To the U.S.: Hands Off

Last week another shipload of troops sailed from Lisbon for the Azores, the third contingent that has gone there in the last three months. In Lisbon it was announced that Portugal's President, General Oscar de Fragosa Carmona, would also sail July 20 for a month's inspection tour of the Azores. Thus did Portugal serve notice that any U.S. attempt to occupy the islands as strategic outposts would be resisted.

Portuguese newspapers spoke out plainly. Diario de Manha, organ of Portugal's sole Party of National Union, observed sadly that Portugal had always regarded the U.S. as "one of the last irreducible bulwarks defending certain principles of law and international morality," but that the new U.S. theory of hemisphere defense "opens the way to the most perilous adventures."

Concluded Diario de Manha: "It is legitimate that nations like Portugal protest pretensions affecting their dignity and rights of national sovereignty, and affirm aloud before the world their will and right to resist any aggression, no matter where it comes from."

In Washington worried Minister Dr. Joao Antonio de Bianchi hurried around to the State Department to see Under Secretary Sumner Welles, then announced that he had received "definite assurances" that the U.S. would not try to seize the Azores, the Cape Verde Islands or any other Portuguese possessions. In a press conference Under Secretary Welles was less definite. The U.S., calmly observed Mr. Welles, has no desire to see any change of Portuguese sovereignty of the islands. Nevertheless, he added, President Roosevelt had stated that it was vital to American security that Atlantic outposts "remain in friendly hands."

A problem of defense (how to get to the islands before Hitler) had become a problem of diplomacy (how to wangle an invitation). Perhaps, some observers hoped, an invitation might be tendered to several American nations, led by the onetime seat of the Portuguese kingdom, Brazil. But the Portuguese knew that an invitation to anybody to protect their islands would be an invitation to Hitler to protect Portugal.

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