In Washington –
House debates new version of jobless pay
Doughton warns of deficit financing
…
Battle-begrimed girl reporter finds Paris still a style center
And she arranges at once to get herself a real Parisian hairdo
By Lee Carson, representing combined U.S. press
…
Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
Paris, France – (by wireless)
The other correspondents have written so thoroughly and so well about the fantastic eruption of mass joy when Paris was liberated that I shall not dwell on it much longer.
But there are some little things I have to get out of my system, so we’ll have at least this one more column on it.
Actually, the thing has floored most of us. I know that I have felt totally incapable of reporting it to you. It was so big I felt in adequate to touch it. I didn’t know where to start or what to say. The words you put down about it sound feeble to the point of asininity.
I’m not alone in this feeling, for I’ve heard a dozen other correspondents say the same thing. A good many of us feel we have failed in properly presenting the loveliest, brightest story of our time. It could be that this is because we have been so unused, for so long, to anything bright.
At any rate let’s go back to the demonstration. From 2 o’clock in the afternoon until darkness around 10:00, we few Americans in Paris on that first day were kissed and hauled and mauled by friendly mobs until we hardly knew where we were.
Waving arms finally give out
Everybody kissed you – little children, old women, grown-up men, beautiful girls. They jumped and squealed and pushed in a literal frenzy.
They pinned bright little flags and badges all over you. Amateur cameramen took pictures. They tossed flowers and friendly tomatoes into your jeep. One little girl even threw a bottle of cider into ours.
As you drove along, gigantic masses of waving and screaming humanity clapped their hands as though applauding a fine performance in a theater. We in the jeeps smiled back until we had set grins on our faces. We waved until our arms gave out, and then we just waggled our fingers. We shook hands until our hands were bruised and scratched. If the jeep stopped you were swamped instantly. Those who couldn’t reach you threw kisses at you, and we threw kisses back.
They sang songs. They sang wonderful French songs we had never heard. And they sang “Tipperary” and “Madelon” and “Over There” and the “Marseillaise.”
French policemen saluted formally but smilingly as we passed. The French tanks that went in ahead of us pulled over to the sidewalks and were immediately swarmed over.
And then some weird cell in the mystic human makeup caused people to start wanting autographs. It began the first evening and by the next day had grown to unbelievable proportions. Everybody wanted every soldier’s autograph.
They showed notebooks and papers at you to sign. It was just like Hollywood. One woman, on the second day, had a stack of neat little white slips, surely 300 of them, for people to sign.
Perfect day, perfect occasion
That first afternoon only the main streets into the city were open and used, and they were packed with humanity. The side streets were roped off and deserted, because the Germans had feeble fortifications and some snipers there.
The weather was marvelous for liberation day, and for the next day too. For two days previously it had been gloomy and raining. But on the big day the sky was pure blue, the sun was bright and warm – a perfect day for a perfect occasion.
Paris seems to have all the beautiful girls we have always heard it had. The women have an art of getting themselves up fascinatingly. Their hair is done crazily, their clothes are worn imaginatively. They dress in riotous colors in this lovely warm season, and when the flag-draped holiday streets are packed with Parisians the color makes everything else in the world seem gray.
As one soldier remarked, the biggest thrill in getting to Paris is to see people in bright summer clothes again.
Like any city, Paris has its quota of dirty and ugly people. But dirty and ugly people have emotions too, and Hank Gorrell got roundly kissed by one of the dirtiest and ugliest women I have ever seen. I must add that since he’s a handsome creature, he also got more than his share of embraces from the beautiful young things.
There was one funny little old woman, so short she couldn’t reach up to kiss men in military vehicles, who appeared on the second day carrying a stepladder. Whenever a car stopped, she would climb her stepladder and let the boys have it with hugs, laughs and kisses.
‘Thank you for coming’
The second day was a little different from the first. You could sense that during those first few hours of liberation the people were almost animal-like in their panic of joy and relief and gratitude. They were actually crying as they kissed you and screamed, “Thank you, oh thank you, for coming!”
