Word: darlan
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...General Eisenhower turning suddenly to Vichy-French Admiral Darlan during the early days of the much-discussed Darlan deal. He jabs Darlan in the chest with a peremptory forefinger, snaps an instruction, and strides away...
...Cavell, was captured again by the Germans in World War II, during the Sedan breakthrough. He escaped again, made his way with Allied help to Gibraltar - and frustration. He had been picked by the Allies to command French forces in Africa after the invasion in 1942, but sly Admiral Darlan, who had to be bullied and wheedled into going over from Vichy to the Allies, kept the allegiance of most of the troops. After Darlan's assassination, Giraud was briefly the No. 1 French commander in North Africa. Then General de Gaulle replaced him and Henri Giraud was finally...
Eisenhower also takes the blame for his obvious errors in the Tunisian campaign, but makes out a good case for his temporary collaboration with Darlan. Not only was he bound by political directives that the French in North Africa were to be treated as neutrals, not enemies, but Robert Murphy's intelligence for the U.S. State Department on General Henri Giraud proved faulty. A great deal of effort went into prying Giraud out of Vichy territory, only to have him insist on having Ike's job or none at all. Finally Giraud changed his mind...
...when the Allies got to North Africa they found that none of the French paid any attention to Giraud; the Vichy commanders on the scene idolized Pétain, and ultimately agreed to take orders only from Darlan, who by lucky chance was in Algiers at the time, visiting his paralyzed son. It was not Ike's doing that De Gaulle in London wasn't even told of the North African invasion. The British blamed a leak in De Gaulle's staff for their earlier failure to capture Dakar. Ike is still cool toward De Gaulle...
Single Yardstick. Despite his dissatisfaction with the North African invasion, Stimson supported it once it was launched. When Wendell Willkie was preparing to go on the air to attack the Eisenhower-Darlan agreement, Stimson grabbed for his telephone. "I told him flatly that if he criticized the Darlan agreement at this juncture he would run the risk of jeopardizing the success of the United States Army in North Africa and would be rendering its task very much more difficult...