Anti-Climactic

In capitalizing upon the story of last week's impressive council of war in North Africa, the nation's press set the stage a bit too elaborately for what was to follow. This story was promised in advance as the year's most important. It was not. First of all, the significance of such a conference on war strategy would rest primarily in the nature of the plans themselves and no one should have expected these to be revealed immdiately. At present, the highlight of the conference is merely the fact that United Nations war policies were heavily reiterated.

In even stronger contrast with the significance ascribed by the news services will be the actual results of the conference between generals Giraud and De Gaulle, if the present discouraging reports are substantiated. Peoples of the United Nations have been waiting many weeks for a meeting that would bring a reconciliation of the differing plans and theories of these two French leaders. Only such a reconciliation can make all available French forces one harmonious unit ready to follow action most helpful to the Allied campaign. A far cry from this were the results of last week's conference, in which the two generals are reported merely to have agreed that all French forces are needed in the fight against the Axis.

So far, the meeting has shown none of the advances in strategy or collaboration which might have made last night's news the "greatest story of the year." Its publicity can only be a boomerang in the face of Washington and the press. To over-emphasize the good news is as poor policy as to conceal the bad; to herald in superlatives the intangible accomplishments of the current meeting can only minimize when it comes the effect of a realized collaboration among the United Nations.