Word: petain
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...awakened at 4 a.m. He sleepily rose from his prison cot, donned his seven-star uniform, shuffled into the hushed courtroom. Nonagenarian Marshal Henri Philippe Petain sat nervously at first, then fell into a half-doze...
...President had recalled him for another tough job. He was sent as Ambassador to Vichy. He got along well with the aging Petain,* and acquired great personal contempt for another admiral-Darlan-to whom he referred privately as "Popeye the Sailor...
...Petain, facing his trial, this week said he would ask Leahy to testify...
Germany's V5. Politically, Petain's return was embarrassing, confusing, frightening. General de Gaulle said nothing. State Prosecutor Andre Mornet, fiery scourge of World War I's spies and traitors, who had come out of retirement to prosecute the men of Vichy, hastily postponed plans for a trial of Petain in absentia, prepared a new trial for June or later. Cried the leftist press: "Petain is Germany's V5. . . . Germany wants to use him to sow disorder in France...
Four other leaders of the old France were also returning from Germany. Ex-Premiers Paul Reynaud (Petain's predecessor), Edouard Daladier (of Munich fame) and Leon Blum (of the Popular Front), were presumably coming home via Switzerland. Ex-Premier Edouard Herriot (leader of the Radical Socialists) was stopping first in Moscow. These men, plus the 2,500,000 plain French prisoners and deportees pouring back home, were the potent imponderables of France's political future...