Lisbon: Europe's Gangplank.

If you glance at geographical map, Spain and Portugal look like Europe's gangplank. The gangplank is crowded with people whom fascism is squeezing out of Europe but who have not yet been able to obtain a ship and a visa for the free world across the water. For them, every day is a gamble; odd or even, red or black, seventeen or eighteen on the roulette wheel, the Nazis on a berth or on a vessel? Hundreds of them play their luck each night in the casino at Estoril. This casino is the last international. Where else does a German with a saber gash on his cheek sit elbow to elbow with an Englishman? When the West Point disgorged the German and Italian consuls into Portugal, high Nazi officials, led by Hans Dieckhoff, ex-ambassador at Washington, met them at the gangplank, and the next evening they flipped their chips at Estoril.