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

egging him to accept an armistice.}" Later, in a declassified confidential
memorandum, Mathews reported: "{I don't think her role in encouraging
the defeatist elements during Reynaud's critical last days as Prime
Minister should be underestimated. She spent an hour weeping in my
office to get us to urge Reynaud to ask for an Armistice. She knew that
our efforts were all in the opposite direction but she was in such a state
of panic that she would leave no stone unturned to get Reynaud to
surrender. Mr. Biddle and I saw Reynaud at least four times a day
during his last few days as Prime Minister; never once did we see him
that Helene de Portes was not just coming out or going into his office,
and I think his gradual…loss of nerve was in large part due to her
influence on him.}" (Shirer, p.813)
The central issue on the table was to decide whether the French
government was going to vote for an armistice or for a cease-fire, that is,
stop fighting or continue fighting. That crucial issue was going to be decided
depending on how quickly the synarchist offensive behind Laval would
succeed in forcing Prime Minister Paul Reynaud to accept that the war was
lost and that he had to resign, so that the fascist regime could step in.
Reynaud's strategy was to bring de Gaulle into his government, but
this proposal was squashed by Daladier, who, with the moderates, forced
Reynaud to accept into his new government, one of the Synarchist
controllers of Helene de Portes, Paul Baudouin, who became Undersecretary
of State, and then secretary of the War Committee. In his memoirs, de
Gaulle said that Reynaud wanted to appoint him in that position rather than
Baudouin. This was a critical failure, because from that moment on, the
synarchists would corner Reynaud at every turn. On June 5-6, 1940,
Reynaud succeeded, nonetheless in bringing in de Gaulle as Undersecretary
of State for National Defense. Both were agreed to call for a cease-fire, not
an armistice, and prepare the government to move to North Africa.
The pressure, however bearing on Reynaud to accept an armistice,
were constant, and coming from all quarters, especially from Helene de
Portes who kept screaming at him "Armistice! Armistice!" On the other
hand, de Gaulle was alone in advising continuing the fight and a transfer of
the government to North Africa. De Gaulle said: "I knew that was really M.
Paul Reynaud's ultimate intention. But so pressing and exhausting were the
contrary intrigues and influences with constant access to him that I could see
his last hope dwindling hour by hour." (p. 67)
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