MASSACHUSETTS: For Services Rendered

“Through your experience in Libya you have gained a knowledge and understanding of military and strategic considerations which will greatly enhance your usefulness to the country as a United States Senator. I cannot but feel that you will render more service to the American people by performing the important duties of a Senator rather than devoting your energies to the purely military phases of the war as a junior officer.”

Thus wrote precise old (73) Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson to handsome young (40) Major Henry Cabot Lodge. Senator from Massachusetts, just returned from Libya, where he observed* the first U.S. armed forces that made actual contact with the Germans on land. Long (18 years) a reserve officer, energetic Henry Cabot Lodge has a peacetime history of preparedness. Under a directive issued by the President, Major Lodge—and all other legislators in the armed forces—had to resign either from active duty or from their Congressional posts. Last week Senator Lodge, up for reelection, made the Secretary’s letter public. Next day Henry Stimson hurriedly told his press conference that no politics were involved.

On the day he returned from Africa, the Army released a communiqué on American participation in the Libyan battle, which Lodge later described to the officers and men at Fort Knox. Said he: “The men who went over from this force were the equal of anything they encountered in the desert. They came out with three tanks, and they left nine less to chase them. The tank that you call the M-3 is the match of anything in the world.”

The officers and men at Fort Knox cheered Major Lodge’s news from the front. Then Senator Lodge looked to Massachusetts where, even with the inadvertent pat from Henry Stimson, he has a tough fight ahead to save his Senate seat from aggressive young Representative Joseph E. Casey (TIME, July 13).

* Major Lodge was not in one of the three tanks which actually fought.