But on the second day it was a deliberate holiday. It was a festival prepared for and gone into on purpose. You could tell that the women had prettied up especially. The old men had on their old medals, and the children were scrubbed and Sunday-dressed until they hurt.
And then everybody came downtown. By 2:00 in the afternoon the kissing and shouting and autographing and applauding were almost deafening. The pandemonium of a free and lovable Paris reigned again. It was wonderful to be here.
British planes landed under Nazi noses, brought back underground spy reports
That’s how the Allies knew everything about Germans
By André Lebord (as told to Leland Stowe)
…
McCloy denies White House dictated ruling
Stimson’s aide upset ‘politics’ radio ruling
Washington –
Acting Secretary of War John J. McCloy said today that he personally made the decision to reverse the Army ruling granting the Socialist Party broadcasting facilities on the grounds that President Roosevelt’s Bremerton (Washington) speech was political in nature.
Mr. McCloy, a Republican, said the White House neither expressed any views with respect to the Army’s original stand nor exerted any effort to have the decision changed.
‘Equitable basis’
Mr. McCloy said:
I made the decision myself.
I had nothing to do with the first decision. I thought it well to get rid of that and start on an equitable basis for providing facilities with regard to the prior decision with respect to the Bremerton speech.
There was no White House dictation.
Mr. McCloy said officials of both Secretary Henry L. Stimson’s and Under Secretary Robert P. Patterson’s offices called his attention to the original Army announcement last Friday. This decision granted the Socialist Party shortwave radio time equal to that used by the President in speaking from Bremerton Aug. 12, when he returned from the Pacific.
Made on wrong premise
McCloy said he felt that decision was made on the wrong premise, and that he therefore overruled it. He was, and is, Acting Secretary in the absence of Mr. Stimson and Mr. Patterson. Mr. Stimson, he said, had no knowledge of the matter until it was all over.
A White House official called Mr. McCloy Friday to inquire for information on the basis of the first announcement but expressed no White House views in the matter, he said.
Mr. McCloy said the original decision was reached by Col. Robert Cutler, Mr. Stimson’s coordinator for soldier voting, and Maj. Gen. Frederick H. Osborn, director for Morale Services, without referring the matter to higher authority.
Cautious attitude
Mr. McCloy acknowledged that Col. Cutler customarily took a cautious attitude in interpreting whether a matter was political and indicated he approved leaning over backward in this respect.
Mr. McCloy acknowledged that the new plan announced yesterday, whereby equal broadcast time will be allotted to political parties on a schedule to be announced later, avoided any decision whether the Bremerton speech was political in nature.
Landon backs Governor Dewey
Topeka, Kansas (UP) –
Alf M. Landon, the 1936 Republican presidential nominee, last night urged abolition of government war emergency powers “at the earliest possible moment,” and the election of Governor Thomas E. Dewey as President.
He told Kansas Young Republican leaders:
The temptation is great, whatever party is in power, to continue those vast powers. It is always easy to forget authorized procedure for a shortcut to immediate problems.
Mr. Landon advocated the election of Mr. Dewey “to restore before it is too late our 150-year-old rule of passing the Executive Office around.”
Stokes: Congressmen rudely awakened by Hillman’s testimony on PAC
They learn workers are taking interest; Communism charge angrily denied
By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer
Washington –
Sidney Hillman tried hard in a day’s session with several Congressmen to break down some conceptions about the CIO’s political activities he directs as head of the CIO Political Action Committee and the recently-created National Citizens Political Action Committee.
He seemed to have had some success.
A definite impression from his examination by the House Campaign Investigating Committee is that it is difficult for the average Congressman to understand how a worker in some factory, in his own district or elsewhere, can get really interested in what goes on in Washington and want to do something about it.
An ogre in overalls
The average Congressman is waking up suddenly – and a little resentfully, it appears – to the new political consciousness of workers and its outlet in organized political activity. He doesn’t exactly like it, perhaps because he can’t quite understand it. So, uncomprehending, Mr. Average Congressman strikes back or, in his imagination, creates some sort of ogre that is not at all like the constituent he knew in overalls, Frank or Joe or Bill.
