851.01/390: Telegram
The Chargé in the United Kingdom (Matthews) to the Secretary of State
[Received March 26—9:45 p.m.]
1453. I received a call from Tixier, Chief of the Free French Delegation at Washington, who is shortly returning to the United States. I found him unhappy over the situation he has found here. He feels that neither the British Government nor our own “understands” the situation in France and that General de Gaulle and his entourage at Carlton Gardens are equally devoid of all “sense of realism”. His thesis is briefly this: France must again become a battle field before the end of the war. The seeds of resistance which exist in France should therefore be carefully nurtured. Those seeds of resistance are only to be found in the “people”. De Gaulle and his followers, he says, have no contact with “the people”. Specifically what he wants, apparently, is to have the British through clandestine means bring over a few trusted persons who will subsequently return to France and organize for “the day”. He finds the Free French headquarters here so occupied with “their own petty squabbles” as to be unable to give that leadership “devoid of self-seeking” which the movement requires.
While he touched on it only briefly, I gather that his criticism of our Government is not the maintenance of relations with Vichy but alleged efforts to discourage financially generous and well-disposed groups in the United States from giving that material and moral aid that he would like to see.
Tixier impressed me, as he apparently has the British, as honest and intelligent. Whether, however, in view of his own long absence from his country, he has a proper evaluation of the situation in France today and of the sentiments of his fellow countrymen I am not sure. I thought the Department might be interested, however, in a brief account of his views and his impressions since arriving here.