One afternoon two days before Brazzaville's birthday Karl Quigley, a hefty, straightforward American in his late twenties who had served as ambulance driver under fire in France's great retreat and escaped from a Nazi prison camp, arranged an interview. Quigley was a former Los Angeles newspaperman and writer, honest and intensely loyal to de Gaulle. As head of the American side of the Free French propaganda establishment in Brazzaville he lived in a mosquito-netted little room on the ground floor of the lemon-colored, arcaded building, set in the country, where the clicking machines of persuasion operated all day. Because Quigley, as well as his French superiors, would bear the responsibility of seeing that the eventual story corresponded with the interview and of censoring it politically, the reporter asked that he be present. The hour was six in the evening. The only other person in the room, after his aide left, was de Gaulle.
It was not easy to put questions to a man in his position. The difficulties in Syria between the French and the British had reached Africa by the jungle telegraph, but one could not allude to them. The matter of American and British recognition was equally delicate. De Gaulle wanted both deeply; his followers repeatedly said so; but anything he added would seem an undignified supplication.
Friendly ground being thus crevassed, the easiest and most courteous thing seemed to be talk about Vichy, the common enemy. De Gaulle was contemptuous of the Vichyists in an unhurried way. He spoke cautiously, as though he wanted to be extremely careful what he said to the world. Asked whether he thought the United States should sever with Vichy he said, “I do. Without delay. Immediately.”
Was there no evidence to hope that Vichy might resist Hitler, if British fortunes in the Mediterranean improved?
“Not only is there no evidence, but the men of Vichy could not turn back if they wanted to,” said de Gaulle. “They have taken three direct steps, one after another, and they cannot retrace them even if they should develop a desire to do so. The first step was when they lost the military campaign. The second was that they concluded an armistice with Hitler. The third was that they undertook to collaborate with Hitler's plans. Those steps were taken separately. Each closed a new door to retreat. They cannot go back. They can only go farther in the same direction.”
But why should not the British sever with Vichy before the United States?
Without a second's hesitation, de Gaulle replied: “England is afraid. (L'Angleterre a peur.) What, in effect, England is carrying on is a wartime deal with Hitler, in which Vichy serves as go-between. Vichy serves Hitler by keeping the French people in subjection and selling the French empire piecemeal to Germany. But do not forget that Vichy also serves England by keeping the French fleet from German hands. Britain is exploiting Vichy in the same way as Germany does; the only difference is in the purpose. What is going on is an exchange of advantages which keeps the Vichy government alive as long as both Britain and Germany agree that it should exist. If Vichy should lend or lose its fleet to the Nazis, Britain would quickly bring the suspense about recognition to an end. And if Vichy should cease serving Hitler, Germany would dismantle Vichy herself.”
However, with Vichy and London thus intertwined with Berlin, how important was it that Washington cut off Vichy?
“In my opinion,” said de Gaulle gravely, “the effect of an American severance with Vichy would be very great.”
Less sure of this than the general, the interviewer asked—with a suggestion of irony which de Gaulle did not fail to catch—whether an American political attitude ever meant much to the average Frenchman.
“I am not suggesting that the French public is looking to America for its political opinions,” said de Gaulle. “But at least the situation would then be clearly defined. It would be seen that America at last had taken an unmistakable line against all those helping Hitler. We know already what the average Frenchman's feelings are toward Vichy. The severance of relations would indicate to him that the American government felt the same way. Moreover, it would demonstrate that American policy toward Vichy was consistent with its policy toward Berlin.”
Vichy thus pigeon-holed, we talked of progress in the colonies, Brazzaville's birthday, the spirit among the troops. These topics were tame, but the interviewer had been warned to expect little, and was prepared to get nothing. In the small, closed room with its scant African hangings the interviewer, seeking a ground agreeable to de Gaulle, evaded the truly searching questions. Out of courtesy for the general, from whom answers came like taffy from a pull, and out of knowledge that anything critical the general might say would never pass his own censorship, the reporter kept to questions within the public domain. He was also on guard against that kind of off-the-record confidence which statesmen employ to stifle an embarrassing truth which the newspaperman is likely to know from another source.
It was the general himself who tired first of this talking about nothing-at-all. With military decisiveness he suddenly took command of the interview. He ceased being the questioned and became the questioner. With an abruptness which took both the interviewer and his own publicity man off-guard, he leveled an inquiry like a gun at his visitor.
“You mention the achievements of the Free French and you say that America is following them closely,” said de Gaulle. “Why, then, does the United States not take cognizance of our accomplishments?”
He did not use the word recognize, a term of such fetish importance in his mind that he rarely allowed himself to utter it. He left that to the interviewer.
“You mean, recognize your movement, mon général?”
His disproportionately small head nodded a bare fraction. Yes, recognition was what he meant.
During a little silence, the interviewer felt for words that would not wound this proud and extremely sensitive soldier. “I am a newspaperman. I do not know what is in the mind of Monsieur Roosevelt.”
