Roosevelt Papers

The Coordinator of Information (Donovan) to the President

Memorandum for the President

From: William J. Donovan

It is suggested that you might wish to take up with the Prime Minister the deplorable condition of the whole Free French movement in this country and inquire into the advisability and possibility of getting out of France some leader, perhaps like Herriot.1

  1. There is no documentary evidence that Roosevelt discussed this aspect of the Free French problem with Churchill during the First Washington Conference, but on December 27 Welles spoke to Halifax about the movement’s difficulties and the need for “some man like Herriot” to “get out of France and lead” it ( Foreign Relations, 1941, vol. ii, pp. 204205). For documentation on the status of the Free French movement in the United States, see ibid., 1942, vol. ii, pp. 502 ff.