-2 The President is thinking in terms not only of the present but of future history and he hopes that the Marshal can give him clear-out assurance that the Marshal and the Government of France has ordered the Colonial governments in Africa, in Asia Minor and in the Far East to show no discrimination toward the Germans by acquiescence in the use of French territory by the Germans. The President feels that this would hearten the world, and that as a life-long friend of France and the French people he is entitled to an answer from his old friend the Marshal." In presenting this to the Marshal, Leahy say that the assurance from the Marshal that he will not "give any voluntary, active military aid to Germany" means absolutely nothing at all; and that it is no different from giving active military aid on the theory that there is a mental reservation as to the underlying motive. Whatever the underlying motive, the aid goes forward. F.D.R. |