851.00/2701: Telegram
The Ambassador in France (Leahy) to the Secretary of State
[Received 12:30 p.m.]
453. For the Acting Secretary. The informant mentioned in the penultimate paragraph of our 451, March 26, 3 p.m. learned yesterday from Laval himself further details regarding the latter’s meeting with the Marshal which took place in the forest of Randan near Vichy yesterday between 10 and 12 a.m.
It was the second meeting since Laval’s overthrow and the first since his reconciliation with the Marshal at Varennes-sur-Allier in February 1941. The meeting was agreed upon following a conversation which the Marshal had 2 days earlier with René de Chambrun and was arranged at the Marshal’s request. Dr. Menetrel, his personal physician, went on the previous day to select an isolated spot in the forest where, without heavy police protection and for the first time since the armistice, the Marshal proceeded. The four people who attended the meeting were the Marshal, Laval, René de Chambrun and Menetrel.
According to what Laval told our informant the conversation chiefly concerned the means of strengthening the Marshal’s position domestically and abroad. While no decision was reached as to the actual date of Laval’s return to the Government our informant considers that progress was made although Laval’s terms appear to have been stiff. He allowed our informant to understand that he would not consider a return to the Government unless he were given full powers. On the conclusion of the conversation the Marshal and Laval returned to Vichy by separate ways and the latter after calling upon our informant returned immediately to his home in Châteldon.
It is significant that neither Darlan nor Pucheu nor any other member of the Cabinet was informed of the meeting until after it occurred. I have since obtained abundant proof to substantiate this.
In brief summary Laval’s arguments in the forest of Randan were to the following effect: Laval reminded the Marshal that when they [Page 157] reached Bordeaux he (the Marshal) had had 100 per cent of the country behind him. Subsequently facing a Parliament almost entirely hostile to himself Laval had, nevertheless, been able to obtain full powers for the Marshal.
He allowed the Marshal to understand, however, that through the weakness of his present Government he had now lost 90 percent of his popularity and that the moment had come for a “strong government.” Otherwise he said the country would be flooded with Communism. Laval had said to the Marshal: “If you do not consent to establishing a strong government you risk the setting up by Germany of a separate government in Paris. I do not want to be your successor but the people around you must be eliminated. They are too weak.”
The two remaining points of interests in connection with the Randan meeting are: (1) That Laval stated to our informant that in the event of the constitution of a new Cabinet he had allowed Darlan to understand that he would be made Minister of National Defense; (2), that on learning of the Marshal’s conversation with René de Chambrun, Darlan did everything he possibly could to dissuade the Marshal from meeting Laval. Darlan was consequently kept in the dark once the secret arrangements were made for the Randan meeting.