happiest in his long experience of such meetings.

Churchill Optimistic

From it Mr. Churchill expected best results to accrue to the fighting services, and he stressed that agreement by leaders at the top is absolutely indispensable for co-ordination between their staffs.

He pointed out that recent events in North Africa have altered the whole strategic conception of the war and smiled when he recalled that Hitler has said that one of his greatest difficulties in this war was that he had to contend not with military experts but with military idiots and drunkards whose future moves were hard to prognosticate.

He added that the Führer’s problems along this line are becoming more and more difficult now that Marshal Rommel, the “fugitive from Libya,” had to be represented to the people as the deliverer of Tunis.

Paraphrase of Rhyme

In this connection Mr. Churchill promised, in paraphrase of the familiar nursery rhyme, “Everywhere that Rommel goes the British Eighth Army is sure to go.”

Mr. Churchill and his party arrived before Mr. Roosevelt did and immediately the President showed up after his 5,000-mile flight, Mr. Hopkins went across from Mr. Churchill’s villa to that of Mr. Roosevelt, and the two leaders of America and Britain were together from 7 o’clock that evening through dinner to 3 o’clock next morning. That was Jan. 14 and the conferences lasted until Jan. 24.

Since then they had been in continuous session, while the Chiefs of Staffs had been recording the progress of their conversations to the President and the Prime Minister.

While here the President visited and ate lunch with the troops in the field, and at Port Lyautey laid wreaths in the joint cemetery for American and French fallen in the fierce action during the landings there.

He paid tribute to the brave fight Frenchmen put up during the brief period of their resistance.

Here was interred the Canadian war correspondent Eddie Baudry killed when a transport plane was shot up by ground defenses when an error of navigation took it over Spanish Moroccan territory.