Some Investigating Committee members, particularly Rep. Ralph Church (R-IL), tried to draw a picture of some vast sort of conspiracy by Mr. Hillman and a few others which they are imposing on millions of workers who are following along like sheep.
Hillman’s reply angry
An accusation by Mr. Church that the CIO-PAC indulged in “Communistic records” provoked an angry outburst from Mr. Hillman.
He shouted:
You are trying to prejudice the public mind against us. You have no facts, no facts whatsoever, and that’s what I resent. I will put my record fighting Communism against yours any time. I have always opposed totalitarianism in any form. I am opposed to it in industry.
Mr. Hillman challenged Mr. Church to accompany him before any local union in Chicago and “see whom they support, you or me.”
Case of Dock Williams
Mr. Church questioned Mr. Hillman about the case of Dock J. Williams, a Negro who was removed from the presidency of Local 25 of the United Packing House Workers at Chicago. He said Mr. Williams blamed his removal on his refusal to authorize a union assessment for a $1,000 contribution to the CIO-PAC while it was still accepting funds from union treasuries. He said the case was the basis of a suit now in Superior Court at Chicago.
Mr. Hillman said he knew nothing of the case and suggested it be left to the courts. But he added that he thought it “inconceivable” that Mr. Williams was removed from office because of a controversy over the PAC.
And that Utah resignation
Mr. Church also asked about the resignation of two members of a Utah PAC in connection with political contributions.
Mr. Hillman said the two officials had disagreed with PAC objectives and that Utah PAC leaders “in their excitement” asked them to resign. He said the importance of the case had been magnified by an “organized campaign in some publications to malign the CIO.”
Mr. Church repeatedly referred to a potential PAC fund of $2,500,000 which the committee may receive if all CIO members contribute the requested $1, of which 50 cents would go to the national committee.
All very ‘democratic’
Mr. Hillman replied that “all this talk about millions is propaganda,” and added that the PAC thus far has received only $17,000 from the $1 contributions.
Mr. Hillman explained that the idea of organized political activity, local and national, was outlined by him over several months in visits to 40 states, to workers and representatives of workers, including 300 called together in Mr. Church’s own state. The unions then discussed it themselves and the plan was ratified at a national convention and the expenditure of funds approved. Mr. Hillman thought it all followed the democratic process.
Money in 18 contests
The records of activity and the expenditure of funds in primaries presented by Mr. Hillman should serve to take some of the fright out of Congressmen. The National PAC organization contributed in only 18 Congressional primary contests and did not win in all these. Locally, of course, the CIO was active elsewhere.
PAC spent no money in some contests cited for CIO activity and influence. None was spent in three Alabama contests in which the CIO was given credit for working against sitting Congressmen, including that in which Rep. Joseph Starnes, a member of the Dies Committee, was defeated. The National PAC spent none in the contest against Rep. Richard Kleberg (D-TX), who was defeated.
Fund partly frozen
The Smith-Connally Act, implemented by amendments to the Hatch Act, forbidding contributions to political campaigns by labor unions, has curtailed CIO activities, the House members learned. The PAC had a fund of $671,214 contributed by CIO unions. It had spent $371,086 up to the end of the national political conventions, when it ordered that, except for the remaining primaries, no more of this fund should be spent since union funds are barred in regular election campaigns.
House members also learned these contributions from union members, which Mr. Hillman insisted are purely voluntary, are not swelling in any golden wave. Loans and contributions from union members from July 23, when union contributions were frozen, to Aug. 15 totaled $56,922. Of this amount, $36,983 has been spent which, with the $371,086 previously spent from funds contributed by unions, makes a total of $408,080 spent for political activity.
Lucky to get $3 million
This sum, Mr. Hillman said, was equal to what two families had contributed to the Republican campaign in 1940. He decried stories of many millions to be spent by PAC and NCPAC, which he attributed to propaganda.
NCPAC, which thus far has contributions from the general public of $78,569, has set a goal of $1,500,000 for the campaign, Mr., Hillman thought PAC would be lucky to get that much, which would make a total of $3 million. The Republican National Committee spent $17 million in 1940.
