SURRENDER PLANS DEFERRED 2 DAYS BY TYPHOONS CIRCLING AROUND JAPAN (8/25/45)

Microfilm-New York Times archives, Monterey Public Library | 8/25/45 | Frank Kluckhohn, Sidney Shalett, Harold Callender, Drew Middleton, John MacCormac, George E. Jones

[Homer_J_Simpson]

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[Hebrews 11:6]

colorado tanker: ...suddenly cutting off aid meant some hard years for Britain.

EternalVigilance: Made acute by their turn to the bleak existence of socialism.

CS Lewis' biography frequently documents his keen appreciation, post-war, of food often mailed to him in Great Britain from appreciative Americans.

[EternalVigilance]

Interesting! I wasn’t aware of that!

[Hebrews 11:6]

Hams, turkeys, real American maple syrup for Joy, other stuff...A big part of Griffin's biography consists of quotations from Lewis' extensive--voluminous--personal correspondence, and several of the letters quoted were his personal Thank Yous for the food.

I'll take this opportunity to mention one unrelated letter he wrote, quoted not in his biography but self-deprecatingly (and, obviously, memorably) by its recipient, California pastor William Steuart McBirnie, on his TV show three decades ago. McBirnie revealed he had written to Lewis many years earlier requesting clarification, "Exactly how does Christianity save?" He gave CS Lewis' reply in full, which I believe I've reproduced here word-for-word: "Christianity does NOT save. Christ saves."

[Resolute Conservative]

According to page 9, Roosevelt had made a promise not to give Palestine to the Jews... Did not know that...

[Lurking Libertarian]

According to page 9, Roosevelt had made a promise not to give Palestine to the Jews... Did not know that...

The roots of much of the Middle East conflict grow out of the fact that both Britain and the U.S. promised Palestine to both the Jews and the Arabs.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

"Christianity does NOT save. Christ saves."

Cuts to the chase. Reminds me of something else he said. Asked something like, do we have souls, he responded in words to the effect, "No, we are souls. We have bodies."

Or was that Chesterton? No, I think it was Lewis.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

According to page [8], Roosevelt had made a promise not to give Palestine to the Jews... Did not know that...

He might have made the promise, but notice that it is related as unsubstantiated hearsay by the Secretary General of the Arab League, not a neutral party on Palestinian matters.

[InMemoriam]

I can’t help but thinking that Churchill, instead of publicly protesting American action, would have begun with a persuasive private communication celebrating their shared desire for Britain to stand on her own as soon as possible, mentioning all of the critical mutual initiatives and the incipient progress on them that was being held up by his having to turn his attention to domestic affairs, which he would lay out transparently.

Churchill was not only able to see the world from the viewpoints of those he was negotiating with, but to communicate from within those viewpoints.

[Hebrews 11:6]

Homer, that quote was unfamiliar to me, so I googled it, hoping to learn its location. Instead, I found several sources who claim that, while it has long been widely attributed to Lewis, he never wrote it, such as:

http://mereorthodoxy.com/you-dont-have-a-soul-cs-lewis-never-said-it/

and, quoting the above,
http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2012/07/05/apocryphal-quote-from-c-s-lewis-on-the-soul-and-the-body/

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Well that does it. I’ll never believe another word he said.

[colorado tanker]

In August 1945 the nationalization bills hadn't even been passed, much less implemented. The damaging effects of the Labour program are in the future and will become apparent when the German and French economies begin pulling ahead of the British.

At this time Britain was bankrupt and without enough reserves to import adequate food and manufactures. The next few years will be hard.

Thanks for the trivia about C.S. Lewis. It's really nice that his friends appreciated the situation in Britain and sent him "care" packages. (Do they even make Care packages anymore?)

[Hebrews 11:6]

I should add that Lewis did his best to distribute the Care packages once received. He was very benevolent; indeed, he practiced personally what he preached, which was (paraphrasing) if you’re not giving enough to the needy to jeopardize your own financial position, you’re not being obedient.

[Hebrews 11:6]

As a Lewis myself (it's the world's twentieth most-common surname, from the Welsh for "warrior"; but since there are so many of us, we must be both great fighters and great lovers!)--as I say, as a Lewis myself, not to mention a Christian, I've long had a special affinity for Jack Lewis, having read nearly every one of his non-academic works. Along with Churchill, they were the 20th Century's giants, in my view.

Interesting footnote to Lewis' life: as perhaps the Century's most important Christian author, his death was bound to be widely-noted. But crafty ol' Satan found a way to minimize it: Lewis died on the same day JFK was assassinated.

Bonus Round: Both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, two of the Declaration's three authors, both died on July 4, 1826, fifty years to the day after its proclamation.

[PAR35]

We Americans look like a bunch of jerks abruptly cancelling Lend-Lease without even a courtesy call.

Speculation:

Was the move a punishment for voting out Churchill and putting in the Socialists? Doesn't seem reasonable given the number of socialist new dealers in the administration, but perhaps Truman was trying to assert some control over the Rooseveltites.

Alternative theory: weaken the Brits to help out the Soviets.

[PeteePie]

Kind of shocking how little was known of the persistent effect of radiation from the A bombs, even to the point of Oppenheimer in denial of Japanese claims of lingering death from radioactive fallout.

[EternalVigilance]

Here is an advertisement by Champion from the August 25, 1945, edition of the Saturday Evening Post. As with many of the advertisements of the era, this ad refers to the company's contribution to the war effort during WWII.

Advertisement by Ray-O-Vac from the August 25, 1945, edition of the Saturday Evening Post.

[henkster]

Now I know why those old Western Electric rotary phones were indestructible. They were built to military specs.

[EternalVigilance]

Finding Our POWs
The Recovery and Evacuation of POWs
from Japan, 1945
“Those are our boys, go and get them”

http://www.mansell.com/pow_resources/evacuation/finding_our_pows.html

[EternalVigilance]

There ya go.

[EternalVigilance]