- 158%

Production for peace

PRAGUE—The Czechoslovakian
‘Skoda’ National Enterprises,
formerly one of the world’s great
armament factories, now under
the planned reconstruction econ-
omy of a democratic peoples’
government, is “beating its swords
into plowshares.” The ‘Skoda’
figures for Augest are: Tractors,
increase; railway engines,
112-5%; electro-motors, 110.7%
machine tools, 100%; liquid steel,
143.2%; and castings, 287.5%. All
increases date from the period
the plan went into effect a year
ago.

In the USA the warmongers call
for “more, bigger and better’ atom
bombs, while together with their
British imperialist counterparts,
seek to ressurect Krupps and re-
store the LC. Farbenindustrie
under former Nazi ‘leaders to its
former potential as a war industry.

4

US exports ‘democracy

ATHENS—Now, that the Greek
government has disclosed that an
American is going to conduct
Greece’s foreign trade, it is re-
ported that a big Wall Street firm
is moving in to scoop up the re-
sulting profits.

The company’s terms, it has
been learned, are that it will have
the right of importing raw mater-
ials and food into Greece without
customs’ duties, that it is to be
exempt from all Greek taxes and,
as the payoff, that none of its
employees, whether American or
Greek, can join unions.

Meanwhile, saying the civil war
has top priority, the government
has announced there will be no
fuel for civilians this winter.

Top Nazi runs Ruhr

BERLIN—A man who helped
direct Ruhr heavy industry when
it was the backbone of Hitler’s
war machine has been picked to
head the German management
board which will run Ruhr coal
mines under Anglo-American
sponsorship. He is ‘Wilhelm
Roelen, former general director
of the Thyssen gas and water
works. 4

Roelen held a Nazi party card
dated 1934 and is notorious as one
of the most ardent supporters of
Hitler’s doctrines. His appointment
has been revealed authoritatively
here and official announcement is
expected shortly. Last-minute
hesitation over public’ reaction to
Roelen’s appointment accounts for
the delay.

Seek Franco trade ban

LAKE SUCCESS, N.Y.—Anti-
Franco forees in the United
Nations are considering asking the
57 UN countries to refrain from
new trade agreements or other
commercial arrangements with
Spain, it was learned tonight.

A formal proposal embodying
such steps mav be introduced in
the 57-nation Political and Secur-
ity Committee of the UN General
Assembly when it takes up for the
second straight year the hot potato
of relations between UN countries
and Franco Spain.

Proponents of such a step, it
was understood, want to rally sub-
stantial support for their plan be-
fore actually calling on the assem-
bly to debate it. They already have
given up the idea of trying once
more to get through the assembly
a recommendation for the sever-
ance of relations with Franco.

Leaders in the anti-Franco fight
which has arisen at every session
of the assembly have been Russia,
Poland, and other Eastern Euro-
pean states and several Latin
American countries. :

They were said to feel that an
assembly proposal designed to pre-
vent new trade arrangements be-
tween Franco and UN countries
would have a better chance of ac-
ceptance than any stronger step.
It would not require UN members
to end whatever trade and com-
mercial relations they now main-
tain with Spain.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1947

station in saying,

British officer describes Greek f

LONDON—A high-ranking
British officer has just com-
pleted a pamphlet outlining
his experiences with the Bri-
tish army in Greece, which is de-
scribed in, a foreword by Labor
MP George Thomas as “a most
revealing indictment of fascism
at its worst.”

The pamphlet, to be published
here shortly, was written by Col.
A. W. Sheppard, who until recent-
ly headed the British Economic
Mission in northern Greece.
Though the U.S. has now assumed
the role of policy-maker in Greece,
the British troops whose activities
Sheppard condemns are still there.

“There was not one of our
missions or +departments in
Greece,” Sheppard says, ‘but had
its representatives from one of
the five ‘intelligence’ or special
departments ..-. I have no hesi-
from my own

knowledge, that these agencies
were not working for ordinary
military intelligence.

“They were working .. . for

a special department of the Bri-
tish Foreign Office and _ their
only duties were to report upon
and investigate activities of left-
wing elements.

