Augur

Dorothy Thompson prophesied that Adolf Hitler would never rule Germany. Herbert Matthews called the Italian defeat at Guadalajara one of the decisive battles of history. Liddell Hart said Ethiopian mobile tactics would probably swamp Mussolini's invaders. Edgar Ansel Mowrer said that two years of the Chinese War would see Japan's morale crack. G. E. R. Gedye said the Czechoslovakian Army would fight before it would yield. And long ago, before modern methods of communication made foreign correspondence a large and thriving profession, the London Times asserted that, in capturing Atlanta, Sherman had merely lengthened his lines of communication to the point where he had become easy Confederate prey.

In this long parade of error, the work of Vladimir Poliakoff deserves a special float. For 20 years, from his six-storied London house, he has been sending out, under the name of Augur, a series of inside stories, interpretations, explanations, which have made him one of the most highly respected European commentators on foreign affairs. Last month he spoke his mind on Poland. Augur's Polish story:

When Hitler returned from his triumphal tour of Czecho-Slovakia last March, he was high-spirited, buoyant, talkative. Arriving in Berlin, he summoned Josef Lipski, solemn-visaged Polish Ambassador. Whipped up to "a mood of immense elation," Hitler chattered cheerily on his trip, his impressions of conquered Prague, suddenly fell silent and announced ominously: "The time has come to flatten out the obstacles to the permanent friendship of Germany and Poland."

Ambassador Lipski listened dutifully to Hitler's proposals for a friendly flattening, raced straight to the station, caught an express to Warsaw, where Foreign Minister Josef Beck's auto was waiting to rush him to M. Beck's home. Three hours later Polish police were pulling reservists from their beds. French and British Ambassadors were summoned to hear M. Lipski's account of Herr Hitler's travelogue.

Last week Augur published a book called Europe in the Fourth Dimension.- It is a rambling essay on democracy, British-French friendship, German aggression, which ends abruptly with a suggestion that only Poland bars Germany's path to the East. Typical Augur interpretation: Mussolini adopted anti-Semitism to make Italians racially conscious because he was horrified at the prospect of pickaninnies of Italian descent in Ethiopia.

Augur's reputation for omniscience rests on his twelve-year record as the London Times's diplomatic correspondent, his standing with the Italian Embassy, his wide acquaintance in Europe's capitals, and a series of scoops that began when he published the substance of the Locarno Treaties before they were released. He was first to report the Anglo-Italian Treaty in 1938, first to announce Anthony Eden's resignation last year. So rarely do prophecies turn out right that these triumphs overshadowed notable Augur misses. But in 1932 he observed that Poland would soon achieve a position of power in Europe greater than Italy's; after the first anti-Semitic outbreaks under the Nazis he considered it likely that Hitler would try to make peace with the people he has wronged." He also prophesied that Hitler would drop his demands for colonies in return for a free hand in Central Europe. A month before Germany occupied Czecho-Slovakia Augur released an inside story to the effect that Hitler was contemplating restoring the Sudeten area to the Czechs.

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