Mr. Hillman told the committee that his union, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, had contributed $5,000 to the campaign for District Attorney by Thomas E. Dewey in 1938. The Dewey organization asked for me, and so obtained contributions from other unions, Mr. Hillman said.
U.S. State Department (August 29, 1944)
Lot 60–D 224, Box 55: DO/PR/6
Memorandum by the Under Secretary of State to the Secretary of State
Washington, August 29, 1944
Subject: PROGRESS REPORT ON DUMBARTON OAKS CONVERSATIONS – SEVENTH DAY
Meetings of the formulation group on General Organization
The formulation group of the Subcommittee on General Organization, meeting Monday and today, has reached tentative agreement on the following aspects of the International Organization:
I. Purposes
To maintain peace and security through effective collective measures for the prevention and suppression of threats to or breaches of the peace; to adjust or settle peacefully disputes which may lead to a breach of the peace; to develop friendly relations among nations; to serve as a center for harmonizing the action of nations for these ends. We and the British agreed that the Organization should achieve international cooperation on economic, social and technical matters, but the Soviet group, while constructively participating in discussion of this point, reserved judgment pending instructions.
II. Principles
The Organization will act in accordance with the following principles: the sovereign equality of all peace-loving states; fulfillment by all members of the obligations assumed in accordance with the basic instrument; settlement of all disputes by peaceful means not endangering peace and security; avoidance of the threat or use of force in any manner inconsistent with these purposes; and no assistance to a state against which preventive or enforcement action is being undertaken.
III. Membership
Membership should be open to the United Nations and all other peace-loving states; initial members should be the United Nations (the Soviet group reserves judgment as to whether “the nations associated with them” should be included); states not initial members should be admitted individually after adoption of the basic instrument and in accordance with regulations in it.
IV. Principal organs
An assembly, a council, an international court, a general secretariat, and such additional organs, councils, commissions or agencies as may be found necessary.
Meeting of the Joint Steering Committee
We reviewed and rather promptly reached agreement, with very minor revisions, on the draft statements of the formulation group, summarized above.
The ease and the dispatch with which agreement was reached on these matters was encouraging.
We also agreed easily upon the schedule of meetings to be followed tomorrow and the next day. The arrangements at which we have arrived for considering and disposing of the various matters under discussion seem to be working smoothly and effectively.
Lot 60–D 224, Box 59: Stettinius Diary
Extracts from the personal diary of the Under Secretary of State
Seventh Day, Tuesday, August 29, 1944
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Private Talk with Gromyko. After the press conference this morning Gromyko asked if he could have a private talk with me and we went down into the garden and sat by the swimming pool for a half hour. The Ambassador stated he was concerned and wished to discuss several points with me. The question of the ⅔ vote, the Ambassador said, he and his colleagues in Moscow had been greatly pleased with the proposal in the American document with a simple majority vote and that he was now very discouraged over the fact that we had retreated from that and were prepared to agree to a two-thirds majority. He was afraid this would cause great difficulty with his government and hoped we could reconsider our position. I assured the Ambassador we would give the matter further study. He then talked about the voting issue when big powers were involved in a dispute, and stated that he had a firm feeling which was also the official view of his government that the unanimity of the four powers must be preserved and he hoped it would be possible for us to reconsider our position on this matter. I explained to the Ambassador this was a question to which we had given great study, which had been reviewed carefully both with the President and Mr. Hull and that only last night the President had asked me to explain to him that it would cause great difficulty in presenting the plan to the American public if it provided that a party involved in a dispute could vote on its own case. The Ambassador then replied that it was clear this would be a point of actual disagreement but that perhaps we could find some general language to cover it so that it could be dealt with at a later date and that a definite position would not have to be arrived at during these conversations. I emphasized again this would be very disappointing to our government and that I hoped it would be possible to find a solution during the conversations which we could all support. The Ambassador then said he had two other points he wished to make but which he did not consider as important as the first two. On both of these latter questions I got the distinct impression that we should not have much difficulty in reaching satisfactory solutions. The first was the matter of the international air force for which they wished to press. I asked him to explain exactly what he now had in mind on this and he said that they visualized each of the four powers placing at the disposal of the council airplanes and forces which could be used very promptly without the delay of many days which the procurement of authorization from a government would cause. I then said, “Mr. Ambassador, you don’t mean a new uniform with a special insignia on the plane under command of some officer of the council” and he replied “Not at all.” I then went on and said in effect “I understand you mean joint operations with a plane of the RAF and a plane of the Red Army and a plane of the USAF all operating together under same Allied command.” The Ambassador agreed and added that the Soviets think of troops and naval vessels in the same way. I told him that on the question of the authority of the council to utilize these forces on a moment’s notice we would have to study further because by the terms of our Constitution, Senate relations are involved in that position. He replied he understood that and knew we were studying the entire matter.
