740.0011 European War 1939/14004: Telegram
The Consul General at Casablanca (Russell) to the Secretary of State
[Received 8:52 p.m.]
371. Manet, Monick’s Chief of Cabinet, who returned recently from a visit of several weeks in Vichy, told Mayer66a yesterday that he had been surprised to find how many French officials there, including members of Darlan’s immediate entourage, shared his own sentiments and hopes with respect to the outcome of the war (there is no doubt that Manet is a sincere opponent of a Nazi new order). He had gathered the impression that although Darlan could not help “collaborating”, he did so grudgingly. In Manet’s opinion the Marshal’s choice of Ministers was limited to “collaborators” of the Darlan or the Laval type.
Manet had been struck by the importance given in Vichy to the plan for economic assistance to North Africa. He was convinced that the plan and it alone had permitted Weygand to oppose successfully the German demands or suggestions—whatever they may have been—which were discussed during Weygand’s last two visits to Vichy. The general feeling was that nothing which might cause a suspension of the plan must be allowed to happen. If the French did not seem to cooperate as wholeheartedly as we might expect in the execution of the plan, as for instance in delaying the departure from Casablanca of the Ile de Noirmoutier, we must not forget that they are not free agents, that they must refer all sorts of questions (including proposed departures of vessels for foreign ports) to the Wiesbaden Commission, that they cannot reject outright German protests about the “concessions and facilities” which were being granted to us in North Africa and finally that the Germans were very obviously doing their best to sabotage the plan.
In fact, the importance which the Germans seemed to attach to the plan was, in his opinion, perhaps one of the best reasons which [why] we might have to overlook any deficiencies which we might feel the French showed in carrying out their obligations under the plan.
Du Gardier67 later volunteered that Auer recently had violently taken him to task on account of the “facilities” which were being granted to our new Vice Consuls. In discussing the Marshal’s recent message, he said that he and his colleagues at the Residency were at a loss how to interpret it. He repeated a remark which he had made previously that they seldom if ever received open intimation of the broad policies being followed in Vichy, but that several instructions which they had received recently in certain specific cases had convinced [Page 414] him that the Government’s “collaborationist” tendencies were more apparent than real. True reading by courier to Tangier and Algiers.