Hypothetical Question

At a State Department press conference one morning last week, a reporter asked Under Secretary Sumner Welles: "If Russia is attacked by Germany, will she be eligible for aid under the Lend-Lease Act?" A fleeting smile passed across Sumner Welles's usually impassive face. That was, said he, a hypothetical question.

Mr. Welles knew that a German-Russian crisis was at hand, but State Department sources were convinced that Russia would give in to Germany without a fight. Like most other observers, Mr. Welles reluctantly accepted their verdict.

Three days later, as the German Army moved into Russia (see p. 21), the hypothetical question was a hypothetical question no longer. Now Sumner Welles had an even more perplexing question to face: What aid could the U.S. send to Russia, and how?

"Friends and Allies." Nobody in Washington doubted that Russia would now become at least technically a beneficiary of the President's $7,000,000,000 fund to aid the allies of democracy. In London, Winston Churchill put before the world Britain's case for helping Russia (see p. 30). Said he: "Any man or State who fights against Naziism will have our aid. ... It follows, therefore, that we shall give whatever help we can. . . . We shall appeal to all our friends and Allies ... to take the same course and pursue it as we shall. . . ."

It was assumed that Mr. Churchill spoke for Franklin Roosevelt too. So sure were newsmen that some kind of aid would be forthcoming that they quoted a Washington wisecrack: "The Aid Democracies Bill has become the Lenin-Lease Bill."

Bottlenecks and priorities made any timely aid to Russia seem unlikely. The first bottleneck is shipping across the Pacific, the second, rail transport across Siberia. And on all the war material that can be diverted from U.S. defense Britain and China now have priorities. One possible step would be to exempt Russia from the President's order last fortnight freezing the funds in the U.S. of all European nations.*

All these problems Sumner Welles presumably considered this week as he talked with President Roosevelt at the White House (see p. 11). When he emerged, to tell waiting reporters what had been decided, the question of aid to Russia was still unsettled. The Soviet Government had not yet asked the U.S. for help. But, said the inscrutable Mr. Welles, the President had authority under the Lend-Lease Act to furnish aid to any country resisting aggression.

* It was expected that Finland, now involved with Germany in the attack on Russia, would lose her chance for exemption. But it was too late to retract a bill the President signed last fortnight, allowing Finland to postpone the installments due in 1941 and 1942 on her debt, pay them over a 20-year period starting in 1945.

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