Foreign Affairs in the Sunday News

In mid-1946 the News traditional isolationism crossed swords with its opposition to the growing postwar influence of Communism in the world. This country's position as the world's only nuclear power was its ace in the hole while the call for a world federalism, as embodied in the newly formed UN, could only help the Communists.

Much of the day's foreign affairs coverage in the News came from AP dispatches. The US was rounding up Nazis in China. The China edition of “Stars and Stripes” was folding after 6 ½ months as most of most of its staff headed home. Prince Nashimoto , the only member of the Japanese imperial family to be jailed, was to be set free because of lack of evidence that he was a war criminal. A juicier story from AP claimed that "Man Crazy Women Make Java Boil." The story reported on author Johann Fabricus’s assertion that the 200,000 white women, mostly of Dutch ethnicity, who had been held captive in gender-segregated prison camps in Indonesia for three-and-a-half years, went "haywire" on their release when they saw white men again. Wild partying was rampant, particularly among the younger women, who were in their teens when they were imprisoned. The women said they did not consider their "Jap" captors to be real men. In Europe, the US overrode French plans on the administration of occupied Germany. The newspaper also ran a brief update from the Nurnberg (stet) war trials.

The Cold War was well underway. "Communistic" Albania was said to be purging "foreign elements," including Catholic priests. Riots had broken out in Iran between supporters of the pro-Soviet Tudeh Party and right wing elements who said the government was under Soviet influence. The rightists wanted the UN to step in and assure a free election. Meanwhile Iran had banned poppies to stem the opium trade. The two nations had been in conflict over continued Soviet occupation of and support for a secessionist movement in Iranian provinces near the Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan but had recently reached an agreement.

The Yugoslavs charged that American and British camps were sheltering war criminals who had supported the Nazis. The Reds yielded on Korea rule after deadlocking with the US over the formation of a new government in the country, which had been liberated from decades of Japanese rule. Pravda said that things were not what they seemed in Switzerland, denouncing the newly formed Swiss Communist Party as an organization of "political provocateurs" created by a "criminal element." The Swiss government had dissolved the former Communist Party in 1940. Most of its members had joined the Labor Party where Pravda said the true believers could still be found. The Chinese government reportedly had offered to compromise with Communists over Manchuria.

In the UN Security Council, Poland had accused Franco's Spain of harboring German nuclear scientists who were working on an atom bomb. Overthrowing Franco was high on the agenda of the Soviet bloc. An outraged Franco invited the UN to send inspectors. Mexico had joined Poland in urging that the invitation be rejected. The US and its western allies were taking a more cautious attitude toward Spain, the last remaining Fascist government. They did not want a civil war to break out again, possibly drawing Europe into another war, nor did they wish the US to install a Communist government as the Soviet's hoped, In New York, The Action Committee to Free Spain Now held a rally of several thousand on Madison Avenue between 24th and 25th, calling for the US to break off all diplomatic relationships with Spain. Speakers included Saul Mills, Secretary of Greater New York CIO Council, and Ferdinand L. Smith, Secretary of the National Maritime Union, CIO. The Communists had attempted to purge their Socialist and Anarchist allies in the Popular Front when they briefly took power in Spain then lost interest in Spain after Stalin's pact with Hitler. The rallies against Fascism ceased as the Stalinist Left became sudden converts to pacifism. Pete Seeger and the Almanac Singers released an album of songs denouncing the imperialist war, Dalton Trumbo penned an anti-war novel and the National Maritime Union took to the streets to denounce aid to Britain. They switched sides again literally overnight when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union. Seeger withdrew his album, Trumbo demanded that all copies of his novel be destroyed and the National Maritime Union rallied to demand US entry into the war against Hitler. In 1946 overthrowing Franco again had become a priority to the faithful sheep.

The Action Committee to Free Spain Now was identified as a Communist front group in 1947 by Attorney General Tom Clark on the list of subversive organizations he prepared for Truman and the FBI, a less extensive list than the one compiled by HUAC. Clark, who later was appointed to the Supreme Court, ironically was the father of Ramsey Clark who became a noted legal defender of radical organizations and individuals after his own stint as Attorney General.. Although active in Leftist causes, including a number of Communist front organizations, Saul Mills denied he was ever a member of the Communist Party. Ferdinand L. Smith, a Jamaican, was ousted from his position in the Maritime Union during the union's postwar purge of Communists. At the time Smith had urged union members to refuse to ship goods going to Europe as part of the Marshall Plan, created to bolster western democracies and halt the Soviet expansion. In 1949 the US deported him to Jamaica where he became active in the local Communist Party.