JAPANESE EARTHQUAKES ONLY AXIS PROPAGANDA, SAYS LEET

Tokio dispatches, published on the front pages of many American newspapers, to the effect that the recent eruption of Asama-Yama, Japan's largest active volcano, was a catastrophe, were denounced as Axis propaganda designed to foster false optimism among the United Nations by L. Don Leet, assistant professor of Seismology.

"The Japs are probably laughing up their large kimono sleeves at the gullibility of the American press, which fell in line with this propaganda scheme by printing the catastrophe story as an item of fact," Leet asserted.

Wishful Thinking

To an even greater extent, he continued, the Japs may be grinning at the American public's eagerness to accept these obviously exaggerated accounts of the occurrence. "If a catastrophe had actually resulted from the eruption, Berlin and Tokio would have been the last to announce it."

"The Nipponese must also enjoy the tendency among wishful-thinking, but not too well informed Americans, to believe that the Japanese Islands are one gigantic hotbed of potentially destructive volcanoes," said Leet. "In reality, this latest eruption is only one phase of a long chain of volcanic activity in Japan which dates from 1908," the seismologist explained.

In 1908, Leet stated, Asama, Japan's most treacherous volcano, erupted violently with disastrous effects, and it has been constantly active ever since. Consequently there is no reason to believe, much as we would like to, that this eruption is a prelude to a period of menacing volcanic activity in the enemy's camp, the professor concluded.