Presidential Mission

by Upton Sinclair

  When you travel on land planes you don’t see much of the places where you alight; you see only the airport, and each is much like the previous one. But on a seaplane you have a good look at harbors and their shipping, and the vast improvements being made in wartime. If the weather is at all rough, it may take a while to bring the rather fragile machine up to the dock; if the reports from the next station happen to be unfavorable, you may have a wait of a day or two and have time to stroll around. So Lanny learned about parts of the earth which he had never seen before; and while up in the air he diligently acquired information about Moorish art and architecture in their period of greatest flowering. He was genuinely interested, so business and pleasure were one and the same.

  The title of the book Lanny was reading attracted the attention of a well-groomed young gentleman who gave his name as Faulkner and said he was an instructor in archeology at the University of Chicago. He was on his way to Volubilis, to investigate new excavations which had recently been made there. Lanny doubted it from the first moment and guessed that he was working on “Operation Gymnast,” perhaps under the orders of “Wild Bill” Donovan. But a P.A. asked no questions, and they chatted about the traces of Carthaginian ruins which are to be found in North Africa. Possibly Dr. Faulkner, was as good in guessing about Lanny as Lanny about him; but he, too, kept away from dangerous subjects. When they parted in Lisbon, Lanny said: “My business may bring me to Volubilis before long, and if so, we’ll meet again.” And they did.

  II

  The traveler had been told to report to the consulate in Lisbon, where arrangements were made for his plane passage, first to Madrid and from there to Vichy. He had to wait a couple of days, and this gave him time to observe what another year of neutrality had done to the spy center of Western Europe. The dictator who ruled Portugal was taking no chances, especially since the vast indefinite power of America had been thrown into the scales. The former college professor saw to it that his newspapers published an equal amount of Axis and Allied news, side by side, and he allowed all parties to spend their money in his capital, provided they did not call names or engage in fisticuffs. British and American and German and Italian planes came in at the same airport, and their flyers drank at the same bars, but without speaking. Refugees of all nations and all creeds ate in the cafés while their money lasted, and when it was gone they tried to find someone to take pity on them. Wages were fifty cents a day.

  Not a happy place, not a beautiful place, but one that was useful to a great many people. Lanny avoided the spies and played his own game, visiting the art museum and making inquiries as to private collections and old masters that might be on the market. As an art expert he was no pretender; he knew what to look at, and what prices should be; if he found anything good he might cable, and meantime he could be sure that careful note was being made of his activities and that word concerning them would go to Paris and Madrid and Vichy, London and Berlin and Rome. Dossiers would be compiled, and wherever somebody might wish to make use of him, his hobbies and his weaknesses would be known, and a list of his family connections and friends.

  Then to the great city of Madrid, which in Lanny Budd’s view was surely the most unhappy place in all Europe. Here had been committed the first wholesale murder of the modern age; the murder of a nation, of a free people and their hopes. Lanny had been here several times. He had seen the beginning and the progress of this crime, and his soul ached with longing to see the end of it. In the best hotel in the city, where he spent the night, the hot-water spigot ran cold and the water was stained with rust. In the elaborately gilded dining-room the meal cost twenty-five dollars and was none too good, but the band played American jazz and the ladies were loaded with diamonds and pearls and the men with gold lace and jeweled decorations. The food choked Lanny, because he knew that in the back alleys of this phony capital the poor were dropping dead from malnutrition, and millions of the enemies of the regime were in prisons and concentration camps. More than three years had passed since the ending of the civil war, but the idea of amnesty was unknown to Franco, and wholesale shootings went on in the prison courtyards night after night. Soldiers were everywhere, and a surplus of swaggering officers and strutting armed Falangists, the Party gangsters.

  Lanny knew art collectors here, and high-up personalities whom it was his duty to call upon. General Aguilar would receive him even though his country was now at war with the General’s dear friends and patrons, Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini. Over the usual copitas de manzanilla the white-whiskered old conquistador told Lanny about a very beautiful Madonna and Child by Murillo, which a friend of his might be willing to part with; incidentally the General did his best to persuade Lanny to part with information about what America was planning to do in aid of the Bolsheviks and against the defenders of the Faith. A son of Budd-Erling Aircraft couldn’t pretend to be ignorant on the subject, so Lanny gave figures—slyly exaggerated—as to the output of his father’s plant. He added that he was ashamed of these activities and had done everything in his power to persuade his father to reject the filthy lucre which the fanatical Roosevelt was pouring into his lap.

  “What does that Presidente of yours think he can do?” demanded the General. “Does not a man have to be truly mad to imagine that he can conquer the whole continent of Europe? Even Napoleon couldn’t do it from France, and Roosevelt is three thousand miles across the sea!”

  III

  The plane which took the traveler to the small capital of Unoccupied France was in no way up to American standards of comfort, but it flew, and it set him down safely on the broad plain of the Allier River. Springtime was in full flood and the country was so beautiful that its inhabitants were a shame, or so Lanny thought. Into this small watering place and summer resort a good part of the haute bourgeoisie of Paris and other cities of northern and northwestern France had been driven by bombing and terror. Here they pawned their jewels and furs and lived the same wasteful lives that had brought their country to ruin. Food was supposed to be rationed; but the black market ruled, and a corrupt and enfeebled government was powerless against it. The Germans left enough food for those who could buy it, for they wanted the help of that same haute bourgeoisie.

