One Down, Three to Go

The State Department won the first engagement in its bloodless battle with Vichyfrance for control of Martinique. Admiral Georges Robert, goateed commissioner of French possessions in the West Indies, agreed last week to disarm all his warships.

Immobilized: the powerful old 22,146-ton aircraft carrier Beam; the 5,886-ton cruiser Emile Bertin; the 6,496-ton cruiser Jeanne D'Arc, at Guadeloupe; some small auxiliary craft. Most important, U.S. patrol vessels which have had to stand vigil will be freed for tasks elsewhere.

Negotiations continued on the hot little island of Martinique. There Rear Admiral John H. Hoover and the State Department's Samuel Reber conferred with Admiral Robert (TIME, May 18). There were other concessions which the State Department was determined to get, chiefly: supervision over some 70,000 tons of French merchant ships in the Caribbean trade; continued close supervision of the more than $200,000,000 in gold stored on the island; a U.S. observer for the radio station on Martinique.

Disregarded by the State Department, Pierre Laval tried desperately to cut in on the deal. He made public Vichy's text of what he claimed were the U.S. terms to Robert and his own unasked-for reply. M. Laval was hurt and angry. The U.S., he said, was asking France to dishonor its armistice with Germany. Observers saw something else: Laval and Hitler had been boxed. If they provoked an open break in U.S.-French relations, Laval's position as head of the Vichy Government might become too hot to hold, even with the support of his German masters. State Department officials had a right to their elation. If they won their other points, without upsetting the delicate balance of French-U.S. diplomacy, and without precipitating the French Mediterranean Fleet into action, they had won a neat little war.

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