In any event, the piece tells that one Mecklenburger of 1775 had ridden his horse all the way to Philadelphia to tell the First Continental Congress of the good news of independence. But they had simply shunted him to the corner as they were in the midst of an appeal to King George to afford better treatment to the colonies in exchange for not revolting.

Anyway, do you ever get the feeling that Britain plays games with all its colonists through time until they've nothing but to revolt and set up their own independent governments? Or is it just the way of it?

Regardless, on May 20, 1775, some Mecklenburgers got together apparently and declared their independence from the Crown, but no one heard the echo. They didn't have a loud enough bell.

Anup Singh, editor of The Voice of India, then asked Mr. Eden the question whether the arrest of thousands of Indian leaders by Britain was not obstructing settlement of the Indian question.

To that Mr. Eden made no reply, but, along with everyone else present, laughed.

Concludes the piece: "There must've been something funny in the way Mr. Singh asked his question."

Mr. Pauley had worked his way up from an encyclopedia salesman and "mucker" in the oil fields to become a "roughneck", a derrickman, a driller, a crude gager, a buyer, and refinery evaluator. Then he was hurt in an airplane crash and had to spend a year in the hospital. He couldn't afford the $9,000 doctors' bills. So he decided to go into the oil business and leased a refinery. From it developed the Petrol Corp. of California.

When the war had erupted, he presented a plan to President Roosevelt to ship gasoline to Britain, utilizing rail transport across the U.S., was then sent to Britain by the President to advise on lend-lease. There, he met both the present British and Russian representatives on the Reparations Commission.

The column next covers this and that: Assistant Secretary of State Will Clayton, cotton king, had become one of the staunchest advocates for a hard peace for Germany; Steve Early, as one of his last acts as White House press secretary, had kept from the press President Truman's directive for a tough peace, despite the President and the State Department wanting it disseminated, Mr. Early believing that it might prove embarrassing to General Eisenhower; Ray Murphy of the State Department had hired Ben Mandel, a former Communist who had once been in the employ of the Dies Un-American Activities Committee and to whom it had been attributed that he provided conservative columnist Westbrook Pegler a list of telephone calls between Mrs. Roosevelt and the CIO's Political Action Committee, that which had been so prominent in the 1944 election campaign; Madame Diamantopoulos, wife of the Greek Ambassador, had come to the San Francisco Conference, telling the locals that she had always wanted to visit Los Angeles. Angelinos viewed the presence of the international congregation in San Francisco with deference, that, after all, no one had ever heard of Yalta either until they held a conference there. He was probably there, too, the one you will probably run into.

Mr. Pearson relates of the strong-arm tactics which Secretary of State Stettinius employed to reverse the 27 to 3 vote of the San Francisco Conference Social and Economic Commission to invite the World Trade Union Conference, with its 60 million organized workers around the world, including CIO, but not AFL, as observers to the conference. Mr. Stettinius had called the Secretary-General of the conference, Alger Hiss, and sought an emergency meeting of the Steering Committee, called upon British Foreign Minister Anthony Eden to appear at the meeting to seek to persuade the members of the British delegation to reverse their action favoring the invitation. He also solicited the support of Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King and the temporary head of the Chinese delegation, Wellington Koo.

At the ensuing meeting, Mr. Hiss began by calling up the second point on the agenda, over French objection, as to whether the WTUC would be admitted. For two hours the members of the Steering Committee debated the question. Mr. Eden and Mr. King both gave speeches in opposition to the invitation, but Mr. Koo favored it, as did Ambassador Andrei Gromyko. French Foreign Minister Bidault likewise gave support, as did Prime Minister Peter Fraser of New Zealand.

Eventually, after this circuitous journey, Secretary Stettinius had the resolution to reverse the invitation called up ahead of three other earlier introduced resolutions in support of it, and, with the backing of the Latin American countries, won the vote 33 to 13 for reversal. The 13 included China, the three Russian delegates, France, Australia, New Zealand, Greece, Yugoslavia, Mexico, and Czechoslovakia.

Mr. Stettinius, reports Mr. Pearson, ducked from the room quickly and did not bother to call the other point on the agenda.

But the Russians were exclusively in charge of occupation in Vienna and Vienna was the most anti-Russian and pro-Nazi part of Austria, while the country districts were the most anti-Nazi. With the Western Allies occupying the countryside, the split in Austria would become even more pronounced.

Salzburg was full of Reich Germans, and Germans pushing carts toward Germany often betrayed their SS past with boots and other boot-kicking dress sticking from their belongings, even though they were dressed in civilian clothes, often shirtless.

In the villages, many of the Austrians remained under the spell of the Germans, many of whom were young SS types, neither fearing nor respecting Americans.

Salzburg demonstrated no outward joy at the liberation and few Austrian national flags flew.

With the occupation taking on a military form as in Germany, the likely result would be a sense of camaraderie between Austrians and Germans, not separation.

The people did not believe that Hitler was dead and it appeared to Ms. Thompson that the Nazi movement still persisted in Austria despite the defeat of the Wehrmacht. The result under Russian occupation of Vienna would quickly become confusion unless the West were to reach an expedited understanding with the Soviets.

Soldiers were being sent home while 18-year olds were still being drafted.

The Battle of San Francisco was continuing as men battled bullets in the Pacific.

The Republicans on the Ways and Means Committee voted down the line against tariff reduction, an isolationist stand, while American soldiers still fought in many foreign lands.

War bonds were still being sold while others sought lower taxes.

Some argued for release of manpower controls to enable private business to compete with war manufacturers; others observed that the Pacific war would likely drag on for some time.

He concludes: "Raise your hand, neighbor, and declaim that America has no real interest in the welfare of the rest of the world. But don't look out the window; you might see a boy on his way to induction. Either you or he is in the wrong place. Oh, those transition blues!"

Perhaps, he ventures, President Roosevelt planned it all that way. "He was a good teacher."

Evidence was building that the Russians intended the Balkans to become a sphere of influence, as exampled by the Rumanian situation. The moderate Radescu Government had initially been set up by the Soviets. But it had not been long until he became the object of attacks by the Communist press as a Fascist and saboteur. He was then threatened with physical violence and sought asylum in the British legation, prompting protests from Washington and London aimed at Moscow. The Russians had not responded.

In another dramatic example of Russian audacity, 70,000 Rumanians, men and women, most from Transylvania, had been indiscriminately selected from the population to become a labor force in Russia, primarily in the coal mines of the Donetz region. The Russians explained that they needed the labor. But, obviously, such forms of impressed labor were contrary to Western principles and those set forth in the Atlantic Charter. Some of the 70,000 had apparently joined the Nazi occupation forces and fought the Russians during the war, but they were believed to be small in number.

The crime of slave labor was that of the enemy. To be part of this impressment was immoral, breaking up ancient family patterns in established communities.

"No wall around the Balkans, however high or however closely guarded, can keep that information from the rest of the world."