The general seemed to warm a little at finding an American as nonplussed as himself. “Well, tell me what you think is the reason.” He sat back expectantly.
“I do not think America is refusing to recognize you out of any love of Pétain.”
De Gaulle was not satisfied. “What is it, then? Not love for Vichy. Et alors?” Pétain was a word like recognition which meant too much for him to use it. The Brazzaville radio, too, shied away from the name, since the underground had reported that attacks on the old man's character—instead of his perspicacity—boomeranged as propaganda. “Well?”
“I think that you realize, general, that America never has what you could call an inventive government politically. We citizens often notice that our diplomats wait for the British to make up their minds, then imitate them two days later, looking the other way to pretend they never noticed.” (De Gaulle did not smile; something earnest was on his mind.) “And so, since the British are your formal ally but have not yet recognized you formally, we have no example to follow.” (De Gaulle tossed his head impatiently.) “I think two things will have to happen before America recognizes you: we shall have to be formally at war and hence your ally, and Britain will have to break with Vichy and recognize you first. You must always remember that the Americans are politically a timid and unaggressive people.”
During these words de Gaulle's immobile face seemed to grow tense and impatient. His tone, however, more than his curiously passive countenance showed dissatisfaction with what he perhaps regarded as more American evasiveness. With pent-up unrest he shot out the words, “But with me offering them bases in Africa!” (“Mais puisque j'ai mis des bases en Afrique à leur disposition!”)
Neither of his hearers was sure they had heard aright. They looked at him, and at each other. The room was perfectly silent. At first his two listeners were too astonished to say anything. Then the reporter ventured: “Bases, general? Where?”
“On the coast of French Africa.”
“On the Atlantic coast?” It was a wasted question, indicative of the agitation in both hearers. The general was hardly able to dispose of Bizerta or Casablanca, a
nd Vichyist Djibouti was blockaded under siege by a British handful of King's African Rifles … Quigley was saying nothing, simply staring at the general. As news, this was a Koh-i-Noor.
“And have you announced your offer yet elsewhere?”
“No, not before this.”
“Where was your offer to the Americans made?”
“I cannot reveal that just yet.” Pleased, the general sat back easily. He rarely smiles, but he seemed to be smiling faintly at his flabbergasted hearers, as though gauging the public effect of his offer by its effect on the two Americans in his room.
“How many bases?”
De Gaulle hesitated, as though he had not expected a question so precise. He took thought. Then he said, “Four.”
“All on the coast of that part of Africa held by your forces?”
De Gaulle bowed an affirmative.
There was a short pause, while Quigley and the questioner drew breath. De Gaulle stirred slightly, as though that was all he wished to say. He was ready for his hearers to go.
“And what did you ask for in return? Destroyers? Arms?”
“Nothing,” said the general.
“Did you offer the bases for ninety-nine years, like the British?”
“For the duration of the war,” said the general. He explained the dangers of the Nazis occupying the Dakar-Casablanca corner if they were successful either in Russia or Cairo. “It is an act of prevention,” he said, as though the step were already accomplished.
A horrid fear touched the reporter. De Gaulle was then known as a firebrand, a visionary. Was he perhaps, in the way of such luminaries, saying what he intended to do, rather than what he had done? “Pardon me, general, but I am not sure whether we understood you correctly. Did we understand you to say that you planned to offer these bases later, or that you have already offered them?”
“I have offered them already,” said the general.
“When?”
“A few days ago.”
“And have you an answer yet?”
The general gave his two hearers an eloquent look, as though of a hard-tried patience. “Not yet,” he said. Again one had the feeling that he wished to conclude the interview here. But many questions crowded to be satisfied.
“If Roosevelt accepts the West African bases as he did Britain's Atlantic bases, what do you think Vichy's reaction will be?”
“Possibly nothing very much will happen,” said the general calmly. “At least, not until Germany is able to ease up in its struggle against Russia. Both the United States and Vichy will simply coast along, more or less as at present. Of course if you are asking about strategic rather than political considerations, that is different.”
“Please explain, general.”
“Examine any map showing the route and frequency of British convoys and you will find that the most traveled path is around the bulge of Africa. For the protection of these shipping lanes, the Nazis cannot be allowed to use Vichy's African soil in combined airplane and submarine attacks, or Britain's Middle Eastern lifeline would be severed. Britain has Bathurst and Freetown, but they are so small that Dakar easily dominates them. They are too near and weak to serve as bases.”
De Gaulle's mention of this key to the Mediterranean and South Atlantic opened the way to a strategic question. “Do you think the U.S. fleet can take Dakar?”
“Not without a battle of considerable dimensions,” said de Gaulle. “The support is the question as much as the battle. Nearby British ports are exposed by nature and furthermore they have inadequate facilities for their present needs. The same thing applies to Accra and Takoradi on the Gold Coast, and Lagos in Nigeria.”