“Investigation often meant posi-
tive action. Positive action meant
acting in concert with right-wing
elements and it is for this rea-
son that most Greeks think, how-
ever wrongly, that the British were
participating actively in, or at
any rate knew and approved of,
the enormously large and inhuman
exiling of political opponents, tor-
ture while awaiting exile or death
following trial by court martial
and general suppression of a kind
which one associates with Nazi
Germany.”

Sheppard describes how E. H.
Peck, British vice-consul in nor-
thern Greece, told him that
right-wing newspaper reports of
guerrilla atrocities at Mandalos
in November 1946 were false.
In his weekly report, however,
Peck repeated them. When
challenged by Sheppard, Peck
answered: “There are enough
people making propaganda for
the left, why should I?”

ascism

Tragedy in the Balkans

If ever a people fervently wanted peace, it is the people who live in the Balkans and in Greece.

These Greek peasant women are on their way to

Bulgaria to escape the ravages of their homeland

turned into a police state by the actions of a pro-fascist regime existing on U.S. dollars. The young
and the strong stay home to fight the royalist armies; the aged must move.

British troops, Sheppard says,
are used so as to release the maxi-
mum number of Greek soldiers to
rout all opposition, “On three oc-
casions, to my certain knowledge,”
he says, “British units were sent
on reconnaissance marches just
to ‘show the flag,’” to frighten
rebel forces.

Sheppard illustrates justice in
Greece by pointing out that those
accused of political crimes have
no right to appear before the se-
curity committees which “try”
them, have no right to call wit-
nesses nor hear evidence. The
accused can only appeal to the
governor-general —- who appoints
the security committee.

French unionist at UN
sees U.S.-Soviet accord

By GLADYS GARTER

LAKE SUCCESS, N.Y.—With the World Federation
of Trade Unions offering living proof that unionists the
world over can reach agreement on their common problems,
Allied Labor News decided to conduct a survey among the

unionists who are now doubling as
diplomats at the current United
Nations session to get their views
on happenings in UN and _ else-
where. :

As first choice, it picked Leon
Jouhaux, long-time general secre-
tary of the French General Con-
federation of Labor (CGT), still a
member of the CGT executive
board and a leader of the WFTU.
Jowhaux a fright-winger in the
French labor movement, was wel-
comed back as a leader of the
CGT after spending the war in
a German concentration camp, and
is the only union leader who is
a full-fledged member of his coun-
try’s UN delegation.

Though acknowledging some
snags in the UN machinery, Jou-
haux had this to say on the pros-
pect of settling the many issues
facing the world organization:

“The UN was set up to make
peace and to point the road to-
ward maintaining a stable peace.
If it doesn’t do that, the UN
just doesn’t exist. It is impos-
sible for the U.S. or the So-
viets to say that peace is a
failure, so some way must and
will be found to settle the is-
sues between them.”

Asked about French labor’s at-
titude: toward the Marshall plan,
Jouhaux declared that French
workers would be happy to re-
ceive any aid the U.S. might send
“as long as there is no political
interference involved.”

Discussing the recent i16-nation
conference on the Marshall plan,
and the fact that the estimates

‘Through the WFETU,

of Europe’s need for aid were
greatly reduced at the behest of
U.S. State Department officials,
Jouhaux commented that the new
revised figures were “obviously a
deception.”

“It is not possible,” he added,
“that Germany be reconstructed
before the war-ravaged nations.
There can be no rebuilding of
German industry until a politi-
cal settlement is reached there
guaranteeing that fascism can-
not arise again.”

Jouhaux said he found much
more talk of war in the U.S. than

in any of the European countries
he has recently visited. “It is
better not to talk so much of
war and to prepare for peace,”
he asserted.”

“American workers, like Euro-
pean workers,” he added, “must
consider that peace is in their
hands and depends on _ them.
they must
work to preserve the peace.”

French workers fear a new war,
he said, but they do not expect
one,

U.S. inflation, he said, is having
direct repercussions in France,
where prices of the many com-
modities imported from the US.
are soaring the same as_ they
are here. Much of this, Jou-

haux said, is directly attributable
to U.S. imports.

