Bullitt to the Near East

Bald, earnest William Christian Bullitt, onetime U.S. Ambassador to Russia, onetime Ambassador to France, has won few diplomatic triumphs but has never failed as a super-reporter. From his old friend Franklin Roosevelt he got an assignment that fitted his talents as neatly as his well-tailored suits fit his broad-shouldered frame.

William Bullitt will go to the Near East in the same eyes-&-ears role that Harry Hopkins, ill this week in the Naval Hospital, filled recently in Moscow. On this vast reportorial beat, in the Nile River Valley and along the Red Sea and Persian Gulf are the momentous answers to some of the newest and gravest questions of World War II:

P: How well has U.S. military equipment done in the Battle of Libya, its first real test in war?*

P: How well and willingly will Iran serve as a route for aid-to-Russia if the northern supply lines through Murmansk and Archangel are cut off?

P: In a showdown, would Turkey turn to the Axis or the democracies?

P: What is Egypt's attitude toward the war?

P: What is Syrian and Lebanese reaction to the independence (from France) won for it by British and Free French forces?/-

In getting the answers, from the Near East's sheiks and emirs, its shahs and kings and plain people, Bullitt will have the advantage of his old newspaper training (Philadelphia Public Ledger), his knack for talking easily to new acquaintances, his enthusiasm for discovery.

Since the fall of France, Bullitt has been on the sidelines except for an occasional odd job for the President, an occasional speech to inflate a trial balloon. Now he has a job that is up his alley.

* For first reports, see p. 66. /- See p. 35.

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