  Lanny found lodgings, not without difficulty, and surely not without price. He did not ask official favors, but set to work at his private business of exchanging American dollars for French works of art. He had established contacts on two previous visits and knew where to go; he could be certain that his arrival would be noted and that politicians and officials would seek him out. They might guess that he was there for ulterior purposes, but they couldn’t prove it and would treat him with French courtesy. Wonderful is that power called “social position”; the elegance, the aloofness, the assurance that come with the possession of wealth—and not crude wealth, but wealth that your family and your friends and your class have possessed for generations, so that it is like the air you breathe and do not have to think about.

  From the newspapers of Vichy, Lanny gathered that he had arrived in the midst of great events. Pierre Laval had once more become head of the government; the aged Marshal Pétain had been reconciled with him again, something Pétain had vowed, a little more than a year ago, he would never do. Lanny knew enough about this puppet world to be sure that the political pot must be bubbling furiously; the wretched newspapers and radio of Vichy wouldn’t tell him about the real events, but he was sure to find out soon.

  Sitting in one of the little iron chairs at a round iron table of one of the sidewalk cafés, sipping a poor imitation of coffee, Lanny heard his name pronounced in eager tones, and turned to see M. Jacques Benoist-Méchin, journalist-snob and little brother to the rich. He had risen by eager subservience to the Nazis, and was named in the papers as a member of Laval’s new cabinet. Lanny had seen a good deal of him on previous visits, and now was prepared to have him demonstrate that success had not turned his head and that he still remembered old friends. “Est-ce bien vous, M. Budd! What
brings you to town?”

  They had a chat; brief, for the new minister had pressing duties, but to the point. He was in a position to speak with authority. He declared that Herr Hitler had established a New Order for the tormented old Continent, and it was nothing short of imbecility to fail in recognizing that fact. France’s only future lay in loyal collaboration, and men who persisted in resisting this course were to be treated like poisonous serpents. “Écrasons l’infâme!” exclaimed the cultivated M. Jacques. He was tall, slightly stooped, wore spectacles, and smoked a pipe; his manners were airy and elegant in the extreme.

  Lanny assented promptly. He said he was heartsick over the part which his country was playing in this situation; and that he had come back to France, where he had lived most of his life, because he could no longer stand the atmosphere of violence and fanaticism which he found in his own America. Lanny rather guessed that this wretched careerist might not believe what he said, any more than Lanny believed what the careerist said; yet he put on a tone of ardent friendship—such a pleasure to see you again; won’t you come to my soiree and meet some of my friends? So men and women lived in this dog-eat-dog world.

  Lanny knew that Benoist-Méchin was one of Darlan’s men, and it was Lanny’s desire to see the Admiral, but without seeking the meeting. He asked after the great man’s health, and Benoist-Méchin said he was sound as a nut. “I notice that he is not in the new cabinet,” Lanny ventured. And the other replied: “He did not wish to be. He remains commander of all the land, sea, and air forces, and retains his title as heir apparent to the Maréchal. He has always preferred to be the military man and to leave the world of intrigue to the politicians.”

  Lanny would have liked to add: “To you!” but he doubted the journalist’s sense of humor.

  IV

  The visitor could feel quite certain that an intriguing politician would not fail to inform his powerful military patron that the son of Budd-Erling was in town, loaded with information concerning affairs in Yankeeland. There came to Lanny’s lodgings a messenger with a note from the Admiral, very cordially inviting him to call, and that, of course, was equivalent to a royal command. Lanny strolled through the pleasant sunshine to the Hotel Belgique, where the Ministry of Marine was quartered—all the summer hotels had been turned into government offices, and officials had their headquarters in bedrooms and filed important documents in stacks on the beds. But of course the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of France had rooms in accordance with his dignity, and his visitor was ensconced in a comfortable chair beside a large flat-topped desk.

  Jean Louis Xavier François Darlan was his name, and he came from Brittany, which is a Catholic and Royalist corner of France. He had hated the Republic which he had sworn to protect, and which among his friends he had referred to as la salope, the slut. As a loyal Frenchman he had hated the Germans also; but now that they had won, they represented law and order for Europe, so it had not been too difficult for the Admiral to transfer his loyalty to the new masters and his hatred to the British, who had treacherously attacked and in part destroyed his Fleet in an action which the British called Oran and the French Mers-el-Kébir. Darlan would say that his policy was for the protection of France, and France alone; that was what Pétain tirelessly repeated in his radio talks. But when you spoke with them privately you would discover that they did not love France so much as they hated and feared the Soviet Union and the collectivist ideas which were spreading over Europe. It was a continuation of the political point of view which Lanny had heard expressed in a hundred French drawing-rooms prior to the outbreak of the war: “Better Hitler than Blum.”