The Ambassador then stated he was impressed by our arguments relative to an economic and social council and would be available to discuss it in more detail at any time at my convenience. At the close of the conversation, I told the Ambassador I had discussed his statement on the matter both with the President and Secretary. I told him it was the opinion of the American government that the suggestion is out of order and that pressing the point at this time might jeopardize the success of the conversations. I said it was my earnest appeal the Soviet group withdraw the request and added that if the Soviet government had such a thing in mind, it should more properly be presented to the international organization in due course after its creation. The Ambassador was most cooperative and indicated that he had raised the point at the meeting merely to inform us that they had this matter in mind but said he would agree in the present meetings at Dumbarton Oaks there should be no further reference whatsoever to the subject. He added that he would agree to define the initial membership as consisting of the United Nations and the Associated Nations.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Tea with Cadogan and Gromyko
Immediately after the conclusion of the Joint Steering Committee I took Cadogan and Gromyko to tea in the garden and we had another frank talk. Cadogan inquired of Gromyko how much longer he felt it would take to finish the conversations, volunteering that he (Cadogan) hoped they could be completed by the middle of next week. Gromyko agreed to this and said he could see no reason why we should not end up by the middle of the week.
Gromyko asked Cadogan if he had studied the Chinese plan and Cadogan replied that he had and that there seemed to be nothing in it which would cause difficulty. Cadogan referred to the mention in the Chinese document of the equality of race question.
Gromyko then stated the only points he could see that were really open and might cause difficulty was the question of the two-thirds vote, the question of voting when a big power was involved in a dispute; international air force, the economic and social council, and the military committee. He admitted he had heard from home on all these points but said it was taking him about three days to get an exchange of views between Washington and Moscow.
Cadogan and I both talked very frankly with the Ambassador on the question of a country voting when it was involved in a dispute. Among other things we stressed that such a procedure would be entirely unacceptable to the small nations. The Ambassador refused to recognize the validity of that point or of our other arguments.
Cadogan then stated at lunch to me that he had had the thought we might work on another formula along the lines that the council could be empowered to request such a government not to vote. If that country then insisted on voting we would then know where we stood. After a 45-minute talk, I left as Cadogan had not previously had an opportunity for talking with Gromyko today.
Gromyko seemed most enthusiastic and most encouraged with the way matters were proceeding. Cadogan said facetiously that we would certainly have to speed things along and end up before the collapse of Germany as this just couldn’t occur without his being in at the kill.
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Lot 60–D 224, Box 56: DO/ConvA/JSC Mins. 1–12
Informal minutes of Meeting No. 7 of the Joint Steering Committee
Washington, August 29, 1944, 3:00 p.m.
[Extract]
| Present: | Sir Alexander Cadogan and Mr. Jebb of the British group; |
| Ambassador Gromyko, Mr. Sobolev, and Mr. Berezhkov of the Soviet group; | |
| Mr. Stettinius, Mr. Dunn, and Mr. Pasvolsky of the American group. | |
| Mr. Hiss also present, as secretary. |
At the opening of the meeting Mr. Stettinius referred to the statement which Ambassador Gromyko had made yesterday at the last previous meeting of the Committee with reference to the possible inclusion of the sixteen Soviet republics among the initial members of the Organization. Mr. Stettinius suggested that, in view of a conversation he had had with Ambassador Gromyko on this subject, he wondered whether perhaps reference to the subject might not appropriately be omitted from the minutes of yesterday’s meeting. In reply, Ambassador Gromyko said that he did not feel that it would be necessary to omit mention of this matter from the minutes. In this connection, reference was made to the very limited circulation which is being given to copies of these minutes. The Ambassador went on to say that in making his statement of yesterday on this subject he had desired simply to call the matter to the attention of the other groups and that he does not insist upon discussing the matter further in the Dumbarton Oaks conversations for the purpose of arriving at any decision on this point in these present conversations.
