Adieu, Giraud

In his marble Algiers mansion General Henri Giraud, Allied protege, waited vainly for Allied help. He had not "accepted" General Charles de Gaulle's decree removing him as Commander in Chief. Now word came that the Gaullist Government had retired him, at full pay to the "reserve command list." Old Soldier Giraud saw that the fight was lost. To his troops he bade a dignified farewell: "Men pass, but France is eternal."

Rumor said that he would go to London to write his memoirs: the story of a Frenchman who had fought from the Atlas to the Vosges, seen the inside of German prisons in two wars, dreamed once of leading la patrie's liberation.

Take Care, De Gaulle. Never had Charles de Gaulle ridden so high. His government had liquidated the most vexing symbol of Allied intervention in French affairs. It was accepted by the Allied High Command as the authority for the France that would be liberated. From London came word that General Dwight Eisenhower had invited General de Gaulle to talk problems of civil administration.

Gaullists were happy over the tide of events. But Frenchmen of other sympathy were troubled. In the Algiers Consultative Assembly, Communists and others did not like General de Gaulle's highhanded disposal of General Giraud, worried over his program for liberated France. A striking parallel developed between the extreme Left and the extreme Right among French refugees: both camps warned De Gaulle and the world that Frenchmen in France will determine the fate of France.

Pundit Walter Lippmann sharply analyzed U.S. policy toward France:

"The President wanted General Eisen hower to pick and choose the Frenchmen with whom he would deal when he got to France. This incredibly dangerous proposal has had its repercussions in the . . . quarrel between General de Gaulle and General Giraud. The reasoning of the French at Algiers is self-evident: ... It will ... be not the French Committee but . . . the French Commander in Chief who will tell General Eisenhower what Frenchmen to deal with. . . . Because Mr. Roosevelt's policy would give Giraud the initial control of civil affairs in France, General Giraud must be deposed. . . .

"Thus Mr. Roosevelt's desire to thwart General de Gaulle has led to the destruction of General Giraud and new divisions rather than greater unity among the French. This is inefficiency in the conduct of diplomacy."

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