He is much like Stalin, an Asiatic, with more than his share of the Eastern blood of the Auvernacs. He has the psychology of the Oriental and like Stalin he has the Oriental’s lack of human consideration. As Stalin regards Russia without love, as an object, so Laval regards France. He has few real friends but possesses a marvelous power of extemporized comradeship and can talk the language of any man with whom he converses, including, as one of his enemies suggested, “even an honest man.” Once a friend of his exclaimed, “You ought to be dictator of a South American Republic!” “How did you know?” asked Laval, genuinely surprised. “Oh, just a joke,” answered the friend. “But no,” said Laval, “I am amazed, because when I was a boy that was just what I always dreamed of becoming—dictator of a South American state.” Perhaps he may get his wish yet, as the malicious wits of the Riviera have called Vichy France, “a banana republic without bananas.”
Laval’s hatred of England is extended now to America, because American support upholds Britain, and Laval will never be safe until Britain is defeated. He is still unwavering in his conviction that Germany will win, but even if we entered the war and it became evident Germany would lose, Laval cannot now change his position. He is one of those so totally committed to the German cause that he stands or falls with it.
Q. You have said that we Americans were very much like the French; now in what way are we? Have we also traitors in our ranks?
A. No, we have not, I am convinced, any traitors among our officers, as the French had. There are many Nazi agents among us, and a few may have penetrated to positions of some importance, but I do not believe they could affect the issue of the war as they did in France. There are many Communists as well among us, probably more than there are Nazis, and we ought never to forget that whether they are native-born Americans or not makes no difference. Nor does the fact that Soviet Russia is momentarily engaged in fighting our enemy change the essential fact that Communists cannot be loyal Americans. Their loyalty is to Moscow alone, and if a change in Russia’s position should make it expedient for the Kremlin to order American Communists to sabotage America’s war effort, the order would be zealously obeyed.
Our chief danger of this sort lies in the wrongheaded activity of our isolationists who, whether they wish it or not, serve the cause of Hitler more effectively than all the paid agents of Germany and Italy and Japan could do if their numbers were multiplied many times. Consider carefully the account given you by my French friend of the way the Germans appealed to Parisian conservative circles, and ask yourself if their arguments do not sound remarkably like the speeches of Lindbergh and Wheeler.
Treason can be difficult to define. I had a French friend, whom I can call a friend no longer because he became one of the chief collaborationists with the Germans. I think—I am not sure—but I think we have no one like him in America, but he was so representative of the group that betrayed France, that I want to quote a conversation I had with him just before the war began. I said, “Jean, you seem to believe profoundly that Germany is strong enough to win a war no matter how France fights to prevent it; and you also seem to believe that the German kind of National Socialism would be a good thing for the whole continent, including France. Now what would you do, believing as you do, if France were to be at war with Germany, and you thought defeat was inevitable, and you foresaw a long and bloody conflict, and you suddenly found yourself in possession of a military secret which would end the war immediately in favor of Germany if the Germans knew it. Would you give this decisive military secret to the Germans?” Jean answered, “Yes, of course I would.” “But wouldn’t that be treason?” I asked. “Not at all,” Jean answered. “It wouldn’t be treason to France; it would only be a blow at what I consider the treasonable government of the Republic.” Now I submit that even our rabid isolationists would reject a position like Jean’s, but we ought nevertheless clearly to see the fact that Lindbergh and Wheeler by their powerful discouragement of the whole war effort of America are doing this country the same kind of harm that came to France.
Q. In what other ways do we compare with the French?
A. It is astonishing to see how many points of similarity we can discover, beginning with the well-known Maginot line complex which we parallel with our Atlantic Ocean complex. I remember back in 1930 at a cocktail party in Berlin a German Lieutenant Colonel remarked to me about the Maginot line, which the French were just completing: “That line of fortifications will be the death of France. If soldiers have such an impregnable fortress to live in, they will never willingly leave it to take the offensive, and without taking the offensive you can’t win a war. The Maginot line will give the French Army a permanent defense complex and out of its sense of security we will eventually defeat it.” Our complacency behind the Atlantic Ocean, which we fondly fancy could always protect us from attack, is precisely the same as the French had. The French also were brought down by their skepticism; they had ceased to have any faith in anything, whether the Republic, or democracy, or God, just as millions of Americans lack faith in anything and think it smart to deride any kind of ideals, particularly anything so old-fashioned as sacrifice for one’s country.
The French had up to the bitter end, so little primitive, full-blooded spirit that they neither sang on the way to battle nor cursed while in action; they harbored no anger toward the enemy, no hatred for him, and they had no will to kill. They were apologetic for being at war, until catastrophe was upon them, and it was too late. Most Americans feel apologetic about the war and behave as though they were not sure of the rightness of our cause.
Another curious and not unimportant item of coincidence is that there was a strong current of anti-British feeling in France at the beginning of the war, just as there is here. In France it was grounded largely in the argument, which had much truth in it, that Great Britain had been largely responsible for the war by her shortsighted support of Germany against France for so many years, and that the British would “fight to the last Frenchman.” This latter argument seemed silly to me when I first met it early in the Battle of France, at the front near Sedan where I picked up a little printed leaflet in French, dropped by German aviators.