A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
ICANNOT share the widespread satisfaction over the reports of Russo-German friction. They can generally be traced back to the Germans themselves, and therefore the more we accept them, the happier Hitler will be. They are weapons in a campaign to frighten Stalin into concessions, even at the risk of lowering the standard of living in his own country. If they succeed, and he surrenders, Hider will be able to have his own men in the Caucasus and the Ukraine to see that the Russians deliver the goods. If they fail, and Stalin fights, the military cost to Germany may be considerable, but the revival or the dusty claim that the Nazis were saving us from Bol- shevism might make a subsequent " peace offensive " danger- ous here and disastrous in the United States. It is my own uneasy belief that, in the expressive phrase of our near-Allies, we " have been had for suckers."
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