RELIEF: Song & Dance

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In Berlin, UNRRA Chief Fiorello H. LaGuardia went into another song & dance. Irked by questions about U.S. contributions to UNRRA, he asked Chicago Tribune Correspondent Hal Foust why he continued to work for a "lousy, stinking, disreputable and untruthful newspaper." He parried queries about his political ambitions by calling himself "just a political displaced person."

But then LaGuardia created a political displaced person by announcing the "release" (as UNRRA director for Germany) of Britain's Lieut. General Sir Frederick Morgan. His reason: reorganization of UNRRA operations. Morgan was suspended from the same post last January for saying that clandestine organizations were helping Jewish refugees to escape from Poland; later he was reinstated. He recently charged that UNRRA is an "umbrella under which Soviet spies are working." The next day, General Joseph T. McNarney, U.S. commander in Europe, announced that one Russian UNRRA employe had just been arrested as a Soviet MGB (secret police) agent. The Russians had taken a violent dislike to Morgan. So, apparently, had LaGuardia.