Had two interesting conversations at the Astoria. Mr. Castelyn, an intelligent and realistic Belgian, thinks the war will last two or three years more. He worries that Stalin will get sore if the Allies don't stop talking and start acting soon.

Mr. Walter Wolf, a conservative German Jew, was more optimistic. In the last war he was a clerk in the German Headquarters in Berlin, typing copies of documents.

On November 10, 1918, I would have said that we were winning the war. I had typewritten only of victories — all victories — only victories. But like today and tomorrow, all at once, it was over — the Armistice. For a moment I thought we had actually won! Many German soldiers thought as I did.

He said the German Generals would decide when enough is enough. As for the Japanese, it will be decided in two campaigns: Burma and the Pacific.

Ignacio Javier bowed out from his 15-minute Philippines Today broadcast with this: "People have often asked me if I mean what I say in these broadcasts. I can say, now, that I did." A friend insists that Javier must have asked for the post of Vargas' private secretary in Japan, and is therefore solidly pro-Japanese. Or maybe Vargas and Javier, having been compromised by the Japanese, find Manila too hot.