Straws

The second front in Western Europe had passed from speculation into certainty:

>London and Washington flatly reported that the U.S. Army's Chief of Staff, General George C. Marshall, would soon be at work in London as commander in chief of all Allied invasion forces.

>The Army & Navy Journal said that General Marshall had personally picked Major General Milton A. Reckord (onetime head of the Maryland National Guard) as Provost Marshal (head of military police) for the European theater.

>A flock of resignations from OWI's London staff signaled a shift in emphasis from civilian propaganda to military information (i.e., no information).

>The third (southern) front had been synchronized with the second. Franklin Roosevelt had conferred three times with General Dwight Eisenhower, once summoned him by special plane to Cairo.

>A New York Times correspondent cabled from London that the "planning stage appears to be over. . . . Operations on a large scale [can be expected] after the middle of February."

>Lord Strabolgi, a voluble, retired lieutenant commander of the Royal Navy, said in the House of Lords that the next 100 days "will be as important in the history of the world as the 100 days before Waterloo. . . . Then Napoleon met his fate, and Hitler will meet his if we act bravely and swiftly."

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