ROOSEVELT, CHURCHILL MAP 1943 WAR STRATEGY AT TEN-DAY CONFERENCE HELD IN CASABLANCA; GIRAUD AND DE GAULLE, PRESENT, AGREE ON AIMS
LEADERS GO BY AIR
Aim at 'Unconditional Surrender' by Axis, President Says
MILITARY AIDES TALK
French Chiefs Declare Groups Will Unite to Liberate Nation
By DREW MIDDLETON
Special Cable to The New York Times
CASABLANCA, French Morocco, Jan. 24 (Delayed) -- President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill today concluded a momentous ten-day conference in which they planned Allied offensives of 1943 aimed at what the President called the "unconditional surrender of the Axis powers.
The President flew 5,000 miles across the Atlantic with his Chiefs of Staff to confer with Mr. Churchill and British military, naval and air chieftains in a sun-splashed villa within sound of Atlantic breakers. Every phase of the global war was discussed in conferences lasting from morning until midnight. Both war leaders emphasized that the conference was wholly successful and that complete agreement had been reached on great military enterprises to be undertaken by the United Nations this year.
General Henri Honore Giraud, High Commander for French North Africa, and General Charles de Gaulle, leader of fighting in France, met at the conference and found themselves in accord on the primary task of liberating France from German domination. President Roosevelt predicted that French soldiers, sailors and airmen would fight beside the Allied armies in the liberation of France.
Stalin Kept Informed
The President and Mr. Churchill expressed regret for Premier Joseph Stalin's inability to leave the Russian offensive, which he is directing personally, but emphasized that all results of the conferences had been reported to the Soviet Leader. [Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek was similarly advised, The Associated Press reported.]
Assurance of future world peace will come only as a result of the total elimination of German and Japanese war power, the President declared. He borrowed a phrase from General Grant's famous letter to the Confederate commander at Forts Donelson and Henry -- "unconditional surrender" -- to describe the only terms on which the United Nations would accept the conclusion of the war.
He emphasized, however, that this did not mean the destruction of the populace of Germany, Japan and Italy, but the end of a philosophy based on the conquest and subjugation of other peoples in those countries.
Sitting side by side in the bright sunlight on the grassy lawn of the villa, the President and the Prime Minister reviewed the work of the conference, in which the Chiefs of Staff conferred two or three times a day, reporting at intervals to them.
The President saw three objectives before the United Nations in 1943.
The first of these is maintenance of the initiative won in the closing days of 1942, its extension to other theatres and an increase in those which the Allies now hold the upper hand.
Second, the dispatch of all possible aid to the Russian offensive must be maintained with the double objective of whittling down German manpower and continuing the attraction of German munitions and material on the Russian front.
Third, Mr. Roosevelt called for assistance for the Chinese armies, now in their sixth year of war, with Japanese domination ended forever.
Both Leaders Satisfied
To gain these objectives the military and political leaders of the United Nations are determined to pool all their resources, military and economic, in 1943 to maintain the initiative wherever it is now held and to seek every opportunity to bring the enemy to battle on terms as unfavorable as those now prevailing in Tunisia.
Both leaders were extremely satisfied at the successful conclusion of the fourth meeting between them since the beginning of the war. Cooperation between the American and British Chiefs of Staff was described by Mr. Roosevelt as the closest possible, with the military leaders living together and working as personal friends more than allies.
President Roosevelt predicted that the war would proceed according to schedule, with every indication that 1943 would be an even better year for the United Nations than 1942.
The conference, which probably made more important decisions than any other called by the United Nations, was held in a lush tropical setting in conditions of greatest secrecy. The President's villa was shaded by palm trees, with Bougainvillaea climbing on trellises around the house, and oranges nodding on trees in the yard. A swimming pool in the back yard had been turned into an air raid shelter, but no German planes approached Casablanca during the conference, and if any had come they would have been greeted by squadrons of British and United States fighter planes flying guard over the region.
Talks Closely Guarded
Many acres of the resort were enclosed in two lines of barbed wire, on which tin cans were hung. If any one had been foolhardy enough to approach these lines he would have been riddled by bullets from machine guns or bayoneted by some of the hundreds of American infantrymen who stood helmeted atop roofs or patrolled the shady walks around the area.
Both the President and the Prime Minister seemed confident and satisfied when they appeared at the noon press conference today. The President wore a worn gray suit and the Prime Minister was dapper in a gray pin-stripe suit topped by a somewhat battered bray Homburg hat. The sunshine winked in a jeweled "V" and as American Distinguished Service Order bar in his lapel buttonhole.
The two unmilitary-looking men, who lead half of the strongest coalition in history, were accompanied by General de Gaulle and General Giraurd. For the benefit of the camera, the two generals shook hands.
"A historic moment," President Roosevelt commented.
The sun beat fiercely on the group. Mr. Churchill asked the President, "Do you want a hat?"
"I was born without a hat," Mr. Roosevelt replied.
While the President and the Prime Minister talked, guards silhouetted on near-by rooftops never relaxed their vigil and tight formations of fighters roared overhead.
Mr. Roosevelt revealed that the Allied victories in North Africa had made his fourth meeting with Mr. Churchill necessary. The situation had been reviewed in the meeting and plans made for the next steps in 1943, he said.
Both he and Mr. Churchill expressed deep regret for Premier Joseph Stalin's inability to leave the Russian offensive which he is directing personally, but emphasized that all the results of the conference between the President and the Prime Minister and their Chiefs of Staff committees had been reported to the Soviet leader.
Mr. Churchill agreed with Mr. Roosevelt that the conference was unprecedented in history. Describing himself again as the President's ardent lieutenant, Mr. Churchill declared they worked together as partners and friends and described their cooperation as one of the sinews of war of the Allied powers.
The Prime Minister began to speak slowly, by gradually raised his voice as he described the frustration of the enemy by the men Adolf Hitler had called incompetents and drunkards. This brought a laugh. Mr. Churchill beamed.
The events in North Africa have altered the whole strategic aspect of the war, making the Germans and Italians fight under conditions of great difficulty, he declared. He described general Field Marshal Erwin Rommel as a fugitive from Libya and Egypt now trying to pass himself off as the liberator of Tunis. But he reminded the correspondents that General Sir Bernard L. Montgomery was hot on Marshal Rommel's trail and that everywhere that Mary went the lamb was sure to go.
Purpose Is Unconquerable
Design, purpose and an unconquerable will lie behind all that is being done by Britain and America, the Prime Minister said solemnly. These will be applied to enforce unconditional surrender upon the criminals who plunged the world into the war, he concluded.
Both the President and Mr. Churchill seemed hopeful on the results of the de Gaulle-Giraud meeting, in which the two French leaders found themselves in "entire agreement" on the end to be achieved, which is the liberation of Franc e and defeat of the enemy. Yet although a joint communiqu & eacute; issued by the two generals said this could be achieved only by union in war on a ll Frenchmen fighting side by side, it gave no clue as to how the present difficulty in the North African political situation is to be adjusted.
It is felt, however, that the conference between the generals and their talks with Mr. Churchill and Mr. Roosevelt has cleared the way for an agreement of some sort between Generals Giraud and de Gaulle on the political aspects of their crusade for the liberation of France. THe mere fact that they were seen talking together and were photographed shaking hands should do much to unite the French all over North Africa and to emphasize that a union of General de Gaulle's followers with the other factions must be carried out swiftly if the French are to bulk large in the United Nations' war plans.
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