Hollywood stars score
‘un-American’ probe

HOLLYWOOD-—A galaxy of movie stars and U.S. Sena-
tors, fighting back against the House un-American Activities
committee method of probing “Hollywood Communism,”
have urged citizens to protest the committee’s “kicking the

living daylights out of the Bill
of Rights.” | ‘

In a nationwide broadcast (ABC)
from Hollywood, New York and
Washington, the speakers criti-

cized the committee’s Washington |

hearings on Communist infiltration
into the screen industry as one
sided with no opportunity given
for cross examination. Show was
titled “Hollywood Fights Back”
and was written by Norman Cor-
win. ;

The 40 movie stars and other
speakers branded the hearings by
the committee headed by Rep.
Parnell Thomas, (R-N.J.) as
“thought control by fear,” and
“throttle all communication sys-
tems.” Fourteen of the movie star
speakers made recordings as they
flew to Washington to protest per-
sonally the way the committee is
“kicking Hollywood around.”

“Tt ask you when they put words

‘in concentration camps, how long

will it take before they put men
there, too?” screen star Judy
Garland asked in closing the half-
hour show.

“Do something about this be-
fore every free conscience in Am-
erica is supoenaed,”’ she appealed
to the listeners. “Let Congress
know what you think of its un-
American committee. Tell them
how much you resent the way
Mr. Thomas is kicking the living
daylights out of the Bill of

‘| Rights.”

Actress Margaret Sullivan read
the first constitutional amendment
guaranteeing religious freedom and
freedom of speech and the press.

Radio comedian Henry Morgan
and Actor Keenan Wynn quoted
from witnesses appearing before
the committee as saying “they
heard,” or “believed,” or “learned
in a round about way” that some-
one was'a Communist, although
they had “no proof.”

“There’s not. a court in the
land where even a man _ suspect-
ed of murder cannot have his
attorney rise and say ‘I object’,”
said actor John Beal. “And yet
in the un-American committee
room, the lawyer who said ‘I
object’ was forcibly removed
from the committee room.”

“If things they are screaming
about today are subversive, then
East Lynne was subversive too,”
Edward G. Robinson added.

Audie Murphy, the most decorat-
ed soldier of World War Two, who
has turned film actor, said the |
methods of the committee are @
challenge to those liberties for
which servicemen fought.

Actor Paul Henreid quoted de-
ported Bund-Leader Fritz Kuhn a5 ~
saying: “I am in favor of the
committe to be appointed again

and wish them to get more
money.”
Meanwhile, Humphrey Bogart -

headed a group of 26 movie stars, -
directors and writers who boarded
a plane to go to Washington t@
protest the methods of the com-
mittee. Bey

Also making the trip are movie |
queens Evelyn Keyes, Lauren Ba-
call, Marsha Hunt, Jan Wyatt,
Geraldine Brooks and June Havoc.

Actors Paul Henreid, Danny
Kaye, Richard Conte, Sterling
Hayden, and Gene Kelly; harmon-
ica player Larry Adler, lyricist
Ira Gershwin, writers Joe Sis-
trom, Arthur Kober, Sheridan Gib-
ney, Sheppard Strudwick, Phillip
Dunne, Robert Ardrey, Ernest -
Pascal, Jules Buck, Robert Pres-
nell, Jr.. Mel Frank, Ted Raden
and press agents David Hopkins .
and Henry Rogers also were oD
the junket.

Screen star Marsha Hunt told
the fans that “the screen is a&
free as any other medium of
communication,”

“If you agree,” she said, “wire
your Congressman you believe ip
motion pictures the way they are.”

The group faced a crowd which
swelled out around their charter-
ed plane as they landed for 2
30-minute stop in Kansas City.
Autograph hounds were all over
the place.

From Danny Kaye you learned
how bad, really, is the ‘“censor-
ship of fear” in the movie it-
dustry. Four of the group used
that phrase in conversations here-

“It’s reached the place,” said
the comedian, “where you have tO
be careful even shooting wild west
pictures. Say you have a bank
holdup and the sheriff comes rum-
ning up wanting to know which
way the bad men went.

“If you say ‘they went left’ the
first thing you. know you're UP
before the House un-America®
committee.”

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 2