Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that for the first time since the Allies had landed at Salerno September 9, the Germans had fallen back while fortifying six positions along their winter defensive line in the Garigliano River valley. The Germans were determined to stop the drive of the Fifth Army through the valley from Cassino to Rome and to use the Apennines as a bulwark against the Eighth Army to the east.

For the first time in a week, the weather in Italy cleared, enabling the American and British soldiers to dry out their clothing. But, meantime, the Germans had utilized the lull in action to fortify their positions in the mountains, behind barbed wire and trenches, pill boxes and gun emplacements.

Rechitsa, 25 miles west of Gomel, along the Gomel-to-Warsaw rail line, fell to the Red Army.

But it was also reported that for the first time in the four months since beginning its summer offensive in the Ukraine, the formerly fast-freight First Ukrainian Army of General Nikolai Vatutin had given up ground to the Nazis in the Zhitomir-Korostyshev area, west of Kiev. The Nazis attacked southeast of Zhitomir and in the Fastov area with about ten divisions, according to estimates coming from London. Observers believed that the withdrawal was to avoid encirclement of a large force and was not conducted on a large scale. Tanks and motorized infantry had led the Russian assault on Zhitomir and Korostyshev, but the mud-bogged infantry had been unable to keep pace, ultimately necessitating the withdrawal.

Other forces continued to push forward toward Korosten, threatening it from south, east, and north, capturing Narodichi and the subsequently infamous town of Chernobil.

After taking Leros in the Dodecanese Islands in the Aegean the day before, the Germans focused their aerial attack on Samos, twenty miles north of Leros and the last of the British-held islands in the group.

London newspapers expressed dismay at the fall of Leros and predicted that its loss would likely interfere with ongoing talks with Turkey to obtain its abandonment of neutrality, as well as efforts to sway the Balkans to the side of the Allies.

An Associated Press report from Turkey indicated that the country was likely to enter the war by spring but not before, even though for some time it had been providing sub rosa aid to the Allies. But not until its port facilities and coasts were protected would it actually enter the war and thereby invite retaliation from the Wehrmacht. Allowance of actual use by the Allies of naval and air facilities within Turkey would be considered by the Germans an act of war.

Meanwhile, thousands of Rumanians were seeking exit visas to both Turkey and Switzerland, in an effort to escape the approach of the feared Red Army.

For the first time in history, a cabinet officer spoke to the Congress in joint session as Secretary of State Cordell Hull gave a report on the Moscow Conference and its resultant Declarations. The Secretary was greeted by standing ovations and received a hero’s welcome for his work at the Conference. He gave high praise to Josef Stalin and indicated that no longer would there be any need after the war for alliances, balance of power, spheres of influence, or other such devices by which the nations had sought previously to stave off war.

The Congressional Medal of Honor was awarded 24-year old First Lieutenant David Waybur of Piedmont, California, (within Oakland), for his having used a machinegun to take out one of four Italian light tanks harassing his unit’s position in Sicily. At the time he was seriously hurt and three of his men, crouching behind cacti, were wounded. They were out of ammunition except that which Lieutenant Waybur had in his machinegun. He lined up directly in front of the approaching tank and began firing away, finally killing the two-man crew.

The House unanimously approved a compromise bill expected to pass the Senate, making pre-Pearl Harbor fathers the last to be subject to the draft, only after all non-fathers not receiving war industry deferments had first been drafted.

Hal Boyle tells of “Laundry Hill’ located in Oran, overlooking the Mediterranean in Algeria, in a factory built from wooden crates, wherein former Italian prisoners, supervised by Allied personnel, salvaged worn G.I. uniforms, torn usually from barbed wire or machinery. Give them the buttons and they could produce a uniform around them. That was their motto. Everything went into the scrap bag.

And the piece titled "Fears U.S. Trade Bag", we venture, was a misprint which should have read "Fears U.S. Trade Lag", that is anent the British fearing a lag in trade vis à vis the United States, as addressed to the British National Union of Manufacturers by MP Sir Patrick Hannon.

