Africa Snubbed By Marshall Plan – MacArthur Makes Demands – Russia Nixes Reuter – Eva Peron: Half-Hour With Pope Pius – June 7, 1947

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June 7

News-June-7-1947.mp3

Busy day in the world, this June 7, 1947.

The Marshall Plan, hailed by many in Europe as the much needed rescue from calamity, was looked at differently in Africa - from Adis Ababa in Ethiopia came word that the Ethiopian Herald criticized the Plan for purposely excluding the continent of Africa from aid.

General MacArthur, heading up the occupation government in Japan was reported to be making demands that Okinawa and the surrounding islands be turned over to the U.S. as insurance against possible aggression in the future. Gen. Douglas MacArthur asserted that Okinawa, the other islands of the Ryukyu, and the Bonins must be given to the United States by Japan to become America's strategic frontier against aggression". He expressed belief that the 'peace treaty, including these provisions, can be concluded with Japan without waiting for a German treaty and can be written "in 1 a year, or at the most a year and a hair." Of reparations, he almost scornfully said: "That matter is virtually settled already."

Russia was in the news - The official Russian newspaper Pravda announced that the Soviets would not accept Reuter as a successor to Dr Otto Ostrowski, the Social Democrats first Mayor who resigned after his own party alleged he had been subservient to the Russians
The Russian controlled press denounced Reuter, Berlin's minister of transport and public utilities as "anti-Russian" and has objected to him because he spent the war years in Turkey. American military Government officers have described him as "a strong man who will be nobody's stooge". Reuter knows Prime Minister Stalin and Foreign Minister V M Molotov personally from his Communist days. He was jailed for a year by the Nazis before he left Germany for political activity.

And Eva Peron, wife of Argentina's President Juan Peron, spent a reported 27 minutes in a private audience with Pope Pius XII. United Press dispatches described that audience as "the most elaborate Vatican reception given to any visiting dignitary since the war ended." As she talked with the church leader, Italian police arrested 50 persons for demonstrating against her in front of the Argentine embassy. It precipitated a communist-fascist street brawl.

And aside from the developing story in Africa, that's just a small slice of what happened, this June 7, 1947 as reported by ABC Radio's News Of Tomorrow.