Allies v. Soviets

Last week at the Hotel Continental, where the French Information Ministry is now installed, a bureaucratic mishap befell New Minister of Information Louis Frossard. He was not let into his own Ministry until the meticulous Republican Guard officer on duty, who from the first had recognized M. Frossard, wrote him out a temporary laissez passer for that day only, warned the Minister that he would not be admitted again unless he carried a proper pass bearing his photograph, stamped and signed.

Supple, ambitious Louis Frossard has been a Socialist, a Communist, then got a Cabinet job under Rightist Premier Pierre ("The Deal") Laval, today owns a newspaper called La Justice. Virtually every Paris paper reported he had taken as his office the Continental's super-ornate "Imperial Suite," in which lived for 30 years Eugenie, last Empress of the French --and after Eugenie, none except royal or titled guests until an exception was made for Admiral Byrd--but M. Frossard insisted he had not moved into Eugenie's rooms "because memories would stop me from sleeping." The onetime Communist last week not only undid a good deal of the Ministry's red tape, but relaxed French press censorship.

On the strength of the new Ministry's liberalization, Paris papers went to town on the Allies' subject-of-the-week: What About Russia? In striking contrast to the ostrich-like actions of the British Press, the Liberal L'Oeuvre debated openly with Rightist papers whether France should break with "Germany's friend" the Soviet Union while they were at the same time urging closer ties with "Germany's friend" Fascist Italy. It looked to L'Oeuvre as though the French Rightists were picking their foreign friends and foes along suspiciously ideological lines. Socialist ex-Premier Leon Blum's Le Populaire said the "proper attitude" was that outlined last month by British Foreign Secretary Viscount Halifax: the Allies must not be swayed from their main purpose of war with Germany, but must not be unprepared if that leads to war with Russia. Le Temps swept debate aside, came out flatly for a new and stiffer attitude toward the U. S. S. R. "The friend of our enemies, Russia, is our enemy, whether we wish it or not. She should be treated as such. Why should we put up any longer with a fiction?"

Suritz Non Grata. Nonfiction, but in some spots very tantalizing melodrama, was the affaire Suritz, which did nothing to detract from Allied-Russian tension. Since 1919 bulging, bearded Jacob Suritz has been No. 1 Soviet diplomat, with a brilliant record in Afghanistan, Turkey, Germany and League of Nations wrangles. He was for years the only Jew in Germany permitted to keep Aryan housemaids --by personal dispensation of the Fuehrer. Ambassador Suritz was not "purged" when his intimate friend Foreign Commissar Maxim Litvinoff fell from Joseph Stalin's favor, but few Bolsheviks close to a fallen bigwig survive for long. Last week the Moscow radio significantly broke a story that began the middle of last month when Edouard Daladier, then French Premier, sent his Moscow Charge d'Affaires around to ask Foreign Commissar Viacheslav Molotov about a not only objectionable but very queer telegram handed in at Paris for transmission to Moscow.

No Ambassador just writes out a telegram and sends it. This is done by embassy secretaries who code all important dispatches. It was certainly queer that somebody handed in at Paris an uncoded telegram signed Jacob Suritz, addressed to Joseph Stalin, and congratulating the Dictator upon having foiled "plans of the Anglo-French warmongers" and "sinister schemes of enemies of Socialism" by worsting Finland. Whoever sent that undiplomatic telegram into the teeth of French censorship knew the French Cabinet must inevitably demand the recall to Moscow of fallen Litvinoff's friend Suritz. It did.

Soviet Premier Molotov promptly sent instructions which caused Ambassador Suritz, now persona non grata in France, to swing aboard the Simplon Express last week. At that, Ambassador Suritz could not have been wholly sorry to leave Paris. Since the war with Finland his Government has been a good deal less than popular in France. On a recent evening French Playwright Rene Fauchois saw the Ambassador rolling by in his bulletproof limousine, hollered: "Vive la Finlande!" 'Bulletproof notwithstanding, the Ambassador dived for the car's floor.

Louis XVI's Successors. Meantime, before a military court, the trial of 44 Communist ex-Deputies went into its second week. Charged with attempting to carry on "treacherous" activities by changing their Party's name after war's outbreak, the 44 continued to complain that their rights as French citizens were being violated because their trial was in camera. Even Louis XVI got a public trial, they pointed out. The official French attitude was that if all 44 legislators were permitted to sound off in public, the case would not end before 1941. In prospect for them were light sentences and fines, but the fact that in France, prior to last year the Reddest European country outside Spain and Russia, there was so little agitation about the secret trials, was one more indication of a sterner national attitude toward the U. S. S. R.

Molotov Borsch. None of this had been missed by Premier Viacheslav Molotov when he rose to address the Supreme Council of the U. S. S. R. in Moscow. His speech was an interesting borsch whose recipe was two parts passivity to one part provocation. Russia must "refrain from participating in the war between the big European powers." In fact, Comrade Molotov was all for peace --on Germany's terms and with Russia keeping her slice of Poland. On the other hand he charged the Allies with trying to use the Finnish war as "a starting point for war against the U. S. S. R." and paid special respects to ex-fellow travelers in France and Britain, "all those Attlees and Blums ... all those lackeys of capital who have sold themselves body and soul to the warmongers!"

Reynaud on Force. Monger or not, little Paul Reynaud talked aggressive war as his regime, its working Chamber majority upped from one to 17 by belated switched votes and given the tardy blessing of the sulky Right by an accolade from L'Epoque Editor Henri de Kerillis, went into its second week. To London Premier Reynaud flew for a meeting of the Allied Supreme War Council, where tougher tactics toward all neutrals--and that went for the U. S. S. R.--were agreed upon.

In a broadcast to the French people their new Premier belligerently declared that "everything is being done to establish the hegemony of the Reich over a great part of Europe." If that came to pass "it will be all over with liberty. It will be all over with France." The 17-vote Premier said he was not too worried about acquiring strong Parliamentary backing. "Unity will come about," promised Paul Reynaud. "We don't want to attain it by adroit maneuvers but by results of our action. We are going to the test with our heads high, not prepared to submit but to master--with the souls of warriors and with the souls of victory."

The test, according to M. Reynaud, is whether everyone in France pitches in to increase production, especially of war materials. "Today that which is normal is insufficient," keynoted Paul Reynaud. "Even ahead of military victory, our diplomatic success will depend above all on our force--on the number of tanks, of guns, of airplanes we have."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.