Philco Seer

Ample, illustrious old War Correspondent Wythe Williams took over the country editorship of Greenwich Time in Connecticut in 1937. He announced then that he would let Europe have its next war "without assistance from me." But Wythe Williams still had his pipe lines to Europe, has run many an inside yarn from abroad. One that caught the public fancy, and hit U. S. front pages everywhere, was the racy tale in December 1938 of the supposed horsewhipping of amorous little Nazi Paul Joseph Goebbels for love-poaching. Editor Williams missed the opening date of war by only three days, has enjoyed many an I-told-you-so on international developments.

Last week Editor Williams began airing his stuff Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays over Manhattan's WOR for New York Philco dealers. First time up, Inside Stuffer Williams aired the "plan Gamelin," under which "the major amphitheatre of war is to be far removed from the Western Front." He masterminded a possible Italian tie-up with the Allies, with a thrust at the Russian oil fields at Baku by Weygand's French, British and possibly Turkish Army, from Syria. Quick action was being urged, said he. because "the present situation in the unpredictable Balkans, and particularly in Rumania, will permit no delay." By Wednesday night, he could see this campaign advancing right to Rumania, "a natural battlefield for open warfare between the mechanized units of modern armies." By Friday, black Balkan headlines had given plenty of point to Editor Williams' Balkan pointers (see p. 21).

Last week, too, Editor Williams added a few new twists to the recurrent yarn from France of a plot to overthrow the Daladier Government and establish separate peace with Germany. Alleged ring leaders: shelved Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet, now Minister of Justice; and ex-Premier Pierre-Etienne Flandin, Deputy, capitalist spokesman and appeasement cheerleader.

Editor Williams added to his bubbling French plot the accusation that Flandin has been in communication with Nazi Propaganda Minister Paul Joseph Goebbels, that their liaison man is one Fernand de Brinon, Nazi-favored French journalist, that de Brinon's contact man in Germany is Otto Abetz, pre-war chief of Nazi intelligence work in France.

With his Philco career thus launched with a splash, the rubicund seer of Greenwich Time rolled back to his placid office in the Connecticut hills, got out Saturday's paper (circulation: 3,297).

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