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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 July 2011
These two books are the only products so far of a policy which has given certain scholars untrammeled access to the files and personnel of the Department of State, and other branches of the government. The policy is highly individual, selective and personal. Its object is not to produce “official” histories, but to bring out reasonably adult studies of our wartime diplomatic program many years before the routine publication and long-term historical analysis of official documents can be accomplished. One great advantage of such studies is that they permit an evaluation of oral in the light of documentary evidence, and a reading of documents in the light of conversation, during the lifetime of those who witnessed and shared in the process of decision. The purpose of the program is to inform, and perhaps to form opinion. As Professor Langer makes clear in his introduction, his book had its origin in Secretary Hull's desire to meet the violent public criticism of his Vichy policy, criticism which he felt was based on inadequate information, and hence mistaken judgments.
1 “We may pause for a note upon the ingratitudes of history. Serrano Suñer believed that a quick German victory was certain; he tried his utmost to govern Spanish policy in this belief; he was wrong; he failed in his effort; and he became the next Foreign Minister. Beigbeder believed that Britain would be able to sustain resistance; he tried his utmost to shape Spanish policy in that belief; he was right; he was effective; and he was dismissed from office. In a large sense Beigbeder made his own belief come true; for by deterring Spain's entry into the war in the autumn of 1940, he prevented it from being a short war.” Feis, Herbert, The Spanish Story, p. 59.Google Scholar
2 Langer, William L., Our Vichy Gamble, p. 64.Google Scholar Langer's defense of the French decision is striking for what it omits in its estimate of French national interest. There is no reference, for example, to the possible long-run political and strategic interest of a nation in its record of loyalty to treaties. Beyond that, his evaluation of the immediate elements of the decision present debatable, if unanswerable issues. It is by no means certain, to take one of his points, that the Germans could have gone to French North Africa, or have stayed in Libya, if the French fleet had remained in the war.
3 Feis, , op. cit., p. 95.Google Scholar
4 Langer, , op. cit., p. 289.Google Scholar
5 Feis, , op. cit., p. 42.Google Scholar
6 Ibid., p. 254.
7 Thus Pétain is described as a fascist and a weakling, though a fine old soldier, a grand old man, and a loyal patriot. But one of the reasons for not having anything to do with de Gaulle was the suspicion that he was also an authoritarian royalist in philosophy. At one point it is contended that de Gaulle had no popular support, at another that no one could know what his popular support was, and later, that his popular support, though real, was purely symbolic. Compare Langer, , op. cit., pp. 220Google Scholar, 221, 225, 260, 291–92.
8 Sherwood, Robert E., Roosevelt and Hopkins, an Intimate History, New York, Harper & Bros., 1948, p. 484Google Scholar, and generally Ch. 21.
9 Eisenhower, Dwight David, Crusade in Europe, Garden City, N. Y., Doubleday, 1948, p. 109.Google Scholar
10 Perhaps the reviewer should note, to correct possible bias, that he worked with Murphy for some time during 1943.
11 Sherwood, , op. cit., p. 681.Google Scholar
12 Stimson, Henry L. and Bundy, McGeorge, On Active Service in Peace and War, New York, Harper & Bros., 1948, pp. 545–53.Google Scholar