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Lot 60–D 224, Box 56: DO/ConvA/JSC Mins. 1–12
Memorandum by the Under Secretary of State
Washington, August 29, 1944
On Monday, August 28, 1944, toward the end of a long and important meeting of the Joint Steering Committee of the Dumbarton Oaks conversations during the American, British and Soviet phase of those conversations, while the group was discussing which nations of the world should be the initial members of the Organization, we explained that we had in mind the same group of United Nations and associated nations which had been invited to attend the Food and Agriculture Conference, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Conference and the International Monetary Fund Conference. There was a good deal of discussion as to the details of this whole question.
There was general agreement that our proposal would be satisfactory. However, just after the discussion on this point appeared to have been concluded, Ambassador Gromyko stated, almost as if he were bringing up a separate and unrelated topic, in a definitely casual manner, that the sixteen republics comprising the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics should be included among the initiators. By our manner, Sir Alexander Cadogan and I both indicated our surprise and our anticipation of great difficulty from this proposal.
Sir Alexander said, with casualness equal to that of the Ambassador’s, that he had “no comment at this stage.” He then added that he thought his Government would have to talk to the Soviet Government about regularization of the international position of the Soviet republics (thus indicating a desire to keep the subject separate from the Dumbarton Oaks conversations).
The Ambassador then observed something to the effect that each of the republics had its own separate governmental organization.
The American representatives (Mr. Dunn and Mr. Pasvolsky were with me) then said, in a quiet and deliberately informal and offhand way, that the American side would have to think about the proposal.
There was no further discussion about the proposal and the Committee proceeded at once, and as if with relief, to discuss the practical matter of the schedule of meetings to be adopted for the next few days of the conversations.
We next discussed a proposed press release and then adjourned without further discussion of any substantive questions.
In reporting the progress of the Dumbarton Oaks conversations to the President on August 28, 1944, at 5:00 p.m., I raised with him, among other things, the above-mentioned request of the Soviet Government. The President stated emphatically that this was a proposal that the United States could under no conditions accept, and he instructed me forthwith to explain to Ambassador Gromyko that this would complicate matters, that it would present untold difficulties, and there would be just as much logic for us to ask for the admittance of our forty-eight states as it would be to admit their sixteen republics.
This morning, Tuesday, August 29, 1944, I went to Mr. Hull’s apartment at 9:00 a.m. to discuss this matter. Mr. Hull stated that he was amazed that such a proposal had been made and that no such question had ever entered the minds of any of us in the American group who had been working on this. I told him that the President had instructed me to explain to Ambassador Gromyko promptly that such a proposal could not be considered by the Government of the United States.
At 11:15 a.m. today, August 29, after the joint press conference of the heads of the three groups, Ambassador Gromyko stated that he wished to discuss a few private matters with me.
We went into the garden at Dumbarton Oaks and the Ambassador raised a number of points about our discussions which have been recorded elsewhere.
At the close of this conversation, I advised the Ambassador that I had discussed the Ambassador’s statement as to the sixteen Soviet republics with the President and the Secretary of State. I said that it is the opinion of the American Government that the suggestion is out of order and that pressing the point at this time might jeopardize the success of our present conversations. I said it was my earnest appeal that the Soviet group withdraw the request and said further that if the Soviet Government had such a thing in mind it should more properly be presented to the Council of the international organization in due course after its creation.
The Ambassador was most cooperative and in effect said:
The reason I raised this point at the meeting yesterday was merely to advise the United Kingdom and the American Governments that we had this matter in mind but I will agree, in our present meetings at Dumbarton Oaks, that there should be no further reference whatsoever to this subject, and I agree that we will define the initial membership as consisting of the United Nations and associated nations.