Nevertheless, everybody seemed to be talking about bagism in these last two years of world war.

On the editorial page, "The Papas" finds unwise the decision of the Congress not to draft fathers until all non-deferred single men had first been drafted. The plan was the hallmark of inefficiency, says the piece, to be lumped with the refusal of Congress to submit to the President's request for food subsidies. General Marshall had indicated the need for fathers to be included in the draft. His word, demands the editorial, had to be given precedence over sentiment.

"Surprise" remarks on the homage paid Secretary Hull by Izvestia, official Soviet Government newspaper, which lauded the Secretary for his role at the Moscow Conference. The praise was a far cry from the icy relations between Mr. Hull and the Russians throughout most of his latter tenure as Secretary of State, when former Undersecretary Sumner Welles was the primary voice in the State Department promoting rapprochement with the Russians. Now, Mr. Welles was gone and suddenly Mr. Hull had become instead hero to the Russians.

"Mr. Morrison" receives the candidacy of former Governor Cameron Morrison for the Democratic nomination for the Senate, entering the race against his chief rival, former Governor Clyde R. Hoey, as a welcome addition to the campaign, one likely to make it an interesting and hard fought affair.

"What's Up?" guesses that FDR's sudden absence from a scheduled speech the night before lent credence to the rumors from London that a conference was imminent between Stalin, Churchill, and the President. The rumors were further reinforced by the sudden disappearance from the dispatches of the by-lines of the major reporters.

Raymond Clapper again looks at the spiral of inflation on the horizon, triggered by the granting of higher wages to the striking coal miners, now infecting CIO workers and railway workers. Meanwhile, Congress disfavored the President’s recommended food subsidies to stem inflationary trends. And the spiral proceeded higher and higher.

Mr. Clapper had asked the year before, while in China, the Chinese Finance Minister why inflation was so high in that country. He received the response that with inflation, the Chinese coolie was able to carry around a big wad of bills, feel prosperous, and thus support the war in defense of the Japanese invader. Had their been deflation and consequent diminution of money on hand, the peasant would have disfavored the war.

Drew Pearson relates how socialite Evie Robert (not "Elvie", as we misprinted, all shook up, three days ago) had met with the Duchess of Windsor and was delighted to find in the meeting no conversation re the murder of Sir Harry Oakes, that for which Alfred de Marigny was on trial in the Bahamas.

Betraying changed attitudes on certain crimes in 67 years, a squib tells of a 42-year old man convicted of having "carnal knowledge" with his 12-year old stepdaughter and receiving but a suspended sentence on condition that he pay $15 per month in child support until she reached 18, and that he remain on good behavior during the period of probation.

Dorothy Thompson discusses the absurdity of segregating blood of African-Americans from Caucasians in supplying blood transfusions to soldiers. She correctly states that there are only four blood types and each finds a home within every race worldwide. Superstitions aside, no white boy would become suddenly black by having black blood enter his veins.

Of course, he could probably jump higher, run faster, and dance with greater rhythm and alacrity afterward, but that was simply among the perquisites to be enjoyed by those wounded in war.

Congressman John Rankin of Mississippi, notorious and overt racist, had in June, 1942 rejoindered against what he thought was a Communist-inspired story appearing in PM that black, white, and Japanese blood were being integrated by the Red Cross in transfusion pools. He denied the scurrilous rumor, insisting that niggers would stay niggers, honkies, honkies, and Japs, Japs, the way God meant, and that no goddamned Commie magazine saying differently was going to change the fact that the Red Cross was maintaining blood by race and not comingling same to form a mongrel race.

--Son, we can't help it, damnit. All we have is nigger blood on hand and so until we get some good goddamned pure Aryan blood for you, you will simply have to hold your goddamned guts in place while we fight these goddamned Nazi pigs. Sorry. We don't wish to see you turn into Stepin Fetchit overnight.

--But, Sgt. Blackstripes, I am a nigger.