Moral Lapse

Shortly after Russia invaded Finland last November, the U. S. was shocked to find that Russian purchases in the U. S. (copper, aluminum, machinery) were soaring. So the State Department slapped a moral embargo against the export of strategic goods to Russia. And in February, Secretary Morgenthau persuaded U. S. machine tool makers (who were doing a big business with Moscow) to give their fellow citizens priority. U. S. sales to the U. S. S. R. plummeted from $11,313,000 (January) to $499,000 (May).

Last week, after a confab between Secretary Hull and Russian Ambassador Constantine Oumansky, a corner of this embargo was raised. Reasons were partly moral, partly not. Russia had snitched three Baltic States while Germany's back was turned, and the Berlin-Moscow axis was a little strained. Moscow seemed to be making eyes at Washington, and the State Department, to encourage an axis quarrel, was ready to flirt.

The nonmoral reason was more realistic. Russia. No. 1 world producer of manganese (indispensable to steel making), normally supplies a third of U. S. manganese needs. Having no manganese stockpile to speak of, the State and War Departments are now trying to lay hands on all the manganese they can get. Claiming a shortage of ships (the U. S. Maritime Commission had been frowning on U. S. vessels accepting charters for Russian ports), Russia for weeks cut down rnanganese exports to the U. S. Hence War Materials Coordinator Ed Stettinius saw to it that U. S. vessels were put in the Russian service last week. For further encouragement to Russia, about two-thirds of a shipment of machine tools, dies and machinery, deemed unnecessary to U. S. defense, were released in Tacoma for shipment to Vladivostok. Other shipments of standard, easily replaceable machine tools were expected to follow.

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