  Now this policy was working itself out; Hitler was saving France from the Bolsheviks, and Frenchmen who didn’t like it were being thrown into concentration camps or shot at once. When an act of sabotage was committed, the Nazis would seize twenty or fifty perfectly innocent Frenchmen who had the misfortune to live in the neighborhood. A week after Pierre Laval took power, thirty such “hostages” were executed by a firing squad at Rouen, and the very next day twenty more were shot at St. Nazaire. A government of Frenchmen had to stand this, and even defend it! No wonder the land was a seething caldron of hate! An American art expert who had dropped down out of the skies had to watch every step and guard every word.

  He told the Admiral that he, Lanny Budd, was a man of peace, and therefore hated and feared the Red terrorists and their dupes who were making America a land impossible to live in; he was returning to his mother’s home in France because he believed in the New Order and wished to live under it. He was going to disregard the request which the American State Department had just issued that American nationals in France return to their native land at once; he was confident that his mother, too, would pay no attention to this request. While he was saying this, Lanny was wondering, with cold chills running over him: Does Darlan know that I have been to Russia and talked with Stalin? If this should be brought up, Lanny had his story ready—that he had promised his friend Rudolf Hess that he would try to use his father’s influence to get into the Red Empire and find out what he could about conditions there and the intentions and plans of its masters. Hess was one man with whom Darlan would be unable to check!

  But no such question was asked. The fact that Lanny’s mother had lived for more than forty years in France, and that Darlan had met her some twenty years ago and remembered her well, made it seem natural that she and her son should love France; also, the idea of a “parlor Pink” was less familiar to a Frenchman than to an American. The pipe-smoking Admiral listened while this American told him of the rage against Roosevelt’s policies which was seething in the hearts of a great number of Americans, and of the possibility that some of them might take drastic action to draw their country out of the mess before it was too late. When the Admiral asked if M. Budd had any idea where the Americans were planning to attack, Lanny tried no evasions, but answered quite truthfully that he had heard on good authority that the American military leaders were in a state of confusion, and that their discussions ranged all the way from the English Channel to Dakar and from there to the Vardar valley in Greece. The Frenchman said that was in accordance with his own information, and this, naturally, raised the value of Lanny’s stock.

  Darlan was a man of medium height, solidly built, smooth-shaven, alert, and with bright blue eyes. When his pipe was not in his mouth it was in his hand or on his desk. People described him as having a “poker face,” but perhaps that was only when he was negotiating with opponents; certainly Lanny had never found it so in their social relations. The host brought out a bottle of his favorite Pernod Fils brandy, and when he had had a couple of swigs his eyes lighted up with the fires of la gloire, and he said just what Benoist-Méchin had said, that France was going to have its own kind of New Deal, la Nouvelle Ordre, and from now on traitors and the dupes of traitors were going to have a hard time of it. This referred especially to the puppet government which the British had set up in London under that arch-traitor, Charles de Gaulle. “Seadogs” are supposed to have their own special brand of profanity, and Darlan produced it both in French and English when he named this abhorred personality.

  “You hear fools discussing what is going to be done with the French Fleet, M. Budd,” pronounced Admiral Darlan. “Well, you may tell them for me, its master, that the French Fleet is going to defend the honor and the glory of France. It is not going to be surrendered, and it is not going to run away, and it is not going to be scuttled. To the last vessel and the last man, it is going to fight whatever enemies may dare to interfere with it.”

  And there was something for “Traveler” to put into a report, marked “Personal for the President”!

  V

  Having been accepted as a friend of the great Darlan, the American visitor was persona grata to the busy politicians and pullers of wires such as Pierre Pucheu and Fernand de Brinon and Paul Marion and Joseph Barthélemy—collaborators all, who had cast their lot with the Nazis and had risen to pow
er and importance in their service. Now they were basking in the sunlight of success, but at the same time a chill of doubt was shrinking their hearts. When they had taken the gamble of making friends with Hitler, they had assumed that Britain was done for and must soon quit; but Britain had refused to quit, and now, nearly two years later, had the help of the great new power overseas. What was that going to mean? The collaborators listened gladly to an American who told what they wanted to hear, that it wouldn’t be long before the American people awakened to the fact that in trying to oppose Herr Hitler they were merely helping Comrade Stalin.

  In return for the pleasure of hearing such words, these gentlemen invited Lanny to their homes and introduced him to their ladies. M. de Brinon, a Secretary of State to the Premier, had a charming amie whom he had put on the public payroll with the title of “Chief of the Private Secretariat.” In her salon Lanny listened to a buzz of gossip that was like the sound of a large hive of bees at swarming time. France had been deprived of most of her wealth and power, but it appeared that the more her resources were reduced, the more furiously her public men fought over what was left. M. Leroy-Ladurie, member of the new cabinet, told the visiting stranger his grave doubt as to the capacities of M. Pucheu, a fellow member, and M. Pucheu, without being informed of this, murmured to Lanny some of the charges which in past times had been made against the character of M. Leroy-Ladurie. M. Benoist-Méchin abhorred M. de Brinon, a rival journalist risen by treachery to a post equal to his own; and so it went. Lanny came away from this evening affair comparing the company to a flock of buzzards he had observed while on a motor trip through the American Far West, squabbling over the carcass of a donkey which had perished in the desert.