ADMIRAL DARLAN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24685, 14 August 1941, Page 7

ADMIRAL DARLAN

GREATER POWERS NEW DEFENCE MINISTER CONTROL OF VICHY FORCES LONDON, Aug. 12. A Berlin radio report from Vichy states that Admiral Darlan has been appointed Minister of Defence, and General Huntziger Secretary for War Affairs. M. Pierre Pucheux, who was Secretary for the Interior, is now Minister of the Interior. The changes were decided during the week-end talks. The report adds that Vichy political quarters attach particular importance to the last-mentioned appointment, but states that the appointments have not yet been officially confirmed by Vichy. The agency transmitting the report offered the opinion that Admiral Darlan, as Defence Minister, with General Huntziger in a minor post, appeared to indicate that Admiral Darlan, who holds in his hands the reins of policy in North Africa, now has the means to execute such policy. The Vichy correspondent of the British United Press says Admiral Darlan, as Minister of National Empire Defence, will have the Ministers of Air, Navy, and War serving under him. The Vichy News Agency announced that decrees which will be issued to-day are expected to increase Admiral Darlan’s powers, especially in the military sphere. Another report from Vichy says the Government is expected neither flatly to reject nor completely to accept the German proposals, and, according to the Daily Telegraph’s Vichy correspondent, French officials are confident that nothing approaching a rupture between America and Franpe is in the air. The German Demands It is believed in Washington that Germany has asked Vichy to delay the announcement of its decision on the German demands for bases in North Africa and French collaboration in the war against Russia until after the United States Congress finishes consideration of the Bill to extend the period of compulsory military service. Delay would be designed to avoid arousing fears in Congress that the threat to America had increased, thus weakening the hand of the isolationists, upon whom Hitler depends to put a very strong brake on any move by the United States towards direct involvement in the war. It goes without saying, however, that the United States is likely to abandon even the formality of friendly relations with Vichy if the French accede to the German demands. Americans will unquestionably follow President Roosevelt’s lead in resisting the transfer of Dakar and other strategic points on the Atlantic to the Axis.

The Vichy decision, whichever way it goes, will only serve to emphasise what the Americans are beginning to realise, that it is not a question of the United States becoming involved in the war through its own volition, but of the war creeping closer to the United States every day.

PLANS FOR RECONSTRUCTION FRAMED ON FASCIST LINES (Rec. 8 p.m.) RUGBY, Aug. 12. Although no official comment is available on Marshal Petain’s broadcast on Tuesday night, it is felt in well-informed political circles that Berlin pressure is obtaining the customary results. Marshal Petain says France can only be governed from Paris, where he will return as soon as circumstances permit—in fact, as soon as Hitler permits after his terms have been accepted. Marshal Petain suggests, however, that even if Paris is regained as the capital, times are difficult. Authority is being disobeyed, and appeals are being made to indiscipline. “ The London radio is a very bad influence,” says Marshal Petain, in admitting that the population generally is not in favour of surrender to the Nazis. With regard to the United States, he said French parliamentarians had nothing in common with American democracy—the pathetic truth of the Vichy Government, which has forgotten the traditional bond of friendship between the freedomloving lands of Washington and Lafayette. The most revealing part of the broadcast was Marshal Petain’s outline of his plans for the reconstruction of France, details of which follow closely the line of the Fascist corporate State So France links herself in a special way with each Axis partner. She obeys Germany’s orders, she accepts Japanese “protection ” for Indo-China, and she imitates the social organisation of Italy. American democracy is certainly a long distance away.