enna

Boos greet German diplomat

LONDON

Oskar Schlitter, West German
wlomat whose wife considered
en “enemy teritory,” was or-
: "ed back to Germany last week
Ad placed on the retirement list
wat than 48 hours after his sudden
x “rn to London with his wife,
aisy,

: The Schlitters got a hostile re-
“ption in London. They were
at the railway station. Then,
oe id protests, they ,were com-
i ‘ed to barricade themselves in

elr flat,

i Last December they were hast-
¥ recalled to Bonn following

*8U Schlitter’s reference to Brit-
“in as “enemy territory” during a
Atistmas party at the German

assy in London.

ad

te avo

“My husband and I find again |
treacherous |

2x0 again what
und London can be, and realise
“Sain and again that we live among

eemnies,” she was reported as hav-.

‘Ne said,

e tn London last week the German

mbassy Stated that ’Schlitter and
ae Wife had returned “on a short
fee {2 their children,” denying
‘at their return had any official
*8nificance,

st West Germany, however, So-
al Democrats hinted that the
tters’ return was a victory for
*esurgent Nazis,
It is a symptom of the ever
“ore powerful influence of certain

Schlitter recalled
again after return

|

OSKAR AND DAISY SCHLITTER

circles in Bonn,’ said the Neuve
Rheinbeitung, Social Democratic
paper at Essen.

These circles, the paper con-
tinued, approved of the Schlitters’
return and regarded it as a victory
for the “old guard” — the pre-war
diplomats of the Nazi era.

Bevan ouster vote
blow to right win

By PETER ZINKIN

LONDON

The 112 Labor MPs who voted for Aneurin Bevan have shaken the right wing
of the Labor party to its core. Clement Attlee and the right wing leadership wanted a
vote of confidence from the Labor MPs—and they got about 50 percent confidence.
It was a semi-confidence vote—or not even that.
A resolution to withdraw the whip from Bevan, put by the executive of the

Parliamentary Labor party, was
carried by only 2S votes—141 to
112—at its meeting last week.

Only 14 votes defeated a concil-
iatory amendment, designed to
censure Bevan ‘but not to withdraw
the whip. Voting on this was 138
to 124.

Altogether, 253 MPs voted on
the main issue of withdrawing the
whip, which means that, as there
are 291 in the Parliamentary party,
38 were either absent or deliber-
ately abstained from voting.

On Wednesday this week, the
Labor party’s national executive
was to decide whether it would
take the next step and expel him
from the party.

At last week’s meeting, Bevan
said that whatever happened he
would not form any splinter group
or try to form a new party.

He would continue to fight for
his policies and for the right of
MPs to campaign for their views
within the;movement.

In one of the most impressive
speeches of his career, Bevan un-
compromisingly explained and de-
fended his position.

Scots farm boy became famous scientist —

Discoverer of penicillin dead

LONDON

A poor Scots farm boy who grew

x to make one of the most start-

a discoveries of modern medi-
© Is dead in London.

Name was Sir Alexander

Meming. His discovery of penicil-'

eh years ago, transformed the
t against disease.

, Ee died on March 11 following
ee fart attack at the age of 73 —
i SIX months after retiring from
Fleet a8 chief of the Wright-

we St. af Institute of Microbiology

ary’s Hospital, London.

it Was onl z
y during the Second |
World War when large quantities!

fer Penicillin were manufactured
oo ar
World. known throughout the
eq, Warded a Nobel Prize, knight-
Gai elected rector of Edinburgh
versity, showered with numer-

‘ oreign orders and honors, he
Temained a modest, even shy,

> delivering his opinions in a|

ts accent.

ra * * *
te ne of a family of six he came
2 shi ‘On as a youth to work as

PPing clerk. From his care-

Savings he bought his first

ig books.
shins | With the aid of scholar-
Prizes he ‘began full-time study.
"Th came with apparent ease.
eta Most brilliant examinee
fenrrewny was how one con-
Slight ty ,,Uescribed the short,

Shtly-built Scotsman. j

S to 1. Stting of academic hon-
im the po credit he started work
% gy 1 aCteriological department

Mine ty S Hospital where he
Ned till his retirement.

. 8d wi © First World War he serv-

Corps the Royal Army Medical
fare 4, 40d it was the trench war-
Woundeg 1. Gays — when one
fro man in every. four died
Bitgy “°PSis on the way to hos-
Rew }, which spurred him on to
that Woury earehing for the drug
Many ca et the growth of

ing ae Say it was luck that Flem-

the first time, that his name |
cam

| the story himself of how when
working in his laboratory a mould-
ispore, one six-thousands of an
‘inch, blew in through a window
j and settled on a slide laden with
germs.

He noticed that the germs didn’t
grow around the speck of mould.
From that moment penicillin was
'on its way.