At the outset of today’s 3:00 o’clock meeting of the Joint Steering Committee, I asked Ambassador Gromyko if it would be agreeable to him to have reference to this matter omitted from the minutes of the Committee’s meeting of yesterday. The Ambassador said something to the effect that what was said was said, but that he would not refer further to the matter during the present conversations. He did, however, indicate that on some other occasion the question would probably be raised again by his Government. It was agreed, in deference to the Ambassador’s position, to let the minutes include reference to this point but it was emphasized that, in accordance with prior general arrangements relating to these minutes, only two copies of the minutes containing this reference would be distributed to the Chairman of each of the three national groups.
I am retaining those pages of the minutes which contain reference to this matter in my office safe at the Department. Until further instructions are issued by me or Mr. Hull, those pages will not be available to anyone. This memorandum (of which there are no copies) will, after being read by Mr. Hull and by the President, also be retained in my office safe.
Reading Eagle (August 29, 1944)
Pegler: French Communists
By Westbrook Pegler
New York –
Reporters in France tell of the execution of French women and men who were deemed to have collaborated with the Nazis and of women shorn as a mark of disgrace. The trials must have been informal and emotional, and there runs through the dispatches a strong suggestion that the Communists of France now are sitting as judges of patriotism to a country which they themselves betrayed in the days of the Phony War and on down to the fall.
In the Herald Tribune, John Chabot Smith, writing from Marseille, says the French Forces of the Interior, after seizing a town, install a local government consisting of the council of liberation or men named by the council. The council, he says, includes a representative from each of the six principal political groups, including the Communist.
That the Communists in France, as here, fight desperately for communism no man will deny. Like the Nazis, they are political fanatics and as cruel, wanton, devious and treacherous. They have so much in common that not long ago before the war some American writers who had studied history in process in Germany were calling the Nazis brown Bolsheviks.
But it is a fact, nevertheless, that they were traitors to France and would have opened the gates from the inside to let the Nazis in without a fight, just as the Communists in the United States did all they could to keep this country unarmed and helpless until June 1941. President Roosevelt himself flatly accused the American Communists of this when he sent a regiment of the Regular Army to Inglewood, California, to drive their terrorists from the gates of one of our most important airplane factories so that the Americans could get to their jobs. Elmer Davis, of the OWI, said that in the absence of more exact information he would regard as a Communist anyone who opposed our rearming program prior to Hitler’s attack on Russia, but changed overnight when the Berlin-Moscow alliance broke.
To refresh our memory of the conduct of the American Communists during that time, we may refer to the files of some of the House organs of the CIO unions which were then (and remain today Communist fronts), controlled by clever and indefatigable Communist minorities. The Daily Worker is another reliable reference.
The Communists in France were worse than useless in the French Army facing the Germans. They not only wouldn’t fight the Nazis, but they made more ghastly the desperate position of those Frenchmen who did fight and many of whom died. They were saboteurs in the factories and ports and collaborationists in far more deadly and tragic ways while there was still a chance of survival than those who, during the long dark night since the fall, lost hope of rescue and simply submitted.
French politics has been so horribly corrupt and confused that even before the war few Americans had the confidence in their judgment to boast that they understood. But undoubtedly there were Royalists and Fascists of varying degrees who saw the situation as a choice between fascism and communism and, after the collapse, went fascist or collaborationist.
But there was one certainty during all that time down to the collapse. The communists were active, aggressive traitors who stabbed their own country in the back just as surely as Mussolini did, and only after the foul deed was done and the Nazis were in, suddenly turned patriots because Russia, their spiritual homeland, was in danger. Their purpose was not to rescue France but to help Russia by harassing the Nazis in France.
That such people should now be able to hound and condemn and execute others, even though some of the accused actually were traitors, is a hideous irony and an injustice to the American and British fighters who drove the Germans out. For these American and British soldiers, too, were betrayed by the Communists and now find French Communists exploiting their victory.
It will not be so, apparently, but surely these traitors, too, should be called to trial. Instead, we find them participating in the control of the nation they helped the Nazis to humiliate and torture beyond respect of recovery within that term which President Roosevelt calls the foreseeable future.