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APRIL 14, 1947 view, Pétain was and still is a patriot who did better than de Gaulle could have done.: On July 1, 1940, Bullitt cabled that the hope of Pétain and his associates was’ “that France may become Ger- many’s favorite province—a new ‘Gau’ which would develop into a new Gaul.” When Bullitt returned to America at the.end of the month, he said, “Pétain is thoroughly honest and straightforward . . . univer- sally respected . . .- doing his best to bring order out of desperate chaos.” Langer comments ‘What concerned the American government was not the question of ide- ology, but the question of national interest.” Two quo- tations on which Langer doesn’t com- ment are particularly striking as oblique illuminations of the question of a definition of national interest. On June 26, 1941, Roosevelt wrote to Admiral Leahy about the Nazi attack on Russia, “It will mean the libera- .tion of Europe from Nazi domina- tion ...... and at the same time I do not think we need worty about any possi- bility of Russian. domination.” Langer makes plain that Ambassador Bullitt, Admiral Leahy, Robert D. Murphy and nearly all the others responsible for our policy disagreed with the President, feeling that ideology coincided with real national interest when it was anti- Communist, but not when it was anti-Fascist. Langer quotes Laval as having re- marked to Hitler, “You want to win the war in order to organize Europe; you would do better to organize Europe in order to win the war.” He calls the’ remark discerning but BULLITT MURPHY DARLAN ‘phrases as, “It would be both doesn’t note that the criticism of Hit- ler’s policy applied just as forcibly to our Vichy policy. T™ second and most important phase of the Vichy policy bégan in the autumn and winter of 1940. when, again after Bullitt’s personal in- tervention with the Presi- dent, Murphy was sent to North Africa to ‘conclude the economic deal with Wey- gand. Although this part of the book only scratches the surface, it is vitally impor- tant because it suggests the tole of powerful American interests in favoring a con- nection with such “safe” ele- Pétain. Names like A. G. Reed of Socony-Vacuum and Wallace Phillips, a wealthy American indus- trialist in England, crop up. Phillips “had much to do with the selection” of the team of Murphy’s “technical as- sistants,” who later helped him make it seem that the policy of political - and economic expediency which had been launched in 1940 had been de- cided upon two years later and only for military rea- sons. At this. point and a dozen others when the reader begins to want to know more, Langer throws in such tedious and unnecessary to pursue in all detail the work- ing out of the plans.” Langer dwells lovingly for many pages on de Gaulle’s ; blunder at St. Pierre and Miquelon, and dismisses in a phrase the fact that we wasted a year on “the idea that Wey- gand could be made into another de Gaulle.” At the start of 1942 when the British were accurately estimating de Gaulle’s strength, Hull was telling the President that “some 95 percent of the ‘entire French people are anti-Hitler, _ whereas mote than 95 percent of . this latter number are not de Gaullists and would not follow him.” Langer finds it “extremely difficult and fortunately not really necessary” to describe the Resis- tance movement and then goes on to give details about the reactionaries with ments as those represented by | A 33 whom Murphy chose to work. The Worms Bank collaborators get many pages,.the de Gaullist resisters a few grudging patagraphs. The misstatement of the facts about de Gaulle is under- standable, but it is astonishing to find Langer even now defending our link with Laval’s regime in Vichy in the summer of 1942 as “our only connec- tion with the mass of the French people.” Bon in its account of the Colonel Solborg affair, which is grossly unfair, the final portion of the book, - on the preparations for the North Afti- can invasion and the landings them- selves, makes fast, exciting reading in the best cloak-and-dagger tradition. It appears that Bullitt also was primarily responsible for this, the third phase of the Vichy policy. In Cairo in Decem- ber, 1941, he worked out with General - Catroux a plan for an invasion of North Africa and sent it back to the President. Naturally Langer defends not only the exclusion of de Gaulle from the enter- prise but neglects to mention adecuately the role of the non-reactionary elements participating in support of the invading Americans. The authentic French Resistance leaders are quoted as wanting de Gaulle, but Murphy cabled General Donovan on September 5, 1942, that de Gaulle might “be capable of treachery.” So de Gaulle was excluded. The Darlan portion ‘of the book is another whitewash which adds little to the previ- ous apologias. But it sounds odd, after Langer has described the in- ception of expediency and the role of Murphy, to read that the “State De- partment had nothing to do with” the afrangements with Darlan. And it is nothing less than shameful that Langer should dismiss the large number of known facts about the political back- - ground of the assassination of Darlan with a few obscure phrases such as “there were curious circumstances.” evaluation of history, the key to the book is ‘Langer’s view that “considerations of an ideological char- acter are dangcrous if they are made