If it was luck then it was richly
‘deserved. For it was only just
that the honor of the discovery
| should go to a man who had dedi-
icated his life’ to finding such a
| drug.

He received little financial re-
ward for his discovery. Those who
'do medical research, he once said,
were “overworked, underpaid and
ill-rewarded.”

the U.S.

Covered penicillin. He told

pp

It was left to the U.S. to start
large-scale production of penicil-
lin during the war. Sir Alexander
told Leeds University students
about it ten years ago.

“That was the first time that
America appeared in the pic-

ture,” he said, “but you would
think from some of the films
that . « .“” and the rest of his
remarks were drowned in ap-
plause.

Even after his retirement he con-
tinued research work. His main
aim was to find ways of immunis-
ing people, against infections.

For like all the great men of
medicine, the man who once earn-
ed ten shillings a week believed
that prevention was better than
cure.

Sir Alexander Fleming (left) is shown here with Dr. Jonas
Salk, famous for his research on influenza and polio vaccines, at
the University of Pittsburgh’s medical centre during his visit to
A decade earlier, commenting on U.S. mass production
of penicillin, he had told Leeds University students, “That was
the first time America appeared in the picture, but you would
think from some of the films that .. .”

ithe Menzies government.

! Turning on his accusers, Bevan
| said that he had never intrigued
against. the leaders nor against
Attlee.

On the contrary, every
approach he had made to get unity
in the party had been rejected.
It was, he said, a political issue
_that had to be decided and-not a
personal matter.

Of the shoals of letters and
messages he had received from
local Labor party organizations
throughout the country, the over-
whelming majority supported his
policy and the fight against Ger-
man rearmament,

One of the party’s troubles was
,that most of those sitting on its
parliamentary committee had been
rejected’ by the rank-and-file in
democratic votes at party confer-
ences for the national executive.
(This was taken as a reference to
the fact that Herbert Morrison,
Emanuel Shinwell and others had
been defeated in past national '
executive elections.) \

Bevan charged that the right
wing wanted him out of the party
regardless of the wishes of the
rank-and-file membership or the
effect his expulsion would have on
party unity and the party’s pros-
pects in the next election.

He asserted that he had been
singled out from all other MPs
who supported his policies in an
attempt to silence the dissidents.
The decision had been taken and

ANEURIN BEVAN

skell and others before the jury
of MPs had been given the oppor-
tunity to hear the case and the
defense.

Commenting on the Parliamen-
tary Labor party’s action at a pub-
lic meeting in London last week,

Harry Pollitt, general secretary of
the British Communist party, said
that the small majority of 29 votes
by which the decision to withdraw
the whip from Aneurin Bevan
carried was-a striking condemna-
tion of the right-wing Labor lead-

publicly pronounced by Hugh Gait-

ership’s whole policy.

SYDNEY

An attempt to frame L. L.
Sharkey, general secretary of the
Communist Party of Australia, by
reviving the hoary “Moscow Gold”
lie at the Petrov Royal Commis-
sion has failed miserably.

The frame-up was ‘organized by
the pro-U.S. tory government of
Prime Minister Robert Menzies.

Petrov, a former minor official
of the Soviet embassy at Canberra,
deserted his country on April 3,
1954. The Soviet government has
accused him of stealing embassy
funds.

For three months, Petrov, a
traitor to his own country, had
been in the hands of the Menzies
government’s secret police, pre-
paring statement after statement,
when he suddenly “remembered”
a story about Sharkey having re-
ceived $25,000 (U.S.) from the
Soviet Union.

It is claimed that Petrov and
his wife Evdokia first“‘thought” of
the story on June 10, 1954. This
was already three months after
Petrov had accepted $15,000 from

The secret police have admitted
that they helped the two Petrovs
to fix the date of the mythical
“Moscow Gold” transaction.

Sharkey’s movements were
checked by the secret police and
supplied to the Petrovs. In this
way Petrov was able to select a
date for his story when Sharkey
was known to have been in Sydney.

He named October 16, 1953, as
the date.

But then a colossal blunder was
revealed.

Sharkey was able to testify be-

Secret police forced
to prove Petrov lied

L. L. SHARKEY

yond all doubt that on October 16,
1953, he was at a central commit-
tee meeting of the Communist
party.

The government's legal counsel
and members of the secret police
rushed to their files to check on
Sharkey’s statement.

The result was an ironical situ-
ation. The secret police had to
admit from their own records that
Sharkey was telling the truth.

The secret police had actually
been watching the building
where the central committee
was meeting, with. Sharkey in
attendance. In concocting the

story this had been overlooked.

The Petrovs stood revealed as
partners in a crude frame-up, pre-
pared to put their names to stories
that were utterly untrue.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — MARCH 25, 1955 — PAGE 3