“Then you do not believe that the United States should attempt to take Dakar by force at any time, but rather that the American fleet and air arm should establish bases within the Gulf of Guinea as a check on the German advance into Africa.”
De Gaulle's heavy-lidded eyes seemed to lift a little. “You have grasped,” he said gently, “the reason for my offer to the United States.”
The United States would soon need French bases in the Pacific, too, if Japan entered the war, the general pointed out. …
“Would these bases be equally available to the American fleet?”
“Without any fuss whatever,” said the general. He moved to rise, putting his hand on his papers.
“Have you any objection to saying which bases you have offered in Africa, general?”
“Duala,” he said. “And Port Gentil.” He waved his hand, as though this were an annoyingly small detail. “And Pointe Noire.” He moved toward his risen guests, edging them toward the door. He never named the fourth port, though Quigley later hazarded it was Libreville.
“You are confident America will make good use of these bases, general?” said the interviewer, moving backwards, sun helmet in hand.
The general made a little parting speech, with that here-is-one-more-thing-for-you air common to interviewees. “I have always had faith in the United States keeping her word and I know that America does not covet territorial aggrandizement in Africa. I am sure that France's African possessions would be in safe hands if strategic points were occupied by the American navy. I observe that one of the cardinal points of the Atlantic Charter is respect for the integrity of all nations. And finally, I believe in the American concept of international honor.”
“And general, what will be your answer if Monsieur Roosevelt accepts your offer and you are accused by Vichy of bartering French African ports for American aid?”
“My answer,” said de Gaulle, “is that there is no more reason to believe that the United States would break its word of honor and keep the French bases beyond the term of the lease of the period needed as defense against Hitler, than there was in the last war to safeguard Brest and Bordeaux against the United States before accepting your help against the same enemy.”
With this small speech, delivered in a simple and altogether comradely manner, the general saw his guests out, receiving and returning their salutes.
Written promptly in Quigley's room at the propaganda office, with one remark of the general's about the Syrian campaign omitted because Quigley believed it would offend the British, the interview was stamped and passed. One copy was handed to the English-speaking French officer who headed the press office. He read it, approved it, and authorized its transmission.
The Brazzaville radio charged more per word for news transmission to the United States than the Belgian station in Léopoldville. The interview therefore was sent from the Belgian side. There was a reciprocal agreement between the Belgian and Free French authorities, to prevent evasion of censorship, under which neither would allow transmission from its station of anything about the other colony unless it was stamped by both. Flashed to Chicago, New York, London and South Africa, the interview was published in the newspapers of August 28 [1941].
An hour after the interview was filed with the Belgians, a Free French officer phoned under the Congo to the writer at the A.B.C. hotel in Léopoldville. Though the interview had been stamped, read, censored and passed by all the competent authorities, there were other persons who had asked to see it … No, not the general … other persons … impossible to be more precise … oh, well, if the Belgians were already transmitting it, never mind. …
The next day a follow-up story on the African bases, duly censored and stamped by both Free French and Belgians, was flashed to the United States. Two days later, on a Saturday, de Gaulle flew in a British flying boat to Nigeria. Things immediately began to happen.
While the United States had only that gifted Gael from Yale, Patrick Mallon, with a malaria-stricken aide, to carry the diplomatic burden on both sides of the Congo, the British kept consular staffs in both Brazzaville and Léopoldville. In the late afternoon of the morning when de Gaulle landed on British soil, the British consul in Brazzaville informed the Free French that some hours after his arrival in Nigeria General de Gaulle had issued a public denial of the inte
rview.
Eventually de Gaulle sent a peculiarly worded message to his press chief in Brazzaville. It said: “Inform the American correspondent Weller that I am not in agreement with his making me say that I have offered French bases to the United States.” He succeeded in satisfying the British by repudiating the interview without absolutely denying it. In other words, he simply hauled down his trial balloon.
To complete the disavowal, the turning of the Koh-i-Noor to paste, Cordell Hull denied knowledge of any such offer to the State Department. He had a legal right to do this, since he could not well admit to having received offers from de Gaulle for the disposal of territory over which he still recognized Vichy's authority. It was easy for the unlucky aeronaut, however, to ascertain that de Gaulle had repeated his offer to another diplomatic official, that the original offer had been made in Cairo, and that de Gaulle had already announced it in Stanleyville to a meeting of Free French.
Quigley was a stricken figure in whom sorrow struggled with indignation. His first act was that of an idealist undone; he asked to be taken off press duties and sent to fighting service in the field, by preference with the oasis-raiding parties … In any governmental propagandist, an attachment to truth is a liability.
In London, as A. J. Liebling remarks in The Road Back to Paris (p. 156), this interview made de Gaulle “a very naughty boy” in official circles, and obliged him to make “public expiation” by disowning it. Liebling remarks: “This sort of thing contributed to what one of my best-informed and most British friends called de Gaulle's ‘justified Anglophobia,’ but it did nothing to encourage him in further gestures toward America.”
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