synarchy movement of empire book ii - Pierre Beaudry's Galactic ...

"The French people's spirit of resistance, not Vichy, has prevented the
French Fleet from falling into the hands of the Germans. Therefore, the main
purpose of the United Nations' policy should be to build up the spirit of the
French people, not to support Vichy. This spirit is symbolized by the Free
French. Therefore, the French people are disheartened by our distrust of and
failure to support the Free French.
"The fact that Hitler 'tolerates' the presence of the American Embassy
in Vichy proves that he finds its existence useful.
"Petain would prevent and sabotage any effort towards resuming the
struggle against Germany in North Africa." (Letter of Donavan to the
President, February 8, 1942.)
What is coming out of this letter, are two things. One is that America
was, in February of 1942, preparing to shift its French foreign policy away
from Vichy and toward the Free French, and secondly, the conflicting
positions of de Gaulle and Roosevelt had to be maintained firmly until the
Americans were able to launch a successful invasion of North Africa. In
other words, each side had to agree to disagree. This was not done out of
choice or out of ideology, but out of necessity, and both positions had to
completely disregard public opinion for the higher cause of freedom and
sovereignty.
There had been a lot of controversy about whether Roosevelt should
have severed American diplomatic relations with the Vichy regime, and
openly supported the anti-fascist Free France forces of Charles de Gaulle. A
lot of unthinking people made it an ideological question, and defended the
issue naively on that ground. This was a mistake. Demanding a public break
with fascism and an unqualified and complete support for Charles de Gaulle
and the Free French would have been nothing else but a stupid decision to
follow the whims of public opinion, and would have jeopardized both the
work of the Free French outside and the resistance inside of France.
It were better to have the United States support de Gaulle and Free
France in a discrete fashion, through British channels to the Free French
controlled colonies, as Roosevelt did starting in 1941, rather than break
officially all relationship with Vichy, and risk losing the ability of changing
the situation from the inside. There was also a precious source of
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